Elizabeth I (125 page)

The Great Hall all but begged for an entertainment; it was a wonderful setting for plays. But there were not enough people at court just now to warrant it. Eurwen was particularly lonely, as many of the younger people at court were missing.

“I fear I have done you a disservice,” I said. “It is boring here for anyone but the old. As soon as the weather breaks, you shall leave and return home.”

She did not look as pleased with that as I expected. Oh, so that was the way the wind blew. “I see,” I said. “And when this young man returns?”

She blushed and found something very interesting to look at out the window.

“The Eve of St. Agnes is almost here,” I said. “Perhaps you can get an answer.”

“I must have a room to myself, then,” she said.

“So you know the rite?”

“I am Welsh, and we know every magic rite there is!”

I laughed. “Very well. On the night of January 20, you shall have your own chamber. What else will you need?”

“A small cake made of flour, eggs, water, and salt. Two white candles that have never been lit. And I shall have to fast all day, so please excuse me from dinner.”

She must be very fond of this young man, whoever he was. “Those wishes are easily granted.” I smiled, studying her eager eyes. “Do you really believe in it?”

“Oh, yes!” she said. “In my village, a woman who performed the rite saw three men, not one, and the last had a wooden leg. It all came true. She married three times, and the last had a wooden leg. He had been married to someone else when she dreamed the vision.”

“Tell me how you perform the ritual in Wales.” Blanche Parry might have once done the same.

“You have to go without food all day. Then you make the cake and set it by the hearth. You mark your initials on it, then walk backward to your bed. It is very important not to speak a word all day. Then you go to sleep. While you are sleeping, the apparition of your future husband will come in, mark his initials in the cake, then appear in your dreams. When morning comes, you can see what is on the cake. Then—if the boy is to your liking—you eat a piece of the cake. That breaks the spell. Then you can speak to others again.”

“Oh, my, you will be hungry by the time morning comes. And can you reveal who you saw in your dreams?”

“Only if you don't like him. Telling a dream means it won't come true.”

“So if you won't tell me who you saw, that means it was the one you like?”

“Yes, Godmother.”

“Then I hope you cannot tell me.”

With such frivolities I hoped to distract this young and lovely girl from the sense of heaviness and endings that hung over us.
It is the weather,
I kept telling myself. But the truth was, Dee's warning had rung a tone of doom, even though we had fled Whitehall.

Catherine seemed to grow paler by the day, and she confided that she had never warmed up after the boat ride, no matter how high the fire or how many furs she wore. I was stabbed with guilt for dragging her here.

Robert Cecil, who never even hinted about being needed at home, kept loyal company at Richmond, as did Admiral Charles. John Harington and John Carey came to court. But Raleigh was away on his estate at Sherborne, with Lord Cobham as his guest. Egerton was at his London home, and so was Lord Buckhurst.

Thus, the absent courtiers missed the most exciting news in years. Mountjoy had captured The O'Neill at last, and he was at our mercy. Ever since the Spanish had surrendered after the Battle of Kinsale and sailed away, he had been on the run, refusing to give in. Gradually my forces had smothered the resistance in the south and west and chased O'Neill north to Ulster, cornering him in a little area of forest near Lough Erne. His lands were destroyed, and the old coronation chair at Tullaghoge was smashed to pieces. Famine ravaged the land, and stories of people eating weeds and even resorting to cannibalism turned the stomach. At last O'Neill, the erstwhile Earl of Tyrone, surrendered unconditionally to Mountjoy, writing, “Without standing on any terms or conditions I do hereby both simply and absolutely submit myself to Her Majesty's mercy.”

I held the letter in my hand and kept rereading it. Cecil stood obediently before me.

“I see this did not require fumigation,” I said. “I would have imagined it to stink of death.” Before he could stammer out a ludicrous explanation, I added, “But good news, even if it comes from an ill place, needs no perfume.” He looked relieved.

My head was spinning. It had been spinning before, from a headache that had plagued me for two days, along with aching bones from the cold. But this spinning was one of exultation. We had done it. We had broken the Irish rebellion. What everyone had said was impossible we had achieved. And in spite of the evil Spanish aid!

“What shall our conditions be? What shall we demand?” he asked.

I knew the answer to that. “He must abjure the title of The O'Neill, High Chieftain of Ireland. He must renounce all loyalty and adherence to Spain. He must order his son to return from that land. He must accept whatever lands I grant him, with no argument. And he must swear his loyalty to me, as my faithful subject. Then and only then will I grant him his life.” I paused. “We shall consider liberty and a pardon as separate issues.”

“Depending on his behavior?” asked Cecil.

“Of course. He has made many political promises in his career and kept almost none. Let us see if this is any different. Oh, and—inquire about Grace O'Malley. I know we subdued the Connaught region in the autumn, but I would be glad to know of her whereabouts—and her fate.” Had she fought for me, had she fought against me, or had she abstained from fighting for anyone?

“I shall carry out your orders with no delay,” he said. He fished in his leather dispatch bag, drawing out another letter. “And here is more good news.”

I took it, feeling a heavy seal on the seam—the crimson wax seal of the Most Serene Republic of Venice. In the slick parchment letter inside, the doge requested that we open diplomatic relations between our two countries. He wished to send an ambassador as soon as possible.

“Oh, Cecil!” I said. This was most unexpected, and most welcome. “A Catholic state breaks rank with Rome!”

“The first to do so,” he said. “It has been a long time coming. Of course, the French have never completely cut us off. But they have been too busy fighting one another for the past generation to worry much about diplomacy abroad. But this is a slap in the pope's face. His allies desert him. They recognize that you are Queen of an untouchable realm.”

“Before we know it, Spain will be suing for peace and sending an ambassador.” It was long overdue.

“I hope so. We have been working for it. And since Essex has ... gone... the war faction has lost its way. Now imagine, if Spain made peace with us, and France already has, and Venice, you would be entirely vindicated.”

“It has been a long fight, my friend,” I reminded him. I handed the letter back to him. “Tell the doge yes, before he changes his mind.”

E
lated by these two coups, I almost skipped down the long gallery toward the royal apartments. I could have asked the guards at the end of each chamber to dance a measure with me.

The O'Neill, bowing his head in defeat. The man who had mocked, defied, and tantalized me for years, draining my treasury. The man who was directly responsible for my selling my father's Great Seal and jewels of my own. Now he was mine. Unless he escaped again. He was a master of that, like a snake, able to slither through any opening.

And the pope. I hoped he was frothing at the mouth in anger. I had outlasted seven popes. Clement VIII was my eighth. With their rapid transits, I could say—if I were sarcastic—that the rock of Peter seemed to be teetering on sand. This pope was no better than the others. He had eagerly pursued the Inquisition, burning the philosopher and astronomer Giordano Bruno at the stake, and appointed his relatives to the Vatican, even making his fourteen-year-old grandnephew a cardinal.

Outside, the palace orchard sparkled with icy branches. It would be a long time until spring. But I could wait. It did not feel so cold now.

I traversed the audience chamber, empty and echoing, but when I reached the outer privy chamber, a knot of people were huddled together inside. Admiral Charles detached himself and interrupted my steps. His face was a welter of wrinkles and anguish.

“Catherine—she's taken ill,” he said. “Just in the last hour.”

She had seemed well enough this morning as she helped me dress, beyond the weakness she had complained about for weeks. “In what way?” I asked.

“Fever—confusion—nausea,” he said. “The physician is with her.”

“In the bedchamber?”

“There was no time to take her anywhere else. She was tidying up in that chamber when she collapsed.”

“You needn't apologize, Charles. After all these years, the bedchamber is as much hers as mine.”

I did not ask if I could go in. As Queen, no one could deny me entrance. But as a friend, I must allow her and the physician privacy. The afterglow of the news about Ireland and Venice still cocooned me. On this day, everything would be well.

After some time, the physician emerged, closing the door softly behind him. He tiptoed over to us, bowing to me.

“Tell me!” said Charles.

The physician shook his head. “I have changed the linens and put extra bottles of water on the table. She must drink, to offset all the sweat. She feels as hot as a new-baked loaf of bread. No food. A fever must be starved. And besides, she has no appetite and cannot keep anything down.”

“Is she in pain?” I asked.

“She moans and says her joints ache, that her head is throbbing, but that is usual with a fever.”

“No spots?” Charles asked.

“No. It is not smallpox, or plague.”

“Thanks be to Jesus!” I cried. Either of those could be lethal.

The physician looked at me, almost pityingly. “This is a most virulent fever, even though we cannot name it. She will need strength to withstand it.”

Strength. But she had been weak of late. She came to this duel ill prepared.

“Keep the young girls out of the chamber,” he said. “Although the young are more resistant to it. She was well last night, you say?”

“Yes,” said Charles. “As well as she has been.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I would say that she has been ... dragging ever since autumn. That is the only way I can put it. And then this move, in the cold, and the harsh winter ...”

Now I berated myself again. I had hurried everyone here out of concern for my own safety, never thinking of theirs. But, I argued with myself, we had made such moves all our lives. Why should this one be different?

“She was well this morning,” I said. “When I left her to meet with Cecil, she was humming and gathering her sewing.”

“Perhaps she was pretending,” said the physician. “Perhaps she kept it from you.”

I shook my head. “If it was just beginning, perhaps she was keeping it from herself. After all, if we took to our beds every time we felt a bit off, all the beds in the realm would be full. No, she must have been stricken suddenly.”

“And it is increasing in strength.”

“What do you mean?” cried Charles.

“I have no way of measuring heat except with my hand, but I am certain her fever increased just in the time I was in there.”

“Should she be bled?” said Charles.

“I don't think it helps in such cases. I'll have ice brought in from outside and rub her with that to fight the heat coming from inside her. Lucky for us it is winter.”

Lucky for us. If it had not been winter, she would not have been weakened to begin with. “Do whatever you think best. Shall I ask a fellow physician to attend you?”

“I would welcome any assistance,” he said. “In cases like this, only a fool scorns help. I am going to consult my texts to see if there are any remedies I am overlooking.” He bowed and took his leave.

I turned to Charles. “Let us go in.” The other ladies were gathering anxiously but I told them, “Pray wait.”

Catherine lay on her bed, her hair matted with sweat. But she was awake and smiled when she saw us. “Forgive me,” she whispered. I had to draw close to hear her. From a foot away I could feel the heat radiating from her face.

“Why do sick people always apologize?” I retorted. “You have committed no offense.”

“Save not being able to serve you,” she said.

“You did this morning,” I replied. “You will again, in a few days.”