Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [41]
Come what may, never forget your dearest friend, E.M.
I held Emme’s letter to my cheek. I was grateful for the pains she had taken to write and pleased to think of Frances being hated. I began to fill my empty hours dreaming up plots to torment her. Though I had little hope of ever being able to enact them, it gave me a little comfort to reflect that I had plenty of wit, while Frances’s would fit within her thimble. Still, she was in the queen’s favor, and I was in the Tower.
If Emme could manage to write, I wondered, why couldn’t Sir Walter? Surely his every waking moment was not spent beside the queen. While she slept, could he not write to me? While she was awake, could he not persuade her to release me? There could be only one reason he did neither of these things: he did not love me. Rather, he loved the queen. I flung myself on the bed, overcome with fresh tears. So let him enjoy his doubtful reward, waiting on the aging Elizabeth all his days, bearing her changeable moods and incessant demands! My love had turned sour, and disappointment rankled in me like a wound.
Some days after receiving Emme’s letter, I had a visitor at last: the gray-bearded Earl of Leicester. He was red-faced and short of breath from climbing the stairs. When the guard admitted him, then closed the door without bolting it, I expected to hear I was being released. But Leicester looked morose.
“I’ve come at Her Majesty’s bidding,” he said.
“I thought so.” My voice sounded hoarse from disuse. “No one would dare come otherwise, because of the manifest danger I pose.”
“I am sorry for your plight, my lady. You do not deserve it,” he said gently.
“Does Sir Walter deserve his? That is a harsh punishment, to be made Captain of the Guard,” I said with a mocking smile.
“Walter Ralegh is an ass!” Leicester’s face turned purple.
I stared in surprise, then remembered he had long been the queen’s favorite. He must be jealous of Ralegh, who was younger, handsomer, and now far more favored.
“She gave him all of the traitor Babington’s estates. He has never been wealthier,” he grumbled.
“Has the queen decided to give me anything?” I asked, anger growing in me. “Will I be released?”
“That is the matter of my visit,” he said, letting out a long sigh that did not bode well for me.
“She will not put me on trial—or will she?” I asked.
“God, no!” he said. “You are no traitor. She would not dare.”
“Does she mean to return me to my uncle in Wiltshire?”
“Alas, I wish that were her will. But it is a harsher fate she has in mind for you, one that I would spare a lady of your tender age and upbringing—”
“Just tell me, please!”
He clasped his hands together and his eyebrows lifted in an expression of grief and sympathy.
“Sit down, my lady, for you look pale.”
“I will hear my fate while standing on my feet,” I said, losing all patience with his wordy delays.
“Her Majesty has decreed your banishment! A ship sails tomorrow and you, my lady, are to be on board.”
My thoughts leapt with a fearful anticipation. I saw vessels moored at Billingsgate, swarming with sun-browned mariners loading cargo for distant parts of the world.
“Destined for? The ship goes where?” I asked, unable to put my words together.
“To a barbarous place, that one day, through the presence of those such as yourself, may develop into a civil society—”
“Not Ireland!” I cried, thinking of warring peasants and forsaken bogs.
Leicester held up his hand and shook his head sadly. “My lady, that would be a mercy. No, it is the colony on Roanoke Island. I am sorry for you.”
He looked away and thus did not see the smile spreading over my face. I felt like dancing a jig.
“But who? Why? How did this come about?” I asked,