Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (96 page)

like that—devoid of all hope, beaten. He looked past her into the mirror,

frantically seeking an answer, and saw the one enemy she would never

defeat, the true enemy, the greatest enemy—herself.

She meant to die, he saw that now, not scandalously, or spectacularly,

but by her own design all the same, setting her mind to death, as she had

once set it long ago, when only fifteen. Yet suicide, how ever quiet and

unobtrusive, was still a crime in the eyes of God and all Christian men, a

crime he could not permit. There was no one to take her place but her

feckless Scottish cousin, James, no child of her body to inherit. It was her

duty to live and delay that inheritance for as long as possible; it was his

own to make certain that she did.

He knew what to say to her now—knew what to say and how to say it.

Abruptly he reached out and struck the empty goblet off the dressing-

table with the flat of his hand.

“How can you sink to this?” he snapped. “How dare you desert your

people in their hour of triumph to mope over a dead rat who was never

worth a tinker’s curse alive?”

She stared at him and her face wore a stunned, stricken look which hurt

him infinitely. But he would not give up now. It was the right note and

he struck it again, hard, in a voice which seemed rough with contempt.

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“I tell you this, my considered opinion, madam: the late Earl of

Leicester was a worthless, grasping knave who used you for his own ends

from the day he entered your service.”

She swayed to her feet with an immense effort and steadied herself

against the back of her chair.

“Liar!” she breathed. “You white-haired snake, you lying, foul-

mouthed
clerk!
Oh God, he was right about you, but I would never see

it. You were behind every cruelty I ever showed him—even the Lord

Lieutenancy.” She panted for breath. “Yes—but for you and your mind-

less carping he would have had that and died believing in my love at last.”

Stung by her insults, Burghley shook his head grimly.

“Why deceive yourself, madam? Whatever you gave him could not

alter the fact that he hated you—and given the way you treated him for

thirty years what honest man could blame him for that?”

“Be silent!” She thought she had screamed it but heard it only as an

anguished whimper. “Be silent, I say.”

“Madam, I should be ashamed to stay silent. Have I served a snivelling

coward all these years? Must I now stand by and watch you fret yourself

into the grave for the sake of a miserable traitor who betrayed you at

every turn?”

She hit him for that, a sharp stinging blow across the mouth which

had uttered those unforgivable obscenities. Relief flooded through him

as he staggered back a step, for he had tied her to this world with chains

of rage, roused her sufficiently from that stupor of grief to know he need

no longer fear for her life.

But he had gone too far, roused something worse than rage in her; he

saw it suddenly in her black eyes, pulsing with indescribable venom, as

though all the forces of darkness massed behind them. She held out her

hand to him and gave him a smile that was soft with malice. She looked

suddenly malevolent—he could find no other word for it.

“That was for him,” she said slowly, “for him and the life you

condemned him to all those years ago when you murdered his wife.
Yes!
—

you wondered at the time, didn’t you? You wondered if I had guessed. So

now there shall be no more secrets between us, my Spirit, my twin-soul.

You alone of all the men in my kingdom shall know the truth about me.”

He did not want to hear this. He tried to move away, but her cold

hand fastened on his wrist with murderous strength, like the bite of steel.

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He tried in vain to shut out her harsh voice rasping in his ears, but it was

no use; he heard.

“I lied to you all those years ago, Cecil—did you never know it?—I

betrayed your precious trust. He was my lover from the very beginning.

We had nothing to fear, you see—I lost the Admiral’s child when I was

fourteen and Dr. Bill told me I could expect no more. It was safe to be

stallion to a barren mare, quite safe. There is a bed behind you, Cecil,

my bed, the bed of state. Look at it. Look at it and see us lying there

night after night, his body swelling in mine till I wept with ecstasy. Does

Mildred weep when you mount her, my friend—does she? No! You shall

not turn away from this. You tell me I am not free to die—so be it! I will

play the Virgin Queen for you a little longer. But remember this: I was

always his slut and I’m glad of it.” Her smile curled deeper, knifing him

like a poisoned dart. “You have served Dudley’s whore for thirty years

and you will serve her to the end of your days. For just as you refuse to

release me, so shall I refuse to release you. Sick, crippled, deaf, or blind,

you will
die
in my service, with a chain of office round your scrawny

neck—I swear it!”

She dropped his hand and stepped back from him, leaving him to stare

at his wrist as though her touch had defiled him. Something crumpled in

his face as he turned away from her, his life’s achievements like dust in

his hand; a broken old man who suddenly felt he would never care for

anything in this worthless world again.

The outer doors closed behind him and she was alone once more in

the dreadful sunlit silence, staring at the folded note on her dressing-table

which bore a single line of her own writing.

“
His last letter
:”

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Part 5

The Effigy

“She was more than a man and sometimes, in truth, less than a

woman.”

—Sir Robert Cecil

Chapter 1

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain;

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about,

“Noli me tangere,
for Caesar’s I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
”

S
o many, many years ago had the poet, sir thomas wyatt,

written of Anne Boleyn, whom he had loved so hopelessly and lost

to King Henry. The poet’s son, a bold traitor, had died to put Caesar’s

daughter on the throne when Queen Mary reigned. Now all were dead

and only Caesar’s last child lived to tell the tale —still lived in spite of the

wild rumours which had flown through the palace these last three days;

still lived to run in the chase.

The tall young man, lounging in a window-seat, slowly closed his book

of verse and glanced obliquely round the crowded Presence Chamber.

Courtiers and ladies stood in whispering groups, speculating with idle,

vulgar curiosity:
what now?
More than once he had felt their hot, sidelong

glances steal round upon him as he sat, apparently indifferent to their

chatter, idly turning the pages of his priceless book, speaking to no one

and pretending he could not hear what was being said. The doors of the

Privy Chamber remained shut and no one could guess what was taking

place in the room beyond it, what the faithful Lord Burghley would find

to say to his Queen in the course of today’s business that would persuade

her to continue in her public life.

Susan Kay

The ladies exchanged nervous glances and wondered how difficult

they would find their royal mistress when they were called to dress her.

They dreaded the inevitable summons to wait upon her and huddled

together uneasily, mingling expressions of pity and fear.

Across the room the young men preened like peacocks, and eyed

each other with hostility, angry dogs preparing to fight over a coveted

bone. They knew now there was something worth fighting for.
The

King is dead—long live the King
! Who would be the King of the Queen’s

heart now that the Great Lord had relinquished that prise for ever?

Would it be Hatton, the elegant dancer who kept his homosexuality

so decorously and discreetly out of sight? Raleigh, the cultured adven-

turer, brilliant, dark, and dangerous? Or Essex, the newest star in the

firmament of the royal favour, the outspoken, wilful aristocrat who was

as yet still a largely unknown quantity? No one knew, but everyone

was busy guessing and laying bets on their favourite stallion, since one

thing alone was certain now: the Virgin Queen could not exist without

a man at her side.

And so the whispering and shifting glances went on, until the

door opened at last and everyone turned to look as Lord Burghley

hobbled slowly into their midst. His face was grimly shuttered as he

passed through their ranks, meeting no one’s eye, speaking not one

word, not even to his son, the stunted little clerk, Robert Cecil, who

promptly fell into step beside his father and accompanied him out of

the room.

Slowly, the buzz of speculation started up once more in his wake.

The October light was failing as the red-haired man in the window-

seat rose and began to pace up and down in the space which lesser minions

automatically made for him. His mind was a fever of anxious anticipation

and excitement.

The old man dead! What a chance, what an unparalleled oppor-

tunity—but how long did he have to make use of it before the news

brought his rival, Raleigh, hurrying back from the West Country,

where war action had stationed him, to claim the Queen of Hearts for

himself ? He loathed Raleigh, the Captain of the Guard, a low upstart

who had made himself master of the gallant gesture and presumed to

address his arrogant love sonnets to the Queen. A quicksilver mind to

match that of his royal mistress, scholar, poet, explorer, a more polished

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version of Drake—he was a formidable opponent whom even Leicester

had feared.

Raleigh! The boy pictured him resentfully in memory, seeing him

forever standing, unchallenged, before the Queen’s door, wearing a suit

of silver armour; seeing him lean with familiar ease against the Queen’s

high-backed chair, flaunting that devilish pipe stuffed with the burning

leaves he called tobacco. A pipe was a necessary accoutrement to every

aspiring courtier now, but only Raleigh had dared to win a wager against

his royal mistress, by solemnly swearing he could tell the weight of his

own smoke. A ridiculous, extravagant claim—the whole court had

gathered round to see the proud man take a fall. Raleigh had weighed

the tobacco leaves, smoked his pipe, and then tapped the ashes into the

scales and declared the difference in the two weights to be the weight

of the smoke. The Queen had laughed and paid her forfeit with good

grace, and those who had never seen her lose a wager in public before

were astonished by the man’s wit and daring. Oh yes—Raleigh had been

dangerous even while Leicester lived. What power might not be his now

that Leicester was gone?

The boy paced faster and more furiously, biting the inside of his lip

and clenching his fist, betraying his tension, as he betrayed all emotion.

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind…

It was just an hour before supper when the imperious jangle of a

handbell sent the women in the room fluttering agitatedly into the ante-

chamber. The men started and exchanged significant glances with their

cronies, a rustle of taut expectation that made the boy tense with rage.

Who so list to hunt…

Yes—they were all preparing to hunt now; but his would be the first

arrow to pierce the heart of that elusive hind.

Like the rest of the hopeful young men, he had lingered in the Presence

Chamber, hoping for a public appearance, waiting for the opportunity

to stake his claim to her; and, like the rest, he eventually went away

weary and disappointed. Days slid into weeks and some abandoned this

regular evening vigil for the lighter pursuits of the court; but the Earl of

Essex had abandoned nothing. His mental crossbow was always armed

and ready, for he knew now that if he dared to shoot at all, this time it

must be to kill.

t t t

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Susan Kay

The painting was finished. They had hung Mary Stuart’s famous rope of

black pearls around her neck, fastened the monstrous cartwheel ruff beneath

her chin, and drawn back discreetly while she stared at their handiwork.

In the mirror she saw a mask, skilfully executed and harshly coloured;

crimson salve for a mouth that was a sad thin line, rose paste on her

bloodless cheekbones, belladonna to put shine into her lifeless eyes. A

snow Queen, with a splinter of ice lodged in her heart, cold and hard and

unsmiling, dressed all in mourning black.

Dead but not buried, she thought suddenly, and snatched the mirror

from its stand, handing it to the woman nearest to her.