The King's Daughter (15 page)
It was clear that Whitehall Palace had grown in bits and pieces, sprouting a room here, an alleyway there. Mysterious gateways, open-roofed passages that might have been inside or out, sudden spiral stairs in unexpected towers, were all packed together with no respect for the rectangular order and French reason of Dunfermline Palace, where I had lived in Scotland.
Feeling foolish at being so lost, I began to make a map in my head. King’s lodgings on the river, upstream, towards Richmond. Queen’s lodgings on the river, downstream, towards Westminster and the City of London. Court offices behind the state apartments, Chapel and Banqueting Hall. Beyond the offices, my goal, Scotland Yard and the royal stables.
Wainscot, Clapper and my other horses were comfortably settled after being brought from Kew. I spoke to each horse, and stroked and scratched. Then I lingered, feeling more like my old self, walking past endless lines of glossy tails and cocked hoofs, of the horses belonging to the king and queen. I found the quarters for foreign horses. Their grooms spoke French and Spanish.
On my way back, I paused to take note of a room that bridged a busy public thoroughfare. From a window, I looked down curiously onto the tops of passing heads. The street below me led from the Whitehall Stairs on the river, which were used by the public, to the wide right of way of Whitehall itself that split the Palace into separate halves. I added this information to my growing, imagined map of the palace.
By trial and error, I found my way through the state chambers and the king’s lodgings to an enclosed jetty upriver from Whitehall Stairs, which I had seen from the window that bridged the public street.
Suddenly, I knew where I was again. My barge from Kew had landed here. The privy water stairs, for the private use of the Palace residents.
I stood at the end of the privy stairs and gazed out across the silver running of the Thames at the low line of the Surrey shore. For a time, I watched the wherries and barges slide past, and listened to their wakes lapping at the palace walls. Fish jumped close below my feet.
‘A pleasing sight, is it not?’ I asked the guard.
‘Indeed, your grace. I always volunteer for this post, even on rainy nights. A man can breathe out here.’
‘And a woman too.’
We exchanged quick glances.
‘Your brother often comes here to swim at night,’ he said.
I wondered how far Henry ventured on these private swims when the water was black instead of silver.
I imagined calling my boatmen and setting off on a voyage. If I travelled far enough to my left, I would reach the sea. And if I then turned left again and followed the coast to the north, I would reach the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh.
It could be done. The possibility both startled and comforted me.
If, on the other hand, I travelled upstream to my right, I would wind deeper and deeper into the heart of England. And if I set off directly across the Thames, I would come tothe Lambeth marshes and the last houses, fields and inns of Southwark.
I stared curiously at the distant line of trees and rooftops. Many gentlemen of the court, even some of Henry’s earnest knights nudged each other and traded stories of having pockets picked and purses stolen among the lawless dangers of the London Ward Without. I had heard that even my father went to Southwark for the bear-baiting.
‘Have you been to Southwark?’ I asked the guard.
‘I have, your grace.’ As I watched, his face went red.
‘I should like to see it for myself one day,’ I said.
‘It’s no place for you!’ He looked horrified. ‘Your grace,’ he added.
I decided not to ask if he had ever accompanied the king across the river and turned back to study the dangerous forbidden territory. If Henry had not been so strait-laced, I could have asked him to take me.
Then I looked into the flatness beyond Southwark. Even farther in that direction, lay the southern edge of England which I had never seen.
I shall come stand here, I decided, whenever I need to know where I am.
When I returned to my lodgings, there was still no word from my mother. But the afternoon offered some distraction. I met some of my new ladies-in-waiting. I would still have to appoint them formally, but the choice had been made for me. Alone with Anne afterwards, I remembered chiefly smiles, curtsies and assessing eyes filled with private thoughts.
‘I know the fair-haired one with the cat eyes,’ I said. With a twinge of alarm, I had recognised the young woman with the cold assessing stare, who had cried, ‘Courage! To the field!’ and led her army of drunken Amazons into battle at Theobald’s.
Frances, born a Howard, now Countess of Essex, Anne toldme. Already married, but living apart from her young husband, who had been sent abroad to grow into manhood. Anne looked away and blushed.
I wondered whether or not Frances Howard had been too far gone in drink at Theobald’s to remember her challenge to me. Ready or not, I had now entered the lists.
It made me a little queasy to think that these young women were now under my authority, where once I had ruled only my pets. I knew how to talk to Anne, to stable grooms, to my old nurse, and to my brother Henry, not to gentlewomen, most of whom were older than I.
‘Tell me their names once more.’
‘Another Frances,’ Anne prompted. ‘The one with the dark hair and long nose. A Northumberland, this one, not so pretty as the Howard one. The “Other Frances” we must call her.’ She laughed. ‘And the shortest one is Elizabeth Apsley. The “Other Elizabeth” I suppose. I did like her green gown…’
Lady Harington’s voice rang in my head as clear if she had been standing in the room with me. I remembered every word like a catechism.
‘Every one of them will be someone’s creature,’ she had warned. ‘They will report everything you do… Beware, in particular of the rival families. The Howards and Northumberlands…’
‘You remember Frances Tyrrell from Scotland?’ continued Anne. ‘Freckles and won’t smile because of her bad teeth. Perhaps that explains her blunt manner. Now that I think of it, I remember my aunt telling me… And you know Philadelphia Carey, who is much plumper now than when she was your playmate. And there’s me, of course!’
‘Thank God!’
That same night, returning from relieving myself in my
garde-robe
after supper, I paused just inside the door of my sleeping chamber. I did not intend to eavesdrop, but my ladiesin the outer room were speaking in those irresistible lowered voices that signal private gossip.
‘… a long-legged Scottish dobbin.’ I could not be certain but thought the self-assured voice belonged to Frances Howard.
‘She’s tall, for sure,’ another voice agreed with a hint of Scots. Perhaps Frances Tyrrell. ‘And I hear she’s wilful.’
‘I think she’s rather pretty,’ said someone else, almost certainly Philadelphia, whom I had first met at the age of six and a half and seemed to have forgiven me for soaking her skirts at the Smite ford.
‘She’s very kind!’ protested Anne’s voice, with a heat that astonished me.
They fell silent when I entered the room. Then all of them began to chatter at the same time.
There was still no word from my mother.
I decided to chance a ride across the park to visit Henry. Though he now lived closer, he seemed in many ways more difficult to reach. As heir to the throne, he had a much grander household than mine and far more to do. Every morning, crowds of petitioners and suitors waited for him, hoping to be allowed into his presence. Painters, woodcarvers, plasterers, brick-makers and all other sorts of craftsmen petitioned him for commissions.
As well as my brother’s band of young warriors, I had already met one of his new favourites, a Master Jones, who was his surveyor. There were other builders, too – my brother’s newest passion was for buildings. And poets. And there were men who wanted to be his officers, his gentlemen, his glove-maker, his chaplain. Courtiers swarmed around him, hoping to win the good will of the future king. Statesmen already jostled towards positions of influence in his government.
Henry welcomed me at St James’s but was engrossed in conference with a messenger recently arrived by ship fromthe infant colony at Jamestown, Virginia, in the Americas. Among the others attending on my brother that evening, was Sir Francis Bacon, lean, sharp-eyed, dissatisfied – the man I had noticed during my uncle’s visit, watching Robert Cecil and my guardian, the man I had seen smiling on the scaffold in Paul’s Churchyard. Unlike his cousin Cecil, Bacon seemed willing to risk our father’s jealousy by openly wooing Henry.
While I flirted harmlessly with the Seigneur de St Antoine, I watched Bacon. I did not like the man, I decided. His manner did not fit his position. Even though he was a Burleigh cousin, an esteemed scholar, and said to be one of the few men at court who could match my father for sharpness of wit, he filled me with the unease.
He stood always on guard, a little apart, watching, his eyes eating up everything they touched. In particular, I did not like the way he studied my brother, as if noting what made him smile or frown. In that entire evening, I never once saw him unguarded nor laugh from good-humour, but only because my brother, or some other person of influence had laughed.
He reminded me of a bad-tempered dog – suspicious, watchful, wagging its tail even while its lips drew back in the beginning of a snarl. Already elevated, he reeked of further striving and ambition.
Two days earlier, a petitioner had given Henry a toy greyhound that delighted him and which he held on his lap while he conversed. Not to be outdone, Sir Francis this evening presented him with a full-sized hunting greyhound.
Unfortunately, the larger dog bared its teeth and lunged for the smaller hound in the prince’s lap. A dog groom controlled the hunting hound at once and no harm was done. Henry thanked Bacon and sent his gift to join the other dogs in the royal kennels.
I saw something angry and tight in Bacon’s eyes as he bowed and professed his delighted gratification in giving his highness even the smallest pleasure.
What the man made of anything eluded me. All that he sucked in through those hungry, acquisitive eyes turned into thoughts I could not imagine. Except that all other men seemed to strike him as slow-plodding fools. Even Henry brought that edge of silent scorn into Bacon’s eyes, though it was quickly veiled again with false admiration.
I caught my brother in a quiet moment. I leaned close to scratch his new miniature hound behind the ears. ‘Don’t trust Bacon.’
Henry smiled at me ‘But I’m not going to marry him to my Elizabella. To rule, I will need men about me with intellect like his. I don’t need to like them so long as they serve me. Sir Francis has a good mind for strategy. Which, as you know, I do not.’
Henry never minded making such admissions. He knew his own strengths, which were those of a true ruler. He had honesty, decision and courage. People wished to warm themselves at him.
I could not think how to say that while Bacon might have intellect, he did not seem to me to be wise.
‘You already have Wee Bobby,’ I said, remembering what Henry had told me about Cecil’s private instruction for the heir to the throne.
‘England has Wee Bobby, not I. He’s no more loyal to me than he is to our father. Salisbury will always choose his own devious way to achieve the best for England. I trust him because I know what he wants. And I trust Sir Francis for the same reason – and it’s far simpler to understand. He wants to be Attorney General.’
‘I think he wants to become his cousin, Cecil,’ I said.
‘Don’t be fanciful. He wants to rise, as all men do. Youmustn’t hold ambition against a man, Elizabella, or you’ll like none of us.’ He flashed his smile at me. ‘And if I couldn’t forgive flattery, I’d have no one left to like but you… and my horse.’
BACON
I do not understand. Yet my understanding is quicker and more profound than that of most other men – who are fools, with very few exceptions. Surely, the truth must be clear to those other than myself!
The king is repulsive. Nevertheless, power and position make him lovely to those beautiful boys. At least, insofar as outward effect overrules inward emotion. If you’re the king and the hand of Carr is on your cock, you need not care what lies in the boy’s brazen, greedy little heart. I’m sure that the boy truly loves you, your majesty, just as a babe loves the teat that flows with milk.
I flow with wisdom, scholarship and readiness to serve. Why then does the king frown and pull his lip when I speak, and look away as if I weren’t there? I’m well-enough formed, not too old. I have a lively hazel eye, and, God knows, a quick wit. I can discourse on any subject the king pleases. I entertain him as well as any other of the court wits, yet I take care not to best him in debate. I lick his arse as sincerely as any man. I bow as deep. I study and imitate every courtier trick. Why, then, does he seem to find me repulsive?
If I say a thing is true, he knows that I am right. I am rated – by more than my own vanity – one of the most able men in England,the most suited to help steer the ship of state, yet I stand at the side, overlooked, humiliated.
My little cousin keeps me down. Drip, drip, drip, into the royal ear trickles the Little Toad’s poison, along with all his wise counsel. Drip, drip, drip. The constant noise of my cousin’s voice leaves no silence for wiser counsel to penetrate.
I dislike myself in this petty humour. But it infects me like a rheum. When I should be reaching for larger thoughts, I find myself watching little cousin Cecil and inventing ways he might die. Or scheming how to cut off the roots of his favour with the king. I listen for a careless word of his that I can nurture into a viper to sting him. I’ll find my weapon in time. We’re too much alike, he and I, in spite of his virtuous pose. He has weaknesses. I have a sharp eye and inventive mind. I’ve had to learn patience.
The king will not live forever. His heir is made of more malleable stuff, imagining that he commands but always wanting to please. I have watched him. I know the prince better than he knows himself. I will give him cause to thank me. He will need me as his father needs both his favourites and Cecil.