The Queen's Bastard Page 12

  “I need a soft mattress or several long pillows set by the fire,” he announced.

  With a look between them, Mary and Kat brought covers from the bed and made a soft lying-down spot before the hearth, which was now blazing with white heat.

  “Come, ladies, help me lift her.”

  With his directions and strong hands guiding, the three of them carefully moved Elizabeth’s red-cocooned body onto the makeshift bed near the fire.

  Bustling back to his parcel, he now removed several flasks and bottles and set them up on Elizabeth’s silver-topped table, forcing himself to ignore the Queen’s pained moaning. Kat and Mary fluttered in subdued panic, for they had abetted this man’s ministrations, and knew not whether he would cure the Queen or kill her. If he killed her, the blame could fall on their heads. Kneeling at the Queen’s side, the ladies watched as Burcot poured and mixed powders and viscous liquids in a cup. He stirred the potion with a metal rod, first one direction twelve times, and then the other. When he seemed satisfied with his brew he approached and knelt between the Queen’s women.

  “Your Majesty,” he whispered in her ear, “I believe in some part of yourself you can hear me. You are very weak and ill, as the infection is bound up inside your body, refusing to move outward into your skin.”

  With his words Elizabeth moaned piteously, and the doctor seemed to understand her wordless cries.

  “I know, I know you fear the blisters and pockmarks, but if we cannot bring them to the surface you will certainly die. And what, Majesty, are a few spots and scars compared to your life? I beg you, drink what I have in this cup. Let me lift your head.” He did this with the utmost care, placing the cup to Elizabeth’s shriveled lips. She obeyed the doctor, her eyes fluttering open to peer into his face as she did. Mary inched forward as the Queen took the last drops of the liquid, and she thought she heard Elizabeth utter the words “very comfortable.” Burcot laid her back down and urged her to close her eyes, rest, and let the heat and the medicine do their work.

  He beckoned both women close and whispered, “I will stand vigil for now. If you are to be of any help when the Queen moves into the next phase of her illness, you must be alert, and I see you are both light-headed and utterly exhausted. Take your rest, good ladies, and as you lie yourselves down, pray for the Queen, for her fate is surely in God’s hands.”

  Ten hours after Doctor Burcot had entered Elizabeth’s room the men of the Privy Council, Mary and Henry Sidney, and Robin Dudley milled about before her bedchamber door, chatting in low nervous tones. They had, in fact, been summoned by the Queen herself. She had climbed laboriously from her stuporous condition to a state of consciousness within moments of breaking out in the angry red spots of smallpox. Whilst Doctor Burcot seemed guardedly pleased at the results of his treatment, the Queen’s condition was still grave indeed, and she had insisted on speaking to her council on the chance that she might still succumb.

  The bedchamber door opened and Kat called the assemblage inside. They grouped themselves round the bed where Elizabeth again lay. ’Twas hurtful for them all to see her in such condition, the once perfect skin inflamed with welts beginning to blister — spots they all knew might transform the lovely face into a grotesquely disfigured mask. Her voice was so weak that they were forced to come nearer. Though each of them felt a moment of fear for his own life, nonetheless they remained dignified as they strained to hear Elizabeth’s words.

  “Forgive me, my lords, for so inconvenient a council, but I fear the thread of my life is thin to breaking, and I have not yet given you direction should I die.”

  Thank Christ, she is finally naming her successor, thought Cecil, breathing so deep a sigh of relief he worried that all might have heard it. The weight of the decision, be it wise or foolish, should rightly fall upon the shoulders of the Queen and not on the men of the Privy Council.

  “I wish to name” — she cleared her throat and took a long ragged breath before continuing — “Lord Robert Dudley as Protector of the Realm.”

  There was not one soul in the room, including Dudley himself, who did not gasp or start or blink uncomprehendingly at the Queen’s pronouncement. She went on, either unknowing or uncaring of the great storm of emotion she had produced in the hearts of those assembled.

  “Give him a title. Give him a pension of twenty thousand pounds a year, and to his servant Tamworth five hundred a year for the rest of his life.”

  This was, for William Cecil, too much to bear. He was forced to turn away in order to compose his features. Elizabeth, even in her dreadful condition, could not help but notice.

  “William, my faithful Secretary. My good friend,” she whispered. “Come, look at me.”

  Cecil strove to quiet the raging fury that shook his body and made his eyes water. He willed himself to turn back to the Queen.

  “I know you are angry with me, Cecil.” Then she went on, moving her eyes round to the other faces surrounding her, “But I tell you, my lords, with God as my witness, that although I loved Robert Dudley with my heart and soul, nothing improper ever did pass between us.”

  William Cecil’s head was spinning. Here lay a woman, a queen he did love and admire and whom he had served with loyalty. A woman whom all in this room knew unquestionably to be the lover of the man she had moments before, in an outrageous act, named Protector of the Realm. And then, as if to add insult to injury, she had bequeathed an unbelievable pension to the servant of her lover’s bedchamber, keeper of their most secret comings and goings. Did she take them all for fools? Elizabeth Tudor lay there on her deathbed and, with God as her witness, lied in so barefaced a way that Cecil thought he might himself be struck dumb for the rest of his days. For a fleeting moment it occurred to him that this was his punishment for spiriting away Elizabeth and Dudley’s living child and replacing it with a dead one.

  But then a new thought displaced the first — that even in extremis Elizabeth, Queen of England, was indeed the ultimate prince and statesman. She knew that long after the men in this room were reduced to dust, history would record her words for all posterity as the truth. She, like her father Henry VIII, did hold herself, if not above God, then shoulder to shoulder with him, and she dared fearlessly to lie in his name. Her will, in any event, would be done, and in death she would be remembered as she desired — as good and virtuous, the Virgin Queen.

  Cecil was so beguiled by his wayward thoughts that he never heard Elizabeth commend her Boleyn cousin Lord Hunsdon to the council’s kindness, and all the members of her household as well. Then she asked them all to pray for her, bade them farewell, telling them she loved them every one, and sent them away — all of them but Robin Dudley.

  The Privy Councillors filed out, shoulders sloping with shock and defeat. Kat and Mary, too, could see that the Queen wished a private moment with Dudley. She had lifted a weak arm in his direction and uttered her private name for him, her Eyes.

  As he moved to Elizabeth’s side he crossed paths with his sister. They stood close, communing in silent pain. Suddenly Dudley’s eyes widened in alarm. Mary Sidney saw his gaze shift slightly to her forehead, then to her right cheek. A cold thrill ran through her, and without her brother uttering a word she knew the truth. The pox had befallen her.

  Dudley made to embrace Mary, but she backed away. “No, no,” she whispered, her voice trembling with fear, fear she had not known in all the days she had nursed the Queen. “Protect yourself, Robert, for you are England’s Protector should she …”

  “She will not die, Mary. And neither shall you.” He strode to the bedchamber door, called Doctor Burcot to him, and whispered, “Good doctor, my sister has been infected. Put her to bed and do as well by her as you have the Queen, for the Queen loves her as dearly as I do.”

  “Robin,” the Queen was calling hoarsely from her bed. “My Eyes, my Eyes…”

  Gently placing Mary in Burcot’s care, he shut the bedroom door behind him and moved to sit vigil at Elizabeth’s bedside.

  Thi
rteen

  A most glorious occasion, this, thought Robin Dudley on the opening of Parliament. A glittering morn with trumpets blaring, crowds cheering, him riding his great white charger behind Elizabeth — so reminiscent of her coronation day. She, however, came not in a litter through the festive streets of London as she had then, but rode, resplendent in crimson robes, high and proud on horseback for all to see that she lived and thrived despite her close dance with the Reaper. While Elizabeth had come through her siege largely unscathed by the disfiguring pox, Robin’s beautiful sister Mary had been monstrously scarred and pitted with oozing sores, so that she had begged the Queen’s leave to go from Court and remain in seclusion for the rest of her days.

  “Robin!”he heard Elizabeth shout above the ruckus. He spurred his horse forward so they rode side by side, and she graced him with her teasing smile. “What say you to all this, my lord, riding so high beside your Queen?”

  “That I am grateful beyond imagining, Your Majesty.”

  “And well you should be, for I have passed the pikes for your sake, and proven to all how I hold you in the greatest esteem.”

  “And never was a man more proud of a woman’s love than I am of yours, Elizabeth.”

  She turned away so suddenly that Dudley was left confused. Surely there had been nothing in the exchange or compliment to arouse her ire.

  But the reason for the Queen’s evasion of Robin’s eyes was not a fault of his making, it was her own fault of vanity. Since her miraculous recovery he had remained steadfast in his protestations that her beauty was untouched, that she was as lovely to him as she had ever been. But though she believed that beauty lay in the beholder’s eyes, neither did her looking glass lie. Her once flawless white skin, smooth as the petal of a Tudor rose, was, since her illness, mottled and rough. For the first time in her life Elizabeth had ordered her maids to grind a mixture of powdered eggshell and egg white, alum and borax, and paint her face with it. Though this was indeed the fashion of ladies young and old, ’twas more Elizabeth’s purpose to hide imperfections that were, to her own mind, intolerable. Yet when-ever she found herself sinking into self-pity, she thought ashamedly of Mary Sidney. This, of course, compounded her misery, as she had infected her friend.

  With a great trumpet blast and roll of drums Elizabeth arrived at St. Stephen’s Chapel where the Commons met. Great cheers rose all round as she was lifted by Robin from her horse. The Privy Councillors, all puffed with importance, greeted her and led her inside.

  The hall was already close with the sweat of so many knights and elected burgesses, who now strained for a look at their monarch. Most of them loathed the fact that a woman ruled them, and despaired of how they should treat her. Subservience was due her as queen, but they were, particularly the gentry, not opposed to standing against her.

  Head high, expression grave and steady, Elizabeth marched down the center aisle to the far end of the room, looking at no one. When she reached the throne, she turned and stared out at the sea of faces, trying to read their expressions. There were the Speaker and Privy Councillors on her right, bishops, judges, and officers of state on her left. The less senior members hovered over their benches waiting for her signal to be seated. Elizabeth took her chair and with a great rustling of fabric — from the finest taffetas of the lords to the roughest fustian of the burgesses — they sat and Parliament came into session.

  When Elizabeth spoke, her voice strong and commanding, some of the older members marveled at the likeness of the daughter to the father. Report was made of the grave news from France, where Ambrose Lord Warwick’s garrison in Le Havre, supporting the Protestants, had been defeated. In a rare demonstration of French unity, warring Catholics and Protestants had understood they hated their ancient enemy, England, even more than they hated each other. Joining forces, they had ousted Elizabeth’s troops from their shores. Worse still, plague had broken out in the English garrison. Forced to admit that her first foreign incursion was an unmitigated disaster, Elizabeth had called Warwick and his troops home.

  The discussions went on about a subsidy for the royal navy. Each and every time Elizabeth was addressed or complimented by the gentlemen of Parliament, she would rise from her throne and sink into a low curtsy of exquisite grace, or instead execute a great and stately sweeping gesture with her arms, both of which had the effect of transfixing the congregation with her feminine charm and magisterial power. It seemed to Elizabeth that she had established a fine balance of control and reciprocal affection with her men.

  She was therefore startled when one Thomas Norton rose with no introduction and, bowing low to her, said, “We of the Parliament, with all due respect to Your Majesty, do petition you for the appointment of a committee to determine the succession.”

  Her gracious smile was instantly leveled, and she felt as the victim of an ambush must surely feel. Though it had not been explicitly raised by Norton, the real topic was her marriage plans — a matter intricately and irrevocably bound to any discussion of the succession. She grew very still, hardly breathing, seeming to draw all her forces inwards. Then she spoke.

  “My lords and gentlemen.” Her voice was charged with cool passion and no little drama. “When I lay ill not so long past, death possessed almost every part of me. But I was, in each conscious hour, worried in my heart and aware of my great responsibility to England.”

  She felt all those eyes fastened upon her, every man challenging her, daring her to falter. Her mind raced, for she knew beyond doubt that she could never allow Parliament to legislate the succession. If they did, they would certainly rule out her cousin Mary’s claim, and for the moment Elizabeth was inclined in the Scots queen’s direction.

  “How,” she inquired, moving her gaze from face to face, “shall I make such a decision? If I should choose a Protestant claimant, or if my successor be Catholic, do I risk losing the religious unity which I have striven so hard to establish in my reign? How shall I know what is right? If I choose wrongly, I hazard to lose not only my body but my soul — as I, unlike yourselves, am responsible to God. And I know, for I have seen in reigns of monarchs before me, what foul actions accompany the choosing of an heir in that monarch’s lifetime. Hear me now, I have little desire to choose my successor quickly, for in doing so I should be forced to hang my own winding sheet before my eyes! God has placed me on this throne and trusted me with the carriage of justice and so, gentlemen, should you do the same!”

  With that Elizabeth stood and, accepting no help from the many hands that were proffered, stepped down from her throne and strode from the hall. Being well away, she never heard the explosion of frustration and argument that began as the great door slammed shut behind her.

  Fourteen

  ’Twas a day for which Robin Dudley had waited long and patiently, and he full believed he deserved as no other man in the kingdom the great title he would soon be granted. He now bathed in a copper tub before the fire, allowing Tamworth to scrub his whole body from foot to head with a rough cloth which burnished his skin to a rosy glow. This was, thought Robin Dudley as the steam wafted round his head in a fragrant cloud, a ritual bath — one that would wash away all vestiges of his previous life as a minor lordling, the remaining whiff of scandal over Amy’s death, and the stubborn stench of his family’s unsavory reputation as a tribe of traitors. With his raising to the peerage of England, and with the Queen’s gift of noble Kenilworth Castle and its fabulous one hundred acres of lakes and meadows, Elizabeth had announced to all the world that Robin Dudley was indeed a great and loyal man of the realm. More important, he had come to believe, the new title was a sure sign that she was, after all her hesitation and indecision, finally preparing to marry with him. He closed his eyes and saw a vision that went beyond this day’s investiture as earl — the moment he would be crowned king.

  A sudden splash of water up his nose brought Dudley out of his day-dream, ready to box Tamworth’s ears for his clumsiness. But when his eyes opened he found himself staring into t
he grinning face of his brother Ambrose, looking much like a mischievous child whose prank had succeeded excellently well.

  “Dreaming about St. Edward’s Crown on that fat head of yours again?” said Ambrose with a smirk. Robin, stung by the truth of the accusation, splashed back, very nearly soaking Lord Warwick’s fine yellow doublet with bathwater. Ambrose laughed as he lurched backwards and then clomped with his gold-tipped walking stick to the bed. The wound he had sustained during the Le Havre fiasco had healed poorly, and Robin feared his normally robust brother would limp for the rest of his life. Well, at least he had his life, Robin reminded himself. Nearly half of the soldiers of the English garrison had contracted the black plague, and many had died of it. The Spanish ambassador Bishop de Quadra had been among those who had lost their lives.

  “I,” intoned Robin in mock grandeur, “have far too many weighty matters to consider to be daydreaming.”

  “Will the soon-to-be-great Earl of Leicester deign to discuss these weighty matters with his poor brother?” inquired Ambrose with equal gravitas.

  “Aye,” said Robin, falling into a rolling Scottish brogue. “I’m told the Queen has been closeted with the brawny Melville since his arrival a week ago. They say she’s entertained him in her very bedchamber, displayin’ a miniature portrait of meself, and danglin’ a great ruby in front of his nose, with fine promises it, and all the rest of the kingdom, will one day be Mary’s.”

  “What I’ve heard is that Mary’s marriage plans are in great disarray,” said Ambrose, massaging the painful thigh under his honey-colored hose. “She still speaks longingly of the alliance with Don Carlos of Spain, though his madness becomes more apparent with every passing day. I think she must be even more hungry for power than our own dear queen.”

  Robin rose from his tub and water streamed from his sleek, muscular nakedness. He allowed Tamworth to rub his skin dry with a length of thick muslin. “I have heard,” he said, “that Mary’s subjects and councillors attempt to involve themselves with her choice of husband just as our countrymen do Elizabeth, and that the Scots queen is every bit as irked at their interference.” Robin took the silk undershirt from Tamworth and pulled it on over his head. “Mary would do well to take guidance from her cousin on this account, for no matter how sternly Elizabeth’s Parliament harassed her on the matter, she evaded and outsmarted them at every turn.”