Shakespeare's Rebel (32 page)

‘My lady! My sovereign! My queen! Oh, my sweet, sweet Bess!’

The devastation in her eyes did not halt her words. ‘What means this outrage? Why have you burst so rudely upon our—’

But her words
were
halted by Essex’s sudden rising – and his equally sudden descent upon her neck. ‘Oh my soul’s delight!’ he blurted into it, covering it with kisses. ‘Do not chastise your sweet Robin. Forgive my intemperance, my rashness. You
will
forgive all when you hear why I have come. When you learn the threat I am here to deliver you from.’

He bent, seized both her hands, began kissing each finger separately. John could not help but look up again – and then wished he had not. For over the earl’s mud-flecked hair his eyes met Elizabeth’s. And he could see in their sudden narrowing both recognition and the fury of having these private intimacies revealed to others. Terrified she may have been. But she was still Queen.

‘Out!’ she roared, directly at him, and then turned it on all the others in the room. ‘Leave us alone!’

An elderly lady-in-waiting stepped forward. ‘Majesty, I should not leave you unattended. I will—’

A slap ceased her words. The Queen had freed one of her hands from Essex’s attentions to deliver it. ‘Out, I say. Everyone! Only my servant, the earl, will remain.’ Her gaze returned to John, who flinched under it. ‘That includes you, you . . . saucy knave. Out!’

Never had he been happier to obey a sovereign’s command. While the maidservants fled through the rear door, he retreated the way he’d come. He did not wait for his commander’s dismissal. Essex could not have given one, lost as he was to his caresses and the tears now flowing freely over the Queen’s mottled hand.

XXIV

The Upshot

As soon as he stepped into the corridor, he was surrounded.

‘What news, fellow, what news?’ cried the Earl of Southampton.

‘Is my lord kindly received?’ asked Sir Thomas Gerard.

‘How did her majesty take his sudden coming?’ urged the Irishman, St Lawrence.

‘Lords, gentlemen, cry you mercy, please.’ The crowd gave back slightly from the door against which they pressed him. He passed through them, led them a little way down the corridor, spoke softly. ‘The earl has been received most graciously. Her majesty was startled, ’tis true, for she had only just arisen . . .’ He paused, knew he could not, must not dwell on his glimpse behind Elizabeth’s masks. ‘She has dismissed all save the earl himself. She will hear his plea in private.’

‘In private? Sure, that is when Robert is at his very best.’ Southampton’s smile was lascivious, and several other gentlemen giggled. ‘His victory is assured.’ He turned back to John. ‘Is that all, sir?’

‘All, my lord, for now. Like you, I will await developments in prayer and contemplation.’

Southampton stared at him, trying to sense if he was being mocked. But John had discovered in his short time back in the Essex camp that all followed their leader’s example and took their religion most seriously. Indeed, several captains now dropped to their knees while others opened their hands at their sides and stared to the heavens through the panelled ceiling. John used the chance the murmured prayers gave him to step away and lower himself on to a chair. His legs, jellied enough from four straight days in the saddle, had been further undone by the Queen’s hate-filled stare.

In the event, he could neither rest long, nor were many prayers uttered before the doors were flung open and Robert Devereux strode out. On his face was the same ecstasy that infused his words. ‘Her majesty has been most gracious, most royally loving!’ he cried. ‘She has greeted me with all kindnesses. And though I have suffered much trouble and storms abroad, I have found such a sweet calm at home.’

‘Does she dismiss the Toad?’ Southampton asked, stepping close. ‘All her kindnesses are naught compared to that.’

‘In good time. In good time,’ Essex replied cheerily, waving his hands. ‘She has asked for a postponement to our talk, that she may dress and I repair some of the ravages of our swift coming.’ He looked down at his road-smirched clothes, then sniffed. ‘Indeed, she says I have turned centaur, for I smell more of horse than of man.’

He laughed uproariously, all the party joining in, as if suddenly released by the Queen’s humour, eminent lords transformed to schoolboys, leaning on each other, knees weak with laughter. ‘Come, gentlemen,’ cried Essex, mastering himself, setting off down the corridor. ‘While her majesty dresses, I am to seek water, borrow a soldier’s cloak and return promptly. Help me all.’

Wearily John rose to follow . . . to be halted by a hiss. He turned – to see Sarah, his lover from just two weeks before, step from the Queen’s apartments. Her blonde tresses were caught up in a ribbon, and she had a gown over her shift. He had not noticed her among the ladies-in-waiting. Had not noticed much, truly, beyond the Queen’s fury.

Closing the door behind her, she came to him rapidly. ‘A word, sir,’ she said curtly.

‘And delightful to see you again too, my sweet.’

She pierced him with a look from eyes he now recalled, startlingly black in her fairness, then looked to the two guards at the door, their halberds at port, as if they now would hold it against all comers. ‘Here,’ she said, taking his arm, leading him a short way down the corridor to another door, which she opened, passing through ahead of him. He followed; she reached behind him, pulled the door to. Their bodies were close and he inhaled her. Not cloves this time, but something of the night and the morning too.

‘Maid,’ he said, smiling, ‘I am flattered that you wish to greet a returning warrior thus, but alas . . .’

She grunted, crossed to the far wall, where shutters were etched in light. She flung these open and he squinted against sudden sunshine. She turned back. ‘In sooth, keep your foolery to yourself, sir, and tell me what you are about here,’ she said, her voice harsh and low.

‘Foolery? Unless you can raise the dead, you’ll get no fooling with me.’ He stepped towards her. ‘Sarah, is it not?’

She held up a halting hand. ‘I say again – we have no time for games, John Lawley. Why you are here?’

‘Here?’ John glanced about the room, a small one for dressing, by the racks of clothes and table of face potions.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I am not sure I do.’ He moved past her, fell heavily into a chair before a tall mirror. He looked at himself, his ragged beard, his heavy-lidded eyes, the dabs of mud. He sighed, pressed the palm of a hand into a socket. ‘Sarah, I have been four days in a saddle with almost no sleep. So all I am certain of is that I am not armed for a duel of wits with you. You wish no fooling, so let us be plain: when you ask what I do here, you ask about my lord of Essex, and his intentions, do you not?’

She stepped nearer. ‘I do.’

‘Good. And when you ask, you ask not for yourself but for the Queen?’ When she didn’t respond, he added, ‘Or perhaps for your other employer, the Master Secretary?’

She tipped her head to the side, considering. ‘In this case, I would say both.’

‘So he is here, is he?’ On her slow nod, he continued, ‘Forewarned by my lord Grey who preceded us?’

‘I know nothing of that.’

‘No, you were with her majesty.’ He sucked his lip. ‘Keeping out of the way, is he?’

‘Would you not? You know the hatred the earl bears for him.’

‘Indeed. A hatred evenly returned.’ He smiled up at her. ‘Well then. How can I be of service to you . . . all, ma’am?’

She studied him a moment. ‘You mentioned the earl’s intentions. Do you know them?’

‘Some of them.’

‘And they are?’

He smiled. ‘Sweet, surely that is a matter for the two of them? Intentions he will make plain when he is admitted again into her presence.’ He frowned. ‘He will be, will he not? Be readmitted?’

‘He . . . will. Despite her rage.’ Her voice dropped a little. ‘You must have noticed, sir, how distraught she was. Only her closest ladies ever see her in . . . in that state. No man has for . . .’ She hesitated, continued, ‘For a very long time, it is said. If ever.’ She bent, to look into the mirror behind him, smoothed the skin of her face, went on in the same low voice. ‘And of all men to do so, how could it be he whom all her pretence was for? She will never forgive him. Never.’

Her body was close again, the shift and gown pushed away as she bent, her breasts free beneath. Od’s faith, he thought, exhausted though I am, I could have her now. Yet she was right – for all sorts of pressing reasons, in Southwark, closer to, the time for foolery was past. So he raised his eyes, asked, ‘Will she not?’

‘Not unless she is forced to.’

‘And what could force her?’

She whispered the words. ‘My lord of Essex’s army camped over the brow of yonder hill.’

So they are scared, all of them, John thought. They need to know if their worst fears are realised, if Essex comes in armed insurrection. Still, they would know soon enough. Skulking though he might be, Cecil would be active. Messengers and spies would be streaming from his quarters. It was a little enough thing to give to his interrogator. ‘So you wish to know if he returns with an army?’

‘If you please.’

‘Well then, lady . . . he does not.’ He continued over her sigh, ‘Yet I do not think he needs one.’

‘No?’ She turned back to the rack of clothes behind her. ‘I must return to my duties. Will you help me dress?’

‘It would be my delight.’

Sarah moved to the rack. ‘So you do not believe he needs an army to coerce her?’

Dropping the gown from her shoulders, she stood in a shift that ill concealed her voluptuous body. Giving a little sigh, she placed a finger in her mouth as she considered the clothes. The obviousness of the action made him smile. ‘No. If force was his choice, he’d be standing over her e’en now, sword drawn. The grey, I think. More in keeping with the solemnity of the day and, of course, it would suit with your eyes.’

She flashed them. ‘Oh sir,’ she said, before slipping a farthingale over her head, settling it on her hips, then unhooking the grey kirtle. It was of a piece, bodice already joined to skirt. She handed it to John, raised her hands over her head, looked up at him from under her thick lashes. She’d moistened her lips, preparing them. He bent . . . then dropped the heavy material over her, muffling the surprised gasp that came. While she was engulfed, he spun her fast, and by the time she emerged, his hands were already busy. John had helped many a boy player into woman’s wear in the tiring house, and his fingers were quick on the laces.

‘Then how will he persuade her, do you think?’ she asked.

John pulled the laces though the eyelets. ‘With love?’

Sarah snorted. ‘Love? After this morning, I do not think . . .’ She broke off, then pulled him over, still tying, towards the mirror. Before it, she began to brush and put up her hair, her reflected eyes finding his. ‘And yet? She may be Queen but she is also . . . a complicated woman. Capricious. She has forgiven him his behaviours time after time, and even this outrage . . .’ She laughed, addressing the mirror and her tangles. ‘Well, one of the ballads she so loves could be fashioned around this – his riding pell-mell from Ireland to fling himself, mud-caked and weeping, at her feet. Though she would be radiantly dressed to receive him, of course. Set to the lute by Cowper, who knows? It could work wonders. Hmm!’ She put down the brush, began to set tortoiseshell combs into her locks. ‘This needs considering. For if my lord of Essex’s gallantry were to triumph and he to rise again . . .’

‘. . . then the Master Secretary would fall.’ John leaned in over her shoulder. ‘And you would have lost your patron.’

She looked at him in the mirror. ‘Not my only one, as you know. I am a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Yet she is not overgenerous – except in cast-off dresses.’ She turned from side to side, regarding herself – and him. ‘While I . . . I have greater ambitions.’ Putting the last comb in place, she bent to the table, to some pots there, dipped her finger into one, began to daub her lips in carmine. Her gaze found his again. ‘Perhaps, Master Lawley, we can aid each other,’ she turned, reaching to run a wet finger down the line of buttons on his doublet, ‘in diverse ways.’

Interesting, he thought. She was still seductive, and yet . . . the artifice of it was so plain, now that he had taken no whisky to obscure it. Yet he would not show her that realisation – for she was right. They could be useful, each to the other.

He bent a little closer. ‘As you said, lady – this needs must be considered.’

Their look held, their faces a palm apart; neither moved. And then through the door noise came – boots on a wooden floor, men’s voices raised. She ducked under him, crossed to the door. ‘That sounds like your freshly scrubbed lord returning for his second interview. The Queen will have been able to do little more than I to repair the ravages of night. Enough to receive her lover, perhaps. I must to her side.’

John felt the vibration of men marching, heard familiar voices raised. ‘Before you go, let me tell you this. I agree to your offer, lady.’

A plucked eyebrow raised. ‘Which one, sir?’

He stepped close enough now to whisper over the noises beyond. ‘That we each aid the other. Who knows who will hit the hazard this day? Romantic Essex or practical Cecil? Eagle or toad? Whoever does, you and I, mere hired players in this scene, will thrive or fail.’

‘Your suggestion, then, sirrah? Swiftly, for truly, I must to the Queen.’

John spoke as he thought it – for if Essex did fall, he must fast flee the crash or be brought low by it. ‘This next meeting will decide all. Is he to be the subject of sonnets . . . or a disobedient traitor? If she forgives him, if she succumbs to his charms, if Essex’s star is again to rise at the court . . . let me know it with a nod when he emerges from her chamber, like so.’ He moved his head slowly up and down. ‘Yet if that star is to fall, well, then inform me thus.’ He shook his head, slowly, clearly. ‘Then will I be forewarned and plan accordingly.’

She studied him for a moment. ‘And will you promise that if he does rise, that my lord of Essex will be as generous as the Secretary ever was?’