Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (72 page)

told him that she did not slay mice.

In July, after a furious quarrel with Leicester on the subject, Elizabeth

signed the passport which would permit Alençon to travel to England,

and the Earl retired to Wanstead to sulk and announce loudly to anyone

who would listen that he was ill with grief and chagrin. Elizabeth strongly

suspected him of shamming, but she had to make sure and so she hurried

down to Wanstead with a small train and spent two days reassuring her

offended lover that he had nothing to fear.

“I couldn’t put him off any longer without arousing the suspicion that

I’m not serious about the marriage.”

“And are you serious?”

“Of course not, haven’t I told you so often enough?” She looked

at him shrewdly. “Have you dragged me here on a wild goose chase?

There’s nothing wrong with you, is there, you sly devil?”

“Indeed there is, madam.” His jealous fear had relaxed at her quick

concern. “My feelings have been deeply wounded—you will have to kiss

them better.”

She laughed and leaned over the bed to tweak the grey-streaked beard.

“You’re absurd, do you know that, Robin Dudley, and I’m too busy

to waste any more time on your nonsense.” She kissed him briskly and

got off the edge of his bed. “Stop acting the fool and come back to court.

We’re getting a little too old to play these silly games with each other.”

She was tired when she got back to Greenwich and not at all pleased

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to hear that during her absence another pot shot had been taken at Simier

in the palace gardens. She changed her gown hurriedly to receive him,

prepared to humour the man’s injured dignity and smooth the situation

before it got out of hand and caused real trouble with France.

“Jean!” She came across the room with her hands outstretched to him,

at her most charmingly informal. “Jean, I was so sorry to hear. I cannot

imagine who can be behind such a foul act.”

“I can,” he said grimly, bowing over her hand and allowing her to

lead him to a window-seat. “I know who opposes your marriage with my

master more strongly than anyone else.”

“
Robin
?” She burst out laughing. “Oh, Jean, how little you know him

to suggest that. If you had seen him as I have today, sulking in bed like a

little boy, you would not walk in fear of him. I promise you, he would

not dare to do it.”

“Why not, madam? A man who found the courage to marry your

cousin, the Countess of Essex, twelve months ago would certainly dare

to silence me.”

“What
!” It came on a whispered gasp. “What did you say?”

“I said he was married, madam.” Simier opened his eyes wide in

feigned astonishment. “But surely you knew—why, everybody knows—

it’s common gossip around the court.”

As he watched, the blood drained out of her face so that the small

patches of rouge stood out in stark relief on her ashen cheeks. She stood

up suddenly and took hold of the heavy curtain to support herself.

Her mouth was a thin, twisted line clamped tightly shut as though to

prevent any cry of anguish escaping and her eyes, suddenly unable to

meet his knowing glance, looked away through the window in mute

misery. It was as though the ramparts of her world were crashing in

upon her and though he was not a sensitive man, he knew he was

looking at a woman reeling from a mortal blow. She began to breathe

in quick, laboured gasps and one hand crept to her heart, as though she

felt a physical pain.

A cold sweat broke out over Simier’s body, for if she dropped dead at

his feet of a seizure, as she seemed in a fair way to do, then all his clever

diplomacy would count for nothing. He touched her arm in a panic.

Suddenly she swung round to look at him and he fell back a step from the

dreadful expression in her blazing black eyes. He felt he was looking into

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the eyes of a creature from the darkest regions of Hell, as though he stood

on the crust of a seething volcano.

“
Leave me
!”
she said, and he fled from the room like a man who has

dabbled in forces beyond his control and understanding. He was halfway

across the Privy Chamber when a scream of unearthly rage splintered the

air behind him; something hit the closed door with a crash, and again he

heard that terrible cry. Whatever had broken loose in that room, he knew

for certain it was no longer sane or even human. He hurried away to

his own apartments, feeling the startled glances of courtiers as he passed.

When at last he dared to emerge, a few hours later, he heard the news

that the Earl of Leicester was already under arrest in a small fortress in

the palace gardens, waiting to be shipped to the Tower on the next tide.

Bets were being placed on the date of his execution.

t t t

That evening saw the members of the Council’s inner ring ranged about

the council chamber in various poses of nervousness, as restless and uneasy

as a cluster of frightened rabbits cowering from the presence of a mad

dog. It was absurd, thought Burghley, truly absurd that half a dozen of the

most influential men in Europe should be skulking in here, too terrified

to face one woman in the mindless grip of a hysterical tantrum. But there

it was. Not one man or woman had the courage to go in and slap her to

her senses, putting a timely end to that appalling frenzy before she caused

permanent damage to herself and to the state. He had never counted

himself a coward until this moment when he knew that he could not

face her. Oddly enough it was the sort of situation which Leicester alone

might have been expected to handle and in any other set of circumstances

they would all have been looking to him to calm her back into sanity.

Now it looked as though the magic cure of his personality was about to

be lost to them for good.

If anyone had told Burghley twenty years ago that one day he would

be desperately debating how to save Leicester’s skin, he would have

laughed aloud at the impossibility. Now he reflected grimly on life’s little

ironies. Thanks to the Queen, Leicester was a man of very considerable

standing—“The Great Lord” they called him at home and abroad—his

voice counted for something among their Protestant supporters in

Europe and throughout England. If Elizabeth struck him down now,

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in a moment of jealous rage, the scandal of her injustice would never

die. Such a blot on her name would send her prestige plummeting like

a falling star. So she could not be allowed to execute the man; she could

not even be allowed to send him to the Tower. And someone was going

to have to risk his own fortunes and freedom—possibly even his own

life—to tell her so. Burghley tapped his gouty fingers on the table in

front of him and looked around the room, seeing the others hastily avoid

his cool gaze.

“Well, my lords, we are all agreed that someone must do it.

Walsingham—you have been the man’s friend.”

Walsingham started and stared, his long thin face quivering like that

of a cornered rat.

“Her Majesty threw a slipper in my face the last time I contradicted her

opinion—I hardly think I am your man. Surely someone who is known

to be the Earl’s sworn enemy would infuriate her less—a man known for

his courage and physical presence—a man she holds in high esteem…”

He licked his dry lips and looked over to where the old Earl of Sussex

sat gnawing his thumb and frowning. Suddenly everyone in the room had

followed Walsingham’s hopeful gaze and the elderly soldier could feel

their eyes boring into his head. A moment longer he glowered at nothing,

then he got painfully to his feet and shrugged his great shoulders ruefully.

“Well—I’m nearer to the grave than the rest of you. I suppose it had

better be me. I stuck my neck out for her with her sister when she was

just a slip of a girl and she said she would never forget it. I suppose I’ll

never have a better chance to test the word of a prince.” Across the table

he met Burghley’s anxious glance. “I can’t promise anything, of course,

my lord—but I’ll do my best.”

As he went out of the room he heard someone mutter darkly that that

would make a good epitaph.

Sussex went at once to her ante-room, sent in his name, and begged an

audience. A maid of honour, her pretty face convulsed with terror, returned

to sob the refusal. “I am to admit no one, on pain of death, my lord.”

The Earl frowned and turned to wave his gnarled hand at the pitiful

group of females huddled in a corner. “Go into the Presence Chamber

and shut the doors. Stay there until I send word.”

Mute with fear, they obeyed and he watched them go. With one

thumb in his belt in a gesture which gave him courage, he stared for a

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long moment at the door which led to the Queen’s bedroom; then he

stepped through it, without a knock or a second thought.

He stopped and stared; and the frantic, headlong pacing which he had

interrupted stopped in that same second. He was a hardened soldier and

he had heard strong language from her on many occasions, but when she

rounded on him the torrent of obscenities which greeted him momen-

tarily took his breath away. Her eyes seemed enormous in her livid face,

glittering, vicious, quite insane. A vase shattered in thousands of pieces at

his feet and his heart sank. How could he hope to reason with this wild,

wounded creature?

“How dare you!” she screamed at last, when he did not turn and flee

in terror. “How dare you come in here?”

And suddenly, unexpectedly even to himself, he heard his own voice

bellow back, “By God, madam, how dare
you
try to keep me out.”

The mad light went out of her eyes, as though a candle had been

suddenly snuffed, leaving them black, opaque and quite hopeless. In that

same moment he went down on his knees to her and his rough voice

became quiet and gentle.

“Madam—many years ago when you stood in danger of your life, it

happened that I was able to do you a service which you swore never to

forget. At my command the door of your prison in the Tower remained

unlocked. Will you now lock your door against me when I come once

more to plead in your interest?”

Drained with exhaustion, she closed her eyes for a moment and felt time

roll away beneath their heavy lids to the moment on that cold, rainy day

when she had laid her hand on his sleeve and begged for his help. “
By God

I say she shal write
!”
Had she ever really been so young? Now she only felt

as though she had been born old—old and unloved and wretched beyond

endurance. And yet here was this ancient champion of her cause still risking

the royal wrath for her sake, a little remembered affection and warmth.

Stripped naked of all her scant emotional security, his loyalty was like a tiny

glow in a dying fire. She held out her hands to him in real gratitude.

“Get up, my friend.”

“You will listen?”

“I owe you that courtesy at least,” she said wearily. “What is it you

want of me? What is so urgent that it cannot wait till I have rid myself of

an unworthy traitor?”

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For a second he hesitated; and then dared to say it.

“Leicester is no traitor, Your Majesty. I must beg you to reconsider

the order for his arrest.”

She gasped and her eyes widened in furious disbelief; she dropped his

hand and stepped back from him.

“Are you mad, Sussex—are you quite senile? Can it be that you do not

know
what he has done?”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “Yes, madam—I fear I do know.”

She had swung away from him and resumed her maddened pacing.

“I want him dead—
dead,
do you hear? I want to see the crows pick

his head clean on London Bridge—he never had such joy in his marriage

as he shall have agony in his death. I shall never rest until I have spilt his

blood on Tower Hill. By God, he’ll die for this, I swear it.”

Sussex swallowed hard. “Your Highness knows that is not possible.”

She stamped her foot and screamed, “I am the Queen.”

“Even the Queen cannot act without recourse to the law—and he has

committed no offence, in law.”

“Then I’ll bend the law!” she spat. “Find another pretext, as my father

did when it suited him—fabricate evidence for some new plot against my

life. Are you daring to tell me that can’t be done?”

“It can be done,” he said quietly, “but you will not give the order,

madam, because you are ten times the monarch that your father was,

feared and respected by friends and enemies alike. Even the Pope reveres

your name! You cannot throw all this away to be revenged upon an

inferior scoundrel who has betrayed your affection.”

She turned away from him, trembling with the intensity of her rage,

struggling to control it before it leapt out and destroyed him, too, for