Queen's Pleasure Read online

  A small smile plays across my lips as Pirto anoints me with the perfume I used to distill myself, my own special blend made from the pink roses of Norfolk and sweet honeysuckles. Which will last longer, this last vial of scent captured and bottled from my father’s garden or my life? I have become such a maudlin, melancholy woman! I am too young to be so bitter! Such lemon-and-crabapple tartness is better suited to a woman much further along in years, decades older than I, a woman stoop-backed, wrinkled, and gray-haired who has lost her teeth and everyone she ever loved, or never had anyone at all. I press a hand to my forehead and sigh. I hate what I have become!

  Carefully, slowly I raise my arms, and Pirto gently slips a shift of fine white lawn over my head, and it billows down easily about me, unimpeded by curves, concealing the now frail and wasted figure Robert used to describe as “luscious,” playfully sinking his teeth into my breast, buttock, or hip as if it were a ripe and juicy peach. Gone is the round and rosy Amy he used to love.

  Though I have no need of them now—this disease has melted away so much of my flesh, the full, buxom, rounded curves, hips, and bum, and flattened the little round hint of a belly that longed to swell with the promise of a baby nesting inside—I insist that Pirto fetch my stays from the chest at the foot of my bed, so prettily embroidered with bright yellow buttercups, and lace me up tightly, even though it ignites a lightning storm of pain rippling across my ribs and up and down my spine. Pain plays my spine like the ivory keys of a virginal, but I don’t care; I want to be perfectly dressed today. I want to look like Lady Dudley, Robert’s wife, should look.

  Then come the petticoats, starched and crisp. I want my skirts to billow and rustle; I want to have full, feminine hips again, even if it is just an illusion. And then the gown, a glossy satin the color of high-polished oak, festooned with frills of golden lace, and embroidered all over with green and gold oak leaves and amber acorns—my husband’s personal emblem.

  Though everyone knows it is a play on the Latin word for his name, robur, which means oak, only I know this device once had another, more intimate and loving, meaning. Perhaps even Robert himself has forgotten, but I remember the day we stood in the drizzling rain huddled together in our cloaks beneath a mighty oak overlooking the crumbling ruins of Syderstone, fallen into decay and disrepair, too sprawling and expensive to keep up, the lands gone to seed and weed, overtaken by thistles and grazing sheep with burrs studding their woolly coats. Robert promised me that he, as my husband, would be like a mighty oak unto me, to shelter and protect me all the days of my life, and these acorns represented the many children we would have. Syderstone would rise again, he swore, and be a greater, grander estate than it had ever been before. He would double—nay, quadruple!—the size of our flock, and he would breed and train horses that would be famed throughout the land and even abroad. And, best of all, the halls of Syderstone would ring with the joyous laughter of our children playing. My husband was one of thirteen children, though five of them had died before they reached the age of ten, and, as we held our hands together, cupping a shared handful of acorns, we both dreamed that each tiny acorn represented a child that would someday grace our nursery. We both wanted a large family, “the more the merrier,” we smiled and agreed. And with a broad sweep of his arm at Syderstone, he vowed that we would have an avenue of oaks leading to the house, a new sapling planted each time my womb quickened with a new life, and we would bring our children out and show them their own special tree, planted the day they first stirred inside of me. Oh, it was a beautiful, grand, wonderful dream!

  But not all dreams come true, and there were so many promises that he didn’t keep. There were never any children, not even one, to fill our nursery; we never even had a nursery. And there was no avenue of oaks. Syderstone still lies in ruins, the sheep still munch thistles, and the burrs still snag their coats, but someone else owns it all now. Robert sold it—to pay off his gambling debts and buy lavish gifts for the Queen, the one who holds his future in the palm of her hand, the one who can make him a pauper or a prince upon a moment’s whim. And though he might be a mighty oak, he does not shelter and protect me. It isn’t fair! If Robert can afford to hang the Queen’s hair with diamonds, he can afford to put a roof of my own over my head to shelter me; it’s as simple as that. I needn’t spend my days as a constant guest in the homes of others but never the proud chatelaine of my own domain. And he certainly does not protect me; even in the rustic wilds of England the rumors still find me. Divorce, poison, murder, madness, adultery! I’ve heard them all. My father would weep and spin like a chicken roasting on a spit in his grave if he knew that his daughter had become the center of such a lurid, raging scandal, her name being bandied about like a bawdy woman’s in every alehouse in England.

  I cross the shadowy room and go to sit upon my bed, made fresh by dear Pirto while I rested in my bath, enveloped by soothing clouds of steam. A sad smile flits across my face, like a pebble skimming a pond, as my hand caresses the apple green and gold brocade coverlet woven with a pattern of apples and apple blossoms and trimmed with frills of golden lace. Apples remind me of the happy years of my childhood spent at Syderstone before it became unfit to inhabit and we moved, a good, long but brisk, invigorating walk away, to my mother’s more elegant abode, Stanfield Hall. I love apples, everything about them—their colors, their smell, their taste, especially that first juicy, crisp bite, whether it be tart or sweet.

  Pirto comes and kneels before me to put on my shoes and stockings, tying the satin garters into pretty bows just below my knees and easing my feet into the dainty brown velvet slippers sewn with tiny amber and gold beads. I always loved to go barefoot whenever I could. I loved the freedom and the feel of the grass, or wood or stone, rough or smooth, chilled or sun-baked, beneath my bare feet. Robert used to send me velvet and satin slippers, a dozen or more pairs at a time, as a silent signal of his disapproval, but I never let that stop me; I gave up too many other things for Robert.

  When Pirto starts to gather my hair up, I stop her. “No, the pins make my head ache. Leave it free.” This is my one and only concession to comfort—a proper married lady wears her hair pinned up, while a maiden leaves hers unbound—but no one will see. Pirto, however, still thinks I mean to go out today, to church and afterward the fair.

  At times it seems too great an effort and a silly charade. I love Pirto, but I am the lady, and she is my servant, and it is not for me to placate her. I could have done without all these tedious preparations and put on my night shift and taken to my bed, unencumbered by corset and the stiff and rustling confines of petticoats and gown, garters, stockings, and shoes, all the accoutrements of a lady, but for some reason I don’t quite understand, it is important to me to be dressed today, to not lounge about languid and loose as a concubine in a sultan’s harem.

  “As you wish, love,” Pirto agrees and gently sets the gold-braided satin hood that matches my gown upon my head, fastening the strap and adding just a couple of pins, placing them carefully, anxious not to cause me any more pain. “There now.” She smoothes the cascade of golden curls streaming down my back. “All ready now, you are, pet, except for your purse, though you’ll not be needing it just yet, but I have it ready—it’s there upon the desk.”

  “Not quite ready yet, Pirto.” I smile. “I want my necklace. The special one My Lord gave me when he still loved me.”

  “Aye, I know the one.” She nods and brings forth from my jewel coffer a rich and heavy necklace of golden oak leaves and amber acorns that matches the betrothal ring I have worn on my left hand since the day Robert put it on my finger when I was a green girl of seventeen brimming over with hopes and dreams. I could not imagine then a world in which Robert would cease to love me. Even now, I like being clothed and jeweled in Robert’s oak leaves and acorns; like cattle wearing its master’s brand, I am still his wife, even if he wishes otherwise; I still remember, even when all he wants to do is forget. I am Lady Amy Dudley, Lord Robert’s wife, and I will never s
urrender that until Death takes it from me. With this ring I thee wed. Until death do us part. My affections are not frivolous and fickle despite the changeable nature often ascribed to my sex; when I stood beside Robert on our wedding day to make our vows, I spoke from my heart and meant every word.

  “Will you lie down for a bit, love?” Pirto hovers anxiously beside me.

  “No.” I shake my head. “It will muss my gown. Help me to my chair please, Pirto.”

  It is the most comfortable, beautiful, cheerful chair imaginable, so inviting that it often tempts me from my bed, which is good and exactly as it should be, Dr. Biancospino said when I told him. It was the last present my husband sent to me. Such thoughtfulness surely proves that, somewhere, deep in his heart, despite his outward show of indifference, he must still care for me. It is upholstered in the most vibrant, rich emerald green all embroidered with bright, beautiful flowers, their petals, leaves, and stems accented with threads of gold and silver. When I sit in it, it is like sinking down into a bed of wildflowers. It always makes me smile. It is so wonderfully, heavenly soft. Sometimes, when I am so sick that I think I will never leave my bed again, I gaze across the room at it, and I am drawn to it. I want to reach out and touch the pinks and daffodils; their leaves seem to beckon to me, to coax a smile from me, and I cannot resist the urge to rise and sit in it—it is too powerful to ignore.

  As Pirto bustles about the room, putting things right after my bath, I sit and watch the dawn break over the park, where the pond catches the sun’s reflection. Mrs. Forster’s children will be out looking for frogs in their Sunday best if their mother and nurse don’t keep a sharp eye on them. I smile at the thought, I can so well imagine it; it’s a scene I have seen before and laughed at until it hurt so much, I cried.

  As my hand caresses the bright flowers embroidered on the well-padded green arm of my chair, I gaze down upon my betrothal ring, and in that amber acorn, caught like little flecks and flotsam in the golden sap, I can see the happy, joyful days when I was strong, happy, and beloved by the man I can never forget, the one who made me believe all my dreams would come true, and that there really was a happily ever after... .

  2

  Amy Robsart Dudley

  Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, in Norfolk

  August 1549–April 1550

  I remember the first time I saw Robert Dudley. Sometimes one look, one glance, is enough. Though many, perhaps even I now, would scoff at my youth—I was only new-turned seventeen—that August day I knew I had met my destiny.

  I sat beside the river, lazy and languid in a bed of nodding yellow buttercups, almost one of them myself in my yellow gown, with my golden curls tumbling down, wiggling my bare toes, with an apron full of apples in my lap. I was daydreaming, building castles in the blue sky and white clouds, pretending that I was a princess, dreaming of the day my prince would come. Suddenly the whinny of a horse startled me and blew all the dreams right out of my head. I leapt up and spun ’round, the apples falling from my lap, tumbling and rolling every which way. That was when I saw him—Robert, Lord Robert Dudley, my prince in a shining silver breastplate, mounted on a night black steed.

  A playful smile twitched and tugged at his lips, and his dark eyes danced as they took my measure, eyeing me up and down as I stood there spellbound at the sight of him. His silver breastplate flashed in the sun, dazzling my eyes, nearly blinding me when he reached up to doff his purple velvet cap, adorned with a sprightly peacock feather. He tethered his horse to a nearby tree and came to me, this dumbstruck, barefoot, country lass gawking and gaping at him, and gallantly knelt to retrieve the fallen fruit around my feet. I had never seen anyone quite like him before, and my knees gave way, and I sank down, back into the buttercups, with him.

  Smiling broadly, he asked my name.

  “Amy,” I said, and to this day I don’t know how I managed to utter it, he left me so dazed and breathless.

  “Beloved!” He breathed the meaning of my name in a way that was like a caress to me, savoring each syllable upon his lips as if they were the most delicious morsels he had ever tasted.

  With a boyish grin, he took from his belt a dagger with its hilt studded with sapphire and emerald cabochons, like blue and green bubbles, and from my lap where he had laid them, he selected an apple, his fingers gently, lingeringly brushing my thigh through my skirts and making my cheeks burn as if the blood beneath my skin had suddenly burst into flames. It was love, I would later tell myself, burning like a fever that would in time consume me.

  As the peeling fell away in one long, curling ribbon, he smiled and asked of me:

  “Do you country girls still play at that old game of tossing the apple peelings over your shoulder to see how they fall and discern in their shape the initial of your bridegroom-to-be?”

  “At times we do, My Lord.” I blushed to admit it. It seemed now, when this elegant young man spoke of it, such a childish and silly game.

  “Go on, then.” He passed the apple peeling to me and jerked his head back over his shoulder to indicate that I should toss it over mine. “Let’s see how it falls.”

  With a merry little laugh bubbling up from my breast, I did as he asked and tossed it over my shoulder.

  “Hmm ...” The handsome stranger tilted his head and tapped his chin thoughtfully as we both turned and scrutinized the peeling. “It could be a D, yet ... that little flourish there at the bottom ... it just might be an R instead, but ...” His face brightened as he turned to flash the full brilliance of his pearl-bright smile at me. “Either way, whether it’s R, or whether it’s D, it’s me.” He swept me a half bow. “Robert Dudley, that’s my name!”

  And before I knew what was happening, he had pulled me into his arms and was kissing me, rolling me onto my back, pressing the weight of his body onto mine as his hand reached down and gathered up my skirts to rove beneath.

  With a startled cry, I pushed him away and leapt to my feet and bolted away, my heart pounding so hard and fast as I ran, I could hear it in my ears. It was as if it had split into two pieces, two separate hearts, and both had floated up out of my chest to become lodged, to beat hard and fast like little drums, inside my ears. I ran all the way back to Stanfield Hall.

  The servants looked up, startled, as I burst through the kitchen door. But I didn’t tarry. I didn’t stop running until I was safe behind my bedroom door, where I collapsed in a fit of giggling upon my bed. He must have thought me some light-skirted milkmaid whom any man could tumble; imagine his surprise were he ever to discover that I was Sir John Robsart’s daughter, and one of the richest heiresses in Norfolk! I convulsed in gales of gleeful laughter at the thought of it. If not a milkmaid, maybe he thought me a humble shepherdess, never guessing that I was sole heiress to a flock of 3,000 fine sheep. Oh, how it made me laugh! I knew I should be, but I wasn’t offended, though I was not the sort of girl to allow a man to take liberties; I had only been kissed once before, a chaste and hasty peck on the lips, light as a feather, from young Ned Flowerdew when we bumped into each other while dancing ’round the Maypole at the fair, each of us clinging to one of the long, gaily colored streamers. Red-faced and sheepish, we laughed together and hastily rejoined the other dancers weaving ’round and ’round the Maypole in the intricate series of steps, and no more was ever said about it.

  I never dreamed I would see him again, this Robert Dudley. Why should he linger hereabouts? It was obvious he was one of the men, the thousands of soldiers, who had been sent to put down Kett’s Rebellion, the outburst of furious protest that had erupted over the enclosure of common grazing land and had fast gotten out of hand, boiling over to the extent that the frail boy-king, Edward VI, had to send out troops to quell it.

  I was drowsing on my bed, dreaming of Robert Dudley’s playful smile and dancing dark eyes, and the warm weight of his body on top of mine, with my new kitten, Custard, a fat, cream-colored ball of fluff, curled up beside me, when my mother burst in. It was one of the rare times she was up and out o
f bed, so I knew something momentous must have occurred. She came in all aflutter, gesturing with her hands as if they were a pair of anxious butterflies, to tell me that the Earl of Warwick and two of his sons—“two fine, handsome sons, Amy, and neither of them yet married!”—were doing us the very great honor of lodging with us tonight, then breathlessly went on to say that I must look my best when I came downstairs to dine. Thereupon she turned away from me and fell to arguing with Pirto about what I should wear.

  Mother was set upon the new silver-trimmed milk-and-water gown. White with the barest hint of blue, it was the color of the moment in London, but Pirto thought it much too pallid and was adamant that I needed something bolder and brighter to show off my golden curls and blue green eyes to best advantage.

  While they bickered back and forth, Mother never once wavering in her support of milk-and-water, as Pirto suggested one robust, jewel-bright hue after another, I took from a chest an apple green satin gown embroidered all over with white meadow daisies, their centers like little yellow suns, and brazen red ribbons that playfully crisscrossed the bodice and came together in a flirtatious bow when they reached the top—a pert little flirt of red satin that begged to be toyed with and untied. Next I found a bright cherry red taffeta petticoat and under-sleeves dotted with seed pearls and dainty gold beads, and a pair of cheerful and bold red stockings, and went to stand before my looking glass, humming as I held the ensemble up against me.

  I never worried about such things then; I always knew my own mind with complete and utter certainty. I never worried or prevaricated, doubted or second-guessed myself. I was as far from nervous as we were from the Emperor of China’s palace. I was just me—Amy Robsart—and I did whatever felt right for me to do. I never worried about what other people might think of me. “You wear your confidence like a queen wears her crown, Amy, my lass,” Father used to always say of me with a broad, beaming smile and a hearty nod of approval.