The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “Either in Scotland or in England we will have to face the French,” Cecil predicted. “Either with the Spanish on our side or without them. What I am advising, Your Grace—nay, what I am begging you to understand—is that we will have to face the French and we should do it at a time and a place of our choosing, and with allies. If we fight now, we have the Spanish as our friends. If you leave it too long, you will have to fight alone. And then you will certainly lose.”

  “It will anger the Catholics in England if we are seen to join the Protestant cause against a rightful Catholic queen,” she pointed out.

  “You were known as the Protestant princess; it will come as little surprise to them, and it makes it no worse for us. And many of them, even stout Catholics, would be glad to see the French soundly beaten. Many of them are Englishmen before they are Catholics.”

  Elizabeth shifted irritably on her throne. “I don’t want to be known as the Protestant queen,” she said crossly. “Have we not had enough inquiry into men’s faiths that we have to chase after their souls once more? Can’t people just worship in the way that they wish, and leave others to their devotions? Do I have to endure the constant inquiry from the bishops to the Commons as to what I think, as to what the people should think? Can’t it be enough for them that we have restored the church to what it was in my father’s time but without his punishments?”

  “No,” he said frankly. “Your Grace,” he added when she shot him a hard look. “You will be forced again and again to take a side. The church needs leadership; you must command it or leave it to the Pope. Which is it to be?”

  He saw her gaze wander; she was looking past him to Robert Dudley, who had risen from his place at table and was strolling across the room to where the ladies-in-waiting were seated on their table. As he approached they all turned toward him, without seeming to move; their heads all swiveled like flowers seeking the sun, his current favorite blushing in anticipation.

  “I shall think about it,” she said abruptly. She crooked her finger to Robert Dudley and smoothly, he altered his course and came to the dais and bowed. “Your Grace,” he said pleasantly.

  “I should like to dance.”

  “Would you do me the honor? I have been longing to ask you, but did not dare to interrupt your talk, you seemed so grave.”

  “Not only grave but urgent,” Cecil reminded her grimly.

  She nodded, but he saw he had lost her attention. She rose from her seat, her eyes only for Robert. Cecil stepped to one side and she went past him to the center of the floor. Robert bowed to her, as graceful as an Italian, and took her hand. A faint hint of color came into Elizabeth’s cheek at his touch. She turned her head away from him.

  Cecil watched the set of dancers form behind the couple, Catherine and Francis Knollys behind them, Robert’s sister, Lady Mary Sidney, and her partner, other ladies and gentlemen of the court behind them, but no pair even half as handsome as the queen and her favorite. Cecil could not help but smile on the two of them, a radiant pair of well-matched beauties. Elizabeth caught his indulgent look and gave him a cheeky grin. Cecil bowed his head. After all, she was a young woman, as well as a queen, and it was good for England to have a merry court.

  Later that night, in the silent palace, under an unbroken black sky, the court slept, but Cecil was wakeful. He had thrown a robe over his linen nightshirt and sat at his great desk, his bare feet drawn onto the furred edge of his gown against the wintry coldness of the stone floor. His pen scratched on the manuscript as he made out his list of candidates for the queen’s hand, and the advantages and disadvantages of each match. Cecil was a great one for lists; their march down the page matched the orderly progression of his thinking.

  Husbands for the Queen.

  1. King Philip of Spain—he will need dispensation from the Pope/he would support us against France and save us from the danger of the French in Scotland/ but he will use England in his wars/the people will never accept him a second time/can he even father a child?/she was attracted to him before but perhaps it was spite, and only because he was married to her sister.

  2. Archduke Charles—Hapsburg but free to live in England/Spanish alliance/said to be fanatically religious/said to be ugly and she cannot tolerate ugliness even in men.

  3. Archduke Ferdinand—his brother so same advantages but said to be pleasant and better-looking/younger so more malleable?/she will never brook a master, and neither will we.

  4. Prince Erik of Sweden—a great match for him and would please the Baltic merchants, but of no help to us elsewhere/ would make the French and the Spanish our bitter enemies and for the scant benefit of a weak ally/Protestant of course/ rich too, which would be a great help.

  5. Earl of Arran—heir to the Scottish throne after Princess Mary/could lead the Scottish campaign for us/handsome/Protestant/poor (and thus grateful to me). If he were to defeat the French in Scotland our worst danger is gone/and a son to him and the queen would finally unite the kingdoms/a Scottish-English monarchy would solve everything…

  6. An English commoner—she is a young woman and sooner or later is bound to take a liking to someone who always hangs about her/this would be the worst choice: he would further his own friends and family/would anger other families/would seek greater power from his knowledge of the country/disaster for me…

  Cecil broke off and brushed the feather of the quill against his lips. It cannot be, he wrote. We cannot have an overmighty subject to further his own family and turn her against me and mine. Thank God that Robt. Dudley is already married or he would be scheming to take this flirtation further. I know him and his…

  He sat in the silence of the nighttime palace. Outside on the turret an owl hooted, calling for a mate. Cecil thought of the sleeping queen and his face softened in a smile that was as tender as a father’s. Then he drew a fresh piece of paper toward him and started to write.

  To the Earl of Arran:

  My lord,

  At this urgent time in your affairs the bearer of this will convey to you my good wishes and my hopes that you will let him assist you to come to England, where my house and my servants will be honored to be at your disposal…

  Elizabeth, in her private apartment at Whitehall Palace, was rereading a love-letter from Philip of Spain, the third of a series that had grown increasingly passionate as the correspondence had gone on. One of her ladies-in-waiting, Lady Betty, craned to see the words upside down but could not make out the Latin, and silently cursed her poor education.

  “Oh, listen,” Elizabeth breathed. “He says that he cannot eat or sleep for thinking of me.”

  “He’ll have got dreadfully scrawny then,” Catherine Knollys said robustly. “He was always too thin; he had legs like a pigeon.”

  Lady Mary Sidney, Robert Dudley’s sister, giggled.

  “Hush!” Elizabeth reprimanded them primly; she was always sensitive to the status of a fellow monarch. “He is very distinguished. And anyway, I daresay he is eating. It is just poetry, Catherine. He is just saying it to please me.”

  “Just nonsense,” Catherine said under her breath. “And Papist nonsense, at that.”

  “He says he has struggled with his conscience, and struggled with his respect for my faith and my learning, and that he is sure that we can somehow find a way that allows us both to continue in our faith, and yet bring our hearts together.”

  “He will bring a dozen cardinals in his train,” Catherine predicted. “And the Inquisition behind them. He has no affection for you at all, this is just politics.”

  Elizabeth looked up. “Catherine, he does have an affection for me. You were not here, or you would have seen it for yourself. Everybody remarked it at the time, it was an utter scandal. I swear that I would have been left in the Tower or under house arrest for the rest of my life if he had not intervened for me against the queen’s ill wishes. He insisted that I be treated as a princess and as heir…” She broke off and smoothed down the golden brocade skirt of her gown…“And he was very