Green Darkness (21 page)

In presenting the Dacres to the King, Jane and Anthony, who scarcely knew one lot from the other, were hesitant on the matter of precedence.

Geraldine Browne had been watching sardonically from beside Lord Clinton, and she now glided up. “Your Majesty . . .” she threw a little contemptuous glance towards her stepson and his sickly wife. “
First,
may I present to you Lady Dacre of Gilsland and Greystoke, who lives at Naworth Castle in Cumberland. Her lord, Warden of the West Marches, is at present engaged in the Border disputes. Lady Dacre has here three of her children—Sir Thomas, Leonard and Magdalen.”

“Ah . . . so?” said the King, grateful for this concise, clear introduction, though somewhat surprised by the brisk authority of the young dowager whom he had scarcely noticed. He extended his hand to Lady Dacre.

She gave the thin young fingers a hearty kiss while she made a clumsy bob and said, “Much honored, you gr-race—God gi’ ye health! These’re ma youngsters.” Lady Dacre thrust forward Sir Thomas, a huge, bulky youth with bristly red hair. Then, a second, even taller young man who held one shoulder higher than the other by reason of a broken, badly twisted collarbone. “Leonard,” said Lady Dacre, patting him. “An’ her-re’s ma braw lass, Maggie.”

Magdalen, like her brothers, had red hair and was amazingly tall. Though only fourteen, she had little gawkiness or self-consciousness. She kissed the King’s hand with a smack as hearty as her mother’s.

Anthony had drawn back to watch the new presentations and was relieved to see that the King’s frown had cleared to amused interest.

The Dacres from the North were an imposing quartet. Lady Dacre and her daughter towered over the company, while the brothers must have stood six foot three at least. Moreover, their homespun clothes appeared very old-fashioned and plain amongst the jeweled velvets, satins, lace ruffs. Uncouth “Border lords,” Anthony thought, rough and independent as the wild Scots whom they constantly fought. Yet, there was about them a dignified simplicity. The mother . . . Anthony racked his memory. She had highborn English blood, hadn’t she? Was one of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s dozen children—though her speech held the Northern burr and her manners were unpolished by court standards. Still, Lady Dacre and her large offspring were rather like lumps of honest sea coral amongst a trayful of spangled gewgaws.

The Southern Dacres were still awaiting presentation and Geraldine became less brisk. “The Fiennes branch, Your Majesty,” she said glancing towards Lord Clinton, who was himself a Fiennes, and from whom she had garnered her information. “Lady Dacre of Hurstmonceux and her son Gregory. No longer the
titular
baroness, sire, since the tragic miscarriage of justice in the lifetime of your royal father . . .”

Edward raised his sleepy eyelids while submitting his hand to a perspiring matron in black velvet and a wizened boy with a vacant look who clutched at his mother’s skirts.

“‘Tragic miscarriage of justice’?” said Edward, strangling a yawn yet alert to any possible criticism of his father’s lawmaking.

Geraldine’s assurance wavered. She looked again towards Clinton, who stepped forward, having admired Geraldine’s spirited performance, as she had intended.

“Your royal grace,” said Clinton, his speech whistling a bit from the loss of his upper front teeth, “Lady Browne refers to the unfortunate hanging of Lord Dacre at Tyburn twelve years agone, whereupon his tide and estates were forfeited.”

“The hanging at Tyburn of a
peer?
” said Edward, incredulously. “How could that be? And for what crime?”

“The shooting of a gamekeeper,” said Clinton, shaking his square, grizzling head. “‘Twas all engineered by enemies who coveted the Dacre estates.”

“Monstrous, indeed,” Edward cried, looking sympathetically at the debased baroness, and interested not so much by the injustice as by the vulgar manner of execution.

“Moreover, your grace,” pursued Clinton, “this unhappy lady is daughter to Lord Abergavenny, and her murdered husband was my kin. We dare to hope that your royal generosity and clemency will consider restitution, especially to a family so wholeheartedly dedicated to the Protestant religion—as you know
me
to be, also.” Clinton bowed and gave his sovereign a hopeful, albeit gap-toothed, smile.

So
that’s
it! Anthony thought. It explained the presence of the Dacres; it partially explained the presence of the Lord High Admiral, though from what Anthony had been observing, Cupid’s darts had also pierced the heart of the middle-aged widower.

“We will consider this matter, my lord,” said Edward, “after consultation with the Duke when he returns from Berwick.”

Geraldine gave Clinton a quick triumphant glance.
They
knew and Sir Henry Sidney knew that the Duke would be agreeable to this comparatively trivial request, for even Northumberland would need support from every possible quarter to further the extraordinarily daring plan he was formulating. One which would catapult every Dudley connection into supreme power.

“We will proceed to your chapel for evening prayer,” Edward said, taking Sir Harry’s arm as he swayed in a moment of giddiness.

“Your grace is unwell?” Harry whispered anxiously, knowing how Edward hated the transient weaknesses he had never felt before the sickness in the spring. “To bed with you, at once!”

Edward shook his head irritably and straightened. “Your chaplain is waiting, I presume?” he said to Anthony, who was prepared for this.

“My own chaplain is ill, sire—Oh, nothing dangerous, some distemper of the bowels—the Midhurst vicar is here to conduct prayers.” And, by Christ’s blood, I hope he doesn’t falter, Anthony finished grimly to himself. The vicar was a stupid man and barely literate, but he had been well rehearsed.

The King and his company jammed themselves into the lords’ gallery, the rest of the guests packed the chapel below. There was no room tonight for the servants.

Edward, after one satisfied glance around the denuded chapel, was fortunately too tired to heed the mumbling ineptness of the vicar’s rendition of the English prayers Edward himself had helped to write. But the evening was not yet over.

Ursula and Celia had remained in the Hall with the lesser folk while the privileged ones went upstairs. They had known nobody, nobody spoke to them, and Ursula, against all reason, felt hurt and disappointed. She had formed foolish hopes for this first evening of the King’s visit; she had expected that in some way her darling would be noticed, that something fortunate would happen to insure Celia’s future.

She had anxiously mulled over Celia’s horoscope again and decided that this was an extremely favorable day.

Yet nothing
had
happened except Sir Anthony’s brief greeting in the morning. The futility of her hopes was further emphasized by Celia’s instinctive behavior when the blue-liveried servitors were clearing the immense clutter left on the tables. Celia, bred to a life of clearing cluttered tables, jumped up to help.

“
No!
” said Ursula sharply. “Sit down, child!”

Celia, blushing, sat down beside her aunt on a small oaken chest at the side of the Buck Hall. They sat in silence until the steward announced portentously that the King was in the chapel, and everyone must assemble for evensong.

“Evensong . . .?” murmured Celia. “What’s that, Aunt?”

“Vespers, possibly,” snapped Ursula, exasperated. “But, remember Sir Anthony’s warning! Whatever these heretic prayers are, don’t listen to them. Say a
Pater Noster
to yourself, then an
Ave
.”

In the chapel Celia forgot this admonition, she was so much interested in the girl who stood beside her. They all stood. The prayer seats had been removed, since this strange religion apparently permitted no kneeling.

Celia, though moderately tall herself, looked up in amazement at the head a span higher than her own. She examined the profile, the sprinkling of freckles over a snub nose, the bush of wiry fox-colored hair which curled loose on the broad shoulders—as befitted a maiden. The girl’s simple gown was of russet wool over a white lawn underskirt. The neckline was wide and square. Magdalen wore no fashionable ruff or frills and no jewelry except a necklet of the polished crystal pebbles known as “Scotch diamonds.” The girl’s clothes gave out an agreeable woodsy smell which Celia’s sensitive nose appreciated but could not identify as peat smoke and heather, since she had never encountered either. The girl felt Celia’s gaze looked around and smiled showing broad even teeth white as milk “Will there be muckle more o’ this gobbing?” she whispered jerking her head towards the vicar “I canna hear a word o’ it, an’ ’tis hot as hell’s pit in her-re.”

“Sh-h—” whispered Celia with a nervous look around, but she giggled, and a dimple showed near her pink mouth.

“I’m Magdalen Dacre,” said the girl, ignoring Celia’s
Sh-h.
“Who are
you?
” Her smallish eyes were the clear brown of an autumn oakleaf, and they examined Celia with friendly admiration.

At this fresh disturbance the two people on either side of the girls both moved. Ursula turned to check her niece, and Sir Thomas Dacre craned over his sister to look. “Yon’s a tasty dish next to Maggie,” he said out of the corner of his mouth to his brother Leonard. “A sight for sore eyen. Have a keek for yoursel’.”

Thomas drew back so that Leonard might examine Celia who reddened under the stares of both men then dropped her lashes modestly.

Magdalen chuckled and said, “The Dacres admire ye, lass, have a care, there’s na woman bor-rn safe fra those two cock-a-hoop gallants.”

Celia understood the tenor of Magdalen’s remarks, and was pleased. She felt the first stirrings of feminine power, a delicious sensation which lasted through the vicar’s final drone—“Grace-of-Our-Lord-Jesus-Christ—love-of-God—fellowship-of-the-Holy-Ghost-be-wi’-us-all e’er-more—Amen.”

He turned and scuttled away from the chancel, being thoroughly frightened by the presence of the King and his own lord of the manor—Sir Anthony.

The chapel congregation shuffled around and waited for the King to leave the gallery. The Dacres, like Lady Ursula and Celia, knew nobody amongst the crowd of Councillors, knights and equerries brought by the King, nor the few Sussex gentry, all of whom surged past Celia and her aunt, while Magdalen cried, “Whew, let us gan oot o’ her-re, I’m fair stifled!”

Celia was very willing; the young people drifted out through the elaborately fan-vaulted stone porch to the courtyard, and the girls sat down on the rim of the castle fountain. The Dacre men stood over them while they all chatted. Though shy at first, Celia soon gained ease and readily answered questions, expanding to Magdalen’s eager interest and the admiration in the young men’s yellow-brown eyes.

Lady Ursula, meanwhile, made inquiries of Hawks, the castle steward, intent on knowing exactly who the redheaded trio was. The answers pleased her. For all their rustic clothes and strange speech, the Dacres of the North were powerful Border barons, who constantly intermarried with the Nevilles of Westmoreland and had therefore a strain of royal blood through the Nevilles’ ancestress, Joan Beaufort, daughter to the Duke of Lancaster and Katherine Swynford. Sir Thomas Dacre, the heir, was himself married to a Neville of Westmoreland, though where the Lady was now the steward could not say. Ursula instantly crossed off Sir Thomas, but reexamined Leonard, the second son. A pity his back was slightly awry, and his hair and heavy beard so decidedly sandy in color. Still, thought Ursula, who was groping her Way in the hitherto unknown maze of maternal ambition, the Dacre association was not to be scorned. She walked benevolently out to the courtyard and joined Celia on the fountain’s curb.

Thus it was that they all heard the herald’s trumpet blast, announcing important visitors at Cowdray’s gatehouse.

Upstairs, Edward heard the notes of the trumpet and recognized the special flourish reserved only for the arrival of a King’s messenger, and though he was already on his way to bed in the octagonal state chamber, he checked himself and went to a window. He looked down at the messenger whose livery was emblazoned with the royal badge. “Another complaint from that pestilential Spanish ambassador, do you think?” he said to Harry Sidney—“Or,” he added, brightening, “could it be a letter from Barnaby?”

At that thought he forgot his weariness and regardless of propriety ran down the great staircase and into the courtyard. “What have you brought us, Dickon?” he cried.

The messenger fell to one knee and smiled up at the eager boy.

“Letters from France, sire, and one from the Duke in Berwick.”

Edward nodded happily and took the folded red-sealed squares of parchment. “Good,” he said. “We will read them at once in our chamber.”

“Also, sire . . .” said the messenger, still kneeling, “I have conveyed gentlemen hither, from London.” He indicated two men who stood waiting by the entrance. One was slight and young, dressed as a courtier in a crimson satin slashed doublet, small white ruff and short embroidered cape. He doffed his jaunty plumed hat when the King looked his way, disclosing masses of chestnut curls.

The other man was unmistakably a physician. His scholastic gown with long hanging sleeves, the shape of his fur collar, and the square-cornered black hat suggested his profession. His ebony staff engraved with the Aesculapian symbol, the huge leather bag which hung from his arm, and the copper neck chain from which dangled an orange-red jacinth stone (sovereign preventive of plague) all confirmed it.

Celia, Ursula and the Dacres had hastily left the fountain curb when the King ran out to meet the messenger with Anthony and Henry Sidney hurrying behind.

Celia had not until now seen the King from close up—only from the other end of the vast Buck Hall—and she stared fascinated at the slight pale boy in violet satin so encrusted with pearls and brilliants that he shimmered like a candle through the gathering twilight.

She barely glanced at the middle-aged physician who held back quietly in the shadows as the young courtier strode up to the King.