Elizabeth I (32 page)

“Not written by me,” he hastened to add, “but by a poet I am proud to be patron of.” He brushed his fine hair off one shoulder. I saw that he had left off the more flamboyant of his jewels, as well as his rouge. Perhaps he was becoming more restrained now that he had turned twenty.

I flicked open the packet.
Venus and Adonis.
“Frolicking of the immortals?” I asked.

“An immortal story,” he said.

A William Shakespeare was the author. I knew the name. He had written plays about Henry VI.

“Do you compose verse yourself?” I asked Southampton.

“I try, but it is not fit to pass beyond my own chamber,” he said.

“There are many others who ought to say that but do not have the good sense to do so,” I said. “Thank you, and a blessed year for us all.” I waved him on.

Might it be so. The one just past had had its troubles, but 1594 looked promising.

“Your Most Gracious Majesty.” Dr. Lopez was holding out his gift, a latticed gold box. I opened it and looked inside, seeing two chambers with seeds and golden powder.

“Aniseed and saffron, which your generosity has granted me a monopoly in,” he reminded me.

Monopolies—the way I could reward faithful servants without having to take money from the treasury. “I thank you, Roderigo. Your remedies have been most helpful,” I said. His Turkish herbs had done their cooling duty and now I was seldom troubled by the heat attacks.

“I have a new shipment just in,” he said. “I should like to bring them to you.”

“Tomorrow, then,” I said. I waved him on. I would have enjoyed speaking further to him—I always enjoyed his conversation—but the line was long behind him.

Young Essex now stepped up, resplendent in a white velvet outfit with pale blue trimmings. It was a good choice of color for him, setting off his wavy reddish hair. He wore no beard, making his sensuously full lips his most notable feature.

“Your most glorious Majesty, it is more than I deserve that I may kiss your fair hand.” He bent low and took my hand, raising it to those plump, warm lips. I pulled it quickly away.

“What do you desire this year, Essex? Last year was a good one for you—Privy Councillor, settling yourself in your London household—what is left?”

“To desire and to deserve are not the same thing, Your Majesty,” he said. “Well I know I deserve nothing, but I desire ... everything.” He raised his gaze to stare directly into my eyes.

He was a silly lad, transparent in his flattery, his naked hunger for recognition almost touching, his bids to counterfeit an amorous interest embarrassingly seductive. He almost made me believe it.

“What have you brought me?” I asked briskly. The line behind him was still very long.

He stepped still closer and lowered his voice. “If I were to give it now, and you laid it aside with the other gifts”—he glanced over at the table weighted with the ones that had come before—“the wrong person might see it. With your kind permission, I wish to present it in privacy.”

He knew all the tricks. I sighed. “Very well. You may make an appointment through the vice chamberlain.”

“Tomorrow?”

Tomorrow I was seeing Dr. Lopez, and I did not want to be rushed.

“No, perhaps the day after. The vice chamberlain knows my schedule.”

As he took his leave, I saw that the line stretched even longer now. New Year's Day was a test of endurance here at court.

The soles of my feet were tender, but other than that I suffered no ill effects from the New Year's ritual. I could blame the foot soreness on the shoes I had chosen to wear; I should never subject new shoes to such an ordeal. So, at sixty I could still stand all day long and feel no worse than I had at thirty. That was a fine New Year's gift, that knowledge, better than all the bejeweled book covers and embroidered gloves and hanging pendants. I had given it to myself.

I awaited Dr. Lopez, a fine wool shawl about my shoulders. It was always cold in my chambers at Whitehall; even the bedchamber, small as it was in relation to its fireplace, remained chilly. That was what came of being so near the river, where the winter mists hung near the shore and crept into all the dwellings. It seemed a year since we had seen the sun. I shuddered as a chill swept over me. A little personal heat at this point would be welcome, but I did not wish it back again.

Where was Lopez? It was not like him to keep anyone waiting. He was always prompt and considerate. I paced a bit, kept company by Catherine and Marjorie. We all bemoaned the lack of exercise during these dreary months, but Christmas season at court was a compensation; their husbands, Charles and Henry, were here now. There were still four days left of Christmas, with plays, masques, and feasts, ending with the wild antics of Twelfth Night.

“I am grateful that your menfolk are keeping Christmas at court,” I told Marjorie and Catherine. Well I knew that Henry would prefer to be at Rycote, where the hunting was good, and that Charles liked to use the winter months to inspect the harbor facilities up and down the coast. Neither man enjoyed court frivolities. Perhaps that was why I trusted them.

“Indeed, it is a gift to us as well,” said Marjorie. “If I did not have him here at holidays, it would be easy to forget I am married. Our sons are always away fighting in some action or other, so there is no family life to speak of.” She said it lightly, but I knew it grieved her that though she had four sons still living, she hardly ever saw any of them.

“My dear Crow,” I said, teasing her with the old nickname, although her dark hair was fading. “At least they return to the nest every once in a while.” Those of my own family had flown away, never to return.

All I had of family were from my mother's side, the closest being the children and grandchildren of Mary Boleyn, my aunt. Catherine was one of those, my first cousin once removed. She bore no resemblance to either her grandmother Mary or my mother. Where my mother's face was long, with a pointed chin, Catherine's was as round as a full moon. My mother's eyes were said to be dark and “invite to conversation.” Catherine's were placid and comforting and never narrowed in anger. My mother was slim and Catherine was plump.

I remembered my aunt Mary Boleyn, who died when I was ten. She came little to court, for she had married a groom after her first husband died of sweating sickness. It was said to be a marriage of passion. If so, the passion was played out in private. The few times I was old enough to remember, she told me little stories about my mother, her fondness for apples and dried pears, how she liked telling Aesop's tortoise and hare story to her niece and nephew, her fumbling attempts to braid her hair the French way when she was young—anecdotes but nothing more. Now there were so many things I would ask her; then I did not know how.

Catherine had married into the Howard family—more distant cousins of mine. She and the admiral seemed well pleased with each other and were the parents of five children, grown now, with various lives in and out of court.

These women were the closest I came to having sisters, but between us was still a huge gap. As Queen, I stood alone, set apart.

Oh, where was he? How tedious it was to wait and wait; as I paced and ticked off the minutes, I reminded myself that my subjects were victims of waiting every day. They had no heralds to clear the way before them, no precedence in ceremonies or front place in lines.

A great clatter arose in the outer chambers, and in a moment one of the Queen's Guards strode in. “Your Majesty,” he said, “grave tidings. Treason! Treason is afoot!”

A second guard joined him, grasping his sword. “Thanks be to the earl, you are saved!”

“What earl?” I demanded. “What treason?”

Essex appeared in the doorway behind the guards. “Treason against your very person, Your Gracious Majesty!” He all but leaped into the room, dodging around the guards, springing on his sprightly legs. He landed lightly and knelt at my feet, his wavy hair flopping over his forehead. “I have forestalled a dangerous plot to poison you.”

He was waiting for me to say, “Arise.” I did.

Drawing himself up, he took a deep breath. “Through diligence, constant watching, and secret information, I have uncovered this heinous evil. Evil that the others keeping guard over Your Sacred Majesty did not see.”

Was it the Catholics? Had someone heeded the papal call? Had they risen up against me at last? Or was it a disgruntled subject, angry about a presumed slight? “Pray be specific,” I said. “Who, what, where?”

“Look about your court; seek Roderigo Lopez. You shall not find him here, but locked up, where he can harm no one.”

“Dr. Lopez? What do you mean?”

“Did you read the papers I gave you?” he demanded.

“No, not yet.” I would read them when I got to them. “You were to come tomorrow.”

“If you had read them, you would find the case against Dr. Lopez spelled out—the evidence against him tallied in full! He is in the pay of the Spanish, and his mission is to poison you.”

“Pish!” Dr. Lopez had no dishonest corner within him. I knew people, I could sense things, and I knew him to be honest. And yet ... is that not a trap the devil lays, another version of pride, to believe strongly that I had a special sensibility? Surely by now I had learned that treason could lurk in unlikely places? “Tell me of this plot,” I said. “And where exactly is Dr. Lopez?”

“Lopez had a Ferrera da Gama staying with him, a Portuguese exile in touch with Spain. We were able to intercept his mail—”

“We?”

“The Bacon brothers and I, acting on my authority as Privy Councillor for Portuguese affairs, ordered all mail from Portugal arriving in Rye, Sandwich, and Dover be opened and examined. Behold! We netted Gomez d'Avila, a courier carrying letters to da Gama in code. In the meantime, we intercepted a letter from da Gama urging Lopez, for God's sake, to prevent d'Avila from coming to England. It said—these are the exact words—‘for if he should be taken the Doctor will be undone without remedy.' ”

“Pray continue.”

“We were able to show the intercepted letter to da Gama and pretend that Lopez had betrayed him. That made him confess that they both were part of a larger plot to poison someone. But he insisted the victim of the plot was to be Don Antonio. When d'Avila was taken to the Tower and shown the rack, he, too, confessed.”

“Confessed what? The exact confession?”

“That they planned to subvert the son of the pretender Portuguese king Don Antonio to the Spanish cause. The letters were written by a Spanish agent in Brussels, Manuel Luis Tinoco.”

“And this is all you have uncovered? A plot among the Portuguese exiles? How is this treason against me?”

“Your Majesty, it is obvious that Don Antonio is but a code word for you. The mysterious language about musk, pearls, and amber means something sinister relating to a woman's toilette.”

“Is it obvious? It does not seem obvious to me. What does Cecil know about this Tinoco? He has agents in Brussels.”

“Do not bring Robert Cecil into this.”

“Do you dare to tell me what to do?” I stared at him. “It is imperative to widen the investigation,” I told him. “I thank you for its beginnings, but now we need to call on other resources.”

His face flushed. “What other resources? My agents—”

“Cannot be everywhere,” I said. “You and Robert Cecil should coordinate your efforts. I shall tell him to pursue his contacts in Brussels. In the meantime, release Dr. Lopez.”

“What?”

“Nothing has been proved against him. We have all grown weary of the parasitical Don Antonio. Is it any surprise his fellow exiles are deserting his cause?”

“But—poison!”

“You have failed to provide any proof or details about this poison. I say, release Dr. Lopez.”

“You court danger,” he said. “Do you not care about the safety of your person?”

“Yes, I care greatly. But I do not hide from shadows in the nursery, nor imprison innocent men.”

“Innocent! We shall see how innocent he is!” Essex was almost shaking with frustration.

“You may take your leave,” I told him. “I shall give instructions to Robert Cecil.”

“Oh!” he muttered, bowing. I saw him biting his lip to keep from speaking further.

I turned to see Catherine and Marjorie standing mute in the corner, their faces white.

“Pish!” I said again, loudly, my favorite word of dismissal. “Fantasies! Why, Dr. Lopez has had so many opportunities to poison me, if he were going to, he ...” My voice trailed off. People changed. People could be corrupted. People could be converted.