A Court Affair (42 page)

It vexed Robert no end. He would sulk and sometimes storm red-faced into my room after having heard my words repeated, accusing me of using him as a tool, a toy, or ranting and raging because I said I loved him like a brother. But I would only laugh and, depending on my mood and whim, draw him into my arms and let the two of us be engulfed by passion, only pushing him away at the last moment, or else fling the nearest object at his head, stamp my foot, and order him from the room and banish him from my presence for several days to come.

I
loved
being the unobtainable object of desire for so many men, to encourage, then discourage, to change in an instant from hot to cold. I loved the power of holding all the power in my hand and beneath my skirts, to feel them yearn and burn but to refuse to grant them their desire, for my person or my throne. And Robert suffered the worst for my shifting whims and fancies, my mercurial moods, where one moment he held Aphrodite in his arms and the next was being pushed away by chaste Diana.

No one could understand why I took such pleasure in Robert’s company. Indeed, at times, I could not understand it myself. Perhaps it was that he did not behave as one awed by me; with him I did not feel as one mounted upon a tall pedestal of ivory. We had known each other since childhood, when I was still thought of as a disgraced bastard of no real importance; he knew me when no one thought I would ever amount to anything. And there was such an
easy
camaraderie between us, though at times it did indeed border on the presumptuous or even pass that border, but I felt easy and relaxed in his company, free to let down my guard and just be myself, free to revel in bursts of passion like fireworks without the risk of being burned or singed or bound and chained in holy matrimony. In truth, had Robert been free, that might have tarnished his allure and attraction in my eyes; I felt in control with Robert. I, Elizabeth, the woman, not Robert, the man, was in command of our relationship, and that was
exactly
the way I wanted it.

Robert delighted in devising novelties and spectacular entertainments so that every day brought something fresh, exciting, and new for us. One evening there was an entire sugar and marzipan menagerie to delight my sweet tooth, with animals of every kind from beasts of the barnyard to the most exotic. There were lions, tigers, peacocks, sheep, camels, swans, ostriches, snakes, rabbits, elephants, rams, placid milk cows with swollen pink udders and teats, and fierce-tempered bulls, butterflies, pigs, bright-plumed parrots, lizards, leopards, turtles, sure-footed mountain goats and barnyard billies and nannies, strutting roosters and docile hens, stallions and mares, monkeys, frogs, giraffes, donkeys, flocks of ducks and geese, sharks, dolphins, great schools of rainbow-coloured fish, eagles and hawks, bears, graceful swans who mated for life, porcupines, porpoises, anteaters, wild boars, zebras, and walruses, even the fabled cockatrice, the monstrous manticore, the Kraken that was the sailors’ dreaded peril, sea serpents undulating over blue sugar waves, and the mermaids that formed the stuff of the sailors’ dreams during their long, lonely voyages at sea away from feminine company, the glorious golden phoenix rising resplendent from fire and ash, fierce dragons with gleaming scales, and magnificent snowy white unicorns garlanded with flowers and accompanied by flowing-haired virgins. Each one was painstakingly crafted, perfect down to the least little detail, by an expert confectioner and served to us by servants costumed as animals. Whilst Robert, splendidly garbed in a doublet of crimson and gold, his handsome legs sheathed in white hose that fit like a glove and black leather boots polished to a high gloss that came up to his thighs, smartly cracked a whip and danced, pivoting, spinning, doing high kicks and grand leaps in the midst of my ladies and gentlemen, all of them elaborately and sumptuously apparelled and masked as wild and exotic beasts that capered and leapt or snarled and showed their claws at each crack of Robert’s black leather whip.

In another masque he arranged, all the ladies danced and swayed in gowns of leafy satin greenery adorned with red cherries, which the gentlemen, sauntering and dancing past with baskets of gilded straw slung over their arms, plucked until the trees were bare. And in another, most symbolic of those heady days of courtship unabated, I, with my eyelids painted gold, gowned in shimmering tinsel cloth of red, orange, and gold, with my hair stretched high and sculpted and lacquered over a tall wire frame, was a flame, and the gentlemen of my court danced about me dressed as moths being burned by me and falling dead at my feet. And at yet another banquet we sat down to eat off dishes crafted entirely out of sugar. I remember our Swedish guests were quite baffled by them, and at the next banquet one of them, thinking these sugar dishes were customary, cracked a tooth biting into a porcelain plate.

Once, like an alchemist transforming lead into gold, my Sweet Robin helped me change a looming scandal into a morning’s delight. I was always slow to rise, liking to linger long in my nightclothes, in a state of loose dishabille, with my hair unbound and my body comfortable and unimpeded by the corseted confines and weighty layers of skirts, reading my beloved books, perusing state papers, walking in my private garden, and eating a leisurely breakfast before dressing and beginning the business of the day. I was not always as careful as I should be, and once, as I sat at my window early one morning, my pink dressing gown falling loosely about my shoulders as my elbow rested on the windowsill while I sat, with the morning sun warming my face, smelling the roses and listening to the birdsong, my night shift slipped from my shoulder and exposed a breast. A carter saw me and with an admiring whistle called up that he had seen with his own eyes that the Queen was
all
woman. I laughed good-naturedly as I adjusted my garments and tossed a coin down to him. But word quickly spread, no doubt due to my admirer gossiping in the alehouse, and the ambassadors were aghast, and my Councillors went about wringing their hands and worrying lest I be branded a woman of loose morals and my suitors desert me. Word had already spread by a volley of scandalised whispers that each morning when I dressed, Lord Robert always stopped in to hand me my shift, that most intimate of undergarments, as nothing lay between it and a woman’s bare skin, as I stood modestly shielded by a screen. So one morning Robert decided that I should have them all—my courtiers and our foreign guests—come directly from their beds, still clad in their nightclothes, to partake of an early-morning breakfast with me. And we all sat about on cushions strewn across my bedchamber floor in our dressing gowns and slippers and disordered hair eating a hearty English breakfast and gossiping like old friends with the windows thrown open so we could smell the flowers and hear the birds sing. We had a fine time, and the ambassadors were soon assuring their sovereigns that all the lurid tales of me were naught but silly gossip based on titbits of fact outlandishly embroidered.

Our Progress ended with a splendid banquet at my father’s great palace of Nonsuch, which my ageing but nonetheless ardent swain, the Earl of Arundel, was leasing from the Crown. It lasted until three in the morning, with music, dancing, and masquing, where I dared, masked in silver and mantled in diaphanous midnight blue spangled with silver stars to hide my hair and gown, lead my grey-bearded host into a fragrantly flowered and darkened bower and let him embrace and kiss me, just once, to keep his hope alive, and with it the belief that selling some of his lands to pay for this costly evening had been well worth it. And when I departed the next morning, he made me a present of the ornate silver plate that had adorned the banquet table, replete with an inscribed presentation cabinet to keep it in.

Our idyllic summer ended in August with our return to Windsor Castle, where I spent whole hot and humid days riding and hunting in the Great Park with Robert, tiring out, one after another, the strong and swift Irish hunters he chose for me and laughing, flush-faced and sweat-sodden, each time I called for a fresh mount. He gave me a gittern studded with emeralds, and often, after the banquets and dancing, where many shook their heads, sighed, and pursed their lips in disapproval of the intimacy with which Robert handled my person as we danced—the way he lifted, caressed, and held me, and even dared steal kisses—we would sail upon the moonlit river while I strummed it and sang to him. When Cecil came frowning into my apartments and told me that it was being said that I was “a wild and raving coquette insatiable in my lusts” and rumours were rife in London and spreading farther every day, even being carried across the sea by travellers, that I was carrying Lord Robert’s child, I laughed defiantly and ordered my corsets laced even tighter to show off my board-flat stomach and tiny waist and danced with even greater abandon, leaping and kicking ever higher, shaking my hair free of its pins so that strands of it clung to Robert’s sweat-glazed face as he lifted me high in the volta, and returning his kisses and caresses with equal fervour. I was
determined
to let no one spoil my pleasure. And the louder they grumbled, the more I gave them to grumble about. Wilfully, and rebelliously, I fed the flames of scandal. I was young and free, and I wanted to live while I was alive!

William Hyde’s Mansion House in Throcking, Hertfordshire
Late May 1559

L
avinia had to return to court. I was sorry to see her go, but she had many commissions awaiting her, including miniatures of my husband and the Queen. Though coaxing the truth out of her was like pulling a tooth, she wanted so to spare me, in the end she confessed that these were gifts they meant to exchange; she would have his, and he would have hers. What had happened to my own miniature, the one Robert had ridden away from Hemsby wearing against his heart? I never saw it again. It was like a prophecy made in paint but fulfilled in flesh and blood. I had indeed become that melancholy, solemn-faced young matron, even though I didn’t want to be her. I wanted to be that happy, smiling, loved and loving bride again, that radiant, confident, carefree girl with the wild, tumbling, harvest gold hair, who lay with her yellow skirts rucked up in a bed of buttercups by the river, safe in the arms of the boy she loved, watching the clouds roll by and dreaming of the future that lay before them. I wanted a beautiful, radiant, golden phoenix to rise from the ugly black and grey ashes of my life.

Soon after Lavinia’s departure, I received a curt note from Robert, just a few terse lines informing me that the messenger who had delivered it, a young cousin of his called Thomas Blount, and the three liveried retainers who accompanied him, would escort me to Compton Verney, Sir Richard Verney’s house in Warwickshire. I should make ready to travel at once, Robert instructed, and not inconvenience anyone by delaying. He went on to say that he liked the Hydes too well to further inflict my “mad, bizarre, and fantastic behaviour” upon them and subject them to gossip about harbouring “a poor, deranged madwoman beneath their roof”.

I could hardly bear to face Mr and Mrs Hyde when the time came for me to take my leave. It was a strained and awkward moment, filled with lengthy, embarrassed pauses where words should have gone but no one could think of any, and averted eyes too ashamed and afraid to meet. Then young Master Blount came to my rescue, saying all was ready and, gently taking my arm, led me out and boosted me into the saddle of a gentle grey mare. As we rode away, I half expected to hear the whole house erupt in cheers.

“I daresay never has the sight of a horse’s bum been so pleasing to them,” I whispered to Pirto, riding beside me on a plodding white palfrey.

Young Master Blount—Tommy, as I came to call him—was very kind to me. He had apples in his saddlebag and passed them around, sharing them with us all.

“I know how well you like them,” he said shyly as he handed me one, like a deep red ruby glistening in the morning sun. I accepted it gratefully, and, thinking of Syderstone and my father, I bit into it with relish, my teeth crunching through the peeling. As I savoured that first juicy, sweet bite, I smiled.

Whistling a tune as he rode alongside me, young Master Blount, who I doubted was a day over seventeen, smiled back at me and suddenly puffed out his chest and belted out a song:

With apple juice glistening on my lips, I quite surprised myself by joining in, and with great gusto I sang along with him:

It had been
so
long since I had sung, or done anything except mope and mourn, I was surprised to find that I still could, that I could feel good again and enjoy being out in the sun on horseback singing a song and munching apples with a comely and companionable young man beside me.

When the apples were all gone, I bought us cherries from a woman selling them at the roadside and shared them with everyone. Robert’s grooms smiled and thanked me and seemed to look kindly upon such a gesture, which gladdened me. My husband’s men usually aped his high and haughty airs, taking great pride in having been chosen to wear his livery, and often looked down upon me—some even had the distinct appearance of common ruffians dressed up in blue velvet and carried more weapons than I thought was warranted—but these three were just as nice as they could be.