The Twylight Tower

by Karen Harper

  “You’re angry Geoffrey had no formal burial,” Elizabeth accused, “but remember, Luke is related to Lady Hunsdon, so that elevates him as kin to—”

  “Oh, not that, Your Grace, but I really think I’d be like to puke if I set one foot on your barge today, so if I could but be excused this once …”

  Elizabeth merely nodded and turned away. She had no time for such trivia, however much she cared for the girl. Yes, she must see Robin privily, and the assignation might as well be in the Round Tower tonight. But right now, she must prepare herself to face down Felicia Dove.

  WHITEHALL PALACE, THE QUEEN’S MAIN LONDON RESIDENCE, stood a vast skeleton stripped of its interior grandeur when she was away. Draperies and tapestries were taken down to be stored, and the few upholstered pieces covered. Plateware and table utensils, whether pewter, gold, or silver, were put under lock and key or taken with her. Her favorite books, pets, and pieces of art made the journey too. Even the royal bed and particular pieces of furniture were carted along on royal progress.

  The crowds disappeared: No courtiers clung to the walls awaiting favors, no clerks and secretaries scurried, no flapping-eared servants hovered, no ambassadors came calling. It was blessedly quiet and, usually, William Cecil loved it. But today, he felt he was preparing a corpse for burial, perhaps his own.

  Yet he had kept two clerks busy all morning, doing his bidding. He had weeded out old papers from his desk, finished up on business matters hanging fire, and completed correspondence he might never pick up again. He was quite certain he’d depart Her Grace’s service now, but would neither leave a mess, nor his privy matters, for the new man. Especially in case Her Majesty had completely taken leave of her senses and intended to name Robert Dudley as her chief adviser.

  Cecil finally let his clerks go down to the nearly empty kitchens to see what food they could flush out for a little repast. Alone, he paced the wainscotted anteroom to the royal apartments where he had always worked within reach of the brilliant queen’s questions and demands. It seemed dusty, dim, tomblike now, this entire sprawling palace and capital city of her realm.

  He startled as he heard a noise, perhaps shuffling footsteps and the creak of a floorboard. It was not the sound of his young clerks coming back.

  He peeked out into the corridor and came face-to-face with Bishop de Quadra and one of his men, whose name he could not recall. A pox on it, soon it wouldn’t matter one whit if he knew who was attached to whom in international circles, Cecil thought. But to de Quadra, slippery enemy though he was, he thrust out his hand.

  “My Lord Cecil, I heard you were here,” the Spaniard said, smiling and taking his hand before quickly releasing it.

  “Heard from whom, bishop?”

  De Quadra smiled and wagged a finger. “Not cleaning up and moving out, I hope,” he parried. “If she lets you go, she is doomed indeed.”

  “Doomed?” Cecil repeated as the two of them went into the anteroom while the bishop’s man waited in the corridor. They sat in chairs facing each other before the empty hearth. “I mislike that term or implication. Doomed, how?”

  “Santa Maria, come on, man,” de Quadra challenged, sitting forward and shifting his legs under his black bishop’s cassock. “The queen may have been known for some clever fence-sitting at times, but there’s naught clever about precipice sitting. And if she throws herself off into Robert Dudley’s arms, that will mean damnation, not salvation. Europe, not to mention her own kingdom, is atwitter with scurrilous stories of her lust and looming ruination.”

  Cecil wanted to tell him he was insane, to order him out, even to strike him, but he knew full well the man was right. When one was royal and the realm rode on a pair of shoulders, however slender, appearances were often reality. Cecil heaved a huge sigh, then said wearily, “I have heard such but pray you overstate your case.”

  “All of France and beyond will soon know of that elaborate masque that mocked her royal cousin Mary Stuart,” de Quadra pursued. “With Robert Dudley as her fellow Olympian god.”

  “I know, I know, but I certainly hope you will have no part in spreading such news. After all, masques and satire are de rigueur,” Cecil muttered, “and perhaps the queen and courtiers learned their lesson, since there was a fatal accident.”

  Having tossed out that bait and hook, he watched de Quadra closely to see if he too had someone feeding him fresh information from Windsor. Without batting an eye the man said, “Accidents do happen. As for fatal, the queen should realize she can lose much more with someone pulling her strings—and I do mean Dudley, not that poor man who was hurt. But he died, you say?”

  Cecil sensed that de Quadra was not one whit surprised by the revelation of Luke Morgan’s death, so he didn’t even answer that. It almost made him wonder if the ambassador had more than one spy in Elizabeth’s court. King Henry VIII’s crafty chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, had always said it was wise to have a second informant watching the key informant, so Cecil had taken that advice, especially because Felicia Dove seemed so flighty, but then musicians and artists often were.

  Suddenly Cecil tired of this game he himself had played for so long. Just today Felicia Dove had sent him lines from the doctored-up script Ned Topside had supposedly written, but which certainly bore the queen’s stamp too. He wondered again who the bishop had feeding him information so quickly and efficiently, but the Spaniards always did pay well.

  “I take it you’re not going back to Windsor unless she commands you?” the bishop asked, obviously pleased to change the subject.

  “Mayhap not even then. I’d like to simply retire, but if the Tudor temper rears its head, I could be cooling my heels in prison. If so, bishop, I hope you will visit me from time to time to tell me what’s going—”

  A woman’s shrill voice brought them both to their feet. An argument between a man and a woman followed. Cecil hurried out into the corridor with de Quadra clinging like a burr.

  An unkempt woman with one child in her arms and one tugging at her skirts was berating the bishop’s man. He was gesturing wildly and jabbering at her in Spanish with the occasional English interjection of “No queen. Queen go ’way. Queen gone. You go too.”

  Despite the fact those words were not meant for Cecil, they fed his worst fears. What if, indeed, Elizabeth’s stubborn nature and passion for the sports of love she had inherited from her father, along with her vast power, brought her down?

  “What is the issue here?” Cecil demanded in a loud enough voice that both the girl and the Spaniard stopped shouting at each other.

  “Your lordship,” she cried, peering around the frustrated man until he stepped aside, “Polly Hammet, that’s me, widow of the queen’s late lutenist, one Geoffrey Hammet. I know the queen’s not here, but I want someone to tell her how grateful I am, yes, right grateful.”

  “For?” Cecil prompted, walking toward the agitated blonde. At least she had been blond once, maybe pretty too, though she looked only weary and worn now. The toddler, a girl, cowered behind her mother’s stained skirts at his approach.

  “Grateful for the coins she sent, a course, for Geoffrey’s services rendered,” Polly Hammet spoke up. “A note said so in her own hand—her own hand. The minister, he read it to me. God preserve Her Grace, she saved us from this hard winter coming on, so I been praying she can save herself.”

  “Save herself?” de Quadra interrupted.

  “You know, what all folk been talking ’bout,” Polly said, shifting the baby to her other arm. “Either damned if she does or doesn’t, the minister said.”

  “If she does or doesn’t what?” de Quadra put in, though Cecil glared at him for his meddling.

  “You know,” Polly said, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “If she makes Robert Dudley put ’way his poor lady wife or just has someone dispatch her ’fore she weds him.”

  “I rest my case,” de Quadra said.

  “WHAT’S THE BOY DOING HERE?” FELICIA ASKED AS SHE faced the queen in her privy chamber.
The musician kept rubbing her hands together, the queen noted, perhaps feeling naked without a lute in them for once. She had requested that Felicia leave it by the door. Elizabeth sat in a chair, Gil perched on a table, and Felicia stood facing them both.

  “Gil is my artist, and he’s very good at faces,” Elizabeth said to play her first card. Mary Sidney had reported that Katherine Grey was not in bed, but had arisen and was washing her face and hands. So, Elizabeth had reasoned, that proved neither that she was guilty or innocent of sneaking into and defacing the queen’s chamber. Meanwhile, Elizabeth stared harder at Felicia. It was high time to force the lutenist to tell all she knew.

  “But why my face?” the girl asked. “I’m just a musician—a servant.”

  “Then, as a servant, you’d best answer the questions I put to you straightaway.”

  “But my face—it’s mine, Your Gracious Majesty, so why should it be taken without my permission?” she wheedled, arms spread beseechingly.

  Time for another card, though not the trump. “I want to send it to friends of mine in exile from court.”

  That rattled the girl even more, the queen noted, gripping the carved arms of her chair. She was about to win this hand. Gil kept drawing madly.

  “Who are those friends, if you please, Your Majesty? And if they are in exile, doesn’t that mean they’ve displeased you, so why would you send them a gift—and why that?”

  “Felicia, did you ever leave your assigned place during the masque?” Elizabeth countered. “You see, I’m trying to fix in my mind’s eye where everyone was when Luke fell. Someone must have seen what happened.”

  “I didn’t see but I heard—when he fell. But then so did everyone else, I warrant, and came running. Besides, you know I was playing and that takes all my concentration.”

  “Really? I’ve seen you play while walking, while talking, and who knows what else you could manage while your music seduces, like Sirens luring Odysseus’s ship upon the rocks. Then too, there were those sour notes. And, come to think of it, during the trumpet fanfares, who knows if you were playing or not?”

  “Don’t you recall, up on the roof at Richmond I found I was scared of heights, Your Grace? I assure you, I was not going one whit higher than that little landing I was standing on. I believe the scaffold where Luke stood was much higher, and I couldn’t have set foot on it even if I wanted to.”

  “Ah, well, then that is a fine alibi,” Elizabeth retorted, her voice dripping sarcasm.

  Wringing her hands, Felicia shifted from foot to foot. She was wearing a new green gown that swayed rhythmically back and forth. “Your Gracious Majesty, I pray you do not accuse me of harming Luke. It’s true that he annoyed me mightily in playing up to you at my expense, but I live to create beauty, not to mar or ruin it, neither the masque with your fine performance or a handsome man like Luke Morgan. And I would do nothing e’er to bring on your displeasure, for my dream in life is to play for you, to be near you.”

  So the girl had admitted Luke annoyed her. No prevarication there. And she hung her defense, such as it was, on her dislike of heights, her love of beauty, her passion for playing the lute, and her admiration of her queen. Indeed, some or all of that could be valid. Best, Elizabeth thought, return to the tack that seemed to be shaking her more than mere suspicion of murder.

  “Let me see the drawing, Gil,” Elizabeth said, and held out her hand. With a flourish, the boy reached over to give it to her. It was a good rendering, even bare bones without shading, cross-hatching, or details so far. Gil had somehow caught the pluck and pride that came through, even when Felicia Dove was in a precarious position.

  The queen held the sketch toward Felicia. “Do you think he’s captured you?”

  “Captured me? Oh, I see what you mean. He’s good. But he’s made me look … too defiant when I am once again begging Your Gracious Majesty just to let me do what I was born to do, no matter what others accuse me of, no matter what men or the whole kingdom says about me behind my back.”

  “Meaning?” Elizabeth asked icily, thrusting the drawing back at Gil, who snatched and bent over it again.

  “Like you, I defy rumors and accusations.”

  Elizabeth knew full well what she meant, but how dare she pull this stunt again, the implication that they were alike that had so softened her royal wrath before. And that had been the second time she caught the girl in a lie, in a change of identity. Who knew if the girl was Felicia Dove or not? Suddenly Elizabeth glimpsed something almost familiar about her.

  And then it hit her as it never had before. She jumped up and snatched the sketch from Gil again, sending a jagged streak of charcoal pencil right across the paper.

  That was it! Felicia Dove resembled John Harington, whom the queen had sent into exile with his wife for not telling her the truth in a murder investigation. She had not noted the similarities before because Felicia always seemed to be changing. But this girl, who had the stamp of his face softer on her, the broad forehead, the full mouth, reminded her so of John when he too was distraught. Her wild guess that Felicia could be Hester suddenly looked like brilliant strategy.

  Elizabeth got hold of herself and cleared her throat. She sat back in her chair. Trump time. “Since you asked, Felicia, and I am deciding to trust you again, I will tell you this sketch is being sent to my friends, John and Isabella Harington. They have a daughter of your age who has a passion for the lute and ran away. It seems she would not wed the man her father wanted, would not stay in the countryside, though God only knows what has happened to her since. I had imagined once she might come to me. Has she?”

  “Despite some chance similarities in her life, what is she to me?” Felicia dared.

  “It is more a question of what the Haringtons shall be to you. When I summon them back to court, you may fill some of their loss for them, playing for their pleasure. I will tell them so in a letter I shall send them with this drawing.”

  She had studied the girl minutely as she spoke, almost as if she had her fixed with Dr. Dee’s observation glass. Felicia had hardly moved, even stopping her swaying. Was she listening intently or shocked to immobility?

  “I have ne’er heard of your friends,” Felicia said, each word calm and clear, “though I am sorry for their loss, Your Majesty. I look forward to meeting and playing for them when they arrive. But now I shall play a song for you,” she cried, and lunged for her lute across the room as if that would change the subject. Her movement was so quick, she startled the guard at the door, who moved to block it. “Lord Robert has given me a new song he wrote for you,” Felicia added hastily, “but I shall play only its melody now.”

  “No song now, not even that one,” the queen ordered. “You will return immediately to Eton to live in my cousin Hunsdon’s house as you did before until—”

  “But I thought you believed and trusted me,” she said, holding the lute and striding closer. “Then I can stay here, play for you.”

  “I will send for you when I think best,” the queen commanded, pointing toward the door. When Felicia came closer, the queen summoned the guard with the flick of her wrist.

  But as Felicia knelt before her chair and bent her head over her lute, Elizabeth noted something caught in the top of her sleek hair. The queen’s slender fingers picked out one small brown piece of matter and then another.

  “How, pray tell,” she asked, “did you get bits of a sponge in your hair?” She displayed them on her open palm before the girl’s face.

  Felicia boldly blew the pieces away without missing a note. “It’s just tree bark,” she said, still playing the plaintive melody. “I was practicing outside, leaning back against a tree, that’s all. You know, one of the things I love most dearly about a lute is that when you hold it against you, the notes resonate all through you, become part of you. Perhaps that’s how it is to be pressed against one’s lover, to feel his very pulse beat, to adore someone so that …”

  Her words were as smooth as her countenance, her turnings of t
opic and mood as subtle as twists in her song—and heart. But the queen knew she could not trust her now, not until the Haringtons said she was not Hester. For Hester—as her niece, illegitimate or not—had a strain of Tudor blood in her that could make her nearly as deadly as her Tudor cousins.

  “Guard,” the queen said, standing, “keep my lutenist close restrained at the Hunsdon House in Eton until I send for her. Lord Harry will be attending a funeral this afternoon, but he will be back after.”

  Felicia’s wails and shrieks were the only truly dreadful sounds Elizabeth had ever heard from her.

  Chepter the Eleventh

  Fortune and you did me advance.

  Me thought I swam and could not drown,

  Happiest of all but my mischance

  Did lift me up to throw me down.

  And you with all your cruelness

  Did set your foot upon my neck

  Me and my welfare to oppress.

  — SIR THOMAS WYATT, the Elder

  HIDDEN BEHIND A CRENELATION IN THE roofline wall of Windsor, Meg Milligrew watched the royal barge depart with Luke Morgan’s coffin and mourners, including Lord Robin and the queen. Wishing she had Dr. Dee’s observation glass to be certain the man she feared was Ben Wilton was indeed on that barge bent over his oars, Meg waited until it was out of sight. Then, rubbing her belly, for she had not lied to the queen that she felt queasy, she went down the outside steps of the old guard tower and headed out the King Henry VIII gate into town.

  Despite the warmth of the late afternoon, she kept her cloak pulled tight and her battered, broad-brimmed garden hat low. She wanted no one in the thatched, wattle-and-daub house where she’d learned the bargemen were billeted to be able to identify her later. And if by chance Ben Wilton was not at the oars today, she didn’t want him recognizing her. Nothing on earth could make her go back to a man she didn’t recall and was quite certain she’d fled over three years ago because of his brutality. Sometimes in nightmares she heard his loud voice and felt his hard hands upon her.