A moment later the queen walked in. She was beautiful. She was dressed in a simple yet gorgeous gown of black velvet, quilted chevron-wise, her hair captured in a caul spangled in gold, with pearls and stones set upon it. She was followed by several ladies, all dressed in black satin and velvet. “Blanche Parry, Catherine Carey, and Katherine Ashley, senior ladies of the privy chamber,” whispered Dorothy. “Only they among us are allowed her black livery.” Blanche held some sort of small black-furred creature, a ruby and diamond collar around its neck. And then finally, behind them, the dwarf I’d seen the night before, dressed like a miniature version of the queen, her head held high. “Ipollyta, the little witch,” Dorothy breathed in my ear.
“Continue playing, Mary,” the queen said as she sat. She patted the edge of her cushion and the little witch sat down next to her. Mary continued to play, and I found the music beautiful and soothing.
I watched the queen from the corner of my eye. She wore my gloves. I was pleased to see that she continually pulled one off and put it back on, holding a hand out every now and then to admire my workmanship. When the music stopped, the queen politely clapped, and everyone followed suit. Mary Howard got up from the harpsichord and joined Anne Windsour on a cushion. Next to the queen, Ipollyta worked on something carefully with tiny tools.
“What is she about?” I whispered to Dorothy.
“Sharpening our needles and pins. That was one of hers you sat on.” Dorothy snorted. I winced, still aching from the prick. “Stay away from her; she is sharp in more ways than one.”
“Ladies, this is Katherine Ludmore,” the queen suddenly announced. “She will be instructing us on the finer points of embroidery. Hers is amongst the finest ever seen. Some of you need her guidance more than others.”
Several of the maids of honor narrowed their eyes upon me, some with simple interest, others with jealousy. But the dwarf, Ipollyta—her stare sent shivers down my spine, as if a fairy demon had set a spell upon me. A door opened. A servant brought in a silvered tray of sugared fruit and a small ewer and laid it at the queen’s feet. Katherine Ashley leaned over and poured from the ewer into a small gilt goblet.
“A posset,” Dorothy whispered to me. “Hot sugared milk. The queen has little appetite. It is her senior ladies’ duty to tempt her.”
“What is the creature in Blanche Parry’s lap?” I asked as I watched the thing nibble at the tufts in the queen’s dress.
“A musk cat,” Dorothy whispered. “A ferret. It was a gift to the queen. Day, she calls it, for it never seems to sleep, day or night. Poor Blanche must keep charge of it.”
The queen spoke. “My cousin and kinswoman, I think, will reject a marriage for my Robert.” She sighed as she pulled off a glove once again. She took a grape and rolled it between her fingers. “What am I to do with the poor man? Perhaps I’ll have to marry him.” She laughed, and everyone laughed with her. “Blanche, what say you, shall I ever marry?”
Blanche Parry smiled as she petted the little creature in her lap. Its fur shone like velvet. “Your Majesty, I’ve told you many a time that’s the one thing I shall never predict.”
“Oh, how you tease me,” the queen said as she turned her eyes on me. “But I do think perhaps I’d rather be a beggar woman and poor than a queen and married.” She clapped her hands and Blanche handed the queen the musk cat, who immediately nipped at her gloved hand. “Tell me, Katherine…oh, I shall have to think of a nickname for you. I’m very fond of a nickname. We’ve too many Katherines now, don’t we? Most named for queens, some good, some bad. So pray tell, what do you think makes a man handsome?”
I looked around the room, for indeed there were many Katherines, but the queen was looking at me. I blushed. “Handsome. Hmmmm. Why, I think perhaps his eyes, and a goodly head of hair, for a man without any, well, you know…” It was something Grace had said, although I didn’t have a whit of what it meant. It was quiet a good moment and my heart dropped. Then Elizabeth burst out laughing, followed by her senior ladies.
“My, you are a fresh thing, aren’t you? You are delightful! And you are right, my dear. There is nothing more important than the eyes.” Holding tight to Day, she patted the other corner of her cushion. I sat frozen where I was until Dorothy nudged me.
I rose and joined the queen. She was so close. Aah. So close I could almost feel her warmth, and her musk cat stared at me with eyes like little black beads. “Tell me, my sweet,” she began. “What kind of eyes attract you?” I thought of Rafael’s sky blue eyes and then Christian’s honey eyes. “Why, look at her, her cheeks shall match her hair in a moment. We’ll not get another word from her, will we now?” The queen laughed and Day reached to nip at me before she pulled him back. “She’s keeping a secret from us. Blanche, come read her hand and tell us what it is, or who it is.” And although she said it with great merriment, her eyes were on me sharply like the little beast upon her lap.
I pulled my hands from my lap slowly, ever so slowly, and hid them down at my sides. Blanche, laughing, got up from her cushion and came over to me. She was much older than the other ladies, although her face was unlined and kindly. And she had the largest eyes I had ever seen. Everyone laughed again when she had to tug to retrieve one of my hands.
“My, oh my, dear one, I am not Day; I shall not bite you,” she said, her voice low and soft. Finally I relaxed my arm and Blanche lifted my hand up, close to her face. She stared at it a good long time. Then she looked at me, and her smile vanished.
“Tell us,” the queen said, laughing. “Break the suspense!”
“She does not know her own heart,” Blanche proclaimed. “But she may have happiness one day if she is wise.” She forced a smile upon her face, stood up, and walked away.
“Fa!” The queen frowned. “That could be any of us now, couldn’t it? But it is only the lucky who are wise.” She took my hand in hers and turned it over, running her gloved finger over the lines of my palm. “I see you shall have twelve babies like my good Catherine Carey.” Everyone laughed, and I saw the queen was just jesting with me, so I smiled too. Ha. Twelve children. I had no plans for having any.
“I shall have none,” I found myself proclaiming.
“Why, whoever has put such silly notions in your head.” She smiled and Day seemed to smile with her, its little teeth sharp and white.
“I think one has to have had a good mother to be a good mother.” It was something Grace had said often, since her own sweet mother had died young and she had been raised motherless. The queen dropped my hand. The room was silent. And then I realized. The queen’s own mother, Anne Boleyn, had been beheaded.
“Well now, I was very lucky,” the queen said finally, after an endless silence. “For I had my good Katherines, I did. Kat Ashley,” she said, nodding to her across the room, “and the most loving of mothers, my good mother Katherine Parr. The only one of my ghastly stepmothers to befriend me.”
Katherine Parr. The queen who died at Sudeley. “I carry her words with me at all times,” the queen continued. She let Day loose and the ferret ran across the room and curled itself on Blanche Parry’s lap. “No one else have I ever held in higher esteem.” She lifted the prayer book that was chained to her kirtle and kissed it. “Except for perhaps my father.” Her face seemed to fall. “But no more talk of the dreary past. Tell me a story of the country,” she said, looking at me. “A tale of fairies and beasties.” Everyone laughed. “I can’t get anything out of my sweet Ipollyta. Her past is still quite a mystery. And everyone knows a fool’s greatest talent is the telling of tales.”
“Oh, but I am saving my voice, my fair queen,” Ipollyta said, her voice high and melodious, like a songbird. “For when I sing to you.”
“How I do treasure your voice,” the queen said to her. “You are right, dear one. You must give me a song tonight. Something new.”
Then she turned to me. “A story. From you I have asked for a story.”
I closed my eyes a moment. “A fairy…” I stuttered.
“A fairy came upon a village on a cold revel night not a fortnight ago, and scared a band of minstrels and then thiefed her way into a cottage, stole a child’s golden dress spun of gold, and then climbed into bed.”
Ipollyta leaned back and looked at me, her eyes barely blinking, like a rat discovered in the rum roll.
“Whose bed?” The queen laughed. “Was it a man’s?” And all the ladies, even the young maids, tittered.
“Why, yes,” I exclaimed. “And the next morning the man woke up with the tail of a pig and the ears of a jackass.”
“Why, I guess the fairy was not well-served,” the queen responded, and everyone burst into laughter. “Wondrous,” she said suddenly as she pulled a glove off and examined the stitching. “I want you to stitch me wondrous things—beautiful beasts and exotic flowers. Things that no other queen or noble has, prettier than anything my sweet cousin, Mary of the Scots, shall ever own. And you shall attend Dorothy in the wardrobe store, where you’ll quickly learn my taste. I should have you installed in my Wardrobe of Robes, but I think your allure would cause great havoc and I’d have a riot on my hands.” The ladies nodded to me. All but Blanche Parry, the reader of palms, who watched me with a firm, closed mouth, and puzzled eyes, like a child who’s seen her reflection in the mill pond for the first time.
Later, as Dorothy and I walked down a great hall back to my room, Blanche Parry appeared from around a corner. In her arms she held several leather-bound books, their bindings the likes of which I’ve never seen before, nothing like the simple books Grace had taught us from. “I shall have a word with her, please,” she said, her thin lips pursed. Dorothy looked between the two of us and walked away, glancing back over her shoulder suspiciously.
Blanche handed me the great books and I nearly dropped them, they were so heavy. “Have a care, love.” And I realized she had the lilt of the Welsh. “These are from the queen’s own library. You will find in them wondrous things she speaks of. The things she wants you to embroider. There’s Cosmographia—Munster’s maps of the world with great sea monsters. And Gesner’s Historia Animalium—every animal known, and a book of every known herb and plant—although I suspect you’d find excellent examples in the queen’s garden. And there’s the last—a book of emblems. The queen is very fond of her emblems. Do you think you are up to the task?” I quickly nodded.
“You know, some think Katherine Ashley has been with Elizabeth the longest,” Blanche began as I ran my finger over the beautiful raised lettering of Cosmographia. I looked at her when she paused. “But it’s me who was there from the beginning, and it’s me who will outlast them all. I remember seeing that sweet, redheaded babe in the arms of her mother. Her mother did love her so, she did, in the few short years they had together. It’s been a difficult life, no matter the brave, merry face the queen gives us all. And for now, my queen is happy, and I’ll not see anyone ruin her happiness. Am I being clear?”
“As though I, a mere girl from the country, could. I love the queen. I always have,” I responded as I held the books to my chest. God’s me, they were treasures, treasures I had wished my whole life for.
“It’s taken less to bring a monarch down,” Blanche responded icily. I stood staring at her, her large eyes unreadable. “Why have you come here?” she continued. “What do you want from the queen?”
“Why, as you said,” I told her, my head held high, “I do not know my own heart.”
She blinked several times, and I saw, despite her forthrightness, that she was kind. “I believe you,” she said. “But that is why I worry for my queen. For you possess the ability to love and hate with equal passion, just as the queen does. And who knows what ill winds may turn your heart.”
She gave me one final inspection and said, “I don’t suppose a girl from the country can read, can she?”
“I can a little,” I told her, in half truth.
“Just as I thought. I’m in charge of the queen’s jewels, her papers, and most importantly, her library. You may visit me sometime if you wish.” She started to walk away. “And one last thing. Do not cross Mrs. Ashley in any way.”
I nodded and called after her, “I hold the queen in great admiration. I do not seek anything of her.” Once again, a half truth, but it did not matter, for she had already seen the full truth in my palm.
The gravity of the situation has finally settled on my poor queen. Just yesterday she found the two, the admiral and the princess, embracing in the garden under the same peach tree where I was seduced, and the princess tickling his neck, no less, as they kissed. The queen won’t come out of her room, even though my lord pounds on her door and the sound reverberates through the entire house. Everyone is on edge; even Jane the fool does not seem my friend anymore. Yesterday as I came down a hall, I perchanced to see the admiral standing outside his wife’s door yet again. The door opened and a young groom, Porfirio (the Handsome, we maids call him), walked out innocently enough with a bucket and broom, but the admiral noticed his shirt in disarray, and there ensued quite a commotion with much yelling and screaming between husband and wife, with him proclaiming he shall have them both, Katherine and Elizabeth, meaning the queen and the young princess, and that he was the master, no matter if she be a former queen or not. Later I heard from one of her maids that the queen unbuttoned the poor groom’s shirt just before he left, knowing her husband would see, and the fool had no idea what she was about. Aye, it was a rash thing she did, aye, it was. For Porfirio’s been sacked and yet the admiral still toys with the princess. The queen has taken to her bed because of the upset. I tend to her with my potions, and she is much relieved. My own babe is beginning to show and the queen, being in like manner, guessed my shame. I told her it was Porfirio who brought me down, as he seemed an easy blame, being gone and unable to defend himself. She smiled but a little and said I could stay on, that she could not live without me.
CHAPTER 17
Nicholas Pigeon was outside my chamber, looking very handsome in a fawn-colored silk jerkin with embroidered guards of Belgian lace. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, smiling that dazzling smile. He held out a bundle of beautiful peach-colored silk. I set the books down and took the bundle from him. “I’ve a warrant for a new gown. You are to be paid ten shillings, and you may embroider what you wish on the fabric. The queen wants to be surprised. Walter Fyshe, the queen’s tailor, will complete the gown at the Wardrobe of Robes after you have finished. And if you are in need of fine threads or Spanish needles, you may ask and they will be sent to you.”
I stared at the beautiful fabric. My hands itched to hold a needle, Spanish or no. I looked up at Nicholas and found that he was staring at me, really staring. I stared back. “I do not need to be paid,” I said finally, my eyes never leaving his. “If I had to I would spin cloths of gold from gillyflowers for the queen.”
Nicholas laughed heartily, and the sound carried down the long hall. “Everyone’s paid. That’s how the court works. But if you like, I can mark it in the lists as a gift. For the queen is very fond of her gifts. Indeed she is.”
“Yes,” I said. “A gift.” We stood still staring at each other. “The queen spoke of the Wardrobe of Robes. She said I would cause great havoc if I was housed there. Why would she say such a thing? I would be lost in heaven if I could work there. What is it like?”
“What?” He laughed. “I’m sorry; I was lost in your beautiful green eyes.”
“The Wardrobe of Robes,” I repeated, my ears aflame.
“Full of randy men. The queen is correct in her assessment. You would cause great distraction. I myself wouldn’t get any work done.”
“But what is it truly like?” I asked, ignoring his comment. “Is it like a great treasure chest?”
He laughed. “Indeed. A treasure chest. Historical robes, the most beautiful gowns in the world. The best craftsmen, too. Tailors, embroiderers, glovers, hat-makers—anything you can imagine is made there.”
“Oh, but I would give anything to see it. Where
is it?”
He laughed. “Near the wharf. But it’s truly not a place for the likes of you. It’s quite a hardscrabble workplace.”
“I’m used to hardscrabble. I promise, I would find a quiet corner and you would not hear aye or nay from me.”
“There are hardly any women, just the silk women, and they are ugly hags. But perhaps your maid could brighten our work. Did you not say she helps with the spools?”
“Perhaps,” I said, my heart sinking, wondering how Anna fared the day.
“And the queen’s best embroiderers, David Smith and William Middleton, I tell you, are crying over their needles with the news of this warrant. Not very pleased, I say. But what I would give to see their faces if I did smuggle you in. Exactly what would you do for me?” He grinned. “Perhaps a sweet kiss?” God’s me, he was charming.
I glanced down at his lips and involuntarily licked mine. I looked away, blushing. Why had Christian, lying at the base of the pear tree that awful night, suddenly appeared before my eyes?
“I’m sorry,” he said with all sincerity. “I was too forward.” He cleared his throat.
I turned away and bit my tongue.
“You will be helping with the queen’s gowns at the store here. She always maintains a couple score nearby. Several of her ladies are in charge of keeping them aired. Dorothy Broadbelt, I believe, is one. When she’s not secretly visiting John Abington under the stairs. He’s a mere clerk of the kitchen, you know.”
“And why would such news be of interest to you, Nicholas Pigeon?”
“I think it’s quite funny, a girl of her stature with a boy like that. But it’s mere gossip, and I shan’t repeat it,” he muttered, embarrassed. “There is a garden just below. Would you care to take a turn with me? One shouldn’t linger in this hall, you know.”
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