Elizabeth: The Golden Age (13 page)

Still pacing, holding the paper in her hand, she waited for him to arrive. She heard his voice in the atrium, was irritated by the sound of her ladies’ laughter as they vied for his attention, and willed upon herself composure. He would see nothing but a serene monarch. She would guard all her private emotions, give him what she must, and hope that her heart would not come out scarred. The door opened and he entered. She held up the letter.

“You ask permission to go,” Elizabeth said.

She could see at once that he was full of angry frustration. It was evident in his tense voice, stiff posture. “Just give me my warrant,” he said. “There’s nothing else for me here. At sea I know what I’m to do, I know the risks, I know the rewards. Here—” He stopped, threw up his arms.

“But you’re quite wrong. You are needed here. I have decided to appoint you captain of my personal guard.”

“Captain of your—”

A strange sensation flashed through her, an inkling suspicion that he was not sufficiently grateful. She did not want to be angry with him, so she gave him no time to speak. “Kneel,” she commanded in her firmest voice. He obeyed but did not look at her, and the omission cut. She tapped him on the shoulder with her hand. “Rise, Sir Walter Raleigh.”

Again he followed her command but kept his eyes on the ground, and she found herself unwilling to continue hiding her emotions.

“Why are you staring at your boots?” she asked, voice full of knives. “Any other man would be shouting out the news for all to hear.” He would not look at her; he’d turned away. She fought the urge to force him back around and slap him. “Now you stare at the wall. Am I so hideous that you can’t even look me in the face?”

He said nothing for a painful moment, leaving her to listen only to the rhythm of her racing heart. At last, he turned back, stepped toward her, met her eyes. “Why do you talk like a fool when you’re anything but a fool?”

“Talk like a fool!” She threw the words, laced with venom, at him. “Please teach me better.” Her eyes flashed and he paused. She looked away, afraid if she did not, she would lose herself in his stare.

“I asked Bess once to advise me how to win your favor. She said, ‘Pay her the compliment of the truth.’ I have done that.”

“Bess gives good advice,” she said, looking back at him. “My favor is won.”

“But you have not paid me the compliment of the truth.”

“Is a knighthood not enough? A royal appointment? How much more favor do you want?” She knew the answer. There was no point listening to him any further. She turned, ready to leave the room.

But his voice took on a gentle intensity that stopped her. b“All you have.”

“And what do you offer in return?” Her tone was flip, but she could feel all her sympathy returning to him, the small beginnings of a hope that he was not like the rest, that he wanted her for her.

“All I have.” He could not have stunned her further if he’d struck her. Her heart pounded; she grew warm and was so taken aback she could hardly trust herself to speak.

“My friend, forgive me,” she said, taking his hand. “I’m a vain and foolish woman. At court it’s all a game. I like to be admired. I require it. I grow accustomed to it. But it’s all nothing. You come here as if from another world, and I...” She gave him a smile so filled with emotion it seemed to make her lips swell. “You have real adventures; you go where the maps end. I would follow you there if I could, believe me.”

“You’re the queen. You may do as you wish.”

“Never. How can you say so? This palace is my prison. If I were to escape—if I were to fly to that place where I— where I could give you all I have, and all I am—” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Believe me, sir, I don’t cut up my heart and give it by halves. You would have all of me. You would possess me, and the queen, and all England.”

A soft tenderness crept into his words as he reached his hand to her cheek. “I don’t want the queen. I don’t want England.”

“I am all three. My own indivisible trinity.”

Love, admiration, every good thing passed between them, their eyes locked in a moment both wanted to stretch to eternity. She felt a crack in her soul and for just a second wondered if she ought to give herself to him, to bring him fully into her world, to trust that he would not disappoint her. Not yet. But maybe, eventually, soon.

“The storm clouds are gathering, my friend,” she said, bringing her hand up to rest on his. “Please don’t leave me now.”

Chapter 9

The summer heat was raging, and a rotten stench hung heavy over London, but there was no smell strong enough, no blazing sun hot enough to keep the people away from watching the queen’s justice being served. The paid seats in the makeshift galley were full, and every other inch of space around Tyburn Tree was filled with people swarming to view the day’s public executions. The Tree was notorious, a permanent gallows in the west of London, shaped like a triangle and large enough to hang twenty-four unfortunate souls at one time.

Today’s audience would be treated to more than the usual hangings. Today there was a traitor among the criminals. A traitor who would be hanged, cut down before he was dead, then disemboweled—his entrails shown to him before they were burned—and finally, his body would be quartered, the bloody remains displayed in prominent locations throughout the city, a not-so-gentle reminder that loyalty to the crown was preferable to the alternative.

Francis Throckmorton showed no visible response to the noose being tightened around his neck as the crowd bayed. Torture had destroyed his body, left his face a bloodied mess, but he held his head high, ready for death.

God was waiting for him.

He feared nothing, only prayed.

Lord have mercy on the soul of Your servant, who gives his life for Your eternal truth...

The cart upon which he stood pulled away, and he dropped, his body flailing, but his neck did not break. It was not supposed to. The executioners let him swing for a while, fighting for his breath, then cut him down, ready to continue their work.

The crowd, drunk on bloodlust, roared, ready to see the traitor meet his grisly fate.



Not far from Tyburn, in a candlelit room hidden in a secret cellar, Throckmorton’s co-conspirators knelt, Reston leading them in prayer. “May he enter heaven as a soldier returns home victorious from war—”

Babington alone did not lower his head, instead stared straight ahead, eyes unfocused, Reston’s words burning until at last he could stand it no longer. “Why don’t we strike? What’s he dying for? Is this part of your plan?”

Reston looked up and stared, silent, at Babington, who lowered his head, cowed by the measured intensity of Reston’s burning gaze.

The Jesuit continued his prayer. “Lord, be with us as the end approaches. We will not fail in our duty. We look beyond death, to eternity.”



Raleigh stood on the deck of his ship, docked not far from the shadow of St. Nicholas’ Church, where every sailor stopped to hear mass and pray for a safe journey before taking to the seas. Work on the
Tyger
was nearly finished. It was as if the patron saint of sailors had taken special interest in the vessel, which soon would be seaworthy again. She’d required only minor repairs, maintenance really, and the work had progressed without hindrance or delay. Less certain, however, was how soon her captain would be ready— willing? allowed?—to leave England.

Part of him wanted to go at once, to get as far from Elizabeth’s bewitching and frustrating charms as possible—the part of him that accepted the fact she would never really be his. She wanted to possess him but would not give him the same in return. The thought of being without her made him want to stay for eternity, content to play her game, confident that in time he could push her further than today she would think possible. But even as he considered the possibility, he dismissed it as ridiculous, bringing himself once again to the position of knowing he ought to go, and the whole cycle would begin again.

There was more, though. Hidden in his depths was something altogether different, something that tugged at him whenever he thought of leaving. A secret smile and forbidden thoughts. Bess. He’d had to consciously stop from letting her fill every space in his brain and had done a good job of it, difficult though it was. It was necessary. In ordinary circumstances, he’d be openly courting her. But he could hardly do that when he was entangled emotionally with the queen.

Yet he could not erase Bess entirely, nor could he bear the thought of not seeing her again. Her eyes, her lips, the smell of flowers and musk that surrounded her. She was like a dream, and to allow himself to fully consider her bright wit and ready smile was to court nothing but danger. So he kept her buried, did his best to ignore the spot in his heart full of her.

“Lose you, Captain?” Calley asked. “I told you three times you’ve got a visitor.” A wry dip in his first mate’s smile spurred Raleigh to follow his glance to the dock, where he saw Bess. His heart leapt, then fell, and he felt angry, knowing that there could be only one reason for her coming to him.

“The queen’s ordered you to see me, I take it,” he said, meeting her as she climbed aboard the deck. “I’m seeing to my ship’s repairs, nothing more. You may tell her I won’t sail without her leave.”

“You think everything I do and say is at the queen’s command?”

“No. But I think the queen has sent you.”

“Well, so she has.” Her voice was stronger, the soft lilt to which he’d become happily accustomed in their previous conversations gone. “I am her servant. Of course I obey her commands. She has the power of life and death over me. I prefer life to death. That may not be particularly brave and adventurous, but that is how I am.”

He stepped forward, surprised, taken aback by her outburst, eyes warm with concern. “Has the queen been unkind to you?”

“No, no. The queen is kindness itself.” She turned away but not before he saw a welling of tears in eyes the color of the open sea. “A man was hanged today. A traitor. I knew him well. He was my cousin. He died because I gave information. Information to prove my loyalty. Because I was afraid.”

He reached for her, raised his arm to touch her, comfort her, but stopped himself, not sure if she would welcome the gesture. “That’s necessity. That’s the world we live in.”

“Would you have betrayed your cousin for your life?”

He did not hesitate. “Yes. And worse. We’re mortal, Bess. We’re sinners. We all come short of the glory of God. Even the queen who sent you to me.”

“Even the queen.” She turned to face him, a tear falling down her cheek.

“There now.” A husky whisper. He could not keep from touching her any longer. Rough hands wiped the tear, then stroked her face.

“That’s how the queen touches me,” she said.

“She loves you very much.” He took her face in both his hands and she looked up, meeting his eyes, and he no longer was in any doubt of her feelings for him. She took his hand from her face, moved it to her lips and kissed it, never moving her eyes from his. His breath caught as she kissed it again, this time bringing the tip of his thumb into her mouth. He drew her into his arms and kissed her, tentatively only for an instant, then eagerly, greedily, all his passion released at last.

When they stopped, they both pulled back, looking at each other with a combination of longing and confusion. “We shouldn’t do this,” she said.

“No. Of course not.” He kissed her again, quickly, lips hardly brushing hers.

“The queen—”

“I know. To continue would be madness,” he said, finding that he no longer had room in his head for such practical thoughts, knowing with a commanding clarity he would not have thought possible only five minutes earlier that their union was inevitable. “But then I’ve never had much patience for cowards.”

“Our lives would be forever complicated. We—”

“We would be risking everything.”

“Yes. And I don’t know...” She stopped and closed her eyes, then kissed him fiercely. She tasted like cinnamon. “Could it be worth it? To risk so much?”

“Maybe.”

“It would be smarter to be safe,” she said. “I should go back to the palace, never see you again.”

“But you will see me again. And when you do, you’ll still want this, as will I.”

“I never thought I could want something illicit. Something so at odds with the queen’s wishes.”

“Easy words until now.” He touched her face. “Don’t return to Whitehall. Come with me instead.”

“It’s madness.”

“Yes.” He smiled, rested his forehead on hers. “A delicious madness.”

Her kiss told him she knew exactly what to do.



They’d been careful to draw no attention to themselves as they made their way from the ship to Raleigh’s house on the Strand. It rose, magnificent, from the river and would have been more than acceptable to an exacting prince, though in fact it had been built for a bishop some two hundred years earlier. But Catholic bishops were not needed in Protestant England, and after the Bishopric of Durham was dissolved, the palatial Durham House eventually fell to the possession of Elizabeth, and she kept it to herself until she decided to bestow it upon Raleigh.

He and Bess slipped through the gatehouse and into a grand courtyard. He took her by the hand into the hall, through lengthy winding corridors and up a stone staircase to apartments overlooking the river. Putting his arm around her waist, he led her to his bedchamber and closed the door behind them, kissing her, hungry to explore every inch of her mouth, her neck, more. He did not pause even to close the curtains on windows overlooking Whitehall and Westminster.

Calloused fingers traced her breasts through soft brocade and she sighed, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. He’d already begun to unfasten her bodice when he stopped to pick her up and carry her the few remaining steps to the tall walnut bed. Then, putting her down with tender arms, he lowered himself on top of her, and she whispered for him to be gentle no more.



Deceit was everywhere in England.

This particular brand of it had been exercised often enough over the course of months and months to come down to a precise—and necessary—science. Without it, Mary Stuart would be wholly incapable of sending or receiving private correspondence, a situation that would be unthinkable.