Chapter VII · (continued 2)

"Is it she, who has rescued me?" he asked as the secretary seated him in a row-boat which shot toward the palace.

"Nay, you are released by the Grand Duke's orders," Malespini replied. "I bring you great news, Signor. A gentleman has arrived from England who demands your safe return in the Queen's name. Even the Medici could not gainsay a summons signed 'Elizabeth' and emphasised by one of her Majesty's ships of war. Say naught of the hospitality just accorded you, I beseech you, until well out of Italy, else you may excite the English admiral who is the bearer of the Queen's message to some rash act, for he seems to me a man of short temper, and it were well that the Grand Duke in his chagrin were not tried too far."

"The English Admiral!" repeated the astonished Brandilancia,—"sent for me by Queen Elizabeth. It is not possible!" But, as the torchlight fell upon the gallant figure impatiently pacing the landing which they were approaching, he cried "Miracle of God! it is indeed Essex!"

"It is I, Will, of a surety," replied the other. "Did you think I would suffer you to die in the trap into which you had ventured for love of me? I have been consumed with anxiety, especially after the Grand Duke in answer to my importunity assured me that you left the Villa Medici months since and that he was ignorant of your whereabouts. I had quarrelled with the Queen when that news arrived, and she had ordered me to the Azores. I asked for an audience, but she would not receive me, and I left England determined to push on to Italy without her knowledge and rescue you vi et armis."

"You should not have done that, my good friend. Elizabeth has beheaded men for slighter disregard of her authority."

"I outran not my orders, Will, for I had scarcely left England when a swift sailing packet overtook me with letters from the Queen, one for the Grand Duke desiring your immediate return, the other my instructions to use all despatch in securing your person."

"But if you received no letter from me and had no speech with the Queen, I do not understand how her Majesty learned of my predicament."

"Through your wife, Will. When I returned to England from my expedition to Cadiz she sought me out, and demanded why I had not brought you. Then, as the time passed by at which I had told her she might expect you, it seems she grew wild with anxiety, and, journeying to London, laid the matter before the Queen, who admires your talent as a playwright and has herself some ambition in that direction. Anne, the artful wench, very tactfully persuaded her Majesty that, with you for a collaborator, she might write a comedy which would redound to her eternal fame. Therefore, our royal mistress bids you think of some plot which shall bring again upon the boards that arch-rogue, John Falstaff. I am to bring you to Windsor Castle, where you are to prepare this masterpiece, at the Queen's dictation (Heaven save the mark!), in time for its presentation before the Court during the Twelfth Night festivities."

"And Anne, whom I thought so indifferent to my career, to my very existence, did this for me?"

"Yes, Will, 't is a good girl and a handsome, and one you have not treated overly well, as it seems to me; but you will make it all up over your Christmas pudding."

As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and Brandilancia turned white and caught Essex's arm for support. "Would to God that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man. How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly), I have won the love of the peerless Marie de' Medici. For me she has discarded the King of France, and has promised to meet me at this spot and at this very hour and fly with me to El Dorado. I left her stricken to the heart by my misfortunes. If I desert her now her death will be upon my head. See you not the Gonzaga barge is approaching in which she promised to forsake the world with me."

"Make yourself easy on the score of my mistress," exclaimed Malespini. "You have kept your appointment, but when she made hers she had no intention of keeping it with a man of your quality. Under a strange hallucination she has fancied all along that you were the King of France, and her fainting fit was occasioned by her dismay and humiliation on discovering that you were only the king of poets. I will not say that she did not find you agreeable. She was pleased when she learned that your friend had arrived in time to rescue you, and ere she left for Florence this afternoon bade me wish you bon voyage, and to thank you for much merry entertainment."

The Earl of Essex whistled softly, and an expression of infinite relief relaxed the contorted features of Brandilancia. "I have learned how the women of the Medici love," he murmured. "Thank God, our English women love in a different fashion."