And then the door opens. His Grace stands in the frame, a beatific look on his face as he smiles at his followers, while behind him the ladies of the royal bedchamber form a guard against impertinent eyes. Essex has been transformed, reborn, raised once more to his former, happy estate. Forgiven.
‘Our Irish storms are over,’ he announces, as though bringing God’s word down from the mountain top. ‘We have found a glorious calm at home. God save Her Majesty!’
And although everyone in the chamber – Cecil, Southampton, Blount and all the others – echoes the earl’s prayer for the queen, Nicholas can see in their eyes that none of them, save perhaps Essex himself, believes a single word of it.
And neither, it seems, does Elizabeth. Over the next two days Essex is summoned on several occasions to her presence to make a fuller account of himself. It does not go well. Nicholas can tell this, not because he is party to any of the conversations, but because the Essex and Cecil factions remain resolutely separate. They avoid each other. They take their meals at separate tables. And Devereux’s seems much the more subdued. Even more so after the arrival of more privy councillors, who have come to join their colleagues in a full and frank appraisal of His Grace’s actions in Ireland. The sole remaining joy for Essex seems to be that his flux has cleared up.
Nicholas waits for the summons to give his account of Essex’s actions in Ireland – the very reason the earl has dragged him here. It does not come. This is a relief for Nicholas, because he hasn’t the faintest idea what to say in Devereux’s defence.
It has not escaped his attention that despite comfortable quarters being provided, no one in Devereux’s party is permitted to leave Nonsuch. In the afternoon of the day after the earl’s precipitous arrival, Nicholas is summoned to meet Robert Cecil in the privy garden below the royal apartments.
‘How, in the name of Jesu, did you manage to become caught up in the mess?’ Cecil asks to the tinkling accompaniment of a fountain.
‘I thought that’s what I was sent there for – to keep watch on him for you.’
‘I haven’t had a dispatch from you for weeks.’
‘Strangely enough, Sir Robert, His Grace considered my presence suspicious. He had Sir Oliver Henshawe censor every letter I attempted to send to England. At the end I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the quayside, lest I attempted to smuggle something onto the postal pinnace.’
‘Do you believe it was his intent to harm Her Majesty?’
Is it this easy to send a man to the scaffold? Nicholas wonders. Just one word?
‘I don’t believe so, Sir Robert,’ he says. ‘His Grace is a much-conflicted man. But I don’t believe he ever wished harm to Her Majesty. Besides, he is not well.’
A quizzical look from Cecil.
‘His Grace is ill? From what?’
Again it would be so easy to damn Essex with a single word. But Nicholas is not a vindictive man.
‘Ambition,’ he says. ‘And pride. They can be the making of a man, if he can constrain them. Unfettered, they are as injurious to him as any other serious malady. I fear that His Grace’s symptoms are beyond my treatment.’
Cecil laughs. ‘If that’s a measure of your diplomatic skills, we should make you an ambassador.’ He gives Nicholas a fatherly pat on the arm, though there are barely two years between them. ‘I am sure you did your best. Now, I fear I can spare you no more time. I am due at a conference of the Privy Council. We are to consider this present matter and put our findings to Her Majesty.’
As Cecil turns to leave, his little heels grinding on the gravel path, Nicholas says, ‘We found Constanza Calva de Sagrada. Well, Bianca found her.’
Robert Cecil stops. His narrow lips part in disbelief. But no words come out. It is the first time Nicholas has seen him lost for words.
‘She’s alive?’ he manages eventually.
‘Yes.’
‘How extraordinary. Where is she now?’
‘Probably in Scotland, on her way to a marriage.’
‘Did she reveal to you the names of the Spanish peace faction before she left?’
‘No.’
‘That is a pity.’
‘But her servant did.’
Cecil gives him a doubting laugh. ‘A servant? And how much will that cost me?’
‘Nothing, Sir Robert – save what you think is due to a brave and remarkable woman.’
Cecil considers this a moment. A thrush lands on the rim of the fountain to drink. His gaze lingers on it, as though it might assist him in his deliberations.
‘Are you sure this person is trustworthy?’
‘Completely.
‘Where is this list? It is secured?’
‘It’s in her head. And she will not reveal the names until she can stand in your presence.’
‘And where is this servant now?’
‘With Bianca. Somewhere between Bristol and London, if all has gone well, as I hope.’
Cecil lifts his brow in grudging admiration. ‘Well, I don’t know what to say. When all this is over, bring her to me at Cecil House. She shall be rewarded.’
And with that, he flies away. And the thrush with him, leaving Nicholas to wonder if Sir Robert does that with every living creature that strays within his orbit – captures it.
Then comes the brief encounter with the queen. It happens later that day, in the presence chamber. Only her ladies-in-waiting remain in attendance, and they are shooed away to a distance that permits Elizabeth and Nicholas to converse without being overheard. The evening sunlight paints bright bars on the stone casements of the windows. Whose prison? he wonders.
She is not the same woman whose mortal state he had observed so briefly the day before. The paint of monarchy has been reapplied, the natural blemishes on the canvas hidden. She does not speak to him of Essex. He assumes it is because he is a commoner and Devereux is an earl. She speaks to him of Ireland.
‘Was Master Spenser right, sirrah?’ she enquires. ‘Does his view upon the present condition of that isle remain sound?’
Nicholas thinks of what Bianca has told him about Tyrone. He thinks of Piers Gardener, and the death of Henry Norris. He thinks of the old Seanchaí and her husband, of the fall of Kilcolman, of heads lying on the tailboard of a cart trundling through the streets of Dublin.
‘I am just a physician, Majesty,’ he replies. ‘But I live on Bankside, close to the bear-pit. I’ve learned a thing or two about bears. You may feed them treats to make them dance for your amusement. You may chain and whip them to teach them obedience. You may bait them with dogs for your entertainment. But whatever you do, they will still be bears. And in their hearts – while they may fear their master – they will never love him. Perhaps it might be better to leave them in the forest.’
On the first day of October – the Privy Council having deliberated, and the queen having pondered its charges against her Earl of Essex – Robert Devereux is handed into the custody of the Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Sir Thomas Egerton. He leaves Nonsuch for confinement at York House. None of his gallants is permitted to accompany him. His grand Irish enterprise is over.
As he watches the coach roll out of Nonsuch, Nicholas wonders if – had things gone the other way for Robert Devereux – he might have attempted Edmund Spenser’s grim solution to Tyrone’s rebellion. He has to conclude that, while he can raise a measure of pity for England’s fallen Caesar, on balance he’s mightily glad Essex didn’t.
He recalls again the accusation Essex had hurled against him on the day Henry Norris died of his wounds. You’ve done the rebels’ work for them, sirrah. You’re a traitor!