Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (71 page)

“God deals most lovingly with Her Majesty in taking away her

enemies,” remarked Walsingham with awe.

This uneasy belief that it was not healthy to be an enemy of the English

Queen was finding followers all over Europe. Men said such luck was

beyond the boundaries of pure coincidence; many remembered that her

mother had been accused of witchcraft, and strange rumours were afloat.

Now the Spanish embassy in London, closed for the past eight years

since the expulsion of its ambassador after the Ridolfi Plot, was reopened

by that very thin olive branch of peace, Don Bernadino de Mendoza.

And Elizabeth believed she had discovered the perfect solution to her

dilemma in the Netherlands.

She extended a thin hand, almost transparent in the sunlight, and bent her

long fingers to examine their scarlet talons, flexing them gently like claws.

“A cat’s-paw,” she murmured, more to her hand than to Burghley

who stood watching her—“that’s what we need now to stir the troubled

marshes of the Netherlands and hold Philip at bay. I think Alençon will

do very nicely, don’t you?”

“We have yet to persuade him to undertake the mission.”

“Don’t fret, my friend, I know how to handle little pockmarked

donkeys.” She held out her hand—that very marriageable hand—and

smiled at it tenderly. “This is the thing that will hold him until he has

served our purpose—this,” her smile deepened, “or to be more precise—

the promise of this. This hand has served me as faithfully as you, my Spirit,

for over twenty years. It is about to enjoy one long and very satisfying

last performance before I ring the curtain down for good on its charade.”

Burghley stooped to kiss that hand with a faint quiver of emotion.

It was true that no one had played the marriage game with greater skill

or more profit than Elizabeth. Over and over again he had seen her do

it, balance Europe on the slender promise of her hand, and it honestly

amazed him that after twenty years the fish were still gullible enough

to swallow the bait. He could not deny the remarkable success of her

methods, but he was too upright and correct to admire them wholeheart-

edly for they smacked of brothel principles and offended his image of her

as an incomparable deity. If only she were not so brazenly amoral about

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the business, so full of cheap political tricks, hawking her body and her

crown to the highest bidder as shamelessly as any whore who walked the

London streets. For though she might be a goddess, she was not a lady

and somewhere, between his respect and his love, there hovered a small

niggle of regret for her lack.

He had never met Alençon, but he could find it in his heart to pity the

man. He stood no chance against Elizabeth’s inborn gift for manipulating

men, her remarkable ability to take advantage of her sex. Her physical

frailty had saved her from the serious limitations of a total virago and he

suspected, at times, that she was not above making use of that too, when

it suited her. The same woman who rode roughshod over the dignity of

the men who served her was also likely to restore their feelings of male

superiority by fainting outright at their feet, a move which never failed

to send them into a fiercely protective fuss for vinegar and restoratives,

however murderous with exasperation they might have felt with her five

minutes before. Play-acting or genuine, it was always impossible to tell

which and it always had the desired effect. She had made her sex into

the most formidable weapon in her armoury. And Alençon was to be

her next victim.

t t t

The soft, tinkling notes fell on the air like pure, clear drops of rainwater;

as the last one died on a throb of exquisite melancholy, there was a genu-

inely reverent silence before the burst of furious applause.

Jean de Simier, special envoy of the Duke of Alençon, bent to offer

his arm to the player who sat at the keyboard of the virginals, attempting,

not particularly with much success, to look modestly embarrassed by the

spontaneous ovation.

“My master will be entranced—Your Majesty plays like an angel.”

She smiled a little smugly, familiar enough with fulsome flattery to

know the man spoke sincerely. She was very proud of her accomplish-

ments—there was no woman in her court who could rival her, for she

played and danced, as she did everything, to perfection.

She glanced up at the virile Frenchman and smiled mischievously.

“Don’t you think your master would find marriage with an angel a

great trial? Surely wings and a halo would be a great inconvenience to

any man in bed.”

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He returned her smile and leaned over the virginals to take her hand,

caressing it with his lips.

“The Duke would overcome any obstacle for the joy of meeting with

Your Highness in that same place—”

“Yes—we have heard it said that he always rises to the occasion.”

A ripple of amusement ran round the little group of listening courtiers

and Simier bowed, acknowledging her sly wit.

“You are too quick for me, madam. I fear I cannot deny my master’s

reputation with the ladies. It is true that his virility exceeds that of

many men.”

“Alas—then I can scarcely expect a faithful husband.”

“Not so, my Queen. I swear you will drive all other women from

his mind.”

“It’s not his mind that troubles me, Simier, it’s his
bed.”

Leicester laughed out loud and the Frenchman shot him a look of

dislike and distrust before spreading his hands in an expansive gesture.

“Madam—surely experience is an asset in every field.”

Elizabeth rose from the virginals and leaned familiarly on the

Frenchman’s arm.

“When I’ve tried him in a field,” she said wickedly, “I’ll let you know.”

Simier had been at court since Christmas, wooing the English Queen

by proxy with a dextrous mixture of charm and outrageous gallantry. He

was never absent from her side now and he had caused more scandal in

the last few weeks than Leicester and the rest had done in twenty years.

His overt physical advances were cloaked in the thinnest guise of respect

and were never repulsed. He was an aggressive, dangerous man who

had murdered his wife and his brother for infidelity and he was attracted

by Elizabeth’s feline charm—she was perhaps the only woman he had

respected all his turbulent life. At the age of forty-five she was playing her

favourite game for all it was worth, more successfully than she had ever

played it before. Her mirror showed her hard, handsome face positively

radiant beneath the flamboyant diamond-threaded curls of her fashion-

able red wig. She felt as though she had shed ten years in as many weeks

and tonight the intense gaze of Simier’s eyes, and of all those furiously

jealous ones behind him, filled her with an ecstatic sense of power.

She glanced beyond Simier to the men who shared her government.

Sussex, his weathered features ageing and benign, looked on with

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approval—he longed to see her with an heir. Burghley’s face was notice-

able only for its lack of emotion in that very emotional room; he knew

more of her game than most and was not deceived by her performance.

Walsingham, who had spent four years in the Secretariat, serving her

with passionless efficiency and infuriating her with his Puritan bigotry,

was irritated at the apparent success of the Catholic Frenchman. And

Leicester was intensely and bitterly jealous, making no secret of his fierce

hostility to the match. Poor Robin! But she would make it up to him,

when at last it was all over. She saw no reason why she should not enjoy

her last fling.

Beneath the light of a hundred candles, she danced with Simier until

dawn and knew that beyond the palace gates the people had begun to

grumble faintly and say that she had lost her senses. Robin said quite

openly that she was bewitched by the Frenchman.

She wondered in half-idle amusement if she was.

t t t

Simier sat in the royal barge watching the sweating oarsmen, tightly

bunched up in their Tudor livery, dipping their long white oars in and

out of the water in perfect rhythm.

He stared out over the Thames, gnawing the inside of his lip, for he

was a man who found it hard to relax at the best of times, and relaxation

was a commodity in short supply at the English court, where everyone

from the sovereign down appeared to live on their nerves. He had been

over six months in England and the Queen gave him every reason to

think she found him and the cause of his mission as fascinating as ever;

but still he had not persuaded her to sign the vital passport which would

allow the Duke to come to England. She painted a pretty picture of

herself as a weak and defenceless woman in the hands of statesmen who

could not agree, but it was a picture which did not quite accord with the

totally unquestioned obedience she appeared to command from all, even

Burghley. Simier knew she was playing for time and he believed he knew

why—Leicester’s enmity had been steady and pointedly obvious since his

arrival in London. Well, he had discovered a secret which would cook

Leicester’s goose, and if necessary he would disclose it at some suitable

opportunity, if the man did not back off soon.

Certainly the French marriage was not being hailed by the English

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people, and public opinion was beginning to speak out against it. The

Duke should be here now, pleading his own cause; they would be less

ready to offend a prince personally than they were to offend his shadow.

Simier sighed and arranged the lace ruff at his cuff. A slight breeze

was skirting the river now, rippling the water into small waves, and boats

passed them on either side. Idly he noticed a small sculler’s boat which

seemed suddenly to be out of control, its occupant struggling with an

unwieldy gun. Simier stiffened. What in God’s name would a man want

with a gun on this peaceful river?

He was about to cry out, when suddenly the gun discharged. A grey

lead bullet grazed the royal canopy, missing the Queen by inches, and

struck a bargeman who collapsed to the floor with a scream of pain. The

peace of the river dissolved into pandemonium.

Calmly the Queen snapped her book closed and smiled at the French

Ambassador who was watching her closely, hoping she would panic at

this attempt on her life and provide him with a nice tid-bit for his next

despatch. She waved back the anxious onslaught of courtiers who flocked

around her and insisted on going at once to the injured man. A respectful

silence fell as her bargemen parted to let her pass and followed her with

worshipping eyes.

The bullet had passed clean through the man’s arm and blood was

streaming down his wrist. Elizabeth unwound the silk scarf that flew at

her neck and bound the wound tightly. When he swayed unsteadily, her

hand beneath his arm guided him back to his seat.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said gently. “You took that bullet for me and I

shall see that you never want.”

Leicester had pushed his way to her side anxiously and now handed

her a handkerchief to wipe her fingers.

“The culprit has been arrested, Your Majesty,” he said quietly.

She glanced out across the river to the muddle of small craft and sighed.

“Won’t you come back and sit down, madam? You’ve had a shock.”

She smiled faintly. “I’m all right, Robin, stop fussing. Tell them we

will return to the palace—this man needs attention at once.”

Leicester gave her his arm and they walked back towards the royal

canopy. As she passed Simier she noticed how pale and shaken was his

dark face and the thought crossed her mind that he firmly believed the

bullet had been meant for him.

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The trial of the would-be assassin took place at Windsor where one

Thomas Appletree was found guilty, not of treason but of creating a

dangerous disturbance in the presence of the Sovereign. The point was

merely academic—the penalty for both charges was still death—and he

was brought to the scaffold through a violently hostile crowd which

screamed abuse and tried to attack him. He wept bitterly, declared that

he deserved death and had hoped for nothing else, but he did not get his

wish. Elizabeth sent a personal reprieve to the foot of the gallows and the

crowd, as though to prove their notorious fickleness, cheered him down

the scaffold as heartily as they had just booed and hissed him up it.

She was quite prepared to believe his story that it had been an acci-

dent and not only saved his life but got his employer to take him back.

Burghley, who lived in constant terror of her assassination, was dumb-

founded by the incredible implications of her unwarranted mercy; but she