The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell Read Online Free Page B

Walsingham, her master of espionage, was “My Ears” abroad. Old Burleigh, bottomless well of wise counsel that he was, who most often spoke the words the queen herself was thinking, would, had she given him a pet name, surely have been “My Mouth.”
    But by far the most disturbing new object in the painting was a long, arched tube of some vaguely transparent material, perhaps frosted glass, that Elizabeth grasped with the thumb and four fingers of her right hand.
    Whilst posing she had been instructed to hold the doweled back of a tall chair, and since Essex’s last viewing—through strange turns of the artist’s mind—the dowel had transmogrified into this surprising element. Parts of her dress could be glimpsed through the tube, very peculiarly, and it seemed to dissolve into her cloak at the level of her groin, disappearing to become part of the yellow-orange fabric. But now, on closer observation of the arched tube, Essex could see along its front curve a rounded ridge. It was most astonishing. For at the very place where Elizabeth grasped it lightly with her long delicate fingers, the object most resembled in size and shape a man’s erect member.
    Surely the queen had viewed the portrait’s progress. She must have observed the object and the erotic nature of its appearance. Had it disturbed her—as it now did Essex—she would certainly have had it painted out. Why did it unsettle him so? he wondered.
    In that moment Elizabeth, looking past the artist, met Essex’s gaze.
    Nothing in the calm repose of her features changed except the deep brown, almost black eyes, which bid him warm welcome into her world.
    She was pleased to see him. But in that moment of connecting their souls, 
    Essex realized the nature of his discomfort at the painting’s raw sexuality.
    He began to blush like a schoolboy, turned from Elizabeth’s gaze, and walked across the room pretending to see something of interest out the mullioned windows.
    “Careful, my lord Essex,” Gheerhaerts warned, “you block the last of my precious daylight.”
    “Sorry.” Essex moved again, refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth’s amused expression.
    “And you, Majesty,” the painter commanded, “please do not smile.” Essex willed himself to a state of calm, but all at once he was lost, four years in the past, remembering.
    1589. Leicester was not long in his grave, but he had died on the heels of England ’s stupendous victory over the Spanish Armada, and so whilst all celebrated, Elizabeth grieved. The queen had been forced by circumstance to publicly rejoice in her navy’s triumph, but so much of her soul had died with Robin Dudley, her suffering so private and terrible, that it was only with the greatest of effort that she managed every day to place one foot before the other and continue to rule.
    Essex, only recently installed as Elizabeth’s newest favorite, was—
    aside from herself—perhaps the only individual in England with any reason to mourn the widely despised Earl of Leicester.
    Leicester was the one man who had taken great pains with the young Earl of Essex’s grooming and advancement at court. Sensitive and observant, Essex had emulated Leicester’s best qualities—a cutting wit and a fine intelligence, riding impeccably, excelling in the martial arts, dancing superbly. And, Leicester had pointed out, his stepson had been blessed with the physical traits that all her life the queen had found irresistible in a man. He was tall—taller than she—
    broad shouldered, with thick red wavy hair and beard. Both of the queen’s true loves—Thomas Seymour and Leicester—had shared those very qualities with the first man Elizabeth had ever adored—
    her father, Henry VIII. Even at eighteen, Leicester had insisted, his protégé had the bearing of a king—a man his queen could admire, could advance. Could love.
    There had never been a conscious plan to seduce Elizabeth. After Leicester’s death Essex was, however, the one