The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (2 page)

“To stuff a stout pig knuckle up his twisted little arse,” replied Francis, beginning to regain his good humor, now back among his friends.

“Seriously, Francis,” interjected Essex. “How did you respond? Are he and his father still insisting on Edward Coke for the position?”

“Of course. ‘A man of experience and levelheadedness,’ ” he said, in a nasal whine, imitating Robert Cecil.

“But he made no mention of your parliamentary debacle?”

“No need, my lord. As the Gnome spoke he kept his beady eyes always on the queen, as if to say, ‘She is still angry with you and will be angrier still if you persist in your suit for this office.’ ”

“Damn him!” cried Essex.

Southampton offered, “If one could die of smugness, he ’d be worms’

meat.”

“Was Burleigh there as well?” asked Anthony.

“Thankfully not,” Francis replied. “I could not have borne father and son at once.”

There was silence then amongst the coterie of gentlemen, all lost in the same thoughts, the same memories. “Burleigh’s Boys” they called themselves privately. For each and every one had shared the distinction of growing up a ward of that great lord. After the deaths of their respective fathers, they had fallen under the guardianship of the elder Cecil, and though they had been adequately and appropriately guided through their minorities by him, they had been shown only the most minimal kindness and consideration, whilst the skinny, hunchbacked son, Robert, received all.

After his father’s funeral, Essex—age nine and more sensitive a child than was healthy—had left his home in western Wales to live at Burleigh’s great palace, Theobalds. He ’d taken pity on the man’s small, pale, deformed son and heir, had taken pains to entertain him, wrench a few laughs from the overserious child. He ’d even on occasion remained behind to play with him whilst everyone else rode after the hounds to hunt or hawk.

But Robert Cecil had, with a soul as sadly twisted as his back, always despised young Essex, loathed his fine opalescent skin, the curly ginger hair, strong, straight spine. Once he ’d even fabricated a story of some cruelty perpetrated on himself, a hapless victim of Essex’s wicked prank.

Before the year was out, Essex found himself shipped off to Cambridge.

The education, whilst premature for a ten-year-old, had been appreciated, indeed embraced, by the precocious boy. Philosophy, mathematics, civil law, theology, astronomy, Greek and Hebrew, dialectic. He had earned his Master of Arts degree by age fourteen.

But Essex had never forgotten Robert Cecil’s treachery, nor forgiven the blatant nepotism Burleigh had displayed in forwarding his son’s career at everyone else ’s expense. The elder Cecil had seen to it that the Gnome had smoothly slipped into his role as secretary to the queen, as though changing partners during a gavotte without missing a step.

Father and son together were a powerful force with which to be reckoned, for Elizabeth’s trust in the pair was absolute, and it was imprudent to position oneself on the opposite side of an argument with them.

Such was the case of the Attorney Generalship—
Bacon
versus
Coke
.

But in this case, all in this room knew, Francis Bacon had more than a fighting chance, as his champion was the Earl of Essex. Elizabeth’s love for Essex was a weapon as mighty as her respect for the Cecil team at its most persuasive.

“I shall see to it,” Essex announced suddenly, strapping on his sword.

“Now?” asked Francis.

“There is no better time than now. The queen misses my company, I have heard from several ladies.” Essex smiled disarmingly and he knew they saw clearly why he was Elizabeth’s favorite courtier. Despite his outrageous disobediences. Despite the childish tantrums. What they could not know, he thought, was that he would use this meeting with Her Majesty to forward more than Francis Bacon’s cause. To be perfectly honest, the Farm of Sweet Wines was uppermost in his mind. Without a small fortune at his disposal, despite his gifts of charm and wit and beauty, he would soon tumble from his place of prominence at Court.

Even a brilliant ally in the Attorney General’s office would be of no use to him then.

He must see the queen.

ESSEX HAD NOT expected to meet his mother on his way out, and as he was busy concocting entertainments of the mind for Elizabeth’s pleasure, he found himself startled to come face-to-face with Lettice Devereaux, Lady Blount, at the foot of the great staircase, still in her traveling clothes.

“Mother, I thought you were in the country.”

“I
was
in the country, and now I am here in my city house. I sent you word that I was coming to see my grandchild.” Her voice bristled with annoyance, and Essex cursed himself for his forgetfulness. Lettice, still physically luscious at forty, was a cunt of a woman when displeasured.

Essex kissed both cheeks with an heroic show of enthusiasm. “I’m glad to see you, Mother.”

“No, you are not. You and your nestmates prefer me as far from London as possible.”

Essex decided he was in no mood to placate her. “You’re right. It’s impossible to keep Elizabeth even-tempered when she knows you’re flouncing about the city in your gilded carriage trying to out-queen her.”

“Flouncing!”
She reached out suddenly and gave her son’s ear a vicious twist. “You were a rude child and you’ve become a rude young man.” He sighed. “Mother, must we fight?”

The door opened and Lettice ’s latest husband, Christopher Blount, entered. Only five years older than his stepson, Blount seemed haggard and had a sour look about him. But this was not surprising, for he had suffered seven hours of a jouncing carriage ride, as well as his wife ’s foul humor. Truth be told, Christopher’s sour countenance had lately hardened into a perpetual expression of disgust, the result of a mere three years as Lettice ’s spouse . . . or more to the point, her most recent cuckolder. She was famous for many reasons, but most of all her infidelities.

When Essex had been a young boy, his father, Walter Devereaux, had become the cuckold of the Earl of Leicester, and after Devereaux died and his mother had married Leicester, she ’d cuckolded
him
with Blount.

Essex wondered if the wan, irritated face of his current stepfather was at least partially a result of his cuckolding by Lettice ’s newest amour.

“Hello, Christopher, and good-bye.” It had taken only a few moments, but Essex was now incapable of remaining in his mother’s presence. “I’m off,” he announced, not bothering to hide his relief at going.

“Robert!” Essex’s hand was already on the door latch when his wife ’s voice stopped him. He sighed and turned back to see Frances coming toward the group at the door, carrying their infant son. Lately, just the sight of his kindhearted and dreadfully dull wife caused an upwelling of confused emotions in his chest, for she moved him so little. Even his firstborn child elicited only the weakest surge of affection.

These feelings he knew to be entirely unnatural, and it worried him, agitated his soul. What kind of man was he, so unmoved by his own family?

“Frances, you’ve caught me on my way out.”

“To Court?”

“Yes, my love,” he said, reaching out to caress the babe, Robert, named after himself. Essex was at least careful to keep up the pretense of familial affection.

“Send my love to the queen,” Frances said with true sincerity. Their relationship was as long as his wife was old, as her father, Lord Walsingham, had for so many years served Elizabeth in the closest and most vital capacity—spymaster. Frances’s first marriage to Elizabeth’s godson, Philip Sidney, had strengthened the bond to such a degree that when she had secretly married Essex after Sidney’s tragic death, the queen had forgiven the indiscretion in record time. Others—Leicester, Raleigh—had spent time under house arrest or in the Tower of London for contracting marriage without the queen’s permission. Essex had always believed it was Elizabeth’s love for Frances that had lightened their punishment to a mere slap on the wrist.

“I’ll give her your kindest regards,” said Essex and again made for the door. Lettice ’s hand was laid over his before he could open the latch.

“Dear son.” Her voice had changed. It was warm and silken, like her skin, and he felt gentleness exuding from her, as sweet as it was false.

“Yes, Mother,” he said, groaning inwardly. He knew he ’d not have to wait long to learn what it was she wanted from him.

“You will speak to my cousin the queen once again about our meeting.” It was more a command than a request.

This was the last subject Essex wished to broach with Elizabeth this day. Any day. All previous attempts at reconciling the queen with the woman who had secretly married the one man she had ever truly loved had ended in disaster. Had Lettice been one iota less arrogant, ostentatious, or heart-stoppingly beautiful, perhaps Elizabeth would have forgiven her, allowed her back at Court. But his mother, in all the years of her marriage to Leicester, had refused to be cowed by her royal cousin.

She was, after all, a grandniece of the queen’s own mother, Anne Boleyn.

Lettice was proud to a fault, and whilst still Lady Leicester, she had flaunted that title, her husband’s wealth and status, driving Elizabeth to furious distraction. Now married to a mere boy, a
nobody
, Lettice knew her position to be vulnerable, possibly dangerous. And she had recently begun seeking a rapprochement with the queen. Of course she would use her son’s exalted position to forward her cause.

“I cannot promise I’ll speak to her today, Mother,” said Essex. He felt, rather than saw, Frances stiffen at his response. Once he had left, she would bear the brunt of Lettice ’s outrage at her son’s insolence.

“Robert.” His mother’s voice was threatening and her grip on his hand tightened, but with his other hand he pried off the vicelike fingers.

“I am going now,” he said in a cold, clipped voice that brooked no argument. He turned to Frances. “I may return home tonight, or I may stay in my apartments at Court.”

She nodded and smiled weakly. “Wave bye-bye to your papa,” she said, flapping little Robert’s hand. Essex felt sick leaving his wife and son with the dragon, but his urge to escape was greater still.

It took all of his restraint to close the door quietly behind him and squelch a whoop of joy. Once outside in the sunlight, the prospect of an evening in Elizabeth’s glittering Court ahead, Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, found his mood had brightened considerably.

ESSEX LOVED the brief water transit from his home upriver to Greenwich castle, and the early September gloom that had quite suddenly fallen over the Thames did nothing to dampen his mood. He enjoyed the bustle, the noise, even the stink of it, for he saw the river as the lifeblood of London. Riches were ferried into the city on these waters, as well as the most famous and infamous personages, and the most vital intelligence from abroad. All great enterprise originated here.

Each time Essex came out on his mother’s gilded barge, memories sailed across his vision like the tall-masted ships towering above him.

He remembered his first entrance into the city as a boy, awe of the place bulging his innocent’s eyes. He thought of the day Leicester had taken him, a nervous seventeen-year-old, to be presented to the queen.

His aging stepfather had personally overseen Robert’s dressing and polishing for the event, and whilst on this very barge had proffered last-minute tutoring to guarantee, he hoped, Elizabeth’s acceptance. He recalled the glitter and breathless excitement of his first evening water party, seated at the queen’s right hand, the river reflecting the exploding fireworks overhead. Essex saw again the night he had secretly spirited himself out of London on the
Swiftsure,
hiding from the queen his sudden departure, and his rendezvous with her fleet, which was headed for an attack on Lisbon. Elizabeth had previously demanded that her new favorite attend her at Court, expressly forbidding him to join Francis Drake ’s raiding party of King Philip’s second Armada lying at anchor in Lisbon Harbor. Risking royal displeasure, Essex had, with clandestine precision, outfitted the
Swiftsure
at his own expense, and with blatant disregard of her orders, had joined the expedition already at sea. Some thought him merely foolhardy, others outrageous, but his brave—if theatrical—exploits in Portugal had profited him enough fame to outweigh the queen’s displeasure. His reputation as a national hero had sprung from that journey, and a popularity so broad that the long, square,

“shovel-shaped” beard he ’d returned wearing had quickly become all the rage in London, with nobles and common men alike copying the style. And the journey had begun
here,
on the River Thames.

In the space of his musings, the barge had reached the Greenwich quay. As he disembarked Essex began again the obsessive argument with himself of whether to discuss, first, the subject of Francis Bacon, or the Farm of Sweet Wines, and therefore barely registered the hubbub that surrounded the almost barbaric-looking galley docked beside him. The Dockmaster was engaged in a heated exchange with the ship’s captain, but Essex dismissed it. Shiploads full of exotics and extravagances had been arriving for weeks now, in preparation for the queen’s sixtieth-birthday celebration, a round of festivities that promised to eclipse all those that had come before it, and he took no notice of several guards trotting from the tower gate up the elevation toward the galley.

Greenwich was a great, redbricked hodgepodge of a castle, whose long main wing with its row of high, transited windows overlooked the river.

Essex moved along the brick path to the south gate, accepting greetings from gentlemen of the Court—young and old, high peers and eager hopefuls. Their demeanor was deferential, even, he thought with an inward smile, reverential. He, of course, returned the salutations with a warm grace that never failed to delight the recipient. Essex’s pace was leisurely, with an eye to prolonging the pleasure of adulation, but today there was further reason to take his time. He was playing a game with himself, wondering where he would find the queen. He prided himself on knowing her well, guessing her mood. He ’d even memorized her schedule. Now as she grew older it became more regimented, both daily and weekly.