She spoke to Rebecca and my head clanged like a gong with words I did not rightly follow. Mainly, I think Rebecca was telling the Queen again what had happened to her husband Simon. The news distressed the Queen greatly. She clasped her hands together and milked her fingers, her thin lips tightening to disappearance.
‘Did you mean what you added to the petition Dr Nunez brought me?’ asked the Queen. Rebecca looked up at her and I felt her vibrate through the air, heard her swallow stickily. It came to me that Rebecca was truly afraid of this Queen, which was good and as it should be.
‘Your Majesty—’
‘Come, my dear,’ said the Queen in a voice she no doubt used to her husbands, ‘you added a very interesting postscriptum to your petition. Did you mean it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is the ship yours to loan or your father’s?’
‘Mine,’ said Rebecca.
The Queen tilted Rebecca’s chin to look up at her. ‘You are well-dowered and rich. Is there no other man you could marry? Could you not wait until word comes that your husband is dead, or wait seven years, and then you would officially be a widow and free to wed as you wished?’
In the reeling of my head and the pounding of the flux demon in my blood I could feel the rage lighting Rebecca’s soul. She stared straight up at the Queen, fury in her dark eyes.
‘Your Majesty,’ she whispered, ‘there is no other man I wish to marry. I have loved my husband since I first saw him, when I refused to marry him because he was still in thrall to you. I would not share him then or now. I love him now even when he may not be alive. Until I see his body or his grave, I shall still love him.’
‘Commendable,’ said the Queen, still coldly, not at all concerned by Rebecca’s anger, which she must have heard. ‘Appropriate. But why put yourself in such danger to find him? Certainly, if you are willing to loan your ship for this venture, we are grateful to you. But as for you yourself going with the ship into the teeth of danger, right back into the arms of the Inquisition—’
‘Your Majesty,’ Rebecca interrupted, then paused and smiled at her. ‘I deal with sea-captains and their crews all the time. As do you. This is a matter of great moment to me and I wish to be sure that my orders are obeyed and that they do as I require.’
‘You wish to supervise them?’
‘I wish to remind them of what we are about.’
The Queen smiled, no, she grinned at Rebecca. ‘By God, how I have longed to do the same. Sea-captains are the flightiest creatures on earth, worse than a pack of maids-in-waiting. Always gallivanting off to the Azores in hopes of a treasure ship. Of course, I will send a man much experienced in these matters to command. If he agrees.’
‘Who?’
‘Your husband’s friend, David Becket.’
Rebecca frowned then. I knew that although she had not met the man, she did not like him for the reason that it was to rescue him from the Tower that Simon had left her side eighteen months before and become embroiled in a piece of madness that ended with him being wounded by a halberd and chased by dogs across south London.
But she could find no cogent objection to him so contented herself with a submissive ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
The Queen looked straight at her, very serious. ‘There may be no chance for you to find Simon on this mission.’
Rebecca shrugged. ‘It’s in the hands of the Almighty in any case, Your Majesty. If He wills it, I will find Simon.’
The Queen nodded. ‘This love you say you feel for your husband. What is it like?’ She was prying, what business was it of hers?
To my surprise Rebecca answered slowly. ‘It’s like fear, only it feels happy,’ she said, placing her words exactly. ‘My husband is not a strong man, and certainly he has faults, many of them. But when a room full of people has no Simon in it, then it is empty. And when an empty room has Simon in it, then it is full.’
I looked sideways at her, surprised at the passion in her light, high voice. And envious, for I had never felt any such thing. When I looked at the Queen, I was surprised again for not only was she smiling at Rebecca, there were tears standing in her eyes. In my fever-sight, the tears branched out like crystals, across the gap between her and Rebecca, a bridge of diamond. A-ha, I thought, she has looked at a man that way, and loved him for all his faults. Rebecca understood it too and smiled back.
‘Your Majesty, I am a lucky woman, I know,’ she said. ‘Many women must marry men who bore them, who make them unhappy, who empty their lives instead of filling them. But I have been happy as Simon’s wife and in his bed, and now he needs me, I will quarter the world to find him.’
Rebecca reached out, took the Queen’s white hand and kissed it, made bold by the diamond bridge between them. ‘As my most merciful and kindly Prince, I know you will allow me to do it.’
‘You have children. What if you die, what if the Inquisition catches you and burns you?’
‘What if I catch plague here in London and die of it? They have my father and mother and nurses to love them in Bristol. All is in the hands of the Almighty.’
I waited, feeling the dampness in the pebbles striking up through my hose into my knees while my fever mounted and my head whirled and at last in came my godsight, crashing through the walls of beer and aqua vitae, taking me so I could hardly speak what I saw.
I saw the Queen naked in the dreamtime as she walked about her garden, thinking. I saw her near-naked in a ragged shirt with a poor battered shield and a small though sharp sword in her hand. Ranged against her in her mind was the Kingly clerk, her enemy Philip of Spain, grown monstrous tall and big, wielding a hammer as tall as she was to beat her down.
And in her godspace was no god at all. Never have I seen a creature more alone. About her crowded her ghosts – there was a wide, fierce, laughing giant with red hair and clothes bulging with jewels; a dark, shadowy woman with a sword wound in her neck; a tall cousin Queen clad in red; a laughing, rash young man, many young men indeed, since she was a Queen and must often order men to their deaths.
Also I saw her multiplicities of husbands, ranged about her, wildly dressed, peacocking, fighting to show her their power and strength and beauty, and she enjoyed all of them, but took none to her bed for fear they would then try to rule her. She believed God had given her the burden to carry and carry it she would with all her heart and despite her loneliness. But now she was afraid that through her fault her people would be conquered. Very afraid. She called to God when she worshipped in her palace temple and got no answer, she questioned all the time as she read her papers and consulted her advisors, and she got no answers except what she came to herself. She waited for her options to narrow down to only two, and then she chose and all the time, the doubt that she was right gnawed away at her and could never be revealed.
Now the intricacies of her garden maze lay before her, a labyrinth of time and action with many paths to follow. Yet so many led to blood and fire and the victory of her enemy Philip of Spain. Only a few led to her survival and to peace in the end and nor could she see clearly from where she was which ones those might be. Her thin, dark-faced servant Walsingham sought impatiently for battle between England and Spain, the ugly game between his god Thundering Jehovah and his devil, the Suffering Jesus. His Queen saw the maze about her grow, become an ever-changing flux, with chessmen roaming its paths and doing battle when they met while Thundering Jehovah and Suffering Jesus faced each other, growling across the narrow seas.
We were standing where a path split in a dreamtime, which I could see.
I should stay silent, but I must speak. I must ask her about my son. I am upside-down, I do the opposite.
‘Your Majesty,’ I said to her softly from where I knelt, not to frighten her, ‘Great Queen, may I speak with you?’
She blinked at me. I had interrupted my mistress just as she finished expounding her plan. The Queen, like Rebecca, took my words as something like rebellion. Nor, frankly, did she expect a face so black to be able to s
peak English to her at all.
‘Yes?’ she said, her voice very chilly.
‘Here I am, Your Majesty, I am a woman of power, and upside-down. If you ask me to, I can visit the dreamtime for you and ask the will of your god.’
‘A prophetess?’ she asked.
I did not know the word. Rebecca told me and I shook my head. ‘No, Majesty, I do not know the future, there are so many. One in particular where you are victorious and alone, one where you are defeated and happy. Nor do I know how to get to a particular one from here. But I can ask the will of your thunder-god and find out what gifts he might like to destroy your enemies for you.’
‘A witch?’ she asked and I heard doubtful fear and interest fighting each other in her voice.
It is hard to explain what I do to the ignorant and superstitious hairy ghosts.
‘No, Great Majesty, I am no maker of spells. I am the greatest upside-down person there has ever been but now I am hunting my son through the swamps of the world. He was sold last summer on the Slave Coast. If you will help me find my son, I will speak to Your Majesty’s gods for you.’
It was a fair and generous offer, but the answer was cold.
‘There is only one God,’ she said flatly and turned away. Rebecca murmured to her what I had told her of my son.
‘One, truly, but our eyes are small, so where there is one, we see many parts,’ I said, not thinking to be heard. ‘Perhaps you would prefer to call them angels.’
Cloth rustled on cloth as the Queen turned back to me. ‘Mrs Anriques says you called a storm for the ship when you were becalmed in the doldrums.’
I smiled. ‘To be truthful, Majesty, I sought out your own storm god, a mighty angel, and I brought him to us because I myself was tired of drinking a very little green water.’
‘Perhaps you should talk to Dr Dee when he comes back from Bohemia. He claims to be talking with angels too.’ Her voice still doubted but did not jeer.
‘I am not so eager to seek out gods, for the road is very hard,’ I told her. ‘It is only that I desire to do Your Majesty a service so that you will help me find my son or his corpse and this is the only service I know how to do.’
‘I have nothing to do with African slaves,’ said the Queen. She took taxes off those who made their fortunes with the bodies of men, but it had nothing to do with her. Oh no. ‘How would your son be known if we found him?’
I undid lacings and pulled up the sleeve of my doublet to show her my woman-snake winding round my left arm. ‘He has a snake also, but on his right arm. And his year-group has zig-zags for its patterning.’
‘I will ask Mr Secretary Hawkins to make a search of his own merchandise for you and ask his fellow merchants, in thanks for the service you have already rendered me by saving my servant Mrs Anriques. And if you should come across this storm angel again, perhaps you would ask him from me to protect this my land.’
I salaamed to her. Gods, angels, wild spirits, there is no difference. Call them what you like, they can be vain and greedy creatures and they enjoy worship. I could certainly ask for her. But I thought I had failed here.
‘Your dreams are wise,’ I told her, at last, a free gift to her. ‘Listen to them, Great Majesty.’
She whitened under the paint and her eyes were angry. She spoke a few more words to Rebecca and dismissed us.
As we were led away, Rebecca rounded on me furiously. ‘How could you risk what I was trying to do? How dare you speak to the Queen like that?’
‘How dare I?’ I smiled. ‘I am upside-down and the sister of a King. I will help you find your man, Rebecca Anriques, but only if you help me find mine.’
‘It’s impossible,’ she snapped.
I shrugged and locked my mouth against her. She did not understand what I had done. She thought I had been insolent, she had corrected me and now I was at last silent. She had no idea how dangerous my silence can be. Lady Leopard walked swishing her tail behind her as we threaded our way again through the whitewashed passageways and by a looping direction, back to the water steps.
‘At least the Queen likes my idea,’ said Rebecca to me. ‘We will have another meeting with Becket just as soon as he arrives in London and then we will begin.’
I smiled and said nothing.
* * *
Here you see, the time is patchy, for I was sick of the flux and took a while to recover and Rebecca did not notice that I had locked my mouth against her.
Then came David Becket, of whom I had heard so much in that household. He came to dinner at the Nunez house and arrived bringing his brother with him, who was slender and tall and had little lines of anxiety across his brow. Becket himself was taller than I am and a great deal broader and stood at all times like a warrior, although he had some injury to his wrists and his face was blurred by drink and furrowed by sorrow. Not the hungriest hairy ghost maiden could call the man good-looking, he smelled worse than many, and his cloud-coloured eyes and long lashes gave a mismatched look to his face. And he had a fair few spirits of his own killing to follow him. He saw me only as Rebecca’s servant and after a good stare at my breasts behind my buttoned doublet, and another at my legs in their canions and hose and boots, he left off so much as thinking of me. His brother could hardly keep his eyes away from me, which made me want to tease him and so I did. He nearly fainted when I winked at him.
Little Thomasina de Paris, the Queen’s Fool, came personally to bring us to the Queen and Becket trailed along complaining that he hated mysteries and why should he go to see falcons and hawks and what was the point of taking a boat and why did the women have to come – these were Rebecca and Thomasina in the litter and myself in attendance behind. If I concentrated, I could see his godspace, which had a very angry god indeed lowering in it, and dark clouds of unhappiness all about the man. And also he had had an injury to his head that had made him at least a little upside-down, for I could see swirling about him the dancing possibilities of a prophet. I wondered if he knew what he was and whether he minded.
When we met the Queen in the mews, she began by rewarding him for some service and then, most skilfully, to ask of him the thing that she and Rebecca had agreed upon by letters borne by Thomasina all the days while I was sick. He was appalled and horrified, and he bowed over as if he would weep at the thought. And then he agreed.
Now here came some days of preparation. Thomasina went to an armourer she knew and had made two strange little implements, which she said all the whores in London used. It was a knife that took apart at the hilt and the blade could be hidden inside the hilt, which was hollow and had a cord at one end. This she said made it easy to hide for a woman and even a man could hide it if he must. I looked at the shape and laughed, and took the one she had for me and went to the jakes and hid it in my woman’s place. Rebecca also took her little knife and blushed fiercely as she promised to do the same.
More importantly, there was a letter from Hawkins, which Rebecca read to me. It said that there had been no English slaving voyages at all, official or unofficial, in the time when my son was sold, which helped me greatly for it told me that there would be no finding him in the blue-green lands of my mistress. And so I must journey to the crimson-and-purple lands, to the brown-and-gold lands where the Inquisition burn their unsacrifices. If he was not in New Spain and not in England, then he was there, for no others of the tribes of the north deal in black people, apart from the Dutch, a little. It was hard for me to wait while letters went back and forth. I carried messages, or guarded my mistress when she went to speak to the masters of ships. I carried several letters to houses around London. At one large fair stone house by the name of Fant Place, I saw a creature carved in a stone above the door that made me think of my home, for it could only have been an elephant carved by someone who had never seen such a one but had had it described to him. By the front door were the tusks of the beast, magnificently carved and I wondered what was the tale of the elephant and how it came to the cold northern lands. Eventually m
y mistress had acquired a new ship called the Salamander of London, after a mysterious and complex deal with a Bristol merchant who also needed a ship to trade with Ireland and had one to lend.
Becket was raging at the death of his brother. He rode home with the corpse to his own lands and came back, white and weary and tight-lipped, and found me in the Nunez kitchen drinking by myself. For it is a fact, alas for it, that although it angered my Lady Leopard, I was growing to like the aqua vitae they drank so much and while the forests of my own lands are never lonely for they are filled with gods and animals and spirits, the human jungle of London was empty of any folk I could really speak to.
I remember it now, how it came about. Becket creaked into the kitchen with mud caking his boots and his legs, smelling of horses and weariness, and tried to pour himself a tankard of beer from the barrel in the corner by the wet larder. The cook had gone to market and taken both the scullions with him, which was why I was there, for quietness. But the injury that had happened to his hands made them weak and the tap was stiff and he could not turn it. He cursed and banged the thing with his fist, and for the sake of quietness, I stood and took the tankard from him and poured him ale.
‘Thank you,’ he said, which was more than any others of the household did when I served them.
I smiled at him and he refilled my tankard, handed it to me. ‘Never drink alone,’ he rumbled. ‘It’s bad for the spirit.’
Now this was certainly true and if I had had a proper human being to drink with, I would not have been so lonely and nor would I have drunk so much.
The broad hairy ghost sat across the scrubbed table from me and lifted his tankard to me. ‘Your health,’ he said. ‘You’re a fine-looking nigger-woman. I wonder if it’s true what Mrs Anriques says about you, that you called a storm.’
‘In a way,’ I told him, my tongue unready from being locked against Rebecca.
He looked shocked, as if he had been talking to a horse and had never expected an answer. ‘You speak English then?’
Gloriana's Torch Page 21