Excerpt From
THE DEVEREUX CURSE

ROBERT DEVEREUX, 2nd EARL OF ESSEX

Robert reaches the Royal bedchamber without a single clash of swords. He finds the Queen alone at her dressing table. With no one hovering about her, she looks almost human. She is covered with only a shift and dressing gown. No jewels, no wig, only tufts of grey-white hair standing up from sleep on a balding head. Her face, unadorned with her usual paint, is sallow and wrinkled. No longer the tall regal Queen he met as a boy, but a shrunken old woman. His legs almost buckle. Not from his pain, but from her eyes, normally so assured and fierce, staring at him in terror. He has become the enemy.