Cate of the Lost Colony (9 page)

Chapter 14

Fortune’s Wheel Turns

M
y hopes of escaping to a new life sustained me throughout the difficult months of winter. The queen was always in an ill humor from her many ailments. Chief among them was an abscess on her gums from a rotting tooth, which she refused to have pulled because it would leave a gap in her smile. The tooth prevented her from eating and she was peevish with hunger and pain. Also, her breath smelled foul, so it was unpleasant to be near her. Not a day went by when she did not revile one of us. I even saw Frances leaving her chamber in tears.

Only one person, Dick Tarleton, dared to jest in her presence. I had brought the queen a drink of mint and parsley to sweeten her mouth and there he was, strumming his lute.

“My royal mistress suffers a great abscess on her body politic. She will not be well until the Scottish queen is lanced and bleeds,” he said.

I held my breath, expecting a tirade, but she only waved him away.

“Begone, fool,” she said wearily. “I would be alone now.”

So he plied his wit among the ladies as we sat doing needlework and listening to Lady Mary read from a book of sonnets.

“Pish! Poetry is lies,” he said when she paused to turn the page. “And who is more fond of poetry than lovers? Believe no man who swears he loves, and believe no man who rhymes his love. Therefore, believe no man.”

Frances smiled. Anne, beside her, looked forlorn.

“By your logic, Dick, we should not believe you,” I said. “Unless you are no man.”

“Better to be no man than woe-man,” he said, winking.

“It is a woman’s woe to be in love with a lying man,” said Emme.

“My lover was no liar,” protested Anne. “And my woe is to be separated from him.”

“All lovers are liars; they love to lie in secret,” said Tarleton. “Yet beware of hiding love. I know a lady who hid her love so well that when she went looking for it she could not remember where she put it.” He grimaced. “Someone found it and stole it away.”

I started, pricking myself with my needle. Were the fool’s jesting words meant for me? I thought of Sir Walter’s hidden letters. I had not burned them after all. Once I had tried, crouching before the hearth at midnight with the bundle in my hands. But I could not destroy those scented pages with their words of love, the verses crafted solely for my eyes.

As soon as Dick Tarleton skipped out and the ladies were gossiping again, I slipped away to the dormitory. Reaching into my mattress, I felt for the bundle of letters. Only dry rushes scratched my fingers. I groped further, checking every corner. Nothing. I pulled the rushes out and scattered them all over the floor in desperation. No letters. Had I put them back in my chest? I threw it open and rummaged to the very bottom, but the familiar bundle was missing. I reached into the old shoe, where I had stuffed the handkerchief. It was empty. I threw it aside. There was no mistaking the terrible truth: the evidence of my secret love had been stolen.

“Who has done this to me?” I wailed into my hands. Then I recalled the day I had found the contents of my chest disturbed. The correspondence from Sir Walter that had never reached me. How careless I had been! All along, someone had been watching me, intercepting Ralegh’s letters, and waiting for an opportunity to steal the rest from me. Was it Anne, avenging my role in Graham’s banishment? Was it Frances, spying for someone or just being spiteful? What would the thief do with the letters? Try to betray or blackmail me? I wished I had overcome my vain desires and burned the letters months ago.

I put the stuffing back in my mattress, cleaned up the dormitory, and pondered my choices. To accuse anyone would lead only to denial; even to ask questions would raise suspicions about me. It was better to pretend nothing was amiss and watch my companions closely. But in the days that followed, no one confronted me with the letters. Neither Frances nor Anne behaved as if she were guilty. Nor did the queen treat me any differently, and I concluded she did not know of the letters. I considered warning Sir Walter, but I was afraid even to put ink to paper, lest the letter be intercepted.

After a week I could stand the suspense no longer, so I told Emme about the theft. As she listened, her eyes grew wide with innocent dismay. At least I knew that she could never have taken the letters.

“Remember, they are written in Ralegh’s hand. When they come to light—that is,
if
they do—you must deny you returned any of his favors,” she advised. “Let him explain himself.”

A terrible thought occurred to me. “Emme, what if someone has seized the letters I wrote to him?”

“If he is wise, he will have burned them.”

“And I was a fool and did not!” I lamented. “Though I meant to.”

But Emme only pursed her lips and shook her head.

When weeks had passed without incident, Emme asked if I had burned the letters after all.

I thought back to the night I had sat before the fire with the letters in my hand. “Perhaps I did and was too tired to remember it,” I mused. “For they did cost me many a sleepless night.”

But still I was doubtful and tense, as if on tenterhooks. Fortunately the queen was too occupied with matters of state to notice a distracted maid. Her Privy Council was pressing her to decide the fate of the Scottish queen. Every day brought new rumors that Mary had escaped from prison or the Spaniards had invaded England. I thought Elizabeth would break down with the strain. One night she screamed in her sleep and we all rushed to her chamber in fear, only to discover that she was having a nightmare about her cousin.

I had a nightmare, too, in which pages of the missing letters and poems fluttered around me. I tried to catch them and hide them under my skirt while the faces of Frances, Anne, Lady Veronica, Dick Tarleton, and even Emme leered at me and Sir Walter danced with the queen. I awoke with tears on my cheeks, feeling alone and despairing. At least the Scottish queen, though betrayed by a letter, had loyal friends about her.

Indeed I pitied the poor Queen Mary. Elizabeth finally signed the warrant for her death, and on the eighth day of February she was beheaded in Northamptonshire. I noted the date because it was my birthday, which should have been a joyful occasion. But the celebrations that broke out all over London, with bursting fireworks and burning effigies, only filled me with grief for the dead queen. Yes, she had conspired against England’s sovereign queen. But I, too, might take such desperate measures in order to free myself from prison. How had Mary borne it for twenty years?

I had served the queen now for almost four years, and what had I to show for it? A nickname. Some nice clothing, daily food, and a bed to sleep in. Yet I hardly felt secure. Constant worry attended me. I had seen my mistress shift her favors like a weathercock whirled around by contrary winds. I had few friends and the court was a stewpot of envy, backbiting, and deceit. Now someone near me held a dangerous secret—a bundle of poems and an embroidered handkerchief—that could ruin me and Sir Walter. His downfall would be the result of my own carelessness.

After Queen Mary’s death there was no rejoicing in Elizabeth’s chambers. Her eyes were puffy with weeping and lack of sleep. One morning while we were dressing her, she tore off her ruff and threw it at me.

“Take this damned frill from my neck. It torments me!”

I had starched the thing to a perfect stiffness, but the narrow sticks sewn into the ruff had poked her, leaving red marks on her neck.

“And take this gown off me. I will wear black for my cousin.”

Emme and Frances hurried off to the wardrobe while Lady Veronica and I undressed the queen. She stood shivering in her smock.

“I shall have to answer to God for this,” she whispered to her reflection in the glass.

“Hers was the sin. Your Majesty is just,” murmured Veronica.

“My councilors tricked me,” Elizabeth continued, giving no sign that she had heard Veronica. “The warrant was delivered without my knowledge. Walsingham always wanted her dead. It was his doing.”

I was stunned. Had Walsingham defied Elizabeth and murdered the Scottish queen? How could he have dared to do so?

Elizabeth started. “Say nothing to anyone,” she said sharply. “Forget those words, which came from my grief.” She turned from her glass and looked closely at Veronica, then at me. “I may trust my own ladies, may I not? You will never lie to me?” Her tone was more pleading than commanding.

As she stood there without her wig or her makeup, I saw her simply as a woman like any of us, but older, with bad teeth and graying hair.

“You know I am true,” Veronica assured her.

The words stuck in my throat, but I forced them out. “Nor will I deceive Your Majesty, for I love you.” And I bent down to retrieve her cast-off garments.

When the queen summoned me to her chamber one evening, I expected her to request a cordial or a cup of milk or a book from her library. Her back was to me as I curtseyed and greeted her.

She whirled around and began to revile me. “You crook your knee to me, Catherine Archer? You with the wayward, crooked heart.”

My heart clenched to hear her say my true name, and with such a dire tone.

“What do you mean, Your Majesty? My maiden heart is true.”

“
Are
you a maid?”

“How can you doubt that?” I cried, sinking to my knees.

And yet I knew the answer. I heard a rustling and, without even looking up, I knew she was holding Sir Walter’s letters. Whoever had stolen them had waited until the Scottish queen was dead and Elizabeth could turn to new intrigues.

She unfolded a page and read aloud, “
At a table spread with treats, One tasty morsel tempted me
. Did Sir Walter bite that morsel? On the lips?” She threw the letter aside and picked up another. “
Double words do double duty, Praising one and another’s beauty
. This is what I think of your double dealing!” She ripped the page in half. The two pieces fluttered to the floor in front of me. She read from a third letter—one that had never reached me—crumpled it, and threw it at me.

“How did you come by them?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.

“No, how did
you
come by
this
?” She flourished the embroidered handkerchief in front of me.

“Sir Walter gave it to me,” I said, forgetting Emme’s advice to deny everything. What was the point in lying now? “And those letters are mine, too,” I added.

For a moment the queen was silent. I think she expected me to deny the letters. “Everything is mine,” she said coldly. “Get up.”

I obeyed. Her eyes, level with mine, flashed with anger and hurt.

“You deceived me, Catherine. I expect to be betrayed by papists and Spaniards, even by my own cousin,” she said. Her voice trembled, then grew firm again. “Not by those I have entrusted with the care of my own person.”

Her words stung me, so unjust did they seem. I knew I should beg her forgiveness, but for what? Nothing in those letters could harm her.

“How do I betray you by loving another?” I heard myself say. “Are you the only one who can be loved?” I went on, more boldly still. “I can love Sir Walter without diminishing the love I owe Your Grace.”

“Sir Walter cannot be yours. He. Is. Mine!” She threw the words at me one by one, like a handful of stones. “I have made him from nothing and lifted him over the others.” Her forehead and cheeks were bright red with anger. “You were also nothing until I favored you. But I see you have entirely forgotten that.”

“No, I have not forgotten,” I said forlornly. I could see my good fortune sinking like a wrecked ship. What was left for me to cling to but my pride? So I looked my queen in the eye and said, “I would gladly be nothing again, and thus be free to choose my own love.”

“So be it,” she said, shaking with rage. “You will not serve me or feel the warmth of my favor ever again. You are nothing to me.” She threw open the door and shouted to her guards, “Take her to the Tower!”

The Tower?
Too stunned to protest, I let the guards lead me away. Over my shoulder I could see the queen feeding pages into the fire, its red glow illuminating her face.

I never saw my royal mistress again.

Part II

Chapter 15

In the Tower

I
t was not the queen’s grand barge that carried me down the Thames to the Tower but a creaking wherry pitched to and fro by the waves. Garbage bobbed on the water and a drowned cat floated by. I leaned over the side and retched, sick with misery and dread. I had left Whitehall without being allowed to say good-bye to anyone. I took with me only what I could fit into my small trunk, the one that had held the letters that undid me. Water sloshed around my feet. The wherry passed the wharf where we disembarked on my first visit to the Tower. It slipped under a rusted portcullis known as the Traitor’s Gate, where the filth of the river gathered, and bumped against a jetty green with slime. Climbing out of the wherry I slipped and nearly fell in the water, but the guard caught me. And so, like a criminal I entered the Tower, my sodden skirt dragging behind me, my heart like a great stone in my chest.

My prison was a small room furnished with a bed, a bench, and a table. It had a single high, narrow window. If I stood on the bench I could see through it to a simple paved courtyard below. Though the room was damp, there were rush mats on the floor and a fireplace. It would have been comfortable under different circumstances. The bed was even hung with faded curtains. Someone of high status had been confined here before me. Was it the conspirator Babington? I imagined his head on a spike over the Tower gate, a warning to all England. Entering by the water, I had thankfully been spared that sight. Yet there was little else to gladden me in the room, and nothing to do but to wait there and ponder my fate.

When the heavy door closed behind me and the bolt on the other side fell into place, I began to weep loudly. Magnified by the bare walls, the sound was frightful, like the roaring of the lion in the queen’s
menagerie.
So I cried noiselessly, letting the tears trickle down my face. I cried over the cruelty of my mistress and because I realized I no longer loved her. Soon I had no more tears.

In this notorious prison, I was surprised not to be mistreated. A guard delivered my food, took away my chamber pot, and brought me clean water for washing. My soiled linens were laundered, though they were returned to me none too clean. I asked for something to read, and the guard brought me a Bible well-thumbed by other prisoners. Thinking to try my hand at another poem, I asked for ink and paper but he shook his head. He may as well have been mute. Every few days he led me outside, where I was permitted to walk around the courtyard. I had no visitors and no one to talk to.

The long days passed into weeks. I felt spring arrive in the air that blew through the narrow window. I missed Emme and Lady Mary. Had everyone forgotten me? I wondered if Sir Walter had felt the queen’s wrath. Was he also in the Tower awaiting judgment? What crime had either of us committed? Surely there were malefactors more dangerous than an outspoken maid and a knight who sent her amorous verses. I expected the queen would release me once she thought I had suffered enough.

And what then? When I thought of her fury, I had no hope she would ever forgive me. Even if by some miracle she did, I could not return to her service as if nothing had happened. Nor could I bear being sent back to the country to live in disgrace with my uncle’s family. I began to think I preferred the lonely Tower to the queen’s palace or my uncle’s house.

But what I most desired now—to go to Virginia with Sir Walter—seemed impossible. And the letter that I finally received from Emme made my vain dream vanish altogether.

My dear Catherine,

I have cried over you nearly every day since you were taken away. I was in the hall and overheard what you said to Her Majesty. (Your brave words are already legendary among the ladies.) I wish I could visit you in that dreadful place and console you, for there is no happiness without a friend nearby. But I dare not. The queen will permit no one to speak of you. It is dangerous even to write this.

Unfortunately, your W.R. did not suffer as you do. No, she still dotes on him, so much that she has made him Captain of her Guard and he must stand by her at all times. It is unjust that he should be rewarded while you are punished. I have told him that he is a coward who does not deserve your love.

Catherine—I know who stole your letters. Indeed she makes no secret of it. You will not be surprised that it was Frances. She took them first to Anne, offering her the chance to betray you, but Anne would not touch them, saying, “Do it yourself.” Now Anne weeps with guilt for what has happened to you. She admits she did not stop Frances because she wanted you to lose W.R. as she did her T.G. She wants me to tell you she wishes she had taken the letters from Frances and burned them.

I do not need to ask Frances why she betrayed you. Of course she envied you your nickname. She also hates lovers, because she has none. (Does she think spying will make the queen love her?) And she envied our friendship, yours and mine, from the day you arrived. Now that you are away, she thinks I must be her friend again. But I will not speak to her. Indeed she is hated by everyone. So you see we are all in a turmoil here over you. If only none of this had happened, or that I had happier news to write—

Come what may, never forget your dearest friend, E.M.

I held Emme’s letter to my cheek. I was grateful for the pains she had taken to write and pleased to think of Frances being hated. I began to fill my empty hours dreaming up plots to torment her. Though I had little hope of ever being able to enact them, it gave me a little comfort to reflect that I had plenty of wit, while Frances’s would fit within her thimble. Still, she was in the queen’s favor, and I was in the Tower.

If Emme could manage to write, I wondered, why couldn’t Sir Walter? Surely his every waking moment was not spent beside the queen. While she slept, could he not write to me? While she was awake, could he not persuade her to release me? There could be only one reason he did neither of these things: he did not love me. Rather, he loved the queen. I flung myself on the bed, overcome with fresh tears. So let him enjoy his doubtful reward, waiting on the aging Elizabeth all his days, bearing her changeable moods and incessant demands! My love had turned sour, and disappointment rankled in me like a wound.

Some days after receiving Emme’s letter, I had a visitor at last: the gray-bearded Earl of Leicester. He was red-faced and short of breath from climbing the stairs. When the guard admitted him, then closed the door without bolting it, I expected to hear I was being released. But Leicester looked morose.

“I’ve come at Her Majesty’s bidding,” he said.

“I thought so.” My voice sounded hoarse from disuse. “No one would dare come otherwise, because of the manifest danger I pose.”

“I am sorry for your plight, my lady. You do not deserve it,” he said gently.

“Does Sir Walter deserve his? That is a harsh punishment, to be made Captain of the Guard,” I said with a mocking smile.

“Walter Ralegh is an ass!” Leicester’s face turned purple.

I stared in surprise, then remembered he had long been the queen’s favorite. He must be jealous of Ralegh, who was younger, handsomer, and now far more favored.

“She gave him all of the traitor Babington’s estates. He has never been wealthier,” he grumbled.

“Has the queen decided to give me anything?” I asked, anger growing in me. “Will I be released?”

“That is the matter of my visit,” he said, letting out a long sigh that did not bode well for me.

“She will not put me on trial—or will she?” I asked.

“God, no!” he said. “You are no traitor. She would not dare.”

“Does she mean to return me to my uncle in Wiltshire?”

“Alas, I wish that were her will. But it is a harsher fate she has in mind for you, one that I would spare a lady of your tender age and upbringing—”

“Just tell me, please!”

He clasped his hands together and his eyebrows lifted in an expression of grief and sympathy.

“Sit down, my lady, for you look pale.”

“I will hear my fate while standing on my feet,” I said, losing all patience with his wordy delays.

“Her Majesty has decreed your banishment! A ship sails tomorrow and you, my lady, are to be on board.”

My thoughts leapt with a fearful anticipation. I saw vessels moored at Billingsgate, swarming with sun-browned mariners loading cargo for distant parts of the world.

“Destined for? The ship goes where?” I asked, unable to put my words together.

“To a barbarous place, that one day, through the presence of those such as yourself, may develop into a civil society—”

“Not Ireland!” I cried, thinking of warring peasants and forsaken bogs.

Leicester held up his hand and shook his head sadly. “My lady, that would be a mercy. No, it is the colony on Roanoke Island. I am sorry for you.”

He looked away and thus did not see the smile spreading over my face. I felt like dancing a jig.

“But who? Why? How did this come about?” I asked, hardly able to believe my good fortune.

He turned to me and replied, “You have Ralegh, that horse’s ass, to thank for your doubtful and dangerous freedom.”