By the time we reached Gorhambury House, after almost twenty miles, I was more than ready to leave the coach. We tumbled out of it, glad to have the earth beneath our feet once more, and walked a bit unsteadily up the graveled path to the long, plain dwelling amid its oak grove. Wisps of fog, dancing in the autumn wind, blew across the white facade. My cloak filled with air, rounding out like a sail.
We knocked at the main entrance door, but Anthony Bacon appeared at another one and motioned us that way. It was a smaller door, farther from the path, and we scurried in, the wind chasing us.
“Welcome,” he said, his cadaverous voice echoing from his black-clad chest. I saw instantly that he was no better, and that saddened me. “I apologize for routing you here. The other door is not to be used.”
I shrugged off my cloak. “Oh, is it under repair? It is good to get it done before winter, despite the inconvenience.”
“Noooo ...” He looked embarrassed. “My father nailed it up after the Queen’s visit here almost twenty years ago, so no lesser person could ever step over the same threshold.”
“Your father has been dead almost that long. After so many years, the house ought truly to be yours. It is time to open that door,” I said, without thinking.
“My father is dead but the Queen is not, and she knows about the door,” said Anthony. “She might decide to visit us again.”
“Well, then nail it up again quickly,” said Christopher. “How would she know?”
Always the practical soldier. Perhaps it was better to be with such a man than a poet. At least for everyday life.
He led us back into the main area of the house. In spite of having been enlarged over the years to accommodate the Queen, its dimensions were still small. The Great Hall was not very great, being only about twenty feet wide and thirty-five long. My privy chamber at Essex House was larger. Now, with the new fashion of huge windows so that walls were more glass than stone, Gorhambury looked darkly out of date.
“I have some mulled wine,” he said. “Here, let me warm it.” He shuffled over to the fireplace and held a poker above the coals; when it glowed red, he thrust it into the pitcher, making a sizzle. Pouring some into goblets, he handed us each one. Cupping my hands around mine, I sipped the delicious, sweet, dark liquid. I had been chilled straight through.
“Francis will be here shortly,” he said, sinking down onto a padded bench. “And Robert, he’s on his way.”
“How do you fare, Anthony?” I asked. Being the first comers gave us a short, unexpected private time together.
He smiled a wan smile. “Not well, but no worse,” he said. “I cannot travel beyond the house, although the Queen keeps inviting me to court.”
He was wanted at court and could not go. I could go but was not wanted: one of God’s little teases.
“Is it your eyesight? Are you having trouble reading?” A severe handicap for a spymaster.
“I can do well enough in bright light, but in addition to my eyes, I have—nervous attacks.” As if to prove it, he gave a skittish laugh. “I collapse at inopportune moments. That is really why I cannot go to court. I cannot risk it happening in public.”
That would undo him utterly. “No, you cannot.” I patted his arm. “Neither of us can go, then, but we make a life for ourselves outside of it. There is a whole world beyond court. Poets speak of it, at least.” Even my son had written a plaintive sonnet about being happy living far from court, saying he would be “Content with hip, with haws, and brambleberry, / In contemplation passing still his days.” Sometimes he even meant it.
“Court’s a bore anyway, Anthony,” said Christopher, draining his cup. He got up and refilled it himself.
A door slammed. In a moment Francis appeared, brushing the drops off his shoulders. “Bleak out there,” he said. He looked at Christopher and me. “No one else here yet?”
Francis gladly took a cup of the wine and swallowed it quickly. “Did you come up the old Roman road?” he asked us. “I saw your carriage. It’s torture in a vehicle.”
“I slept,” said Christopher, pouring another cup. How much was he going to drink?
“I am probably bruised,” I said, rubbing my side.
“That road is the one Boudicca used fighting against the Roman legions. She must have gotten quite a few bumps in her two-wheeled chariot. Ouch.”
“A red-haired queen fighting foreign invaders,” said Anthony. “History repeats itself.”
“I hope not,” said Francis. “Boudicca was beaten, in spite of her early victories. The Romans were too disciplined, too strong, and too many for her.” He smiled, but with no humor behind it. He opened a small cabinet and took out some sling stones and ax heads. “Tokens of war,” he said. “I collect them. They are still lying where they fell, from the battle at Verulamium nearby—Roman arrows and spearheads and British swords and sickles. They tell the tale of the battles clearly for those with eyes to see. I’ve trained mine to read these signs.” He caressed one arrow tip. “The battle over for fifteen hundred years, but you still sing your song,” he said.
“I don’t like what you said about discipline, strength, and numbers,” said Christopher. “We English have no discipline—our armies are makeshift. Without discipline there is no strength. And as for numbers, Spain is a much bigger country than we are. If those are the determinants, we are doomed.”
“It’s only necessary for the enemy to be lacking those things as well, and then you are evenly matched. On paper the Spanish look better than they really are,” said Francis. “Do not fret yourself. There’s a saying: The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. I am incorporating that in the collection of pieces I am writing and plan to publish next year.”
“You have been muttering about these pieces for months,” said Anthony. “They don’t make sense to me. They are just a collection of your opinions. Why would anybody pay for your opinions? They are nothing but secular sermons!”
“They will pay because I am who I am,” he said grandly.
“And who’s that?” asked Christopher. “The only title you have is Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary, and I don’t see her asking your counsel for much of anything. Now you are offering your counsel to others, hoping they will show more interest? What do you call these little things?”
“Essays,” he said. “I call the book
The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Bacon
.”
“Francis Bacon, Conceit Extraordinary,” wheezed Anthony. “Having had to endure your philosophizing and analyzing all my life, I wouldn’t give a penny for it!”
“Well, I hope others will.”
“I’ll raise a cup to that!” Christopher bolted down another one. “May you become rich and need no one’s patronage. Publishing is the way! Get yourself set up with a bookstall in St. Paul’s, like the Raleighs and the Shakespeares, and you’ll flourish.”
“I plan to sell there, yes,” said Francis. “I’ll do anything necessary to raise money.”
“There’s a hot market for memoirs of the Cádiz trip, if only we could tap into it,” said Christopher. “Everyone is dying to know the details, but the Queen won’t let us publish. Poor Robert.” He looked down into his empty cup. “Poor me. I had a good one written up, lots of swashbuckling bravado.”
We settled ourselves on cushioned chairs in the wood-paneled room. The richness of the carved linenfold paneling and the patterned ceiling made it feel warm but dark. The many candles and the fire did little to brighten it, as though the wood itself absorbed the light. Barely visible against the wall was a large portrait of the father, Sir Nicholas Bacon. The Queen’s Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, he was clutching his staff of office and looking suspiciously out at his audience.
He had been a huge man, and the portrait did nothing to disguise it. Supposedly once the Queen had visited him here and remarked that his house was too small for him. He took the hint and enlarged the house for her next visit. It was an unwise man who did not catch the Queen’s hints.
He had been a large man in other ways, having so many children by his two marriages that he had been unable to provide for them all. Sir Nicholas had been intending to sell certain property to ensure an inheritance for his youngest and most gifted, Francis, but had died unexpectedly, making young Francis practically a pauper for all his brilliance. Anthony had inherited the house, and generously shared it with his brother, but that did not ease the worry of always being out of pocket.
There was, of course, on the other wall the obligatory portrait of the Queen, looking as if she were twenty-five. It was the official portrait. This year she had ordered all the unflattering ones that made her look old—in other words, the realistic ones—confiscated and destroyed. Only the palace-approved image must be displayed. And so a perpetual Persephone looked out from portraits where Demeter should be gazing. Or someone even older. I had never realized it before, but there were no elderly Greek gods or goddesses. Well, the Queen intended there should be no elderly-looking monarchs on the English throne, either.
Across from the Sir Nicholas portrait was one of his widow, Lady Anne. She wore an expression of aloofness, as if she disapproved of his portliness. The old term for widow, “relict,” fitted her well.
The rest of the room was spare. It reflected its owner: A scholar. A bachelor. Neither brother ever married. This was suggestive in itself. Perhaps the Queen assumed they were ... or that their peculiar natures hinted at something beyond just bachelorhood ...?
Francis turned and stared at me as if he could read my mind. I almost blushed. I had to say something, so I said, “Didn’t you meet the Queen here once when you were a child?”
“Yes, she asked me questions in that manner we all know so well,” he said. “I was about eight or nine. It was the time she made the remark about the house being too small. She asked me if I studied Greek and Latin, called me a little scholar, and then asked what I thought was the most important thing a man should learn. I said, to unlearn what he had been taught. She laughed about it and teased my tutor.”
“Well, I met her at the same age, and she wasn’t so pleased with what I did!” Robert flung open the door of the room and stood in the doorway. He tugged off his mantle, tossing it on a chair, and its flying drops went all over us. “She tried to kiss me and I pulled away. I thought she was a crazy old hag. Now, of course, I join with everyone in praising her beauty.” He swept off his hat before the portrait, mockingly.
Anthony looked nervously about and shut the door.
“Greetings, Son,” I said. He dutifully bent down and kissed my cheek. “It was not exactly as you describe it.” What if a servant overheard and reported his insult? “You never liked being approached by strangers, and you weren’t sure who she was.”
“The French say there is always one who kisses and one who allows himself or herself to be kissed, and I say, that day the Queen was the one doing the kissing.” He gave a loud laugh and grabbed one of the wine cups.
“Well, she isn’t now,” said Francis flatly. “Now, when it counts, not when you were nine years old.”
Robert shrugged, but it looked rehearsed. “I care not,” he said. “The crowds cheer me, and I’m hailed everywhere I go. That doesn’t happen to her anymore. People blame her for all the troubles.”
“There’s to be a parliament to address the problems,” said Francis. “It will meet in February. The Queen is not insensitive to her people, you know.”
“Did you bring Frances?” I asked Robert. Lately he had taken a renewed interest in his wife, or perhaps it was part of his effort to bolster his reputation.
“Yes, she’s with Lady Bacon. In the library.”
I supposed I should excuse myself and go join them, but I preferred to stay with the men. Lady Bacon was as starched as one of her Puritan ruffs and as scholarly as her sons, and I saw enough of Frances every day. When Charles Blount arrived, if he brought Penelope, then I would go with the women.
“Well, man, what did you call us for?” Robert said, rubbing his cold hands together. “I’ve asked some of our Cádiz fellows to join us, and they’ll be here soon, so get to it.”
His arrogance and presumption had expanded greatly with the adulation he had received from the public since his return. Somewhere inside he must know that it is rude to invite a crowd to someone else’s house. But he excused himself from the usual constraints.
Francis ran his hands over his hips, as if he were getting ready for an athletic contest. “You asked me to analyze your position and to make recommendations. I have done so. Here is my summary.” He twisted around to pick up an envelope, which he handed to Robert.
A wide smile on his face, Robert broke the seal and shook the paper out grandly. He began reading, squinting at the small handwriting, and the smile gradually drained away. Finally he folded the paper up, replaced it in the envelope, and tucked it into his waistband. “Your recommendations are nonsense,” he said.
“How so?” Francis asked.
“To begin with, you think I should drop my military career. It’s the only thing that’s ever rewarded me with honors and money. So that’s like asking the pope to give up the Mass.”
“If the pope had been more flexible about the Mass, he need not have lost all of northern Europe. Take a lesson from him.” Francis was not going to back down. “Can you not see that a powerful subject who pursues military glory would be threatening to someone of the Queen’s nature?”
Robert ignored the question. “Second, you say that I must stop appealing directly to the people.”
“Obviously, that is a direct challenge to any ruler, male or female.”
“Third, you say I demand high offices and honors but don’t have the talent for them!”
“You are remarkably good at hiding them, if you possess them,” said Francis.
“I thought you were my friend!” cried Robert.
“I am your friend; that’s why I am being honest with you. I did not say you had no abilities equal to your ambition; I only said you need to prove it to the Queen. Instead of demonstrating your worthiness, you throw temper tantrums and expect her to appease you. That game grows old. The Queen will tire of it. The day will come when she puts you aside like an outworn toy. Before that day comes, you must prove you are no toy. Now, while you still have time.”