Being loved by William, she had to admit, was beginning to feel like a cage. Highly gilded and widely coveted—but a cage nonetheless.
“Elizabeth,la plus belle princesse…” She could quite get used to this. In England, she was always one step behind William. And though she knew intellectually that this extravagant welcome and praise from the French was mostly due to their desire to impress her brother, she let herself be flattered and dream a little of what it might be like to be adored solely for herself.
The opening grand banquet, given the second day after their arrival, was exquisite in both food and ritual. Although much of the elaborate solemnity amused Elizabeth, it also delighted her. For the first time in months she gave herself up solely to the pleasures of the moment—one of which was upstaging her cousin, Mary of Scotland. Mary might be Queen Regnant of Scotland and the future Queen of France, but Elizabeth was the honoured guest tonight, and thus had pride of place at the high table next to King Henri. She admitted, grudgingly, that her cousin was lovely—unusually tall for her age and with the distinct red-gold hair of her Tudor grandmother—but at twelve, Mary was little more than a girl with a promise of beauty. Elizabeth held every advantage at this dinner and she reveled in it.
To be fair, Mary was gracious and professed herself ecstatic to meet Elizabeth. “It is my greatest wish, cousin, to be united with England in both faith and friendship.”
United faith would never happen, not with the Scots queen’s ardent Catholicism. And though friendship looked possible just now with both she and William intending matrimonial ties with the French, that also would be shattered the moment William broke the treaty. But whatever else might happen, Mary Stuart had been Scotland’s queen since she was six days old, and her actions in future might make all the difference to England’s precarious security. The entire point of her being at the French court, being groomed as France’s future queen, was to make permanent theauld allianceof France and Scotland. England would be under enormous pressure when the French king could claim to rule part of their own island.
The dancing that followed the banquet was elaborate, but Elizabeth was beginning to see beneath the surface to the universal similarities of royal courts. Fontainebleau was impressive, but tone down the dazzle just a bit and it was not much different from Greenwich or Richmond or Whitehall. Look beneath the fabulous jewels and the ostentatious fashions that made the men like peacocks and the women like statues, and the types were ones Elizabeth had known all her life: the hangers-on, the empty-headed, the flatterers, and the rare possessors of true ability.
She danced with King Henri and with his son, the dauphin (who, at eleven years old, was highly impressed by his own dignity). She danced with handsome, charming men of Valois and Navarre and Orléans, flirted brilliantly with the Admiral of France, and finally found herself dancing with a man she’d heard about from both her brother and Dominic: Vicomte Renaud LeClerc.
“It is a great pleasure to meet you, Your Highness,” he began, in very good English.
She answered him in French. “The pleasure is mine, as my brother’s representative. I am glad to be a symbol of honourable peace between us.”
“Do you think all peace honourable?”
“Do you?” Elizabeth shot back.
He smiled with delight. “It depends on the peace, Your Highness, and on the fight. Honour can be found in almost any circumstance.”
“Now that does sound like someone I know. No wonder Lord Exeter speaks so highly of you.”
LeClerc chuckled. “Dominic is a good man, though perhaps a trifle serious for one his age.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“So serious in fact that I wonder, Your Highness, if our dear friendle ducchafes at being charged with—though honourable—such a light duty.”
She could read his subtext as clearly as if he’d shouted it.What else is he here for?LeClerc was asking. Although Elizabeth had the same question, she refused to dwell on it. She could guess why Dominic was in France.
LeClerc continued with a seemingly unrelated question. “Now that your royal brother’s matrimonial future is secure, he will be looking to secure your own happiness next,non?”
Elizabeth found herself looking for Dominic and, finding him deep in conversation with the Duc de Guise, suppressed a sigh. Who else might Dominic be tasked with speaking to on this trip? And what choices would she be presented with when they returned to England? She knew as well as her brother that the Spanish kept an ambassador at the French court.
For one painful second the thought of Robert pierced through her, but then she walled it off. Between Dominic’s probable charge to approach her future Spanish husband and the royal hopes and plans of both Mary Stuart and Elisabeth de France, she could not afford to be sidetracked into thinking about Robert.
Her resolve lasted less than twelve hours. For when Minuette joined her for a late breakfast the next day, Elizabeth had just received a missive from Robert Dudley.
Minuette watched her read, then asked, “What does Robert have to say?”
“That being on progress with William is remarkably similar to a battlefield: uncomfortable lodgings, indifferent food, and surprise ambushes from aggressive females who are more trouble than even enemy soldiers.” Elizabeth tossed the letter onto the table, amidst the plated gold dishes. “Although Robert is not precise about whether the aggressive females confine their ambushes solely to my brother.”
Minuette correctly sensed Elizabeth’s mood. She said quietly, “Robert doesn’t trouble to write solely to tease. Which is all that is, you know.”
“I do know,” Elizabeth said. “But does it not botheryou? Knowing that William is constantly besieged by women who want whatever they can have of him?”
Two years ago Elizabeth would have wagered that she could name any one of Minuette’s thoughts simply by reading her expressions. But that had changed, and now she could only go by Minuette’s words. “I don’t dwell upon it, Elizabeth. I assure you, I do not spend my days eaten up with jealousy over William.”
Elizabeth meant to probe deeper, but Minuette said quickly, “So why else did Robert write?”
“Oh, he had a message for me from John Dee.” Elizabeth picked the letter back up and read from it. “ ‘Dr. Dee has many friends in Europe, men of intelligence and experience. He mentioned that one of them might be coming to see you, with a letter of introduction from Lord Burghley.’ ”
“Lord Burghley? From the privy council?”
“The same. I confess, I find myself intrigued to meet someone who commands the interest of men as different as John Dee and William Cecil. Let the attendants know that I am to be notified at once if this man comes calling. His name is Francis Walsingham.”
