Elizabeth: The Golden Age (3 page)

The indigenous people were everything exotic, with their walnut-colored skin and clothing of leather. But they were far from uncivilized. They were farmers who cultivated fields, fishermen with boats. Their houses were built from cedar, surrounded by stockades made from tall logs whose tops had been sharpened to deadly points. Thomas Harriot, the expedition’s scholar and scientist, had set to learning their language, Algonquin, and succeeded in teaching English to two natives who had decided to leave their tribal homes near Roanoke and go to England.

Manteo was a chief of the Croatoans, and Wanchese a high-ranking member of the Winginas. They’d entertained the sailors admirably during the journey home, Harriot translating their stories when the natives’ English failed them. But now, as their time at sea was drawing to a close, they were protesting loudly in their own language as well-intentioned but thoughtless sailors forced them into stiff coats of brown taffeta.

“Leave him alone, Mr. Calley.” The ship’s captain, Walter Raleigh, skin bronzed from the journey, curly hair tousled by the wind, crossed to his first mate, who was having no success getting a hat over Manteo’s thick hair.

“Scare away all the ladies, sir. Paint his face white, I think,” Calley said, his own face tanned nearly as dark as the natives’.

Though Raleigh was no less weather-beaten than his men, he could not be taken for anything short of their leader. It was in his walk, his posture, the steady and commanding calm in his green eyes. He’d fought with the Huguenots in France—had been a devoted Protestant since his youth— and had helped put down a rebellion in Ireland. But he was also a poet and a man of science. Manteo and Wanchese watched as he approached them with a quick, courteous bow. The natives smiled, and Raleigh threw an arm around Manteo’s shoulder, steering him to the foredeck.

“England, my friend. The mother of us all, and our sweet home.” Dover’s cliffs were closer now, white rising from the sea, gleaming against the sky.

“And not before time,” Calley said, the rest of the sailors on deck shouting hearty agreement.

“As soon as she’s seaworthy again we’ll be back to your world, my friend.” Raleigh smiled at Manteo, who grinned back but gave no reply. The
Tyger’s
crew did, however, answering their captain with a chorus of groans.

“Don’t worry, boys,” Calley said, then turned to Raleigh. “You’ll need your warrant from the queen, sir. They say it’s not so easy to see the queen. They have officers at court, they say, whose only job is to keep people like yourself waiting. Sometimes for years, sir. They say.” Hopeful-sounding murmurs flew from the sailors.

Raleigh filled his lungs, pulling in the clean English air as deep as he could. He’d always considered patience the most overrated of the virtues, and it was said the queen was not immune to the charms of adventurers. If he could win her favor...
his eyes turned away from Dover back to the open sea, his mind full of visions of a new colony. He didn’t relish the idea of playing sycophant, but if it gave him the means to found a civilization, it would be well worth it. He could think of no other way to obtain what he’d need: money, more ships, more sailors, and people willing to live in the New World.

And yes, as Calley reminded him, he would have to have a warrant from the queen. That would be his first priority. Queen Elizabeth. What could he do to impress her? To get her attention, and quickly? A crooked smile crept onto his face. This might be an adventure all of its own. He called to his first mate.

“Well, Mr. Calley, we’ll see about the queen. But for now, let England know we’re back!”

Raleigh’s sailors cheered, stomped their feet on the deck, and he felt the pulse of their enthusiasm in his chest. The gunmen stationed in front of the ship’s eighteen cannons stood, watching for his signal. He raised his hand, dropped it, and the guns fired toward the distant white cliffs. The
Tyger
was home.

Chapter 2

It was impossible not to be drawn outside when the sky turned that perfect shade of blue that was at once cool and warm and looked as if it could swallow whole the crisp clouds that dared cross its broad spaces. Elizabeth had spent much of the afternoon watching her courtiers playing tennis on her father’s courts. She picked her favorite competitors and gave them handkerchiefs to indicate her support, but she paid only half-attention to their games. After supper, she’d sat through a disappointingly tedious play—there had to be someone in England capable of producing something more entertaining—and then she and her courtiers had danced in the Presence Chamber.

La volta, with its jumps and turns, had always been her favorite dance. She loved the way her heart raced from both the exercise and the feeling of strong hands around her waist, the intimacy of a handsome face close to hers. But tonight, though she was as exuberant as usual, she noticed that her first partner—a young earl who’d only recently come to court—though attentive, was smiling at one of her ladies.

“You like her?” Elizabeth asked, as he spun her around.

“Margaret?” he asked, and she did not like how quickly he’d responded with a name. “She’s a sweet girl, but nothing compared to you, Majesty. How could a man’s attention be diverted, even for an instant, when he’s with such an engaging beauty?”

They were pretty words. She expected nothing less. But they meant little when the man uttering them was, in fact, diverted by someone else. Her second partner, a duke from the North, threw her high as she jumped.

“You’re an excellent dancer,” she said.

“It must be a gentleman’s priority to dance well if he aspires to such a regal partner,” he replied, spinning her furiously. “I practice daily, my head full of thoughts of you.” Ordinarily, his speech would have pleased her. But tonight she noticed it was too rote, too memorized, too impersonal. She could not fault the way he spoke, his tone, the expression on his face, yet there was something beginning to tug at her, something uncomfortable that was keeping her from feeling the full delight of la volta.

The next man to stand up with her was Sir Christopher Hatton, who, before his appointment to the Privy Council, had courted the queen. His letters were the most beautiful she’d ever received. She could still remember his words:

Would God I were with you but for one hour. My wits are overwrought of thoughts. I find myself amazed. Bear with me, my most dear sweet Lady, passion overcometh me. I can write no more. Love me, for I love you.

The memory of it brought a smile to the royal lips, and Elizabeth relaxed in his arms as they danced. “Sometimes, Lids, I think you’re the finest dancer I’ve known,” she said.

“I’ve not the vigor I used to,” he said. “We’re neither of us so young anymore, are we?”

“I show my age?” She bristled.

“Not at all, Majesty. You are like a living miracle. Your face is as lovely as when you first ascended to the throne. It is as if you’re entirely immune to time’s hands. How do you manage it?”

“I don’t believe a word you say, Lids.”

And for the first time, she wasn’t saying such a thing to flirt. There was no question that her courtiers adored her, that the men vied for her attention the moment she entered a room; they all desired her, longed for her favor, wanted to be her favorite. But she was beginning to suspect that the affection they rained upon her lacked a certain sincerity. Not of attitude, but of depth. She’d always known that men were attracted to her position and what it enabled her to give them, but they were also captivated by her wit, her intelligence, her energy—there was no other woman at court who could compete with her royal charms. Only now, it was beginning to seem that royal was more important than charm.

She was suddenly tired, and with a flick of her wrist stopped the music and stormed to her bedchamber. Her ladies had removed her heavy gown, corset, petticoats, and farthingale, then slipped a soft shift over her head. She sat in front of a mirror flooded by candlelight, watching Bess remove her thick makeup.

“Lines round my mouth,” the queen said, tracing them with a single finger as she spoke. “Where did they come from?”

“Laugh lines, my lady,” Bess said.

“Laugh lines? When do I laugh?” She had laughed, of course. By herself, with her ladies, with her favorite gentlemen. But now she doubted the sincerity of all of them. Robert Dudley had loved her, of that she could be confident, and the truth was, she still adored him. Her Eyes, the love of her youth, the man she’d desperately wanted to possess. She’d made him the first Earl of Leicester—the highest peerage she’d created during her reign—but he’d disappointed her over and over. There had been rumors of a secret marriage to Lady Douglas Sheffield, but he’d denied them and she’d believed him. Eventually.

But he did marry, and he did it in secret, and he lied to her about it. His wife wasn’t Lady Sheffield but Lettice Knollys, her cousin, and she’d expelled them both from court after she’d discovered their deception. In time, she forgave him. It seemed nothing could entirely sever her connection to him; it ran too deep.

It was a pity he’d married, though. She never liked her friends or councilors to divide their affections between her and their wives. Not because she was jealous, of course— what cause would she have for jealousy? No woman shined brighter than she. She did not like marriage because she’d found that wives made gentlemen tedious, and tedious she could not tolerate.

After Leicester, there had been her Frog—François, Duke of Alençon—whose proposal of marriage she’d accepted, then quickly rejected, the match opposed by many at court, Leicester among them. She remembered the look on Robert’s face when she’d told the French ambassador to inform his king that Alençon would be her husband. She’d kissed the duke—in front of the court—and given him a ring, accepted one in return. But had she loved him, this man nearly twenty years her junior? She recited to herself the lines of poetry she’d penned after he left her court:

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate.

Her heart may have hurt, but she had never regretted the decision to keep the crown hers alone.

It was the right thing to have done, the best for England. And, by definition, what was best for England was best for her. She sighed, wishing that best didn’t have to correlate with lonely.

“I feel alone tonight, Bess,” she said.

“I’m here with you, Majesty. And you had the entire court enchanted when you danced tonight.”

“They’ve no choice but to be enchanted. I would allow nothing else.”

“They’d be enchanted regardless,” Bess said, leaning close. “You’re exquisite.”

Elizabeth stared into the mirror. “I was, once.” She touched fine lines next to her eyes. “There ought to be a magic way to erase these.”

“You don’t need any such thing.”

“You’re so young, Bess. You can’t yet imagine time etching itself on your perfect face. You still think yourself immune.” She reached for the girl’s cheek and started to laugh. “Be glad, my friend.”

“Whatever I am, it’s nothing compared to all you are,” Bess said.

“True,” Elizabeth said. “But that is perhaps why you will find more happy contentment than I ever have.” She walked to her bed and slipped between the smooth sheets; Bess pulled closed the bed’s painted silk panels, and the queen listened as the girl left the room, the door shutting with a soft click. She was left in silence, a comforting, perfect sound after the chaotic energy of the court. There were benefits to being alone, undisturbed.

She fell asleep quickly, but the easy warmth that came with the remembrance of old loves was short-lived. Nightmares stalked her, and she awoke in the middle of the night, panting, horrified by the images in her head—half-broken bodies, death, and an ocean red with blood. She opened her eyes but couldn’t focus. The immensity of her ornate bed engulfed her, and the voice from her hideous dream seemed to echo through her chamber:

Elizabeth! The angels weep for you, Elizabeth!

It was Philip, her former brother-in-law, her sister’s husband. She had always hated the sound of his voice. Beads of sweat covered her forehead, and her shift was tangled and twisted between her legs. She sat up, panting, and whipped the curtains of her bed open, half-expecting to see her Spanish nemesis waiting for her. There was no one, of course, but she hardly trusted her eyes.

Her bare feet sank into the thick carpet as she started to pace the room, pausing only to look out the window at a forlorn sliver of moon. Thoughts bombarded her, but she could make no sense of them and retreated into a state of detached consciousness, vague pictures of Spain polluting her mind. She’d never visited the country but tried to imagine the geography, the people and their houses. Most of all, though, she imagined the army, and a
fleet of ships that could bring it to England.

Tugging at her hair, she considered the motivation behind these visions. There was no question that Spain was a threat to the prosperity of her realm—it had been this way for years. So, why nightmares now? Why now, when she’d begun to feel as if a hole was gaping in her heart and wasn’t sure how to fill it? She opened the window and held her hand in the night air, the cold breeze like a salve on her too-hot skin.

She would speak to the Spanish ambassador tomorrow, consult with her Privy Council, make sure that she was doing everything possible to strengthen her position. Her mind began to clear and the shards of unsettling fear that had come with her nightmare dissipated. She felt the calm that came from being in control and tipped back her head.

She would not tolerate Spanish threats, even in dreams.



Far south of England, light fought for passage through a dense forest, ancient trees blocking its progress. The sun the trees could stop, but they had no defense against the rhythmic motion of axe and saw wielded by an army of foresters. The hum of blades and the crash of falling limbs sent birds and animals scattering, until the only living creatures to be found were the men wreaking this havoc. A dark carriage, royal insignia on its sides, surrounded by a mounted entourage of well-armed knights, flew down a narrow road cut into the woods.