Elizabeth I (16 page)

Oh, he was tiny! A ripple of disappointment passed through me. The rest of the hearsay must be true as well. Now he was lifting his face and I beheld it. His nose
was
large, outsized for the rest of his face. His beard was patchy, his chin receding, and his face
did
have pockmarks. They were not the craterlike circles of gossip but were quite noticeable, and his poor excuse of a beard did little to hide them. Now he smiled. At least he had good teeth—white, even, and none missing.

“Your Majesty is disappointed,” he said. “I can read it in your eyes. Ah, well, poor François is used to it. Why, my original name was Hercules, but after I took the pox and did not grow very big, I changed it to François. I did not deserve the glorious name of Hercules. And besides,” he said cheerfully, “this way I was not expected to slay lions, clean disgusting stables, or battle a venomous Hydra—unless, of course, you count my mother!”

I let out a laugh at Catherine de' Medici's expense. A Hydra indeed, with her many-headed ambitions.

François was attired in a shiny green doublet, with green hose as well, and a patterned half-length cloak. “I only need a lily pad, Your Majesty,” he said. “To be your true frog.”

Had he worn this just so he could remind me of the frog nickname? He was so sweet, so disarming. He had passed the first test. “I am touched,” I said, truthfully. “And I shall cherish my dear frog.”

“I shall swim in your good graces,” he said. “But I hope to be more than that.”

And so ensued our curious courtship. There were secret picnics, outings, and dinners. The very furtiveness of it was part of its lure. He was gallant, amusing, and humble. In the soft predawn of those summer mornings, I could stretch under my covers and murmur to myself, “Elizabeth, betrothed to a French prince.” The very words, “French prince,” had a magic to them.
Once upon a time there was an English queen who loved a French prince ....

I could still have children. It was not too late. I could embrace all those experiences of womanhood I had denied myself. What had begun as a cynical political gesture on my part—a protracted marriage negotiation between England and France would keep the French from signing a pact with Spain, and if Alençon would fight in the Netherlands at French expense, I then saved money and men—was turning into something more complicated.

I had not reckoned on his wooing in person, I had not reckoned on his being so personable, and I had not reckoned on losing my quasi-official consort to another woman at the same time. There were many things that were right about him. He was a prince, an heir of a royal house. His dignity and his credentials were equal to mine.

But my council, reflecting the feelings of my people, were not in favor of it. They did not know he was actually here, but they knew he was coming, having granted him a passport. After all these years of urging me to marry for the sake of the succession, suddenly they realized my wisdom in holding back and appreciated the advantages of having a Virgin Queen. Suddenly they could see nothing good about such a union. One of my subjects even had the temerity to write a pamphlet alleging that no young man without nefarious motives would be interested in a woman my age, and that if I had a child I would probably die, since I was too old. He also called Monsieur “an instrument of French uncleanness, a sorcerer by common vice and fame.” Outside my palace walls I could hear taunting voices singing “The Most Strange Wedding of the Frog and the Mouse.”

Before he arrived publicly, I had one thing I must do to settle my own mind. I must take him to see my astrologer, John Dee. Dee saw the future and cast horoscopes; he had selected my coronation day as the most favorable. I trusted him utterly.

So I enticed Simier and Monsieur out for what I pretended was a little sightseeing excursion on the river. Close-mouthed guards sat discreetly in back of the royal barge—indeed, they accompanied me most everywhere, silently and unobtrusively, but that is necessary for a ruler these days.

We plied our way upstream from Greenwich, past the wild Isle of Dogs, under London Bridge, past the mansions lined up between the city and Westminster.

“And now we leave the city for the country,” I said, as we swept past Westminster, continuing upstream. By this point the river was narrowing, and it was easy to see both banks as the barge kept to the middle. Green riverside paths, old oaks with vast, spreading crowns, and half-timbered inns lined the shores, with swans paddling lazily in the shallows. On the left bank, Barn Elms, where Walsingham lived—lived in ignorance of my royal visitor. Just after it came Mortlake, Dee's home village.

“We'll stop here,” I said suddenly. “There is someone I want you to meet.”

“A hidden suitor?” asked Monsieur. “Do you have them everywhere?”

That was an amusing thought. “This is where my astrologer and adviser lives,” I said. “He does not care to come to court.” After we docked and alighted, Monsieur and Simier craned their necks, looking for a grand house, but saw nothing of that sort. “It must be a long walk for us,” they said.

“No, it is just opposite the church.” Already we had attracted a crowd of followers, mainly children. “He lives in his mother's house.”

At that Monsieur burst out laughing, until Simier said, “So do you, my lord.”

Having Catherine de' Medici for my mother-in-law was not an appealing thought.

As we reached his cottage, suddenly the door flung open and John Dee peered out. He did not seem surprised or flustered to see me, as most would. “Pray enter.” He snapped the door shut behind us.

“Allow me to present my noble guests from France, envoys of François, Prince of Valois,” I said. Best to continue the disguise. “John, you were not a tad surprised to see me here? I come seldom. Usually you come to me at court.”

“I expected you,” he said. “I would be a poor astrologer if I did not.” He was tall, handsome, graceful—he would have made a perfect courtier, except that he lacked the slightest social instincts.

“I was treating my guests to the pleasures of a river excursion. Nothing is more lovely than a day here in high summer. Then, on a whim, I decided we should stop here, give them a glimpse of a small riverside village.”

“What of the mysteries of the past that you can call up?” asked Simier. He was strangely subdued.

“It isn't the past men fear,” said Monsieur, “but what is to come.”

“Indeed,” said Dee. He led us back through the cramped hall and then into an annex. I saw an array of skulls and stuffed animals crowded on shelves, as well as flasks filled with bilious green and angry red liquids and piles of rolled scrolls. But we did not stop here; he marched toward a murky chamber at the far end. Dee lit several candles. “This is better for what I wish to see,” he said. “The crystals and mirrors do not like the bright light.”

He unrolled some scrolls and began talking about how his studies showed that we English had rights to a world empire, and I could be queen of a British empire, and so on.

Hideously embarrassed that he should spout this in front of the French, I merely nodded. Dee and I must discuss this in private. Truly, the man had no sense of place and persons. “Let us leave the earthly realm for the stars,” I said. “You, who traffic in the constellations, reveal our
immediate
destinies.” Well he knew it was forbidden by law to cast my horoscope to predict my life span, but this was safe.

As did I, Dee turned to the topic with relief. “I always have yours at the ready,” he said, laying hold of a scroll. “I do it every week. This week's”—he spread its crackling surface out beside a candle—“specifies that in the months to come you will be constrained by conflicting loyalties, very strong ones.”

“Pish,” I said. “That is a general state of affairs. Come, come, give us a novelty.” Nodding toward Monsieur, I said quickly, “Now for my guest's horoscope.”

“I was born on March 18, 1555,” said Monsieur. “At Fontainebleau.”

Dee spread out two more scrolls and studied them intently, then stopped and consulted the celestial globe.

“I was the eighth of ten children,” said Monsieur helpfully. “I am of the royal house of France!” he blurted out.

Dee fastened his amber eyes on Monsieur. “Your birth date has told me well enough who you are,” he said, then bent back over the charts. “Your birth was favorable and so were your early years. Then, I see, there was misfortune—a setback.” He looked alarmed. “I—I see that you may be offered a kingdom ere long. I can tell you this, sir, you should grasp it, because it will make no difference in the end.”

Enough of this. I motioned to Dee to stop. “This is not a good day for you,” I said. “You are seeing little of matter. Show us some of your other toys.” It had been a mistake to come here.

After a polite interval had passed, I thanked Dee for his hospitality in our impromptu visit. On the way out, his mother appeared and Monsieur and Simier bowed and flattered her, asking if she were Dee's younger sister rather than his mother.

While they were so engaged, Dee whispered urgently in my ear, “I did not tell you the worst,” he said. “I saw in the duke's horoscope his miserable end. It is
biothanatos
, Your Majesty.”

It was so dire he had not dared to put it in English. But I knew my Greek, and what it meant was “violent death by suicide.”

With all these things before me, I knew it could not be. Part of me was relieved; the other part mourned. François arrived ceremoniously in a few days and was formally received at court. Our secret courtship was ours to remember and cherish, but under public scrutiny it was a different matter altogether. We were no longer our own selves but belonged to others.

Yet still I confounded even myself with the betrothal declaration before witnesses in the gallery at Whitehall. Why did I do it? There are those who see me as the master of all subtle games and political gestures, but in this case I was the slave of my own confusion. Perhaps I wanted to experience, just for a day, the emotions of a bride-to-be. For it lasted only a day. That night shrieks of fear and misgivings in my own mind kept me awake all night.

When the sun rose that morning, I knew I could not go through with it.

I told François that I could not pass such a night, ever again. I took the ring back. And closed the door on marriage forever.

Dee was right that François was doomed. He died a sad death from fever—not violence or suicide, unless it be suicide to venture onto a battlefield—only two years after leaving our shores—still fighting to claim some glory for himself in the ugly fields of the Netherlands. I wore mourning. I was mourning the death of my youth.

And Dudley? Eventually we resumed our relations, but always
she
was there between us. True, she stayed away from court, but that was small consolation. She was in the background, plotting and planning, like a spider. Their son died early, and they had no others. Dudley was heartbroken; besides his love for the boy, he was in desperate need of an heir. What good the granted title of Earl of Leicester, the vast estate and castle of Kenilworth, without a son to leave it to? And that had come true.

Both François and Dudley were gone, leaving no family trace, while Lettice and I remained, abiding.

A stirring, a strong burning smell wafted toward me. The sun had set on Mortlake, out the western window. Walsingham was groaning, turning. The past had flitted, full formed, all in only a moment; now it vanished. I was here once again. Frances had returned, her arms full of herbs, and she was putting some new ones on the fire. That had brought me back.

I smiled at her. The diary was gone off her chair. She had seen to that herself.