Watch the Lady (26 page)

Before they reach the house she sees the welcoming flicker of the hearth through the window. “I love this place. More than anywhere it feels like home.” She can't help counting down the hours they still have together here, before life will impinge once more on their bliss.

“It is our paradise.”

“Not paradise,” she says. “That implies we will lose it and it will be my sin that causes that loss.”

“You are no Eve.”

“Some would not agree.”

As they get to the steps a horse clatters into the yard; the rider, on seeing them, leaps from the saddle, flinging the reins to one of the stable lads.

“Who knows we are here?” asks Blount.

“No one—only the servants; they can be trusted. And my brother.” She reaches up to tuck her hair into her coif, finding a stray frond of hay, wondering if she looks as disheveled as she feels.

“I bring news from the Earl of Essex, my lady,” says the rider, proffering a letter.

“News from the French war,” she says, as if thinking out loud, taking it, feeling a knot of worry tighten in her throat, imagining it can only be bad news. She reaches for her purse, realizing she has nothing with her. “Do you have a penny?” she asks Blount, hoping this man will not spread the word that Lady Rich is alone at Wanstead with hay in her hair and a gentleman who is not her husband.

Blount gives the messenger two pennies and takes control, suggesting he go to the kitchens where he will find something to eat, asking if he needs a bed for the night.

Penelope looks at the letter, relieved to see her brother's own script, meaning he at least had a steady hand at the time of writing, calculating how long it might have taken this letter to arrive from Normandy. She walks up the steps and into the library, finding there are no candles lit and evening has appeared suddenly like an unwanted guest. She fumbles in the box for a taper, which she touches to a flame in the hearth. Sitting at her brother's desk she lights the candles, waiting a moment to gather her courage, running a finger over the familiar Devereux seal. She hears Blount enter the room quietly, not speaking or pressing her. She can hear the dog turning in circles before settling himself by the fire. Finally, she gathers her mettle to rip the seal and unfolds the paper, reading, unable to take in the words fully, so reading again. She feels tears begin to accumulate as if the root of her is being slowly squeezed out.

“Wat is dead, a bullet to the head. It was quick, he didn't suffer.” She sits slumped, still with her back to Blount, remembering Lettice and Essex fighting over whether her youngest brother should join him in France. The thought is too much for Penelope to bear, and she finds herself heaving with sorrow.

Blount pulls her to her feet, as if she is a doll, and holds her in a tight embrace, whispering, “I'm so, so sorry. So very sorry. I know how you loved your little brother.”

“I rocked him as a baby. I nursed him through the measles.”

It is some minutes until she has cried herself out.

“Poor Robin is in a desperate state out there. Rambling, beside himself with grief. Here—read for yourself.” She gives Blount the letter, scrumpled and sodden with her tears. She fears her brother has sunk into one of his black moods.

Blount scans the text. “He is not in his right mind. I will petition the Queen to have him recalled.”

“No.” She places a firm hand on his arm, pulling herself together. “It would be worse for him to return having achieved nothing. I know Robin—he will need to feel that Wat has not died in vain. At least if he stays, there is a chance he will turn matters to the good.”

They sit and watch the fire for some time and Penelope finds herself thinking, as she often has, of the first hart she shot on the hunt—her first blood. It was in the woods at Kenilworth; everybody congratulated her on the sharpness of her eye, her quick reflex, her deftness with a bow at such a tender age, but all she could think of was that magnificent creature felled by her own hand: the destruction of something beautiful.

“Congratulations on your elevation to the Privy Council,” Essex says. He wears a slick smile and his voice is smooth as goose fat, betraying none of the envy he is surely feeling at his adversary's elevation. The treacle-dark curls spill around his face, and some trick of the light makes his eyes, with their intensity of gaze, spellbinding. He has shrugged off his boyishness too. He left for France a youth and has returned a man. Cecil had watched him walk the length of the long gallery and seen the effect his passing had on the milling courtiers, like the wind on long grass, who bowed and bent and whispered in his wake. He is magnificent and Cecil feels himself—despite his high office, despite his influence, despite his clear favor with the Queen—a nonentity in comparison. How is it, he asks himself, that Essex returns from a French campaign that was, if not quite an unmitigated disaster, at best inconsequential, and yet he is filled with the swagger of a conquering hero, a Caesar?

“Yes,” Cecil forces a smile onto his face and looks up to meet those gleaming eyes. “It is a great honor.” Beneath his surface Cecil is seething at having been denied the opportunity of being the first to impart news of his preferment. He would have enjoyed observing Essex's reaction, the fleeting moment of unconcealed disappointment. But someone has usurped him and the earl's face is now an unreadable mask. Cecil wonders who told him. The sister, he supposes, imagining Lady Rich schooling him to hide his feelings. Someone must be shaping him, for he is a man greatly given to impetuosity.

Cecil can hear that musical voice of hers:
Do not show so much as a twitch, Brother. Smile, but not too broadly, and appear to have your mind on pressing things of import
. He can feel himself stirring at the thought of Lady Rich. She has left court now to birth an infant. His boy informer has said she is lying-in at her brother's house, not her husband's. The husband either knows nothing or says nothing, for Cecil has a strong suspicion that the baby is Blount's, but he has found no proof. Oh, how he would like that proof, but Lady Rich's women are tight as a fisted hand. What would he do with the information anyway, for the Queen seems determined to think Lady Rich, like her brother, can do no wrong?

Essex has a cluster of allies with him, the young Earl of Southampton is one, gaudily got up and winding a long strand of hair absently about his finger. Francis Bacon also hovers at Essex's side, clutching a ledger with a hand that is slender as a girl's. “I see you have found employment, Cousin Francis,” Cecil says to him, acknowledging inwardly that he and his father had misjudged Bacon's usefulness when they refused him a place—and now he has given his fine legal mind to Essex. His brother, Anthony, has joined the Essex camp too. Cecil's mind is whirring: Anthony may be half crippled these days but he was a cog in Walsingham's European espionage machine and will be feeding the earl with information gleaned from his contacts on the Continent. Cecil, having felt he had gained ground with his preferment, now feels outfoxed.

Essex talks loudly over Bacon's reply: “How sad that Her Majesty has not also made you Secretary of State, since you seem to perform the function of the role without recognition. The post has been vacant for some time now. When was it Walsingham passed away?”

Cecil does not bother answering; they all know the post has been open for almost two years. Is that a sneer or a smile, Cecil asks himself. Essex turns briefly to Bacon and Southampton. Did he wink at them? Southampton brings a hand to his mouth and coughs as if to disguise a laugh.

“The role on the Privy Council is enough—I merely seek to serve my Queen and country in the best way possible.” Cecil wishes he could think of a light and witty riposte but he is not given to verbal acrobatics.

“I have an audience. Mustn't keep Her Majesty waiting. Will you join us, Pyg—” Essex stops himself before uttering the name. No one but the Queen has ever called Cecil “Pygmy.” “Will you join us, Councillor?”

Cecil wonders what the ulterior motive might be. “With pleasure!” He ought to feign nonchalance and refuse, but he wants to see this, wants to see what happens when he reminds the Queen that Essex knighted no fewer than twenty-four of his army captains. The Queen is not wont to spread honors too thinly. When the dispatch had arrived informing her of the knighthoods, she had lost her temper in the council meeting and thrown her pomander across the room. He joins the earl's party, walking with them into the privy chamber, aware of Bacon's scrutiny.

Cecil makes an appraisal of the company: the Queen is seated talking quietly with her physician, Lopez. He is one of the few she trusts and it shows in her manner, relaxed and lighthearted, like an ordinary woman conversing with a dear friend. Ralegh is across the chamber lit by cool winter sunlight from the window, regarding Essex with a disdainful sneer. Now there is a man, thinks Cecil, who would like to see the earl brought down a peg or two; after all, it was Essex who usurped him in the Queen's affections. His mind begins to work up a plan of collaboration with Ralegh to recompense his loss of the Bacon brothers. Ralegh is a man of influence—he could do with that—but he is unpredictable and there is a rumor afoot that he has got one of the Queen's maids in the family way and wed her in secret. The maid in question is sitting at the Queen's feet, sewing, as if she wouldn't be fuzzled by wine. The pair of them might be traveling downriver to the Tower before long.

Cecil scans the chamber to see what other secrets it might reveal while Essex, seeming to forget himself, flings his person at the Queen, grabbing her hand and scattering it with kisses. The room falls silent, awaiting her response to this assault. But her face fills with delight at the earl's unrestrained outpouring.

“My dear boy,” she says. “I am glad to have you back. It is beneath you to have to play puppet to that faithless French popinjay. Isn't it good to have him back, Pygmy?”

“The pleasure is indescribable, madam.” Cecil wonders if perhaps he has overdone it, as the Queen expels a sharp snort of breath and rolls her eyes slightly.

Doctor Lopez has stepped to one side and is mixing some kind of tonic. Cecil notices another of the maids of the chamber gazing at Essex with a look of undisguised longing. She had been a conquest of his before he left for France—one of the many—if Cecil's informers are correct. The girl has run to fat and is looking quite plain these days, causing Cecil to wonder if she might not be calving with Essex's bastard. It is no wonder the Queen's women are gaining a reputation for their loose morals. Cecil's mind is shuffling all the fragments of information he is gathering, trying to make an entire picture of them.

“Now tell me, Essex, what have you gleaned abroad that might serve us here in England?”

Cecil watches on as they converse, Essex talking of the Spanish threat, how well fortified their coastal towns are, how many ships in their fleet, and which of those English Catholic exiles might be preparing to make an attempt on the Queen's life. This information must be coming from Anthony Bacon's continental network. Cecil can see Francis nodding in agreement and scribbling notes into his ledger. They are talking of Ireland now, and how Essex fears the Spaniards will seek a foothold there. Ralegh taps his foot impatiently as he watches.

“Will the Irish be a problem?” the Queen asks Cecil, taking the tonic from Doctor Lopez, sniffing it and swigging it back with a grimace. “Whatever do you put in this, Lopez? It is foul!” She smiles at the doctor, taking his hand. “I know you only seek my good health.”

“That could not be more true, Your Majesty,” the physician replies.

Cecil has a sudden realization about this Portuguese doctor. He thinks he once heard of Lopez having important contacts at the Spanish court that Walsingham had sought to exploit. He doubts his own memory—surely this genial old man was never a spy—but the thought twitches beneath his skin and he makes a mental note to look into the matter before the Essex camp get their claws into Lopez and his Spanish connections.

Putting his mind back to the conversation, Cecil says, “I think Ireland is a little close for comfort, but I see no evidence of the Spaniards seeking an allegiance with Tyrone.”

“Essex?” the Queen turns back to the earl.

“If we attack the Spanish fleet in the harbor at Cadiz, we eliminate all possible risk.”

“I think it is a little premature for that.” She sweeps her arm in Essex's direction as if to dismiss him as one would an irritating child. “What does your father think, Pygmy?” She turns back to Cecil, whose confidence begins to swell.

“He thinks we should watch the situation carefully.”

“Burghley is always right about these things.”

“Yes, my father has the species of wisdom that comes only with age.”

“Watch and wait, watch and wait,” the Queen says, echoing Burghley's oft-used expression.

There is a pocket of silence until Cecil speaks. “Her Majesty was most interested to hear of the knights you made in France, my lord.”

“Those men fought bravely,” says Essex. He is on the defensive at last, thinks Cecil. “They were greatly deserving of recognition.”

That maid is mooning at Essex; Cecil would like to knock some sense into the silly girl.

“And you decided to knight them all, despite my express command that you do not bestow honors at your whim.” The Queen is looking at her favorite gravely, and he appears cowed, seeming to lose a little of his luster. Cecil feels a puff of satisfaction in his breast.

“I beg your pardon for my audacity in the matter, Highness.” Essex is looking at the Queen with his infernally beautiful eyes. Cecil wills the earl to answer back, to try to justify his actions, a sure way to raise the Queen's ire. But he adds nothing, just drops his eyes to the floor in obeisance.