“Yes,” she said after a moment, softening. “I can trust you. Eyes never lie, Spirit.” She sighed, pulling her hand from mine. “Tell me another tale. One of young love and happy kisses.”
I found indeed I could not lie, not to her, and what I said caught me by surprise. “I think I may have loved once, perhaps, but the life he offered was beneath me. He was a shepherd,” I told her.
“Ah, a country lad. Was he handsome?” she turned to me.
“Yes, very,” I said, lowering my eyes.
“Gallant?”
“Indeed,” I said, trying to hide.
“Oh, how I love a good romantic tale. If I can’t have it, I only truly wish for it for others. As long as I approve, of course. So tell me, Spirit, why are you here and not with your shepherd? Let me guess, the noble Spaniard turned your eye and you came to London in search of him.”
I didn’t answer. She reached up and tilted my chin to her, and something strange within me turned as she searched my eyes. “Well,” she said after a moment, smiling. “You are with me. And here you shall stay. For I don’t easily let go of those that are dear to me, as you shall soon know. I am much cheered,” she said, starting to sit up. “Where are my birds? And my beloved Day! Someone fetch Robert. Eyes, Eyes, where are you!” she called. Not long after, he rushed in, as though he had barely stepped out of the room. I stood up and backed away. And it was as though I wasn’t there. They embraced and kissed, both tearful, murmuring sweet nothings. They loved each other. They truly did.
The next morning Dorothy took me to the queen’s store to select a gown for the outdoor feast. Her store was currently in the Tower, where most of the queen’s jewels were also, in the Jewel House. My stomach fluttered with anticipation as we walked up the stairs. Dorothy explained that sometimes the store was moved when the queen went on progress or to another palace and it took dozens of yeoman, great leather trunks, and weeks of planning. “Edmund Pigeon stands there with the list, and if anything gets by him without him marking it down, his face turns beet red and he stomps his feet like a child.”
“Who’s Edmund? Wouldn’t that be Nicholas’s job as Clerk of the Wardrobe of Robes?” I asked as we continued up the stairs.
Dorothy stopped and looked at me. “Nicholas. What’s the little liar been telling you?” She laughed. “Edmund is his father, Clerk of the Wardrobe of Robes; Nicholas is his assistant. Someday, perhaps, he shall inherit his father’s position. Someday.”
“Why would he lie to me?” I asked as we walked past the guards into the store. It was a circular room the entire floor of the Tower. It was lit by two small arched windows and a low fire. A young maid walked from the back of the room. She stopped and bowed nervously. She sat down in a chair by the fire, her face lowered. My eyes adjusted to the light and I saw that there were many gowns hung on forms, others draped over rods, and stacks of boxes and trunks neatly organized. Rush mats were strewn upon the floor, and there were several carved oak chairs about the room. On a long table was a parchment book—records, perhaps? There was the most sweet smell, like crushed roses and lily water. I inhaled the aroma as my eyes took in with wonder what was before me.
“Oh, who knows. He’s very ambitious,” Dorothy continued. “He means to marry one of us, and I tell you, as handsome as he is, he’ll probably hit his mark. That wasn’t, by chance, who you were visiting with in the garden last night, was it?”
“No, I was simply smelling the roses, as you were,” I said, smiling.
“Once a week gowns are aired from the trunks and alternated,” Dorothy explained as she lifted one off a rod and shook it. “We sprinkle sweet powders, too, to keep them from smelling. The tower is quite full of odors and long-ago ills, I tell you. The queen won’t come here; as you know, it holds many unhappy memories.
“This be just a small part of her wardrobe,” she continued. “Every other week or so she asks for certain gowns to be brought. That’s part of Nicholas’s job—to bring them to the palace and mark them in the lists. The queen possesses a great memory; she can name all her gowns, and she has nearly two hundred. And over a hundred each of kirtles, foreparts, mantles, petticoats, cloaks, several score of jeweled fans…”
“Two hundred gowns?” I interrupted, astonished. I walked up to a gorgeous court gown that was hanging on a form, lightly touching the dark plum damask and ruched silk. The stitching was done diamond-wise, couched in gold thread, and set inside the diamond shapes were tiny pearled half-moons. I pulled the fabric closer to me. Why, miss, you have a mark, a perfect half-moon.
“That’s Italian,” Dorothy told me as I dropped the fabric. “She doesn’t like that one for some reason or another—one never knows with the queen. That one is French,” she said, nodding to another gorgeous square-bodiced gown of dark green. “And there are plenty more in the trunks—fans, gloves, hats, cloaks. The list is there.” She nodded to the long table. “ Everything must be accounted for. At any given time her tailors might be working on three or more new gowns for her, or reworking several old ones. And of course, there’s the one you are sewing in secret.” She winked at me. “You shall show me, won’t you?”
I ignored her. I was standing in front of the black and white harlequined gown the queen had worn the night of the masque. “Black. The queen’s favorite color along with white,” explained Dorothy. “It sets off her jewelry, you see. The white symbolizes her chastity, and the black her sincerity.”
The maid by the fire giggled.
“Hush!” Dorothy admonished. “She must be new and untrained,” she said to me. Then she pulled me farther into the dresses. “Now let’s see, the queen wants to be very fetching for Sir Melville this afternoon.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Hadn’t I just seen her crying and wretched over Robert Dudley? Dorothy glanced at my face. “She’s only trying to impress Sir Melville so he’ll send a glowing report back to Mary, Queen of Scots. But she gets double her pleasure in it all, for the jealousy she causes poor Robert.” She snorted. “Watch carefully; you can learn a thing or two from her.”
“I think I already have,” I said.
“But it’s a dangerous game, I tell you, fishing for men’s souls. It rises passions in them they cannot control. Vain doltheads most of them are.” She fingered a gown, stroking the fine cut velvet, then moved on to another.
I lifted yet another one, examining the detail of embroidered dragonflies and pansies. The dragonfly’s wings were not quite correct. Whoever had stitched them had never sat by a country pond on a hot summer day. “Tell me, Dorothy, have you ever heard of a Mrs. Eglionby at court?” I asked casually. “My late mother said to ask of her.”
“No, I can’t say that I have,” she responded as she pulled out a jersey petticoat and held it in front of her.
But the maid near the fire spoke out. “I used to know of a Mrs. Eglionby!”
My head spun around as Dorothy said, “Hush and mind your business.”
I dropped the gown and walked over. “You did?” I whispered low.
“Not me, but me mother. My mother used to be in the service of Catherine Willoughby, the Duchess of Suffolk, she did.” She pulled up a stitch from her sewing.
“Well then, who was Mrs. Eglionby?” I asked. “Was she also in the service of the duchess?”
“No, I believe she was the governess of some ward of the duchess’s. A baby.”
“A baby?” I whispered.
“I believe the babe died, though, and Mrs. Eglionby moved on. Crusty old bat she was, me mother said.”
“Where is your mother now?” I kept my voice low.
“Why, she be still with the duchess in the country at Grimsthorpe. The duchess does not come to court anymore. She never got over the loss of her two own sons who died. And she married one of her grooms. Those days are over for her.”
“If I were to get a note to you, do you think you could send it to your mother?”
“If I could have a coin or two I could, I suppose.”
&n
bsp; “And your name?”
“Iris, me name is Iris.”
“What are you two mumbling about over there?” Dorothy called as she walked over to us.
She was holding up one of the queen’s court gowns, a white satin. She giggled and put her finger to her lip, then held up a fan and posed. “Do I look like a queen?” she asked.
“Very much so,” I said. She looked beautiful. She could probably have her pick of suitors, yet she had fallen for a kitchen boy. She opened a trunk and started pulling gowns out. “This one was refurbished from one of her mother’s. She can’t stand to see it, but she can’t stand to part with it either. These gowns all cost a fortune. They are considered part of her treasury, so worthy they are.”
“Does she ever speak of her, her mother?” I asked as I came closer and peered over her shoulder.
“No, poor thing,” Dorothy said. “I think she has very little memory of her; she was only three when it happened. Beheaded. Right in the courtyard here. She considers Queen Katherine Parr her true mother, although there was some falling-out between the two at some point. Pure gossip, and the queen never forgave her stepmother for thinking so ill of her. Katherine Ashley knows the whole sordid tale. Chompdown, us maids have nicknamed her, for her name was Champedowne before she married and she has a loose tongue. Prod her with some wine and it will all come tumbling out, although she’s been told not to speak of it. Not the wisest one, she is. She spent months locked up here in the Tower, she did, Mrs. Ashley, for her role in the whole affair.” Dorothy kept searching through the gowns in the trunk and finally drew out a lovely crimson damask, its flowers and curlicued vines pin-tuckered and spangled with gold beads.
“This will do,” Dorothy said, holding the gown up to her chest. “It’s alluring, don’t you think?”
“Yes indeed,” I said, mesmerized by the flame red.
“Try it on, silly,” she urged.
“But won’t we get in trouble?” I asked.
“Bah.” She laughed. “She won’t tell,” she said, nodding back toward the fire. I peered over the top of the trunk and saw that Iris had disappeared.
“Here. I’ll assist you.” She helped me out of my own gown and into the red damask. “Now you are alluring. If your rose garden admirer could see you now!” She handed me a fan. “My, aren’t we the fine ladies,” she said with a giggle. But I was suddenly dizzy as images of half-moons and dragonflies flashed through my mind. I glanced back toward the fire. Would Iris find Mrs. Eglionby?
Dorothy pulled my arm. “Come! Come! This way!” she said. “There’s a mirror.” I followed her. We stood side by side. And then she stepped away so I could peer at myself. I looked regal. Regal indeed.
You can imagine my horror when I learned the country home the admiral was taking us to was Sudeley Castle, the very castle that looms above my father’s land. I’ve kept myself hidden among the stone walls, for I intend for my father never to lay eyes on me again. But one day, not long after we arrived, I was sent out to the fields to gather bitterweed, for my queen was very sickly again, the babe kicking her innards and causing much mischief in these late months. After I had found my herb and picked it, I stood up and locked eyes with my very own brother, Godfrey, not but a hundred yards away. And in that long silent moment, I understood he had known about Papa, and was sorry for it. But by his knowing, and not doing anything, he had betrayed me in the worst way of all. I nodded my head, pulled my cloak tighter, and turned back to the castle. I knew he would not tell, for he would not betray me again. And I heaved a great sigh of relief, until I saw Jane the fool watching me from an upper window.
CHAPTER 20
There was a gift for me when we went back to my room. “Nicholas Pigeon brought it earlier,” Anna said as I unwrapped it. It was a fan with a ruby-tipped handle, as beautiful as the ones Dorothy and I had played with in the queen’s store. A note read, “For my Spirit, who heals me. Much love, Elizabeth.”
“It’s from the queen,” I said as I fanned myself.
“Of course,” Anna said. “There’s already been much talk of your sudden closeness with the queen. Where you are from. Who you may be. They say the queen is bewitched by you.” She was annoyed, her words jumpy, and it took me a moment to decipher what she said.
“And where would you hear such talk?” I asked her, irritated. I put the fan down and picked up the queen’s gown. I sat and studied the lion. “In the laundry?”
“There is talk low and high of you.”
I started stitching. “Oh Anna, people always talk of me.”
“But you always cared before. You act like you’ve no care in the world now.”
“I never cared. You know it. And how about you? With that mop-headed fool Oliver Twiste.” I threaded one of the Spanish needles I’d received from the Wardrobe.
“He looks at me. He makes me laugh. I deserve a little happiness, do I not?”
“His own mother talks ill of him. Have a care, Anna.”
“Do you not think that I deserve love someday?”
“Not in the laundry,” I said.
“It’s those who are high and mighty who have the farthest to fall. You play with a match that burns on both ends, you do.” She straightened my fabric out, kneeling down before me. I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t know what you speak of,” I said. I plunged the needle in the fabric.
“That Nicholas. I don’t trust him, Kat,” she said. “No matter how amiable and gallant he acts. You should be wary. And Lord Ludmore. Something deep and dark abides in him. If you look into his eyes, there is nothing there.”
I laughed. “Why, Anna, you sound just like Grace.”
“Grace was right. No one can be trusted.”
“The gossips are saying you must be the queen’s long-lost daughter,” Blanche Parry said with a little smile as she handed me a marzipan. Made of sugar, it was sculpted like a perfect miniature pear. I held it up a moment, spinning it with my fingers. I popped it into my mouth, where it quickly melted.
“Why would they say such a thing?” I asked, leaning back. We sat under some filbert trees, near the banks of the Thames.
The queen and Robert Dudley floated nearby on her barge, lounging back on golden silk cushions and laughing loudly. Sir James Melville moped in a smaller barge, Anne Windsour feeding him a sugared plum. Other couriers lounged under little pavilions built for the occasion that were decorated with birch branches and flowers from the surrounding fields—roses, gillyflowers, lavender, and marigold. The queen’s servants strewed fragrant herbs along pathways and circulated with trays laden with delicacies—jellies in the shapes of fanciful birds and candied comfits. A warm sweet wine from Anjou was being served, and I slowly sipped it from my goblet.
“Because she’s shown you such marked attention. And you do favor each other in many ways, by looks and by temperament.” Blanche wore an underdress of russet silk edged in gold beneath her black livery. I wore my gown of carnation silk, stitched with friars’ knots and roses, grapes, and leaves intertwined in branches of Venice gold.
I laughed as I ate a sweet wafer. “But I’m too old to be her daughter. Aren’t I?”
“A love child can come at any time,” Blanche said, her smile fading. “There were rumors once of a child. When the queen was but fifteen and a princess. Ah, here is the handsome Nicholas Pigeon.”
I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun and stared at him. I looked away as he sat down next to me on the linen Blanche and I shared.
“How is the cloak coming, my gift for the queen?” Blanche asked him.
“Soon, it will be ready soon,” he said. “Excellent work takes time, does it not, Katherine?” When I did not reply he continued. “I hear your design has monstrous and exotic creatures you’ve found in a book of evil. Everyone is quite intrigued. The rumors are flying about the Wardrobe. And some say you are a temptress with extraordinary stitching powers bought from the devil. What say you, Blanche Parry, reader of palms? Will the queen like he
r surprise, or will she be repulsed and have poor Kat thrown in the Tower?”
I frowned. I wasn’t sure if he was teasing me or if there truly were such wicked rumors of me.
“Well, as to the book you refer to I can say I’ve seen it myself and it bears no evil within. And as to the rest, I do believe only the future will tell. Oh, what could Anne want?” Even though Kat Ashley was “Mother of the Maids,” it was Blanche who the maids sought, one after another it seemed, for all their worries big and small. Blanche stood up, nodded briefly, and walked away.
I had yet to look at Nicholas. “Well, I see you found your gift,” he said softly. He referred to the feathered and jeweled fan, which lay next to me on the linen.
“Yes,” I said as I lifted it to my face. “I thought perhaps it was from you till I learned you are a mere assistant to your father.” I waved the fan back and forth.
“Oh, I am sorry,” he said smoothly, moving closer. “I guess I was mistaken. For I never took you to be lofty.”
I turned toward him as the sun shone on his black curls. “If you only knew how false your words are.”
He inched closer. “Then tell me. I will listen to your tale of woe.” He smelled of the Anjou wine.
“Not till you tell me why you lied to me.”
He leaned back on his arms and sighed. “I’ll have it someday. My father’s role. I already do most of it. Why, look at my hands,” he held them out, his nails black rimmed and stained with ink. “My father’s getting on in years. He’s never been the same since my mother passed away. I wanted to impress you.” He took my hand. I pulled it away. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“Hmm. Let’s see.” I smiled. “Perhaps a trip to the Queen’s Wardrobe would appease me.”
“My, you are full of guile, aren’t you?” He smiled. “Father would not be pleased. He doesn’t like women about; it causes distractions. And I have to say I agree with him on that account, for you, Katherine, have me quite distracted. I think of you day and night. I truly do.”
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