The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (33 page)

When the queen announced promotions for Raleigh and Howard, but not Essex, his resulting outburst shook the palace walls. In turn, Elizabeth, stomping through Greenwich like a crazed harridan, proclaimed that she was done with Essex. She would break him of his will, “pull down his great heart.”

The illness that followed—an incapacitating dysentery—precipitated the queen’s softening and relenting, and the offering to her favorite of a plum post—Master of Ordnance. Then came the ultimate announcement—his most lofty military commission. Not only was it to be his first sole command, but the next year’s most politically vital expedition. The English fleet would sail to the northern Spanish port of Ferrol, where they would crush the New Armada, known to be waiting for fair weather to try again for an invasion of England. Once the Armada had been incapacitated, read the orders, Essex would take his ships to the Azore Islands—stopping-off place of Philip’s Treasure Fleet before its return to Spain. Here Essex would be positioned for a second chance to win the greatest prize of them all.

But foul weather had cursed the first leg of the expedition. Incessant gales had driven the English fleet back from Ferrol—
three different
times
—and attack had proven impossible. This had been a great failure, but all might have been saved, forgiven, thought Southampton, had the

“Islands Voyage” following Ferrol been successful. It had, unfortunately, proven an unprecedented disaster. Raleigh, though relegated to second in command, clashed incessantly with Essex. And while Robert Devereaux waited at anchor amongst the Spanish-held isles, the full extent of his erratic behavior became all too apparent. The weeks were punctuated by a halfhearted landing here, a feeble incursion there. There was disturbing evidence of his inability to coordinate attacks. Time and again his judgment proved faulty and his faculties diminished. He and his men blundered around attacking the wrong places, always maddeningly off in their timing.

They took up residence in the town of Villa Franca, drinking and whoring. And his soldiers and officers showed no desire whatsoever to leave their very pleasant accommodations. Worse still, Essex several times forgot to inform Raleigh of his changes of plan. And there was no shortage of men trying to stir up trouble between the two rivals. Finally, after weeks of lying in wait,
Essex altogether missed the coming of the
Treasure Fleet
—fifty-five galleons loaded down with unimaginable quantities of gold. They slipped past the English fleet and safely unloaded their cargoes in the islands’ strongest fortification.

When word reached London, Elizabeth had raged. Another waste of her time and money. Essex had been inconsolable. Stung by the queen’s rebukes and insults—this time well deserved—Robert had shut himself up in his rooms at Essex House, drowning in melancholy. He refused to eat. His eyes sank deep in his pale face. He began acting like a madman, wrapping his head in blankets so he looked a proper Turk in a turban.

The game was always played to extremes. But just when most had admitted that the Earl of Essex had finally fallen from the queen’s favor, news flew from Court that Elizabeth had named the disgraced man Master of Ordnance, as well as Earl Marshall of England—the highest military title in the land. As if nothing had ever come between them, Essex had burst from his rooms ecstatically, a new and happy man.

Francis Bacon had tried to warn him that his behavior was inflamma-tory. And even Southampton, usually wild and game for anything, had whispered caution in Robert’s ear, but he remained obstinate, oblivious.

His companions grew alarmed whenever Will Shakespeare ’s
The Tragedy
of King Richard the Second
played at the Globe, for they knew that Essex would invariably be there in the audience, loudly cheering and stamping during the scene where Lord Bolingbroke seizes the throne from his king.

But this disease, thought Southampton, was worse still. He knew the French pox had caused men to go insane, and Essex was displaying all the classic symptoms. He would do anything to save his friend from that fate, for his own advancement and destiny were deeply and irrevocably entwined with Essex’s—for better or worse.

The carriage lurched to a sudden stop, throwing its passengers against the opposite seat, the ride ’s final indignity. By the time the two shaken men had reached the door of Crosley’s Apothecary, Robert Devereaux was apple red, veins bulging in his forehead. It would be a waste, Southampton knew, to suggest Essex calm himself. Instead he pushed open the door, causing the bell above it to jangle merrily, announcing their arrival in the tiny, aromatic shop. As his friend followed Southampton in, Essex reached up and grabbed the irritating bell, nearly ripping it off the lintel. Southampton apologized with a silent gesture to the startled apothecary, a plump, bespectacled man now tidying the brown vials and paper packets on the marble counter behind which he stood.

“Good day, gentlemen,” he said, “good day, good day, good day.”

Southampton groaned inwardly. Crosley, it appeared, was the type of man who used ten words when one would suffice. Still, he was making a valiant attempt to pretend he had not recognized Essex, London’s most famous nobleman. Southampton graced the chemist with a small, grateful smile.

“My friend has a problem, Master Crosley. Would you be so kind as to see us more privately?” Southampton gestured with a slight tilt of his chin to the door behind the counter.

Crosley opened the hinged counter and showed them through into his workroom, a den of alchemy, its walls lined with shelves full of bot-tles and mysteries and foul-smelling miracles. Southampton could see panic rising in Essex’s eyes. He would bolt if their business could not be quickly accomplished.

Southampton began, “My friend Master Chambers, I fear, has contracted—”

“The great pox. Yes, I can see it in his complexion, his eyes,” Crosley interrupted. “Have you had the rash, sir?” He spoke directly to Essex, who nodded once. “The fever, the headaches, the general malaise?” Essex nodded again. Crosley whispered discreetly now. “The
grand-gore
?”

“The what?” Essex snapped.

“The large sore.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Pain in the liver? Just here.” The apothecary pointed to Essex’s right-upper abdomen. “May I see?” The earl lifted his jerkin.

“Uhm. Enlarged. Well, you’re in fine company, sir. Good King Harry. Francis of France.”

“Will’s King Lear,” Southampton whispered in Essex’s ear. Robert was neither amused nor comforted.

“ ‘The serpentine sickness,’ ” said Crosley. “Brought over from the New World by Chris Columbus, some say. But it depends on who you hate the most, what it’s called. The French say ‘Disease of Naples.’ The Italians ‘the French pox.’ We English named it the ‘Spanish pox’ or

‘Spanish needle ’ or ‘Spanish gout.’ The Calvinists, of course, swear it’s God’s new plague sent down from Heaven to punish debauchery. And the Puritans—”

“In any event,” Southampton interrupted, “there
is
a treatment?”

“There are several,” said Crosley with maddening calm. “Take your pick. Some favor zinc, borax, and alum. Mild to the system but—by and large—ineffective.”

“What else?” said Essex, his eyes desperate.

“Well, the mercury, of course, a well-known treatment favored by the Turks. It tends to loosen your teeth, and I see you have nice teeth . . .

Master Chambers. And I’m afraid it poisons you to a certain extent, and produces copious saliva.”

“Wonderful. I shall drool on the queen’s bosom,” said Essex, uncaring that the man would know for certain his identity.

“There ’s the ‘virgin cure,’ ” said the chemist with a sudden lascivious smile. “Swive one who’s young and never been done before, and God’s curse is lifted.” He noticed the scowls of the two gentlemen and quickly added, “I myself put no credence in it, but it might be delightful trying.”

“There must be something else,” Southampton said, beginning to lose patience himself.

“Indeed. A very popular treatment.” Crosley shuffled over to his shelves and reached up for a large, tall glass jar that held thick scrolls of what appeared to be reddish-brown tree bark. He carried the jar to his worktable and with a small flourish untied its leather top. A pungent, earthy aroma filled the room. “
Guaiacum
bark, from a hardwood tree in the New World. Fitting, don’t you think? As that’s where the pox comes from.”

“They call this ‘holy wood,’ do they not?” asked Southampton. “I’ve seen it hung in churches.”

“The very thing.”

“ ’Tis expensive . . . ,” Crosley said, looking sideways, knowing such patrons could well afford the treatment.

“Just tell me how it works,” Essex said, hysteria creeping into his voice.

“Well, I will grind the bark into a powder, you see, and send it home with you in a packet. You pour the contents of the packet into four cups of clear water and boil it for an hour. You’ll let it cool. Then you’ll drink it. It will taste like bear shit, or worse. You will drink all of it. Then you will lock yourself in a sealed chamber and light the largest fire you can.

Keep it up all day and night. You will sweat like you’ve never sweat before, and all the poisonous humors will pour out of you.” It sounded logical, thought Southampton, and this was the first time in weeks he ’d seen Robert even remotely calm.

“Only one treatment is needed?” Essex asked.

“One is all a body can stand,” said Crosley.

“But will it cure me?”

The apothecary shifted on his feet. “It cures a good many, sir.”

“Give it to me,” said Essex, his eyes cold. “And I was never here. You understand?”

“Perfectly, my lord. Perfectly.”

DAMN CROSLEY,
damn the man!

Despite the fire blazing in the hearth and the red heat of several braziers set about his room, Essex, wrapped in rugs and furs and lying in his bed, was shuddering with cold. Moments before he ’d poured sweat, then vomited the contents of his stomach into the fire. He prayed he ’d not purged himself of the medicine—more foul tasting than the apothecary had warned—for despite his current misery, the effects of the pox were worse still. He ’d seen men die of it—wasted, gibbering madmen, shunned even by their families.

And there were signs in himself, Essex was forced to admit, terrifying portents of the disease. His mind, once a razor’s edge of wit and logic, now succumbed periodically to prolonged bouts of fuzziness, times when his ill-conceived desires overwhelmed his intellect and good sense.

Much as he hated to admit it, he had bungled the Azores expedition. Bungled it dreadfully. At the time it had seemed perfectly reasonable to garrison himself and his men in Villa Franca while waiting for the Spanish Treasure Fleet. And his annoyance with Raleigh, which had risen to a screaming pitch in which he had raged at the man, leveling the most exe-crable curses on him and his family, had also seemed at the time altogether justified.

When news had reached Essex’s party that Philip’s treasure ships had slipped past the English fleet and were safely unloading their cargo—

gold which he had sworn to Elizabeth would soon be overflowing
her
coffers—his wild bingeing had been extinguished by a long, cold wave of terror.
What could he have been thinking?
Recalling the preceding days of drunkenness and debauchery with the local prostitutes, Essex realized he ’d not
been
thinking. No. He ’d been no more than a stuporous passenger flying along a cliff-side road in a driverless carriage led by a team of insane horses.

Now, lying in his bed, Essex found himself overcome by a sudden and devastating fatigue. His body grew limp and he was about to close his eyes when, in the shadows, he heard muted, muttering voices, snide whispers, laughter. In the fireplace, goblins were dancing amidst the flames. They were hideous, their garments all afire, their skin crackling and peeling black, yet still they danced, their high, shrill laughter aimed at the pathetic creature huddled on the canopied bed.

For he was weeping like a child, weeping in terror. Altogether doomed.

GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS’? How very condescending of you, Francis. Most would call us soldiers.” Essex was hurrying across Whitehall’s courtyard with Francis Bacon at his side, Bacon struggling to keep up with his patron’s long strides.

“I do find your recent companions difficult to take seriously, my lord.

You seem to have abandoned your more substantial friends for a pack of puffed-up ruffians.”

“And you, Francis, have abandoned
me
.”

“I’ve done no such thing!”

“Do you think I’d not heard of the simpering letter you recently wrote to Burleigh?” Essex never slowed his pace for a moment, nor would he meet Bacon’s eye. “You’re too ambitious a man to align yourself with the losing side at Court. And I have become just that, haven’t I?

I’m well aware that you mean to switch your allegiances.”

“I mean nothing of the sort,” Bacon spluttered. “But if I did I would have just cause. Your behavior has been consistently appalling—”

“I’ve been ill,” Essex offered, a weak excuse, “but I’ve completed a treatment I’m assured will cure me.” Now Essex stopped and turned on Francis Bacon. “I believe you hold me responsible for the Attorney Generalship you were denied. And the Solicitor General post as well.”

“Untrue!”

“True enough! I tried
everything
, Francis. I begged and cajoled, went down on my knees to that damned woman—”

“Shhh, Robert!”

“Well, I did, and it made no difference. She never forgave you your arguments against her subsidy, and she cannot stomach your love for other men. Can you not at least do as Southampton has done and take a mistress?”

“I could take a mistress,” replied Bacon, “but I could not—as our friend has so easily done—get her with child. My prick will simply not perform for a woman. Believe me, I have tried. But you’ve changed the subject, Robert. We are speaking of
you
.”

“Indeed, and why you cannot believe that I did everything in my power—”

“I know that, and
I do not hold you responsible
, I swear it.”