The Raven's Heart

by Jesse Blackadder

  Angelique helps me to finish dressing, and the guard escorts me, knocking firmly on the door of the Queen’s bedchamber.

  Her voice comes from within: “Entrez.”

  She is standing at the far end of the room and with a jolt of pleasure I see that she is sumptuously set out as a man. She is wearing a satin doublet and a cloak of damask edged with fur. Her long legs are shapely in velvet hose. She has selected a wig in the same russet tone as her hair and her green eyes seem to glow. She offers her arm to me.

  “Mistress Blackadder, shall we dance?”

  Such questions from a prince are not questions. She leads me to the center of the room. I realize we are for once alone. No guard or servant attends us in the bedchamber. There is no one to see as she puts her arm around my waist and spins me quickly into position.

  “Play!” she commands. Music starts in the supper room, and I realize she has hidden the musicians so they cannot see us, nor we them. She fixes her gaze upon mine and leads me into a pavane.

  She strides into each step as if she has danced the man’s part always, turning me with a restrained power, her eyes never leaving mine, burning into me. I, for the first time a woman under such a gaze, begin breathing faster, my heart drumming. Her gaze pinions me, as fierce as the wild stare of a hawk.

  We are alone, we are dancing together. I am high in her favor. My moment has come.

  But I look at her and, though she is dressed as a man and I a woman, I am Robert again, staring up at the Queen as she mounts my horse to ride into Edinburgh. My fortressed heart hungers for the life and color of her, for her laughter and her power. I feel everything that has ever been hidden under my breast bindings, every hour of my life I have been alone and unseen.

  The last step of the dance presses us together and I wonder if she can hear my heart’s thunder. She is so close I can feel her breath. The kingdom stops to wait for us. She lifts her hand and her fingers touch my cheek. For a moment she looks so deeply into me that I feel every secret I am carrying is revealed.

  She steps back and the blood rushes to my face. What did she see in my eyes?

  “Go behind the screen and change,” she says to me, her voice amused. “There are clothes laid out.”

  As I step out of view, she calls on the musicians to leave by the spiral staircase. My hands are trembling as I fumble with my pins and laces. I thought I carried the secret of the barmaid’s kiss buried deep, but I feel utterly exposed. What dangerous game have I stepped into?

  The outfit laid out for me is a nobleman’s plaything of gorgeous fabrics, ruffled and furred. In the time it takes me to divest myself of the feminine and garb myself in the masculine, my heart does not slow nor my color reduce. When I am dressed, I stand for a long moment trying to gather myself.

  She has her back to me when I emerge from behind the screen and as I draw close she turns suddenly. There is a flash and she is in fighting stance, a sword held high.

  “Today you will teach me the art of swordplay.” She gestures to where another sword lies waiting.

  The sword is not my strength. I am better at defending myself with a dagger when the element of surprise can be all. But I know enough to teach the Queen some basic craft. Not trusting my voice, I bow, pick up the sword, and face her. As I open my mouth to give the first instruction, she springs to the attack.

  It is apparent in a moment that she knows plenty of swordcraft and there is something deadly in her eyes as she comes for me. At the first clash of our swords, the guards hammer on the door. Without a flicker of distraction, she orders them to stay outside. She makes a thrust, which I parry, swiveling the blade so that the flat of it clashes against hers. She attacks again and I keep the sword close to my body and my feet firm on the ground, the very moves I was about to teach her. I make a feint and when she blocks I try to dodge under her blade. She is fast enough to parry the thrust and I feel the strength of her arm.

  With the rush of desire and fear coursing in my veins, I almost forget I am fighting the Queen and I attack with all the skill I possess. The metallic clash of blade upon blade is loud in my ears. Then she comes fast and low for a strike and the tip of her sword licks its hot tongue across my arm. The fabric in my sleeve parts and I gasp as a trickle of blood begins to run. Something passes across her face. For an instant I think it is regret. Then she comes at me again, hard, and I realize she means to show me no mercy.

  To defend myself, to touch her flesh with a sword, would be instant death. But I could not strike her anyway, even if it would save my life. She has looked into my soul.

  I lower my sword. She catches it with her blade and flicks it away with a clatter. She advances, sword tip to my chest, and I back away until the stone wall halts me. She raises the point of the sword to my throat.

  “It appears you have not been completely frank with me,” she says. “It appears that the Tulliallan Blackadders have no daughter by the name of Alison. It appears you have made secret reports to men who work for Lord Bothwell. It appears you are a spy and perhaps you know of some plot to bring down my rule. Perhaps you are the very core around which the plot turns? It appears there are more reasons you dress as a man than those you told me.”

  I can hear my own breath rushing in and out and the tiny splash as the stream of blood snakes down my arm, twists around my fingers, and drips to the floor. The point of her sword burns my skin.

  “Before I slay you as a traitor, explain yourself.”

  She is prepared to kill me. But in this moment I am the sole focus of her attention. Every cell of her being is turned toward me, her will at the sword’s point and my white skin pressed beneath it. Our eyes are still locked together and for an exquisite moment I cannot speak.

  She presses the sword tip harder and at last my body responds like an animal to the threat of death.

  “Your Grace, I am the daughter of Captain William Blackadder, the living heir to our family’s lands stolen by Lord Hume. I have come into your service to beg you to intercede in this injustice.”

  She presses again, till surely the end of her sword will pierce my throat. “Why do you dress as a man?”

  “My father believed the Hume family would capture me and force me into marriage,” I say, my throat tight. “He disguised me as his nephew when I was eight. I lived as a boy until I came into your service.”

  She backs the point of the sword off slightly and I become aware of the slice of pain in my upper arm.

  “Who is it you met on Christmas Eve?”

  “My father. Lord Bothwell will speak on his behalf. We are not part of any plot against you. My only charge is to ask for your help.”

  She stares at me another moment, then straightens and lays her sword down on the table. She takes up a cup of wine.

  “Lord Hume himself warned me I was hosting a viper within my own nest,” she says. “He told me the Tulliallan Blackadders had no daughter called Alison.”

  The next droplet of blood falls in a crimson splash and outside the window a robin twitters as though this was a winter day like any other. My breath is frosted on the air between us. Lord Hume has seen me. He has asked questions and he knows I am not whom I claim to be. If I cannot win over the Queen, I am in danger the moment I leave this room.

  “Lord Hume has reason to undermine me,” I say at last. “A Hume took Blackadder Castle by force. He forced my grandmother to marry with his steel at her throat, and forced her two children to wed his brothers. Hume men have murdered every Blackadder who tried to help them. Hume men murdered my own mother.”

  “How can I believe you?”

  “Your Grace, if my family petitioned you publicly, we risked my father’s life,” I say. “We have lost our birthright. This is the only way we could reach you.”

  The Queen puts down her wine. “I know what it is to have lost your birthright. I have lost my own. Do you know what it is?”

  I shake my head.

  She gestures around the room. “In France a woman may not inherit
the throne, nor rule in her own right. When my husband died, the throne went to his brother. But it is the English throne that is my real birthright denied. Elizabeth refuses to name her successor, though in law it is I. She confounds her court and infuriates her advisers, but in this matter she is as mysterious as in her playing with suitors.”

  She begins to stride, agitated. “There are many who believe I should rule England and Scotland both, a Catholic queen again, uniting the two countries in the auld religion. I have powerful supporters in England and on the continent, and I have yet to choose where I shall marry. Believe it, Robert, I shall rule England.”

  I nod. “I believe you will, Your Grace.”

  She turns to me. “But before then I should cast you from my service in disgrace,” she says, her voice cold. “You have lied to me and I require loyalty before all else.”

  I drop to my knees on the bloody floor. “Please, Your Grace. I am loyal. I swear it on my own birthright. I came to you like this only to protect my family from Hume’s fury.”

  “Hume is one of my great and loyal lords,” she says. “I will send for him and we will have the truth of this story.”

  The fear that rushes through me threatens to loosen my bowels. I want to lie my face on the ground at her feet and beg for her mercy. Yet I sense the Queen wants a different response from me. I raise my eyes.

  “Reveal me to Lord Hume and you sign my death warrant, and my father’s. But if it will prove to you that I am your loyal servant, then do so. I put our lives in your hands.”

  I hear another soft splash as the blood drips from my fingertips to the stones.

  Suddenly she steps forward and takes my chin. She tilts my face up. “I am not finished with you yet, Robert.” A smile creeps over her face. She releases me. “I will think on this further. Perhaps I can help you, but you will have to prove your loyalty to me.”

  I sway on my knees and her expression changes. “You are hurt. Go and have your wound tended.”

  She walks behind the screen and gathers my cloak. “Lord Hume will not learn who you are, not yet.”

  She wraps the cloak around me and pulls the hood over my head so I am obscured.

  “I will have a guard accompany you to your room,” she says. “Don’t let any see you like this.”

  Alone in my room, the energy runs out of me and my head spins. The cut in my arm throbs. I wipe the blood away and bind it awkwardly with a piece of cloth before I undress and kick the nobleman’s finery beneath the bed, crawl under the covers, and draw them up to my chin. My teeth chatter.

  Putting our case to the Queen has nearly cost me my life. But she will consider helping me. For the first time in my life I have taken a real step toward the castle.

  She has asked me to serve her and love her, to prove my loyalty. She does not know that today she has taken my heart for her kingdom.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  I wake to the sound of Angelique’s voice repeating my name like a chant or a spell. The room is cold, the fire dead. She is staring down at me, her forehead creased. She puts her hand on my arm and the pain of it makes me cry out.

  There are noises, lights, I can hear the crackle of the fire being stirred up. I am supported by strong hands, lifted, someone gasps, “The blood!” and I look down to see my rough bandage soaked in it. There is a bitter smell of herbs, pain as they place a compress around my wound. Angelique holds my head and helps me swallow a warm broth.

  The fire is roaring now and I can hear the whispers through the door and from the hallway outside.

  I am still shivering. There are more voices and then Angelique climbs into the bed with me. “Let me warm you,” she says. Someone pulls the covers up over us and a delicious warmth steals across the bed and envelops me.

  In the morning I am alone in the bed, but the warmth of two sharing still clings to the sheets and Angelique is moving around the room. When she sees my eyes open, she comes and sits on the side of the bed and cups her hand against my cheek, exactly where the Queen’s fingers touched me.

  “Rest today, chérie,” she says. “Too much blood from that wound. Are you in pain?”

  I shift my body and every muscle hurts, as though I have fought an entire battle and not simply cavorted in swordplay in the Queen’s bedchamber.

  “The Queen’s apothecary will come again today to speed your healing,” she says, rising. She has found my clothes and now inspects them. The tunic is stained with blood, the sleeve torn and hanging. It will take many hours of work to repair this nobleman’s suit.

  “You are good at disguise,” she says. “When you dress as Robert, no one would know you are Alison. But you must learn to disguise your heart.”

  I look at her sharply. She leans down to speak beside my ear. “If it is love you want,” she says, “at least go seeking where you have a chance of finding it.”

  Ten

  The Queen is a new language that I must study, observing until I understand the subtleties of nuance and expression, the shades of meaning, the spaces between the words.

  I have tasted one kiss, with the daughter of an innkeeper, and it has awoken desire in me. But a kiss is not love, is it? My groin aches when I think of it, but not my heart.

  Now suddenly I know love. I love the Queen, who is more truly my master than any other, even William. The Queen, who holds my life in her fine-boned fingers.

  I’m not alone in this love. It is whispered that someone has laid a spell over Holyrood Palace, that the Queen herself is an enchantress. Even her enemies’ hearts are struck when they step into her presence. In this country, clan loyalty has always run deeper than the love of king or queen. But our Queen’s court is full of nobles who are implacable enemies, whose blood feuds are almost forgotten as she enters the room.

  It has never occurred to me to feel joy, not until we have our castle again. But while I wait for the Queen’s help, while I serve her, my heart swells.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Many of the Queen’s French party returned to France before the worst of the winter set in, and the evenings are quiet. But I delight in this falling-away of her companions, for she stays in her chambers with the Marys and sends the servants away, and we spend our time dressing as men. It is a game for the Marys and often as not they would rather sew and gossip, but the Queen has become fascinated with it. We walk around her chamber, talking like two noblemen and practicing how to stand and sit, turn away an attack, drop our voices.

  In the middle of January, Beaton and La Flamina fall prey to the mild illness that has swept Holyrood, leaving only Lusty and Seton—and me—to keep the Queen company.

  “Tonight we shall go out,” she says, one evening when there is no snow falling. “I am bored with these rooms. We have practiced enough.”

  Lusty claps, but Seton looks dismayed. “Not I,” she says.

  “Come on!” Lusty urges, taking her hands.

  “It frightens me. Do not make me do it.”

  “But what an adventure! We’ll be disguised. No one will bother us.”

  “Leave her alone, Lusty.” The Queen crosses to them and pats Seton on the shoulder. “Stay here if it frightens you so.”

  “You should be frightened also,” Seton says. “What if there’s some tavern fight? What if you’re discovered? At least take a guard to watch over you.”

  “How can I go among my people trailed by guards?” The Queen lets her hand drop. “No, tonight I will be an ordinary man.”

  Sworn to secrecy, two of the Queen’s loyal French seamstresses are creating a growing collection of men’s clothes and now we begin to look through them. Lusty selects a gaudy outfit in richly colored velvets and silks and holds it up against herself, giggling. They all look to me.

  “Your pocket will be picked before the first ale,” I say. “Pick out black or blue, no embroidery or slashing.”

  It takes us as long to get ready as it would for three noblewomen to prepare for a fine evening, but at last it is done. Lusty has a female air about
her that is difficult to cover, but she will pass if no one examines her too closely. The Queen has mastered the art of looking masculine and it will not occur to many that such a tall creature could possibly be a woman. A look in her mirror is enough to show me what I know already—I am more myself as Robert than ever as Alison. I will not attract a second glance.

  “How long will you be gone?” Seton asks as we stand by the door of the staircase.

  “If we’ve not returned in three hours, you may send guards to look for us—but discreetly,” the Queen replies.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Katy’s Tams in Needris Wynd,” I say.

  We clatter down the stairs, wrap our cloaks close, and cross the courtyard, the air cold on our cheeks. I consult briefly with the guard to ensure that three young men of the Queen’s household shall be allowed back inside the gates later, and we step outside of Holyrood, the high gate clanging shut behind us.

  Lusty giggles and the Queen hushes her. “You will have to keep silent if you can’t sound more manly,” she admonishes. Lusty smothers her laughter until the effort of walking up the Canongate to Netherbow Port takes her breath. By the time we present ourselves at the city gates, she is silent.

  Katy’s Tams is owned by that rare creature, a merchant woman. Sophie Duncan took over her husband’s affairs after his early death and proved far more astute in business than he had been, becoming one of Edinburgh’s most wealthy merchants. William’s ship carried her hides and wool and salted fish across the seas and returned with Roman satins, woollens from Flanders, swords from Germany, and spices from Turkey.

  It was Sophie who sheltered William and me when we fled from my mother’s murderers, hiding us above her tavern for two days until it was safer to ride to Tulliallan. She taught us the art of disguise, cutting my hair and dressing me as a boy and transforming William into a serving woman. Two of her men rode with us for protection right to the gates of Tulliallan.

  I was too young then to wonder why Sophie knew so much of hiding and disguise and why she kept armed guards around her. Later I found out she was a Jewess, who had fled brutal persecution on the continent and sailed in William’s ship to the relative safety of Scotland. There began a relationship of mutual assistance. When Sophie married and became a merchant’s wife and then a merchant, William carried her goods and sometimes other Jews. In return, she gave us a haven in Edinburgh. Under the protection of her sharp-eyed guards, we have always been safe from Hume in her tavern, Katy’s Tams.