His Last Letter Read online

  “As well as may be, my lady.”

  “Princess,” Robin acknowledged, boldly looking into her eyes with just enough amusement playing on his mouth to anger her further. Did he presume to know her still?

  She turned her face away, showing nothing, or hoping to. Yet she thought that to a man like Robin, her efforts would only make him more daring . . . she hoped—and then brought herself away from hoping that there was anything of the old Robin left. Too much had happened to chill them both. “My Lord Lieutenant Bridges,” she said, smiling, “the scent of your good roast venison reached me in my poor cell.”

  His lady, bustling and buxom, hovered near Elizabeth and motioned for a servant to fill her wine cup. Elizabeth raised her hand. “Very weak wine, I thank you, mistress.”

  Robert motioned to the servant, pointing to his cup. “A man’s stomach demands a strong wine. Spanish, if you will.”

  He did not look at Elizabeth, but she felt his foot slide over and nudge her slipper under the table while he looked the opposite way. Elizabeth knew he was trying to best her as he had always done. God’s death, the man took liberties. She kicked him and had the pleasure of seeing him hold tight to his surprise. Then, of a sudden, she lost all the pleasure of revenge for his marriage. The ax hung above his head as well as hers. What did Amy Robsart matter now? She could soon be a widow. But she would have been his wife. What would Elizabeth be? A woman with only memories of a young, fumbling love, a few stolen kisses, brief touches, a poem she had not had time to finish.

  She touched his knee and he reached casually for her hand as his muttered words came to her above the clatter of pewter plates and knives.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “Nothing has changed with me.”

  “You waste your charms, Lord Robert, for the ax hangs now over my head.”

  “Do not fear, Bess. Master Bridges received an unsigned death warrant from Bishop Gardiner at Westminster Palace, but would not execute it without the queen’s signature lest he lose his own head. When he went to the palace, the queen denied the warrant.”

  “The councilors.” The words grated between her teeth. “They want me dead or they would not go so far.”

  “True, but your sister, the queen, could not bring herself to sign when Bridges showed the order to her. Bess, you are destined to live and rule. It is written in your stars and your stars are my stars. I will live to serve you yet.”

  “How will you serve me, my lord?”

  “Well, sweetheart, very well.”

  She drew back, not wanting to draw her host’s attention by further intimacy, or they were sure to be reported. “There are some doubters that the stars foretell us anything, Lord Robert,” she said gaily, as if arguing over astrology.

  “I am not such a one and neither are you, Princess,” he said, with a half smile, though his eyes were misty in the candlelight as his gaze searched her face.

  Elizabeth knew he must be as terrified as she. For over a year now Robin had been imprisoned. He had watched as his brother Guildford and his father, made Duke of Northumberland by King Edward, were taken in chains to the block on Queen Mary’s orders. He had seen his father’s execution from his cell window and his brother’s body and head brought from Tower Hill in a cart.

  He lowered his voice again, looking down at his plate. “The queen must let you go, Bess. Just last week, Sir Thomas Wyatt recanted his confession, swearing on the scaffold that you had no knowledge of his rebellion. Everyone knows that a man does not swear to a lie before he meets his God.”

  “But the scaffold remains.”

  “Rest easy, Bess. I overheard Bridges give the order for it to come down on the morrow.”

  Elizabeth looked at him, fighting to keep her relief from showing. Was he so naive that he believed her to be completely innocent of Wyatt’s rebellion? True, she had not read or answered Wyatt’s letters to her revealing his plans to gather troops in Kent and the west of England to march on London and bring down Queen Mary and her Spanish husband, Philip. Elizabeth could swear to that in good conscience, having left them to be found unopened, although she knew their content. The letters had been intercepted by the queen’s ministers, read and sent on as a trap for her they were waiting to spring. They had brought her from her Hatfield home ailing with her nervous dropsical illness and in a litter to interrogate her in Whitehall and then in the Tower dungeon, thinking to frighten her in those stony depths into damning admissions of treason. She was frightened, true enough—near out of her wits, if it be known—but she had steadfastly denied all knowledge of treasonous plots. Her interrogators tried in every clever way to gain an admission from her, promising leniency, promising forgiveness, promising a return to her beloved Hatfield. She had known better than to believe them.

  A look of surprise and then fear rose in Robin’s face as he realized something of what she was hiding. Speaking his words behind his cup, he said, “Have great care, Bess. Great care.”

  Elizabeth raised her cup to her host. “My Lord Lieutenant and host, I thank you for this kindness.” She raised her cup higher. “I pray God grant a long and healthy life to my sister, Queen Mary . . . and many sons.” All the men rose and echoed her toast.

  As she left to return to her cell, the Lord Lieutenant sank to his knees, recognizing her royalty. Elizabeth nodded, her heart thrilling to the possibility that her bonds might be loosening. “Thank you again . . . for everything.”

  “Would that I might do more to preserve your comfort,” he said in a humble tone.

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I wish for more fresh air, good sir. My cell is close, ill-smelling and crowded.”

  He hesitated, his brow wrinkling in thought. “I am not supposed to give you any freedom.”

  She shrugged and turned to the door. “I want no other comfort.”

  “But,” he said, hurrying after her, “you may walk on the leads between Bell and Beauchamp towers before dusk every day . . . with a guard.”

  She nodded her thanks, or rather his remembrance that someday she might be his queen and best to not forget. Having gained one concession, she pushed for more. “A guard is hardly fit company for the princess royal, sir. It would be more pleasant if Lord Robert could join me. A man’s conversation is such a wondrous change from the prattling of my women.” She raised her eyes. He was a man, after all, and susceptible to flattery of his sex.

  “Oh, no, Your Grace,” he said, a nervous twitch under his eye. “I would exceed my authority by too much. There would be suspicion that you two were plotting . . .”

  “What, my Lord Lieutenant! Raising an army of two? Planning, with witchcraft, to fly over the battlements and swim away down the Thames?” She walked away in apparent disgust, muttering: “The queen does not choose her servants for their good sense.”

  He came hurrying after her. “Princess, do not despair. There is strong rumor that your sister may send you from this place to the country and keep you less confined.”

  “Thank you, Lord Lieutenant.”

  “Please remember, Princess, that I will always keep your interest close.”

  The next night she was led out as a sliver of moon rose in the east to glimmer on the Thames flowing swiftly past at high tide. She wore her best gown and all the jewels imprisoned with her. From Beauchamp Tower she saw Robin emerge, a guard behind him.

  His guard commanded: “No talking together allowed, my lord.”

  Robin walked toward her and bowed.

  She mocked: “And how is your good wife, my lord?”

  “You come to me like starlight, thick with jewels.” His whisper was husky to almost breaking.

  He turned at the end of the lead, a walkway on the Tower curtain wall, and made his way back to her, bowing more elaborately at every passing, until even the guards were laughing. While they were distracted, Robin slipped her a note and disappeared inside Beauchamp.

  “The breeze from the river is chilling,” Elizabeth announced, and was immediately
taken back to her cell.

  Not knowing which of her Spanish ladies might be spying on her, unable to resist performing a valuable service for the reigning queen or her council, Elizabeth waited to unfold the scrap of vellum until she was in her alcove bed just before she pinched out the candle. Semper Eadem, it read. Always the same, Robin had written. It had double meaning, being Anne Boleyn’s motto and now, apparently, Robin’s promise to her. And hers to him, she thought, kissing the paper. . . . Always, always the same.

  Ro-bin. Ro-bin. His name is like the beat of my own heart. Elizabeth turned her face into her bolster. When I am queen, we will never be parted. I will ever command it.

  She pressed the note against her breast, where it warmed her through the chill, dark night in her cell.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE OTHER

  EARL OF LEICESTER

  October 1585

  Nonsuch Palace

  John, she will not let me go!” His body servant could not help him, but his need for understanding overwhelmed good sense.

  Two months had passed since Robert, Earl of Leicester, rode into Nonsuch to rejoin the council and help plan to meet the Holland crisis. Most nights he slept fitfully, once again finding himself immersed in court ritual, his life directed again by Elizabeth’s will and whim, sometimes sure of her intention to name him head of her army and at other times as unsure of her intention as ever. As unsure, perhaps, as she was about going to war.

  Last night, he had found little rest in his bed and now rose to a gray sky promising blustery rain. He stretched his aching joints while his body servant, John Tamworth, dressed him, carefully brushing his dark velvet doublet, having great care for the precious gold metal threads woven into the bear-and-double-ragged-staff insignia he wore on his sleeve and the heavy jeweled embroidery everywhere.

  Staring out his tall oriel window overlooking the four-story central gate of Nonsuch, he gazed beyond the great curtain wall to the fields and thick woods beyond, its leaves falling thick in gold and red—the color of Elizabeth’s hair?—to carpet the landscape. He smiled at the thought of Bess commanding the trees of her realm, but he believed it possible, nonetheless.

  He grasped the window ledge to steady himself. The queen and Raleigh came riding across the fields and into the central courtyard, their high spirits and the clouds of frosty breath from their winded horses visible through the thick glass panes of his window.

  God’s bones! Raleigh dared ride so close, his knee touched Bess’s tan buskin in the stirrup. And she did not appear to rebuke him! Instead, her face was alight, dewy fresh and young as she had ever been, her long veil flowing from her hat over her hunter’s hindquarters. For every man who saw her, including himself, she was Gloriana!

  Once, he would have been with her on their best hunters, racing through the deer park hot on the hunt, but not this day. She would have called at dawn for her Eyes, as she had long ago named him, because he seemed to see what she needed. But not this day. Today, she had ridden out laughing with Raleigh, whom she called Water because he had sailed to the New World, adding new and distant lands to her realm. Robert smiled. He had gotten a certain revenge when he’d given her a jewel from which hung an onyx water bucket. The symbolism had not escaped her. Although she had not laughed in Raleigh’s presence, Robert suspected she had roared in the privacy of her privy chamber.

  Had she really chosen Raleigh as her favorite, or had she rejected Robin, her lifelong love, having heard a vicious report about him from some lying ill-wisher?

  “My lord,” Tamworth said beside him, looking out the same window, “I cannot set your doublet to rights if you jolt about so.” In a thoughtful voice, he added: “I know you are troubled about this current scandal.”

  “Troubled and heartsore.” He shrugged. “But there have always been such terrible rumors. They whispered that I once poisoned the Earl of Essex, my wife’s first husband, and the Lady Douglass’s husband, Baron Sheffield.”

  Tamworth kept brushing. “My lord, no man with a beautiful wife can die in England but what you are suspected.”

  Robert had to smile. “Surely not.”

  “Aye, my lord, laugh at them.”

  “I will do more than laugh. I will call them out for the lying cowards they are.” He frowned. “But I worry that Her Majesty . . . Bess . . .”

  “She would never believe such a thing of you, my lord. I have seen her many moods, but never doubting your nobility and love for her without great pain.”

  “My good Tamworth. You know her as well as you know me.”

  “No, my lord, I would never think such, but I know that the queen would never believe such slanders of you. The lowborn must always devise lies about their betters to prove their own faults are little. Alehouse tittle-tattles have no greater lord to talk about than the Earl of Leicester.”

  “You take liberty to advise me?” He hadn’t realized until this moment, though he should have, that knowing so much made Tamworth think himself higher than a servant . . . a confidant. He shrugged. And why not? No man was a mystery to his body servant.

  “I take liberty only for you, my lord, as I have done these many years since I came to you as a young man. I would say nothing but what will do you good”—he laid his brush aside—“and I say again the queen will never believe such ill of you.”

  “But this latest slander!” Robert said, his voice breaking. “That I poisoned my own son because I didn’t count him perfect . . . it’s monstrous!”

  “Aye, my lord, it is that, and will soon be replaced by another slur.”

  “How could any man think I could kill my own son and heir, least say the words publicly?” Robert asked, unable to accept such a villainy. The lie squeezed his heart until he could scarcely breathe and he felt guilt, not for himself, but for what he did think, an idea he tried to push away, though it would not stay in the dark corner where he pushed it.

  Could Lettice have done such a deed? The boy had died so suddenly, without cause and with some signs of poison, although the doctors had assured him they thought it was a tertian fever, which had similar symptoms of coughing, sweat and stomach pains. Still, each time he reassured himself, suspicion lurked just beyond. Could his countess, Lettice, want so much for her older son, the Earl of Essex, to inherit his estates and title that she would kill her youngest boy, their only child in marriage, his one legitimate heir?

  He tried to rid himself of such a thought, thinking instead of the delight Lettice had shown for this last child of her womb, the times he had seen them romping together on the lawns of Wanstead, their shouts of laughter difficult to separate. Yet the gloom outside his window and inside his heart did not help. If a bright sun had shone and Raleigh not been with Bess, he might have dismissed from his mind such evil thoughts about his wife, though they would return later. Why? Was it so easy for his heart to believe ill of her because he had suspected her of sending poisoned physicks to her first husband in Ireland?

  Jesu help him! He had been glad of the earl’s death of stomach complaints at the time, ignoring the rumors because he needed to. Lettice had come back to court after that summer with Bess at Kenilworth and again he was nearly crazed when she came to his bed every night costumed and perfumed as Elizabeth. When he closed his eyes, it was almost as if the long years of waiting for Bess to be in his bed again were over. It was almost as if he had won.

  “My lord, refresh yourself,” Tamworth said with a final swipe of the soft brush. He handed Robert a ready cup of ale and a silver plate of fine manchet bread centered with a meat pudding, still warm from the royal kitchens.

  “The queen will expect her old Robin,” his servant whispered confidentially as only he could, knowing much of what had passed between the queen and his master when they were younger, and now forever faithful and silent about what he knew.

  The earl broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in the pudding. He took a bite and returned the rest to the plate, having no appetite. Today, he was determined to disc
over whether Bess’s feelings for him were as they had ever been. He could never allow Raleigh, or any man, to take his place with her.

  He left his loyal Tamworth behind and approached the presence chamber. Clerks with ink-stained fingers and porters with heavy chests were entering and exiting every door along the halls. The court was moving on to Greenwich Palace, Nonsuch being in great need of sweetening. This late-summer heat had made the queen’s small palace too full of courtiers even more unlivable. Bad odors had always offended Elizabeth’s delicate nose. Before he reached the presence chamber, he heard trumpets and drums ahead and saw the queen and her train of ladies and lords making their way past kneeling courtiers.

  Robert pulled down hard on his doublet to hide his thickening waist and to safely express some frustration at the queen’s inaction. For weeks now, he had put aside everything, all his grief and hurtful suspicions, for the greater needs of England. Still, she had been unable to make up her mind about naming him to head her army for the Netherlands, one day signing orders for troops and supplies, setting plans in motion, the next day recalling everything. Twice, he had left Nonsuch to gather troops, only to be overtaken on the road with her message commanding his return. Robert knew Bess’s apprehension. She was always in hopes that inaction would allow time for a problem to resolve itself. And she had been right often enough to reinforce her natural inclination. But this time the Hollanders’ situation had only grown worse, the Spanish army storming more towns, raping, looting, putting the burghers to the sword and, worse, to the stake as heretics.