Watch the Lady (45 page)

“Best be prepared, that's all I meant,” Penelope says lightly, but her sister remains glum.

“My husband is barely speaking to me,” she confides. “Says he wants nothing to do with my ‘family troubles.' Or that was how he put it.”

“Do you think he sides with Cecil?”

“To be honest, I think he wants no part of any of it. Besides, it will not come to that. The Queen will forgive our Robin, as she always has.”

Penelope wants to tell her that this time is different, but wonders then why she is even thinking of this when Essex lies at death's door. Perhaps it is that she cannot imagine a world without him in it. Her life has been defined by her family and with her brother at its helm. If only she could get him released into her care, she could surely nurse him back to health. Her throat begins to silt up with unwanted emotion.

“Yes, of course she will forgive him.” She does her best to give Dorothy a hopeful smile, thinking through what she truly means by “the worst.” There are so many potential scenarios, and none of them good: Essex could die alone under lock and key; he could be sent to the Tower to rot; he could be tried and executed for treason. She remembers the feather that had lodged in his shoulder, just a stray plume from a pillow that had found its way beneath his skin like a splinter and drifted to the floor when she removed it. But now Essex has begun his own slow fall, she cannot help but think it was a sign.

A sharp flare of pain moves through her head. She can sense Cecil pulling the strings of the situation; the Queen, though she is entirely oblivious, dances to
his
tune. As long as she continues to refuse to nominate her successor, Cecil can play each potential heir off against the other and position himself to his own best advantage. If she didn't loathe the man so greatly, she might admire him for his guile. She feels girded suddenly, committed to renewing her efforts to ensure the Scottish King is named, for England's sake as much as her family's, but she is bereft of influence now. Most urgently, she must secure her brother's release.

Someone takes her hand; she turns to see it is Blount and they sidle back into the shadows where they cannot be seen from below.

“I have persuaded the Queen to let me stay another month, until February,” he says.

“I should be thankful for small mercies.” She cannot allow herself to think of his departure, to see him in that hellish place her brother described, or she may lose her grip on things.

“I want you,” he says quietly, his voice rasping with desire, as if it is only in her arms that he can forget about the death and brutality he must face.

“If only Rich were not here.” They both know she must give the impression, at least, of being the virtuous wife. It would be going too far to spend the night with her lover whilst her husband was at court. They have both become used to their snatched moments of pleasure—it has been nine years, after all, that their love has been stretched and bent to fit other people's lives.

“We will carve ourselves out a few days together at Wanstead before I leave.”

She rests her head briefly on his shoulder. “I hope—” she begins, but stops herself. She was going to say that she hopes circumstances involving her brother will not escalate and prevent them from having their moment together. It does not need saying, they all pray for Essex's release, for his recovery. “I don't know what more I can do to help him.”

The hurdy-gurdy gives way to a pipe and fiddle, easing the discomfort in her head. She can hear the chink of the ladies” jewels and the thump of their feet as they dance.

“There is no doubt the Queen is acting on the counsel of your brother's enemies,” says Blount.

“Cecil,” she says.

“Primarily.”

“What if I were to write to the Queen and point out that there are those close to her motivated by private revenge and personal ambition rather than
her
best interests. Men who would rather bring down my brother than do what is right for England. I might remind her that Essex hasn't had the chance to defend himself.”

“You would risk a great deal. The Queen could take it in the wrong spirit and, as for Cecil . . .”

“It might unsettle him into an error,” she says. “And I have an idea as to how to make sure he gets his eyes on it.” She has a spark of clarity.

“How so?”

“I will ensure Francis Bacon sees it. He is the hole in our ship.”

“Bacon has turned?”

She nods. “I can only imagine he thinks the opportunities are greater on the other side. But he could be unwittingly useful.” She thinks of the man, his boyish face, a picture of innocence, and the way he punctuates his conversation with that sniff—the tic that gives him away.

Blount squeezes her waist, smiling. “My God, Penelope, Cecil has a mighty adversary in you.”

“I simply work in my brother's interests. You know that, Charles.”

He leans in close. “I have sent word to the Scottish King that once in Ireland, with the army behind me, I can secure your brother's release by marching into England and
forcing
the Queen to name James as heir. I suggested that his support would guarantee success.”

Her head begins to spin. The stakes have been raised to an unthinkable level and, rather than fear, her prevailing feeling is something akin to excitement. “Have you heard from him?”

“I await his response. Such a plan would be suicide without his agreement.”

She has long stood on the brink of a precipice; now she must leap, and either she will fly or fall. “Let us hope my letter to the Queen does its job and that it doesn't come to that.” She pauses, looking at him. “We are up to our ears in danger.”

“Don't forget that I am yours, whatever happens, and that I have thirteen thousand armed men who will do my bidding.”

He pulls her into him, kissing her hard on the lips before peeling away and slipping off back down the stairs. She returns to Dorothy's side at the balcony, hooking an arm through her sister's and perusing the scene below. The dancers appear the worse for wear and the musicians are out of key. “We Devereuxs will need to stand strong as ever these months to come,” she says quietly. In her mind she is already formulating her letter.

“That letter . . .” Cecil looks at Francis Bacon. His beard has been carefully combed and trimmed, his ruff is bright white and reassuringly well starched—Cecil supposes he must have a Dutch laundress. Francis Bacon blinks slowly, like a reptile, and Cecil asks himself, not for the first time, whether the man can be trusted. “Lady Rich made all kinds of veiled accusations in it. The Queen was not at all pleased at the time. But its effect seems to have fizzled out. I thought we could make more advantage of the Queen's displeasure.”

Cecil walks over to the door, opens it far enough to put his head through, and looks up and down the corridor. There is no one there. As he returns to the room he runs a hand along the hangings, just to be sure no one is concealed there. He can hear a gaggle of maids in the garden below, shrieking. There has been a late snowfall, several inches in an hour, and they are throwing the stuff at each other. He remembers snowball fights when he was a boy and Theobalds was filled with his father's wards, Essex amongst them. They were aggressive affairs; he can remember as if it were yesterday, as he listens to those girls' screams, the sharp, cold sting of compacted snow hitting hard, full in his face, and how he pretended to laugh when he was held down, so the stuff could be shoved inside his clothes.

“She
was
questioned over it, but it didn't achieve anything. The Queen seems reluctant to take things any further. She seems still fond of Lady Rich, despite—”

“I know.” Cecil is well aware that it is he, rather than Lady Rich, who has come off worse from that letter.

The Queen had shown it to him, unaware his eyes had already been all over it, thanks to Cousin Francis. It was an impassioned plea, all the usual metaphors about the sun departing into the clouds and divine oracles and suchlike. But there was more to it, that letter. In it Lady Rich implied that Essex's enemies were taking advantage of the Queen. By Essex's enemies she surely meant him, Cecil. Once they have done away with the earl, she wrote, they will “make war against heaven,” in other words push the Queen herself off her throne in favor of another. The message was clear and, though sufficiently indirect as to avoid causing trouble for him, irritating enough to get beneath his skin like an itching powder.

He has felt his luck shift on its axis since that letter arrived. The Queen has been cold and offhand with him for several weeks, made a number of spiked comments about trust. She had sent her own physicians to treat the ailing earl and had released him into his own house; he remains under guard without the right to leave, allowed only sanctioned visits and all the ladies have been shunted elsewhere, but even so. He has heard from one of the ladies of the chamber that the Queen has shed tears often over what she described as “the loss of her closest family,” meaning, he can only suppose, Essex and his sister. Cecil fears he has been wrong-footed. Essex's trial was set for February in the Star Chamber—high treason. But Cecil had sensed the prevailing mood; he didn't think it politic to be seen to be the one pursuing the earl to his death, the Queen might turn on
him
, so on the eve of the trial he had paid the earl a quiet visit.

Cecil found Essex hunched over his desk with his back to the door, apparently unaware of his presence, though he had been announced. He turned, and Cecil was shocked to see the skin taut over the bones of his face, as if there were no flesh beneath it. His eyes looked dead, like dry stones. His prolonged illness had transformed him almost beyond recognition. He leaned heavily on the surface of the desk to stand and, clearing his voice, croaked, “Ah, Cecil. Come to gloat, have you?” He smiled and Cecil caught a glimpse of the old Essex, haughty, insolent, impossibly charismatic, but only a glimpse.

He felt shame well up in him then. “I know we have not always seen eye to eye.”

Essex laughed at this, a thin, hostile sound that churned up that shame further.

Cecil swallowed. “You have no reason to trust me, but I do not want to see you tried tomorrow. I believe I can have the whole thing postponed; I know Her Majesty's heart is not in it.”

“Why?” he said. “Why would you help me?”

He had known the earl would ask him this. “Because I want what is best for England, for the Queen, and I fear your . . .” He searched for a word. “Your demise . . . well, it would not serve any of us, least of all her.”

“So what do you propose?” Essex eased himself back into his chair, his raised eyebrows indicating disbelief.

“Write a plea, use all your charm; employ the utmost humility.”

“I have made humble pleas by the dozen.” He drooped, allowing his shirt to gape at his throat, offering Cecil a view of his jutting clavicles. He couldn't bear to look at them.

“If I deliver your plea myself, to Her Majesty, I believe she might relent. If people feel she is acting alone, they will think her weak, but if it is on
my
advice . . . well, perhaps then they will think her benevolent.”

“Quite a subtle mind you have, Cecil. I have always known it, since we were boys.” Essex pulled a sheet of paper from a writing box and began to pare a quill with a small penknife. Cecil was filled with conflicting emotions. Part of him felt truly sorry for the man and guilty for his part in reducing him to this. Another part of him felt disingenuous, because this dumb show was for his own benefit, not the earl's, not even the Queen's—it was his own position he was shoring up with his show of magnanimity. He remembered then, his father's account of how the Queen had turned on him in the wake of Mary of Scotland's execution, which Burghley had orchestrated—
I did it for the security of her throne, but she did not see it that way. I feared I had lost her favor irretrievably
, is what he had said of it—and Cecil's position with her is far more tenuous than his father's ever was. But he also harbored a glimmer of triumph at his own cunning. It was a heady mix of feelings swirling about in him.

Essex sprinkled sand on his letter to blot the ink, tipped it away, folded it, and warmed the wax cradle with a candle. “I don't suppose you have the gall to ask me to show it to you before I seal it,” he said, dripping the wax onto the join and pressing his ring into it, without removing it from his finger.

It had done the trick—the hearing was canceled, all the crowds and hangers-on who had gathered around the place of trial had been sent away, and the earl now lives in limbo at his house, scratching the bottom of his pot for funds, for all his offices have been suspended and he has no income to speak of. It is like a long game of chess and Cecil cannot now plot his next move. He has found himself wishing that Essex had never recovered from his illness; that would have been the cleanest end to it all. And now there is the problem of Lady Rich. “What do
you
think of her letter?” he asks his cousin.

Bacon seems to be collecting his thoughts before he speaks. “It makes me wonder what she knows. If she has anything that might incriminate you.”

“Me?” Cecil's voice unwittingly rises, revealing his apprehension. His mind is turning on what Lady Rich might have in her arsenal of information. Has she somehow got wind of his correspondence with the Spanish court? He runs through the possible ways she might have discovered it. There is that Pérez character, who tends to pop up in all sorts of places, at the heart of all Spanish affairs. Cecil knows he, for one, has been feeding the Essex faction with intelligence for years, and there is Francis Bacon's brother, Anthony, of course, who has feelers all over Europe.