Watch the Lady (55 page)

She hears those lines in Blount's voice then. Time is playing tricks on her, for now she is momentarily at their first meeting—when he had wounded Essex in that ill-advised duel—in this very chamber over eleven years ago. She feels Blount's kiss on the back of her hand; she smiles; her heart pitches and she is back in the present with those twin cannon staring, unblinking, her way.

Southampton is saying something but his words are taken by the wind and the continued screaming.

Robert Sidney replies. “At least let the ladies out before the house comes under fire.”

Penelope forces herself to look at him, to see the ways in which he is not like his brother: his hair is darker, he is not quite so long of limb, and he is older than his brother ever was. That thought is a punch to the heart but she cannot allow herself to be overwhelmed by old emotions. She is not the same woman now. She opens the window. “I stand or fall with Essex!” Robert Sidney looks devastated and she refuses to consider whether she is afraid. “Perhaps I can persuade some of the other women to come out to safety; there is but a handful and I doubt Lady Essex will leave my brother's side.”

She turns to the man who was assigned to protect her, whose name she doesn't know, asking him to relay Robert Sidney's message to the women. “Tell them no one will think any the less of them if they choose to leave.”

Leaning back out of the window, she can hear Southampton more clearly now; the wind must have changed. There is a desperate tone to his voice. “Send in a delegation, and we will thrash out an agreement.” He talks like a man who has something to bargain with. He must know their case is hopeless; there is no getting away from it. She wishes he would cease his foolish talk. She looks out at all the men gathered.

They have encircled the house entirely. Darkness is descending fast and torches have been lit, bobbing about like fireflies. To one side she can see shadowy rows of halberdiers and there is a line of men kneeling in the knot garden with muskets held to their shoulders. On the Strand mounted men mill about, she can hear their horses' hooves clattering on the cobbles; several torches light the black eyes of the cannon, which continue to stare their way—she assumes their fuses will be lit from those lights. The air is thick with impatience. She knows that once the order is given to fire, there will be no stopping the bloodbath. She must not let herself think of that.

“Sir Robert,” she calls, drowning out Southampton's voice, “relay this to Nottingham. It will take us some time to dismantle the barriers at the doors. Ask him to give us two hours' grace to free the entrance, allow the ladies, who so wish it, to leave, and then rebuild the blockade. Beyond that, it is a fair fight.” She hopes to God, as she says this, that two hours will be sufficient time and thinks of the women in the study feeding papers into the mouth of the fire—in her mind it is the mouth of hell.

Someone has handed Robert Sidney a torch and its russet light kisses the edges of him and catches the gilding on his breastplate as he goes to pass on the message to his superior. Penelope cannot see Nottingham; he is doubtless keeping himself at a safe distance. Despite the fact that he is kin—he is wed to their cousin Kate—and he has fought alongside Essex on more than one campaign, Nottingham has never liked her brother. She recognized him years ago for one who carefully managed to stay upwind of foul odors. While she waits for a reply she thinks of Cecil at the palace, imagines him rubbing his hands together, reveling in his imminent victory, for that is what it is.

They have been picking up and putting down cards for years but they are near the end of the game now and Cecil holds all the trumps. But there is one card he has not been able to take and that is the Scottish King. King James does not trust Cecil. Though what advantage, she reasons, can James's favor bring them in this moment? She tries not to think of what might have been, had the Earl of Mar arrived with James's support for Essex. Then Cecil might have been left with a dud hand.

She cannot see much outside now, save for the glow of the torches moving about, and is glad not to be able to see those twin black holes holding her in their gaze. But the impatience still hangs ominously in the air. Her stomach flutters in anticipation of death, just as it would were she awaiting a lover. Her hands are icy on the windowsill and she fancies she might already be dead. She hears a call from below. “You are granted your two hours' grace, my lady, by word of Nottingham.”

“I am ever in your debt, Sir Robert,” she says, wondering if her words have any meaning, for her “ever” may not be so long.

“Good man, Sidney. You always were true,” comes Southampton's voice from above.

She closes the window and moves to the fire to warm herself, taking up a writing box. Her fingers are too cold to hold the pen properly but she finds a way, nonetheless, to scratch by the light of the fire a note of love to Blount. She refuses to think more deeply on him for fear of losing her courage, but is unable to prevent herself from imagining her note being found amongst the rubble of tomorrow's dawn.
Be sure that our children are cared for, my love
, she scribbles,
and forget me
.
Find love elsewhere. I cannot bear to think of you alone
. Though she has yearned to have him by her side for months, has desperately needed his counsel, now she is glad that he is far away, safely distanced from this chaos, and that none of the Devereux soot will rub off on him. She is surprised to see a tear blotch her words, had thought herself in control of her emotions, but she takes a deep breath, folds the paper, seals it, writes on it:
For the eyes of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy
, and slips it in the frame of the great painting of Leicester, where it will not be missed. She meets Leicester's supercilious gaze and briefly wonders, as she leaves the chamber, what her stepfather must think of all this, if indeed he is able to bear witness from beyond the grave.

In the study, all is industry. A laundress and a seamstress have joined Frances in feeding the fire and searching the books, and the younger maidservants are in the corner trying to calm the older, who is no longer screaming but moaning and flailing like a terrified animal. “Where is Essex?” she asks.

“Scouring every inch of the place for anything that might incriminate him. We are nearly done. I cannot imagine there is a scrap of paper left in this house that has anything written on it.” Frances takes Penelope's hand, holding it tight, as if she needs the reassurance of human touch. She is steady, though, not trembling. They say nothing for a moment as they watch the fire and Penelope is struck by the futility of it all. There is nothing that will save her brother now. He has raised an army against the Queen's authority and they will not need incriminating letters to send him to the block.

“I have managed to buy us a little time and I think we should use it to persuade Essex to surrender rather than . . .” She lets her voice drift off, thinking in particular of that young boy from earlier. Somehow he has come to represent to her the senseless carnage that might come of this lost cause.

“Rather than fight to the death and take several dozen souls with him?” says Frances. “Has it come to that?”

“I'm afraid so.”

Frances just nods in response. They all knew how high the stakes were.

“The earl has surrendered, madam,” says Cecil to the Queen. “Without bloodshed.”

“Where is he?”

“Lambeth Palace—he will be transferred to the Tower at first light.” He says this quietly, bracing himself for an outburst of regret from the Queen, but she seems not to react at all, not the slightest flinch. She sits straight with no sign of tiredness, despite the fact that it is well past nine at night and she has been in and out of council meetings since dawn, with the whole palace on tenterhooks. Cecil himself is aching with exhaustion—his back is in spasm and he longs to lie down and close his eyes even for half an hour. He is bracing himself for the slanders that the earl will surely make against him.

“And Lady Rich?”

“I sent orders for her to be held at Sackford's house. She was taken wearing a sword.”

“Goodness! A sword! So she was armed.” The Queen seems delighted by this detail, and Cecil cannot tell if it is because she is impressed at the idea of Lady Rich wielding a weapon, or because it sanctions her to condemn her goddaughter as a true threat. “Henry Sackford, he is a friend of yours, isn't he?”

“He is. And at Sackford's house, at least, Lady Rich will not hold sway over the staff.”

“People are easily wrapped around those dainty fingers of hers. I am well aware of that.”

“Besides, I know I can trust Sackford implicitly,” adds Cecil.

“Trust is a most elusive quality, I have found. But I can trust
you
, can't I, Pygmy?”

“Indeed you can, madam.” He wonders if her question means she doubts it.

“And Southampton, the others?”

Cecil begins to recite the names of prisoners who have been taken and their whereabouts. “I have drawn up a list, madam.” He hands her a leaf of paper.

From the corner of his eye he can see Ralegh sharing a joke with his kinsman, Ferdinando Gorges, who is snorting with laughter, sputtering: “Completely and utterly taken in.” Ralegh lifts his cup to touch the lip of his cousin's and they both take a swig. Gorges wipes his mouth on his sleeve, leaving a dark wine stain on his linen. His doublet is torn at the neck and the elbows are almost worn through. Cecil knows that Gorges has been part of Essex's inner circle for some time now. He feels his annoyance rising because momentous things seem to have occurred about which he knows nothing. He adjusts his cuffs, tugging them down so they are even and straightening out the ruffles, admiring the velvety surface of his best slippers, his smooth inky stockings, and the discreet shimmer of his black satin hose; he is somehow reassured by the sight of such order.

“Lady Essex, where is
she
?” asks the Queen.

“With her mother at Barn Elms. She has taken all the other women with her.”

“Apart from Lady Rich.” The Queen taps at the paper in her hand. “I want you personally to question her, Pygmy. At least
you
might be immune to her famous charms.”

“If it is your wish, madam.” Cecil's mind is whirring, wondering if there might be something to be gained from such an interrogation—something to his own advantage.

“I don't want you going soft on her.” The Queen's voice is tight and clipped. “If she is at the heart of this, then she must go to the block like her brother.” She sniffs sharply and gives her head a little shake as if to rid herself of a memory. “I want this dealt with quickly, before the month is out.”

•  •  •

The chamber is gloomy, with dark unpainted paneling and nothing to cover the ancient oak boards that creak beneath his feet. There is a small hearth, playing host to a diminutive fire that goes no way to cutting through the February chill. Cecil notices clumps of dust in the corners and a layer of it lies over almost every horizontal surface. It makes him absently brush at his clothes, though he has not yet touched anything.

Lady Rich sits with the small window at her back so Cecil cannot make out her features—it is an old trick he learned from his father, designed to unsettle interlocutors—but she surprises him by rising and coming to the center of the chamber, offering her hand and a smile. Cecil removes his hat and takes her proffered hand. It is cold like marble and as smooth. He would like to allow his grip to linger there; he cannot remember the last time he touched an ungloved hand, a woman, skin to skin.

“I would like to offer you something to drink but the servants here are . . .” She stops with a look of amused indignation in her black eyes. “Well, they are not exactly forthcoming. Perhaps if
you
were to ask for some wine they would be more willing to accommodate us.” Only then does she allow her fingers to slip from his clutch and moves towards a table where there are two mismatched chairs. “Run to the kitchens,” she says to Cecil's boy, who is standing by the door, “and tell them that your master requires refreshments.” She seems entirely unperturbed at the idea of being left alone with him—something he finds quite thrilling; he has never been alone with Lady Rich. In all his years at court that opportunity has never arisen.

Cecil, still standing, is inspecting the dust on the chair and casts about for something to remove it with, seeing nothing suitable and eventually resorting to his own silk handkerchief, wiping the surface before lowering himself onto it. He notices that there are lines of grime edging Lady Rich's cuffs and collar—of course, she must have been arrested in this outfit and no one will have had the decency to offer her a change of clothes in the three days she has been here—even so, the impression she gives is dazzling. It was ever thus. His eyes rest on her breasts; she catches him with a ghost of a smile and covers her bare flesh with her shawl. Heat wells in his groin. “I shall see to it that your husband sends you anything you might need in the way of clothing and sustenance.”

“Good,” she says, “but we both know that the Queen hasn't sent her foremost councillor here to procure comforts for me.” She smiles, broadly this time; her teeth are even and unspoiled.

Cecil inspects his fingernails, as if he is entirely oblivious of the disarming qualities of that smile, waiting for her to speak, hoping his silence will unsettle her a little, but her confidence remains undented.

“Is this to be an unspoken interrogation?” she mocks him. “Perhaps that is best, for I would be very surprised if you could find a way to condemn me.”

“It would not take much. Your signature on a letter to . . .” He pauses for effect. “Let us say—the King of Scotland.”