Dismayed gasps were heard from every corner, but the woman seemed entirely oblivious. She returned to her place before the queen as if nothing at all had happened.
“My good woman,” said Elizabeth, regaining her voice, “that handkerchief was a
gift
from Lord Essex.”
“Aye, and I soiled it with the contents of my nose, I’m afraid.” Suddenly Grace was aware that her actions had been perceived as a blunder.
“What would you have had me do, Your Majesty, put the filthy rag in my pocket?” She looked round at the assembled nobility with an incredulous expression and, unable to hide her amusement, added for all to hear,
“It appears we Irish hold to a higher standard of cleanliness than do the English.”
Essex blanched and Elizabeth sat as still as a post. The silence in the chamber was complete, all but the sound of the crackling fire and the rustle of the ladies’ taffeta dresses. In the next moment, Essex thought, the queen would certainly put an end to this rude and preposterous performance.
Instead she laughed.
All eyes turned to Elizabeth, who was roaring like a Drury Lane whore.
Essex, who best understood the queen’s bawdy humor, was the first to join in, but before long, as Elizabeth’s guffaws showed no signs of abat-ing, one after another of her courtiers, counselors, and ladies joined in the merriment, until the Presence Chamber resembled nothing less than the pit at the Globe Theatre during one of Mr. Shakespeare ’s comedies.
The Earl of Essex caught sight of Grace O’Malley. She too was laughing, but nothing, he saw quite clearly, could mask the fierceness of purpose that burned in the old woman’s eyes.
NOT TWO HOURS later Essex found himself on a secret mission.
He was mildly chagrined that the queen had made him a messenger boy. There were few people about, for the queen, after her audience with Grace O’Malley, had dismissed her court, announcing that there would be no entertainment this evening, none at all. The disappointed ladies and gentlemen had quickly dispersed, some of them no doubt headed for London’s taverns and others to the Bankside brothels.
The path to Greenwich landing was entirely deserted and dark, save for the torches flickering at intervals along the way. But up ahead Grace O’Malley’s vessel twinkled with welcoming light. Announcing himself to the sailor who guarded the plank, Essex was quickly given leave to board. He found Grace at the mess table below, sharing a companionable drink with several mates, and quickly requested a private word with her. He followed the woman down a passageway to her tiny cabin. Once the door had been shut behind them, she turned to face Essex.
“Well then, that was quick. When she said she ’d take my petitions under advisement, I expected to wait for her answers. And wait. And wait.”
“I haven’t come with answers to your petition.”
“What then?”
She had fixed Essex with that searching stare again, and he resisted the urge to look away.
“The queen wishes another audience. This one private.” Grace was unable to hide her surprise. “A private audience? When?”
“Now, Mistress O’Malley.”
She considered the request for only a moment before she reached for her cloak.
“The queen wishes you to come in disguise,” Essex added quickly.
“The meeting is to be more than private. Secret, in fact.”
“You look to be not much older than my son,” she said, a softness coming into her voice.
“The one imprisoned?”
She nodded once. “You know, the queen is my junior by three years, almost exactly.”
Essex waited for Grace O’Malley to make her point, and having known her but this short while, knew that indeed she would have a point to make.
“They say you were once her lover,” said Grace.
Ah, the point,
he thought, then said, “That is a private matter between the queen and myself . . . and rude of you to say.”
“So it is,” she replied.
He found he could not take his eyes off this woman.
“Do you plan to stay here while I change my clothes?” she asked with mild amusement.
“No!” He found himself flustered and, without another word, let himself out of Grace ’s cabin. Essex was suddenly suffocating in the close confines belowdecks and quickly climbed the stairs to topside. He gulped in the cool night air, trying to clear his head. This woman confused him, he realized, tipped him off balance. Comfortable as he was with the convoluted nature of Elizabeth’s mind, he was finding Grace O’Malley a troubling enigma.
She defied every law of femininity, at age sixty-three still an attractive spec-imen of her sex. She flaunted the protocol of Elizabeth’s Court as well as the laws of England, yet the queen appeared delighted with her.
Worse,
thought Essex,
she was able to see into his soul,
much the way Elizabeth did. Yet she was a stranger to him. A rude foreigner from a savage land.
“Robert . . .”
He turned to see that Grace O’Malley had, astonishingly, transformed herself into a man, an Irish sea captain, he presumed. She wore breeches and hose and a short jacket. Her hair was tucked beneath a cap.
Strangely, she looked at ease in the disguise, as if moving thus, between the sexes, came most naturally to her.
“May I call you Robert?”
“You may,” he said, “if you allow me to call you Grace.”
“Why not?” she said.
He realized that she liked him, and was curious as to why he was pleased by this. “Shall we go and see the queen?”
“If that is her pleasure.”
“I would offer you my arm,” he said, chagrined, “but you clearly have no need of it.”
Grace smiled. “I can see why it is Elizabeth had to have you in her bed. The question is, why in the world didn’t she keep you there?” HE HAD DELIVERED Grace O’Malley to the queen moments before. They’d entered her bedchamber via the secret passageway that connected Elizabeth’s apartments to his, the choice rooms that had, until his death, belonged to Robin Dudley. Essex always marveled at the
“Virgin Queen’s” brazenness in keeping her lover so close at hand. Now she wished himself to be near her, able to come and go from her private sanctuary at her command. Grace, in the guise of a man, had openly accompanied Essex to his rooms, and no one had been the wiser when she passed into Elizabeth’s sumptuous bedchamber.
Somehow the queen had divested herself of every last one of her waiting ladies, guaranteeing the privacy of their meeting. She ’d not bothered explaining her reasons for wanting to see Grace alone, only commanded Essex to stay in his rooms until he was called to take her out again the way she ’d been brought in.
It had been a searing image—the two female titans standing face-to-face before a blazing hearth, Grace removing her cap to allow the dark waves of silver-streaked hair to fall about her shoulders, and Elizabeth, even regal in her dressing gown, offering her guest one of two comfortable chairs by the fire.
Oh, mused Essex, to be a fly upon that walll. . .
WHEN THE DOOR to the secret passage clicked shut, Elizabeth smiled pleasantly and in English, rather than Latin, said, “Will you share some spiced wine with me?” Then she lowered herself, straight backed, into one of the chairs before the fire.
Grace smiled to herself, strangely gratified that the queen had found her out and replied, in English tinged with a heavy brogue, “I will have some, yes.”
“Where did you learn the language?” asked Elizabeth, suppressing a smile and pouring the warm wine into two heavy jewel-studded goblets.
Grace eyed the cups, recognizing how well they belonged in this insanely opulent room, its enormous Bed of State intricately carved with beasts and vines and flowers, every inch of wall and floor hung with rich Turkey carpets and tapestries shot with gold. The queen’s dressing gown was spun silver and powder blue, and embroidered with a thousand tiny pearls.
“When he was fourteen my son Tibbot was taken hostage and held in the home of your man Bingham. Spent several years there. Learned the language. After I liberated him and brought him home, he taught it to me. I thought it wise,” she added, “to know the language of my enemy.”
Damn my eyes!
thought Grace. She had promised herself to keep a civil tongue in her head. Well, what was the point, after all? Either the woman would grant her petitions or she would not. Grace raised her goblet. Its jewels sparkled in the firelight.
“To your health, Majesty.”
“And yours, Mistress O’Malley,” Elizabeth said, matching the gesture.
They both drank, then fell silent. Grace would let the woman speak first and explain why she ’d brought her here, in these highly mysterious circumstances.
“I’ve had very little time to consider your petitions,” the queen said finally, putting down her goblet, “and I am loath to make hasty decisions without a great deal more intelligence brought to bear on them. That is why I have invited you here this evening.” Grace regarded the queen with growing suspicion. “
I’m
to provide you with this intelligence?”
“Correct.”
“I’m afraid I don’t get your meanin’, Your Majesty.” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “In your written petition to me and in your answers to my interrogatory, you touched briefly on several subjects—the general state of western Connaught, your two marriages and three children, and the customs surrounding provisions made by Irish husbands, after their deaths, for their widows.”
“Aye. I took great pains with those answers.”
“Indeed you did.”
Elizabeth took up her cup again with long pale fingers that, Grace observed, had kept their youthful appearance much more than had the rest of the woman.
“I think perhaps you took
too much
care,” Elizabeth added.
“What in the world does that mean?”
“You mentioned nothing of your career in pirating—how you came to such a profession—nor the reasons for your imprisonment at Bingham’s hands, or Desmond’s, nor your part in the rebellion in Ireland.” Grace stared incredulously at the queen. “You’re askin’ me to spill the contents of my soul to you, right here and now?” Her voice grew more sarcastic. “So’s you can make an ‘informed decision’ about my son’s release, my pension, and the fate of that lame little prick Richard Bingham?”
Elizabeth nodded, straight-faced.
“Pigs’ll fly first, Your Majesty.” Grace stood to go.
“Please . . . ,” said Elizabeth.
The Queen of England, Grace realized, was begging her not to go.
She stared down at her. Elizabeth was old and her teeth were going brown. And only Jesus knew how many wrinkles and pox marks were hidden beneath the white alum face paint. But the woman still had a fire in her eye, and inside her head was a steely mind. Despite a thousand contrary reasons, Grace was forced to admit she
liked
Elizabeth. This was irritating beyond measure, but that was the truth of it.
“Let’s you and me do a bit of negotiatin’,” said Grace.
“Like a fisherman and a fishmonger for a boatload of cod?”
“Somethin’ like that. You tell me honestly why you want to hear my story. And none of this business about needin’ more intelligence. You convince me
properly
of your reasons, and I’ll spill my guts to you. After all, I’m Irish and I love hearin’ myself talk as much as the next person.” Elizabeth suddenly looked sheepish, and with dismay Grace reckoned that she had overplayed her hand. But there was nothing to be done.
Either the queen would reveal herself, or Grace would be shown the door, perhaps having sabotaged the happy outcome she had hoped to secure for her requests.
“I have in many respects led an extraordinarily sheltered life,” Elizabeth began.
Grace attended the queen’s words respectfully and lowered herself back into her chair. She was very still as Elizabeth collected her thoughts which, it was obvious, she had never expected to have extracted from her this evening.
“Whilst I have treated with the princes of every nation, with ambas-sadors and spies, engaged in commerce with all of the continent, financed privateering missions from the West Indies to the west coast of America, even conducted wars, I have never
once
left this island. My life, since infancy to the present moment, has been closely observed—scruti-nized—and carefully arranged for me. The life of a princess and a queen, whilst pregnant with education and luxury and endless opportunity, is nevertheless a gilded prison. I am bound tightly by protocol. I have no privacy. Until the cessation of my monthly courses, my sheets were thoroughly examined by my waiting women and my physicians.
When I chose not to marry, I created an uproar which to this day has left me no peace, and when I chose to love, I was besieged by my councilors who frothed at the mouth at my outrageousness. My lover was universally despised, vilely punished for the crime of receiving my love. For political reasons as much as personal, I chose spinsterhood, and my punishment has been a Council, a Parliament, and a people who are obsessed with the name of my successor. These are not complaints, but they are the facts of my existence. An existence . . . which can be no more different than your own.
“You desire the truth of my motives, Mistress O’Malley. The truth is, I am overbrimming with curiosity about a life such as yours. You are, like myself, like my mother before me, a woman with the soul of a man. This is rare. But what is rarer still is your wealth of experience in the wide world. You have traveled, I understand, as far as Africa. You have won the loyalty of many hundreds of men, captained fleets of ships, boarded enemy vessels on the high seas. You have fought hand to hand with men with guns and steel. And you claim two husbands and three children of your body. ’Tis a rich life,” said Elizabeth, holding Grace ’s eye, “and I am hungry to know it in every detail.”
“Well,” Grace said finally, “that had the ring of truth about it. And a deal’s a deal.” She stood abruptly and moved to Elizabeth’s bed, grabbing a large feather pillow, then returned and thrust it at the queen. “You might be needin’ to stick that under your arse, and I’d best throw another log on the fire.”
Elizabeth, bemused, did as she was told, pushing back amongst the cushions till she was comfortable. Grace was suddenly in charge of the evening, the queen a guest in her own apartments. Filling Elizabeth’s cup and then her own, Grace began to speak.