The Twylight Tower

by Karen Harper

  She felt as caged as she had at home. You might know Lord Hunsdon thought Windsor Palace so drafty and rickety he leased a place. Compared to Richmond Palace, these rooms were small and dark. And that poxy lackey, Luke Morgan, hovered about as if he were her father. He appeared now from some brief errand and sat at table with his lord, glaring at her from time to time over the rim of his flagon. Hoping Lord Hunsdon didn’t notice, Felicia glared back.

  True, Luke had saved her from drowning—she couldn’t swim worth a fig—but she’d paid the price. This was the second time he’d tat-taled to the queen about her for his own advantage. It was bad enough she’d had to agree that her carefully crafted persona, Franklin Dove, was a eunuch. Oh, how she’d like to cut Luke Morgan down to size and condemn him to that very estate right now, the lickspittle.

  And worst of all, how was she to keep herself flush with coin if she couldn’t send court information to her secret sponsor? Cooped up here, she’d never get her daily written missive to the courier who got them to her employer, whether nearby or elsewhere.

  “Play ‘Greensleeves’ again, Frank—Felicia,” Lord Hunsdon put in, his voice slightly slurred. “You play it the mos’ melancholy of an’one I’ve e’er known.”

  “No wonder, seeing all my dreams are dashed,” she dared, and modulated into the minor tones of that sad ballad again.

  “But Her Grace sent for you righ’ away,” he said, stopping for another swig. Luke was savoring his wine and had hardly eaten much for such a big man, she thought. Instead, the blackguard had been watching her, as if he’d devour her for dinner. “And,” his lordship went on, “if she forgives tha’ fas’, she’ll have you back in her service in a trice.”

  “May I ask a question then, my lord?” Felicia said, not stopping her fingers through the tune’s sonorous swells.

  “Indeed,” Lord Hunsdon said with a hiccup and a grandiose gesture.

  “Her Grace mentioned having banished someone called the Haringtons, someone who must have been dear to her. I just wondered, in light of my own chastisement, what is their plight and status now?”

  “Suffice to say, she trusted ’em, and they misled her,” his lordship said, his sibilant words coming out in a strange hiss. “Can’t tell you details, sworn to secrecy. But don’t fret. She did not imprison ’em, as I believed she would, as I would’ve if I were the queen—er, king.”

  “So she didn’t ‘cast them off discourteously’?” she sang her next question to the tune.

  “As a matter a fac’,” his lordship said as Luke poured him more wine, “she helped ’em search for their wayward daughter, who’s Her Grace’s half niece—ill-illegitimate, a course.”

  “Through which of King Henry’s lovers, my lord?” Luke put in, pricking up his too-sharp ears again.

  “Mm, a certain Jane Dyngley in the parade of them, ’S I recall,” his lordship explained, frowning as if trying to remember. “Any rate, their child—Audrey, I think’s her name—was fostered out. Great Harry kept the court clean of bastards that way.…”

  His voice trailed off, and he frowned into his goblet. Felicia knew servants’ gossip said Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, could be one of the lusty king’s bastards, though his mother, Mary Boleyn, had denied it.

  “So,” his lordship went on as if speaking to his drink now, “this Audrey was Harington’s firs’ wife, and their daughter, Hester, ran away coupla years ago—no doubt a wench after your own heart, eh, my little revolting lutenist? Well, meaning you revolted to run away from parents too, not that you were revolting, righ’, Luke? But Her Grace’ll have you back and if she won’t, I’ll be your patron … pay you better than Her Grace, the penny-pincher, ’spite a what you see.”

  His lordship rose and fumbled to unbutton his breeches, leaning an arm on the mantel over the hearth as if to use it for a chamberpot. She’d seen the practice even at court, when they all thought she was a lad and the ladies weren’t around because the queen didn’t allow it. But he evidently remembered his lutenist was female and strode hurriedly from the room, listing a bit like Her Grace’s barge on boulders in the Thames.

  “However much Lord Hunsdon would pay and coddle you,” Luke said, reaching out to spear a hunk of bread with his dagger, “I believe you’d choose to serve the queen, even if you had to pay her.”

  “You should understand that, as you scramble hard enough to please her at cost to anyone,” she countered, stopping her playing with a dissonant chord.

  “That’s the pot calling the kettle black. I’ve watched you watch her, you see, Mistress Dove. You adore her, even more than most of us do.” He laughed harshly and popped a hunk of bread into his big mouth. “Poor, petty lutenist, you not only want to be like her, you want—lust—to be her.”

  Her heart began to thud. This man was dangerous. “You don’t know the first thing about me—under the skin,” she countered, and rose from her seat in the window. Since the lute was not hers and she needed no more accusations, she put it down carefully. Though she’d not been dismissed by his lordship, she made for the door.

  Luke leaped up so fast to block her way she panicked and jumped back against the wall. Her small purse, stuffed with coins from Lord Robert Dudley and those that a lad at Richmond had slipped her as another payment from the Spanish ambassador, clunked as if it were one melted mass.

  “What was that?” Luke demanded, swaggering closer, nonchalantly sheathing his dagger as he came. “It sounded as if you have a lead bottom, mistress.”

  “Let me pass. Let me and my affairs be.”

  He stalked her the rest of the way to the wainscotted wall, both arms out stiff to trap her there. He grinned wolfishly. “Would that your affairs, at least one of them, were mine.”

  He dared to lower one hand behind her to feel her bum, but his purpose must have been to find the purse. He cupped it in his palm and bounced it once.

  “Been earning extra on your back with your legs spread instead of those clever arms and fingers spread?” he murmured, so close she could smell garlic on his breath. “Or came you by this some other way?”

  “ ’Tis my inheritance, so keep your filthy hands off of everything. You’ve already caused chaos in my life!”

  “And likely to cause more if you don’t do exactly as you’re bid and quit that lying—lying with your lips, though I wouldn’t mind it if you’d lie with me tonight. Then I’d hold my tongue on all your little secrets so—”

  She shoved him back so hard he bounced into a table and sent a chair crashing to the floor. Felicia was out into the hall and up the stairs to her tiny servant’s room under the eaves with the bolt shot before she heard the dining room door slam far below. And if that blackguard so much as told on her or touched her again, she’d be sure he’d face royal wrath, and not the queen’s.

  Chapter the Seventh

  Youth will needs have dalliance,

  Of good or ill some pastance;

  Company me thinketh the best

  All thoughts and fantasies to digest.

  or idleness is chief mistress of vices all;

  Then who can say

  But pass the day

  Is best of all?

  — KING HENRY VIII

  “YOUR MAJESTY,” NED TOPSIDE SAID, HIS fine voice carrying out over the courtiers and servants assembled in a corner of the great hall of Windsor, “I am honored that you will grace my masque with your presence onstage rather than having the revelries presented to you this time.”

  “I decided,” Elizabeth replied, “that if Lord Robert is to enact the part of Apollo, I would never hear the end of it were I not to take the part of the goddess Diana myself.”

  “But they were brother and sister and not enamored,” she was certain she heard someone behind her murmur, and it sounded like her once-trusted Lord Cecil. Though he and de Quadra would not be in the cast for the drama, they were quite the hangers-on lately. Did the unease she’d felt since she arrived at Richmond this summer, she wondered, mean that those statesmen we
re spying on her, even if not in person? When she’d lived in exile, Cecil had stooped to having a cook keep an eye on her, entirely for her own good, he’d said.

  “Now, the key parts are these,” Ned said, gesturing grandly and striding about to position people. “If you wish to catch a glimpse of the scenery or costumes later, I have sketches done by Her Majesty’s clever Gil Sharpe.” The queen saw that Ned already had some of the two-tiered set erected and draped with diaphanous cloths. She tugged one long piece free and wrapped it about her shoulders and throat, just to feel more in the part of this fantastical setting.

  Looking nervous that the queen was undoing his scenery, her principal player and fool—who was never, indeed, a fool—plunged on, “This is a rendition of the myth of Niobe, who dared to defy a goddess and to place herself above her.”

  “And that goddess was?” Elizabeth encouraged, fully expecting him to say it was her part as virgin goddess of the hunt, Diana, the part he’d promised her.

  “That would be Leto, Diana and Apollo’s mother, Your Majesty, a Titan who bore Zeus those twin children.”

  “But they are not children in the drama, I hope, man,” Robin prompted.

  “No, my lord, for you see,” Ned said, “they are grown to adulthood now and, besides, I’ve turned it into a political allegory also and you can’t have children in something like that.”

  Elizabeth heard Cecil snort and this time turned to glare at him. Cecil and the Spanish ambassador huddled together near the stairway of the set as if they were boon companions rather than competitors who would turn to enemies should events warrant. But seeing de Quadra gave Elizabeth a thought.

  “Ned,” she said, her voice low, “we do not insult Spain or King Philip in this play?”

  “Oh, no, Your Grace. ’Tis France takes the brunt of it.”

  “Fine,” she clipped out, amused to see him look relieved and pleased for once. “Say on.”

  “Now everyone, hearken please,” Ned said, rapping his knuckles on the wall of the set to recapture their attention. “Her Grace is Diana, and we need four ladies to be her attendant nymphs for the first act. Meg Milligrew will serve as the queen’s tiring woman backstage to fetch her bow and quiver, et cetera, and perhaps have a bit part onstage. Lord Robert Dudley as Apollo must needs have at least one follower too—Jenks, are you up for that?”

  “I’m more used to guarding Her Grace, but fine,” Jenks agreed, and stepped closer to Lord Robert.

  “Ah, now,” Ned went on, “the mothers’ parts. Kat Ashley had best, I believe, portray Apollo and Diana’s mother, Leto, who is insulted by Niobe’s braggadocio. But who shall play that pompous woman who puts herself above Leto and Diana, so—”

  “Katherine Grey is young but her voice is strong and we can deck her in white hair,” the queen cut in. “She shall play that role. And what is the allegory then?”

  “You and Apollo, Your Grace,” Ned explained as Katherine stepped forward, somehow looking both pleased and piqued, “shall represent not only the children of Leto, but fair England herself. Therefore, Lady Ashley stands for Mother England. Katherine Grey is not only Niobe, but France, always criticizing England. But in the play when Diana and Apollo strike down Niobe’s—that is, France’s—children, she learns never to challenge a goddess again.”

  “A timely theme,” Elizabeth declared with a decisive nod. “Perhaps since rumors and gossip flow from the court of France as if from a gutter, some of you will spread the word what we English do for amusement.”

  Some grinned, some snickered, yet the queen seethed inside. Mary, Queen of Scots, and France had no right to sully her reputation or Robin’s either. Someone had said that Mary claimed not only that the queen of England would wed her Horse Master, but that she would dispatch his poor wife to do so. That was blasphemy and grievously dangerous.

  “Now,” Ned went on, “each time Diana appears, Felicia Dove will play a bright theme on her lute from behind the facade of the scenery.”

  “Since,” Elizabeth interrupted, “Apollo is the god of music, Felicia may play for his entrances and exits. Trumpets, I think, for Diana. By the way, what is the name of this masque?”

  “I had thought,” Ned said, drawing himself up to his full height and lifting his chin, “The Lesson of Niobe.”

  “Too obscure,” Elizabeth said. “Try The Triumph of Diana.”

  “Oh, of course,” Ned agreed, shuffling papers and passing them here and there for a read through of the lines, but looking more confused all the time. He gestured his betters to their positions but tugged people like Meg and Felicia into place.

  “Now, Apollo had the art of healing too,” Ned went on, “so at the end, perhaps he should resurrect those children of the grieving Niobe whom the twins have slain.”

  “But that would give Apollo the last say in this drama,” Elizabeth protested. “Besides, Robin is no doctor, which reminds me, I meant to send for Dr. Dee. My Lord Robert, send my new barge and bargemen to fetch him at his house in Mortlake, will you not? He used to help present plays years ago with fantastical effects. Yes, send for Dr. Dee posthaste.”

  “To—to be in the masque, Your Grace?” Ned asked, looking nearly beside himself.

  “Perhaps to give the goddess Diana a grand finish,” the queen said only, leaving her sudden inspiration a secret. “You all read through your parts, and I will add my voice, and perhaps a few new lines, later. I believe this entertainment will be even grander if we can move it outside to the fountain court.”

  “B-but,” Ned stuttered, his eyes darting at the half-erected set.

  “Don’t fret,” she told him. “You’ll have much help to move it outside, and of course, if it rains, we’ll have to do it here.” Elizabeth turned to leave the room, for she had promised Cecil she would sign the writs she’d ignored and she wanted to get that over, to have the rest of the day free.

  She bumped smack into Luke Morgan, who must have been hovering. They momentarily clung to each other to keep from going off balance, then let go but not before Robin jumped at them to pluck Luke’s hands from her. Jenks leaped forward too.

  “Watch where you stand and not so close to Her Majesty’s person, sirrah,” Robin clipped out.

  “Lord Robert, this is a trusted man of Lord Hunsdon, so unhand him,” she ordered. “He has done me good service and may yet do more.”

  Though it was the slightest of incidents, she saw Robin’s jaw clench and his neck vein throb. Was he embarrassed or jealous? she wondered, and a shiver shot through her. Or was he just annoyed she yet kept him in his place? Poor Jenks had just reacted instinctively from years of oft being her sole protector. But what was strangest of all was that the lutenist, far on the fringe of the crowd, had also flung herself forward, as if to protect her queen.

  AFTER HER MAJESTY HAD FINALLY SIGNED THE SMALL PILE of papers Cecil set before her, he went back down to the play practice to see if de Quadra was still about. He found that the ambassador and the players had flown, but Felicia Dove sat in a corner, playing some doleful lament while wrapped in the same swathe of material the queen had draped herself in earlier.

  He was nearly to her before the girl noticed him and glanced up, stopping her fingers in mid-melody. “I see you are left-handed,” he observed as she scrambled to her feet and pulled the cloth from around her slender shoulders. “Do you know the Latin for left-handed?” he went on, stopping a few feet from Felicia to study her closely. When she shook her head warily, he told her, “Sinister, which used to imply unlucky or fated, though, of course, it means evil now.”

  “Say what you intend, my Lord Cecil.”

  Ah, he thought, the girl had pluck too, but he continued his little charade of an interview with her by shrugging slightly. “If Her Majesty has taken you back, it is your lucky day and you can do naught but good for her with those quick hands and quicker brain.”

  “I’m not exactly back in Her Grace’s good graces,” she said, straight-faced at her own witty wordplay.

&nbs
p; Yes, cleverness would help too, Cecil mused. “I’m a man of business, Mistress Dove, so I will cut to the quick and be brief,” he explained, “not that I wouldn’t like to hire you to write me a song for my dear wife or one to soothe the savage beast that rears its head about here from time to time lately.”

  “I tell people I cannot write, my lord, but in truth I can—a bit, though please tell no one else. So I could write a song for your lady wife, e’en the notes. I’ve already done one for Lord Robert, though not for his wife. But no, for you, it must needs be a song like this one.”

  The service is unseen

  That I full long have served,

  Yet my reward hath been

  Much less than I deserved

  Yet for those graces past

  And favor that I found

  Whilst my poor life shall last

  I find myself still bound.

  “Ah,” he said, stunned this mere slip of a girl had read him and perceived the political situation here so well. “Did you pen those lines, mistress?” he asked.

  “I believe they were by a courtier the queen banished a while ago.”

  “Ah,” he said again, beginning to be annoyed this girl kept surprising him. “And who was that?”

  “I think I heard it was John Harington, but I know him not.”

  “I did. A loyal man, but one who went astray, though I think Her Majesty’s been missing him and his lady wife lately and may have them back soon.”

  Felicia stopped playing. “That remains to be seen, as does everything with this queen,” she whispered, frowning.

  “Quite so, especially this summer. Then, mistress, I am hoping you and I can come to an agreement, at least while we are both on the edge of Her Majesty’s favor. If you will follow my guidance, I shall become your patron—of sorts,” he added, and slightly rattled the coins in his dangling purse. “Might we work together on something that is not a song, not exactly, at least?”