And when the food was gone at last, I licked the bowl.
My belly was so round it nearly touched the floor. I was about to find a warm spot by the fire, but Fléance nudged me with his nose. ‘Grff,’ he muttered.
So I got to my feet, and followed him outside.
Fléance lifted his leg on one doorpost, and Douceur lifted his leg on another. Then they sniffed about the courtyard, lifting and dribbling, while I squatted in the middle of the cobbles, partly so they didn’t think I was trying to mark any of their territory as my own, but also because by then my tummy was so full there was no room for my wee and I couldn’t go any further.
‘One day,’ I thought enviously, as I watched Douceur lift his leg and leave a few drops on the wheel of the carriage. ‘I’ll learn to lift my leg like you. I’ll widdle on every post in the courtyard!’
I wondered where the Queen went. Did she have a courtyard for her business?
What was she doing? Was she thinking of me too?
Megan glanced at me as I trotted back inside, her hands full with two big plates of pies. ‘Oh, good dog!’
Good dog? Was that what she wanted me to do out there? Why hadn’t she just shown me, then?
Our bowls had been washed when we got back to the hearth; they were all shiny and filled with fresh water. I was glad, for I was thirsty. And there was a new basket next to the other two, with soft cushions.
The sides were a bit high for me to clamber over, but Megan helped me in.
It was strange sleeping alone, without Megan or Lally or Mam. I whimpered a bit as I lay there with the noise of the kitchens around me: women fetching candles or trimming lamps; more platters coming down again; the sounds of crockery being washed and vegetables prepared for the morrow; and a tiny snore from Fléance in the basket next to mine.
And then I slept as well. Tomorrow, I thought, I’ll find a way to see the Queen again.
CHAPTER 8
I Learn About Smells and Baths and Meet a Bone
The Manor, Summer 1583
The next days passed quickly. I tried to climb the stairs to find the Queen, but every time somebody hauled me back and yelled, ‘Bad dog!’
So I gave up—for a while. But I kept my nose on duty in case she came down the stairs and I smelt her again. And I envied Douceur and Fléance when they came back with her scent clinging to their fur.
But despite my longing to see the Queen the kitchen hall was a grand place for a dog. There were crumbs and shreds of meat to snuffle from under the tables. There were lots of feet to smell as well, and some of them had trodden in interesting places. There was always something interesting happening in the kitchens, where a small dog could look wistful and hope for scraps.
As well as the hearth where we slept there were bread hearths, where the sweating bakers built great fires in the ovens, then raked the coals out and put in their loaves. There were pastry ovens, heated by small fires outside too. I liked pastry, I discovered. It crunched when I bit into it.
There were roasting hearths, where small boys turned legs of venison or rows of blackbirds on spits, dripping juice and spitting fat, so that there was some rich grease to lick from the floor any time I went that way. There were hearths where meat was boiled in great fat cauldrons too, filling the air with so much good meat smell that it was hard not to dribble all the time.
There was a bench where a cook ground up spicy things that made me sneeze. There was another where one man stood all day long just grating and grinding and making new smells, though none of them were anything as good as meat.
There was the sugar boiler, who made things like plates that you could eat, though they made my teeth ache when I ate some scraps from his feet. There were the baskets filled with smoking charcoal, used to make sauces. (Sauces are soft rich hot things, if you ever get a chance to lick the bowl.) There were women with big bowls, whisking cream with bunches of twigs. Sometimes flecks of cream would land on their bare toes, and the women giggled when I licked it off.
And all day long came men with baskets, piled with mushrooms or white and red cherries (which are interesting to sniff but not especially to eat), fish that stared at nothing (they smelt more interesting than they tasted too) or birds dangling from long poles. Many of the newcomers exclaimed at me, and wanted to pat me. But I snapped when any stranger tried.
I knew who I belonged to now. And it wasn’t them.
And all the time I learnt.
I learnt that the household woke when a drum roll summoned the men who patrolled outside. That was the time to clamber out of my basket, and toddle outside after Fléance and Douceur to do my business on the cobblestones in the courtyard.
I learnt that every time there was a delivery to the kitchens there’d be new horse apples in the courtyard, steaming and attracting flies.
I learnt that if I rolled in horse apples I’d get a bath.
I learnt that I didn’t like a bath at all, even when it smelt of flowers, like the Queen, and was followed by a rub with a big warm towel.
I learnt that the best smells came from the tunnel that led to the privies. I learnt that if I tried to go down there, people yelled, ‘Bad dog!’
I learnt that the next best smells came from the small cold room next to the kitchens, where the dead pheasants and plovers, hares and quail dropped maggots down onto the floor.
I learnt that if I rolled in maggots I’d get a bath.
I learnt that other dogs passed our manor every day, the big hunting hounds who owned the Earl who owned the manor where we lived, and the big castle too. When the hounds visited the courtyard, they’d stay outside sniffing for food while the Earl went upstairs to see the Queen. Fléance and Douceur ignored them, so I did as well. Mostly, anyway.
I learnt that I needed to go outside more often than the older dogs, and that if I ate too much chicken in saffron sauce I’d get a tummy ache.
I learnt that maggots tickle when you lap them up.
I learnt that the dogs went up the stairs when the sun was in the highest part of the sky, after the main meal of the day had been brought down.
I stayed with Megan when Fléance and Douceur were upstairs. Without the other dogs to guide me I was in danger of being trodden on. And besides, with all the learning and exploring I had to do, I got tired.
Most afternoons Megan sat with Mistress Lacy in the sun outside the kitchen, podding peas or taking the shells from the broad beans or stripping artichoke leaves. And I lay at their feet and snapped at the flies that buzzed around the horse apples, and wondered why Mistress Lacy had cloth on her feet instead of bare toes like my Megan’s—much easier to lick to attract attention.
They talked as they worked. They talked of unimportant things, mostly—not of food or dogs or walks. But I liked to listen just the same.
They were plucking pigeons one afternoon, tossing the feathers into the basket near my nose, when Davy Stop Ye Gawping wandered by, casually, as though he were going somewhere else. He stopped to admire the way I chased a pigeon feather that had dared to float above my nose.
‘Yap! Yap!’ I said, which made the feather fly even further away, so I had to jump to catch it.
Davy Stop Ye Gawping laughed, then he nodded at the pile of birds.
‘Fine birds, those,’ he said. ‘Would ye like a hand?’
Megan ignored him, apart from the blush on her cheek. Mistress Lacy looked at him indulgently. ‘And ye can pluck pigeons, can ye?’ she asked.
‘Och, I can indeed. Well, they canna be much different from plucking pheasants, and I’ve done that oft enough at home.’
He sat down on the edge of the water trough and took a pigeon and began to pull the big feathers from the edges of its wings. I was tired of feather chasing, so I sat on Megan’s feet and dozed with my eyes open and one ear pricked in case something interesting happened.
They plucked in silence for a while, with Megan and the guard giving each other sideways looks, and Mistress Lacy checking Davy Stop Ye Gawping�
��s handiwork. ‘Don’t you go tearing that wing meat,’ she ordered. ‘Not if you want a dinner fit for your Queen.’
The young man tossed a handful of feathers down into the basket. ‘Your Queen too.’
‘What? That she isn’t.’ Mistress Lacy looked indignant. ‘Do you take me for Scottish like yourselves?’
‘No, Mistress. But our Queen Mary is Queen of England too.’
‘That she is not!’ Mistress Lacy stopped her plucking and stared at him. ‘What a thing to say!’
‘But she is, Mistress.’ Davy Stop Ye Gawping looked at her earnestly. ‘That is why yon Queen Elizabeth keeps her shut up here. If your Queen Mary Tudor, may God rest her soul, was allowed to take the throne then her sister Elizabeth must be a bastard. And nae bastard can take the throne. And so that means our Queen Mary Stuart is, by right of God, your Queen as well—’
‘I’ll hear no more of this!’ Mistress Lacy grabbed the pigeon from his hands. ‘’Tis treason to say such a thing about Queen Bess! If you’re one o’ they horrid papists who think to put your Queen on the throne instead of ours, then all I can say is the sooner you’re back in your barbarous country the better!’ She grabbed the pigeon basket and stomped inside.
Megan poked a toe at the feathers on the cobblestones. ‘Ye shouldnae’ve said that,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s the way to the gallows here in England.’
‘Why not? It’s what I believe.’
Megan said nothing for a while. I began to chase my tail. It had been staring at me, just asking to be chased.
‘I hoped I’d see the Queen,’ said Megan at last, just as I decided my tail didn’t want to be caught. Anyway, I was getting giddy. ‘See if she were as beautiful as you said, maybe. But Mistress Kennedy took Folly up herself. That’s what the Queen has called him, did you know? Folly.’
‘Woof,’ I said, glad to hear my name again. They had ignored me for too long. I made a flying leap into the basket of feathers, then sat up choking and spat them out.
Davy Stop Ye Gawping didn’t even notice my grand leap. ‘Her poor Majesty must ask the Earl’s permission even to go for a walk. Naebody sees her at all, unless they hae permission t’ go up t’ her rooms. Even when she is in the carriage, ye ken, they make her keep the curtains closed. It’s criminal, it is, to hold a queen captive like a commoner.’
‘And one as beautiful as her,’ said Megan, looking at him from the corners of her eyes.
‘Aye. I’d fight for her again if I had a chance. Fight for her right to be Queen of Scotland again. Fight for her throne of England too—’
‘Aye, and die for her,’ said Megan flatly.
He looked at her, surprised. ‘What use is a man’s life if he canna die for what he believes in?’
‘I ken of a host of uses,’ said Megan drily.
He grinned a bit at that. ‘Well, tae tell the truth, so can I.’
‘Even though the Queen be so tall an’ beautiful?’
Davy Stop Ye Gawping blinked. Then his grin grew wider. ‘She is beautiful enough. But I ken another who is even bonnier than the Queen. And with a bonnie heart as well, even for a wee scrap of a dog.’
Megan flushed. She threw a feather for me to jump at, then said casually, ‘Monsewer has said I might stay here if I’d a mind. All the food that I can eat, the best of everything after it has been to the Queen’s table. I’d get two sets of clothes a year, aye, and shoes too even. Good fires all winter and ne’er more than two a bed neither—’
‘Nae, that ye willna. Ye be comin’ back tae Scotland wi’ us tomorrow.’ The young man spoke as though there were no question about the matter at all.
‘Am I, then?’
‘Ye be.’
‘An’ who are ye, then, tae tell me wha’ I should be doing?’
‘The man who’s going to marry you, as soon as we get home.’
‘Are ye, now?’
I could have caught a whole basket of feathers now as well as my tail and Megan wouldn’t have noticed.
‘I am.’
They smiled at each other then, with no thought at all for me.
‘Yip?’ I said, hoping one of them would throw a feather for me again. But Davy Stop Ye Gawping had taken Megan’s hand.
So, with the pigeon feathers flying off me in the breeze, I trotted back inside to the food bowls by the hearth, and looked hopeful. And sure enough someone put a giant bone down right at my feet.
I had never had a bone before. It smelt of bacon and was almost as big as I was. But I worked out what to do with it soon enough, and growled at Fléance when later on he came by and sniffed it, to tell him it was mine.
Fléance put his nose in the air as though he didn’t want a bone like this, no matter how big and rich-smelling it might be. He turned around three times and put his nose to his bottom then dozed on the hearth mat.
I was so busy working out how to attack my bone that I hardly noticed Megan pass with Davy, not noticing me at all.
But it didn’t matter.
Much.
I had my bone, I told myself. And upstairs was my Queen. I’d get to her tomorrow, I resolved, even if I had to bite the toes of anybody who stood between us!
I felt better after that.
So I buried my bone in a basket of parsnips and followed Fléance’s example, and put my nose to my bum. (It’s the best way to sleep, if you’ve never tried it—there is nothing as reassuring as the smell of your own bum.) And then I slept as well.
CHAPTER 9
I Meet the Queen Again
The Manor, Summer 1583
The next morning, just after the soldiers had rolled their drumbeat and the sleepy sentries had gone to their beds, and the day ones had taken their places, Megan left with Davy. She kissed me and I licked her face. I felt a bit lost as I watched the carriage roll away with Megan in it, but not too much. Megan had never been my Mistress. A dog knows these things.
And I had other things to think of today. I had worked out how I was going to see the Queen.
I waited all morning. One of the women combed me for a very long time, because when you are as low to the ground as I am then things like mud and prickles just jump up at you, even in those days, when my puppy hair was shorter than it is now.
But I bore it all. I was waiting for my chance!
The Queen’s dinner went up, as it did every day, dish after dish of good smells, and a roasted peacock with its tail feathers poked back in—I would have loved to chew that! Finally the dishes came back down, tray after tray. It all took so long that I had to hurry outside for a widdle again. (When you are a small pup you just can’t hold on as long as a big dog can.)
I got back just as Jane was about to take Fléance and Douceur up the stairs.
‘Yap?’ I said hopefully. Jane ignored me. She clicked her fingers at the spaniels. I sat down again, my tail between my legs.
But I hadn’t given up. If Jane wouldn’t take me I’d go in spite of her!
Jane turned to go out, Fléance and Douceur trotting at her side.
This was my chance!
Jane’s long shiny dress hovered just above the floor. But as she lifted her skirts to go up the steps from the kitchens to the hall I ducked underneath.
All at once I was in a dark cave between Jane’s skirt and petticoat. Would she notice me? But her skirt still swept along the corridor. She hadn’t realised I was there!
Further, further, further. My plan was working but I struggled to keep up. For such a tiny woman, Jane took long strides.
We reached the stairs. Even a few days before I couldn’t have jumped up them. But I had grown in the last se’ennight. I managed to get up each one, even though they were almost as high as me.
Along the hall, then over carpets, all furry on my feet, then Jane bobbed down. Her skirts flopped onto my nose so that I was afraid I might sneeze.
‘The dogs, Madam.’
And then I heard the Queen’s voice again!
‘Hello, my darlings.’
‘Woof,’ said Fléance. Douceur gave a grunt. I heard them bound up to her. I poked my nose out from under Jane’s skirts.
There was the Queen, on her big chair, under her golden canopy.
She still smelt of flowers. She wore black again today, too. But it was a black that shone and glittered like stars in the sky, with jewels on the fabric and in her ears, and black lace about her wrists.
‘Wruff!’ I said triumphantly.
‘What?!’ Jane stared down at me. She grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me all the way out. ‘You wretched mongrel! What do you think you’re doing? I’m sorry, Madam, I had no idea he was there! I’ll take him back down straight away before he can make a mess—’
‘No, leave him.’ The Queen sounded amused. ‘Well, Folly. Have you learnt manners yet?’
‘Yap,’ I said cautiously. I wriggled and Jane put me down. I bounded up to the Queen and sat on my bottom on the edge of her skirt.
‘Yip!’ I said, to let her know that she could pick me up now.
She bent down stiffly. Her hands were cold and swollen. ‘You bonnie wee beastie,’ she said. ‘Look at those feet! No bigger than a penny.’
‘Master Beaton says these terriers grow no more than a handspan, Madam,’ said another woman, who sat on a stool by the fire. She had a cloth in her hands and was poking it with a needle.
‘Och,’ said Jane. ‘What use is a penny-dog, Mistress Seton? Give me a good fierce mastiff any day.’
‘Terriers are brave dogs,’ said Mistress Seton. ‘The best badger dogs in the islands.’
Jane snorted. ‘What badgers do we have to hunt here?’
The Queen stroked my ears. ‘Seton dear, do you remember that last hunt in France? I rode the white mare that François had given me, Bravane. They were all so shocked when I wore breeches under my skirt so I could ride astride. François was so happy. Oh, dear François…It was that day the buzzing in his ear began, that horrid abscess that killed him. But we were so happy that day. Oh, do you remember, Seton?’
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