Above all, the fawning title of the “Virgin” Queen, which she soon heard from all sides caressing her ear, and which fashion quickly transformed into nothing less than a cypher for majesty itself, so enraptured her that she resolved to honour the name in all she did. Her untamed nature and her love of her own freedom nourished this fatal posture although, on the other side, it clashed with her strong fleshly desires; soon her body screamed for carnal satisfaction, and her lust often took the most perverted forms.
And once, shortly before our first violent falling-out, I was desired to come to Windsor Castle – I am sure I was not mistaken in this – to meet with her unchaperoned. On a sudden impulse I declined, for my ambition was not to spend the night with a virgin on heat, but to share in her royal dignity in the clear light of day.
It may well be, then, that the rumours are true and that my friend Robert Dudley was more accommodating and took the pleasures I denied to both myself and the object of my spiritual desire. God alone knows whether I chose well or not.
It was much later and at the urgent command of Bartlett Greene – the unborn, undead, who comes and goes at will – that I finally drew down upon my head the thunderbolt of her wrath, the threat of which had so long sucked at my strength and which would anyway have struck sooner or later; maybe it was foreordained if not foreseen. Although my vital force and peace of mind had been shattered beyond recall, I did survive the thunderbolt, and who can say whether at another hour or under another constellation her curse might not have totally destroyed me?
However that may be, today I am but the ruin of my former self. Only today I know against whom I must struggle.
Elizabeth continued to treat me in a cruel and capricious manner and when she once more broke her promise to command me to Windsor for conferences on weighty matters of state, instead of for tittle-tattle and teasing love-making, I decided in a fit of anger to leave England once again and go to the Emperor Maximilian in Hungary to offer that enterprising monarch my plans for the conquest and settlement of the northern parts of America.
During the journey, however, I was filled with contrition and I felt I had betrayed the innermost secret I shared with my Queen, and something warned me, and drew me back as if some magic umbilical cord still bound me to my Lady’s womb.
So I merely explained to the Emperor some of my ideas on astrology and alchymy in order to secure a position for some months as Imperial mathematician and astrologer. But our signs could not be brought into conjunction, and the next year, the fortieth of my life, I returned to England and found forgiveness from Elizabeth, who was as sweetly alluring and as coldly, regally proud as ever. I spent days of deep satisfaction as her guest in Greenwich; for the first time she bent a willing ear to my propositions and accepted the fruits of my learning with earnest gratitude. She promised me her protection against all who secretly plotted to harm me and I was soon drawn into the intimate circle that was privy to all her plans, hopes and fears.
She confessed to me, by turns calm and tempestuous, that her heart disavowed none of the wild passions of her youth, insofar as they concerned me, and she freely acknowledged that she had not forgotten the potion that she had had from the witch.
To my astonishment I saw that she knew more than I had thought. At the same time, however, she declared with rare solemnity that she felt now and forever for me as a sister for a brother and no longer desired me as her paramour; our companionship must be based on the blood-bond of brother and sister so that it might one day be consummated in the communion of the blood. I understood but little of such fantastical speech – even at that time I felt that some otherworldly being were speaking through the Queen – unless it were intended to put a barrier between us which all my hopes and ambitions would find the greatest difficulty in acknowledging. Still it is strange that I cannot rid myself of the thought that some other being than she, some unknown force and voice, were speaking through her lips, some being whose message I may perhaps never unravel. What could that mean: Consummated in the communion of the blood? In those days in Greenwich I wrestled openly with Elizabeth for love and its requital, for a man’s natural right to a woman. In vain. Elizabeth withdrew, more unapproachable than ever.
Yes, after those days of deepest spiritual communion she suddenly turned to me whilst we were taking the morning air in the empty park with a face completely transformed. Her eyes mocked me with an inscrutably equivocal expression, and she said:
“As thou dost plead man’s natural right to a woman with me, my friend, I have this last night thought over the matter and resolved not only to grant thy virile urge relief, but to help thee to the satisfaction of thy desire. I would join the spear to the ring and add it to thy achievement as a sign of a happy marriage. I know that thy affairs in Mortlake stand not well and that Gladhill is mortgaged up to the last roof tile. I am sure a rich wife will not come amiss, especially if it is one whose ancestry would not offend the pride of a descendant of Rhodri Mawr. I have decided that thou shalt wed the charming and most gentle companion of my youth, Lady Ellinor Huntingdon. The wedding will take place on the earliest seemly occasion. – Lady
