Elizabeth I (26 page)

“They are not as easily to hand, but I can obtain them,” he said. “There’s broom root and caper buds and
sabine
. The stronger sun of the south makes for stronger medicine.”

Something in the tone of his voice nagged at me. “Do you still miss your homeland, Roderigo?” I asked. I wondered how I would feel if I had to leave England and live elsewhere.

“One always misses one’s homeland,” he said. “But England has been good to me. I have had responsible positions in London, house physician at St. Bartholomew’s, and a practice among the highest in the land, Walsingham and Leicester for instance.”

Both of whom were dead—not the best examples.

He was a Jew but had converted to Christianity, which would not have saved him from the Inquisition there but permitted him freedom here. “Portugal’s loss is England’s gain,” I said. “Now about these herbs ... How quickly can I have them?”

He assured me he would get them within a month.

“How much longer will I have to endure this?” I asked.

“That is impossible to say,” he admitted. “It varies so much for each woman. And so few reach this age—so many die in childbirth they never experience what happens when the body withdraws from childbearing. Look in the graveyards, see the dates on the tombstones. Think of the men who are with their third wives while their first and second, who provided them with children, sleep underground.”

I shuddered. “The men die in war and the women in childbed,” I said. “In any case life is short.” Should I confide in him? “I am fifty-nine now,” I said. “I feel as strong as ever, no different than at twenty-five.” But there was that, that forgetting, misplacing things. So many more things to misplace, I reminded myself. So many people presented, so many names. And the old names were still in there, inside my head. No room for so many.

No, I would say nothing. Except in passing. “Is there any remedy for those old crones and smiths who bumble about and cannot remember where they left their hats?” I said lightly.

“Yes,” he said. “The remedy is a son or daughter living with them who can keep track of these things.” Then he laughed.

So did I. Until he left and I could stop the pretense.

There was too much giggling in the privy chamber. It was annoying me. Every time I swept into that room, a gaggle of the girls were hunched together, their backsides thrust out, as if to display the patterns on their fine satins. I myself had left off the heavier costumes, saying I wished to be more informal this summer. I thanked the summer sun for giving me the excuse. It would be more difficult in the winter. But by then Dr. Lopez’s herbs would be in my hands.

They were an impressive collection of beauties. There was Elizabeth Cavendish, the lady the bastard Dudley had enjoyed kissing at the tilt. She was tall and skittish like a nervous horse. There was another Elizabeth, this one a Vernon, with reddish hair and soft-lidded eyes that promised many things. (She wore too much perfume.) Two more Elizabeths, opposites in coloring—Southwell, blond and round with plump lips, and Bridges, dark and often scornful. There was one Frances, a Vavasour, small and pert (who sang too early in the morning for my taste). Then there was Mary Fitton, with her oval face, black hair, and eyes that watched faces with rapt and breathless scrutiny, which most people found compelling. Her elderly “protector,” Sir William Knollys, was evidently one of them. He was married but seemed determined to forget it when he was in her presence.

There was Mary Howard, whom I found rather stupid and tiresome, but her (dyed?) blond hair and huge brown eyes made her attractive to people who did not value conversation. (She liked to “borrow” other girls’ clothes. Once she tried to “borrow” something of mine, claiming she thought I had discarded it.) Last there was brown-haired, voluptuous Bess Throckmorton, their leader. They seemed to consider her, the oldest at twenty-eight, their model.

Sure enough, they were clustered around Bess, whispering about something. I stood behind them and clapped loudly. They whirled around to face me, still tittering.

“As Pharaoh once said, if you are standing idle you must need more work,” I said. “But never fear, I shall not take away your straw to make the bricks. However, I would like my dresses to be aired and pressed. The heavy winter ones, now, while I do not need them. Replace any lost pearls or gems; you can see the keeper of the jewels for extras.”

Now they all bowed as obediently as little lambs. The last one to do so was Bess, and she only inclined her head slightly. I looked carefully at her. She had returned to court changed in some way. Certainly she was thinner; she had put on weight during the winter. Now it was gone, and her cheeks had lost their plumpness.

Everyone seemed to be holding her breath. Elizabeth Cavendish gave a nervous high laugh and Mary Howard turned her bulging brown eyes to the floor, studying her shoes. Mary Fitton adjusted her cuffs.

“What is it?” I demanded. “Have I turned into a monkey?”

Bess looked at me levelly. “I assure Your Majesty, I see no monkey here,” she said soothingly.

Now the others burst into high-pitched laughter.

“I think you seek to make me one,” I said. “But you do not fool me.”

For suddenly I understood it all. “Although for a time, you did, and that is hard to forgive. I selected you to serve me in my private quarters—a position that many girls in the land would covet—not to dupe me. So where is he? Where is the father of your bastard?” Let them know, let them tremble—the Queen still saw all, observed all, even if she had to write notes to herself. Shame that that might be known increased my anger at her.

“At sea, Your Majesty.” She looked almost relieved to be able to admit it.

“Raleigh?” He had taken leave to attack Spanish ships at Panama.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said.

“The captain of the Queen’s Guard, whose duty it is to guard the virtue of my ladies, who holds the key to the maidens’ chamber, has used that key himself?” I was almost speechless at the audacity. Not only was he a seducer, but he was a liar. Before leaving for his venture, when there were rumors about him and Bess, he had sworn to Robert Cecil in a letter, “There is none on the face of the earth I would be fastened unto” and dismissed the rumor as “a malicious report.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Suddenly she looked ashamed. As well she should.

“He is a great seducer,” I said. “But I never thought he would be the proverbial fox in the henhouse, with so much at stake. Courage, Bess. You are not the first to be deceived by such a man.” I remembered his elegant poems to my charms and his great love of me, his calling me his Cynthia, his moon goddess. I shuddered with disgust.

“He is my husband.”

A double betrayal! “And when did this take place?”

“Last autumn,” she said.

When he was swearing there was no one he would be fastened unto.

“Well,” I said, “you must leave court and go to your child, wherever he—or she—may be.”

“He, Your Majesty. His name is Damerei.”

“Peculiar name. On second thought, you will await your wayward husband in the Tower. I shall command him to return immediately. His crimes are threefold: deceiving his sovereign, seducing a virgin under his protection, and marrying without royal consent. I would add, lying when asked directly about a marriage.”

Her composure crumbled and she said, “As you wish, Your Majesty. We did not undertake the marriage for any evil thought, but of necessity. It is well known that Your Majesty does not receive such requests gladly, and delays granting them, and time was urgent for us.”

“How noble of Raleigh!” I laughed. “So eager to make you an honest wife.”

As she bowed and left the chamber, I turned to the tongue-tied girls still forming a circle. “Stop staring, and learn your lesson from this.”

“What lesson shall that be, Your Majesty?” asked Frances Vavasour. If it had been anyone else, it would have been mocking, but she was clear as water.

“There are several,” I said. “The main one is, do not be deceived by a fancy man. Then, if you are—God forbid!—do not seek to hide it from me!”

Raleigh. I sat in my inner chamber and studied the miniature of him, which captured so well his arrogant charm. He was a volcanic spirit, restless at court, always wanting more. More than anyone else he seemed enthralled by the mystery and potential of the New World, as if the Old had grown stale for him or was too small to satisfy his appetite for adventure.

His appetite ... his appetites ... The carnal one was well known. I had spoken true to Bess; he was widely known as a seducer, and proudly so. There was a story abroad at court (which my rogue godson Harington had passed on to me) that he had backed a woman up against a tree in the woods. When she protested, “Nay, sweet Sir Walter! Oh, sweet Sir Walter!” he had ignored her and proceeded to that which they both desired, changing her cries into “Swisser Swatter! Swisser Swatter!” It made a good story, and if it was not true, as the saying goes, it should be. There are two kinds of tales: one accurate but not true, the other true but not accurate. Swisser Swatter was most likely the latter.

I sent for Robert Cecil, knowing he was always at hand. Not for him floating in a barge for a river party, afternoon matches on the tennis courts, long rides in the countryside. One wit had described him as always having “his hands full of papers and his head full of court matters,” and that served me well.

In no time he was knocking upon the door, and I admitted him. Quickly I told him about Raleigh. He shook his head. “I questioned him on this very matter,” he said. “You have seen my report. The man lied at every turn. If I may say so, Your Majesty, that is why he is so widely disliked, in spite of his looks and cleverness. Dishonesty stains his other virtues.” He laughed, his little rounded shoulders shaking. “Now it makes sense,” he said. “Some of the sayings I have heard. One, that he has been too inward with one of Her Majesty’s maids.”

“Clumsy wit,” I said.

“The other, that ‘all is alarm and confusion at the discovery of the discoverer, and not indeed of a new continent but of a new incontinent.’ ”

Now I laughed. “Clever,” I admitted. I was still feeling cross, but it was subsiding. “Swisser Swatter must needs learn to control himself in the Tower.”

Robert hooted. “You have heard that?”

“I do have a gown with eyes and ears on it,” I reminded him.

But they did not hear and see everything, as they used to. I would have to try harder. This was, ultimately, of no matter. But what else might I overlook that was?

It was night. The usual gathering of card players and gossips filled the privy chamber; I could hear them from my own bedchamber but declined to go out there. They were all discussing the abrupt departure of Bess, I had no doubt. So many must have known of her marriage and the reason for it and only wondered how long the brazen game could go on before I became aware of it.