Elizabeth I: A Private Life

1603, Whitehall

The rooms are too warm and yet I cannot get the cold out of my hands. Cushions are pushed behind me, shawls arranged, lights trimmed, and every small service is performed with the excessive care people use when they mean to flatter weakness without naming it. From beyond the privy chamber comes the mutter of voices that stop when a door opens, then begin again lower than before. My women watch me when they think I do not see it. Cecil measures time differently now. Papers still come, folded, sealed, proper, but each one carries less request than calculation, as if the kingdom were already leaning away from my bed toward the next hand that will claim it. I have not lost my understanding. That is the torment. I hear the scrape of chairs, the whisper of silk, the cough a man tries to smother outside the screen, and I know that England is being prepared around me while I am still in the room and not yet finished with it.