Elizabeth I (19 page)

I shrugged and lifted my jeweled fan. The jousts went on, another nine pairs after Essex and Greville, thirteen in all. The sun was setting when the last pair broke their lances, ending the tournament.

Then, suddenly, another elaborate pageant car entered the field, lurching over the paths. A blare of music from players hidden near the barricades enveloped us, and the decorated car rumbled toward us before halting. It was draped in white taffeta, and a sign claimed it was the sacred Temple of the Virgins Vestal. It rested on pillars painted to look like porphyry, with lamps glowing inside. Three girls, in flowing, light gowns, emerged and dedicated themselves to me as Vestals, then sang out, “To you, the chief Vestal Virgin of the West, we dedicate our lives in service.”

Then Sir Henry Lee stepped out of the temple, plucking a poem from one of the pillars. He proceeded to read it, praising me as a mighty empress whose empire now extended to the New World.

“She hath moved one of the very Pillars of Hercules,” cried Lee. “And when she leaves this earth, she will be borne up to heaven to receive a celestial diadem!”

Had I known about this, I would have forbidden it. Instead, I was forced to endure it, knowing that people would assume I had ordered it.

There was, of course, a gathering afterward, to display the shields before they were formally hung in the riverside pavilion alongside the ones from former meets. The price of participation, as it were, was a pasteboard shield from each knight, especially designed for the tilt. There were many variations on the theme of knight: there had been enchanted knights, forlorn knights, forsaken knights, questing knights, and unknown knights. Sometimes they combined as forsaken unknown knights, and so on. There were also wild men, hermits, and the inhabitants of Mount Olympus. A man could be anything he wished for one of the tilts.

17

T
he jousters kept to their chosen personae in the Long Gallery, where the gathering was held, so the chamber swarmed with Charlemagnes, Robin Hoods, and King Arthurs. I liked moving among them, imagining I had been transported to another time and realm. Outside, clearly visible through the gallery windows, bonfires were blazing in the fields and along the riverbank, fiery necklaces of joy. Only two years ago signal fires across the land had announced the first sighting of the Armada, and now the memory of that victory added to tonight’s celebration.

In the hills, at the signal stations, the brush and wood had been replaced, ready to be lit again if—when—the Spanish returned, as they had vowed to do.

But tonight, tonight, inside and out, fires meant only harmless play. Mid-November could be mild—as it had been the actual day I had become Queen—or it could be raw, as it was now. I was glad of the warming fires in the gallery, thankful to be indoors.

The gallery was so long there were two sets of musicians, one to play at each end. At the west end, lutenists and harpists played soft melodies and sang plaintive verses; at the east, sackbut players, drummers, and trumpeters made thumpingly good dance music. A bagpiper was to join them at the end of the evening for a rousing finale.

Unlike the jousters, I had changed my costume. I was now attired formally, as befitted this high national holiday. My ruff was so enormous, so pleated and starched, I could barely move my chin. My gown was stretched so widely across its hoops I was obliged to move sideways between people. I had chosen my tallest and reddest wig, piled high with curls and then made dazzling by jewels scattered throughout the tresses. Upon my bodice hung various emblematic tokens to please certain of my courtiers. I wore the replica of the glove of Cumberland, the eglantine pendant given me by Burghley, the ropes of white pearls bequeathed to me by Leicester, and from my ears hung emeralds from one of Drake’s voyages. I was a veritable trophy of commemoratives.

The younger people were dancing at one end of the chamber; others warmed themselves before the arching stone fireplaces. Burghley was gamely standing despite his gout. Such gatherings were a trial to him, but he did not want to give in to his infirmities. He relied on his son Robert to protect him from overzealous jostling or too-long standing. The two of them were huddled together, murmuring, but they broke off as I joined them.

“Another glorious celebration,” said Burghley. “It is especially gratifying to have been present at the true moment.”

“I said when I appointed you secretary of state that I judged you a man who would tell me the truth regardless of my personal wishes,” I remembered. “And you certainly have fulfilled that mission.”

“Not without some conflict, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Truth telling is seldom pleasant, William,” I said. “Only the brave dare to do it. By that rule, you are the bravest man in the realm.”

A swirl of bright dresses passed by, young girls in the excitement of the moment, the eternal moment of youth. The faces change, the ladies pass off the dance floor and onto chairs, to be forever replaced by others. They were quickly surrounded by young men, the sons of courtiers and officials. I did not recognize some of them—I, who prided myself on knowing everyone. Who was that towheaded one? Who, indeed, the short one with the wide grin? Whom did they resemble? Who were their fathers and mothers?

One young woman whom I could name, an Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of a minor courtier, was fending off the attentions of the towheaded boy, but not very strenuously. He looked vaguely familiar but not in an identifiable way. Now she turned her back on him and he grabbed her sleeve, spinning her around to face him again. While I was looking, he put his hand on the back of her head and forced her to kiss him.

“Sir!” I said.

He peeked out from behind Elizabeth’s head and his eyes widened as he saw me. Hurriedly he pushed her away and bowed before me.

“Come here!” I ordered him.

“Yes, yes, Your Majesty.” His legs shaking, he came over to me and sank down in obeisance until his forehead was almost touching the floor.

“Get up, you brazen creature,” I said.

He stood erect but did not look me in the eyes.

“What is your name?” I asked. “We do not let anyone tarnish the reputation of a lady at court, no matter what her age. This is not France!”

“Yes, Your Majesty. No, Your Majesty.” He was trembling. “My name is Robert Dudley.”

Robert Dudley! What a cruel coincidence. But no—how could it be? Was he mocking me? “We do not find this pleasing,” I said. “Answer us true.”

“Your Majesty, most sovereign lady, I swear to you, that is my name.”

Was there a resemblance? The blond hair had misled me. The eyes, the carriage—were familiar. “Are you the son of Douglass Sheffield?”

“Yes,” he said.

Leicester’s natural son, born of his dalliance with the married Douglass Sheffield! God forgive me, but a jolt of pleasure shot through me. He was Leicester’s only living descendant, and this baseborn child would inherit all the Dudley estates when he came of age, while the Leicester title had passed to his brother Ambrose’s house, leaving Lettice—nothing.

Suddenly he was pleasing in his forwardness and looks. “I see,” I said. “And where are you now, what do you do?”

He stood a little straighter, and the tremor left his voice. “I am sixteen and I study at Oxford,” he said.

“Very good, very good,” I said. This lad pleased me. Nonetheless, standards must be kept. “You shall return there, and do not come back to court until you have learned better manners.”

For an instant he was his father, the same exasperated expression of disappointment crossing his face. Then he smiled, an ingratiating smile. “In all things I obey you, Your Majesty,” he said.

The girls were glancing over their shoulders to see our exchange; when Robert made his way out of the chamber, they turned their attention to others.

I glanced up and down the gallery, taking account of all those present. I saw Essex, taller than most, still affecting his forsaken knight persona. A shorter man kept him company, and he sported no costume. He had riveting, dark eyes that I could see even in the dim light.

Seeing me, Essex immediately left his friend and hurried toward me, but I turned away. I had no wish to speak to him at this moment.

To make my point, I motioned Raleigh, whom Essex hated, to my side. He was resplendently dressed, as usual—no one could fill out a brocade doublet like Walter Raleigh—but his smile was forced. It was he who was glum, for all that Essex wore the inky robes.

“Why, what is it, Walter?” I asked. “This is a happy night, but I see sadness in your eyes.”

“As always, Your Majesty can see more than others,” he said. “I thought I had hidden it well.”

“What troubles you?”

“There is someone else who ought to be the one to tell you,” he said. “Governor John White should do so.”

John White! As soon as I heard that name, I knew. “Oh, Walter,” I said. “The colony!”

“Sir John—”

“Is nowhere to be seen this moment. Tell me, quickly. The facts do not change, regardless of who presents them.”

He closed his eyes, steeling himself. “With Your Majesty’s gracious permission last spring, we were able to send relief ships to the colony in Virginia. But it has vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“When White arrived, he found the island colony utterly deserted. The palisades and cabins were overgrown with creepers. They found chests broken open, books and maps and pictures all torn and ruined by weather, and Governor White’s ceremonial armor eaten through with rust. There was not a sign of any of the hundred colonists, no clue but the word ‘Croatoan’ carved on a post at the fort, and ‘Cro’ on a tree.”

“Indians? Did the Indians kill them?”

“No one knows. When White left them three years ago, they had promised that if they moved to another site, they would carve the name of that site at Roanoke, and that, if they had been attacked or forced to flee, they would carve a Maltese cross as well.”

“What does ‘Croatoan’ mean?”

“It’s another island some fifty miles from Roanoke.”

“They must have moved there, then. What happened when White went there?”

“He was unable to land. The ships were driven out to sea, and thence back here. He has only just returned.”

“Do you mean that no one knows whether the colonists survived?”

“I am sorry to say, yes, Ma’am—that is, no one knows.”

“They have been abandoned? White abandoned his own family there, his daughter, his granddaughter?”

“He had no choice. He could not prevail against the elements. Ships are but wood and canvas, playthings of the currents and winds.”

“Oh, God!” I thought of them cast away there, waiting for the ships that never came. Had the Indians helped them, befriended them, or had they massacred them? “I am grieved and shamed that the colony bearing my name of Virginia should have come to this.”

“The New World is a dangerous place,” said Raleigh. “Alluring, compelling, offering glittering prizes and gruesome death. For every reward, there seems to be a punishment. Inca gold in South America, arrows of Virginia savages in North America.”

I felt tears stabbing at my eyes. There was a human face behind each victory and defeat, a personal price to be painfully paid.

All around me the music was tinkling and the dancers twirling. Voices rose above it, joking, laughing, happy in their moment. Outside, I could see the bonfires dying down, some flames still stabbing high into the night, others sunk into glowing mounds. The boats on the river were dwindling.

Raleigh was waiting to be either answered or dismissed. “Yet you are drawn to that New World,” I said. “Had you been at the colony, you would now be lost as well.”

“It is a chance every explorer must take, Ma’am,” he said. “God willing, and with your gracious permission, I will set foot on that continent, sooner rather than later, I pray.”

“Aye, and die for it,” I snapped.

“A death I prefer,” he said, “to withering away by a fireside.” He glanced pointedly at Burghley, now huddled on a stool, his gouty leg thrust out.

I turned away and immediately saw Essex waiting his turn for my attention. As soon as he realized I had noticed him, he started forward, pushing others aside to reach me. In his wake trailed his companion, the man with penetrating dark eyes.

His costume was magnificent, I must give him that. The deep sable velvet of his sleeves, latticed with gold and jeweled ribbons, glistened as if he had just surfaced from a deep pool. I said so.

“If that is true, my own glorious mistress, it is from a deep pool of melancholy, where I have languished since losing your favor,” he said, dropping to one knee, ostentatiously. “I break to the surface in beholding you.”

“As part of your languishing concerned your lack of finances—for you have importuned me from a distance for months—I marvel that you could scrape together the means to pay for your devices and appearance here at the joust. Get up,” I ordered him.