Elizabeth (33 page)

“I pity him,” Simier said. “No wonder he is jealous of you, Madam. What will he do when you have a husband?”

“Exactly what I tell him. It's a good precept, M. Simier.”

“Not good enough; you never married
him
.”

“I haven't married your master either. But if he dances as well as you, I might be tempted.”

“Better,” Simier retorted. “I am only a shadow of him in everything I do.”

“If you are the shadow,” Elizabeth answered, “God protect me from the substance!”

It amused her to see Robert glaring at the Frenchman, and not only Robert but half a dozen young men who enjoyed her favour. It was extremely enjoyable to rouse them all to jealousy, and watch them trying to compete with Simier in compliments and attentions. She looked very handsome that night and she knew it; she also knew that she danced better than any of her maids of honour, some of whom were only in their twenties.

She painted and scented and changed her costumes several times a day; she had fewer headaches and felt more energetic than ever and the atmosphere of competition among so many men affected her like a powerful intoxicant. She had become increasingly irritated by the fables of her cousin Mary's beauty and her conquest of every man who saw her; even the wretched tale of Bothwell's rape had been distorted into a legend of romantic passion by the years. So many men had died for Mary Stuart, that she was described as an enchantress, rather than a fool who had bungled everything she touched. No man had died for Elizabeth except the Admiral, and that was long ago and half forgotten. Mary had outlived three husbands and borne a son, and with the onset of the physical changes in her body, Elizabeth found herself thinking of her own isolated condition with unreasonable resentment. She had been urged to marry for nearly twenty years, and she had never been remotely tempted after the fiasco of Robert's early courtship, until the arrival of Jehan de Simier. When she was sensible she mocked her own foible, reminding herself that the affair was purely political and intended to fail, fighting the demand of her natural instincts for fulfilment before it was too late. Soon she would be too old for childbirth, too old to offer herself even to a youth like Alençon whose mother would marry him to anyone. Elizabeth had never feared age because she never felt old; she had never wanted children or a husband until now, when both were about to slip out of reach for ever. She had been content, until Simier came and made the phantom courtships of the past into the pursuits of a determined male. He was as strong as Robert was weak; he knew from his own bloody experience what love and passion meant; he had killed his wife for infidelity, while Robert had murdered Amy for ambition. Both men were hunters, but when he said that he had come to trap the lioness, it pleased her more than Robert comparing her to the goddess of mythology while he sneaked into bed with the Countess of Essex.

If Simier had come twenty years ago, if he were the bridegroom and not the proxy, her life might have been very different. And through his eyes she could still see herself combining her Crown and her womanhood, and for the first time she did not dismiss the idea with scorn or indifference.

And now that she was showing some genuine enthusiasm, all those who had argued and implored her to marry, were finding reasons why she shouldn't. Her people were grumbling; they distrusted the French and feared a Catholic revival if she married Alençon; her Parliament were doubtful and Councillors mumbled warnings about her health and the risk of having children at her age. They had harried her for years and now they dragged up every humiliating and infuriating obstacle they could think of to dissuade her from doing what she had imagined they all wanted. The author of a pamphlet denouncing the marriage had lost his right hand at her personal order. She vented her frustrations and her wounded pride on the humble offender because she was helpless against the galling advice of her own nobles. She was too old and too delicate and now nobody took her marriage seriously any more, just when she wanted to consider it herself for the first time. And nobody opposed it more bitterly in the Council Chamber and in private than the Earl of Leicester.

“Her Majesty is the most perfect dancer in the whole of Europe,” Simier was saying.

“Without doubt,” Robert retorted. “But she needs a tall partner to complement her. I hear your master the Due is shorter in the leg than most.”

Simier's eyes glittered, but his mouth smiled.

“Height is not important when he has so many graces, my Lord. And no man alive could hope to match the Queen, whatever his stature—don't you agree?”

“No Frenchman, certainly.” Leicester snapped his answer. He held on to his jewelled sword-belt to prevent himself striking the other man across his ugly, impertinent face. He was so angry that he trembled, and his anger was murderous with jealousy and fear. He had not taken the marriage suit seriously; nobody who knew Elizabeth imagined that it would come to anything, until the arrival of this bawdy-eyed adventurer. He might have bewitched her; she was preening and painting and laughing like a frivolous girl engaged in a clandestine love affair, instead of the hard-headed, icy-hearted woman who took everything from her admirers without giving anything of her emotional self in return. Leicester could have killed him for his success. He was begining to think that he might have to kill him before he beguiled the Queen into promising marriage before she had even seen the bridegroom. If she married Alençon, he would lose his power; there was no room for him and a husband. He looked quickly at Elizabeth and saw the hostility in her eyes.

“You have a sharp tongue tonight,” she said suddenly. “Go and whet it out of my hearing. Come M. Simier; we will go into my Privy Chamber and we will see if you play cards as well as you dance.”

“The Queen has lost her senses.” Walsingham spoke bluntly. “It is unthinkable that she should go so far as to receive Alençon in this country unless she really means to marry him, and the marriage would be a disaster. A Frenchman and a Papist! I repeat, my Lord, she has gone out of her mind!”

The Secretary had ridden to Leicester House as soon as he heard of the latest development. He admired the Earl and he liked him. He also believed that his influence with Elizabeth was strong enough to check the course of this marriage project before it got completely out of control. They were odd allies, the stern, fanatical young statesman with his Puritanical beliefs and the rich and powerful favourite who owed everything he had to a woman's caprice. Walsingham was a model of efficiency and diligence, sparing neither his pocket nor himself in the Queen's service, but while Elizabeth took full advantage of both, she did not like her Secretary, and did not pretend to; so he haunted Leicester in the hope of learning how to ingratiate himself.

“It's the fault of that damned Simier,” Leicester said angrily. “I used to jeer at her old suitors and call them paper courtships, and by God we had nothing to fear as long as they remained a name on some ambassador's lips. This man has made his master live; he's playing Alençon's part for him so well that the Queen is bewitched. Without Simier, the whole affair would fall into ruins. If we could get rid of him …” He paused and Walsingham watched him closely. Assassination was a political expedient; it did not trouble his conscience, and one man's life was a trifle compared with the horrors of a Papist consort and an alliance with the country responsible for the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

“The whole country is against it,” he said slowly. “The Parliament, the Council, everyone who holds the Protestant religion would agree to anything that stopped this marriage. And Simier will never leave England of his own accord.”

“Everything is at stake,” Leicester said. “We both know what must be done, Sir Francis. If I take steps to protect the Queen against her own folly, will you support me?”

“With my own sword, if necessary.”

“Then leave this to me. Say nothing to anyone, especially to Lord Burleigh. But be ready to come forward with me when the thing is done.”

Soon after his arrival, Simier had begun collecting information about his enemies. He paid well and made use of the official spy system of the French Ambassador, and after heavy bribing he had discovered that Leicester, his chief enemy and the loudest opponent of the marriage, was secretly married himself. Simier was smiling as he walked through the dark streets towards his lodgings beyond Westminster. The Queen had warned him not to go out alone at night; she said that her city was infested with thieves who prowled in the darkness, looking for single victims or foreigners, or gentlemen in their cups leaving a tavern. He had laughed and promised her, and broken his promise because he liked walking and he liked solitude. He was wondering what moment to tell Elizabeth that her favourite was trying to prevent her marriage while enjoying a clandestine union himself, when two men sprang at him from a dark doorway. He always walked with his hand on his sword hilt; the moment they ran at him and he saw the dull flash of a weapon, Simier drew. Something ripped through his cloak and pierced his arm; he lunged at the nearest assailant, and felt the shock of the blade entering his body. For a moment it seemed that he had impaled his sword and the man's falling body would twist it out of his hand. He kicked the man backwards in the groin, and wrenched his sword out to meet the second of his attackers. But he had fled; the streets were empty except for the figure lying at his feet. He was groaning and Simier knelt beside him. He caught the man by the breast of his doublet, and his hands were wet with blood.

“Who set you on me?” He dragged the dying man on to his knees and shook him. “Answer me, who paid you? Answer, and I'll get you a physician.…”

This was no thief, this was a swordsman, not a cut-throat, who would have bludgeoned him from behind with a club and grabbed his purse.

“You've killed me.…” The man's mouth was full of blood and Simier could hardly hear him. He shook him again, as a dog shakes a dying rat.

“Answer, and you'll live,” he spat at him. “Who sent you to attack me?”

The reply was a mumble; he had to bend to the man's lips to hear it.

“My Lord Leicester's steward.… Help me, for the love of Christ …”

Simier straightened. He looked into the contorted, pleading face and laughed.

“I'll help you as you would have helped me, friend.” He threw the wretch back against the cobbles with a force that knocked the breath out of his body. He brushed his clothes, sheathed his sword and stepped over him without bothering to look at him again.

The next day he presented himself at Greenwich, where the Queen had moved for a few weeks, and walked into her presence with his injured arm in a sling.

When she saw him, Elizabeth went white. She reached his side before he had time to kneel to her, and one hand touched his injured arm.

“In the name of God, what's happened to you! You look as pale as the devil—and your arm—why is it bound up like that?”

“May I sit down, Madam? I rode down here as fast as I could to see you, and my head is swimming like a woman's. I don't want to faint at your feet.”

“Wine,” Elizabeth shouted to her startled lady-in-waiting. Kate Dacre ran to the closet and brought a fierce oath on herself by dropping one of the silver goblets in her agitation.

“Sit down, here, beside me.” Elizabeth guided Simier herself, helping him into the chair. She took the cup of wine and held it to his lips. Without turning round she told Lady Dacre to leave the room.

Simier swallowed the wine, and allowed his head to droop. It rested on the Queen's shoulder, and her hand was stroking his cheek, while she whispered anxiously asking what had happened, had he seen a physician, and was it a sword wound—she had seen them bandaged up like that before.

“Who were you fighting?” she demanded. He saw that her eyes were full of tears. “Whoever it was, I shall punish him for daring to injure you!”

“I disobeyed you,” he said. “I went walking in your London streets last night and two men attacked me. One ran off, and I killed the other. But before he died he told me something. He told me who had paid him to assassinate me.”

“What?” He felt her stiffen. “What are you saying?”

“They had been sent to murder me,” he insisted. “They came at me with swords and at once I knew they were more than ordinary thieves. The man I killed gave me the name of the true murderer.”

“Who was it?” Elizabeth asked the question so sharply that he looked up at her, surprised.

“The Earl of Leicester.”

After a moment she said slowly: “The man was lying. Robert would never do that. He would never dare …”

“A frightened man is a desperate man, Madam,” Simier said. “Lord Leicester must have known I had found out his secret; he was afraid I would betray him to you, and so he tried to kill me first.”

“Stop talking in riddles.” She withdrew her arm from him and he sat up. “What secret have you found? Wound or no wound, Simier, I want an answer and I want a short one. Tell me!”

She did not look handsome at that moment. Her face was white and peaked and her heavy-lidded black eyes blazed at him.

“He is the strongest opponent to your marriage—not only with my master but with every man who's courted you for years—but he might have a right to stand in your way if he wasn't a married man himself!”

She started as if he had struck her. Her very pale face grew suddenly red and then whitened to a ghastly pallor.

“Who is the woman?” Her voice sounded as if she were being strangled. Simier had never been afraid of anyone in his life but he thanked God that he was not standing in Robert Leicester's shoes.

“The Dowager Lady Essex.”

“Are you sure of this—can you prove it?”

“The records are at Wanstead. Her father was a witness.”