Watch the Lady (32 page)

“Essex thinks . . .” The Queen pauses to move her knight.

“I see what you are trying to do, madam,” says the earl playfully. “You have a mind to snatch my castle.”

What
does
Essex think, wonders Cecil, exchanging a brief look with his father. He approached the earl's onetime mistress not long ago, to see if she might be stupid enough to share unwittingly a few of the Essex secrets, to no avail. It would seem, for all his bad-tempered bluster and arrogance, he inspires great loyalty even in his discarded slatterns.

“Perhaps it is not your castle I am after, but something else.”

“No!” cries Essex, slapping a palm to his forehead. “You have my queen in sight. How could I have not seen that? You are too crafty for me. I do not stand a chance against you.”

The Queen smiles, emitting a gleeful huff of laughter, and Cecil wonders if Essex is allowing her to win. If so, he is making a damn good show of it.

“Essex thinks I should impose martial law,” says the Queen, “but your father is of the mind that it would stir things up further, aren't you, Burghley?”

“I am, madam. I feel it would be prudent to try other methods before resorting to force. We wouldn't want the Catholics jumping on the back of this, or we might have a full-blown rebellion before we know where we are.”

“What do you think, Pygmy?”

“I agree with my father. Take a prudent approach, round up the ringleaders, make an example of them . . . keep a close eye—”

“And allow others to take their place. We must make a show of strength,” argues Essex. “I've a mind to get down there myself.”

Cecil imagines him astride his horse, breastplate gleaming, wielding a sword, with that beard—all man. How London would love that, their warrior hero down amongst them—for all his noble blood he has the common touch. Cecil has an image of that man with his ghoulish face pressed up to the door of his coach. The knot in his gut tightens with the memory, making him glad to be safely sealed within the sturdy walls of Whitehall.

“As it happens, I have already had the guard instructed,” says the Queen.

Cecil seethes inwardly. Essex conceals a smile with a hand.

“But,” she continues, “I want names. You are right, Pygmy, we must make an example of the ringleaders. You don't mind getting your hands dirty, do you?”

He looks at his father, who nods minutely. “I am happy to do what is necessary, madam.” It rankles that she considers
his
approach the dirtier of the two, feels that he has lost ground in this exchange.

“I have you in check, Essex.” The Queen holds up her hands gleefully.

“You have me always in check.” Essex bats his lashes in her direction, and it is all Cecil can do to prevent himself from groaning as the Queen stretches out to take her favorite's hand.

“My dear boy,” she says, then turns to Burghley. “Are you not proud of the way he has turned out?”

“Indeed I am,” he replies. “All the young men raised under my roof are—”

“Oxford has not turned out so well, scandal sticks to him like raw egg.” The Queen's expression is unreadable.

“Southampton. He is a good fellow,” says Essex.

Your lapdog, Cecil barely prevents himself saying.

“Southampton has yet to prove himself. He's hardly out of boyhood, but I like him.” She swaps a smile with the earl—it is a smile that excludes all but the two of them.

And
me
, what about
me
, Cecil wants to say, upbraiding himself internally for allowing his envy to get the better of him. But this is an insurmountable wall of intimacy that Essex has constructed about the Queen. His father shows no sign of annoyance.
Not by force but by falling often
. I am indispensable, he reminds himself, indispensable.

“I have given permission for Essex's sister to wed,” says the Queen.

An image of Penelope flashes through Cecil's mind but of course it is the other sister, Dorothy—the one who eloped and was widowed last year. This is a sign of favor—it isn't so long ago that the Queen wouldn't sit under the same roof as Dorothy Devereux, so far was she in disgrace, and now she has the royal blessing to wed.

“Ah, a wedding, how delightful,” says Burghley, though Cecil knows his father will be as concerned as he is about the meaning of this favor. “May I ask the fortunate suitor's identity?”

“I cannot save myself,” says Essex, hovering his rook above the board. “There is no move I can make that will avoid my destruction.”

“Northumberland,” announces the Queen.

“Ah,” says Burghley. He is putting on a good show but Cecil keeps his eyes on the chessboard for fear of revealing his excessive displeasure. Northumberland is one of the country's leading earls. Essex's influence over the Queen has become impregnable. This is a tactical match; Northumberland and Ralegh are in each other's pockets, and Cecil had believed them to lean generally towards
his
side of things. Even if Ralegh is a little hard to pin down, they had always been useful to each other, had an understanding—they both loathed Essex. His mind is whirring. Perhaps there is a way to turn this to his advantage.

“Pygmy, whatever happened to your shoes?” says the Queen, pointing to his feet. Even the women on the other side of the chamber look over.

“We ran the rapids in order to get to Tower Hill. I thought I should come to you with news as soon as I could. I should have changed but I thought . . .” He is rambling. The Queen is wearing a wry smile. Is she enjoying his discomfort?

“You ran the rapids?” she says. “Goodness!”

He wishes he'd made some other excuse because he cannot bear feeling patronized, like a small boy who has sat atop a pony for the first time.

“Those rapids are quite the lark, aren't they?” says Essex.

“A lark, yes,” Cecil echoes, trying to keep the smoldering resentment from his voice.

Penelope bursts into the nursery before she has removed her mud-spattered traveling clothes, greeting Mistress Shilling, who has Little Pea on her lap and rocks a cradle with her foot. The children crowd round, all talking at once, apart from Lucy, her oldest, who hangs back by the window, shrouded in the shyness that comes at the brink of adulthood. Penelope scoops the three-year-old up into her arms, whispering, “My sweet pea,” delighting in her lisp as she says “Mama” with a dimpled grin. Penelope presses a finger onto her little snub nose, raising a chuckle. She wonders if Rich has remarked that Little Pea has her father's upturned nose. She lifts the linen cap, breathing in her scent, and looks into the cradle to see her newest child, swaddled tight as a joint of meat, fast asleep.

“Baby,” says Little Pea, pointing a fat finger at the infant.

“Look at you all,” she says, taking in the sight of her offspring dressed in their best clothes for her arrival, bursting with excitement to see their mother. Her heart swells. Some women she knows complain that their children cling to their nurses for dear life when they visit. The circumstances of her life may keep her distant from her offspring but she has always made sure that the precious time she does spend with them is devoted entirely to their pleasure.

Her youngest son holds up his guinea pig. “See how well I have taken care of him.”

“He is thriving in your care, Henry. You have grown, young man.” Penelope strokes the little proffered creature, sitting down cross-legged on the floor, plopping Little Pea onto her lap, with all but Lucy coming to sit beside her. A thought keeps niggling—something she heard about on the journey. A Catholic dragged out of a priest hole at a neighbor's house. He had hidden there for four days without food or water and was half dead by the time he was found. She shivers, turning back to her children, hoping the world will be a safer place for them when they are grown.

Little Pea wraps a hand around her mother's necklace, lisping, “Pretty.”

“Do you have gifts for us?” asks her oldest boy.

“Hoby!” admonishes Essie. “That is not the way to greet our mother when you have not seen her in a month.”

She strokes Essie's irresistible, top-of-the-milk skin. “As it so happens.” She turns to Hoby, who looks more and more like his uncle Essex as the months pass, “I do have something for you.” She looks at him, her acquisitive child, her magpie, watching the excitement flash in his eyes. “Outside.”

He jumps to his feet. “May I see?”

“Not until I have had a kiss and a hug.” She opens her arms wide and draws them to her, smiling over their shoulders at Lucy, who remains beside the window, pretending to be interested in something outside, but glancing over periodically at the family huddle. She returns the smile with a halfhearted one of her own. Penelope supposes Lucy must feel too grown-up for all this—she is thirteen, after all—and remembers herself at that age arriving at the countess's house, feeling too old for childish things and yet secretly wanting them nonetheless.

Henry plants a sticky kiss on her cheek.

“Off you go, down to the stables, and ask Alfred to show you. Essie, you are in charge of your brothers.”

The three of them rush out, Henry holding tight to his guinea pig with one hand and his sister with the other. Penelope can't quite put out of her mind the priest, imagines he must be at the Tower now, having information extracted from him. The thought makes her feel sick and she wonders about all those nameless men gathering information on the Continent and what they are risking. And this poor man, apprehended just a few miles away, makes this place, which she'd always regarded as a refuge, seem flimsy as paper.

She pulls herself to her feet and hands Little Pea back to the nurse. “I am so grateful to you for the care you give them.” She cannot help but remember how Mistress Shilling had scooped her up that day, years ago, when she thought she would go quite mad with distress. The comforting fug of the laundry wafts back to her through time, as if it was yesterday and not nearly fourteen years ago. She finds herself wondering how old Mistress Shilling is; if she wet-nursed Rich she must be well past fifty by now. She is listing all the children's accomplishments, telling Penelope how the new tutor has settled in and what the music master has been teaching them. She has the sudden thought that either of these men might be secret Catholics, but admonishes herself for being dramatic. She interviewed them herself and they came with watertight recommendations.

Penelope goes to sit beside Lucy in the window. “What are you reading?” She touches a finger to the book her daughter has in her hand, but Lucy pulls it out of reach.

“I'm sorry. I found it in your private things.” Lucy has her head down, will not meet her eye, but allows her mother to prise the volume from her hands.

Now she can see it properly she recognizes the book; it is
Astrophil and Stella
.

“What is this?” Lucy pulls out a leaf of paper—
My love for you is eternal as the stars, my own heavenly body
. A note signed by Sidney that she had used to mark the pages.

“Let me explain.” Penelope looks over to Mistress Shilling, who instantly understands, gathering Little Pea up and leaving the room.

Lucy challenges her with a hard look. “You loved Sir Philip Sidney?”

“Yes, I did.” Penelope is not about to weave herself into a web of lies and excuses; she is already freighted with enough untruths to last through this life and the next. Even if she had wanted to she couldn't have put into words what it was she had with Sidney, the way she had been caught inextricably in his web, and he in hers. She has often wondered if it was separation that fueled their feelings. She knew so little of love then and the way first love can shape a person. Not a day passes when she doesn't think of Sidney in some small way. She might hear a phrase that he once used, or see his brother at a distance and think it him, or dream vividly of him, or a line from one of his poems will pop into her head unexpectedly.

“And what about Father?”

“It had nothing to do with your father, Lucy.”

“But if you loved another, then you betrayed him.”

“It was an entirely chaste love.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly that, my darling.” She stretches out to take her daughter's hand but Lucy does not return the gesture, letting her hand sit stiffly beneath her mother's. “There is much you do not yet understand about love. It is not always straightforward.”

“I have read the romances,” says Lucy, as if to suggest she is being patronized. “I know about courtly love. Are you saying it was that?” She taps the cover of the book with an insistent knuckle.

“Not exactly.” She could smooth it over easily by saying it was just this, but it wasn't, it was more than that and she can't bring herself to dismiss it in that way, as just some kind of formal distant adoration. “One day you will be entranced by someone and it will more than likely not be the husband your father and I choose for you.”

“I don't want to wed, ever.” The stiffness suddenly drops away from her and she wraps both her arms around her mother, clinging on tightly, suddenly a child again.

“Marriage means children, and having children is truly one of the most wonderful pleasures God has given us.”

“Father has been talking of a match.”

This is the first Penelope has heard of it, and she seethes inwardly that he hasn't discussed it first with her. “I will not allow it, Lucy. You are only thirteen. There is no rush.” She makes a mental note to confront Rich about this. She rarely sees him alone these days, only in public when they have to put on a good show of things at court, or when Rich attaches himself to her brother's crowd, which is too often. He has an annoying habit of popping up at Essex House when he is not wanted.