The rebels mark, p.37
The Rebel‘s Mark, page 37
Nonsuch looks to Nicholas like the country seat of a mythical eastern potentate set down in the soft fields of Surrey. Its towers stand like minarets, their gilded onion-domes gleaming gold in the weak autumn sunlight. From the white stucco panels on her walls the gods and heroes of antiquity observe the approaching horsemen like a phalanx of protectors, frozen for all time by some magician’s spell. If Nicholas were not in such uncertain company, he would feel a sense of homecoming.
Nonsuch has been part of his life for almost a decade. It was to this palace that he had come on his first mission for Robert Cecil, sent to entrap its then-owner Lord Lumley, a known Catholic. The Cecils had wanted Lumley destroyed, and Nonsuch – sold out of the Tudor family more than forty years past – returned to Elizabeth. It had not ended as the Cecils had planned. Nicholas had saved John Lumley from their ambitions, giving him time to negotiate an arrangement with the queen that gave her back Nonsuch, but allowed him and his wife to remain in the home they loved. Nicholas had become something of a son to the dour Northumberland baron. It was in the private chapel at Nonsuch that Nicholas had married Bianca Merton.
These thoughts and memories fill his head now, as the party races across the wide bowling green in front of the outer gatehouse, divots of grass flying from the pounding hooves.
The doors to the outer gatehouse are wide open. Has Grey been waylaid? Nicholas wonders. Has he only just arrived? Why aren’t the doors shut and barred? Are the white walls of Nonsuch about to be stained with blood?
He can see the guards scurrying in the archway. He waits for them to slam the doors closed or at least cross halberds, blocking the way inside. But they don’t.
And Essex intends to stop for no one. He slows the pace only a little, from a full gallop to a canter. Wisely the guards throw themselves out of the path of the oncoming horses. Recognizing several of the riders’ faces, they can do little but stare. Then the party is through the arch, the sound of hooves echoing like the frantic hammering of a crazed drummer.
In the outer courtyard startled servants flee to the safety of the kitchen wall. A ham joint rolls in the mud like a severed head.
The last barrier lies directly ahead: the inner gatehouse that gives onto the secret heart of Nonsuch, the inner courtyard. Through it, Nicholas can see the grand fountain with its statue of a rearing horse – one of John Lumley’s most prized works of art – and beyond it the wide steps leading to the royal chambers.
Surely now there must be guards hurrying to block the way? Where are the halberdiers with their axe blades, guarding Her Majesty’s privy chambers? An awful thought occurs to Nicholas: Essex has conspirators within the royal household. Perhaps Lord Grey is one of them.
He can see John Lumley standing on the steps to the royal apartments, looking on with calm puzzlement in his eyes. His mournful face, scholar’s gown and grey beard make him look older than his sixty-six years, a wintry man, no matter what the season. As the riders come to a halt in a spray of gravel, Lumley descends a couple of steps, unconcerned, as though mud-caked madmen on horseback are common fare at Nonsuch and of only passing interest.
‘My lord of Essex, you should have sent us earlier warning. I would have had your usual chamber made up,’ he says, his soft Northumberland burr robbing his words of even the faintest accusation.
Essex is already down, Southampton and the others in the process of dismounting. Only Nicholas stays in the saddle.
‘Stand aside, sirrah,’ the earl says, brushing past Lumley as he strides up the steps towards the entrance to the privy lodgings. ‘This is not your house now.’
Being the only man still mounted, Nicholas realizes his face is clearly visible from where Lumley is standing. When their eyes meet, Lumley gives him a look of disbelief, as if to say, Surely not you, too? There is time only for a brief shake of the head to show that he is not party to this madness, before Southampton seizes Nicholas by one leg and hauls him to the ground.
From this moment on, Nicholas is little more than a passive witness, swept along in the tight press of Essex’s gallants. Southampton is at his back, ensuring he doesn’t entertain any foolish thoughts of making a break for it.
Once through the door and into the south wing of the palace, Nicholas catches a brief glimpse of startled white faces: servants in royal livery, clerks and secretaries in legal black, courtiers there for the food and the reputation that closeness to the sovereign brings, even a few members of the Privy Council flapping like hens at the sight of a fox.
Up the stairs to the presence chamber Essex runs, his gallants swept along in the fervour of his cause. Nicholas is still too hemmed in even to think of bolting. The familiar interior of Nonsuch flies past him: the expensive oak wainscoting from floor to ceiling; the fine Flemish tapestries; the paintings and the statues that John Lumley has collected over the years of his fluctuating favour with his monarch; the countless chamber doors that seem to sprout a harvest of inquisitive heads as the party hurries past… Nicholas even catches sight of Lumley’s wife, lady Elizabeth, standing open-mouthed by the door to the private chapel where he and Bianca married. She’s come from her morning prayers, he thinks. Catholic prayers. A small act of defiance, even in the queen’s proximity. The realization gives him comfort: no matter how great the power of an Essex or a Cecil – even of the queen herself – the secret heart remains one’s own, untouchable.
The queen’s presence chamber is empty, save for a clutch of women chamberers going about their business of dusting, plumping and arranging, in preparation for the audiences scheduled in the Lord Chamberlain’s diary. They pause, looking up in alarm. We must look like brigands, Nicholas thinks.
Of the queen herself there is no sign. They’ve whisked her away to somewhere safe, he decides. Grey must have arrived in time.
But Essex is a hound with a good scent in his nostrils. The party barely breaks stride. Onwards, like the last charge on a disputed battlefield.
In the privy gallery a coterie of attendants stands idly awaiting the emergence of the queen from her bedchamber: ladies-in-waiting, ladies of the privy chamber, maids of honour, gentleman ushers, grooms. Male or female, their rank may be judged by the same measures: looks, languor and finery. Nicholas wonders what they all do. How many people are needed to shore up the edifice of majesty? Their eyes turn towards Essex as he approaches. One or two even make a bow.
Now, so close to their quarry, with one last door ahead of them – closed – the little band fragments, loses its pace, loses its determination. Loses its courage.
All except Robert Devereux.
He is a man reduced in appearance from an earl of England to a mud-splattered cut-purse fleeing from the night-watch, but he strides towards the great carved door set into the panelled wall as though it is he, not the queen, who owns Nonsuch. The courtiers make no attempt to challenge him, perhaps because even at this late moment no one can really believe his intention. Without bothering to knock, he lifts the latch, throws open the doors and strides inside.
At first there is silence, save for a few gasps of disbelief from the courtiers in the privy chamber. For a fleeting instant, Nicholas fears Essex is going to draw his sword. If he does, his very worst fears will have been realized. There will be no way back.
But the sword remains in its scabbard. Instead, England’s Earl Marshal – though for how much longer is anyone’s guess – sinks to his knees. He prostrates himself before his sovereign.
From where Nicholas is standing he can see only snatches of the tableau: the back of Devereux’s riding cape, the muddy heels of his boots as he kneels, the alarmed faces of the ladies of the bedchamber as they turn towards him… and, in the moment before the door slams shut, a whey-faced woman with a look of astonishment burnedinto the deep hollows of her eyes. A woman whose grey hair is as sparse as a moorland knoll blasted by a winter wind. An unpainted woman, bereft of powder or ceruse, of pearls or jewels. Bereft of majesty. Just a tired, elderly woman well on her way to the same common end as the very lowest of her subjects.
41
Without their blazing comet to guide them, Southampton and the others seem unsure of what to do next. All impetus has been lost. All their brazen words, their promises to stamp out the nest of vipers at court, are revealed as nothing more than bluster. The immensity of what they might have done, had Essex given them proper orders, has begun to dawn upon them – along with the price of failure.
And then Nicholas sees Robert Cecil scuttling towards them, Grey at his side, John Lumley two paces back. With them is a squad of halberdiers, poleaxes held at the port position – lest any of these unruly intruders think they are purely for ceremonial display.
If Southampton, or any other member of the Essex faction, is foolish enough to draw steel now, Nicholas thinks, there will be no way back. It will be taken as clear evidence of treason.
But the pendulum has swung again. Stepfather Blount, the oldest – and perhaps most astute – of the Devereux faction has seen which way the wind is blowing. He begins to protest loudly that they have never, not even for a moment, intended Her Majesty the slightest harm.
Even Southampton looks relieved when Nicholas steps out of the little band and addresses Mr Secretary Cecil as he comes to a lopsided halt at the entrance of the privy chamber.
‘Sir Robert, please don’t mistake the ardour of these gentlemen for anything but an eagerness to assure Her Majesty of their love and obedience,’ he says, wondering whose words these are, because he’s never thought of himself as being skilled in diplomacy.
But it does the trick, because Cecil raises a gloved hand to stay the halberdiers. He looks up at Southampton, who towers over him, and whose elegance – even in this muddied condition – serves only to highlight Cecil’s ill-made form. ‘Would you care to explain the reason for this insult to Her Majesty’s peace, my lord of Southampton?’ he asks, his voice so crisp that the words spilling from his mouth land like shards of ice.
‘There is no insult intended, Mr Secretary,’ Southampton says earnestly. ‘His Grace has come only to assure Her Majesty of his enduring devotion, and to slay the malicious falsehoods that some have laid before her on the matter of his Irish enterprise.’
‘Then perhaps it would be best if you all removed your muddy boots and cloaks, gentlemen,’ Cecil says, offering the party a bridge back to sanity. ‘Her Majesty will not care to see her privy chamber treated like a hostelry for common travellers.’
Blount unbuckles his cloak. Southampton considers his options a little longer – and then follows suit. Nicholas lets the breath out of his lungs in a slow exhalation of relief.
But what of His Grace the Earl of Essex? In the confusion, he has been quite forgotten. Now that the moment of crisis has passed, and bloodshed averted, all eyes turn towards the closed door to the queen’s bedchamber. To Nicholas, the figures in the privy chamber are like a troupe of players who have simultaneously forgotten their lines. No one knows what to do next. Should someone enter, to ensure Her Majesty is safe from the earl’s wild eccentricities? Should we all pretend nothing has happened? Even Mr Secretary Cecil seems, for once, to have been robbed of his energy.
And then the door opens. His Grace stands in the frame, a beatific look on his face as he smiles at his followers, while behind him the ladies of the royal bedchamber form a guard against impertinent eyes. Essex has been transformed, reborn, raised once more to his former, happy estate. Forgiven.
‘Our Irish storms are over,’ he announces, as though bringing God’s word down from the mountain top. ‘We have found a glorious calm at home. God save Her Majesty!’
And although everyone in the chamber – Cecil, Southampton, Blount and all the others – echoes the earl’s prayer for the queen, Nicholas can see in their eyes that none of them, save perhaps Essex himself, believes a single word of it.
And neither, it seems, does Elizabeth. Over the next two days Essex is summoned on several occasions to her presence to make a fuller account of himself. It does not go well. Nicholas can tell this, not because he is party to any of the conversations, but because the Essex and Cecil factions remain resolutely separate. They avoid each other. They take their meals at separate tables. And Devereux’s seems much the more subdued. Even more so after the arrival of more privy councillors, who have come to join their colleagues in a full and frank appraisal of His Grace’s actions in Ireland. The sole remaining joy for Essex seems to be that his flux has cleared up.
Nicholas waits for the summons to give his account of Essex’s actions in Ireland – the very reason the earl has dragged him here. It does not come. This is a relief for Nicholas, because he hasn’t the faintest idea what to say in Devereux’s defence.
It has not escaped his attention that despite comfortable quarters being provided, no one in Devereux’s party is permitted to leave Nonsuch. In the afternoon of the day after the earl’s precipitous arrival, Nicholas is summoned to meet Robert Cecil in the privy garden below the royal apartments.
‘How, in the name of Jesu, did you manage to become caught up in the mess?’ Cecil asks to the tinkling accompaniment of a fountain.
‘I thought that’s what I was sent there for – to keep watch on him for you.’
‘I haven’t had a dispatch from you for weeks.’
‘Strangely enough, Sir Robert, His Grace considered my presence suspicious. He had Sir Oliver Henshawe censor every letter I attempted to send to England. At the end I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the quayside, lest I attempted to smuggle something onto the postal pinnace.’
‘Do you believe it was his intent to harm Her Majesty?’
Is it this easy to send a man to the scaffold? Nicholas wonders. Just one word?
‘I don’t believe so, Sir Robert,’ he says. ‘His Grace is a much-conflicted man. But I don’t believe he ever wished harm to Her Majesty. Besides, he is not well.’
A quizzical look from Cecil.
‘His Grace is ill? From what?’
Again it would be so easy to damn Essex with a single word. But Nicholas is not a vindictive man.
‘Ambition,’ he says. ‘And pride. They can be the making of a man, if he can constrain them. Unfettered, they are as injurious to him as any other serious malady. I fear that His Grace’s symptoms are beyond my treatment.’
Cecil laughs. ‘If that’s a measure of your diplomatic skills, we should make you an ambassador.’ He gives Nicholas a fatherly pat on the arm, though there are barely two years between them. ‘I am sure you did your best. Now, I fear I can spare you no more time. I am due at a conference of the Privy Council. We are to consider this present matter and put our findings to Her Majesty.’
As Cecil turns to leave, his little heels grinding on the gravel path, Nicholas says, ‘We found Constanza Calva de Sagrada. Well, Bianca found her.’
Robert Cecil stops. His narrow lips part in disbelief. But no words come out. It is the first time Nicholas has seen him lost for words.
‘She’s alive?’ he manages eventually.
‘Yes.’
‘How extraordinary. Where is she now?’
‘Probably in Scotland, on her way to a marriage.’
‘Did she reveal to you the names of the Spanish peace faction before she left?’
‘No.’
‘That is a pity.’
‘But her servant did.’
Cecil gives him a doubting laugh. ‘A servant? And how much will that cost me?’
‘Nothing, Sir Robert – save what you think is due to a brave and remarkable woman.’
Cecil considers this a moment. A thrush lands on the rim of the fountain to drink. His gaze lingers on it, as though it might assist him in his deliberations.
‘Are you sure this person is trustworthy?’
‘Completely.
‘Where is this list? It is secured?’
‘It’s in her head. And she will not reveal the names until she can stand in your presence.’
‘And where is this servant now?’
‘With Bianca. Somewhere between Bristol and London, if all has gone well, as I hope.’
Cecil lifts his brow in grudging admiration. ‘Well, I don’t know what to say. When all this is over, bring her to me at Cecil House. She shall be rewarded.’
And with that, he flies away. And the thrush with him, leaving Nicholas to wonder if Sir Robert does that with every living creature that strays within his orbit – captures it.
Then comes the brief encounter with the queen. It happens later that day, in the presence chamber. Only her ladies-in-waiting remain in attendance, and they are shooed away to a distance that permits Elizabeth and Nicholas to converse without being overheard. The evening sunlight paints bright bars on the stone casements of the windows. Whose prison? he wonders.
She is not the same woman whose mortal state he had observed so briefly the day before. The paint of monarchy has been reapplied, the natural blemishes on the canvas hidden. She does not speak to him of Essex. He assumes it is because he is a commoner and Devereux is an earl. She speaks to him of Ireland.
‘Was Master Spenser right, sirrah?’ she enquires. ‘Does his view upon the present condition of that isle remain sound?’
Nicholas thinks of what Bianca has told him about Tyrone. He thinks of Piers Gardener, and the death of Henry Norris. He thinks of the old Seanchaí and her husband, of the fall of Kilcolman, of heads lying on the tailboard of a cart trundling through the streets of Dublin.
‘I am just a physician, Majesty,’ he replies. ‘But I live on Bankside, close to the bear-pit. I’ve learned a thing or two about bears. You may feed them treats to make them dance for your amusement. You may chain and whip them to teach them obedience. You may bait them with dogs for your entertainment. But whatever you do, they will still be bears. And in their hearts – while they may fear their master – they will never love him. Perhaps it might be better to leave them in the forest.’
