Elizabeth I (122 page)

Just before New Year’s, an old face appeared. John Dee, down from his post at Manchester, presented himself at court.

“My dear magus,” I said, taken aback by the change in him. He looked beaten down, a smaller version of himself. “Your duties at Manchester release you for the holidays?”

He bowed, his long white beard flopping, almost hitting his knees. “They were relieved to see me go,” he said. “I am sure of it.” He straightened. “It has been a tedious few years. They will let me go next year, I am sure of it.”

“We all either die in office, John, or are let go,” I told him. I was not sure which was preferable.

He looked around my privy chamber, his dark eyes taking in every object. “Your Majesty trusts me?”

I laughed. “Have I not let you guide me in crucial things? My coronation date, my future with the French prince—God rest his soul.” François—I still missed him. Missed what I was with him.

“Indeed you have,” he affirmed. “I came because I saw danger for you here. I was consulting the star charts and the glass, and they both told me you must leave Whitehall for Richmond. Death lurks here!”

His surety took me by surprise. He usually softened his warnings. “Indeed?”

“Yes. You must transfer immediately. Do not linger! Whitehall is a death trap for you.”

He was fierce about it. In fact, I had never seen him more committed to a prediction.

“But we have New Year’s celebrations planned, and plays for Twelfth Night,” I argued.

“You must not let festivities be an obstacle,” he said. “Just so those eating and feasting are often swept away.”

“John, you are sounding like one of those tedious prophets crying in the wilderness. I will not upset my court by leaving in the middle of celebrations I have invited them to. What talk it would cause! They are already murmuring about that sermon. I will not give them any more food for gossip.”

He crossed his arms, glared at me. “Your stubbornness imperils your precious royal self.”

“It has before, and it will again. But I do not want to cause alarm, and a hasty removal will do just that.”

“I have done my part,” he said. “I can do no more!”

That night I told Catherine, Helena, and the other ladies of the chamber to ready themselves for a move. “As soon as the Twelfth Night play is done, we will depart for Richmond.”

“At night?” Catherine cried in alarm.

“No, but as soon as dawn breaks.” It would be cold then, but I felt impelled to do it. Dee’s eyes had frightened me.

Daybreak on January 6 revealed a drizzly mist enveloping the buildings so thickly that I could not see the great gatehouse across the courtyard. The river was invisible, masked by a fog that lay over it like a cloud. Cold gripped the rooms as we passed through them on our way out to the water steps. As our footsteps sounded, they seemed to drum out,
Flee, flee, for your father died here in just such weather.

It was true. My father had kept to his sickbed at Whitehall for three weeks in January, and then, just as the month was about to end, he died. Perhaps Dee had felt that time reverberating, wanting to repeat itself.

“Are you sure you want to transfer now?” asked Helena.

“Yes,” I replied, walking faster. Let me find a plausible reason. “It is warmer there. The heating system at Richmond is better.”

“Perhaps so,” said Catherine, struggling to keep up. “But the fifteen miles of river in between are colder than either palace.”

“We shall bundle up in the royal barge,” I assured her.

Behind them trailed the other ladies of the chamber, as well as Eurwen. I should have sent her back to Wales before the weather turned, but I had promised her a festive Christmas at court. Now it was too late; she would have to come with us to Richmond and wait until spring to return home.

Torches lit our way down the mossy steps to the barge, its oars-men waiting. As we pushed off, I saw the mist swallow Whitehall, obliterating it.

Soon it began to sleet, the icy particles hurling themselves against the windows. We were going with the tide, but still it would take hours to reach Richmond. Suddenly the heaps of furs and heated bricks seemed a pitiful defense against the elements.

Oh, John Dee,
I thought,
are you sure you saw what you saw? This is folly.

Beside me, Catherine began to shiver violently, and everyone huddled together for warmth.

Past Lambeth, then past Barn Elms and Mortlake. I tried to see the little landing at Mortlake, but it was curtained by fog. After Mortlake willows and reeds lined the banks, making lacy patterns. And then the towers of Richmond behind their guarding wall, spires piercing the mist, their vanes glinting. At last.

“Ladies, you have been hardy travelers,” I said. “Soon we will be warm.”

I could not have guessed I would not be warm again.

The dreariest part of the year now commenced—holiday gaieties over, roads iced and dangerous, seas stormy and almost impassable, wood and food carefully husbanded. The court was skeletal. Many courtiers were at home, attending to neglected business. Helena departed for her own family, as they lived nearby.

The Great Hall all but begged for an entertainment; it was a wonderful setting for plays. But there were not enough people at court just now to warrant it. Eurwen was particularly lonely, as many of the younger people at court were missing.

“I fear I have done you a disservice,” I said. “It is boring here for anyone but the old. As soon as the weather breaks, you shall leave and return home.”

She did not look as pleased with that as I expected. Oh, so that was the way the wind blew. “I see,” I said. “And when this young man returns?”

She blushed and found something very interesting to look at out the window.

“The Eve of St. Agnes is almost here,” I said. “Perhaps you can get an answer.”

“I must have a room to myself, then,” she said.

“So you know the rite?”

“I am Welsh, and we know every magic rite there is!”

I laughed. “Very well. On the night of January 20, you shall have your own chamber. What else will you need?”

“A small cake made of flour, eggs, water, and salt. Two white candles that have never been lit. And I shall have to fast all day, so please excuse me from dinner.”

She must be very fond of this young man, whoever he was. “Those wishes are easily granted.” I smiled, studying her eager eyes. “Do you really believe in it?”

“Oh, yes!” she said. “In my village, a woman who performed the rite saw three men, not one, and the last had a wooden leg. It all came true. She married three times, and the last had a wooden leg. He had been married to someone else when she dreamed the vision.”

“Tell me how you perform the ritual in Wales.” Blanche Parry might have once done the same.

“You have to go without food all day. Then you make the cake and set it by the hearth. You mark your initials on it, then walk backward to your bed. It is very important not to speak a word all day. Then you go to sleep. While you are sleeping, the apparition of your future husband will come in, mark his initials in the cake, then appear in your dreams. When morning comes, you can see what is on the cake. Then—if the boy is to your liking—you eat a piece of the cake. That breaks the spell. Then you can speak to others again.”

“Oh, my, you will be hungry by the time morning comes. And can you reveal who you saw in your dreams?”

“Only if you don’t like him. Telling a dream means it won’t come true.”

“So if you won’t tell me who you saw, that means it was the one you like?”

“Yes, Godmother.”

“Then I hope you cannot tell me.”

With such frivolities I hoped to distract this young and lovely girl from the sense of heaviness and endings that hung over us.
It is the weather,
I kept telling myself. But the truth was, Dee’s warning had rung a tone of doom, even though we had fled Whitehall.

Catherine seemed to grow paler by the day, and she confided that she had never warmed up after the boat ride, no matter how high the fire or how many furs she wore. I was stabbed with guilt for dragging her here.

Robert Cecil, who never even hinted about being needed at home, kept loyal company at Richmond, as did Admiral Charles. John Harington and John Carey came to court. But Raleigh was away on his estate at Sherborne, with Lord Cobham as his guest. Egerton was at his London home, and so was Lord Buckhurst.

Thus, the absent courtiers missed the most exciting news in years. Mountjoy had captured The O’Neill at last, and he was at our mercy. Ever since the Spanish had surrendered after the Battle of Kinsale and sailed away, he had been on the run, refusing to give in. Gradually my forces had smothered the resistance in the south and west and chased O’Neill north to Ulster, cornering him in a little area of forest near Lough Erne. His lands were destroyed, and the old coronation chair at Tullaghoge was smashed to pieces. Famine ravaged the land, and stories of people eating weeds and even resorting to cannibalism turned the stomach. At last O’Neill, the erstwhile Earl of Tyrone, surrendered unconditionally to Mountjoy, writing, “Without standing on any terms or conditions I do hereby both simply and absolutely submit myself to Her Majesty’s mercy.”

I held the letter in my hand and kept rereading it. Cecil stood obediently before me.

“I see this did not require fumigation,” I said. “I would have imagined it to stink of death.” Before he could stammer out a ludicrous explanation, I added, “But good news, even if it comes from an ill place, needs no perfume.” He looked relieved.

My head was spinning. It had been spinning before, from a headache that had plagued me for two days, along with aching bones from the cold. But this spinning was one of exultation. We had done it. We had broken the Irish rebellion. What everyone had said was impossible we had achieved. And in spite of the evil Spanish aid!

“What shall our conditions be? What shall we demand?” he asked.

I knew the answer to that. “He must abjure the title of The O’Neill, High Chieftain of Ireland. He must renounce all loyalty and adherence to Spain. He must order his son to return from that land. He must accept whatever lands I grant him, with no argument. And he must swear his loyalty to me, as my faithful subject. Then and only then will I grant him his life.” I paused. “We shall consider liberty and a pardon as separate issues.”

“Depending on his behavior?” asked Cecil.

“Of course. He has made many political promises in his career and kept almost none. Let us see if this is any different. Oh, and—inquire about Grace O’Malley. I know we subdued the Connaught region in the autumn, but I would be glad to know of her whereabouts—and her fate.” Had she fought for me, had she fought against me, or had she abstained from fighting for anyone?

“I shall carry out your orders with no delay,” he said. He fished in his leather dispatch bag, drawing out another letter. “And here is more good news.”

I took it, feeling a heavy seal on the seam—the crimson wax seal of the Most Serene Republic of Venice. In the slick parchment letter inside, the doge requested that we open diplomatic relations between our two countries. He wished to send an ambassador as soon as possible.

“Oh, Cecil!” I said. This was most unexpected, and most welcome. “A Catholic state breaks rank with Rome!”

“The first to do so,” he said. “It has been a long time coming. Of course, the French have never completely cut us off. But they have been too busy fighting one another for the past generation to worry much about diplomacy abroad. But this is a slap in the pope’s face. His allies desert him. They recognize that you are Queen of an untouchable realm.”

“Before we know it, Spain will be suing for peace and sending an ambassador.” It was long overdue.

“I hope so. We have been working for it. And since Essex has ... gone... the war faction has lost its way. Now imagine, if Spain made peace with us, and France already has, and Venice, you would be entirely vindicated.”