Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (100 page)

without recognition or salary. What did she think I lived on all that

time—fresh air?”

Burghley waved his hand impatiently.

“You and your wife have been well provided for.”

“By you, sir. A man does not expect to look to his father for support

at my age.”

“The Queen gives and the Queen takes. It is her right.”

“Oh, she most certainly takes! Mother warned me as much before I

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ever came to court. Doubtless, if we had a king it would be different—”

Cecil looked up and caught his father’s eyes fixed upon him. They were

hard and black with gathering fury.

“A king,” muttered Burghley, in a thin whisper of disbelief. “A
king
?”

“A private opinion only,” added Robert hastily.

“A traitor’s opinion!” Burghley snapped, his hands clenched round the

sheets, his withered cheeks whitening with the intensity of his emotion.

“By God’s soul, have I sired her a viper and nurtured it in my own nest?”

He caught his son by the sleeve and shook him weakly. “Have I? God

damn you, sir, answer me!”

“No,” said Robert, truly alarmed now. “No, of course not. For God’s

sake, Father, don’t agitate yourself like this or you’ll have a seizure. Let

me get you some wine.”

Burghley sank back into his pil ows, breathing heavily and with difficulty.

“It’s not wine I need—it’s your oath of loyalty. Your sworn vow of

service. You will be loyal to the Queen until she dies. You will swear it.”

Robert knelt and kissed the hand which had never before been raised

against him in anger, not even in his childhood.

“I swear it, Father. I give you my word. Rest easy now, I implore you!”

Burghley closed his eyes and exhaled his breath in a long-drawn sigh

of exhaustion.

“If you fail her, you fail me,” he whispered dimly. “When I am no

longer here to remind you—remember it!”

“I will remember,” said Robert dutifully. But he turned away to fetch

the wine with a resentful heart.

His mother had been jealous of the Queen; he had been little more

than a boy when he first began to realise it. And now he remembered the

day he had gone hurrying from his father’s study to his mother’s private

closet, as near to running in his excitement as any hunchbacked youngster

could be.

“Mother—I’m to go to court with Father when my studies are

complete. I’ve been chosen to serve the Queen.”

Mildred had looked up at him and her comfortable face was stony.

“Chosen!” she repeated stiffly, laying her embroidery aside. “The

Druids had a better word for it, I think!”

He came into the room and shut the door quickly.

“You’re not pleased. Didn’t Father discuss it with you first?”

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“Oh yes, naturally. You know your father—the very soul of marital

democracy!”

It was so unlike Mildred to speak slightingly of her husband, that

Robert drew up a chair beside her and looked at her with concern.

“It’s because of Thomas, isn’t it?—you feel it was his right, as the

eldest, to take his place at Father’s side.”

Mildred’s mouth set into a grim line.

“Most men,” she said harshly, “would seek to advance their first-born

son, no matter what his ability, but not your father, oh no—Thomas was

always a bitter disappointment to him. Not fit for the Queen’s service—not

fit, his own heir! What other man would put such a consideration first? But

there—Thomas might prove a liability to Her Majesty and that would never

do, would it? Only the best for our Virgin Queen.” She groped angrily for

her silks and needles. “So it’s to be you instead—you the child I wore myself

out to rear, nursing you from one il ness to the next—you who are to break

your health and heart in her service. Much good it wil do you!”

“Why are you so angry?” He had been hurt and indignant at last; he

hated any reference to his physical frailty. “What else am I to do if I don’t

go to court and win honour there?”

“
Honour
!” Mildred spat in the hearth without undue ceremony, “Aye,

and honour is about all you’ll ever get from it. Never think to taste real

power, boy. There’s only one power in this land and that’s the Queen—

mind you never forget it.”

He was silent, sorting through her skeins of silk, as he had been wont

to do as a child whenever he was troubled.

“I want this chance, Mother. I really want it.”

“Take it, then,” she said curtly. “You’re the pick of the litter—yes—

your father’s own words, for all it makes me little more than a brood

bitch. Sometimes he makes me feel that my sole purpose on this earth was

to breed a son suitable—
suitable
, mind!—for her service.”

“Mother,” he remonstrated uncomfortably. “Anyone would think

you hate the Queen.”

“Hate her?” Mildred lifted faded eyes, dogged with defiance. “Every

woman in this kingdom will learn to hate her in time—every woman

with a husband or a son that she can take and use to serve her purpose.

Granted, she gives them back when she’s finished with them—gives them

back old before their time, broken—
useless
!”

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Now what exactly did she mean by useless? He did not like to guess

and lowered his eyes, embarrassed by this unlooked-for outburst of bitter-

ness. He tried to ease the conversation on to safer ground.

“Father says he’ll need my help in the coming years to form a

faction. He wants the family’s influence to continue after his death,

that’s all. It’s understandable.”

Mildred laughed shortly. “Much he cares for the family influence

when he leaves the next Lord Burghley to rot in idleness on his country

estate. Don’t you see, it’s not the family’s fortune that matters to him,

it’s the Queen’s.
What will she do when I’m gone
? That’s the way his mind

runs in this matter and you’re the answer to his nightmare. You’re a tool,

my boy, nothing more or less than another of his devices for her safety.”

“I don’t believe that,” Robert had said stubbornly. “He’s always been

the most devoted father—the most faithful of husbands too,” he added,

in pointed reminder. “It’s not kind of you to doubt it.”

“I never said that I doubted it,” remarked Mildred drily. “Your father

is deeply fond of us all. But it’s the Queen he loves!”

Robert flushed hotly and turned away.

“You’re surely not trying to imply that Father of all people was ever—”

“Good God, no!” She cut him short in mid-sentence. “Your father’s

never looked at another woman in that way—God knows, there’ve been

times when I almost wished he had. I could have come to terms with his

whore. I could have excused a normal transient lust, it’s his utter mindless

devotion to her that I can’t bear. Nothing shakes his loyalty, no matter

what blows she deals out to him. It’s—” She paused, groping for the right

word to express her resentment. “It’s
unnatural
!”

Robert was silenced, his sense of eager anticipation dulled by a vague

feeling of alarm. He was suddenly no longer sure he wanted to follow his

father’s footsteps down such a dark and uncertain path. He did not like

the sound of this woman he would be bound to serve and obey for his

father’s sake.

“I suppose I could always take up law,” he began diffidently.

Mildred made an impatient gesture.

“Make all the plans you like,” she said irritably. “Do you suppose for

one moment any of them will make a jot of difference? Your future is

charted out for you now—the Queen will swallow up your life, just as

she’s swallowed your father’s. I suppose I should give thanks to God for

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your twisted spine. She likes physical perfection in her men, so you at

least will know some measure of freedom. Doubtless, your
wife
will be

grateful for it.”

They had never spoken on the subject again, but it was a conversa-

tion which remained with Robert long after his mother’s death. It had

coloured his view of Elizabeth well before he entered her service; when

at last he came, fearful and hesitant, to court, under Burghley’s patronage,

she chose to call him her Pygmy. And after that, it had been easy to

believe that his confused emotional response to this mysterious woman

was composed chiefly of cold dislike.

He sat on the edge of the bed now and watched his father slowly

sipping his wine, wheezing and grunting with the multiplying discom-

forts of old age.

Pity touched him and he leaned over to touch Burghley’s swollen

hand on the coverlet.

“Father—you’re a very sick man. Don’t you think it’s time you really

did resign this post?”

The Queen would not countenance it,” said Burghley with an air of

quiet satisfaction which irked the younger man. “I am her right hand—

always have been, you know. I had my chance to leave office and retire

quietly in the country after Mary Stuart’s death. Your mother urged me

to take it, but then the Queen came back to me—yes, she took me back,

as I had hoped and prayed and thought impossible at last. Your mother

wasn’t pleased of course, but she held her peace. Admirable woman, your

mother, Robert—admirable woman. She understood what it meant to

me to regain the Queen’s confidence.”

Robert was silent.

“She always trusted me,” mused Burghley softly, “trusted me beyond

anyone else—even Leicester.”

“And now she has Essex,” said Robert sourly.

“Whom she does not trust at all.”

Robert stared at him in astonishment.

“She
loves
him!”

“Perhaps. That will not save him if he continues playing to the gallery

in this manner. The moment he raises his hand to touch the sceptre, she’ll

strike him down without mercy. Believe me, my son, I know her. You

may think that you have seen her angry, but you know nothing—and no

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more does Essex—of her capacity for vengeance. Her extraordinary talent

for inflicting pain.”

Burghley’s thin lips quivered for a moment and he closed his eyes on

a fugitive gleam of unshed tears.

“She chose to hurt me once. I will not tell you why or how—but

there was a time, I assure you, when I thought I would never care for

anything again because of it.”

“
Father
!”

“Oh, I deserved some punishment, even expected it, but not that—I

did not deserve
that
! Walsingham used to say that knowledge is never

too dear, but I would have paid a king’s ransom to be spared that one

cruel piece. She is two people, my boy—two entirely different people.

One, kind and loyal, so full of warmth and intelligence that a man would

gladly give his soul to serve her. And the other—frightening! Few have

seen that other side of her and those who have prefer not to dwell on the

experience—the dreadful cruelty. If that side of her should ever turn its

face to Essex—”

Burghley broke off and was broodingly silent. It was a long time before

he looked up and, when he did, he began to speak as though his son had

only that moment entered the room.

“My dear boy, it was good of you to come, but I’m too weary to

discuss anything tonight. Put out the lights and leave me to my rest. We

will talk tomorrow.”

Puzzled and ill at ease, the young Secretary did as he was bidden,

leaving his father to nod in the rosy firelight.

Shadows bobbed on the panelled walls as the flames leapt and flick-

ered in the stone hearth, and Burghley watched them, remembering the

Queen’s curious sidelong glance, and all that he believed it signified.

Oh no, she did not trust Essex; and now there was something growing

in the labyrinth of her mind, something dark and secret. She was jealous

of her people’s affection and whenever she was jealous she was dangerous;

but Essex was blind to the smouldering resentment in her black eyes.

Blind and reckless and arrogant; and assuredly riding for a fall.

The knowledge gave Burghley a certain satisfaction, for it was almost

like old times, a reincarnation of his lifelong battle with Leicester—his

son, against the Gypsy’s stepson. Very fitting, yes—supremely fitting.

Intelligence and craft against charm and panache, and the Queen still

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Susan Kay

where she had always been, squarely in the centre of the see-saw, holding

the balance of power.

Whatever his grievances, Robert had been bred up in loyalty to the

Queen, and Burghley had every confidence that he would serve her

with unstinting care. He was also equally convinced that Essex would

betray her.

There would be a mighty clash of titans, an earth-shattering encounter

which would echo through the firmament and disturb the heavenly

bodies. When it was over, the landscape at court would be irretrievably

altered, scattered with flotsam and jetsam, as after some terrible shipwreck

of emotion. That day might be near or far, but it would come. And when