Watch the Lady (39 page)

The chain mail is making it difficult to breathe and she is struck by the thought of all these men on the battlefield, knee-deep in Irish mud, fighting for their lives. A wave of nausea moves through her. She can hear the whoops and cries, a trumpet blast, the terrified whinnying of horses whose hooves thunder to the urgent rattle of a drummer's beat: rat, tat-tat-tat-tat; the whistle of arrows, the slick swoosh of steel, the slice and clash as it meets like; cannon fire, a sound so deep you fear falling into it and never being found; lead balls thud to the ground, cracking through bone—a crescendo of dissonance building and building until it drops, leaving only the quivering groans and final exhalations of men. She plucks at the edges of the chain mail, trying to lift it away from her body.

“Let me help you out of that.” It is Meyrick, whose brutish bearing belies a kind disposition. He lifts the jangling garment off her. “I feared you would faint on us,” he says. “Do you need a drink, my lady?” In that moment she is deeply thankful that her brother will have loyal Meyrick at his side in Ireland.

“Will you keep him safe out there?”

He looks at her directly with those invisibly lashed eyes and says, “Do not vex yourself. God will be on our side.”

“Yes,” she replies faintly, remembering when it was that she started doubting God's plan—when Sidney died.

•  •  •

Later at Essex House Penelope dismisses the company, begging a few minutes alone with her brother, and, sitting at the virginals in the great chamber, begins to play. She looks over at the puppy, Fides, curled up by the hearth. He is so like Spero, yet not Spero. She thinks of her old companion and, as if he can read her thoughts, Fides looks over, tilting his head, gazing at her, daring her to love him.

She shuffles through her sheets of music, barely able to see in the dim light, resorting to a familiar tune, one of her favorites. “You danced to this on Twelfth Night,” she says, beginning to hum along, allowing the sounds to envelop her, the hammers meeting with the taut strings, sending out their precise reverberations.

“I danced with
her
!” He means the Queen, of course. He is stuffing his pipe with tobacco, pressing it down with his thumb.

“It was the first time she'd danced in months. Did you see Cecil?” Penelope says. Now he is sucking the flame into the pipe's bowl from the sole lit candle in the chamber, his face cast sharply in shadow.

“Mouth tight as a dog's sphincter.” He inhales and laughs, sending a stream of smoke into the room.

“Robin!” She pretends to be shocked but can't help her own laughter and she thinks of Cecil watching Essex shiftily, picking invisible dirt from his doublet, adjusting his ruff minutely, repositioning his chain of office. “It was good to have a chance to show the world you are back in her favor.”

“They may all think I am, but I am not, Sis.” He sighs. The black leather pouch containing his recent correspondence with King James dangles over his lap, half visible in the gloom.

“What do you mean?” Penelope is remembering how the Queen seemed in bliss as she allowed him to lead her through the steps, basking in the delighted smiles of her ladies. Penelope stood at the side counting the sour faces, a row of gargoyles: Ralegh, Cobham, Carew, Cecil—those who would happily see the Devereuxs take a tumble. If one falls, they all do. That is how it works.

“It is not the same. She no longer trusts me. I asked her lately if she had made a decision on the Court of Wards. She knows if I had charge of the Wards it would set my money worries behind me. I told her I could serve her better that way, could repay my debt to her. She has dangled this over me since Burghley died and left the vacancy. The Court of Wards made
him
rich beyond his dreams.” Penelope's doubts must show in her expression, for he adds, “I asked her nicely—not as if I'm entitled. Just as you have always told me I should, Sis: humble but not ingratiating.”

“And what did she say?”

“She changed the subject.” He slumps in his chair.

“But she was teasing, I'm sure. Did she not always play with you thus?”

“No, this was different. I can't describe in what way exactly, but . . .” He stops, covering his mouth with his hand, speaking through his fingers. “I'm scared, Sis.”

“Scared of what, of fighting?”

“Of failure.”

She goes to sit beside him, allowing him to rest his head on her breast like a child. “You have many friends. Take reassurance from that. You may have enemies at court but the people of England love you.” She runs her fingers through his dark curls. “You shall see tomorrow when you leave. They will line the streets, dozens deep. I know they will. They have had nothing but hardship these last years, with the plague and the famine and the constant fear of invasion.” She presses a fist to his chest. “They
need
you to bring them a victory—to bring them hope of a better future, of safety, of plenty. And you will. I know you will.” She can hear that dreadful battlefield cacophony at the back of her mind, but refuses to listen.

“A victory,” he echoes.

“And I will be here, with Blount, to ensure no one takes any liberties while you are gone. And there is this.” She holds up the black pouch. “This ensures us,” she hesitates. “This ensures
you
against failure.” Their eyes meet and she thinks she sees a faint fleck of brightness there. “
And
it is a chance to finish what Father started.” She regrets instantly bringing their father's squalid death into the room, for it hangs like a poisonous miasma in the silence.

“Do you think Father's death could have been prevented, had the Queen sent sufficient funds, as Mother always said?” he takes several insistent puffs on his pipe.

“I don't know.” She rubs her hand over his shoulders, feeling how knotted he is.

“Well, we do know Father spent every last penny of the Devereux fortune trying to keep the rebels at bay.” He stops, shifting his shoulders slightly beneath her hands. “
For England
. He lost our fortune for England.”

She says nothing, doesn't want to think of the consequences of that loss: her blighted marriage, his obligations to the Queen. She continues silently massaging at his tight muscles, her fingers alighting on a swelling at the edge of his shoulder blade. “What is this?” She lifts his shirt to look. “There is something—”

“What? What have you found?”

“I don't know, it is something sprouting here.” She angles herself to better capture the candlelight.

“Pull it out, whatever it is.” He sounds horrified, strung tighter than a viol. “Get rid of it!”

It is like a small wisp of thread protruding from a mound of distended flesh. She pinches it between her fingernails, whatever it is, and pulls. It slides easily out of his skin. She drops it into her palm, bringing it close to the light. A smallish white feather, like that from the underside of a goose, sits curled in her hand.

“Proof you are an angel,” she says, smiling, planting a kiss on his forehead, but he looks appalled.

“Or Icarus!” He spits the name out as if it is bitter in his mouth.

A sharp scrape emanates from the darkness at the far end of the room, a chair shifting perhaps. Fides growls quietly, ears pricked.

“Who's there?” Penelope says, sensing the hairs lift at her nape. She had assumed they were alone but the chamber is large and the only light comes from the hearth and the candle beside them. Her mind sorts through their conversation: what exactly was said—they discussed the Court of Wards, her brother's private conversations with the Queen, his fears, the Devereux finances . . . Did either of them mention the Scottish King by name or, God forbid, the letters themselves?

“It is I.” A figure emerges from the gloom, Francis Bacon rubbing his eyes with the heels of his slender hands and sniffing. “It's cold.” His face is ghostly white and he wraps his arms about himself.

“Bacon, what are you doing lurking in the dark like a thief?” Essex sounds bright, not freighted with the suspicion that Penelope feels creeping over her. But this is Francis Bacon, Essex's dear friend, who has proved his fidelity a thousand times over with all his secret information. She tries to set aside her personal dislike of him.

“I must have fallen asleep over my paperwork.” He sniffs once more.

“Come and sit here by the fire.” Essex pats the place beside him. “Warm yourself.”

Bacon settles in next to her brother, taking the pipe wordlessly and drawing on it deeply; it is a gesture that surprises Penelope in its familiarity.

“What were you working on?” Penelope asks.

“Some fellow has written a treatise on Henry IV and the ousting of King Richard. He dedicated it to you.” He directs his response at Essex, as if it were he who had asked the question. “I managed to get my hands on a copy. Thought I ought to go through it to see if it was nefarious.”

“Not another unwanted dedication,” says Essex. Penelope can see him tense up again and is annoyed with Bacon for giving him something new to worry about on the eve of his departure. She had deliberately kept her own knowledge of the tract quiet for that very reason.

“And is there anything in it that could do damage to Essex?” she says. She wants to interrogate him on where he came upon this treatise but doesn't want to make too much of it, for her brother's sake.

“I think it will rather visit trouble on the author.” He answers Essex, still ignoring Penelope. “Much of it is plucked from Tacitus.”

“We will make sure it is dealt with, won't we, Bacon?”

Even now, having been addressed so directly and by name, he doesn't look at her. “Yes, yes, nothing to fret over.” He has begun to massage Essex's shoulders, as
she
was only moments ago. She wants to push him away, tell him to leave them alone, and wonders if it is jealousy or suspicion that is prodding at her. She catches him staring at the black leather pouch that is tucked into the folds of Essex's shirt. “What do you keep in there? Pictures of your mistresses?”

“Something like that,” Essex replies.

Looking down, Penelope notices that the curled white feather has fallen to the floor.

Row upon row of orange-clad horsemen stand to attention in the great court. The earl has managed to muster a vast army and it is said this is only a fraction of it. Thousands more will join them en route to Holyhead. They set out from Seething Lane this morning and a great horde of people had gathered along the roadsides to wave and cheer. Cecil had had to negotiate his way through them to get to the palace, and he can see them now pressing at the gates, climbing on each other's shoulders and up to perch on the walls, just for a glimpse of their hero.

But even Cecil is impressed by the neat lines, the horses brushed to a sheen, hooves oiled, bridles gleaming, and the men, poker straight, lifting their weapons in unison as the Queen steps onto the balcony. Perhaps with this lot Essex will do what none have done yet and quell the rebels. He wonders if he has made an erroneous move in quietly negotiating the earl's promotion to Ireland. But then again perhaps Essex will fail, as his father did before him. Cecil has pondered on all this for some time: whether victory in Ireland is worth the price of putting Essex beyond his reach and he no longer has Burghley to go to when he loses the courage of his convictions.

Taking a sharp breath to pull himself up before memories of his father overwhelm him, he finds an image appearing unbidden in his mind, of the earl lying, bloody, on a battlefield, all his splendid finery smeared with mud and gore. He is feebly tugging at the stump of an arrow lodged in his breast. No, the picture shifts, he is standing alone in a bleak wilderness, abandoned by his men, divested of his armor, just his orange sash, filthy, flapping ragged in the wind. A shot comes from nowhere, exploding into his chest; he falls with a howl, clasping the mess that was once his heart. His hands ooze crimson. Cecil can feel the weight of the musket in his own hand, can smell the gunpowder. It is the scent of celebration, of firework displays. Feeling suddenly adulterated, sickened by his own thoughts, he wishes he could make contact with the good part of himself.

Essex vaults from his horse, flinging the reins to Southampton—another of Burghley's glittering protégés. He is too young to have been one of his boyhood tormentors but he is just like them. And Southampton is on that bleak heath beside the earl. Cecil stops that thought in its tracks. He must not blow the flames of his ugly side. Another brisk inhalation into his lungs, and he straightens himself to his full height, feeling his bent back crack satisfyingly as he does so. Do not compare yourself, he says silently, we are all God's creatures. He forces a smile onto his face and sends up a prayer for victory. But he is being disingenuous even with God.

Essex has climbed the steps and is kneeling before the Queen, kissing her hand, and she is telling him once more that he must not “under any circumstances—any circumstances”—she repeats it looking directly into his eyes—“Do not under any circumstances capitulate with the earl of Tyrone. He is our enemy. He must be fully crushed.”

“I am commanded,” says the earl, getting to his feet as a cheer spreads through the crowd, from those who can hear, outwards, like ripples in a pond.

Cecil looks over to Blount, who is nearby, standing between Lady Rich and Francis Bacon. Blount is not cheering, neither is Lady Rich. On Bacon's boyish face there is something like a smile. But Cecil doesn't know what it means. Francis Bacon approached him this morning, asked for a private appointment, which has roused his curiosity. There has been little love lost between him and his cousin Francis since he was overlooked for the job of attorney general in favor of Cecil's candidate. But that was years ago and perhaps Cousin Francis is ready to reenter the family fold, unless he intends on double-dealing. It remains to be seen.