The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn (14 page)

As the purple velvet sleeves heavily embroidered in silver and gold were laced to the overdress, Kat held out two jewel-encrusted watches for the Queen to choose between.

“The flower or the ship, Your Majesty?”

“Neither. I’ll have my father’s brooch.”

“As you wish.” Kat needed both hands to lift the giant sapphire stone ringed with diamonds and rose rubies. As she clasped it to the center of the quilted purple bodice, she whispered to the Queen, “Ask after your cousin Mary and her husband newly made king.”

“And what should I ask?” Elizabeth sounded mildly amused at Kat’s typical impertinence. “Whether she is enjoying married life with her childhood sweetheart and her overbearing mother-in-law de Medicis? Or whether she’s with child, a French prince who might one day lay claim to my throne?”

Kat wound strand upon strand of gleaming pearls round Elizabeth’s throat, wrists, and waist. “You make fun of your old companion,” sniffed Kat, “but that young Scots queen is your father’s own niece, and must needs be closely watched. Now that she is queen of France as well, she will be trouble for you, mark my words.”

“I always mark your words, Kat, but I think tonight is no time for such converse about my cousin Mary. Tonight is a time to celebrate a hard-won peace. Do you not agree?”

Kat looked away peevishly, but Elizabeth pulled the lined face to her with a finger under the chin and grinned, finally coaxing a smile out of the older woman.

“You look radiant, Majesty,” said Kat with a final and imperceptible adjustment to the Queen’s costume. “The night will belong to you.”

Elizabeth glided out of her bedroom into the paneled Great Chamber where, already on his knees in advance of her entrance, was Robert Dudley lowering his head in further obeisance. “Your Majesty.”

She stretched out her whalebone white hand to him, but so covered in great rings was it that he was only able to graze her fingertips with his lips. “Rise, Robin. Let me look at you,” she commanded.

Instantly Dudley came to his feet and rose like a great sturdy tower in front of her. Tall as the Queen was, she had to look up to her Master of the Horse.

He really does love me, Elizabeth thought to herself. What I see in his eyes is an emotion not easily feigned.

Indeed, Dudley was this evening utterly overwhelmed by the regal presence of his childhood friend. He could not tell if the effect was caused by her pale luminescent beauty, the riot of gold and sparkling gems that glittered in the sunset light, or the hypnotic perfume which she made to waft round herself with tiny flutters of an ostrich feather fan.

“I am speechless, Elizabeth.” He whispered these words in the fragile shell of her ear, for such public familiarity with the Queen was forbidden. “I envy the French ambassadors who will monopolize your time tonight.”

“Do not suppose I’ll have no time for you, Robin,” she said, admiring his form in the peacock blue brocaded doublet. “I expect you to partner me in the first galliard of the evening.”

“Your wish is my greatest pleasure,” he replied and, placing her hand on his arm, escorted her toward the chamber where the French were gathered.

Whitehall had quickly become Elizabeth’s favorite London palace, its huge sprawling wings spreading over more than twenty riverside acres. Built over several centuries, it was arbitrary in design, and many portions were antiquated, even falling into disrepair. But Elizabeth loved the stately halls hung with their splendid decorations, and delighted to see the great house teeming with her courtiers and ladies in their finest fancy for the evening’s entertainment, all bowing and curtsying low as she passed on her handsome escort’s arm. It was excellent to be the queen of England. Right and well deserved. I have at this moment, she thought to herself, not a care in the wide world.

“It makes them cringe when they bow to you that they seem to be bowing to me as well,” said Dudley, suppressing a smile.

“You’re right, Robin. I’d wager you’re the most despised man at the English court.”

He chuckled. “No doubt they’ll find even more to complain about after this week.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’ve outdone myself in grandiosity with the preparations. Lavish and magnificent revelries in every respect. Food, decoration, music, masquing. Seeing it, you’ll find it hard to remember you’re nearly bankrupt,” he said with a sly grin.

“Robin!”

“You agree the show for the French is most important,” he said quickly to divert the Queen’s sudden anger. “And it cost much less than it actually appears. For example, all the flowers were brought from your castle at Richmond, and the game birds —”

“All right, enough!” They’d stopped at the great carved doors of the Privy Chamber attended by what seemed like a small regiment of French and English soldiers. “I need a moment to compose myself.”

“You will dazzle them, Elizabeth. You’re like a sun that breaks through a gloomy English afternoon.”

Elizabeth inhaled deeply as though to fill herself with what courage she yet lacked.

“Em ready,” she said finally, and Dudley motioned for the sentries to open the tall Privy Chamber doors. He watched as she swept majestically into the presence of the French ambassadors and their exquisite ladies, grand in their brilliant silks and broad-beamed farthingale hoop skirts, and accepted one dignitary on either arm —• Monsieur de Mont Morenci and Monsieur de Vielleville. There under Holbein’s masterpiece, a wall painting of the entire Tudor family, did Elizabeth begin to weave her spell around them all. She had cleverly positioned herself, Dudley noticed, under the huge and unnervingly lifelike portrait of the father she so perfectly resembled, as though to remind them all of her unquestionable royal lineage. Elizabeth was a magnificent woman and queen, thought Robert Dudley as he strode away to attend to the evening’s entertainment. He would do everything in his power to secure for himself not only her love but the elusive Crown Matrimonial.

“I was a prisoner in the Tower of London for two months whilst I was princess, along with several noblemen who were charged with plotting my sister’s overthrow on my behalf,” said Elizabeth to de Mont Morenci and de Vielleville as they strolled the torchlit Privy Garden just after dusk. “I would surely have been put to death by her had it not been for the loyalty of my subjects.”

They approached a large stone sundial set within an intricate fountain surrounded by thirty-four columns topped with gilded beasts carrying the Tudor coat of arms. Surely the garden’s grandeur paled in comparison to many of the French palace gardens, but Elizabeth was determined to impress them into believing she was, even in her youth and femininity, as mighty a monarch as her great swaggering father had been.

“It tells time in thirty different ways,” she bragged of the sundial.

“Almost as many ways as there are opinions concerning the path to peace between our countries,” added de Vielleville with a cynical expression.

“Ah,” sighed Elizabeth thoughtfully.
“Quo homines, tot senten-tiae.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty,” said Mont Morenci. “There are as many opinions as there are men … and women, so it seems,” he said with a respectful nod.

The sound of a dozen trumpets signaled that supper was served.

“Shall we, gentlemen?”

“Tout a vous
,” spoke the ambassadors in unplanned unison. They all laughed merrily at the good humor they shared in that perfect moment, and as if on cue a rainbow of colored water leapt from the many fountain spouts high over their heads.

Elizabeth led the Frenchmen toward a door made entirely of red-and-white Tudor roses and their leaves. Pushing it open they found themselves in the piazza under the vast windows of Whitehall’s Long Gallery. Elizabeth gasped with delight.

The place had been transformed into an enchanted summer glade. Illuminated by torchlight and awash with the gentlest music of lute and virginal, its bower walls were draped with the thickest of silver and gold brocade. But the tapestry for all its richness was rendered nearly invisible by the riot of fresh flowers that covered the walls, ceiling, and ground of the pavilion. Wreaths and garlands of violets, wallflowers, primroses, kingcups, pinks, cowslips, and daffodils hung in vast variety and profusion, twisted and looped, dangled in tendrils and sprouted from supporting beams and arches. Behind the dais was a great mural portraying the Queen on a white stallion, conceived all in tiny tea roses. As Elizabeth entered the bower her slippers sank into a carpet of southernwood leaves, lavender, hyssop, and wild meadowsweet. The mingled fragrances were unimaginably delicious and the Queen, who normally abhorred strong odors, could not breathe deeply enough.

She paused, the French ambassadors on either arm, and together they watched as a sweet and impromptu farce unfolded before them. Each of the French ladies seated at the table took up the space of three people, so far to the sides did their farthingales extend. So the displaced English ladies in a mood of good fun had seated themselves upon cushions among the rushes on the ground where, comfortably ensconced, they were waited upon by the English gentlemen with much laughter and amusement.

There at the far end of the pavilion Elizabeth spotted Robin Dudley, the master showman surveying his fantastical creation. He was her man, she thought, body and soul. Her soldier. Her loyal servant. Her master. This last sent a shiver and a strawberry flush to the Queen’s pale cheeks. Suddenly he turned and saw her. Their eyes across the busding pavilion joined and locked together as a great red hawk and its airborne prey will do in the moment before the death strike. For the love that flew so swiftly from Elizabeth to Robin Dudley and back to her again was as hot and fast and strong as death on the wing.

All at once the Queen was converged upon by a dozen courtiers and ladies come to accompany her to the place of honor under a bower of hanging lilacs almost the color of Elizabeth’s gown, and the marvelous sight of her beloved was obscured. No matter, thought Elizabeth, taking her seat flanked by the French ambassadors, this night is young and I shall yet have my way with it.

The wooden door swung open to reveal the warm firelit recesses of Dudley’s private rooms. Elizabeth, in a hooded velvet cloak, stood across the threshold from Robin, his peacock blue doublet limp with dampness from the night of wild dancing, a warm and familiar smile on his handsome face. All the misapprehensions she’d felt about the brazen act of coming to his apartments melted clean away.

“Come in quickly,” he whispered, and guided her inside. Gendy he pulled her hood away and saw that Elizabeth was gazing around his rooms with a look akin to wonder.

“Is it the modesty of my apartments that gives you so much surprise, or the very fact that you’ve come to them?”

“That I’ve come to them,” she said and smiled wickedly.

“I think we caused a great scandal already this evening, you and I,” he said as he removed her cloak. “It was a state occasion. You should have danced with someone besides myself.”

“I did! I danced with the ambassadors. One time apiece. And I danced with Lord Cecil.”

“Elizabeth!”

“Well, I don’t care. You’re the best dancer and I am the Queen. I dance with who pleases me. And besides, it’s only the English who took any notice,” said Elizabeth, moving into the room. “The French are not so easily scandalized. Did you not see the way Madame de Vielleville flirted with young Lord North?”

Dudley laughed, remembering. “He was tripping over himself, he was so besotted.”

“She is very beautiful.”

“She is nothing next to you.” His eyes softened then and his look upon her lost its sharpness. She saw him raise his hand to her, palm outward, and all at once felt her heart thump back in her chest. To another the palm placed just so was merely a peaceful salute. But to Elizabeth it was an echo from the past, a five-fingered token of childish love, half of a broken circle only she could mend.

Gazing across time she found herself in the greenwood behind Hatfield Hall. There were she and Robin then no more than nine years old, attired for the outdoors, tousled and flushed with exertion. Two brown geldings beneath a canopy of oak nibbled contentedly at the grass and damp moss under their hooves. Dudley was the smaller of the two children, for Elizabeth had always been a tall girl. But the boy’s body was solid and strong and moved with uncommon grace. When they rode out from Hatfield as they often did when their lessons were done, racing and jumping rock walls and hedges, Robin spurred his mount with a fierce physical insistence that impelled the beast to great feats of strength and speed. Elizabeth somehow gained the same loyal performance from her steed through sheer force of love and will.