Being the only man still mounted, Nicholas realizes his face is clearly visible from where Lumley is standing. When their eyes meet, Lumley gives him a look of disbelief, as if to say, Surely not you, too? There is time only for a brief shake of the head to show that he is not party to this madness, before Southampton seizes Nicholas by one leg and hauls him to the ground.
From this moment on, Nicholas is little more than a passive witness, swept along in the tight press of Essex’s gallants. Southampton is at his back, ensuring he doesn’t entertain any foolish thoughts of making a break for it.
Once through the door and into the south wing of the palace, Nicholas catches a brief glimpse of startled white faces: servants in royal livery, clerks and secretaries in legal black, courtiers there for the food and the reputation that closeness to the sovereign brings, even a few members of the Privy Council flapping like hens at the sight of a fox.
Up the stairs to the presence chamber Essex runs, his gallants swept along in the fervour of his cause. Nicholas is still too hemmed in even to think of bolting. The familiar interior of Nonsuch flies past him: the expensive oak wainscoting from floor to ceiling; the fine Flemish tapestries; the paintings and the statues that John Lumley has collected over the years of his fluctuating favour with his monarch; the countless chamber doors that seem to sprout a harvest of inquisitive heads as the party hurries past… Nicholas even catches sight of Lumley’s wife, lady Elizabeth, standing open-mouthed by the door to the private chapel where he and Bianca married. She’s come from her morning prayers, he thinks. Catholic prayers. A small act of defiance, even in the queen’s proximity. The realization gives him comfort: no matter how great the power of an Essex or a Cecil – even of the queen herself – the secret heart remains one’s own, untouchable.
The queen’s presence chamber is empty, save for a clutch of women chamberers going about their business of dusting, plumping and arranging, in preparation for the audiences scheduled in the Lord Chamberlain’s diary. They pause, looking up in alarm. We must look like brigands, Nicholas thinks.
Of the queen herself there is no sign. They’ve whisked her away to somewhere safe, he decides. Grey must have arrived in time.
But Essex is a hound with a good scent in his nostrils. The party barely breaks stride. Onwards, like the last charge on a disputed battlefield.
In the privy gallery a coterie of attendants stands idly awaiting the emergence of the queen from her bedchamber: ladies-in-waiting, ladies of the privy chamber, maids of honour, gentleman ushers, grooms. Male or female, their rank may be judged by the same measures: looks, languor and finery. Nicholas wonders what they all do. How many people are needed to shore up the edifice of majesty? Their eyes turn towards Essex as he approaches. One or two even make a bow.
Now, so close to their quarry, with one last door ahead of them – closed – the little band fragments, loses its pace, loses its determination. Loses its courage.
All except Robert Devereux.
He is a man reduced in appearance from an earl of England to a mud-splattered cut-purse fleeing from the night-watch, but he strides towards the great carved door set into the panelled wall as though it is he, not the queen, who owns Nonsuch. The courtiers make no attempt to challenge him, perhaps because even at this late moment no one can really believe his intention. Without bothering to knock, he lifts the latch, throws open the doors and strides inside.
At first there is silence, save for a few gasps of disbelief from the courtiers in the privy chamber. For a fleeting instant, Nicholas fears Essex is going to draw his sword. If he does, his very worst fears will have been realized. There will be no way back.
But the sword remains in its scabbard. Instead, England’s Earl Marshal – though for how much longer is anyone’s guess – sinks to his knees. He prostrates himself before his sovereign.
From where Nicholas is standing he can see only snatches of the tableau: the back of Devereux’s riding cape, the muddy heels of his boots as he kneels, the alarmed faces of the ladies of the bedchamber as they turn towards him… and, in the moment before the door slams shut, a whey-faced woman with a look of astonishment burned into the deep hollows of her eyes. A woman whose grey hair is as sparse as a moorland knoll blasted by a winter wind. An unpainted woman, bereft of powder or ceruse, of pearls or jewels. Bereft of majesty. Just a tired, elderly woman well on her way to the same common end as the very lowest of her subjects.
41
Without their blazing comet to guide them, Southampton and the others seem unsure of what to do next. All impetus has been lost. All their brazen words, their promises to stamp out the nest of vipers at court, are revealed as nothing more than bluster. The immensity of what they might have done, had Essex given them proper orders, has begun to dawn upon them – along with the price of failure.
And then Nicholas sees Robert Cecil scuttling towards them, Grey at his side, John Lumley two paces back. With them is a squad of halberdiers, poleaxes held at the port position – lest any of these unruly intruders think they are purely for ceremonial display.
If Southampton, or any other member of the Essex faction, is foolish enough to draw steel now, Nicholas thinks, there will be no way back. It will be taken as clear evidence of treason.
But the pendulum has swung again. Stepfather Blount, the oldest – and perhaps most astute – of the Devereux faction has seen which way the wind is blowing. He begins to protest loudly that they have never, not even for a moment, intended Her Majesty the slightest harm.
Even Southampton looks relieved when Nicholas steps out of the little band and addresses Mr Secretary Cecil as he comes to a lopsided halt at the entrance of the privy chamber.
‘Sir Robert, please don’t mistake the ardour of these gentlemen for anything but an eagerness to assure Her Majesty of their love and obedience,’ he says, wondering whose words these are, because he’s never thought of himself as being skilled in diplomacy.
But it does the trick, because Cecil raises a gloved hand to stay the halberdiers. He looks up at Southampton, who towers over him, and whose elegance – even in this muddied condition – serves only to highlight Cecil’s ill-made form. ‘Would you care to explain the reason for this insult to Her Majesty’s peace, my lord of Southampton?’ he asks, his voice so crisp that the words spilling from his mouth land like shards of ice.
‘There is no insult intended, Mr Secretary,’ Southampton says earnestly. ‘His Grace has come only to assure Her Majesty of his enduring devotion, and to slay the malicious falsehoods that some have laid before her on the matter of his Irish enterprise.’
‘Then perhaps it would be best if you all removed your muddy boots and cloaks, gentlemen,’ Cecil says, offering the party a bridge back to sanity. ‘Her Majesty will not care to see her privy chamber treated like a hostelry for common travellers.’
Blount unbuckles his cloak. Southampton considers his options a little longer – and then follows suit. Nicholas lets the breath out of his lungs in a slow exhalation of relief.
But what of His Grace the Earl of Essex? In the confusion, he has been quite forgotten. Now that the moment of crisis has passed, and bloodshed averted, all eyes turn towards the closed door to the queen’s bedchamber. To Nicholas, the figures in the privy chamber are like a troupe of players who have simultaneously forgotten their lines. No one knows what to do next. Should someone enter, to ensure Her Majesty is safe from the earl’s wild eccentricities? Should we all pretend nothing has happened? Even Mr Secretary Cecil seems, for once, to have been robbed of his energy.