Watch the Lady (53 page)

“God put me on this throne against all the odds and will ensure I remain here, if it is His wish.” Her eyes turn to the ceiling. She clicks her fingers, asking a page for sweetmeats, and goes back to her cards, as if the only thing that merits her focus in this moment is the game.

The page brings a dish of fancies; the Queen puts one in her mouth, licking the sugar from her lips with a darting tongue. “Go on, Pygmy. They are delicious.” She pushes the plate in his direction. He helps himself, out of politeness. It sticks to the roof of his mouth and the extreme sweetness exacerbates a toothache that has been niggling for some time.

He lays down his hand: a desultory collection of mismatched threes and fours. Hers reveals a run of hearts—ten, knave, queen, king. “I hope you're not letting me win. I wouldn't like that.”

He shakes his head, mumbling, his mouth too full of the gluey confection to speak properly. She picks out the queen of hearts, holding it face up to Cecil. “Where is Lady Rich? Is she still at Essex House?”

“I believe so, madam.”

She flinches almost imperceptibly, as if a wasp has stung her but she doesn't want to show she is in pain.

Penelope still hears the echo of her brother's shouts as he paraded down the Strand towards the city. “For the Queen! For the Queen! A plot is laid for my life!” A lackluster cheer had gone up in response, nothing like the great roars of support she has heard for him in the past, and she listened out for the chant of
Ess-ex
,
Ess-ex
,
Ess-ex
but it didn't come. She makes a silent prayer of thanks for Gorges's thousand men. In her mind that multitude has become like a biblical miracle—a horde from nothing. She hopes God is on their side, wishes she could feel sure of it.

Not knowing what else to do, she makes for the chapel, finding Frances there, hunched over the prayer stand. She looks up as Penelope enters; their eyes meet and they nod solemnly like mourners at a funeral. Penelope kneels beside her sister-in-law and, pressing her palms together, pours her heart out, beseeching God to save her brother, to save them all. She asks for a sign; but nothing comes, no ray of light falling through the window, no thunderclap, nothing, only one of her brother's guards who sidles in, standing behind them, clearing his throat to gain their attention.

She turns to look at him, struck by his youth—what is he: thirteen, fourteen perhaps? He carries a musket that dwarfs him and she cannot help but think of her own boys and young Robert, who stands to inherit this mess, thankful they are out of the way. But who will help
this
lad if it comes to the worst? She can feel tears smarting in the roots of her eyes for this boy she has never seen before.

“Your uncle requests that you go to him, my lady.” He blushes as he speaks—unused to women of rank, she supposes. She wants to tell him to leave, to go home to his mother.

The two women rise and follow the boy out. She slips her arm through Frances's. Her body is unyielding. The boy's feet whisper on the floorboards of the long gallery—he is not even wearing proper boots—and her slippers slap out a rhythm, whilst Frances, who must have on hard-soled shoes, in preparation for flight perhaps, makes a
tap, tap, tap,
like a little drum to accompany them.

Meyrick is at the study door and seems relieved to see her. “See if you can calm them, my lady,” he says, slowly closing his eyes, with their colorless lashes, and opening them again—a small gesture of hopelessness. “They are becoming most agitated.”

“Why is my brother not back yet?” she asks. “It has been almost three hours.”

“I have had no news,” is all Meyrick says as he unlocks the door and opens it. She supposes he is hoping that she will be able to negotiate them all out of this situation, but she fears it has gone too far for that. She sends the boy to the kitchens for food. “The best our cook can produce. These are noble guests and ought to be treated as such.”

“How delightful,” says her uncle when they enter, as if this is merely a social gathering. He opens his arms and steps towards her with a smile that doesn't erase the crease of worry from between his eyes and, holding her hands in his, presses a dry kiss on each of her cheeks. She greets the others formally. Chief Justice Popham skewers the two women with a hard look and steps away as if they might give him the pox. His mouth is mean and his face is long, every plane and angle sharp.

“You are armed, my lady,” he says, glancing towards her waist, with a look that suggests the world has been turned on its head. His voice is phlegmy, quite at odds with his angular face.

“Oh, this!” She touches the sword, had forgotten about it. “I am wearing it for safekeeping. It is ceremonial—not really suitable for combat.” His look of distaste is impossible to misinterpret, and were it another day she might have laughed at him, given him a gentle ribbing.

She can hear the few men who were left to guard the house down in the yard talking and laughing—she wonders what they can find to laugh about but supposes these men are battle-hardened from her brother's campaigns, not tight with fear of the violence to come. They are the disaffected who have put all their hope in Essex and today marks the possibility of fulfillment. No wonder, then, that they are laughing.

Knollys begins to talk, but Popham speaks over him. “What do you say to your brother's treachery, my lady?”

“I do not think he means to be seditious, Lord Justice. He merely intends to remove those who seek to ill use Her Majesty.”

The man replies with a laugh. “We shall see about that.”

Uncle Knollys asserts himself now, saying, “We must do
all
we can to get him back here and disarmed. But I fear he has gone too far this time.”

She says nothing. There is nothing to say. Essex cannot return now; he must see this thing through, whatever its outcome.

“Aside from what Essex is up to in the city, you must be aware, my lady”—Popham says “my lady” as if it is ironic—“that you commit an offense of the highest degree to hold the Queen's envoys hostage. We bring the royal seal.” He points to the page boy, who stands to one side, holding a scroll of parchment carefully, as if it is alive. There are two large seals hanging from it. The boy's hands are chapped and he quakes slightly; she smiles at him. He drops his eyes.

“Hostages!” she says, as if the very thought is absurd. “You are
guests
. The earl has merely asked that you wait awhile for his return.” Her voice is steady as the untruth spills out.

“My husband had urgent business in the city,” adds Frances.

Popham arches his eyebrows, as if surprised to discover she has a voice.

“So the musketeers at the door are there for decoration? Perhaps they are made of painted plaster.” He emits a gurgle that might be a laugh, but his mouth is turned down so it is hard to say. “And the locked door is for our safety, I suppose.”

“I think it might be wise, my lady, to tell the guards to stand down and allow us to leave,” says the Lord Keeper with a pained expression. Despite the fact that it is February and there is no fire lit in the room, his forehead is glossed with sweat. Worcester is nodding in agreement. “I personally will vouch that we stayed here at Essex House of our own volition. That will be one less charge against him.”

“
You
may say that but I will not,” says Popham. “Essex deserves whatever fate awaits him. It is simply a question of how deep he intends to dig his own grave and who he will drag down with him.” Penelope clenches her fists, imagines her knuckles meeting the sharp bone of his cheek. “It is said that you have authority in this house, my lady.”

She holds his gaze, saying nothing.

He adds under his breath, “Only a fool would give such power to a woman, and one of such loose morals.”

She wants to pick him up on his mutterings, force him to explain himself, but it is Frances, standing quietly beside her, who surprises everyone by saying firmly, “That is no way to address Lady Rich.”

Uncle Knollys pipes up too. “Watch your tongue, sir. That is my niece you speak of.”

Popham ignores them both. “Do as your uncle says and perhaps
your
role in this will be overlooked.”

“I have found,” Penelope says, speaking in general to the company, “men of the law to be less loyal than most.” She is thinking not only of the Lord Chief Justice but also of fickle Francis Bacon.

Popham coughs pointedly, as if he will not dignify her words with a response. She is glad to see the doors opened and three servers enter with the food she ordered. They are silent as the dishes are laid out on the table. The cook has done them proud; it is quite a spread. Frances comments on the temperature, asking if anyone is feeling the cold and insisting that a scullion be sent up to light the fire, also suggesting some music as a diversion. It is a futile attempt to make this incarceration seem benign.

Uncle Knollys takes Penelope aside to say quietly, “Have us released. This is too great a folly. I cannot bear to watch this . . .” His voice trails off.

She thinks about it, but only for an instant. The idea of saving her own skin is tempting, but she gathers her fortitude. “Uncle, my hands are tied. I can do nothing without my brother's permission.” He looks crestfallen, so she adds, “But I will endeavor to contact him.” She will not, for she knows that these hostages give her brother traction in his struggle and she is not about to weaken his cause by feeling sentimental over a beloved uncle. They will be freed in good time and they are being well looked after according to their station.

Both women make their excuses eventually, after an excruciating hour of strained conversation and the enforced jollity of a musical interlude. They leave the chamber, walking in silence along the gallery before Frances gives Penelope's hand a squeeze and peels off back to the chapel. Penelope stands for a moment, looking out at the river, not knowing what to do with herself. She watches a bevy of swans glide eastward and a fat-bellied wherry lumbering slowly towards the south bank. Other little craft dip and duck on the surface of the water, transporting people here and there, unaware of the momentous happenings going on so close by.

She wonders about her brother, why he hasn't reappeared with his great army, keeps thinking she can hear the sound of a thousand pairs of feet marching along the Strand towards Whitehall. But hope is deceiving her. She supposes it must need time to muster such a multitude. On impulse she takes the back stairs to the courtyard, where the remaining guards greet her as if she is royalty, which niggles at her, for perhaps it is their foolhardy wish that she will be the King's sister by the end of the day. Her brother has never sought to take the throne but she has learned that the ambitions of those around him cannot be underestimated. She wonders, then, if perhaps Essex
did
dream of such a thing—after all, hubris can gather its own momentum; she dismisses the thought instantly.

“We are at your bidding, my lady. How can we serve you?” says one of the guards, standing to attention with a stamp of the feet, his weapon braced.

“If you truly wish to serve me,” she says loudly, directing her voice up towards the study window above, “then I would have the Lord Chief Justice's head on a platter.”

The men laugh and joke loudly about playing football with “Popham's noggin,” and Penelope instantly regrets her words, wondering if, at the end of all this, Popham will be sitting in judgment over her and her brother. It is a sobering thought.

There is a shout from beyond the riverside gate. “Hoy, it is I, Gorges! Open up.”

Gorges is alone, though Penelope can see beyond the open gate that he has a boat waiting with a man at the oars, and another pair sitting in the back, both armed.

“What news?” she says, trying to interpret from his expression whether things are going to plan in the city.

“Essex has sent me to accompany the hostages to the Privy Council and negotiate on his behalf.” His collar is ripped from his altercation with Southampton. He smiles and she feels foolish for having judged him on the set of his eyes, as if that said something about what lies beneath.

“Thank God for that,” she says, feeling relief wash over her—he must have his army behind him now. “It is best you refer to them as guests.” He nods, instantly understanding her meaning. “And my brother . . . the men are mustered?”

“Some, some.” He seems to be avoiding a direct answer.

“Some?”

“It is taking longer than we thought, my lady.” He has begun to stride towards the steps.

She follows him, running to catch up.

She is quite out of breath by the time they arrive at the door to the study. Meyrick, who is slouched on a stool, cradling his gun in his lap, stands. “What news, Gorges?”

“I am to take them to Whitehall on order of Essex.”

Meyrick nods, standing aside, slapping Gorges's shoulder. “Good man!”

Gorges is about to lift the latch when she grabs his arm and draws herself up to her full height, so he has to stop and listen to her. “Leave this to me.” She holds him firmly with her look, remembering how forceful he was with Southampton. “It needs careful handling.” What is it she sees flash over his face; is it alarm? She cannot tell, but it disturbs her nonetheless and she wonders what possessed her brother to choose this particular man for such a delicate mission.

They enter, with Meyrick hovering behind them. “My dear guests,” she says, “Gorges here has come from the city with news from my brother. It would seem he has been delayed and proposes that you reconvene at another time. He is most sorry to have inconvenienced you. Gorges will accompany you to Whitehall and the Privy Council by river.”