Waking Elizabeth (26 page)

Chapter
28

W
e exited the castle
and made our way down the main street and up a hill towards the center of
town.
 
I could see the church steeple and
my heart seized momentarily in my chest.
 
Was I ready for this?
 
As upsetting as the day had been, I wondered
if I would be able to take it.
 
This
would certainly be the hardest thing I would do, probably harder then visiting
my own grave.
 
I silently chastised
myself for using the word
my
when
reliving my venture to Elizabeth’s tomb.
 
It was yet more evidence that the line separating our lives was nearly
invisible.
 

As
we arrived at the arched gray door of the church Thomas pushed it open so I
could enter before him.
 
The church was
quiet, as one would expect for a Tuesday evening.
 
There was a candle burning in the entryway
with a guest book close by.
 
An elderly
lady appeared from around the corner and greeted us with a whisper.
 

“Come
in and welcome,” she said, ushering us inside, “Are you visiting?”

“Yes,”
I whispered in return as Thomas stood stoically by me.

“You’re
from the US,” she smiled, “The accent gives you away.
 
What brings you to our little church?”

“I’m
here to see Robert Dudley,” I said, a ripple of goose bumps spreading across my
arms as I said his name.
  

“You
must be fond of history.
 
We get a few
people coming in to search for him but the normal tourist doesn’t even know
he’s here.
 
Come, this way.
 
He’s down in the Beauchamp Chapel.”
 

I
followed the woman as she shuffled quietly along the stone floor.
 
We went through the main nave and down a
short set of stairs to a chapel located below the rest.
 
I passed underneath the stone arch into the
chapel that held a black and white checkerboard floor.
 
The ceilings rose above me, and the sun was
sparsely shining through the stained glass on the far wall.
 
Our elderly guide immediately went to the far
corner and lit a candle on the wall.

“I’ll
leave you.
 
If you have any questions you
can stop by on your way out,” she offered a smile as she padded up the
stairs.
 

“I’ll
wait here,” Thomas said as he took a chair that was situated by the doors.
 
I looked around the room and noticed a large
gilded tomb in the center.
 
Slightly to
the right was another tomb and farther in toward the stained glass was yet
another.
 
I walked towards the one in the
center, assuming it was the one I sought when something pulled my attention to
the far left wall.
 
I could see black
iron bars with gold inlay along with the crest of a lion.
 
Behind the bars was a magnificent shrine of
gold and blue that towered above everything else in the room.
 
It was glorious.
 
I walked towards it, knowing it was him
before getting close enough to read the inscription.
 
My hands clenched into fists as I neared the
iron bars that housed the tomb.
 
He was
there, in an exquisite marble effigy, dressed in blue and gold befitting a
king.
 
His hands were clasped as if in
prayer, his vacant marble eyes staring towards the sky.
 
Beside him lay another effigy, that of a
woman dressed in a long red robe.
 
Anger
rose in my throat when I saw her and I wondered at its cause.
 
I placed my hand on the cold marble of his
hand, my eyes closing in thought.
 
Immediately I was back in the somber dark room at the open window where
I mourned his death.
 
The pain hit me
like a tidal wave, suffocating and unrelenting.
 
Tears welled in my throat and I had trouble catching my breath.
 
I could hear the familiar banging on the
door, demanding entry.
 
I opened the
window, reaching for the rain that echoed my mourning.
 
Suddenly the vision changed.
 
I was in bed, frail and weak, unable to speak.
 
My body hurt beyond words and there were
people crying all around me in whispered tones.
 
My room was draped in black and there was a priest in the corner that
prayed.
 
I was dying.
 
I welcomed it.
 
I could bare the pain of this life no
longer.
 
I was worried for my people but
I was ready to go.
 
I imagined him
waiting for me, welcoming me and I used all the strength I could muster to turn
my head towards a table beside the bed.
 
I raised my shaking finger towards a box situated upon it.
 
I motioned with my eyes, unable to speak and
a woman next to me opened the box and reached inside.
 
Slowly she withdrew the folded piece of paper
and handed it to me.
 
I could see my
beautiful handwriting scrawled across it with the words I had placed there
sixteen years before.
 
His Last Letter.
 
I placed it on my chest, directly above my
heart and clenched it as tightly as I could.
 
It was the only thing I had left of him.
 
I closed my eyes and imagined him as he wrote it.
 
He was already ill but assured me that he would
be well enough to return to me soon.
 
It
was not to be.
 
I would never see him
again.
 
I wondered if he had thought
about me in his last breath as I thought of him.
 
I remembered a time when we were young as we
laid upon blankets spread across the grassy hill at Hatfield.
 
I laughed at him as he attempted to write me
a poem.
 
His young and handsome face
glowing in the sun.
 

“Marry
me, Elizabeth, before you are queen,” he said, taking my hand in his and
kissing the tips of my fingers.

“Why
before, Sir?” I asked him, my voice light and worry free.
 
A sound that I would grow to miss as I aged
and life took its toll.
 

“Because,
when you are queen you will seek the love of others and I will be nothing to
you,” he answered, his dark eyes possessing mine.

“You
could never be nothing to me,” I reassured him, playfully running my fingers
through his hair.

“I
pray it is so, my love,” he answered.
 

As
I lay there in my frail body, fighting for my last few moments before death I
remembered a time years later when I was indeed queen and celebrating at his
magnificent castle I had bestowed him.
 
It had been a magical week of festivities and we had retired alone to
our adjoined bedchambers where we were seated before a fire.
 

“Marry
me, Elizabeth,” he asked somberly as if he already knew the answer.
 
His hair was graying and there were lines
around his dark eyes.
 
He had aged
beautiful into a ruggedly handsome man and my love for him had grown with each
and every line etched on his face.

I reached
for him, running my fingers across his lips, “You know I will never love
another.”

He
grasped my hand and pressed it to his lips in desperation, “I don’t want to
share you with anyone, not man nor country.”

I
shook my head, “You must.
 
We were always
meant to be together but forever disjoined.”

“Why?
 
Why must we?
 
You are queen, you can do what you like!”

I
allowed him his moment of anger, mindful of his years of sacrifice on my
behalf, “Robin, in another life, in another time we would be married and I
could bear you sons and daughters.
 
We
could go about our lives expressing the love we feel with never the need to
hide.
 
But I was not born to that time
and place, and neither were you.”

Frustrated
he pulled away from me and his distance broke my heart, “Then I curse this time
and this life and demand another!” he said angrily.

I
reached for him, pulling him towards me and bringing his head to mine.
 
I could feel the tears that ran down his
rugged face, “Curse this life then and may the Gods hear your cry and meet your
demands in another life.”

His
lips seared across mine, “We are destined to be together Elizabeth, in some way
in some time, you are meant to be mine.”

I
smiled as I lay on my death bed, his words echoing in my mind which was now
void of any duty and worry towards my country.
 
I had given my life and sacrificed my happiness for my people.
 
It was time to let go.
 
It was time to be his.
 
I could hear him calling to me like he did
when we were children.
 
His voice was my
last thought in this world.
 
His name was
the last word that crossed my lips.

I
opened my tear filled eyes and gazed upon our hands, mine flesh and blood and
his hard cold marble.
 
I cried out
involuntarily, still reeling from her pain and sank to the floor.
 
Thomas shot across the room towards me and
was reaching for me when we both heard a voice from the doorway.

“Ellie!”

I
knew it was him before I even turned around.
 
Ronan rushed towards both of us and Thomas immediately backed out of the
way.
 
He sank to the floor next to me and
pulled me into his arms, “Why?
 
Why would
you come here alone?”

Thomas
was hesitant to leave my side, “Ms. Regan?”

“I’m
fine Thomas,” I choked back my tears.

Thomas
took the steps two at a time as he exited the chapel.

Ronan
lifted my face to his, “Ellie,” he shook his head, “Can you forgive me?”

“I’m
so damn angry with you!
 
How could you
not tell me?
 
How could you let me find
out that way?”
 
I fought to free myself
from his grasp but he wouldn’t allow it.
  
I was exhausted, depleted of strength and no match for his vice like
grip.
 

“I
wanted to tell you a thousand times but you were so fragile and dealing with so
much, I was hesitant to add to it.
 
And,
part of me wondered if you would believe me.”

I
thought about his answer and I had to question it myself.
 
Would I
have believed him?
 

I
shook my head, my recollection of her dying thoughts still too much to bear, “I
shouldn’t have come here, you were right.
 
It’s too much.”

“I
know.
 
I’ve experienced his death a dozen
times and it’s excruciatingly painful,” he whispered, pulling my head into his
shoulder, “It does get easier, I promise.”

“I
saw him propose to her twice,” I brushed the tears from my face, “Once when
they were young before she was queen and then another at his castle.”

Ronan
chuckled, “Twice?
 
Then you are dozens
and dozens behind.
 
He proposed a hundred
times, each one more sincere than the first.”

“He
did?”

“Yes,
he did.
 
I’ve relieved his proposals for
the last twenty years,” Ronan gently stroked my head, “He always asked, even
though he knew she would say no.”

“She
thought about it, on her death bed.
 
As
she was dying she pointed to a box beside the bed.”

“His
letter,” Ronan whispered, “The last letter he wrote her from Bath.”

“It
must have been.
 
She held it to her heart
and remembered when he had proposed at his estate …”

“Kenilworth?”

“I
guess so.
 
She was there for days and
days and one night they were alone in their rooms and he proposed again.
 
She denied him, of course, and told him in
another life or time they could have been together, had children together.”

Ronan
was silent, “I’ve had the same vision.”

I
pulled away from him, looking at him in disbelief, “You have?”

“Yes,”
Ronan offered a weathered smile, “He becomes angry with her and curses this
life and demands another,” Ronan reached down and wiped a stray tear from my
face, “And she tells him to do it, to curse this life and demand another in
hopes that his demands are met by the Gods.”

It
was as if he was in my mind.
 
He knew not
only his own words but hers as well, “It was the last thing she thought of
before she died.”