The Animal Stars Collection

by Jackie French

  Megan ran.

  So that was how I came to be on Megan’s lap, in a carriage with brocade cushions and a heated brick wrapped in fur to keep us warm, and guards riding at our sides.

  It was a big change from the journey from the island with Lang Ian.

  But it was as though it all happened to another dog, not me. I kept thinking if I shut my eyes I’d be back in Nanny’s kitchen, with Lally growling and snapping at the broom and Bo rolling on his back for Nanny to scratch his tummy and Mam warm and milk-smelling next to us…

  But I wasn’t.

  The days and nights all rolled together. At night we stopped at inns, where the innkeepers stared at Megan’s bare feet and ragged skirt and the puppy in her arms. But when the guards showed the gold coins in their pouches the innkeepers smiled.

  ‘Our best chamber!’ they cried as they showed me and Megan to a room with a big bed just for the two of us and fetched warm milk for me. Each night I slept with Megan on the feather mattresses and if I made a puddle on the floor, the guards would bring out more gold coins and everyone would smile once more.

  Megan stroked me and sang to me when I whimpered in my sleep and made sure my milk and oatcake were just the right temperature. Finally, at a bigger inn than all the others, she coaxed me to eat some finely chopped chicken, and let me lick the gravy from roasted mutton from her fingers. I felt my tail wag for the first time since I had left home.

  But I wasn’t Megan’s dog and she was not my mistress, and both of us knew it. It’s a thing that dogs know from the moment they are born, and some humans too, I think, how a certain dog and a certain person belong together.

  Megan looked after me. But she was more interested in one of the guards who rode outside our carriage, the one the chief guard called Davy Stop Ye Gawping.

  I wanted what my Mam had, someone to whistle to me so I’d come running, someone to fill my life. A dog is only a small part of a human’s life, but they are almost all of ours.

  And I had no one. No one of my own.

  And so we travelled. The country changed, grew softer, greener, the breeze gentler, the cattle fatter. Even the milkmaids swinging their buckets spoke with different voices from the ones I had known. Not that it mattered. We dogs understand some human words, but the sound of the voice and the smell of the speaker tell us more.

  The air smelt of honeysuckle and cattle droppings now, not salt from the sea. Tracks were rutted and narrow but our cushions were soft and Megan’s lap was even softer. When I grew bored with looking out the window and smelling new scents I’d lie on my back and Megan would scratch my tummy till I fell asleep.

  ‘Alms, alms for the poor!’

  The coach stopped so suddenly I was almost jolted off Megan’s lap. She gathered me into her arms and looked out the coach window. It was late afternoon, the shadows gathering together into dusk. ‘What is it?’ she called to Davy Stop Ye Gawping.

  ‘Alms, my lady! Alms!’

  A mob of faces peered at us—wrinkly men and women with skin stretched tight across their faces. Some of the women carried babies wrapped in ragged shawls, and others were very short with squeaky voices. The people’s feet were bare, or wrapped in rags, and their mouths were almost toothless, even the little ones.

  One woman, bolder than the rest, shoved a grubby hand into our window. She stared at Megan, surprised to see a girl in a ragged skirt riding in a fine carriage.

  Megan shrank back. ‘I have nae coin to give you.’

  ‘Gi’ us the dog then!’ croaked the woman. ‘Belike we can roast him for supper!’

  ‘Yap!’ I said. I was scared, but I could smell that Megan was scared too. It was my duty to defend her. I growled and showed my baby teeth. The crowd just laughed.

  ‘Off with you!’ Davy Stop Ye Gawping pulled out his sword. He was the youngest of the guards, with brown curls under his helmet. Every time I’d looked up at the window lately his face had been there as he bounced on his horse and looked in at us.

  The mob stepped back, but they muttered angrily.

  ‘They pulled a log across the track to stop the carriage,’ said Davy Stop Ye Gawping reassuringly. ‘But we’ve moved it. We’ll be off before ye can say a prayer. There, now…’

  The horses broke into a trot. I peered out the window from Megan’s arms. The people were silent now. They stared at us, not bothering to yell any more, their dirty faces hungry as the carriage vanished among the trees.

  The carriage slowed down again when we were well away. Davy Stop Ye Gawping brought his horse up to the carriage window again and peered in at us. ‘Are ye all right, Mistress?’

  Megan blushed. ‘I am. Thank you.’

  The darkness gathered. There was no inn for us that night. We stopped at a blacksmith’s. It had a dirt floor, and the walls were made of mud and branches, and pigs lived in a sty at the back door. I yapped at them from Megan’s arms, to keep them in their place.

  The guards and coachman slept in their cloaks by the forge, while the smith’s wife gave us their own bed, and a dinner of bacon and bread in return for gold.

  It was the first time I had eaten bacon, or wheat bread either. I liked them both, I decided. There was no milk, but Megan chopped it all fine, and moistened the food with warm water. I was able to gulp it easily, for I was growing all the time.

  The smith’s wife watched Megan feed me. She was as tiny as her man was broad, with a face like a sparrow and her hair neatly tucked in its white scarf. ‘You’re a long way from home, my dear,’ she said.

  Megan frowned. I think the way the woman spoke the words sounded strange to her as well as me. Then she nodded. ‘I am indeed, Mistress. But I’m on the Queen’s business, for this is the Queen’s dog.’ She held me up. I politely wagged my tail once, then wriggled to get back down to my dinner.

  ‘Good Queen Bess’s dog! That little scrap!’

  ‘Queen Mary, Mistress. That’s whose dog this is.’

  The woman stared. ‘Queen Mary died years ago, my dear.’

  Megan shook her head. ‘Our Scots Queen, Mistress.’

  The smith’s wife’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Scottish Queen? Aye, I’ve heard o’ her. Killed her own husband, didn’t she? Women can’t go around killing their own husbands, no matter how much they deserve it, even if they are queens.’

  ‘She did no such thing!’ said Megan hotly.

  ‘Did she not? Then why did she ha’ t’ run to England? Why does Queen Bess keep her a prisoner if she’s so innocent? You tell me that!’

  Megan hesitated. ‘I…I do not know, Mistress.’

  ‘And didn’t she agree to marry the Duke of Norfolk if he’d seize Queen Bess’s throne for her? Norfolk was beheaded for that, cursed papist that he was,’ said the smith’s wife. ‘Yes, and if she’d have got the throne they Catholics would have burnt us all then, just like happened in Queen Mary’s day…’

  Megan was looking frightened. I didn’t know what they were talking about but I marched over to stand between them, guarding Megan’s feet.

  ‘I…I know nothing of this, Mistress. My job is just to take the pup here to the Queen.’

  ‘Well, then.’ The woman sounded happier now. ‘I suppose the sins of the Mistress can’t be visited on the maid. And you’re a good girl, no doubt.’

  ‘Aye, Mistress,’ said Megan.

  The woman eyed me again, then grinned, showing the black gaps between her teeth. I started to relax, and scratched a flea that was biting at my ear. ‘A scrap of a dog like that for a queen! Wonders will never cease. Queens have wolfhounds, don’t they, to run beside their horses? Though I don’t suppose a queen in prison has much use for a wolfhound or a fine horse either. Have ye ever seen the Queen?’

  ‘Only once, Mistress. It was years ago. My Da hoisted me up on his shoulders as her carriage went by. All gold it was, grander by far than the one out there.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll see her again when you deliver the pup.’

  ‘Maybe, Mistress,’ said Megan hopefully,
pulling me back by the scruff of the neck as I tried to dig into the mattress. I could hear a beetle in the feathers, and wondered what it would taste like.

  ‘Well, at least I can say that a queen’s dog has slept in my bed, even if she be a papist and a murderer,’ said the smith’s wife comfortably. ‘I’ll leave the candle with you, girl, but don’t be burning it too long. Candle wax is expensive since the beehives were burnt with the abbey in the old King’s time, when he got rid of them papists. You’re not a papist, are you, girl?’ she added suspiciously.

  ‘Nae, Mistress. Me and my brother, we go to the kirk.’

  ‘A good thing too. I won’t have a papist, sleeping in my bed, queen’s dog or no queen’s dog. And if the rats disturb you in the night just bang the wall behind you. Good night, my girl.’

  ‘Good night,’ said Megan, but coldly, for the woman had spoken badly of her Queen.

  We could hear the woman muttering down the corridor, ‘A scrap like that going to a queen…’

  Then Megan blew the candle out and we both slept.

  CHAPTER 5

  I Arrive at the Castle

  England, Summer 1583

  Our coach clattered through valleys where fat cows stared at us, and over streams swollen with summer rain, then up gentle hills covered with forests, and across moorland flat and empty.

  Day after day I let Megan rub my ears and tickle my tummy while I rolled onto my back to get rid of the fleas from the smith’s bed. But she was more interested in Davy Stop Ye Gawping than me. And I was going to this Queen person, whatever she might be.

  ‘Have ye ever seen the Queen?’ asked Megan one day.

  We’d stopped by a stream, so the horses could drink. I was glad to drink too. Water tastes better when it’s running. I chased a dragonfly that had tried to land on my nose, while the guards got out their flagons of ale and their oatcakes. Davy Stop Ye Gawping brought his to share with Megan as she sat on the grass and dangled her bare feet in the water.

  ‘I’ve only seen her once. Tall she is, the tallest woman in the world.’

  ‘Pooh,’ said Megan. ‘Who would want a woman as tall as that?’

  ‘Nae, she is the most beautiful woman in the world too.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Megan. She was silent for a moment, nibbling on her oatcake. ‘Where did you see her, then?’ she added shyly.

  ‘Yap!’ I said, to remind her I wanted some oatcake too. I leapt onto her lap and tried to grab it from her hand, but she held it too high for me to reach.

  Davy Stop Ye Gawping put his chin up proudly. ‘Mae oldest brother were in her army at Haddington when she rode out to fight the rebel lords and get her kingdom back. I went to see them march. There were only two hundred men at the start, but two thousand joined them by the end. She were on a borrowed pony, dressed in a servant’s red petticoat and her hair all over which way. But there were ne’er any doubting she were a queen.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Megan quietly, letting me lick the crumbs from her fingers. ‘I never kenned the story. Just that she was a prisoner, and then she escaped to England…’

  ‘It was Bothwell. The man who kidnapped her, the man she married. The rebels wanted him to fight in single combat. Champion against champion, to save the blood of both the armies. But Bothwell refused. The Queen gave herself up as a prisoner in exchange for his escape. A coward and a villain—and a cur to leave his wife and Queen. Och, I will ne’er forget it. Her so tall and proud…’

  ‘I dinna understand,’ said Megan softly. ‘A queen is appointed by God. How could they fight her?’

  ‘That’s no’ wha’ John Knox says. He calls all women rulers “The Monstrous Regiment of Women”. He says a man should rule a kingdom like a man rules his house.’

  Megan snorted. ‘Och, does he now? I’d like t’ hear wha’ his wife hae t’ say about that.’

  Davy Stop Ye Gawping grinned. ‘Mebbe his wife isn’t as beautiful as the Queen.’

  Megan frowned. She was about to say something else when the chief guard yelled down at us to come back to the carriage, or we’d not make the castle by night.

  Now the carriage began to go downhill again. A river wandered through fields, with a smaller one rushing to join it. And then up on the hill ahead…

  I heard Megan gasp as she peered out the window. I clambered up on her lap to look out too.

  ‘Is that the castle?’ she cried, pushing my tail out of her face.

  How could any building be as big as that? I thought. Tall as the clouds, almost, and wide as a mountain.

  Davy Stop Ye Gawping grinned down at her from his horse. ‘Aye, that’s Sheffield Castle. It’s owned by the Earl of Shrewsbury.’ His face clouded a moment as he added, ‘He is our Queen’s gaoler. And that river is the Don and the other is the Sheaf and there’s the old papist church down there—they use the church to store wool now, would you believe? And that’s the ducking stool by the river.’ He gave her a sideways grin. ‘They duck the gossips in the river on Sunday afternoons.’

  Megan smiled. Then he added, ‘And the village green over there is where Queen Bess’s Protestant brother burnt the papists, then her Catholic sister burnt Protestants. They still have the blackened skulls on posts for all to see.’

  Megan shivered. ‘And now England has a Protestant Queen again.’

  ‘No burnings in Queen Bess’s time,’ said Davy Stop Ye Gawping. And then he added, ‘Yet.’

  Our coach jolted on through the potholes and splashed through the puddles, over a hump-backed bridge across the river then up towards the castle.

  Suddenly the track was as smooth as the floor in Nanny’s kitchen. And there was another river all around the castle too!

  ‘Poo,’ said Megan, as we jolted over the bridge to the castle. ‘The moat stinks! Every cesspit in the castle must empty into it.’

  ‘Yap,’ I said happily, my nose out the window. We were passing two great towers now, one on either side of the bridge.

  Suddenly I could smell dogs! I tried to climb further out the window to smell better, but Megan pulled me back. ‘Yap yap!’ I cried. I could smell new people too, and roast ducks and roast mutton and roast other things I didn’t know…

  And suddenly there the dogs were, great long-legged beasts, bounding up and baying at us, till a groom came running and called them back.

  ‘Yap yap!’ I yelled down at them, as soon as they were all safely tethered.

  ‘Woof, woof!’ they howled back at me, straining at their leashes. I danced happily on Megan’s lap. They might be bigger than me by far, but they weren’t the ones riding in a carriage! No big dog could get me here!

  Our carriage rolled right between the towers, and round the back and into another courtyard.

  Megan made to open the door, but Davy Stop Ye Gawping peered down at us and shook his head. ‘Best wait, Mistress,’ he said, ‘till we find out where ye’re t’ go.’

  Megan smiled at him, and he smiled back. It looked like they’d just keep smiling at each other. But now a man bustled up, holding himself tall in fine green cloth. ‘You for the Scottish Queen?’ he demanded.

  Davy Stop Ye Gawping touched the hilt of his sword. ‘Keep a civil tongue in yer head when ye speak o’ Her Majesty.’

  The man gave a superior smile. ‘Her Majesty,’ he made it sound almost like an insult, ‘ain’t here.’

  ‘And where is she then?’

  ‘Down t’ road a mile at t’ manor in the hunting park. Can’t miss it, a big red brick building it is. And trouble enough we have when she’s here. Two mistresses under one roof, that’s trouble if you like…’

  Davy Stop Ye Gawping turned his back on him and exchanged a few words with the chief guard, who signalled to our driver. The coach began to roll again.

  I’d grown tired of peering out the window. I climbed back on Megan’s lap to snooze as we bounced over the bridge then down the road again. Her lap was softer than the cushions in my basket, and even when she was staring at Davy Stop Ye Gawping her hands k
ept stroking my fur.

  I was dreaming that I was wrestling with Lally and she was chewing my ear when I realised that Megan was shaking me awake. ‘We’re here, wee one,’ she said.

  I yawned, and peered out. There were another two great towers, though not as big as at the castle, and then the manor itself. It wasn’t as big as the castle, but it was still enormous.

  All at once a man strode up to us. He wore a sword, with pistols in his belt. There were other men dressed like him, all armed as well. Megan shrank back into the carriage, taking me with her. But I wriggled out of her arms and rested my paws on the window again.

  ‘Yap yap!’ I yelled.

  The new guards stopped talking to our guards, and smiled at me. I yelled ‘yap’ again, so they knew I was important, then bounced over to Megan to tell her I wanted to get out.

  Suddenly the carriage door opened. Megan grabbed me before I could leap out by myself, then clambered down the steps.

  The guards retreated, though they still kept a sharp eye on us. But more men had come now too. They started unstrapping the boxes and baskets on top of the carriage. Davy Stop Ye Gawping helped them too. A woman bustled up as well. She held out a hand to Megan. It was wrinkled, with dirt under the fingernails.

  ‘Come in, my dear,’ she said. ‘The servants’ dinner’s on the table in the kitchens and hot ale too. I warrant you could do with a mug of that. I’m Mistress Lacy. Oh, look at the little chap. He’s all fur and belly!’

  ‘Yap?’ I said, not sure if I was being admired or criticised.

  ‘Oh, the darling one he is too! But where is the other one? Mistress Seton said there was to be a matching pair.’

  ‘She died, Mistress Lacy,’ said Megan.

  Mistress Lacy frowned. ‘Her Majesty likes matched pairs. Pairs of dogs and pairs of birds. Well, no matter,’ she added a bit doubtfully. ‘To be sure, when she sees how sweet he is she’ll be happy to have him by himself.’

  Megan stared at the bustle in the courtyard while I sniffed at all the new smells. ‘Are you the housekeeper here? Or the cook?’

  ‘Bless you, no! I’m none grand enough for that. Monsewer is the chief cook here. All Her Majesty’s cooks are Frenchies, this one for the pastry and that one for the sauces, no English cooking here. And her doctor is a Frenchie too, and her dressmaker and most of the rest of them. Jabber, jabber, jabber…How they understand each other I do not know. I’m just a chicken plucker, and help with what’s needed. And I say what’s needed here is a good warm drink for both of you.’