From being empty, the courtyard was suddenly full of women—which was quite a coincidence, because there aren't that many women at Court. Most of the people at Court are men. And I noticed that none of them seemed to find the players' scenery being unloaded anything like as fascinating as the ladies did.
Ellie was very proper now, standing behind me, and stopping the muddy dogs from going over and lifting their legs on the cart wheels. But she did look up at one of the upper windows.
I followed the line of her gaze, and there was Mrs. Champernowne, shaking out a napkin from an upstairs window. What could she be doing there? Was she … ? Could she be … ? Surely she was too old!
Richard Fitzgrey spotted her and waved cheekily and I swear she went bright red as she accidentally dropped the napkin. I nearly exploded with laughter.
Richard jumped back onto the cart and started directing the others again—though I must say, if he was so strong and clever, why wasn't he carrying some of the heavy things himself ?
I led on, with Ellie sneaking quick glances at Richard over her shoulder as we went. We took the dogs round the back to the laundry courtyard, where there's a pump, and we managed to get them washed down a bit. Then I took them inside and gave them to the Chamberer who usually feeds them.
I was just hurrying back to my chamber when Mrs. Champernowne caught me.
“Goodness gracious! What have you been up to, Lady Grace?” she spluttered. “Your kirtle is soaked through, look you.”
“I got splashed a little while we were cleaning the dogs after their walk,” I said demurely. “Didn't you see how muddy they were when you were shaking your napkin out of the window?”
Mrs. Champernowne looked flustered. “Well, get on with you and change,” she said. “What are you doing dripping and drizzling all over the tiles?”
I'm sure I can't see what all the fuss is over Richard Fitzgrey. And now Mary Shelton wants to know why I'm scribbling again instead of changing into my best gown. She says even Carmina is getting up to see the play, because she heard from Penelope how well-looking that player is. Honestly!
And now Fran is chivvying me, too, and saying I have not brushed my hair, when I did it just this morning!
Later, in my bed
When I went down with the other Maids for the play, I saw that all the long tables had been cleared from the Great Hall, and the benches set in rows so we could sit and watch the players on the stage they had built. Mary Shelton came down with Carmina leaning on her arm. She was looking concerned, because Carmina was as white as a sheet and very tired.
Then Lady Jane and Lady Sarah appeared, ignoring each other haughtily. Jane was in her finest French-style kirtle, a pale kind of blue satin damask, and Sarah in a wonderful new gown of forest green velvet, trimmed with gold braid, her hair tumbling down around her ears. I don't know why she complains so much about the Queen's stays being tight, for she has her own so tight it is a wonder she does not pop out the top. The two of them sat down, with Penelope between them. She looked like a little brown mouse in her tawny velvet.
Lady Jane rolled her eyes at me and smiled in that annoyingly superior way she has. “Did you know that with you in your rose velvet and Carmina in crimson, your gowns are clashing terribly?” she said to me. “Why not have Lady Sarah sit beside you so her hair can join the fun?”
Lady Sarah tossed her hair so the ringlets bounced. “At least mine is the same colour as the Queen's,” she snipped, and Lady Jane looked daggers at her.
Meanwhile the Scottish Ambassadors arrived and sat in a row, looking like pints of vinegar, they were so sour with disapproval at the heathen mumming, which is what they call playing.
The Queen arrived last of all, and sat on her throne, which had been turned about so she could see the dais. Everybody knelt until she waved at us to sit down. Then the trumpets sounded and the players bounded onto the stage to bow and let the prologue begin. You might have thought there were a lot of them, but in fact there were just two middle-aged men, Richard Fitzgrey, three younger men, and three boys who played all the parts between them.
The play was long and complicated, all about two families who hate each other. There's a huge massacre of one family by the other. Only one young man is left—wounded but alive. The princess of the enemy family finds him, takes him in, and nurses him without knowing who he is. Of course she falls in love with him, but then he realises that he's in the heart of his enemy's castle. So he disguises himself as a servant and puts poison in the wine. Only, by now, he's in love with the beauteous princess, and she's the one who goes to drink the poisoned wine! So the young man drinks it himself, and then declares his love in a very, very long speech, before dying tragically.
I don't think somebody dying would be able to go on about his love for quite so long, but Richard did it well—you could hear every word and all the Maids were sniffling, even Lady Jane.
Oh, except for Carmina, who was sitting next to me. She fell asleep with her head on my shoulder about three-quarters of the way through, when it was just getting really exciting. She wouldn't wake up even though I pinched her. I was scared she'd snore again and get us all sent out.
The Queen didn't cry at the end, of course, but she did clap a lot. The players danced a Bergomask afterwards, which turned into a kind of riot because of the antics of one of the men as a clown. That made us all laugh again. The Master of the Revels then brought the chief of the company, the goodlooking middle-aged man I had seen earlier, and Richard Fitzgrey, to be presented to Her Majesty. I distinctly heard four sighs from Mary, Sarah, Jane, and Penelope, as Richard knelt before Her Majesty looking much more noble and heroic in his velvet doublet than most of the Court gentlemen.
“Your Majesty, may I present Mr. Tom Alleyn and Richard Fitzgrey?” intoned the Master of the Revels.
“Well done indeed,” said the Queen. “We are well pleased with your playing.” She nodded to the Master of the Revels, who gave Alleyn a leather purse that chinked. Immediately, all the players' expressions went from worried to happy. Then she looked quizzically at Richard Fitzgrey.
“I think all the gentlemen of my Court are jealous of you, Mr. Fitzgrey, since you seem to have charmed every single one of my women,” she remarked.
Richard smiled up at her and said, “Your Gracious Majesty is pleased to praise me, but I rather think that the gentlemen of your Court are jealous because you yourself have deigned to smile on me.”
He couldn't have said a more perfect thing, as the Queen has a great weakness for flattery. All the gentlemen scowled, while even some of the grown-up and married Ladies-in-Waiting sighed this time. Then Richard winked cheekily and the Queen laughed and wagged her finger at him.
“Go to!” she scolded. “You are very forward!”
“But it suits my purpose,” he said frankly, “for it brings me nearer to Your Majesty.”
She shook her head. “And I am proof against your charms, Mr. Fitzgrey, though I would delight in seeing you play again. Perhaps something less tragical this time. Have you a comedy to show us?”
Richard and Tom Alleyn looked at each other.
“We could play Your Majesty a comedy of Terence, translated by a Cambridge man,” said Alleyn. “But it is not yet worthy of showing.…”
“Then you may have board and bed at Court until it is,” said the Queen decisively. “Show it to us in a few days' time. We shall look forward to it.” She held out her hand for them to kiss her ring and they backed away with Tom Alleyn quietly hefting the pouch he held.
All the Maids were very excited at the prospect of another play, but they were being as quiet as they could, in case the Queen noticed and changed her mind.
Meanwhile, I was shaking Carmina awake, so she could be ready to follow the Queen from the hall. She was so sleepy I wondered if she had been secretly drinking aqua vitae, as my Uncle Cavendish does. She leaned heavily on my arm as we walked from the hall, and as soon as we were out in the main courtyard, I waved at Mary to help m
e get her upstairs to her chamber.
We brought her to the bedchamber she shares with Lady Jane and Penelope, which was tidy since it didn't have Lady Sarah living in it and scattering clothes everywhere. On the table by the bed was a small box of dates stuffed with marchpane, and a bowl of sugared apricots and another of sugar ribbons. Mary and I didn't wait for the tiring woman, but helped Carmina out of her raiment quickly and got her straight into bed without even changing her smock, since she was so tired. Mrs. Champernowne arrived just as Mary was tucking Carmina up and I was putting more wood on the fire.
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Champernowne, frowning anxiously, as she felt Carmina's forehead. “Carmina, my dear, I have brought you a little bowl of bread-and-milk with sugar and nutmeg. Could you eat some, perhaps?”
Carmina sat up against the pillow and took the spoon, but only ate a tiny bit before she put the spoon down again. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I just can't. My stomach feels odd. Mayhap Grace could pass me one of the sugared apricots …”
Mrs. Champernowne held the bowl for her and she took one, nibbled it, and then lay down again.
“Hm,” said Mrs. Champernowne, feeling Carmina's forehead once more as if she didn't really believe what she felt.
“There's no fever,” said Mary Shelton quietly, “or I would have sent for the doctor myself.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Champernowne. “But we shall call him anyway if she is no better in the morning, look you.”
When we got back to our own chamber, we found Penelope, Lady Jane, and Lady Sarah all twittering over the play. Soon Penelope and Sarah were discussing how desperately dashing and tragical Richard Fitzgrey was in the death scene.
“Such a pity he isn't really a lord,” Lady Sarah said with a sigh. “He looks wonderful. I wonder how well he can ride.”
“I liked him when he was all wounded and pale and the princess was nursing him without knowing who he really was,” Penelope said.
I think they are all Bedlam mad over him.
“Such a pity as a player he will never be rich,” continued Lady Sarah. “If he were a soldier or a sailor, he could sack a city, make his fortune, and then the Queen could make him a lord.”
“Rich!” Lady Jane clucked. “As it is, he'll be lucky if he never gets put in gaol or whipped for vagrancy.”
The churchmen say that players are only one step removed from beggars, but they don't look like vagrants.
“Did you know he can read and write?” said Mary. “I suppose he has to, so he can learn all the long parts. Perchance he could be a poet.”
“That won't make him rich, either,” Sarah said sadly.
I am going to go to sleep as soon as I have finished writing, so I don't have to hear any more wittering about Richard Fitzgrey. I am far more interested in Carmina's sickness. Poor Carmina, I wonder what can be wrong with her. It is such a puzzle, for she has no fever at all. I asked Mary Shelton what she thought it could be and she became serious at once.
“I was worried it might be a gaol fever,” Mary said with a sigh. “Except she hasn't got any fever, so it can't be.”
“Gaol fever!” squeaked Lady Sarah in horror.
“I'm sure it is not,” said Mary quickly. “Though I don't know what else it could be.”
Gaol fever isn't as bad as plague or smallpox but it can easily be deadly—though I don't know how Carmina would have caught it, because she hasn't been near a gaol, of course.
So it isn't gaol fever that is making Carmina ill, but nobody seems to know what it is. I have no mystery to solve for Her Majesty at present. Perhaps I should investigate whatever is ailing Carmina, since that is become such a mystery.
But now I'm sleepy and have ink all over my fingers. I did not want to waste my graphite pens when I wasn't wearing my white damask, so there's ink on the sheets too. Hell's teeth! Now Ellie will be cross with me; she hates scrubbing ink stains.
This graphite pen is wonderful, for it never blots at all. I am just writing in my daybooke at the Workroom, while I wait for Mrs. Champernowne to help Lady Sarah with the Queen's robes—they have to be arranged perfectly for the portraits.
The Queen is busy with the Scottish Ambassadors again, and thankfully, we have all been given this morning free. Mary Shelton said she was going to fetch some comfits for poor Carmina, who is still unwell. Carmina has been strictly ordered by the Queen to stay in bed, though there is still no fever. I was going to go with Mary and see if I could collect any sweetmeats for Ellie and Masou (and myself ) when Sarah stopped me in the passage and told me grumpily that she had to go to the Workroom and stand for the Queen's portrait again, and I must go and read to her. So here I am.
Oh, Sarah is ready now so I must stop writing and read. I hope we have more fighting and less speechifying, clothes, and lovesickness in the next chapters. I hate it when everyone is so noble and good in a story that you can't imagine it being true at all.
Later, also at the Workroom
I have taken the chance to write in my daybooke while all is quiet. Lady Sarah has gone off with Olwen to change and Mrs. Teerlinc is casting up her accounts again. If I sit quietly on the window-seat and write, they might not notice me. I am using graphite so as not to get any ink on my fingers. The only trouble is that it smudges easily, and I notice that my shift cuffs are going quite grey with it. Never mind, it is still better than ink.
I think Sarah is such a fusspot. I read to her for ages and received no thanks at all. She was looking out of the big windows a lot and sighing and constantly nibbling at some sugar ribbons she had brought with her. The only time she actually stood still was when the players came out into the courtyard and started practising a swordfight.
I was distracted, too, because it was fun to watch them practise a veney with staves instead of swords. Then they changed to blunted blades and did the exact same moves over and over again, speeding up each time.
Meanwhile, old Ned was painting slowly and squinting hard. Nick Hilliard was doing his own painting at his usual impatient speed, while the other limners discussed cockfighting and painted away carefully.
Then Lady Horsley arrived. She greeted Mrs. Teerlinc as an old friend and stood to watch the work. Lady Sarah was fanning herself and scowling again now that Richard Fitzgrey had gone indoors.
Ned left off painting and rubbed his eyes, then squinted at Lady Horsley and looked worried. “My word,” he said. “I never saw it was you, my lady.” And he bowed to her.
Lady Horsley nodded kindly at him. “No matter, Ned. It is you I came to see, really. How is the henbane of Peru answering to reduce your phlegm?”
“The tabaca? I must say, now I've got used to drinking smoke, I quite like it. And when I think what my old dad paid to put a chimney in the house!” Ned shook his head and chuckled.
“It was recommended me by Dr. Nuñez, who is a very learned physician,” said Lady Horsley. “I'm sure it will help.”
“Why don't you go and take a pipe now, Ned?” said Mrs. Teerlinc.
“I think I will, thank'ee, ma'am,” he replied, wiping his fingers carefully before he left.
Mrs. Teerlinc waited patiently until we could no longer hear his footsteps and then she nodded at Nick, who shook his head good-humouredly and came over. He shook his head again when he saw old Ned's canvas and then took a small bendy knife and started scraping off nearly everything Ned had done.
“His eyes are no better, you know,” said Mrs. Teerlinc to Lady Horsley.
“The smoke-drinking may help if it truly is a problem with his phlegmatic humour, as Dr. Cavendish says, but I suspect not … ,” Lady Horsley replied sadly.
“No?”
“I've seen the trouble before,” she continued, shaking her head. “The milkiness is in the eye itself, and in the end he will go blind.”
“He nearly is already, my lady,” said Nick sadly. “Look at this mess.”
Where old Ned had been working, the painting was all blurred and smudged as if seen through a dirty gl
ass window.
“I expect that is what he sees,” said Mrs. Teerlinc. “It's a pity he will not retire. The Queen would pay him a good pension, of course, but he says he would have nowhere else to go and nothing to do with himself all day without painting. But this cannot go on. I must think of something we can do for him.”
Sarah sighed again and shifted.
“My lady,” said one of the limners. “Please will you stay still?”
I hastily started reading again—I'm not sure when I stopped, perhaps when they were talking about henbane of Peru, which is supposed to be a powerful medicine. I wonder if it would help Carmina. I read right up to the end of the chapter until my throat was quite sore with it. Then Mrs. Teerlinc told Sarah she might go and change since all the colours used so far needed to harden.
“Why?” I asked.
“It is a mystery of the trade,” she said, and then smiled when I looked disappointed. “You see, some colours fight with others and blacken in a year or two. So if one must be laid next to another, the first must harden and be varnished over a little, to protect it from the other.”
I tried to imagine colours fighting each other on a canvas with little swords and spears, which was a very odd thought indeed. I looked at the beautiful yellow colour that Nick was putting down on Ned's picture—the lining of the Queen's Robe of State— and sighed. Then I saw Mrs. Teerlinc and Nick exchange a knowing look.
Nick smiled at me. “Come and try your hand at this, Lady Grace,” he said.
“What?” I gasped. “Painting?”
“Of course, painting,” he laughed. “I would need you to instruct me in embroidery. Come and try it.”
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