Elizabeth I

  I awoke to dull light coming from a sun muffled in clouds. I had been dreaming of horses, riding slowly along a high cliff with the sea foaming far below. The air was syrupy with salt, but I loved the way it smelled, of seaweed and waves. I dismounted and stood at the edge of the cliff, watching the water roll in and dash against black rocks. Down below, between two jagged boulders, something was caught, bobbing. A body? Then I saw the sea strewn with timbers and debris and knew it was a shipwreck. Was it the Armada? Spaniards had washed up on shore in Ireland, they said. Ireland ...

  “Mother!” Someone was shaking my shoulder. “Oh, help!”

  I was pulled from the surging sea back to Essex House. Frances was standing by my bed. In the dim light I could see tears on her cheeks. “What is it?”

  “Robert. He won’t rise. I think he’s—he’s unconscious.”

  I tumbled out of bed and pulled on a robe, then rushed with her to their room. A trail of discarded clothes led to the curtained bed. I pulled them back and saw Robert sprawled out, not sleeping but unresponsive.

  “Drunk?” I asked, hoping it was true. Oh, let him merely be drunk. Christopher had been drunk. It was their way of shutting things out, things too painful to look at straight on. I smelled his breath, but it did not smell of ale or sack or wine. Instead, it had a strange, sweet odor.

  “Robert!” I shook him but he did not stir. I turned to Frances. “What has he taken? Did you find anything in the room? By the bed?”

  “I have not looked. When I could not rouse him, I came straight to you.”

  “Let us search. Everywhere.” Trembling, I patted the sheets and blankets, feeling for a telltale bottle. Nothing. I got down and looked under the bed, then on the sill and behind all the chests. “What happened last night? Did he go to bed in a normal fashion?”

  “He read the bulletin from Secretary Herbert. He read it over and over. Then he sat silent as a stone. Then Gelli came in, roaring. Then Christopher, drunk. They yelled and talked about revenge, but Robert just sat there. Finally they left us alone. Only then did Robert speak. He merely said, ‘I am doomed.’ I tried to tell him it was not so. We had our children, we had one another, we had our youth and our health, no one could deprive us of those things. He just shook his head. I went on, reminding him that those were prized above all else. ‘Without them, riches and rank and public esteem are worthless. Remember Burghley and his gout. Every day was torture for him, regardless of his high office and the Queen’s esteem.’”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He just kept shaking his head. So I did what I do with the children. I said gently, ‘Come to bed now. Rest.’ He obeyed, crawled in, and fell asleep in my arms.” She gave a sigh. “Or so I thought. But while I slept, he must have left the bed and availed himself of something—some draft, some potion—perhaps to make him sleep sounder—but I did not know we had any such medicine.”

  “Call for a physician. We have to find the bottle!” I looked again at Robert, still and pale.

  Left alone in the chamber, I was frantic. Where could it be? I took his silver-topped staff and poked along the tops of the cupboards, then rifled the insides. I felt on the underside of the mattress ropes, then stopped myself. This was foolish. A man does not go to such lengths to hide an empty bottle, only a full one. One of the windows was open a crack; I could feel the draft. Pulling aside the thick curtains, I opened the casement and looked down. Lying beneath the window, half under a bush, was a flask. I rushed down to retrieve it, pushing the branches aside and scrabbling to grab it. My fingers closed around it and I dragged it out.

  It was empty, and it smelled sweet, like Robert’s breath.

  By the time I returned to the room, our physician was there, leaning over Robert, ear to his chest, listening.

  “I have it!” I said, holding the flask.

  The physician, Roger Powell, turned and held out his hand for it. He looked for a label, then shook it. “There is still some inside. Get a cup so we can pour it out.” In a moment he had one, and he drained the flask of its small amount of greenish liquid.

  “I know what that is,” said Frances. “He brought it with him from York House. It was given him when he had the flux, to stop his vomiting.”

  “Who gave it to him?” Powell’s voice was sharp. He sniffed the liquid.

  “Whoever treated him. I was not allowed to see him. At one point the Queen sent her own physicians.”

  Accusation hung in the air. But that was foolish. The potion had helped him when it was used as prescribed.

  “It is made from the deadly nightshade,” said Powell.

  “Is there an antidote?” I asked.

  “A rare one—the Calabar bean. It comes from Africa.”

  “Is there anywhere in London where we can get it?”

  He looked distressed. “It is popular for witchcraft. If you know anyone willing to admit to witchcraft, then you know more than I.”

  “There must be someone who supplies it. Perhaps down at the docks.”

  “Witchcraft isn’t openly practiced. We would have to find someone who is trusted by that group.” He looked over at Robert. “And find him or her fast.”

  Suddenly I was grateful for the disreputable characters who gathered out in our courtyard. I had told Robert to send them away, that they gave a bad impression of disloyalty, but he had ignored me.

  It took only a few minutes to find a ragged Welsh boy eager to run such an errand. He would say he needed it for a love potion, as he was sick with love for one who spurned him. “Hurry, and there’s an extra groat for you,” I promised him. We might be poor, but we had money for this.

  I returned to the chamber, where, under Powell’s direction, we burned camphor under Robert’s nose in an attempt to awaken him and propped him up on pillows in hopes that it would stimulate him. By now the word was out all over the household, and Cuffe, Meyrick, and Christopher tried to enter the chamber, but Powell told them to stay out and let Robert have enough air.

  The boy returned in two hours, clutching a burlap bag with a smooth-skinned brown bean inside about the size of my thumbnail. It looked completely harmless as I held it up and turned it around.

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Powell. “I’ll grind it and then we can measure the powder. I will have to estimate the exact dosage, and that will be difficult since I do not know how much nightshade was in the potion. We want only enough to counteract the nightshade, not go beyond it and act as a separate poison.”

  He worked fast and all I could do was pray. There were so many unknowns. If we had guessed wrong about the potion—if the flask was not connected with Robert at all, or had been thrown out at an earlier time—if he overdosed on the antidote—

  The strain of it made me burst into tears, and it was Frances now who had to comfort me. She was calm, but that was because she did not realize all the implications of our ignorance about the dosage.

  It was noon before the draft was ready, and we had to spoon it into Robert’s slack mouth, then hold his jaw shut and massage his throat. The liquid went down. Then, when the cup was empty, we settled down to wait.

  I felt poisoned myself; I was dizzy and numb. Perhaps handling the bean had infected me. But no, it was only the powder that was active. I sat in a corner chair, reliving all the other times I had kept watch in his chamber. This was the worst.

  It was dark before he stirred, very slowly. He moved his right arm up and brushed his forehead. Still he remained silent, with closed eyes. A flush spread across his cheeks, making red sprinkles. Then, another movement: He licked his lips with a pale pink tongue.

  Powell was instantly beside him, bending over him. “A cloth,” he ordered. “Cool water and distilled feverfew.” It was brought and he wiped Robert’s face, stroking it back into life. At last Robert’s eyes opened and he looked around blankly.

  “Thank God you are safe!” cried Frances, throwing herself across his covered legs. Powell jerked her away.

  “No weight on
him!” he barked. Then he flexed Robert’s arms and massaged the hands. “Come back to us,” he ordered him, like a magus.

  Robert gave a faint smile. He lifted one hand and squeezed Powell’s fingers.

  He slept through the night and the next morning found his voice again. His first words would be crucial. Had he meant to end his life?

  He held up one hand. “Where have I been? I am so weak.”

  “You don’t remember?” I asked.

  “I remember nothing, just going to bed.”

  “You took nothing?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and took some of the medicine I had for the flux.” He shook his head slowly.

  “Does it help you sleep?” I asked.

  “It calms the stomach and makes you drowsy,” he said. “I was at my wits’ end; I was wide awake. I was wide awake because ...” He was remembering. Oh, let him not! But it was too late. “... the Queen ...”

  “Think not of the Queen now!” said Frances. “Forget all that came before. Rest, my dearest.”

  In two days he was eating again and his strength had returned. But his eyes looked different, as though they had seen too much and now belonged to someone else.

  And if he had not meant to end his life, why had he thrown the flask out the window so no one would know what he had taken?

  77

  ELIZABETH

  December 1600

  We had gotten through the harbinger year of 1600 and all was well; nay, better than well. In November, a resounding Anglo-Dutch victory against the Spanish at Nieuport meant that our fifteen-year military involvement on the Continent could end, and happily. In Ireland, Mountjoy had continued to turn the Irish tide back, and O’Neill, while not captured yet, commanded dwindling forces. To expand our trade, I granted a royal charter to the East India Company, competing with the Portuguese in Asia. It would make its first voyage next month. I also had in mind to reestablish a colony in the New World; the new edition of Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation excited public interest in the venture. With the dawn of the new century, Dee’s prediction of a British empire did not seem so impossible.

  Essex had come and Essex had gone. His popular support, which at one time had seemed so threatening, had melted away. The songs about England’s sweet pride had died out in the taverns. The scrawled insults to Cecil had ceased.

  Yet even as the people forgot him, and as he faded from public consciousness, he grew in mine. Bacon’s calling him Icarus had set that image in my mind and transformed him into Greek mythology. There had been something ancient and otherworldly in him. People said he was born out of his time, and perhaps he was. His beauty and attitude of expectation stayed with me always, reminding me of the potential in him that I had believed in once and, somewhere deep inside me, believed in still.

  There was much to celebrate this Christmas, and I meant it to be a jolly one. Everyone was welcome at court, and I invited all the foreign envoys and secretaries and called for all my ladies to attend me. It was good to bring everyone under one roof. I would keep it at Whitehall this year. Eleven plays were slated to be performed for us in the Great Hall. I requested special musical compositions for the occasion and appointed John Harington to be master of ceremonies. I also ordered the kitchens to create a new dish of some sort—it could be meat, pastry, or even a drink. If it was successful, we would name it “1600” and it would stand as a remembrance of the first year of the new century.

  The influx of ladies who did not keep regular attendance in the privy chamber meant we needed more beds and that the so-called maidens’ chamber would be crowded. But that was all in keeping with the season.

  The holy day was over. We had worshipped in seemly fashion in the royal chapel, relived the sacred night in Bethlehem when the shepherds gathered, the angels sang, and the lowly manger was transformed into a symbol of God’s love. The sweet voices of the choir had floated in the chill air, recalling that angel chorus. With bent head I had given heartfelt thanks for the benefits that had devolved on England this past year and surrendered up my personal losses and pain—the death of Marjorie, the collapse of Essex.

  Now the festivities would begin.

  The next day the first, and grandest, banquet opened the celebrations. Everyone was invited, so we needed to employ the Great Hall to hold them all. True to their commission, the cooks had confected an elaborate pastry re-creating a walled city. It was wheeled in on a cart, displayed on papier-mâché “grounds” of rolling green with trees of sticks and green tissue. The pastry walls were a foot high, and the little buildings nestled within had roofs of red icing, half-timbers of cinnamon sticks, sweetmeat doors studded with raisins. The largest structure, a cathedral, had tour-de-force soaring steeples, flying buttresses, and a rose window made of colored sugar chips. Several taverns, with tiny painted signs swinging at their entrances, featured drunken patrons reeling out.

  “Splendid!” I proclaimed, quite astounded at their creation. “But to destroy it will make us into barbarians, sacking a city.”

  “That is why we have concocted a drink to go along with it,” the chief cook said. “You may call it ‘1600,’ but we named it ‘Attila.’” He poured a goblet from a tall pitcher and handed it to me. “Your Majesty, pray taste and tell us if this makes you feel like a destroyer of cities.”

  The heated drink warmed the goblet, radiating into my hands. I took a sip and found it unlike anything I had ever tasted—it was sweet, yes, and strong, but it had a bitter undernote, hinting at spices from below the equator.

  They waited expectantly. I nodded and took another sip. “Very good, gentlemen. But what gives it the hint of bitterness?”

  “Its base is sweet malmsey, but to that I added palm wine, which comes from the Levant, and then extract of dates. Then I ground a bit of manaca root from Guiana into it.”

  I took another taste. The sweet wine base called to mind Essex and the wretched sweet wine episode. “Yes, I see. I think you may safely call it Attila. He doubtless drank just such a concoction.” I laughed, trying to thrust the Essex image from my mind. “Sir Walter, do we have you to thank for the manaca root?”

  Raleigh bowed. “Indeed. The Indians set great store by it, adding it to their fruits and meat. For us, though, its bitterness means we need to temper it with sweetness.”

  I saw that Bess was in the shadows of a pillar, while her husband stood in the light. “Bess, do you use the root for other cooking?” I called out to her, to let her know it was time she came out of the shadows and took her rightful place beside Walter.

  Startled at the recognition, she stammered, “Sometimes for baking, Your Majesty,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “You must send us a sample sometime.”

  The cooks managed to cut the city apart in deft fashion, slicing the walls, cathedral, shops, and taverns into neat portions. Large as the display had been, the throng quickly gobbled it up. Even the fastidious Robert Cecil ate a portion without getting a single crumb on his face.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “have you met my children? Allow me to present them—William, age nine, and Frances, age seven.” The little Cecils came forward and bowed. The new generation. It would not be long until they were making their way at court and in the world.

  “They are lovely, Robert. You are undoubtedly a good father.” He probably approached fatherhood the way he did everything else—prudently and methodically.

  “I can only be father, not mother and father,” he said. “I do my best.”

  There had been no hint of his remarrying since he had lost his wife three years earlier. He seemed quite a solitary figure. “Your best far excels that of anyone else,” I assured him. At least anyone now living.

  George Carey joined us, plate in hand. He was attacking the last bit of his pastry with gusto, smacking his lips. “A superlative start to the holiday,” he said. “And I promise an ending just as impressive. Wait until you see what the
Lord Chamberlain’s Men are presenting for Twelfth Night. It’s even called Twelfth Night.”

  “How obvious,” I said.

  “The title is the only obvious thing in it,” he said. “Oh, it’s quite confusing.”

  “I have to assume it involves mistaken identities?” I said.

  George waved his fork. “How did you know?”

  “It’s such an old staple, it will be a challenge to do anything new with it. I hope I will not be disappointed. If I am, I shall forbid any more mistaken identity plays to be performed this season.”

  “We are doing some innovative work,” he said. “It isn’t all mistaken identities.”

  “For your sake, I hope that’s true,” I told him. Really, I was weary of them. How many times can sets of twins, or brothers and sisters, be separated and then reunited?

  “Our main playwright is working on a revision of the Trojan war story,” he said. “In it, Achilles is not noble, Troilus is a fool, and Helen is not worth fighting over, a silly giggling thing.”

  That sounded more promising. “When will that be ready?”

  “Not in time for this season, unfortunately.”

  “Well, tell him to hurry it up.”

  Carey bowed and then took his leave.

  I saw Southampton lurking in the back. I was surprised he dared come, but then, I had said it was open to all. I called him over. He came, showing no embarrassment or hesitation, bowing low with a flourish.

  “So, my erstwhile master of the horse for Essex, how have you passed your time since returning so abruptly from Ireland? And how is your wife, my erstwhile attendant?”

  He was dressed all in black. “I pass my time in sadness,” he said.