Elizabeth: The Golden Age (14 page)

Two dray horses pulled the brewer’s wagon, its paint long since peeled away, across the ancient bridge over the moat and pulled up by the gates, the beer barrels stacked in back sloshing against the restraints holding them in place. Burton, the brewer, a big, ugly man, stared ahead, looking perfectly bored, vaguely congenial. It was an art, and he had mastered it. Ramsay, Robert Reston’s man, sat next to him, offering a silent prayer that they would not be discovered.

“Morning,” Burton called to the guard. He wiped sweat off his forehead with a fat hand, leaving behind a grimy smudge. “Another filthy day on God’s stinking earth.”

“Morning to you,” the guard replied as he and a second sentry stepped forward. They meticulously searched the cargo, the space under it, every crevice of the wagon. This part always brought a tense hardness to Ramsay’s stomach. He’d often catch himself holding his breath until they were waved through, and this only made him worry more that they’d be caught. He needed to learn how to mimic Burton’s easy apathy.

But as always, the guards finished in short order, and soon he and Burton were rolling the caskets through a trap door, down a chute, into the cellar of the manor house. The barrels were heavy. Ramsay started to sweat as he fell into the rhythm of unloading the wagon. This was the part of their work that he liked the best, the part when his confidence returned.

“Have you met that Scots woman?” he asked one of the guards who stood, observing them. “Bad assignment to draw, being near her.”

“Eh.” The guard spat into the grass. “Never see her. They don’t let her out much.”

“I don’t like that she’s even in England.” Ramsay leaned forward, enjoying himself. “Or that she’s alive.”

“Maybe she won’t be for long,” the guard said.

“Really? What do you hear?” He swung another barrel from the wagon and into the chute.

The guard shrugged. “She was lucky the queen didn’t accuse her in that Throckmorton business. But who’s to say Elizabeth won’t change her mind?”

Good. Nothing new. Ramsay smiled. “Pray for it!” He and Burton continued their work, heaving barrels until the wagon was empty.

“Last cask!” Burton called.



Inside the basement, the cellar man took each barrel as it came through the trap door and emptied the beer into large open vats, then threw the empty casks on a fire.

“Nothing but beer. Satisfied?” The cellar man tossed a wry smile at the guard.



Upstairs, Annette paused before the door, waiting for a guard to unlock it. She chatted with him, unhurried, even smiled at him. But once the door was closed behind her, she abandoned any pretense of calm, hurrying through the apartments, calling for Mary Stuart as she removed crumpled papers from her undergarments and handed them to her eager mistress.

Taking them, Mary crossed herself and sat at her table. She devoured the contents of the missive as quickly as she could, but deciphering the code always took more time than she would have liked. At last, she looked up, rapturous, at Annette. “The gentlemen are ready. It will be soon now.”

This was the news for which she’d longed, for which she’d begged on her knees for divine intervention. She’d been devastated when Throckmorton was discovered, fearing that it meant the end of her hopes. But tragic though the loss of Throckmorton had been, in the end it was only a slight disruption. Reston had sent word that it was all final. Elizabeth would be assassinated. Philip would send help from Spain and release her from this prison. At last there were firm plans— plans that were ready to be set in motion. There would be no more disappointments. She would be free to rule, to return England to the true faith. God would rejoice.

“Blessed Mother of God pray for us!” the maid said, careful to keep her voice low.

“Bring me pen and paper, Annette. They wait on my reply. Hurry, now, hurry!”



Southwest London was quiet. John Dee had been standing on the flat roof of his riverside house in Mortlake to study the night sky, looking at the moon through a sextant, when he was distracted by the hiss and splash of an approaching barge. He was a mathematician, an expert on the art of navigation, an astronomer. But he was also the royal astrologer, the person to whom Elizabeth had turned to find an auspicious day for her coronation. And he believed that his queen, through English conquest of the New World, was the successor to the legendary King Arthur, leader of the Round Table.

Footsteps thudded against damp wood, and light flooded the dock far below him. He paid little attention until there was a sudden silence, followed by the lighter clack of a woman’s shoes. No further announcement was necessary. He started for his library at once.

Dee’s house brimmed with the trappings of his work, but no room so well reflected his interests as his library. Part study, part laboratory, part magician’s lair, it was full not only of books but of the greatest array of scientific instruments assembled in England, possibly the world. The heavy oak door swung open and the queen sailed into the room.

“Well, Dr. Dee,” Elizabeth said, taking a seat in front of a long table, breathing in the smell of musty books and dust and finding them, as she always did when she came to Dee’s house, oddly comforting. “Here we are. Come to consult the wisest man of the age.”

“I’m no more than the interpreter, Majesty. The wisdom lies in the planets and the stars.” He sat across from her and picked up an astrological chart. “Your dominant sign here is Virgo—”

She laughed. “Of course.”

“As Virgo comes into the ascendant, twelve days before the anniversary of your birth”—he lifted another chart, this one astronomical—“there will be an eclipse of the moon—the moon which governs the fortunes of all princes of the female gender.” His attention was back on the astrological chart.

“Princes of the female gender,” the queen said, smiling and looking across the room at Walsingham, who was idly examining the scientific instruments. He didn’t appear to be listening, but she knew he was.

“I mean to say a prince who is also a woman.”

“Yes, Dr. Dee. I am following you. So what does it all mean?”

“It means the rise of a great empire, Majesty. And it means convulsions, also. The fall of an empire.”

“Which empire is to rise, and which is to fall?” she asked.

“That I can’t say. Astrology is, as yet, more an art than a science.”

“Nothing more, Dr. Dee?” Walsingham asked. “No more specific calamities that we can guard against?”

“He’s asking if I’ll be assassinated,” Elizabeth said. “Queens are mortal,” Walsingham said. Dee shook his head, spoke gently. “Elizabeth is mortal. The queen will never die.”

“You see, Francis? This is a mystery.” She raised an eyebrow at her advisor, then turned to Dee. “He has no patience with mysteries.”

“What I don’t know, I can’t use,” Walsingham said.

“And yet mysteries have power. Have you not learned that?” Dee asked.

“Francis, leave us alone for a moment.” She had another question, one that required privacy, one that she was ashamed to admit felt more pressing to her heart than the issues of empires. Walsingham left and her voice lightened as she tried to sound flip, only vaguely interested. “And the private life of this prince of the female gender, Dr. Dee? What do the stars foretell there?”

“The private life?”

“Or is this too a mystery?” she asked. She wanted to say his name—the way a person does when she’s in love, eager for any excuse to feel those perfect syllables on her lips. Raleigh. But she had enough control to resist.

“These are matters of state, Majesty.”

Matters of state. Of course. Her private life would never be private.

“Do the stars not foretell matters of state?” she asked.

“For such a prediction, I must look in a different chart.” That chart was her face, and he came close to her, studying it, murmuring half out loud, half to himself. “Wonderful... out of such suffering, to have forged such strength... You will need all your strength in days to come... And love... so much love.”

So much love. He could only mean Raleigh. She was certain. There was no one else—not anymore. The doctor continued to search her face, and she held her breath, waiting for him to say more about this love, but instead he recited the words of St. Paul:

“
‘This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.’
” He went to the window, back to the night sky. “No, I’m no prophet. I see no more than the shadows of ghosts.”

“Shadows. I understand.” Thick disappointment laced her voice, and she wondered if he offered nothing further because he saw nothing else, or because he knew that his visions would not please her. She could order him to tell her, but something kept her from doing that, a small feeling of doubt burning low in her stomach, whispering that Raleigh would not, for her, be the source of any enduring love.

Chapter 10

Bess had not returned from the docks. She’d sent a message to inform the queen that she was going to stay with her mother, whom she’d decided to visit on her way back to the palace, and Elizabeth felt mildly irritated to find that she missed the girl. It was unaccountable, really. She had plenty of other ladies at her disposal, but none had shared with her the effortless friendship like the one she had with Bess.

She’d tried to play chess with one of them, but the woman was either too dimwitted or too afraid to beat her, and the game came to a rapid yet tedious close. She’d gone to her music room, played her virginals, but no one’s voice harmonized with hers so well as Bess’s. She’d looked out her window in the direction of Durham House and wondered what her Water was doing. He’d not come to see her, which was a surprise. She’d expected him to storm in, demanding to know why she’d sent Bess to check up on him. But he’d kept away. Perhaps she should have gone herself.

The thought brought a smile to her face. The queen appearing, unannounced, in a shipyard? It was an appealing idea that would cause a satisfying flurry of spontaneous admiration. And when he was next at sea—when she told him he could go—he would remember her on deck, in his cabin, and she would stay nearer to his heart. Yes. She would tour his ship. Tomorrow, perhaps, if the weather was good. Or next week. Someday.

That decided, she felt somewhat better, but was still distracted. After picking up and rejecting no fewer than a dozen books, she went to her bedchamber, sending all her ladies from the room as soon as they’d washed her face and removed her gown and jewels. Alone now, she let her shift fall to the floor in a crumpled heap and she stood, naked, before a long mirror. She gazed at her reflection, lamplight dancing around her, bouncing from the mirror to the walls and back again in endless cycles.

She touched her stomach, her arms.

Her skin was not as firm as it had once been, but her muscles were strong, and her figure as fine as any. She tried to imagine growing old with a man, someone who would see the changes in her body as a visible reminder of happy years spent together, who would know the source of every scar and the location of every imperfection and adore them all. Someone who, above all, would never let her feel so very alone. If such a thing were even possible. But surely it was.

It had to be.



Reston had gone to St. Paul’s for inspiration, and as he sat in the middle of the cathedral’s nave, anonymous in the huge building, the desire to bring glory to God consumed him. When he was finished, when England had returned to the true faith, he would come back here and restore this church’s ornamentation; make it reflect, once again, divine greatness.

It was a great motivator, something he needed more than ever now. The loss of Throckmorton was a blow, not simply because it meant the loss of a reliable agent but because it meant his group had been compromised and he knew not how. Had the heretic queen’s spymaster sent agents to follow Throckmorton? How had they known of his involvement? Had the man’s cousin, this woman called Bess, given him up to save herself from suspicion? Worse still was another thought, that Walsingham had not simply uncovered part of their scheme but that one of his men had infiltrated their group. That one among them was not loyal.

He sank to his knees, asking God for a sign, confirmation of his cohorts’ loyalty. After praying for more than an hour, he felt the glow of divine confidence wash through him, and he knew that God had not abandoned him, had not allowed his mission to be seriously threatened. Still, despite his certainty, his feeling of relief, he did what anyone in his position would.

He returned to his rooms and called each of the members of his group to him, individually, and questioned them more thoroughly than Walsingham himself could have. Before night fell, he was satisfied with his human confirmation of God’s message and ready to continue his work.

But first, he would pray for Throckmorton’s soul.



The wait for this week’s delivery seemed endless. Reston was trying to compose a letter, but his hand ached, tension seeping into every muscle, making it difficult to write. Candles lit the hidden cellar room in which he sat, their flickering glow far from bright. He leapt to his feet when the brewer walked in. “You have it?” he asked. Burton handed him a letter, which Reston read and passed to another man, hidden in the shadows, face covered by a hood. “What do you think? You’re the expert on church law.”

His companion shook his head as he read. “No. It won’t do. This is not an order.” Mary had to do more than agree to their plans. She was their true sovereign—she had to command that Elizabeth be assassinated. She had to set their scheme into motion. He was adamant on this point.

Reston nodded agreement, returned to the table, and dashed off a letter. “She and she alone must give the order,” he said, passing his now-complete note to Burton. “One more journey, my friend. Then—
consummatum est!
It is finished.”

Excitement pulsed through him. They were so close. He would pray now and, when he was finished, allow himself to start work on his plans for St. Paul’s. Truly, there was no enjoyment more satisfying than that of bringing souls and glory to God.