Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I (34 page)

The war was won, and England rejoiced, but the queen’s Robin was unwell. I saw him as they returned to court; he was said to have been ill since the eve they dined together in his tent after the queen’s speech at Tilbury.

She worried on his behalf. When they returned to Whitehall, I thought he looked ill unto death. Selfishly, I wondered, should he die, could I find the courage to leave her, too?

Summer and Autumn: Year of Our Lord 1588

The Palace of Whitehall

L
ord Robert was heavier than I’d ever seen him—perhaps because he could no longer ride and hunt often due to pain in his legs and back. His face was reddened though he drank but little wine any longer, and after the briefest exertion his breath came in short puffs and bursts like a woman giving birth, which took him ever longer to recover from.

He’d been commander in chief of the home forces, but now that there was no longer a need for land defense, his own defenses buckled some. I noted that he had difficulty standing while reviewing the troops at Whitehall, at the end of August, and after he and the queen applauded as Essex tilted against the Earl of Cumberland, he left for Buxton, at the queen’s command, to take the healing waters. As soon as he was gone, she was sore vexed.

I think she knew.

Perhaps she’d long known, which is why they’d spent so much time together over the summer, dining together, riding together, and meeting Spain together.

Shortly after Lord Robert left the queen, she asked me to fetch a pouch made of cloth of gold and bring it to her. I did, and when everyone had left her bedchamber save myself, Anne Dudley, and a few maids of honor, the queen went to her chessboard and put the ivory king and queen into the pouch and then drew the strings closed and kissed it.

“Call Master Tracy,” she instructed me, and I sent for someone to fetch the young messenger.

“Please ride hard to deliver these to the Earl of Leicester,” the queen commanded him.

Tracy, no fool, did as he was told. Within a few days, he returned to the queen with a letter. She opened it up as soon as it arrived, excusing herself from her councilors who waited, with the post-Spain business of the realm, for the queen to sort out her affections.

I judged her not. Shall governance of the heart always submit to governance of a kingdom?

She instructed me to ask her apothecary to blend something to be sent to Woodstock for Lord Robert, and then she returned to the council.

I fell to temptation and read the bottom part of the letter, which she had left on her writing table. I told myself I wanted to know what his symptoms were so I could better instruct the apothecary.

“I would know how my gracious lady does, and what ease of her late pains she finds; being the chiefest thing in the world I do pray for, for her to have good health and long life. I have partaken of
the medicines you had prepared for me, and find it helps more than any other thing that has been given to me.” He finished, “With the continuance of my prayers for your Majesty’s preservation, I humbly kiss your foot . . . P.S. even as I had written this much, I received your Majesty’s token by young Tracy.”

I wondered what went through his heart and mind, after he’d sent this back with Tracy, when in private he opened the golden pouch with the king and queen nestled together, inside.

Word returned to court that Lord Robert had stopped at Cornbury Park to rest, his fever having grown stronger, his ague more pronounced, and a deep cough setting in. Being with the queen at the marshes at Tilbury had certainly done his heart good, but his health mayhap suffered ill for it.

On September 4 came word that Robin, having loved Elizabeth for forty-seven of his fifty-five years, had died. He had been an able horseman, a defender of church reform, a noted linguist, and a wise counselor all the years of her reign. But mainly, he had been her love.

Upon hearing the news, the queen burst into tears and withdrew to her bedchamber and locked the doors to the world outside her, with the exception of a maid who assisted her with a portable privy. Within a day she let Blanche in, and Blanche, perhaps, coaxed her into letting Mary Radcliffe in with food after three days. Mary invited myself and Anne Dudley in a day later.

I worked hard not to show my shock at how she looked. Her skin was taut and for the first time I saw that it hung in small pouches below her black eyes, which were swollen and dull. The lines on her forehead and above her lip folded into pronounced wrinkles, and she set off an air of hopelessness.

“Come now, I’ve brought some ointments and oils to soothe,” I
said, though I knew the touch of loving hands would work better wonders.

“Thank you, Marchioness,” she said, using my formal title. She often referred to her ladies, even beloved ones, formally when she sought to maintain her composure. There was no shrieking, or outburst, and perhaps this concerned me most of all.

I rubbed her shoulders and her neck and her head and her hands, one by one, as she switched Lord Robert’s last letter to her from one hand to the other, never letting go of it entirely.

“We didn’t respond to this letter,” she mourned.

“Did he receive your token?” I asked, feigning ignorance of the letter’s contents.

“Yes.” She nodded. “He indicated that he did.”

“Then he needed no answer, Elizabeth,” I said, using her name for the first time in twenty-three years of friendship and service. “The heart needs no words to understand what has been long unspoken but understood.”

She held my hand then, for but a moment more.

“You will rise from these ashes,” I said.

She nodded. She knew she must. Her country waited to rejoice with her over the defeat of Spain.

Before I left her chamber that afternoon I personally replaced the linens on her bed, ensuring that they were scented with soothing oils. As I gathered up the older ones I noticed small, soft haystacks of red and red-gray hairs upon them, the sum of those which had fallen out over the previous few nights.

•   •   •

A month later, I knelt at the Royal Chapel and recited “A Prayer for Men to Say Entering into Battle,” written by William’s sister
Queen Kateryn Parr. I had asked Mary Radcliffe to see that the other ladies and maids left the queen and myself alone as I spoke with her after the noon meal. Mary, true to her word, did as I’d asked.

I approached the queen as she sat at her writing table, preparing, I supposed, for the victory celebrations that would be held across the realm and, in particular, at her Accession Day festivities. France was no longer a threat; congenial James seemed ready to please the woman he assumed, right likely, would pass her crown to him upon her death. Spain was licking its wounds. Queen and crown had prevailed.

She looked at me as I entered and the other ladies followed Mary, which drew the queen’s attention.

“I have an important matter to discuss with you,” I said.

“Yes, proceed,” she said abruptly. She did not like surprises, and Mary’s clearing the others from the room alerted her that this would be an unusual audience.

“I need to retire to my home, to take my leave,” I said. “To Langford.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, gesturing at my filled-out gown. “In anticipation of the baby. We understand this. But Langford? ’Tis crumbling, and so far away when Sheen is near at hand.”

“My husband prefers Langford, Majesty, though he does not yet have the means to finish it. After the baby is born, I wish to remain with my husband. And my children.”

She put down her quill. “Remain? For some weeks? Through the new year?”

I knelt before her. “I wish to retire from constant service.”

She stood then, towering over me. “One does not retire from service. We shall never retire from service. Our Lord never retired
from service. We have never had a lady leave our service, and we shan’t have it now!”

“I would yet walk into the lions’ den for you, and I bear you all manner of love. But you must understand that my husband desires me to wait upon him, as well. Your realm is secure. My house is not.”

“We thought you sent your cousin to Wales.”

“I did,” I said. “But that does not mean I am not still needed.”

“We need you,” she said, looking weary again. “Especially at this time!”

I hoped that I had not toppled her from the unsteady balance she had only recently regained after Lord Robert’s death. “I understand your grief, Majesty, but your kingdom and responsibilities are grand in scope, and constant. Although Lord Robert’s loss was great, I fear that for a queen, these challenges shall never cease. You are well able to meet them, though, if I may dare say.”

“No, you may not dare say anything!” she said. “Is this the reward we deserve for the kindness we have always shown you, from your arrival here in our realm, from the sponsorship of your marriage to a marquess and then the acceptance of your marriage to a squire? Have we so ill used you that you must now repay us in kind?”

“No, my lady,” I said. “I have always sought to serve you with the honor, dedication, and fealty you deserve.”

“Then what of our needs now?”

I stood up and took her hands in mine, taking care to first hold the hand upon which she wore the locket ring I had given her many years since, and then the one upon which she bore her coronation ring.

“You once told me, Majesty, that you are both virgin to the
world and wife to your realm, and it is him whom you must first serve and please. Then you spoke Holy Writ to me, which I know you hold in highest esteem, as do I. As Saint Paul wrote, ‘There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.’ ”

I took a deep breath and steadied myself as I could feel her hands tremble in anger. “I am not married to England, Majesty. I am married to Thomas Gorges.”

She pulled her hands away from me then, catching the locket ring on the sleeve of my gown. “Begone, then!” she said. “If you care nothing for the preferments, the perquisites, and the goodly offerings we have shared with you these many years, nor the affections and love we have settled upon you, you may leave court altogether!”

I was going to plead with her to reconsider, but she stalked into her bedchamber, leaving me to look at her back, before she closed the door.

I withdrew, not knowing if she would make good on her subtle threat to take from us all she had given. I saw Mary Radcliffe as I made my way down the gallery to pack my apartments.

“Be you all right?” she asked.

After a quick embrace, I hurried down the hallway before any should see my tears.

November: Year of Our Lord 1588

Langford House, Salisbury

Spring: Year of Our Lord 1589

Windsor Castle

W
e arrived at Langford in November; it was windy and cold and our quarters were cozy but not large. The children, used to Sheen and its grandeur, made polite comments but I could tell they were surprised and perhaps a little afraid because the ruins still surrounded us.

“No stories of specters,” I teasingly warned the nurse, who still tended to them from time to time, and she agreed with a grin. I had brought a midwife with me from Salisbury, as the babe was soon due and, as I had already given birth so many times, this one was likely to come quickly.

Within a week, some of Thomas’s men arrived from Hurst Castle, of which he was still governor, to say that a Spanish galleon
had been found wrecked in its waters and they wanted to know what to do with it.

Thomas looked at me. “I need to ride out there and see for myself.”

I nodded. “The midwife is here to attend me, and we have servants.” He kissed my forehead and instructed the children to be obedient and then he left. I lay very still upon my bed, trying to forestall the child’s birth until Thomas returned, but it was of no use. Within hours the babe came, and before long, I heard the sturdy squall of my young son. He had dark hair, not like Thomas’s fair or my red. For a moment, he put me in mind of a Gypsy, and I recalled that Lord Robert, so recently passed, had once been teasingly called “the Gypsy” by his enemies for his dark good looks.