young man, so like and yet unlike myself at that age. I could see him struggling with his fears, and he twitched violently at the sound of the bolt, staring at the door as if he expected the executioner to step in and drag him off to the block forthwith. I stood and slipped into a shadowy corner by the window.
Robert Cecil entered and stood a moment inside the doorway, perhaps garnering his strength after the grueling interview with Essex. His stooping figure, hunched from a childhood injury, bent even further with fatigue. He drew a breath and entered the chamber where we waited. He seemed shocked at the desperate fear on the Hal’s face, and a rare sympathy shone in his own.
“Rest easy, my lord,” he said softly. “Her Majesty has commuted your sentence. You will not die.” Hal’s head snapped up, his dark eyes enormous in his white face, and I thought for a moment that he was going to faint. With a visible effort he got himself under control, and stood to face the Secretary.
“I understand that you added your voice to others,” he flicked a glance tome, standing in the shadows by the window, “in my behalf. I do thank you, my lord, for I know that you have little cause to love me. What will happen tome?” he added, with only the faintest tremor in his voice to betray the strain he was under.
“You are to be kept here at the Tower for the rest of your life, my lord. This room is not uncomfortable, I think, and I will arrange for a partition to be built as well, for a withdrawing room. You will be allowed servants, and comforts, but not visitors without the council’s permission, at least at first. Your highness,” he added, glancing at the still figure by the window, “if you will accompany me?” He waited for me to join him in the outer chamber, quietly bolting the door behind him before proceeding to his office.
I declined the chair offered me, and stood waiting, watching the little man as he poured the last of the brandy from the small bottle I had procured on my last visit to that little office room. As I took the cup I noticed that the Secretary’s hands were cold as ice, chilling even to my own unnaturally cool flesh.
“Essex has laid the full blame of his enterprise upon the backs of his friends,” Cecil said abruptly. “He has even blamed his mother and his sister for helping to lead him astray. The only innocent in the whole affair is himself, it would seem. It’s spite, of course. He has heard that others have confessed their various roles, and all to his dishonor.” Cecil passed a weary hand over his high forehead, as if memory of the earl’s vituperation and servility made him ill. “His chaplain is with him, and we will soon sort him out. It is touching upon another matter that I wish to speak with you, your grace. Her Majesty is most displeased by your attachment to Southampton, and you are not to be allowed to see him. Neither will you present yourself at court until she calls you back. I am sorry for it, my lord; the young man needs a strong friend to guide him, but I fear he will only find sycophants.” Cecil gazed at me for a moment, lost in thought. “We have often been at cross purposes, I fear, when combining our forces might have served us, and the crown, better.”
“It would have been an uneasy alliance, at best, with so little trust between us. Would it be any less so now?”
“It might be so, now that I no longer have any perception that you might mean her Majesty harm, your grace, and there are stronger foundations than trust.” I nodded coolly, but returned no answer as I left the room.
Chapter 37
Northumberland tossed in his shabby bed for an hour before giving up and arising. The bedding was musty and the rushes on the floor needed changing. His sharpened senses were far less tolerant of the odors produced by neglect. He would have to move out while the residence was cleaned and sweetened, a process he lately found had to be repeated two or three times a year, where once had sufficed before. Immortality, it seemed, was going to be a costly indulgence.
He went into his study and lit the candle, turning his attention to the stained and