Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (58 page)

in the river with the swans—then you’d know what it means to be cold.”

He smiled. “Any time you care to try your hand at that, madam, I shall

be happy to put money on the outcome.”

“Done!” Elizabeth reached across Mary and drew Robin’s sword from

its scabbard. She pressed the sharp blade against the olive skin which

showed between his chin and his ruff and forced him steadily backwards

to the water’s edge.

He raised his hands in submission and began to laugh uneasily.

“Now, madam—you know you don’t really mean this.”

“I took a bath this morning—did you, my love?”

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“What—in this weather?”

“In that case, you won’t mind taking it now, will you?”

With his heels on the edge, he was forced to hold on to the blade

to keep his balance; beneath his feet the dirty river, swollen with rain,

rushed on downstream.

“If I fall in there I shall stink for days.”

“True. But then I don’t have to receive you, do I?”

For one moment he considered how easy it would be to overpower

her and shake the sword out of her hand. Had they been alone he would

have done it, but with his sister present he did not dare to risk such an

assault upon her dignity. It was nothing for him to help himself to her

handkerchief in public or stand in her rooms while she dressed, handing

her her shift or choosing her jewels. It was nothing for him to kiss her

uninvited—though certainly the Duke of Norfolk had objected—but

there was a fine distinction between familiarity and insolence, a line over

which he must not step in front of witnesses—even when that witness

was his own sister and the Queen’s best friend. So, now, he played it safe.

“All right,” he said, as the pressure at his throat tightened inexorably.

“Name your price, madam, and let me go.”

“Fifty gold pieces.”

“
Fifty
!”
he was outraged. “Judas sold the Lord for less.”

“The River Jordan,” said Elizabeth calmly, “was considerably cleaner

than the Thames. Fifty gold pieces spares you a soaking—and a forfeit,

of course.”

“Madam?” He looked at her suspiciously; he knew that smile.

“Fill your boots with water—and put them on again.”

Mary held her breath as her brother stared at the Queen, terrified that

this might prove the final straw. In spite of its outrageous absurdity, it

remained a direct command, a test of her ultimate authority. If he defied

her—and what man of Robin’s temper would not?—it could be the end

of his career at court.

She watched, with her hand pressed to her mouth, until she saw him

shrug and bend down to pull off a boot. Wild relief coursed through

Mary; she began to laugh and found she could not stop. The Queen

turned towards her and for a moment the two women clung to each

other for support, squealing like over-excited schoolgirls, until Elizabeth’s

cough intervened.

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“I shouldn’t laugh,” gasped Mary, “he’ll never forgive me for it. Oh,

madam, if only you had told him to jump in!”

“I know, I know—he would have done it too, wouldn’t he? Oh look!

The great fool is actually going to put them back on.”

Elizabeth ran the few steps to the water’s edge and laid her hand on

his arm.

“Don’t,” she said, and became incoherent as the cough seized her again.

Robin took her hand and stood up in alarm, his ruined boots suddenly

forgotten.

“Your hand is burning—you’ve got a fever, madam.”

She shook her head.

“It’s nothing. Just a chill, the doctor says.”

“Perhaps.” He put one arm firmly around her waist and began to

walk her in the direction of the palace, with Mary hurrying behind. “I’d

be happier with a second opinion on that. There’s that German doctor

Hunsdon speaks so highly of. Will you let me send for him?”

“All this fuss,” grumbled Elizabeth. “You know how I hate doctors.”

“At least consult the fellow—just to please me. And if he too says it’s

just a chill I shall be very happy to believe him.”

It was smallpox.

She had the good Dr. Burcot thrown out of her room for making the

dreadful diagnosis, screaming he was a knave and could get out of her

sight; but a week later she lay in a coma, without a mark on her body, and

the court physicians told Cecil that her death was imminent.

In desperation they sent again for the pear-shaped, opinionated alien,

but Dr. Burcot had been insulted. He said with a curse that she could

die for all he cared, and was only returned to her bedside with a knife

at his back.

Once there he took in her condition at a single glance. Still no erup-

tion on the skin, the worst possible thing that could have happened.

“Almost too late,” he announced grimly. “Build up the fire and set a

mattress in front of it. The infection must be sweated out—”

While Burcot worked, the Council met in confused and terrified

debate to determine her successor. It had begun to look as though Lady

Katherine Grey would have to be trotted out of the Tower after all, but

in their hearts they all knew nothing would prevent the Scottish Queen

sweeping down from the North to claim her inheritance.

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They were poised on the very brink of civil war when Burcot emerged

exhausted from the Queen’s room.

“The fever has broken,” he announced pompously. “With care, she

will live.”

The councillors surged about him, yelling like schoolboys, thumping

him on the back and wringing his hand, laughing and weeping so that he

felt like God. When they had all dispersed in a mad scramble to celebrate,

the Secretary, who had taken no part in the hysterical frolics, came quietly

to shake his hand.

“You will be well rewarded for what you have done, sir. The Queen’s

gratitude—”

“Do not speak to me of your Queen’s gratitude,” snapped the doctor

with an angry laugh. “She does not know the meaning of the word—

her first conscious words were a complaint. Her hands—her beautiful,

incomparable hands, if you please—are marred by a few spots and may be

marked. She will never forgive me, never.”

“Delirious, perhaps,” suggested Cecil cautiously.

“No, sir, quite in her wits. I asked her by God’s pestilence if she would

rather be dead!”

Cecil discreetly neglected to inquire what her reply had been and the

doctor did not trouble to enlighten him. Instead he kicked his bag across

the room in an excess of irritation.

“The woman
deserves
to be disfigured—yet on her face, virtual y nothing. I

might add that she almost paid for her face with her life.” Burcot swung round

and glared at Cecil. “I never saw a woman in greater need of a master, sir. I

advise you to find her a husband with a strong whip hand without a moment’s

delay, or you wil have trouble there. Oh, yes—a great deal of trouble.”

Cecil opened his mouth to comment and shut it again as the door

opened behind him.

Robin stood there, dishevelled and pale from his long vigil.

“Burcot,” he said brusquely, “the Queen requests your attendance.”

The German turned to look at him with faintly raised eyebrows.

“Your Queen
requests
?”

“My sister is ill. The Queen fears—”

“Of course.” Burcot bent automatically to retrieve his bag and walked

to the door. “I will come at once. You will be very fortunate, my lord,

to avoid contagion yourself—”

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Susan Kay

Cecil was left alone to ponder that delightful possibility and all that the

natural elimination of Dudley would mean to him.

t t t

Only an informed observer would have described Elizabeth’s gaiety as

false, as she sat on the edge of Mary Sidney’s bed with a shawl around her

wasted frame.

“It’s a rough sort of justice that allows
him
to walk back to the palace

in his stockinged feet and not catch so much as a cold,” she remarked

cheerfully.

Mary smiled up at Robin, standing beside the Queen, and held out

her hand to him.

“I am glad he was spared, madam.”

“Well, he’s never ill, is he? There ought to be a law against being so

horribly healthy—and so damned smug about it. He thinks he’s no end of

a man for being exposed twice and not catching it. The devil looks after

his own, of course.”

“And who would know that better than you, madam?” Robin’s smile

held that same faintly forced brightness and the pressure of his hand upon

the Queen’s shoulder tightened a little, as they both looked at the masked

woman in the bed.

There was silence for a moment. Elizabeth played with the fringe

of her shawl, sucking it and twisting it round her fingers. Suddenly she

leaned forward and gently touched the gauze mask which covered her

friend’s face.

“Take it off, Mary. I don’t want you to hide your face from me.”

Mary shrank back uncomfortably against the pillows.

“Please, madam,” she protested faintly. “It’s truly better that you

don’t see.”

Elizabeth looked at her gravely.

“You nursed me night and day. Let me see what it cost you.”

With mute reluctance, Mary pulled the ribbon. The gauze mask flut-

tered to the coverlet and, in spite of her determination to show nothing,

Elizabeth gasped. Robin had warned her, but no words could prepare

her for the dreadful sight of her friend’s ruined face. The skin, which

had been so smooth, now had the spongy consistency of long-congealed

porridge, an ugly lunar landscape of blistered scabs and deep pitted craters.

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She wanted to cry, but knew she must not do that for Mary’s sake, so

to stifle her tears she began to talk feverishly of sending abroad to find a

doctor who could help—there were many treatments—

“But no cure,” said Mary quietly, “only resignation to God’s will.”

“
God
!”
The Queen seemed to choke on the word. “God didn’t do

this to you. I did.”

“Madam—” Mary faltered and looked at Robin for support. He

nodded and she reached out for the Queen’s frail hands. “Madam, I

beg you, let me leave your service. Let me go home and make a life in

retirement—I can’t stay at court like—like this.”

Elizabeth stared at the coverlet and Robin saw the struggle in her eyes,

the struggle of a selfish woman in the act of making a real sacrifice. There

were very few women that she cared for and he knew how much she had

come to depend on Mary’s affection. Her instinct was to talk her friend

out of this, to beg her to stay, but she strangled it, knowing that, if she

asked it, Mary would not deny her.

“Of course.” She looked up and forced herself to smile. “You must

go home to your family. I have kept you from your children over long

and no doubt Henry—pest take him!—will want more sons. But you will

come back and see me from time to time, won’t you? Your room shall be

set aside in all my palaces.”

Mary lifted the Queen’s hand and treasured it against her ravaged

cheek. Elizabeth felt hot tears spilling through her fingers.

“Thank you, madam—you have been so understanding, so kind—”

The Queen flushed hotly, and looked hastily away.

“I’m not kind, Mary, I’m as hard as a nail and twice as selfish. Ask your

brother if you doubt it.”

Mary looked at her and a slow smile touched her face with a fleeting

gleam of its former beauty.

“Dearest madam,” she said softly. “You do not know yourself.”

t t t

In the corridor beyond Mary’s room, Elizabeth released her caged

emotion in a flood of savage curses.

“With all the mean, sly, ugly bitches in this palace to choose from—

why did it have to be her?”

“You must not blame yourself,” Robin said uneasily.

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Susan Kay

“She bears my disfigurement in addition to her own—how then can

I be blameless?”

He started to say that was untrue, absurd, that she was overtired by the

visit and morbidly fanciful, but she cut him short.

“Look at me,” she commanded, and he lifted his eyes hesitantly. “Is

there a mark upon my face?”

He shook his head slowly.

“And do you call that natural?”

“It’s not for me to—”

“
Is it natural
?”

The words pummelled his unwilling ears with the icy force of hail; his

eyes rolled over her face and then quickly away.

“No,” he said at last in a strained whisper, “I’ve never seen anyone

survive unscathed.”

“Nor anyone so disfigured as your sister—is that not so?”

“Don’t question God’s will,” he said quickly. “It’s never wise.”

Her eyes seemed enormous in her pale face. She laid her hand on his

arm and he felt it trembling.

“Someone grants me a charmed life,” she said softly. “I wish I could

believe it was God.”

He was silent as he escorted her back to her rooms, remembering

things he had heard whispered about her. Renard had said she had “a

spirit full of incantation,” Feria had called her the daughter of the Devil;

even Quadra had written home to tell Philip, “I think this woman must