“It has been long since you have spoken Swedish to me. What say you?”
“From the Song of Solomon,” I said. “ ‘His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend.’ ”
• • •
“Come, Helena.” The queen beckoned me forward. “You seem weary.”
I looked at her pointedly; it was not that she did not care for her ladies; we all knew that she well loved us. But it was true that I was not accustomed to her asking after my well-being. I wondered if her instincts, sharp as a broken shell, had picked up on the shift in my mood.
“I should like a few days’ leave, Majesty,” I said. “I wish to travel to Salisbury.”
“Salisbury?” she asked, surprised. “Yes, of course, but whatever for?”
“My cousin Sofia is to be married to a young Welsh squire. We’re to meet some from the Pembrokes’ household at Wilton and she will travel with them to Wales.”
The queen softened and sat back in her large chair. “A marriage? Are there congratulations to be offered? It seems hastily arranged.”
“My cousin was corresponding with my husband,” I said bluntly.
The queen leaned forward again, shocked. “Surely not Sir Thomas! He did not involve himself in an unchivalrous manner?”
“Nay, Majesty, despite her vigorous efforts otherwise.”
She eased again. “Well then, a young and lovely cousin who favors you and desires the man you’ve chosen for your own. What shall we do? Have her thrown into the Tower?”
I smiled, appreciating that these many years after her Robin had married Lettice she was able to jest about it, though the “she-wolf” had never been forgiven. I now understood her torment in a most personal manner.
“Do not tempt me, my lady!” I teased back. “I shall return in but a few days.”
“See that you do, my good lady marquess,” the queen said wistfully. “I shall miss your companionship while you are gone. I cannot do without you.”
And yet, she must do without me. My heart and mind filled with foreboding, and while my back was firm, my knees were not.
I left Sofia at Wilton, in good hands, and then rode out to Langford with some of my household’s men and six craftsmen I had hired in London.
We came upon the ruins, and I indicated that I wanted them to begin to make some part of the house habitable.
“A kitchen, of course, and the privies. The hall and some chambers, and the library.” I had counted the cost before leaving London, using some of the money we’d earned on Drake’s last journey as well as many of my own rents I had been saving. I had not told Thomas. It was to be a gift for him after the war. Our living area would not be grand; it would be small, a yolk of life surrounded by ruins, but it would be ours. I took one of the stones with me; they were unique, pinkish brown.
I made my way back to London before the fleet sailed, and sent the rock to Thomas. He would know it had come from Langford, and though he did not know what I was about, he would understand that I was sending him a bit of our home.
He had a messenger deliver a gift to me, a gold salamander brooch with a ruby eye. The queen spied me wearing it and smiled. Salamanders were the gift of lovers, designed for heat.
But lovers come in tamer varieties, too, and that spring and summer the queen dined often, and alone, with Lord Robert. There was nothing improper between them, of this I was sure, as I was still on constant attendance. But when the heat between them had withdrawn, it left a warm field of affection and companionship. Lettice Knollys was never at court, but rumor had it that she was sharp with Lord Robert. I knew not if that were true, but I heard its opposite, merriment and pleasure from the queen’s dining chamber and I saw Lord Robert and her, many a night, heads down over a chess game.
Watching them together, wondering what might have been had they married, put me in mind of a chess move—the willful sacrifice of a queen made to strengthen the realm’s overall position. Each day she paced her chambers waiting for word from her men on the coasts. When the missives arrived, she read them, quickly, and fired back instructions.
Lord Howard of Effingham had letters sent to the coastal towns, instructing them to arm themselves and prepare for battle. Walsingham had certain information that the Spanish were preparing to attack within months. They had 138 ships prepared, many more than the 61 that the queen had in her fleet. But their ships were bloated, oceangoing vessels, heavy and self-important like the Spanish king, whereas the English fleet was made up of galleons that were made for piracy: sleek and sharp and able to quickly respond and redirect when necessary, like our queen. More important, they carried two thousand cannons, more than twice the number that the Spanish carried, a gift that her father, King Henry, fascinated by artillery, had bequeathed to his daughter. I couldn’t help but think he would be proud to see her, in her red-haired glory, facing the Spanish head-on.
Too, there was a certain wry satisfaction in the fact that many of the newer cannons had been made by melting down bells from confiscated Catholic church property. The pope, the queen’s declared enemy, had financed some of her firepower.
The last day of May, her lord admiral set out with his fleet for Spain but was driven back by strong winds. “We have danced as lustily as the most gallant dancers in court,” Howard wrote to Walsingham, who conveyed it to the queen. Walsingham set down the letter. “But he is eager to get back to sea as soon as possible.”
“Tell him to wait,” the queen said, pacing in her Presence Chamber.
“Wait, Majesty?” Walsingham looked worried. “Why?”
“We have . . . a premonition,” she said. “We have a deep concern that the Spanish shall outmaneuver him and make for our shores.”
Walsingham did as he was told and sent the letter, but Lord Howard wrote back immediately and said, “I must and will obey; and am glad there be such at court as are able to judge what is fitter for us to do than we here; but by my instructions which I had, I did think it otherwise.”
The queen, able to discern and follow sound counsel, backed off and told her lord admiral that he should do as he saw best.
By the middle of July the Spanish had made it to the English coastal waters. Due to strong winds and the hand of God, most said, the English fleet was able to slip past and surround them, the winds at their back.
Thomas and Essex were in Dover and rode hard back to court to apprise the queen. Things were at a tense but anticipatory standoff.
“Our men danced on the shore as the Spanish came into sight,” Thomas said.
“And Drake finished his game of bowls before boarding his ship,” Essex finished with not a little admiration. But board Drake did, and at the beating of his drum, his crew and the others mustered for battle.
Lord Robert begged the queen to come to inspect her troops at Tilbury. “You shall, dear lady, behold as goodly, as loyal, and as able men as any Christian prince can show you.”
Walsingham disagreed and begged the queen not to go, fearful for her safety. Those of us who knew her well could see that the idea of riding out to war with Lord Robert was something she was unlikely to pass by.
Her Robin promised that he would guarantee her person to be as safe as it would be at St. James’s Palace, and staked his life upon it.
“We agree!” she said. Before she left, she wrote to Lord Howard and asked how things progressed.
“Their force is wonderful great and strong,” he replied, “and yet we pluck their feathers little by little.”
Thomas, who had ridden nearly the entire shoreline to prepare the towns for battle, reported that bonfires had been lit all along the coast to spread news of the armada’s sighting.
“It’s the English way,” he said. Seventeen thousand men had been readied in the southeast. I imagined that the Spanish, approaching the realm and seeing those bonfires, may have thought that they had misjudged the strength or determination of the little isle.