The Fyre Mirror: An Elizabeth I Mystery: 1 (Elizabeth I Mysteries), Page 25

  He seemed to have no retort to that or else he realized she needed to vent her ire and would calm down if he but listened. Yes, she and Cecil knew each other well after all these years working together, first to attain the throne and then to preserve and use it well for her people. Elizabeth knew she had been the cause of most of the lines on his long face and the gray hairs in his shovel-shaped beard which made him look older than his fortyfive years.

  She heaved a sigh and turned to glance in her new Venetian looking glass. Good—her appearance was startling, even stark, with the black bodice and skirt and the huge white satin and goldembroidered sleeves. Her starched neck ruff was so stiff and large it almost looked as if her red, bejeweled head were on a platter—which her enemies, and there were many, would love to see.

  With a decisive nod to Cecil, the queen preceded him out. The two yeomen guards at the door fell in behind. She might be a woman, Elizabeth thought, a mere female as her father had said more than once. But she still—thanks to a good and gracious God—looked young and strong at age thirty-three after eight years on England’s throne. Graceful, tall for a woman and slim with sharp dark eyes and gold-red hair, she was still what her court favorite, Robin Dudley, called fetching.

  Yet, though she never told even her closest friends and advisors such, not even Robin or Cecil, she intended to live and die unwed, but for her marriage to her country, of course. From her toddling days, she’d seen at too close range what dreadful things men could do to women, even their wives—even queens.

  Flanked by her crimson-clad guards, Elizabeth Tudor stood beneath the scarlet canopy of state on the dais before her throne, facing sixty parliamentarians, thirty from the House of Lords and thirty from the House of Commons. The nobility had donned their best attire for the occasion; even the others wore their best. The few Puritan members, led by Hosea Cantwell, were in their somber black and white, as if following her fashion, when in truth all they did was carp about it.

  She had expressly forbidden the speakers of the two houses of Parliament to attend, for she meant to do the speaking on this day. If they thought her so-called weaker sex would make her entreat or retreat, they were much mistaken. Did they not know she had learned—though sometimes from afar and under fire—from her sire, Henry VIII, that talented builder and terrible destroyer?

  “Lords and men of England,” she began, in turn staring directly at each man in the front row. “You write to me of my ‘fatal fashion’ of not wedding and pronounce it dangerous to crown and kingdom. And so you try to coerce and force your queen to obey your will.”

  She leveled a straight arm and finger at them in a slow arc. The northern earls Northumberland and Derby, both covert Catholics who could raise a rebellion, stood next to her dear Robin, Earl of Leicester. All visibly braced themselves and flared their nostrils as if they were stags scenting a wolf on the wind. A frown furrowing his brow, Hosea Cantwell from the Commons glared back at her.

  “How have I governed?” she plunged on, clasping a fist of dangling pearls in her free hand. “I need not say much, for my deeds speak for me. And do not use the words fatal fashion to me. Fatal fashions are treasons, greed and lust, adultery and murder—and rebellions—in my kingdom. England must take a stand for justice. You must see to the proper punishment of law breakers and even to your own sins. Best tend to the safety of your country and your queen and not by trying to force her to wed and bed, but by helping, not hindering her.”

  More than one man shifted his weight or shuffled his feet. Several turned their caps about in their hands. This utter refusal was obviously not what they had expected.’S blood, did they not know her yet?

  “Some of you have whispered that I fear death in childbirth. Oh, yes, I know your thoughts, that and others,” she added, looking directly at the northern earls whose shires bordered Scotland. “I do not fear death, for all men are mortal, and though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage as ever my father had. I am your anointed queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I would be able to live in any place in Christendom.”

  Robin looked amused by the petticoat point, yet her stare wiped the smile from that handsome face. Cecil seemed almost smug while the others stood stunned by her defiance. No doubt those who’d had to settle for the back of the crowd now blessed their good fortune.

  Elizabeth of England said no more but stood several moments, as if daring them to gainsay her. She only prayed no one guessed that her pulse pounded and the velvet neckband of her cartwheel ruff was soaked with sweat.

  She glanced at the massive portrait of her father, hanging behind her audience. They probably thought she nodded to them before she turned and strode from the chamber. She thanked God they could not see that, beneath her skirts, her silk-stockinged legs shook like a child’s.

  THE FYRE MIRROR

  Copyright © 2005 by Karen Harper.

  Excerpt from The Fatal Fashione © 2005 by Karen Harper.

  Cover painting of Nonsuch Palace © Syndics of Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Cover portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from Atlas of the Countries of England and Wales.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  eISBN 9781429992275

  First eBook Edition : January 2011

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004056654

  ISBN: 0-312-99622-5

  EAN: 9780312-99622-2

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / February 2005

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / February 2006