‘Don’t threaten me with the king,’ said Bacon.
He did not see that he shared a boat with a wolf.
The dreary day had reduced the number of boats on the river. There were few pleasure seekers, many loads of cabbages and coal. My barge was not dressed in its royal livery. We were a well-wrapped man in a wide-brimmed hat, a shadowy young woman under the roof.
‘What are you trying to say?’
Bacon shrugged, but the hazel eyes under his hat were alert and bright with malice. ‘Do you think his majesty truly mourns the loss of the whelp that threatened him? Who has been replaced by a more pliable heir. I think the king would reward rather than punish me… if what you seem to be saying were true. Which, of course, it is not.’
We stared at each other.
Did he not hear how much he had just told me in the eloquent spaces between his words?
‘Each of us is free to nurse his own suspicions,’ he said. ‘Those bats of the mind. I know that you were forbidden to visit your brother. In fact, I advised the king against it. I know that your pet blackamoor was spied in his chamber, against the king’s orders, dressed as a boy. Soon after she first arrived, the prince died.’
Someone had recognised Tallie after all.
‘If anyone poisoned your brother… for that is what you are accusing me of, is it not… who is the more likely poisoner? An Attorney General or a black witch employed by a daughter twice besmirched by treason and who advances by the prince’s death?’ His face performed an imitation of amusement. His heavy cloak made it impossible to read his body. ‘I hear dangerous rumours against your woman already.’
Started by him, I had no doubt. I had seen for myself that he did not read the inner movements of a man’s outward show. But I could not believe that he had seen me with Henry and still believed it possible even to hint that I might have killed him from ambition.
I understood suddenly that he could conceive it, because he himself could kill from ambition.
‘If my woman were guilty, I would kill her myself,’ I said. ‘If you can’t see the treacherous ground under your own feet, your reputation for intellect is mistaken.’
‘I don’t believe that you are the best judge of that.’
‘Can the king be the judge?’
‘His majesty outshines us all in intellect.’
‘Has the king read what you write about Henry?’
‘How is that relevant?’ I felt a subtle shift as he re-arranged the pattern of his thoughts to meet my new direction. ‘No. I have not yet published it for him to see.’
‘But you have shown it privately.’
‘Only to the closest acquaintance, a few discreet fellow scholars.’
His weakness, the gap in his armour. His cold detachment and imitation of emotion had failed to understand that most human souls are both unreasoning and curious. Even his fellow scholars. Most of all, the king.
I took a paper from my sleeve. ‘A copy of your
Eulogium
for my brother,’ I said. ‘Which, like many of your other works, I have read with interest. I can’t believe that the king has not yet seen this.’
‘To the best of my knowledge, he has not. But what if he has? I say nothing that I do not mean. Reason will tell the king that all I say is true.’
‘And you think that Reason rules the king, just now?’
He shook his head. ‘You underestimate his intellect. He will recognise the force of what I say.’
‘Then you underestimate his fears and passions. Do you think he will relish what he reads? You may see the intellect but you misjudge the man. As I think you misjudge most men.’
‘The wisest counsellor is skilled in his master’s business, not his nature.’
‘Surely, his master’s nature shapes his business.’
His eyes flicked away but quickly regained their steady authority. ‘Nature is often hidden. I will not speculate. It asks a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell the truth and then to do it.’
‘The king will see that you draw blood with your truth-telling pen. My father understands attack better than most men.’ Had Bacon never read the deep import of that padded doublet?
I held the paper in a hand bright red with cold and damp. ‘Listen to what you say here! Can’t you even surmise the effects of these words on a father who imagines that he is about to go mad with grief? Or who wants the world tobelieve as much? He may change. He most likely will. Then you will be safe to tell the truth. But now? Just now, when he wants the world to observe how he mourns, how will he receive this opinion of his dear, lost child?’
I read:
‘… ambitious of commendation and glory… warlike… haughtiness… cold…’
‘I see no harm in that,’ he said stiffly. ‘Does an untutored girl pretend to understand such matters better than scholars? Among his many other virtues, the king is a scholar.’
‘He is my father,’ I said. ‘I know him. And I think that you suspect the truth of what I say, or else you would have sent this eulogy to him already, with an eager, oily dedication.’
The wool boulder of his cape shifted uneasily. At last.
A strand of hair began to whip into my eyes. I tucked it behind my ear. My skin felt tight and lips cracked from the cold. I changed direction again.
‘Perhaps I can’t presume to judge a scholar’s work, but I do understand rumour. And I know that you understand its dangers. Why else warn me of the rumours about my serving woman?’
I licked the taste of blood from my cracked lower lip and was reminded of Frederick Ulrich, who must never be allowed to re-enter my life. The barge rocked in the wake of a passing lighter. I shivered and pulled my cloak tighter around my neck.
His arrogant silence angered me. As if he had only to stay silent and I would disappear, a temporary gnat buzzing in his ear.
‘You misjudge me, as well,’ I said.
He attempted a look of scorn, but the muscles of his face would not seat themselves properly. ‘To the point, then. With what, exactly, do you threaten me?’
‘I can loosen your grip on your late cousin’s powers. Who will be believed by the Privy Council? A late-ascending, favour-seeking Attorney General – who has made enemiesat court – or the king’s daughter, second in line for the English throne? Think how much damage even the rumour of my accusation will do. Your enemies will relish the whispers.’
The wide brim of Bacon’s hat flapped in the wind. Anyone watching us would have thought us both intent on the empty workmen’s scaffolding that banged on its ropes against the chapel walls and towers of Lambeth Palace. The silence lengthened. Then he shook his head in amused disbelief.
I could not judge the effect of my threat. I chanced my last arrow. ‘My brother told me all that you said to him the night he banished you from his presence.’
The colour drained from his face.
I felt a little dazed by this sudden easy victory. I had understood what Henry had not said. I had not been mistaken.
But Bacon rallied. ‘The prince’s illness may have begun long before it made itself known. It’s widely known that he lost his reason. He raved and saw what was not there.’
‘At the end. This was many months ago.’ I chose my words carefully so that I did not entirely lie. ‘That night, you made an enemy of the prince, and he made his feelings plain to all who were there. My death now would not save you. Your court career was over once he became king. There’s reason for you.’
At last our gazes truly met.
‘I believe that leaves us at an impasse,’ he said. ‘I denounce you and your woman on logical supposition and proven disobedience. In return, you denounce me without proof while unleashing the destructive power of rumour.’ He made an impatient gesture with one hand. ‘I suggest, your grace, that you set me down on the stairs and we agree to forget this monstrous conversation.’
I looked at him with steady wolf eyes. ‘Impasse? I see a possible agreement that works to the advantage of us both.’
Bacon was watching me now without moving a muscle. The pupils of his eyes closed down to pinheads.
‘The king hungers for wise advice now that your cousin is dead.’ I said. ‘I want you to step into your cousin’s shoes and advise the king why England needs the Palatine marriage.’
He half-smiled. ‘I believe that I may achieve my ambition without the advice of an ignorant girl.’
The young she-wolf refused to loosen her jaws.
‘The world whispers that my brother was poisoned. Being already so close to the centre, you no doubt heard who is most often blamed. He must have had an agent. If you advise the king as I suggest, I will keep silent about who I believe that agent to have been.’
‘Can it escape you that you weave your blackmail from a web of lies?’
‘It won’t escape you that my father will think twice before he risks advancing a man even faintly tainted by guilt in the prince’s death, whether it’s true or not.’
Even then, Bacon admitted nothing. He agreed nothing. But he was thinking. I signalled to my barge men. We turned and let the out-flowing current sweep us back downstream.
‘Have you thought,’ he asked suddenly, ‘that your brother brought on his own death through his uncommon fondness for swimming at night?’
‘I fear greatly that his night exercise might indeed have put him in danger.’
After a long assessing look, he said nothing more until we reached the Privy Stairs.
He offered his hand to help me from the barge. I could not bring myself to take it.
‘Take care, your grace. The steps are slippery.’ He acted the very picture of an attentive courtier. ‘Did you imagine no one would learn of your spying?’ he murmured. ‘One of the clerks your woman bribed was in my pay. His majesty would not be pleased to learn of her theft of official letters. A capital crime, I believe.’
‘She served the king’s daughter.’ I concentrated on placing my feet on the treacherous, damp green stairs.
When I had safely mounted the jetty, he added loudly enough for the men-at-arms to hear, ‘Your grace speaks wisely. In these difficult times, we must all endeavour to help one another.’
Bacon might or might not do as I asked. The king might or might not listen. I felt I had lost almost as much as I might have won. I knew that Tallie, my betrayed intelligencer, was in mortal danger. She was my only witness, my only true weapon against Bacon.
Almost worse, even though he had called my accusations against him ‘lies', he had not denied that my father had ordered my brother’s death. He had implied that he had acted on the king’s orders. He had even given my father a reason. ‘A more pliable heir.’
If only Tallie were truly the witch that Sir Francis had called her. Together, she and I would trap him in a manikin, drive thorns through his head and cock, and wiggle them to and fro. Then I would push one, very slowly, into his heart.
Witch or no witch, Tallie was in danger from Bacon, because she had served me.
I did not stop shaking for several hours after he and I parted. After trying to be cheerful with my ladies, I took to my bed. I was past pretending.
Bacon was now my enemy, too. But if I had persuaded him, I would be happy. If I had lost my gamble, I would want to die in any case. Tallie’s case was different. I had to send her away. Putting her beyond the reach of Bacon and his net of agents and intelligencers, meant also putting her beyond my own.
I told her at once what had happened with Bacon and what we must do.
She closed her eyes. Then she nodded.
‘Nowhere in England is safe from Bacon,’ I said. ‘Nor France. Where would you like to go?’ I glanced at her. ‘Africa?’
‘I would not be at home there,’ she said after a time. ‘Nor altogether a stranger neither. I have experience only of being strange.’
‘America is strange,’ I said.
Neither of us went to supper. While the other ladies dined in their rooms, Tallie and I sat together on a window seat in the Tennis Gallery, not speaking, clasping hands.
I felt hollow with coming loss.
Suddenly, she startled me by raising my hand and pressing it to her mouth. When she lowered my hand, I felt that the back was wet.
She released my hand and wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms. ‘And I’m also afraid,’ she said. ‘And yet happy as well.’ With an attempt at her usual dryness, she touched Diana. ‘Can you understand?’
I nodded.
* * *
The
Speedwell
was soon to sail from London for Chesapeake Bay. I commissioned Simon Lynn to arrange passage for her, secretly. Though Tallie still refused his offer of marriage, I trusted him to protect her. Word of her intended departure would soon leak out, but I wanted Bacon left in ignorance for as long as possible.
I watched her packing. I gave her a coral necklace for protection. I gave her a case of
eau de vie,
and a box of apples wrapped in silk and dried herbs from an apothecary to treat every ill from the ague to the plague. I gave her a thick brown wool cloak that reeked of the sheep’s grease used to make it proof against rain.
I put her up on Wainscot while I mounted Clapper and led her beside me along the Thames, to teach her to ride. I gave her a pair of riding boots and a woman’s saddle and three embroidered saddle cloths.
I gave her a writing chest filled with paper and silver-mounted bottles of ink, so that she could send me letters.
‘I will still expect reports,’ I told her.
I tried to think what she might need in that unknown, distant land. I could not imagine what her life would be. I gave her a needle case, and coloured silks and a pair of silver scissors. I gave her a hunting knife and a clock. Nothing I gave seemed enough to keep her safe.
I watched her prepare to leave me, stocking by stocking, gown by gown. On the last day, when she set her lute case on top of the pile to wait for the porters, I had to run from the room.
My only cheer was that Lynn had decided to sail on the same voyage. Since my brother’s death, he said, England held nothing for him.
He saw the unasked question in my eyes.
‘I’m stubborn,’ he said. ‘As persistent as time.’
I kissed her. I found that I could not let go of her hands. The boatmen rattled their oars impatiently below the dock at Gravesend. The weather was so far fine, but the winds were expected to shift. Tiny figures ran busily on the decks of the
Speedwell,
anchored out at its mooring. They lashed down the last barrels. A sail unfurled and shivered delicately downward. A flock of raucous gulls circled above us, ready to swoop on any hint of food.