At the House of the Magician (21 page)

I wept for long minutes, frightened beyond words about what might happen to me. I well knew the penalty for touching the person of the queen, and though I’d committed this offence for a true and honest reason, had heard tales of citizens taken to the Tower and tortured into making confessions that weren’t true, just to have that torture cease. Moreover, I was sorely worried that Her Grace might drink some of that elixir.

I forced myself to stop weeping and dried my face on my gown, then roused myself sufficiently to hobble to the door (for my knees were paining me) and began banging on it. ‘Let me out!’ I shouted, ‘Let me out!’ over and over again, until my knuckles felt raw and my voice changed to sobs again.

I slumped on to the floor, momentarily defeated, then heard the skitter of a rat and got up to begin banging again. ‘There are rats!’ I screamed, but heard no reply, just my voice echoing through empty spaces. I began to pace up and down as well as I could, partly to keep myself warm, partly to try and scare off vermin by my continual movements. As I walked, I shouted, so didn’t hear the approach of anyone until a grille in the
door was slid across and the red nose and grizzled grey beard of one of the palace guards appeared.

‘What is it? You’ll be fed when they thinks of it,’ a gruff voice said.

‘I don’t want food!’ I cried, for that was the last thing on my mind. ‘I must speak to someone. I must speak to the queen’s fool!’

‘Ho!’ the voice jeered. ‘Must you now?’

I heard the grille scrape as he began to close it, and spoke up again quickly. ‘Please! I’ve something to give you!’

‘What’s that, then?’ he asked, sudden interest in his voice.

I felt under my bodice, for I’d hidden my groat on entering the palace, knowing how such a thing would look amid all the real gold and silver that we’d see. ‘It’s this,’ I said, lifting off my keepsake. ‘Please take it to the queen’s fool – to Tomas, if you know him – to remind him that I am Her Grace’s most faithful and loving servant and will be for evermore.’ I pushed the groat through the grille as I spoke and saw him look at it with some scorn. ‘I know ’tis only a humble thing, but it stands for much. And would you please also tell Tomas this: that he must have the elixir tested by an apothecary before the queen takes it. He must!’

‘Eh?’ said the guard, and I wondered how much of what I’d said he had understood.

‘Please!’ I implored him. ‘Tomas will see that you’re rewarded!’

This he did seem to understand, and he took the groat and closed the window without saying any more. ‘He must have the elixir tried!’ I called after, praying that he’d somehow sense the urgency of what I was saying and not just steal the groat for the paltry sum it was worth.

I waited longer then, alternately pacing and weeping as before, and after what seemed an age heard footsteps outside and the bolt being drawn across.

When the door opened it was Tomas who stood there, and so thankful was I to see him that it was all I could do to stop myself flinging my arms about him and hanging on his neck. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I asked urgently.

He smiled at me gravely. ‘We have discovered that the flask contained hemlock.’

I gasped.

‘Hemlock,’ he repeated, ‘with its pretty flowers of white lace and its power to stop the heart.’

‘But the queen did not … ?’

‘She did not.’

My eyes filled with tears and my relief was so great that I sagged against the wall.

‘She was still thinking on it, but I was against it. And when I received your token I persuaded Her Grace to try the elixir first on someone who was rather more expendable than the Queen of England.’

‘And was there such a person?’ I asked, rather shocked.

‘Not a person, but a yellow canary owned by one of the ladies-in-waiting.’

‘It died?’

‘It did. One sip and it fell down with its claws in the air.’

‘I knew it,’ I said, my voice shaking.

‘But how did you know?’

I looked at him, suddenly embarrassed. ‘I dreamed it.’

‘Ah,’ he nodded.

‘And what did Her Grace do then – when it became clear that the flask did contain poison?’

‘She went exceeding pale and had to be revived from a faint.’

I gasped again.

‘But – thanks be – she has the stamina and heart of a lion and recovered quickly, thanks to the ministrations of her ladies and a little oil of lavender applied to her temples.’ He smiled. ‘And thanks be to you, of course.’ He delved in a pocket, then held out my groat to me, looking at it with some amusement. ‘And here is your precious coin back again.’

He held it up ready to tie about my neck, and as his fingers touched my skin, I shivered.

‘Are my hands cold?’ he asked.

I was about to say no, but then in case he realised I was shivering for quite another reason, mumbled, ‘A little,’ and felt myself blush. To cover my confusion, I asked if they’d discovered where the elixir had really come from.

He nodded. ‘It was delivered to Her Grace by a girl named Cicily, a new lady-in-waiting, who announced that it had been handed to her by a trusted servant of Dr Dee.’

I could not but smile. ‘Our household
has
no servants!’

‘But when we looked for her, little Cicily couldn’t be found sewing or dancing or playing games …’

‘She’d gone?’

Tomas clapped his hands in the manner of a magician completing a trick. ‘She had disappeared. And when Kat Ashley was sent to Cicily’s bedchamber she discovered that her gowns had also vanished and her room was bare. But not completely bare: she’d left behind her a tract putting forward the supposedly superior claim to the throne of the queen’s cousin, the Queen of Scotland.’

‘Then it was this Cecily who …’

Tomas nodded. ‘She was acting in the pay of someone else, of course: someone far more important and powerful. We may or may not find out who that someone was.’

I’d composed myself by then, dried my eyes on my kerchief, smoothed my hair and straightened my skirts, so was ready when Tomas offered his arm to walk back through the cellars which I’d been dragged across some time before. ‘So you are quite convinced that Her Grace knows of my complete innocence?’

Tomas nodded. ‘She does. And she’s very grateful
for your prompt action. So much so, that I think you may hear word from her soon.’

I blushed. ‘My only wish would be to serve her faithfully.’

‘I know that,’ said Tomas, ‘and there may well be a means whereby you can do this to greater effect.’

My heart started beating very fast, for of course this could only mean that she was going to take me into her service. ‘Truly?’

‘Truly,’ Tomas said. ‘Her Grace has a foreign ambassador with her now, but you’ll hear from her soon. And in the meantime I’m to escort you to the outer chamber, where your friend Isabelle is waiting for you – and has, I believe, already made the acquaintance of a fine young footman. You can walk home, and each tell the other of your day’s adventures …’

I smiled at him, barely taking notice of his words. To enter the queen’s service, to become one of her ladies-in-waiting. It was all I’d ever dreamed of …

I was sent out to market early the next morning, for Mistress Midge had a mind to prepare a feast to welcome back the master and mistress from Greenwich and was even contemplating opening up the dining room. It hadn’t been hard to keep what had happened a secret from her, for when I’d arrived home late the previous afternoon I’d found her sprawled at the kitchen table, drunk, her face flat down in a porringer, and that morning she hadn’t even seemed to recall that I’d gone to the palace at all.

I yawned as I walked along, for, overexcited, I’d spent most of the night wide awake and reliving every moment of the day that had passed, scarce able to believe what had happened: at the way we’d been chosen out of the glittering crowd; at the audacious manner I’d leaped at the queen to take the flask from her hands; at how I’d been thrown into the dungeon;
and – finally and most magnificently – how Tomas had thanked me on behalf of the queen and told me that Her Grace would send word to me. How soon could I begin working for her? I wondered. What tasks might I be called upon to perform? I was a little worried by the fact that I had few accomplishments – although I could read fairly well now – but believed I might be taught about music, dancing, singing and the like.

At the market, Isabelle was selling fresh garlic and had a goodly crop of plump and juicy bulbs in her wooden trug. She was yawning, too, though, and hardly bothering to cry up her produce, so that the housewife next to her, also selling garlic, was getting all the business.

She perked up as I sat down beside her. ‘You’ve come at last!’

‘’Tis not late.’

‘’Tis when you’ve spent a sleepless night.’

‘Thinking of your footman?’ I teased her.

‘Thinking that I might have had to rescue you from the Tower!’ she retorted, and we smiled at each other and clasped hands.

‘Everything went through my head over and over …’

‘But did you have the dream again? The one with Mistress Vaizey?’

‘I hardly slept enough to dream.’ I thought about it for a moment and then realised. ‘But no, I didn’t have
that
dream, the one where the queen was dead.’

She shushed me and I clapped my hand to my mouth, for, of course, to discuss such matters as the death of the queen was treason.

A group of housewives passed us. ‘Fresh garlic!’ Isabelle cried, making some effort. ‘New young garlic!’ No one paid any attention to her, however, so she turned back to me. ‘What will happen now, do you think? How long will it be before you’re called to the palace?’

‘I hope not too long,’ I said with some excitement.

‘And you do think that you’ll have to live there …’

I nodded assuredly, for we’d discussed this on the way home the previous afternoon and I’d come to the conclusion that all the queen’s ladies-in-waiting would have to live wherever she was, ready to attend upon her at all times. ‘I will surely have to be where the Court is, ready to be with the queen on her progresses through the country.’

Isabelle looked at me wistfully. ‘Then I’ll miss you very much.’

‘Perhaps you can visit me,’ I said with some uncertainty, for I wasn’t at all sure of the etiquette for such an event.

‘Will you have your own room, do you think?’

‘Surely! And a generous dress allowance, for the queen’s ladies can’t be seen to be less than fashionable. I’ve heard – for a great lady in Hazelgrove used to be at Whitehall Palace – that a woman is employed just to do their hair, and that if you’re a maid of honour, which is
the best sort of lady-in-waiting, then you have your own maid!’

‘Oh,’ said Isabelle, rather despondently. ‘But won’t you be sad to leave Beth and Merryl?’

‘I will, but I’ll come back and see them,’ I said. ‘And I’ll come back and see you, too.’

But this didn’t seem to raise her spirits. ‘You’ll forget about me,’ she said sadly. ‘You’ll make fine new friends,
ladies
, and forget all about me.’

‘Of course I won’t,’ I said, but to be truthful, I’d been wondering that myself. I’d miss Isabelle, of course, and the two little girls and even Mistress Midge, but the excitement of Court life would more than make up for that.

At market I obtained all the foodstuffs that Mistress Midge had requested, including a fine, plump goose, which I swung over my shoulder, and was humming for sheer joy as I stepped out for home. As I crossed the lane and passed the porch of St Mary’s, however, a dark-hooded figure stepped out of the shadows. Grasping my arm, he pulled me into the porch.

‘Alms, Madam!’ he croaked. ‘Aid a poor beggar who has only recently survived a horrid and contagious disease …’

Giving a little scream of fright, I tried to brush off the hand that held me, but the beggar’s grip was surprisingly strong. ‘Let me go!’ I cried out. ‘I carry no money!’

‘Then give me that fine goose you’re carrying, I pray you,’ came the cracked reply, ‘for in the pest house they feed you such amounts as ’twould hardly keep a dormouse alive.’

‘These aren’t my provisions,’ I said. ‘They belong to my master and mistress and they’ll beat me if I come home without them.’