All the Maids of Honour, along with some of the Queen’s Ladies of the Privy Chamber, had been assigned to decorate the Great Hall for that night’s feast. Long tables were covered with holly, ivy, mistletoe and evergreen boughs, and every colour of ribbon and spangle. Under the strict eye of Mistress Jones, they were supposed to work efficiently to turn them into Christmas decorations to be hung by the pages from the beams and mantels of the hall.
But efficiency didn’t seem to be the order of the day. Most of the ladies sang as they worked, leaping up to do a dance or twirl around with ribbons like wild Morris Dancers at a fair.
Alys laughed at their antics. For the first time since arriving at court, she didn’t feel quite so uncertain. Christmas was Christmas everywhere, after all, whether at Greenwich or Dunboyton, and she knew what to do. Wind evergreen boughs together and tie them with ribbon. It was almost automatic.
She held up the wreath she had just finished and tweaked the bow a bit. She remembered such wreaths made at Dunboyton every year, with greenery she had gathered with her mother. And, later that night, she had glimpsed her parents embracing under the newly made kissing boughs. The thought made her smile, yet it also evoked a deep, bittersweet sadness. Even in that lonely place, her parents had never been alone when they had each other. Would she ever know such a thing?
An image of John flashed in her mind, the look on his face as he warned her of danger. What had he meant? She hardly knew what to think of him now, what to do.
She shook away the thoughts and reached for two bent wire hoops, binding them into a sphere as she remembered her mother doing. She chose the darkest, glossiest loops of holly and ivy from the table, twining them around the wires and tying them off with streamers of crimson ribbon.
‘Are you making a kissing bough, Alys?’ Ellen asked teasingly.
Alys glanced at her new friend across the table and smiled. Ellen was laughing, as usual, chatting with all the ladies around her, yet Alys wondered if she was feeling ill. Her cheeks were very pink, her eyes too bright. ‘My mother taught me how to make them when I was a child. She said her mother taught her.’
Ellen held up her own wreath. ‘How lovely it must be to have a kind mother like that.’
Alys wondered about Ellen’s own family. She knew Ellen’s brother was in some sort of trouble no one spoke about and her father wished her to marry someone wealthy. But what of her mother? Her home? ‘She was the best of mothers, and I miss her very much. My father says she could not live without her warm sunshine. But she did teach me a great deal about Christmas decorations.’
Ellen’s mouth opened in a shocked little ‘o’. ‘Alys, I am sorry! I didn’t mind to remind you of any painful losses, not today.’
‘It’s not painful now. I have wonderful memories of her. Like making kissing boughs!’
‘Was your mother not Spanish?’ one of the other ladies asked, a tinge of suspicion in her voice. ‘Do they even celebrate Christmas there?’
‘Of course they do,’ Alys answered quickly. ‘And my mother was quite young when she came here.’
‘How fascinatingly exotic.’ Ellen sighed. ‘I would so love to travel, to see something beyond England. I am not surprised your mother pined for the sun on such grey days as this.’
‘You must marry an ambassador, then, Ellen,’ another lady said, unfurling a spool of silver ribbon in the air. ‘One who will carry you away from here!’
Ellen laughed. ‘Where is he, then? Mayhap your kissing bough will bring him to me, Alys?’
Alys held up her completed bough, a sphere of greenery and red ribbon that fluttered enticingly. ‘My mother did say if you stand beneath it and close your eyes, you will have a vision of your future husband.’
‘I shall test it, then!’ one of the Maids said. She snatched the bough from Alys’s hands and held it high above her own head, squeezing her eyes shut. ‘Nay, it works not. I see only darkness!’
Alys laughed and took it back. ‘It needs mistletoe.’
Ellen offered a dark branch, heavy with pearly white berries. ‘Try this one.’
Alys threaded it through the centre of the sphere, fastening it with the bows. She wondered if John might see it and kiss her beneath the greenery, if they might have a flash of clarity between them. But she shook her head even as the hope came to her. She could not afford such foolish thoughts.
‘Who would you want to see beneath the kissing bough, Alys?’ Ellen whispered.
Alys felt her cheeks turn warm, as if she had been caught in her thoughts. ‘No one at all, I fear.’
‘Really? No one at court has caught your eye?’ Ellen said with a knowing little smile. ‘Everyone has their little admirations, even though the Queen forbids us to take them seriously. There must be someone you think is handsome?’
‘Of course. There are many handsome men at court.’
‘Perhaps Lord Merton?’
Alys gave a startled laugh. ‘Lord Merton? He is your admirer, surely.’
‘But he seems to like you.’ Ellen held up a length of green ribbon as if to admire it. ‘Or maybe someone younger? Sir John Huntley is very good looking, though sadly his estate is in disorder.’
Alys swallowed hard and stared down at her work. She feared she had not yet entirely learned courtly dissembling. ‘I think no one could deny he is handsome, whatever his estate.’
‘Very true,’ Ellen said with a sigh. ‘’Tis sad he has left court, then.’
Shocked, Alys looked up. ‘Left court?’ He had left again, with no word to her?
‘That’s right. No guessing as to where, though. Or how long till he returns. Can you hand me that piece of holly there?’
Alys handed her the greenery, but she felt as if she did so in a dreamy haze. If John was indeed gone, where was he? Why had he left so soon after warning her of danger?
There was a sudden burst of noise at the end of the hall as a group of men burst through the doors, led by Lord Merton, who seemed intent on living up to his role as Lord of Misrule in an outrageous purple-and-green doublet with padded shoulders and five feathers in his cap. They trailed with them the cold of the day outside and their hearty greetings made all the Maids giggle and blush.
Alys was glad of the distraction and smiled at them as well. Better than worrying about John, who was the most maddening, inexplicable man ever.
‘Lady Ellen,’ Lord Merton called as he strode down the hall, followed by his entourage. ‘You ladies should join us outside. We are going skating today.’
Ellen frowned down at her pile of ribbons, but a smile threatened to break through. ‘Some of us must work, Lord Merton, and cannot be frolicking all day.’
‘You shouldn’t be so harsh, my lady, I vow,’ Sir Walter Terrence said with a laugh. ‘We are not merely frolicking. Her Majesty bids us to seek out a fine Yule log this afternoon. We could use the artistic advice of you lovely ladies.’
‘Perhaps then we should go with you,’ Ellen said. ‘You cannot be trusted to find the right one. Alys, ladies, will you come?’
Most of the ladies clamoured with excited ‘ayes’, but Alys had another idea. If most of the courtiers were to be gone from the palace, perhaps she could mount a small search for clues in the mystery of John and his sudden disappearances? She shivered at the thought, fearful and excited all at the same time. It would be good to do something, no matter how far-fetched, rather than just worry and wonder.
‘I don’t care for the cold,’ she answered. ‘I think I shall stay here by the fire.’
Ellen gave her a worried glance. ‘Do you feel unwell, Alys? Mayhap I should stay here with you.’
‘Nay, you must go and enjoy the day,’ Alys answered. ‘I am quite well, but I will be content here alone for a while.’
‘Aye,’ Ellen said with a nod. ‘It does sometimes feel too crowded h
ere, does it not? Like a beehive, always buzzing.’
That was exactly what Alys had thought when she first arrived at the palace—it was a beehive, always busy, always noisy. And she needed quiet to venture out. ‘I will make sure the decorations are all arranged.’
‘Well, if you are sure...’ Ellen said.
Alys climbed atop a stool to reach up and tie some of the ribbon loops, pretending to be most intent on her task as the others left. Once they were gone, taking their laughter and chatter with them, the hall seemed hauntingly silent.
She couldn’t stop wondering about John’s departure from court. Where had he really gone? Would he return? Was he safe? Her worries wouldn’t stop whirling in her mind. Before she quite realised what she was doing, she climbed down from her stool and hurried out of the hall.
The corridors were crowded, but only with servants hurrying about their tasks. The Queen was closeted with her Privy Council and would see no one for hours, so most of the courtiers were out riding or seeing to their own business. No one paid any attention to Alys as she made her way through the maze of the palace. She asked a maid scrubbing at one of the fireplace grates where Sir John might be lodged. The girl giggled, but pointed her in its direction.
The chamber was at the end of long, narrow, distant corridor. She was able to find it thanks to the tapestry the maid described hanging nearby, but she wasn’t sure if she could ever find it again.
She looked both ways and, seeing no one nearby, tried the door latch. To her surprise, it turned easily under her hand, unlocked. That did not bode well for any secrets being found inside, but she had come thus far already.
Alys cautiously eased the door open, carefully listening for any sound, any sign of movement. Only once she was sure she was alone did she slip inside.
It was a tiny chamber, more like a closet wedged into the layers of walls, but John had it to himself, which had to be a mark of some royal favour. The furniture was plain but of good, serviceable quality, a narrow bed draped in green and white, a desk and chair, a carved clothes chest, a looking glass above a washstand.
Alys wasn’t sure where a true spy would start, or if she would even know what she was looking for if she found it. She opened the clothing chest at the foot of the bed and poked through the garments neatly folded there. They smelled of John, of that clean, almost lemon scent, and she quickly closed the lid on it. She found nothing unusual there, even when she felt around the bottom of the chest to see if there was a false bottom. She did not notice when her sleeve caught on the hinge of a box.
She glanced through the books and papers piled on the desk. There were a few documents in Spanish, but they all seemed to be about shipping manifests. It could be a code, of course, but she would need longer to even start to decipher such a thing. The books were all the usual things a gentleman would have, poetry and philosophy.
She felt most foolish as she slipped out of the chamber and hurried back through the corridors, blindly searching for the shelter of the maids’ dormitory. She went down several wrong corridors into unfamiliar-looking chambers. She did long to know John’s secrets, but surely such knowledge would do her no good unless he told her himself. Unless he trusted her.
Her thoughts had her so distracted, she became hopelessly lost again and stumbled into a pantry before she found the right staircase. At least, she thought, the halls were silent and there was no one to see her confused state.
Except for one. To Alys’s surprise, Ellen was already in the maids’ chamber, lying alone on her bed, her bright pink-velvet skirts puffed around her like flower petals. She lay there so very still that for an instant Alys was afraid she had swooned.
She hurried closer, winding her way past all the clothes chests and tumbled books and possessions on the floor. ‘Ellen? Are you unwell? What is amiss?’
Ellen rolled over to face her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she had been crying, her cheeks pale. ‘Oh, Alys, there you are. I did wonder. You were not in the gallery when I looked.’
‘I thought you would be out all day with the others. What is wrong?’
‘Nothing at all. It was just very dull, as everything is at court.’ Ellen sat up against her bolsters and gave Alys a bright smile, a smile too brittle. ‘Tell me more about your home. Dunboyton, is it?’
Alys was startled by the sudden change of topic. She sat down carefully at the end of the bed. ‘My home is much more dull than court. It is far from anywhere and the castle is very old. Very cold and lonely.’ That was all true, but she also remembered the beauties of Dunboyton, missed it every night as she fell asleep. She didn’t know how to talk about that ‘But the sea is more beautiful than anything else I have ever seen. So changeable, sometimes grey and stormy, sometimes as blue as a sapphire. I like to walk along the cliffs above the waves every day.’
‘It sounds lovely. Did your mother take you there when you were a child?’
‘She did. We often went walking together.’
‘She must have been interesting. I grew up in my grandmother’s house after my mother died, I don’t remember her at all.’
‘I am sorry, Ellen. I do miss my mother so much, but at least I have memories of her.’
‘And she was Spanish?’
‘Her parents were and she still spoke the language and remembered some of the old traditions. She still had brothers in Spain. She said maybe one day we would travel back to Seville together and eat the oranges there that taste like the sun itself.’
‘Like the sun.’ Ellen leaned back on her bolsters with a deep sigh. She stared up at Alys with a strangely intent expression. ‘Tell me, Alys. Was your mother of the—the old faith?’
That was dangerous talk indeed. Startled, Alys glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. ‘The—old faith? I do not know. I was still fairly young when she died, she never spoke to me about such matters. My father keeps an Anglican chaplain, but I admit he has never seemed deeply devout to me.’
Ellen nodded and seemed satisfied with such an answer. ‘That is as it should be. We can’t be responsible for everything our parents do, can we? Now, tell me, what shall I wear tonight for the banquet? I am so tired of those silver sleeves, I was thinking something red...’
* * *
John was weary and travel-stained as he made his way to his Greenwich chamber. London had been a frustrating experience. The landlady at Peter’s lodgings had loved to talk, would talk for hours, days, if encouraged, which was always useful. Yet it took twice as long to sort out the wheat from the chaff of her gossip.
Peter, or at least a man much resembling him, had indeed stayed there and had greeted many visitors to his rooms, they came and went every day. There had been ladies, at least two, in hooded cloaks so she could not see their faces, as well as men speaking some strange language. She declared, though, that she was not one to mix in her lodgers’ business, as long as they paid their rent.
He went to taverns and shops nearby. No one was willing to speak openly of anything to do with the Spanish, but John knew how to discover things deeply buried, even without the speaker’s knowledge they had given it away. Peter had squired a lady around when he was there and seemed most infatuated with her.
He made his way up the back stairs of the palace to his chamber. It was growing dark outside; he had to get ready for the night’s Christmas revels. He would much rather have an evening of reading by the fire than dancing, but there was no choice.
He thought of those few, precious evenings in Ireland with Alys, sitting by the fire, talking and laughing. How he ached for such a thing now, it seemed like a distant paradise.
He took off his dusty cloak and unbuttoned his doublet before he sat down to pull off his riding boots. As he tossed them aside, his gaze fell on the stack of books and papers on his desk. They were not as he left them, in their careful piles, the titles carefully o
rganised.
He hurried over to sort through them. Nothing was missing at all, even in the hidden desk drawer where he kept his coin. He never left any papers of importance in the chamber when he wasn’t there, just as he seldom left the door locked. It would only attract suspicion.
But even an unlocked door seemed to have attracted some attention. He looked through the rest of his things, his travelling cases and boxes. On the hinge of one trunk, he found his one clue, a small silver-satin bow.
Who had been going through his things? A lady? No matter who it was, they would be sorry indeed when he found them.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Round your foreheads garlands twine, drown sorrow in a cup of wine, and let us all be merry!’
Even Alys, still unsettled by her search of John’s room and her encounter with Ellen, had to smile as the whole, vast great hall rang with song. It was obvious the entire court had already been drowning their sorrows in the Queen’s fine malmsey wine. The tables were littered with the remains of the lavish feast, with goblets spilling their last red drops on to the white tablecloths, the dogs fighting over bones under the tables and the musicians playing louder and louder.
The decorations the ladies had made were wound round the fireplace mantels and hung from the ceiling beams, crowning tapestries and framing the carvings of the goddess of plenty and her bounty on the plastered walls. The Queen looked like the goddess herself, presiding over the feast of plenty. She sat atop her dais in a gown of purest white satin, trimmed in white fur and embroidered with a pattern of pearls and diamonds. She clapped and laughed at all the merriment, but Alys noticed that sometimes a pained spasm of something like sorrow crossed her painted face before she hid it again behind a smile.
Alys wondered how she could hide her own doubts and fears, if even the Queen could not entirely conceal hers. Queen Elizabeth mourned her old friend Lord Leicester and Alys longed to deny her own feelings for John, her longing for home in the midst of so much strangeness and uncertainty. Love was a painful thing, even at Christmas. Mayhap especially at Christmas.
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