by Anna Kendall
Like all the court dances, it was slow, stately, sedate. More suited to the old queen than to Queen Caroline. I remembered the drunken masquers tumbling into the kitchen on the eve of the prince’s wedding, and knew there was wildness caged among these courtiers, just as there was in Cecilia. It was troubling. But why didn’t Queen Caroline introduce other, more vigorous dances? They existed; I had seen them at faires, among villagers exhilarated with holiday, with ale, with a day’s freedom from labor.
But I did not understand the queen. She contained mazes, labyrinths. Crafty, kind, passionate, ruthless, just, deceitful—she was all of these. The one thing that never changed was her determination to obtain the throne that should already rightly have been hers. I had no doubt that she would do nearly anything to that end—as she had once told me herself.
The queen chose to watch, not dance. She sat on a big, carved chair beside the fire, Lord Robert beside her on the stool that Lady Jane Sedley had vacated. I scurried to take my place at the queen’s feet, now that the sour-faced stranger had left the room. From here I could watch Lady Cecilia move her graceful little body in and out of the figures of the dance, weaving slowly forward and back, her slim waist swaying and her green skirts changing color in the flickering firelight. . . .
“Enough,” the queen said. She raised her hand and immediately the musicians stopped playing. “I find I do not want dancing, after all. I am weary. Good night.”
It was still very early. Courtiers and ladies gazed at each other in bewilderment. The queen turned to walk through her rooms, and the ladies of the bedchamber picked up their skirts to scurry after her. Cecilia was not one of these. She stood with a disappointed pout in the middle of the room. “Could we not dance anyway . . . ?”
But, of course, they could not. Not without the queen. Some courtiers, the older ones, left the room, including a reluctant Lord Robert. I knew he would be back later, much later, alone, to be admitted to the queen’s privy chamber. And then Lady Margaret left, one hand on her belly. “If you will excuse me . . . the pork at dinner . . . will not you young ladies retire as well?”
“It’s so early,” murmured Lady Jane.
“So early . . .” “Not at all tired . . .” “So very early. . . .”
With a sad smile, Lady Margaret walked from the room, her hand still on her aching belly. The younger courtiers’ eyes sharpened. They would stay, and without the sharp and intelligent eyes of Lady Margaret upon them. Or the eyes of their queen.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Usually the queen retired very late and her ladies at the same time, and I went to my alcove to sleep. But Lady Jane was right—it was far too early to sleep . . . Should I stay here? What should I do?
Learn all you can, the queen had told me once. Nobody notices a fool.
I would stay. I wanted to stay. Lady Cecilia was here.
“Let us wager!” Lady Jane cried. She seized a pair of dice in a golden cup.
“I’ll wager with you, pretty Jane,” said Lord Thomas Bradley, “but not for a coin.”
“For what then?” Lady Jane asked, widening her eyes with mock innocence. “A kiss?”
“Oh, I think more than a kiss.”
“How much more?”
“A game is no good unless the stakes are very high. Such as . . . everything.”
Lady Jane smiled at him over her fan. “Everything against what? What do you put up for your side of the wager?”
“My best mare.”
“Done, my lord!”
I was shocked. This did not happen in the queen’s presence. Queen Caroline liked gambling, and she was good at dice and cards. Nor did she cheat. I had watched Hartah cheat often enough to know it when I saw it. If the queen lost, she smiled and paid up. Nor did she try to keep her ladies from flirting and kissing. But I had been at court long enough to know that an unmarried lady must stay a virgin. It was one thing for the queen to take Lord Robert as a lover; she was a widow, and a queen. But her ladies must remain chaste until marriage, to preclude all doubt about who fathered their husband’s eventual heirs. So why was Lady Jane Sedley laughing like that at Lord Thomas and eagerly sitting down to wager with him for “everything”? Or had I misunderstood?
I had not. More pairs of courtier-and-lady formed, sitting opposite each other at different small tables, the dice between them. Those not willing to gamble, or perhaps unchosen, clustered with excited envy around the players.
Lady Cecilia stood in the middle of the floor, her expression tense but otherwise unreadable. She was not one to join watchers, to be left out of whatever amusement presented itself.
Sudden jealousy tore through me like a gale. If she paired with one of these young lords to wager her chastity, if she lost, if she went with him to some secluded chamber . . . I couldn’t breathe. All at once I could feel again Hartah’s knife in my hand, sliding into his flesh, and I knew I could do the same to any man who wagered with Cecilia for her sweet and untouched body. Stupid, irrational, insane . . . who was I to have such thoughts? Yet I had them.
A handsome minor courtier, Lord Dillingham, walked toward Cecilia. His sword gleamed at his hip. He grinned at her but she, for once, did not flirt back. Instead she rushed forward and grabbed me by both hands. “Roger! I shall wager with you! For a silver coin with Her Grace’s image stamped upon it! Come!”
Jane Sedley, seated opposite Lord Thomas, looked up and gave a derisive laugh. But before I knew it, Lady Cecilia and I were seated at one of the little tables, people crowding around to watch this new amusement. One of the queen’s ladies, wagering with the queen’s yellow-faced fool!
But Cecilia faced me quietly, all at once as sedate and sober as Lady Margaret herself, and laid a silver coin upon the table. “The game shall be fifty points,” she said. That was an incredibly high number; a single game would last all night. We began, and she stayed sedate, barely talking, her eyes upon only the dice. After a while the watchers, disappointed, drifted to other tables. No flirting, no bawdy jokes, no forbidden crossing of the boundaries of rank. We were too dull.
Bewildered, I threw the dice and counted points, as I was told. What was Cecilia doing? Was she secretly as shocked as I at the licentiousness of these young ladies and gentlemen, and so, choosing this method of preserving her chastity? But surely she could have just announced that she preferred not to play, or even retired for the night? One other lady, besides Lady Margaret, had done that. What was truly happening here?
We played on. Cecilia never looked at me. Finally a great shout arose from one of the other tables; someone had won. Or lost. Under cover of the babble that followed, Cecilia bent her head over the dice and said, “Roger, are you my friend?”
How to answer that? A lady-in-waiting could not be friends with the queen’s fool. But I let my heart answer.
“Yes, my lady.”
“And friends do favors for each other, do they not?”
“Yes.” My stomach grew cold.
“I need a favor from you, Roger.”
“I am in attendance on the queen . . .”
“Not always. Not right now. Please . . . please. It is very important.”
She raised her head and I saw that tears gleamed in her green eyes. Tears, and fear. I would have gone anywhere, done anything, to erase that look from her lovely face.
“Go out the kitchen gate—you came from the kitchens, didn’t you? The queen found you that night in the kitchen? ” Some private memory twisted her face with grief. “Go into the city. Ask your way to Mother Chilton, it’s not far. Tell her you need a milady posset. And you must go masked, and in plain clothes.”
I reeled with all these instructions. The only thing I found to say was, “What’s a milady posset?”
“Never you mind. It’s merely a thing that I need. Oh, Roger, don’t fail me now!”
“But you have other friends . . . men with swords . . .”
“I cannot tell any of them! Oh, for sweet sake, smile, Sarah is looking at us—”
Cecilia trilled with laughter. She cried loudly, “You have won, you swine!” She pushed the silver coin across the table to me.
Lady Sarah strolled over, smiling maliciously. “So the fool won! A good thing you did not make Jane’s wager with him, Cecilia. For now Jane must pay up.”
Lady Jane stood and pushed over the table, stamping her foot in its high-heeled slipper. But even I could see that her anger wasn’t real. Was she really going to allow her chastity to be won in a dice game? Or was Lord Thomas not the first?
The queen, whatever her own reputation, would not approve of this. Neither of the queens.
The courtiers, making bawdy jests, crowded around Lady Jane and Lord Thomas. Lady Sarah turned to watch. I felt another, larger coin thrust into my hand, and then Cecilia flounced away toward the others, crying, “Jane! I will be your lady of the bedchamber!”
The coin in my hand was gold.
I put both in my pocket and slipped out the door from the outer chamber to the presence chamber. If Cecilia saw me go, she gave no sign. In my alcove I drew the curtain and stood there, shivering in the dark. The tiny space had neither fire nor candle. But usually I was there only when asleep, and Queen Caroline had given me three warm blankets. I wished I could crawl under them and never come out.
What was I going to do?
I couldn’t bear to see Cecilia so unhappy. Was she sick, and the milady posset a cure for some illness? But then why not tell the queen and ask for a physician? Was the posset some herb that brought temporary—if deluded—happiness? Such things existed, I knew. But ale or wine would do the same thing if enough was drunk, and it didn’t cost a gold piece. I had never even seen a gold piece before.
What was I going to do?
Slowly I took off my green-and-yellow fool’s suit. At the same time, I faced the truth. I was afraid to go into the city alone.
Slowly I drew on my old rough trousers and patched boots.
I was a coward.
I pulled on the tunic that Kit Beale had given me.
I had always been a coward. When I stayed under Hartah’s beatings, when I begged Lady Conyers to keep me by her, when Queen Caroline threatened me with torture if I didn’t do her bidding. A coward.
With my knife I cut off a section of a blanket, cut two holes in it to make a mask, and thrust it into my pocket. I put on my hooded cloak, a gift from the queen.
I was going out into the city. For Cecilia.
14
THE QUEEN’S ROOM emptied soon enough; the lords and ladies all went to put Lady Jane and Lord Thomas to bed. That whole business shocked me still—a lady, allowing herself to be gambled for like a whore! There was so much different about the court from what I had vaguely imagined when I arrived here with Kit Beale. Even Queen Caroline—why had she retired so early? Who was the sour-faced man in black whose conversation had so upset Her Grace?
I crept through the darkened presence chamber. Just before my hand touched the doorknob, I realized my mistake. Green guards stood on the other side. If I, the queen’s fool, walked past them in rough dress, the queen would know it within minutes. So, I was beginning to realize, would everyone else in the palace, which was a web of spies. If the queen had me searched, the gold piece would be found. Then what of Cecilia’s secrecy?
I went back to my alcove, put my fool’s garb back on, tightly rolled my old clothes in my cloak, and walked back through the presence chamber. This time I opened the door.
“Good morning, queen’s men!” I said, and kicked up both legs like a frisky colt.
One of the guards smiled. “It is evening, fool.”
I looked amazed. “Are you sure? No, it’s eight o’clock of a morning! I heard a cock crow!”
“Then you ears are full of candle wax.”
“The better for noises to slip inside!”
He laughed and gave me a mock kick, his boot just connecting with my ass. The other guard watched sourly. “Get away from me, fool. I have no liking for half-wits.”
“Ah, but I am but a quarter-wit, so you must like me! Shall I bring you breakfast from the kitchen?”
“I mean it, get away with you.”
I skipped out of his boot reach in mock fear, pantomimed extreme hunger, and scampered off.
Immediately I was lost in the intricate maze of the palace. I couldn’t remember the route by which Kit Beale had brought me, and I had not left the queen’s chambers in weeks. Now that I thought of it, neither had she. Did she never go beyond the palace, outside to the city or the countryside? Was that her mother’s doing?
By asking servants, I found my way to the kitchens. Now I knew where I was; the laundry was in this part of the palace, as was my old apprentices’ chamber. Dinner was long over and only a few kitchen maids remained, scrubbing pots or preparing for tomorrow. Among them, mixing loaves of bread to rise overnight for breakfast, was Maggie.
“Roger! ”
“Hello, Maggie.”
“You did indeed become the queen’s fool! I had heard that.” Her tone was not entirely approving. The other girls stared at us, and Maggie snapped at them, “Get back to work!” They did. Maggie was in charge here, just as she had once taken charge of me. Fed me, befriended me, laughed with me. It was good to see her, despite her disapproving look at my yellow face and bizarre clothing.
She pushed a lock of hair off her sweaty face. The kitchen was very warm. “What brings you here, Roger?”
I kept my voice low. “I need to go out of the door where the kitchen barges bring food from the farms.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“Is this queen’s business?” Her voice, too, was low, but she kept her face calm and her strong arms busy mixing bread.
“Yes, but I cannot say what. And you must not, either.”
A pause in mixing, soon over. “Oh, Roger, what have you got yourself involved in now?”
I didn’t answer. Let her think my errand was an important matter on behalf of the queen. Maggie would help me all the sooner. Cecilia’s sad face filled my mind.
She said, “It’s not connected with the navy, is it? Please say you are not involved in that mess!”
What mess? What about the navy? How could a kitchen maid know more than I about matters of state? But I already knew the answer to that. Queen Eleanor kept all military matters away from her daughter’s side of the palace. And lords and ladies did not gossip about weighty matters, lest they be overheard and misinterpreted. They could trust no one. Lower servants, however, could gossip about anything, as long as they did so in whispers, because no one in power cared what they said or thought. The palace servants—all except me—often knew everything.
I said, “It is not about the navy. But I must go soon, and I must change first and go unseen.”
She sighed. “Wait a short while. Sit there and eat, as if hunger alone had driven you here.” She went to the hearth and poured me a bowl of soup left over from the servants’ dinner. It had cooled and I was already full, but I ate it with a great show of famine.
When Maggie had dismissed the other girls, I went into the larder and changed into my old clothes. They were far too tight; I had filled out since becoming the queen’s fool. I put the piece of blanket over my face, my eyes and mouth at the crude holes. When I emerged from the larder, Maggie made a choking noise somewhere between a scream of laughter and a grunt of exasperation. I pulled my hood up over my head so that it hung over my forehead.
“This way,” she said, shaking her head. Another small courtyard open to the sky, this one stacked with empty crates and jars and smelling of old vegetables. After the warm kitchen, its coolness was welcome. Maggie unlocked a door set into the wall and the scent of the river rushed in. The water flowed lazily just a few feet away, and stone stairs led down to poles at which to tie up barges. No barges floated there now. Between the river and the palace wall, a narrow path curved away in both directions.
“You can go either left or right,” Maggie said.
She grabbed my arm, pulled me back inside, and slammed the door. “Why are you going to Mother Chilton?”
“I cannot tell you that,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster, which wasn’t much.
“The queen would not have business with that witch!”
“She is a witch?”
“Yes. No. No, of course not, there is no such thing. Mother Chilton is a healer. But Roger . . . what have you done now?”
“I have done nothing.”
“Then who has?”
Her gray eyes looked steadily into mine. I didn’t answer. Finally she said, “Turn left. Go three alleys over and turn right. Look for the tent with a picture of two black swans drawn near the bottom. Wait, you’ll need a lantern.”
When she’d given it to me, I said humbly, “Thank you, Maggie. I could not do this without you.”
“I suspect you should not be doing it at all. I’ll wait here to let you back in. Don’t be long!”
“I won’t.” How could I promise that? I couldn’t know how long I would be. I went out through the open door, holding my lantern.
In the autumn, Kit Beale had told me that the city was mostly deserted at night, the keepers of the shops and booths having gone back home to the surrounding villages. In this cold spring, it seemed completely deserted. Tents provide little shield from cold. But within a few of the cloth buildings, lanterns gleamed, and I heard laughter from what seemed to be an alehouse. Still, I would not like to be here, with the kinds of people who stayed late at night. My teeth chattered as I scurried along, and not with cold. In the third alley, I had to stoop to find the two black swans drawn at the very bottom of a tent. A crude drawing, pretending to be the mischief of a child. Cecilia had blithely assumed that I could easily carry out her wishes, because she was used to people carrying out her wishes. But without Maggie, I would never have found this place. Never.
A bellpull hung outside, and I pulled it. After a few minutes of bone-rattling chill, the tent flap was pushed aside and a voice said, “Come in, then.”