by Karleen Koen
Protesting, he was led into the main apartment. The queen was indeed playing the lute her brother, the king of Portugal, had sent her. Her master of the horse, Lord Knollys, was there, playing cards with Dorothy Brownwell, Gracen, and the queen’s ancient, half-blind Portuguese nurse. Courtiers were there, Lord and Lady Arlington, the Earl of St. Albans, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Killigrew, others. But no Duke of Balmoral. He never came, in spite of the invitations Queen Catherine sent him on Alice’s behalf. He’d sent Alice flowers, the loveliest bouquet she’d ever seen, but when she’d gone to thank him, his majordomo said he wasn’t receiving visitors.
Fires in the fireplaces were roaring. Unlike the Louvre, with its vast rooms and stone floors, so cold in winter that one had to almost sit in the fire, Whitehall had chambers that were smaller, less unpretentious. When filled with a crowd, they were almost cozy. The queen sang a song composed during the first Dutch war. It had been enormously popular for a time:
To all you ladies now at land,
We men at sea do write,
But first I hope you’ll understand
How hard ’tis to indite:
The muses now and Neptune, too
We must implore to write to you.
Fletcher, his voice lilting and soft, joined her on the next line. “With a fa, la, la, la, la.”
“Just one last little trick, Father,” said Alice, under cover of the singing, squeezing her father’s arm. “That’s all I ask.”
CHAPTER 19
That same night, a few hours before dawn. Alice threw down her cards. “You best me.”
Smiling, King Charles folded his cards into a neat stack without showing what they were. Alice began to unscrew an earring. The third player, Buckingham, back in favor with the king again, yawned, stood just as a servant entered and added more wood to the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney and bounced against the fire screen.
“I won’t take your jewelry, Verney. Keep the earring in your pretty ear.” The king looked around him. “Ye gods, are we the only ones awake?”
“It’s a dull lot here. I’ll be glad when your courting is done,” said Buckingham. His shirt was undone at the neck, the laces and ribbons there bedraggled. He’d been drinking steadily, but it didn’t show except in the boredom now expressed, the disdain behind it. Nothing would please him in the next hours except something outrageous, unexpected, different. Restlessly he paced around the table at which they’d been playing cards.
It was, as Buckingham said, a dull scene. The queen had retired several hours ago. Barbara and Renée sat slumped and sleeping over the great cushioned stools Alice had brought from France as gifts for Queen Catherine. Gracen was awake, tucked into a window seat, talking with Lord Knollys, whose lap cradled the head of a sleeping Dorothy Brownwell. Kit and Luce were drunk and sat in the shadows on the knees of one of the king’s favorites, a young courtier, the Earl of Rochester, who was kissing first one, then the other.
And that was the reason Alice was careful in whose company she drank.
She’d waked one morning before dawn when she was fifteen in this very chamber, a snoring courtier beside her—a man she didn’t even like—with her gown undone to her waist. She was weeping by the time she found Barbara, fast asleep in her bed, and the two of them had gone over every detail, Alice having to remember that at a certain point she’d liked the kissing, the fondling, but she remembered nothing else. For the next month, she’d waited to see if she might be with child. She wasn’t. But the fear around that had kept her sleepless for weeks. She’d been twelve the evening a newborn babe appeared, mewing like a kitten, during the midst of a dance the king gave. She’d seen the baby in its birth blood on the floor amidst the dancing, and then she’d seen it scooped up, she knew not by whom. It had happened so fast she believed she’d dreamed it. Except that one of her favorite friends, another maid of honor, stayed the next day in her bed sick to death, and whispers about her filled every hall and corner of the queen’s apartments. And then her friend left court, so ill with fever that she had to be put upon a litter and carried out. Who was its father? Some said the king. Some said the king’s brother.
“Wake the mother of the maids.” King Charles stood. “See that our little sleeping French flower is escorted safely to her bed.” Then he was striding out the door, Buckingham with him.
“Where do we go?” Buckingham said.
“I can’t speak for you,” said King Charles, “but I go to see Nellie.”
“I’ll wait in her hall.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not? You won’t be long, will you?” Their laughter followed them out.
Renée, her head in her arms on the cushioned stool, opened her eyes and stared into the fire. Its light flickered over her face; it was clear she’d heard his words.
Rochester stood to follow the king, and the young women on his lap fell to the floor. He stepped around them. Kit began crying. Luce began to retch. Rochester never looked back. Gracen left Lord Knollys, went to Barbara, and shook her awake. She and Barbara helped Kit and Luce to stand up.
“I’m going to be sick,” wailed Luce.
“Not here,” said Gracen. “You wait until I find a bucket.”
Alice touched Dorothy’s arm. She sat up, blinking rapidly, looking like a confused, plump child. “I drank too much wine. I fell asleep,” she said to no one in particular. Her hair was falling out of its pins on one side.
“So you did,” said Alice. “You need to see to Kit and Luce. They’re sick and, like you, have had too much wine.”
Dorothy looked around herself, bewildered. Kit was still crying, and Renée had taken off her heeled shoes and was walking in her stockings toward the door that led downstairs to the maids of honor’s chambers. Barbara and Gracen held Luce between them, urging her not to be sick, to wait just a few moments more.
“The king asked most particularly that you see Mademoiselle de Keroualle to bed,” Alice told Dorothy, who immediately got up and followed her maids down the stairs.
Alice sat in the place on the window seat where Dorothy had been, her eyes narrowed on Lord Knollys. Who was this man Brownie favored? Was he good enough for Brownie? He was certainly one of Queen Catherine’s favorites. He did not mingle with the king’s men, join in their gambling and whoring and writing of wicked verses, but served the queen quietly and well. There was little respect given to that by the young courtiers who had the king’s ear. They called him the queen’s gelding, but King Charles didn’t join in the mockery. It seemed to Alice as if the king appreciated the loyalty and courtesy shown, as if Lord Knollys acted toward the queen in a way King Charles might wish to do but did not.
“How is your lady wife?” asked Alice. The question was not innocent.
“Not well. Never well.”
“So Mrs. Brownwell tells me. Mrs. Brownwell has been my friend since she came to court. I have such a deep regard for her.”
“She has my deep regard, also. If I may be so bold, what age are you, Mistress Verney?”
Alice lifted her chin and lied. “Nineteen.”
“Mrs. Brownwell told me you’d seen us. And it’s evident you have your judgments, of me in particular. When you are forty and one, as I am, or thirty as Mrs. Brownwell is, we three will talk of life and its vagaries, of loneliness and duty, of sickness and health, easy to vow but hard to keep when it stretches on and on and on.” Lord Knollys spoke patiently, but only just.
“I know something of heartache.”
“You know nothing, and you presume much. Good night, Mistress Verney.” He stood.
“I don’t want her hurt.”
“I trust I have brought no hurt to Mrs. Brownwell, but rather kindness, more than kindness. Mrs. Brownwell has been a source of great comfort to me, and I, I pray, to her. Do you always meddle in what is not yours? It’s a bad habit, if you’ll forgive my saying so. Good night.”
Alice leaned back against the corner of the window seat, thinking about what he had said. What co
ncern of hers was it if Brownie bedded the Earl of Knollys and seven other men besides? She was a widow and could do as she pleased. Alice went to the fire to stretch out her hands to it. It was going to be one of those nights when she fretted about everything and couldn’t sleep—and then she remembered the letter.
Slipping it out of her pocket, she sat before the fireplace screen and opened it. Beuvron wrote only a few lines. Henri Ange was coming to England. He wrote to tell her because she had always been a friend to him, because he knew her love for Queen Catherine. She was to burn this letter.
Alice’s eyes darted back to the date. Sent over a week ago! Ange might already be in London, likely was. He’d come to kill the queen; she knew it. Balmoral said he’d put a taster at the royal tables. A taster ate of every dish, drank of every wine served. But Ange could get round that. It would be child’s play. Well, the Duke of Balmoral could expect another visit tomorrow. She’d put it on his shoulders. She stared into the fire. Beuvron’s note just added to the thoughts circling one another in her mind. She stood and walked down a hallway to the stairs to the maids of honor’s chambers.
IN THE MAIDS’ chamber, they readied themselves for bed.
“Who’s Nell?” asked Renée, pulling her head away from the brush. Behind her, brush in hand, Barbara frowned.
Gracen, sitting in bed in her night smock, smiled a cat’s smile.
“The actress you saw tonight,” said Barbara.
“She is the king’s mistress?”
Gracen made a sound like a giggle and fell back in the bed.
“You mock me?” Renée asked her.
“I mock you?” Gracen repeated the question, tone for tone. “Yes, you silly French girl, she’s the king’s mistress. Would I were.”
“She’s the one who danced tonight?”
“Danced and sang,” said Gracen.
“Who else is the king’s mistress?”
“At the moment, only Nellie that I know of, but he loves where he wills. One time, we were watching a play, all of us, do you remember, Ra, and he—”
“You shouldn’t tell this story,” said Barbara. “It isn’t kind.”
“King Charles seems so kind,” said Renée.
“The play was performed here at court, for us, and there was an interval, and Moll Davis—”
“An actress,” explained Barbara.
“—came out to sing, and she sang so suggestively—” Gracen jumped from the bed and pulled down the front of her nightgown so that most of her breasts were showing. She leaned forward, began to sing, swaying her hips provocatively as she walked around Renée and Barbara, singing:
Then since we mortal lovers are
Ask now how long our love will last;
But, while it does, let us take care
Each minute be with pleasure pass’d.
Were it not madness to deny
To love, because we’re sure to die.
She jumped back on the bed, pulled the blanket around her shoulders. “The king stood up right then and there, grabbed her by the arm, and left with her. It was clear to an idiot what they were going to do. And Queen Catherine, her face turned such a color, and she sat as if stunned, and no one spoke, not the actors, no one. The musicians almost stopped playing in their surprise. Oh, I’ll never forget it. It was Christmas, I think.” Gracen laughed, the sound joyous. “Compliments of the season.”
“Don’t listen to her,” said Barbara.
“Isn’t it true?” said Gracen.
“It is true. But not everyone is like that.”
“Who isn’t?” asked Gracen.
“Lord Knollys, for one.”
Gracen nodded. “That’s true enough. Who else?”
“Richard Saylor, John Sidney—”
“Puritans, secret Puritans—”
“What are Puritans?” interrupted Renée.
“Not of the faith,” said Barbara, who was.
“They don’t believe that the sacrament is God’s body,” said Gracen, making devil horns with her fingers.
Renée crossed herself and put her hands over her ears.
“She’s going to cry,” Gracen said to Barbara.
Barbara sighed, put down the brush, knelt before this new maid of honor who came from a more decorous court.
“Richard is this Puritan?”
Barbara pulled the shawl tighter around Renée’s shoulders and hugged her. “He is not a Puritan. Gracen makes fun.”
“But he isn’t of the true faith. I know that, but can’t help loving him.”
Barbara pulled her up, pushed her toward the bed, where Gracen lay now. Under the covers and quilts, and in the half-dark of the candles, Barbara could see the gleam of her smile. Barbara snuffed out candles, climbed into bed. Under the covers, Renée reached for her hand.
“It doesn’t matter here,” Barbara said to her.
“Perhaps your love might save him,” said Gracen, laughter again in her voice.
Barbara felt Renée shiver beside her. It was simpler where Renée came from. There was one faith, and those who worshipped differently were few and far between. “Those in the Church of England believe they have the true faith, and the Presbyterians believe they have the true faith—”
“Don’t forget the Quakers. Here’s why they’re called Quakers.” Gracen began to move her arms and legs and head erratically. The bed holding them shook.
“Gracen, you’re not amusing.”
“But I am.”
“Only to yourself. There was a great and long war here about true faith. What we learned from it is that we have to live together in our differences, that perhaps there is more than one way to God.”
Renée didn’t say anything, just held Barbara’s hand hard. When she and Gracen were both asleep, Barbara slipped out of the bed, dressed hurriedly in the dark, crept out of the bedchamber, praying she wouldn’t meet Alice, who must still be up and wandering about somewhere.
BUT ALICE HADN’T gone to the maids of honor’s bedchamber. Instead, she had tapped on Dorothy’s door, then carefully opened it.
“My lord?” Dorothy walked forward, her long fair hair brushed and hanging thickly on her shoulders, her nightgown sheer and clinging, a Portuguese shawl vivid, bright against the nightdress. The fire in her fireplace crackled and spat. On a table between two chairs sat a tray with wine opened, a goblet waiting. The other goblet was in Dorothy’s hand. At the sight of Alice, she stopped short, disappointment so clear on her face that Alice began an apology.
“Forgive me for disturbing. I only wanted to…Of course, it’s so late.”
“Shut the door behind you and come in. He isn’t calling on me tonight, is he.” Without waiting for an answer, Dorothy poured wine in the other goblet, held it out to Alice while refilling hers. She sat in one of the chairs and showed her feet to the fire. All of Dorothy was sweetly plump these days, and her legs were moon pale and shapely in their roundness. Of course Lord Knollys would desire her, thought Alice, seeing her, as she had since the night she’d discovered the affair, in a new light. On her feet dangled high-heeled, fashionable, backless, embroidered slippers, their toes ending in steep points, the latest style at the French court.
“Fetch my other slippers just there, will you, Alice? My feet are cold. And in the cabinet there is cake. Bring it out, will you? Are you hungry? You’re thin as a stick. Eat some cake, put some meat on those bones. Men like women with flesh on their bones.”
“So I’m told.” Alice pulled off the beautiful slippers and placed wool booties on Dorothy’s feet.
Dorothy took a chunk from the crumbling cake Alice had found and ate it, licking her fingers and reaching for more. “Once I was tiny…well, not tiny, but smaller.”
“You were small when I left for France.”
“When was that, Alice?”
“I left just as the court was abuzz with Caro’s marriage.”
“I thought she’d be dead by now.” Dorothy gestured for more wine. Alice poured it.
> “Caro?”
“The Countess of Knollys. She hangs on and on. Sometimes I think she’ll never die. She’s not left her bed in over a year. Here’s to the Countess of Knollys, God forgive me, whose death I wish. I can’t believe I wish it, but I do. The awful thing is, she was always kind to me.” She shook her head, drank, then raised her glass to the fire. “Here’s to me, countess next, someday.” She drank again.
“He’ll wed you?”
“Oh, yes. We’ve often talked of it.”
“How long—” Alice stopped, not quite knowing how to ask. But Dorothy knew precisely what she meant.
“Have we been lovers? Six years.”
“No.”
Dorothy smiled tenderly, the tenderness edged with pride. “I cannot tell you how kind he’s been, how much he’s done for me. There’s debt, you know. I was left in debt when Mr. Brownwell died. I still owe. Of course, some of it is my own fault. I like the cards, just as I like cake. He urges me not to gamble, but when he’s not at Whitehall, and everyone is playing cards and laughing, I don’t want to come here to my chambers, where my thoughts go round and round in circles like rats within the walls.” She looked over to Alice, her big eyes very wide, very like a child’s. “The thoughts frighten me.”
“What do you think of, Brownie?”
“That I will be here forever, nursemaiding ungrateful wenches who half of them despise me—”
“We love you! I thought you loved us.”
“You love me. Barbara loves me. Caro loved me, and Frances and Margaret and Simona before her. But this new lot. They’re little more than baggages, all of them. I’ll be fortunate if one of them gets from here without carrying a growing babe beneath her skirts, and who’ll be blamed? Dorothy Brownwell, mother of the maids, for not guarding well enough. As if I could.”