Bess

[Gemini Cricket]

This one was a dream I had the other night. I typed this one fast and didn't have much time to check it for errors.

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Bess
by GC

I was still not comfortable wearing tights. I had done several Shakespeare plays and yet found myself endlessly itching and adjusting myself. I refused to continue to sit in the carriage as was suggested. How could I? She was on her way and the last thing I wanted to do was miss her own carriage cresting the hill that led to the forest where we waited. Part of me was bursting with anticipation and excitement. Part of me felt on the verge of unconsciousness. The horses bearing my carriage shifted their weight once again, the one on the left began pulling his hoof out of the mud he stood upon and dropped it back in again. I could have been mistaken but it almost seemed like a game to him. I smiled. The wind pushed itself through the treetops and sent a whistle through the forest branches. I inhaled some of it, it was damp and cool. It soothed me and my nerves.
The carriage door leaned open and Lord Burghley stepped out of it. Instinctively, he avoided a puddle before him.
"My good, sir. It would be advisable to remove that reprehensible contraption from your face." He swiped at his beard, barely able to look at me.
"Yes, Lord Burley, when she's close enough where I can look at her without them." I said.
"Quite bizarrely formed." He griped. "Foreign, even."
"Lord Burghley, I can not thank you enough. I-" Before I could continue, he gave me yet another look of discontent. It was a look I had become accustomed to for several weeks now.
"Be quite bathed in relief that I am not Lord Walsingham." He arched an eyebrow. "He, like the majority of many in the court, wants you kneeling before the block. One swift swipe and the grief I feel will be banished for all time."
"I'm glad you like me."
"'Glad.'" Burghley turned from me and fixed his gaze on the hill. "Why she is compelled to meet you is beyond all reason. All this talk of what you apparently know is complete marriage of fiction and madness."
"I can not explain it. It is destined that we meet." I started slipping into the way he and the people surrounding him spoke. It was quite like poetry mostly.
"Lord Walsingham thinks you a spy of Mary Stuart."
"It is a fallacy." I said. "I understand his desire to keep his queen protected as any good subject should. However, I am no spy nor do I intend her majesty any harm or ill will."
"The second you spoke and told me you had dealings in the theatre, I knew you a treacherous villain." Burghley sputtered. "Liars all. One day, they pose as a prince, the next a clown…"
"Some are both." I retorted.
"How vile." Burghley croaked. "Dare you call the queen a clown?"
"I thought we were speaking of the Queen of Scots?" I responded.
I saw a smile crack the face of the nobleman. It quickly faded, but it was there. "I wager that you are alive up until this moment because of that wit and your capability to get the most hardened, unmovable tree to bend for you."
"Maybe so." I said.
"That smile will not fool the woman you so eagerly await." He said. "She is not easily swayed to any man."
"Yet, there is one in question at the moment."
"Yes. An alliance is at hand. Spain will quake at the thought of an alliance between England and France." Burghley said. "I can not believe you, a foreigner from heaven knows where, are to try and convince her otherwise."
"The union must not happen." I warned.
"Oh, and I suppose you are to convince her that you should be her ward?" He asked.
"Not me." I said. "I know other queens deserving of my hand."
"There is no queen greater than she."
"You are right." I smirked. He had no idea what I meant, yet I played that hand anyway. I confuse him and part of me reveled in the idea of a leader like him so powerful and so perplexed at the same time.
"And this second Elizabeth you speak of. Who is she? Is she wanting to overthrow her majesty? I will not be party to that."
"She will not rise to power for quite sometime." I reassured him. "But her reign will be quite long as well."
Burghley's forehead twitched. "Are you to tell me that you know of how long her majesty will reign? When she herself will no longer be queen and another will take her place?"
"Yes."
"Tell me!" He insisted. It was the first time his voice rose to a shout.
"I can not." I said. "But she herself will outlive you, Lord Burghley."
He paused wiping his forehead with an elaborate handkerchief. "There is comfort in that."
"I apologize, Lord Burghley, for vexing you so." I said. I barely could believe the words coming out of my mouth.
"Understand that I live to serve her majesty and nothing else. Just the fact that she insists on seeing you made the last week of my life a sleepless torture. I do not despise you, my good sir. I despise everything I do not know, the shadows, the conspiracies… Treachery all."
"I do understand."
Burghley looked up at me again after thoroughly examining his own shoes in the mud. He tilted his head.
"Let me see them again." He said.
"Okay." I told him. "But please, Lord Burghley, I can not have them broken. I need them to see."
"I will handle them with the care of a mother with her child." He said.
I removed my glasses and handed them to him.
"I do not understand." He fumed. "They are not glass. Something more brittle than glass. Yet just as strong somehow. Lighter than glass. And you say they bend with heat? Astounding."
He stopped suddenly and stiffened.
"She comes."

cont'd

[Gemini Cricket]

He placed my glasses in my hand and I quickly rubbed them clear of all smudges. Off in the distance, I heard the thunder of horse hooves and the creak of a carriage. The carriage which rose above the horizon was dark and simple. Almost a peasant's carriage, not what I was expecting. A man in a black hood led two horses before the wheeled cart.
"Is this some sort of game, Lord Burghley?" I asked him.
"Foolish boy, the queen wishes not to make her presence here known to anyone but Sir Walsingham and myself." Burghley burped. "Use the good sense that God gave you."
"Ah, I understand."
As the carriage came to a halt in front of where we stood, I quickly tucked away my glasses. The hooded man stepped down from where he sat. He bowed slightly and spoke to the carriage door; a window in its side was covered by a black curtain.
"If you would allow me a moment, your majesty." He said.
"You may have it, Walsingham." A woman's voice replied. It was a low, stern voice.
Walsingham turned towards me and pulled his cowl to his shoulders. A black cap topped his head and a pointy beard the same color adorned his chin.
"Sir Braddoc, as you wish to be called, I warn you. I will be a breath's distance from your side. One false move towards her majesty and you will be dead before you hit the floor." Walsingham pulled his cloak back to reveal a sharp blade tucked into his belt. It looked as if it were newly sharpened. "Considered yourself properly and sternly warned."
I nodded my head. "Yes, Sir Walsingham."
He snorted and turned to open the carriage door.
The first thing I saw was an elaborate gown resting on the inside of the door. Golden embroidered palm fronds adorned the dress, each one adorned with shiny amber thread. A lily pale hand, encircled with lace at the wrists awaited Walsingham's own hand. He helped her out of the carriage. A blaze of fire encircled with a crown tilted up and there before me stood Elizabeth of England.
She looked at me as if I were a squashed rat in the street: with disgust, with curiosity and somehow also indifference.
"Your majesty." I said and bowed a bow I had practiced for two weeks.
"That was emphatically abhorrent." The expressionless face said. Two seconds later and her crimson lips broke into a slight smile. "But somehow amusing."
"My unending apologies, your majesty." I said. "Shall I try again?"
"I have neither the patience nor the desire to have it echoed."
There was a long silence as I felt her eyes upon me. I decided to bow my head humbly.
Queen Elizabeth circled me, examining me as a drill sergeant would his lowliest private.
"Sir Braddoc, you will walk with me. There is a tree about where we shall speak." She turned to Walsingham. "In private."
Walsingham cleared his throat, "Your majesty, I must intervene. I highly advise that myself or Lord Burghley should accompany you."
"No, Sir Francis." Elizabeth said. "I will walk alone with my guest."
I gave a humble look to Walsingham that could have been easily read as meaning, 'Suck it, m'Lord.'
"Your majesty-" Burghley decided to chime in.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth decided to strike them down with a loud booming voice. The voice of their leader and queen, "God's death! I have spoken!"
Burghley and Walsingham returned her shout with bows and complete compliance. As she walked ahead of me, Sir Francis cleared his throat. I turned and he patted the sword at his belt. A warning.
I nodded.
We walked about a quarter of a mile to the center of a green, lush meadow. Beneath a solitary tree in the center of the emerald field, the queen stopped. She stretched out her hand to an area in front of her.
"Sit."
I did.
"I will join you." She smiled. As she began to kneel, she saw me lean forward to aid her; she glanced at me with a seasoned look that told me that no help was required. I complied.
"My Maid of Honor, Margaret Russell was right about many things about you. One was that you have a charming smile, Sir Braddoc." Elizabeth titled her head fondly. Beneath the regal white powder adorning her face, I saw a young beautiful maiden that longed for something. Love, companionship, a trusted ally, maybe all of the above and maybe all in one person, one man.
"Thank you, your majesty."
"Upon my command, she was to follow you for three days." Elizabeth said. "She said you spent much time in the marketplace, watching the guard march about and inquiring about a certain fellow."
"Oh dear." I shook my head.
"Someone named Shakespeare." She smiled. I blushed. I had remembered two days into my visit that William Shakespeare was around towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign and was but a child at this moment in time. I came to this realization when I realized how old Dame Judi Dench was when she played QEI in Shakespeare in Love. The woman before me was but a woman in her twenties. "Is he someone I should know?"
"Oh yes, your majesty. A hundred times, yes. But not until later on. He will entertain you beyond words."
"But I have many words, Sir." She smiled. "He will have to be of extraordinary talent to turn this crowned head."
I nodded.
"Can I see the necklace?" Elizabeth asked. "Your letters…" she raised an eyebrow and lowered her voice, "Your many letter spoke of the necklace that brings you here to me. To my time from yours."
I smiled. "Can your majesty afford me a favor?"
"A favor?" She said confused.
"Can you tell me you demand it?"
"What?" She laughed.
"You know, with all the power and ferocity of the God appointed Queen of England!" I said sheepishly.
"God's death." She whispered. "A queen lowering herself to the role of actress."
I was about to give up on the idea when she stood suddenly and turned her back to me. She took a second and turned ferociously.
"Sir Braddoc! I command you as the God appointed Queen of England, the daughter of King Henry the Eight and Gloriana of the Tudor Dynasty… show me the necklace!" A fire from somewhere within her skull lit her eyes and crimson blood flushed her face.
"Yes, your majesty! Yes." I said and pulled the necklace from my shirt and presented it to her. I couldn't help but quiver in front of her.
"You are nothing more than the fool of a fool." She laughed. I returned the laugh. She suddenly stopped hers and looked at me with anger. Uh oh, I did something wrong, I thought. I pissed her royal majesty off. Seconds later she laughed again, she fooled me with faux anger.
"Thank you, your majesty." I said.
"How did I do?" She asked.
"Consummate mastery of skill." I said.
"I see." She laughed. She stretched out her ivory hand and touched the shiny amulet soldered to a gold chain. When she touched it, I felt a bolt of electricity circle my neck and cascade down my spine. It was an odd sensation that was quite painful. But I made sure not to react. I feared that any wince would be misconstrued as mistrust by Good Queen Bess.
"And you say it can take you anywhere you desire?" She asked.
I nodded.
"And if you asked it to take you to stop an execution, the death of an innocent… would it take you?"
"It would, your majesty. But if I prevented it, the consequences could be extraordinary. Everything you know and everything that is would be forever changed. Maybe in the worst possible way." I said to her.
"The restoration of a mother, someone whose life was taken from her unjustly could threaten my very existence?" She asked me.
"Yes. Quite possibly, yes."
"I had considered that when I heard of your amazing gift. I can not ask that of you. Although my heart truly desires it, it is not something I should ask. It was something God deemed a necessary deed, it is not my place to undo it." She sighed and tucked the amulet into my shirt.
"But there is something I wish to speak with you about that will be far more help to you, your majesty."
"My impending marriage. Surely you know something. Your letters did not divulge the course of action that I should take." Elizabeth spoke slowly, brushing a piece of dried grass from her gown. "Tomorrow, I have promised to make a final decision about my marriage to the Duke of Anjou. And what say, you, good sir? What do you have to tell me? What could you, a peasant, a foreigner, someone not even from this world… what can you tell me of marriage, what can you tell me of love?"

cont'd

[Gemini Cricket]

"A union with the Duke of Anjou would be a disaster." I said. "I have been there. To a time where you are united with what do you call him, your frog?"
Elizabeth laughed behind her tiny, wispy hand.
"The marriage will cause a rift in England and a there will be a successful attempt on your life."
"What?" She asked. "There is much zeal to the security of my being that nothing of the sort could happen!"
"Your life would be taken by someone close to you, someone you do not suspect." I said.
"Who is it?! Who is this villain? I will have him drawn and quartered!"
"You can not, your majesty. Even if that were to happen, his replacement would be even fiercer that you could imagine. And Mary Stuart takes your place and the Church of England will come to an end."
"God's death!" She exclaimed.
"Just the Protestant one, your majesty." I responded.
Elizabeth sat again in the grass and was quiet for quite sometime.
After several minutes, she spoke, "It was under this tree that I learned my destiny. My destiny to be Queen of England. My life, everything that I held dear to me, every friendship… ended that day. I left the girl I was here and became queen. A new beginning was at hand. And now, the same has happened."
I said nothing. I couldn't think of anything profound or interesting to say.
"You reaffirmed an answer I already had." She said. "He does not love me. Am I right in that?"
"Yes, your majesty." I said. "His affections veer away from the likes of women."
"As do yours." She titled her head.
"Yes, your majesty."
"Margaret, during her covert inspection of you, saw the Duke of Anjou hand you a gift in a flower garden. His eyes and his heart belonged to you, she said." Elizabeth spoke.
"I do not love him. I have not a palate for frogs." I said.
Elizabeth laughed joyously. "You are a villain. And for that, you have my love."
What she did next almost caused me to lose consciousness. Elizabeth kissed me on the forehead.
"Thank you, your majesty." I said.
"Because of rumor and speculation, I was expecting him to be deformed, scarred and ugly. I was surprised upon close inspection that he was not." She said. "But now that the truth is exposed, he proved himself to be ugly within. That is far worse. Using me to gain power and status, to bring England to her knees. I suppose I had known this for many days now. I had put the wishes of many before my own. I need not be married-"
"You are married to your country, your majesty." I told her.
"Yes and since there is no bed big enough to contain everyone, I shall sleep alone." She laughed.
Elizabeth reached into a pocket in her gown and produced a letter. She handed it to me. "I decided this morning that the answer was no. But I was in the process of reconsideration. Your meeting has affirmed what I write here. This copy is for you. It speaks from the heart, my soul on paper. It is my gift to you, sir."
I gently grabbed the letter gently as if cradling a newborn dove in my hands.
"Thank you, Sir Braddoc." Elizabeth said. "Escort me to my carriage. I wager that Walsingham is on the verge of panic."
Walsingham and Burghley scoffed when the queen asked me to help her into her carriage. They stood stunned for quite awhile until she commanded Walsingham to resume his post as driver of her carriage. Burghley was frozen in a deep bow.
"Farewell, your majesty. It was an honor of a lifetime to meet you." I copied Burghley's bow.
"When we meet again, I insist you call me Bess." She said.
"I wouldn't dare, your majesty." I responded.
"A most excellent answer." Bess said. "I have something else, Sir Braddoc. In the last several days, I had a John Shakespeare summoned to my castle. There he presented me with this."
Bess produced a quill from a box that sat next to her in the carriage. "He said his son William is not yet sixteen but writes and writes nightly until he runs out of ink and quills. This one has freshly run its course. Apparently during the transcription of a play. This is now yours, sir. A gift from your Bess."
I could not believe it. I stood there stunned. I waved at the Queen as the carriage began to pull away. It moved two feet before she commanded Sir Francis to stop.
"Sir Braddoc!" She boomed.
"Yes, your majesty?" I asked.
"This Second Queen Elizabeth… Who is afforded more beauty? She? Myself?" She asked.
"You your majesty." I said. "You are fairer, by far."
"That I do not doubt." She said and then hollered to Sir Francis, "Onward!"
Lord Burghley offered to escort me in his carriage back to the marketplace, but I declined. As he pulled away, I played with the quill brushing it against my chin. I cracked the wax seal to the letter the queen had given me. At the top of the letter was printed "On Monsieur's Departure" and at the bottom was signed "Elizabeth R".
I smiled, took a look once again at the two carriages fading into the distance, grabbed a hold of the amulet and said softly, "Home."
The English countryside faded and quite instantaneously I landed face down in my studio apartment January 17, 2010, quill and letter intact.

Fin

[JWBear]

Bravo, Sir Braddoc! :snap: :snap: :snap: