Queen's Own Fool (6 page)

“We could write to one another.”

He looked at me as if I had just told him we could fly. “Do not be an idiot, Nicola. We do not know how to write.”

“I am not an idiot.”

“You are a flea brain.”

“And you are a flea
bite
. ”

He laughed, but it was not his ordinary bold laugh.

I put my hand on his. “The queen promised to teach me to write. How difficult can it be? A few scratches like a hen in sand.” Turning his hand over, I made pretend marks on his palm.

Pierre laughed again, his old, bold laugh. “I suppose I could find a priest to teach me some such hen-scratchings.”

Suddenly we threw our arms around one another. What had I been thinking? How could I leave the only family I knew?

“Still here, my fine lady?” Uncle's voice interrupted us, and we sprang apart. “Shouldn't you be upstairs with the lords and ladies, not down here consorting with the riffraff?”

I could not stop my tongue from returning a sharp answer. “Ah, Uncle—have you finished counting the queen's gold yet?”

Uncle sneered. “She drives a very poor bargain. I would happily have let you go for far less.”

What he said hurt so much, I said what I was thinking. “She did well to be rid of
you
so cheaply, Uncle.”

Determined to have the last word, Uncle said angrily, “If you treat the queen to such a wicked tongue, Nicola, you will be beheaded before the week is out. And good riddance.”

Suddenly I had no answer. Giving Pierre a last goodbye glance, I seized my bundle and walked away.

 

When I got back into the palace, a serving woman in a deep russet gown and dark scarf took me in hand.

“Come!” she said, and nothing more.

Leading me up the stairs, she took me to a small but elegantly-appointed room where four young women, just a few years older than me, were sitting and chatting at their needlework. The language they spoke was neither French nor Italian but something filled with harsh sounds, between a cough and a growl.

The four were all in black velvet dresses with deep hanging sleeves, starched white lawn at collar and at wrist, and dark black veils descending from small dark caps.

The servant cleared her throat. All four turned to stare at us. Then the one whose striking good looks were all but overpowering waved a hand at the servant, who left at once.

For a moment there was a deep silence. The hand-waver cast her eye over me like a farmer examining a chicken at the market. There was something regal about her: the way she carried her head, the way she dismissed the servant.

“So you are the fool.” Her accent was more pronounced than Queen Mary's.

All at once I realized that these four women must be—like the queen herself—from Scotland, for surely it was the language of the Scots they had been speaking together.

“A fool, madam? I do not think so,” I spoke slowly but with great deliberation, my eyes lowered. “Though I am a peasant, and not nearly as clever as you, madam, I am clever enough not to insult a stranger at first meeting.”

I glanced up. Her eyes were suddenly hard and shiny like pebbles on a beach. Instinctively my hand went to my mouth. Nadine had been right. I would surely be thrown out onto the streets.

“Oh, la! She does not mean that you are stupid, girl,” said the prettiest of the four, her bright daisy looks easier to take than the other's deep rose beauty. “To be
a fool
is simply your title here. A fool is ... a clown or a jester.”

I knew clowns, of course. In their motley, they juggled and mimed on the streets at any market fair.

“Am I to wear a colored costume then? And a hat with bells?”

She laughed. “What a thought!”

“But ...” I gestured down at my poor dress, with its neck kerchief and long apron. It had been good enough for a street dancer. Would it do for a court fool?

She laughed again. “Do not worry. We will dress you appropriately. Of course, now you must wear mourning as we do. The dowager insists. She does not give up her power willingly, that one. But ...” She toyed with a curl of hair that had escaped from her cap, then laughed again. “Mary is queen now. She will see us restored to our former gaiety.”

“You chatter too much,” the regal one said.

“Well, I say only the truth.”

“The queen prizes the truth,” I said brightly, hoping to make amends. “She told me so.”

“See?” The pretty one made a face at the regal one, then turned to me again. “There is money in the royal accounts for clothing for
all
of the queen's people despite the old dowager's parsimony. Certainly the queen will have some costume made up for you.” She cocked her head to one side. “As for your duties—well, there are always fools at court. You will be above them all, of course, as you are to be the queen's
own
fool. And won't that be a flea in La Folle's ear. La!”

I had thought I was to be the queen's own friend, not her fool. I tried not to let the disappointment show. “If that is what Queen Mary wants.”

“Oh, that she does,” said the third of the young women, setting down her embroidery frame. Her face was rounded. While she did not have the fine looks of the other two, there was a vivacity to her that shone out in bright spots of color on her cheeks. She stood up and began viewing me from every angle.

“Even between the four of us, we are not
foolish
enough for the French court,” she said. “We are too Scottish. We say what we mean without putting pretty twists upon it. The French court prizes the quick answer that says one thing but means another. You—it seems—can do both! And you have nothing to lose.”

“Nothing but my head,” I whispered.

All of a sudden she hooked her arm through mine so briskly I half expected her to hoist me onto her shoulders.

“They say your name is Nicola.”

“They say correctly,” I replied. “Do I need to change it as I change my dress, now that I am a fool?”

This time they all laughed, even the one who had been silent so far, she with the set of amber prayer beads hanging at her waist. Rather plain and still compared to the other three, her large, kind eyes shone in her face like great dark jewels.

“La—Nicola,” the pretty one said. “Perhaps we are the ones who should change our names, for we Scots are each called Mary.”

“Each?”

“Each! I am Mary Beaton, and this is Mary Fleming, Mary Livingstone, and Mary Seton!” she said, pointing to one after another. Then she clapped her hands together as if she had just performed a great trick and was leading the applause.

“Five. If you count Queen Mary,” added Mary Seton, the one with the prayer beads. “May she live long and rule well.” Her right hand made a quick sign of the cross. She reminded me of the nuns who had taken care of me, and I liked her at once for that.

“I am indeed too foolish to distinguish all of you so quickly,” I said. But I had already made up my mind to think of them as Regal Mary, Pretty Mary, Jolly Mary, and Pious Mary, their actions marking them out even if their clothing did not. However, I was not so foolish as to tell them this. “But you will all know me, lest they change my name to Mary as well.”

“You may keep your name, little ninny,” said Jolly Mary Livingstone, leading me away. “Four Maries is enough. But these awful clothes—pah! They will have to go. ” She tugged at the sleeve of my threadbare dress. “The dowager would have you put down like a dog for wearing such a thing.”

“Nicola seems my size,” Pious Mary observed. “I will give her my other mourning gown till the seamstress can come. But clean her up well or she will soil the good cloth.” She picked up one end of a tapestry and disappeared through a door hidden behind it.

7

THE BATH

C
ome,” Jolly Mary said. ”We are well prepared for you.”

They led me into a small inner chamber where there was a steaming wooden tub sitting on the stone floor. I had never seen any pot big enough to heat this much water before. I looked under it but there was no flame. How many times must someone have emptied a kettle into it! And for what purpose?

Jolly Mary let go of my arm and said, “Now take off that hideous apron and dress. The kerchief as well. And the cap. I am certain you are going to look lovely when you are clean.”

“Clean? But I am not dirty,” I complained. “I washed my hands and face before we performed and had a full bath not a month ago in a stream near Nantes.” I did not make a move to strip off my things.

“Now!” Regal Mary's hand pressed into the small of my back, pushing me forward again. “Into the tub.”

“Mon Dieu!” I cried. “You are going to boil me like a piece of mutton! Does Her Majesty know of this?”

“It is the queen's own order,” Pretty Mary said.

“But the water is hot.”

“Of course it is hot!” Jolly Mary laughed at me. “We could not possibly bathe you in cold, could we?”

“Of course one bathes in cold water,” I said. “Is not a stream cold? And a pond?”

“Come,” said Regal Mary, “or the water will indeed be cold.” They grabbed me and began peeling off my apron and dress.

There was no point in trying to fight them. Besides, where would I have gone? I wanted to be here. Perhaps this was a test of courage, just as the riddle had been a test of wit. Both to determine if I were worthy of a place at court.

Suddenly I was quite naked, Pretty Mary having tossed my clothes as far from me as she could. I put one arm across my tiny breasts, shamed that anyone should see me bare, especially these Scottish strangers.

“How thin she is,” Regal Mary commented, as if I were some piece of horseflesh at a fair.

“You would be thin, too, if you had had only a baguette to eat today,” I replied, neglecting to mention the cheese or the wine.

Regal Mary harrumphed and turned her back on me.

“Now, Nicola, are you going to get in by yourself or do we have to throw you in?” Jolly Mary demanded, placing her hands on her hips and fixing me with a determined stare.

I had no doubt she was quite capable of tossing me into the tub on her own, so I took a reluctant step closer. When I dabbed one finger into the water, I found it was the temperature of soup that had been sitting in the bowl for some time.

Turning, Regal Mary saw my hand testing the water, and raised a haughty eyebrow. “Hot enough for you, little peasant?” she said. “We can always have more boiled water brought in.”

There was no way I could delay further, so I lifted up one foot and dipped it in. The bath did not feel so bad! Slowly I climbed in, then lowered myself until the water came to my chin. The warmth seeped through my skin and down into my bones. If this is torture, I thought,
what a delicious way to die
.

Pretty Mary handed me a cloth and soap to wash with. I rubbed down my arms and legs and could see that already I was turning the color of a new babe. I laughed at the thought.

“You will need to wash your hair as well,” said Jolly Mary. And without any more warning than that, she put a hand on the top of my head and shoved me completely under the water.

For an instant pure fear stabbed at my heart. My entire body remembered the great river Rhone that had swallowed my parents; it remembered the waves, the cries of horror, the black tide. I clutched the edge of the tub with both hands and pushed up as hard as I could.

Bursting out of the water, I gasped and spluttered, “Maman! Papa!” I screamed, again and again. “Help! Help!”

At first the three Maries laughed, but they soon stopped when they saw the great fear in my face. And the awful rage.

“You are trying to drown me,” I cried. “Assassins! Help!”

At that very moment, Pious Mary came back in with an armful of clothes. My eyes were drawn immediately to the cross she wore, and as I stared at it, all at once I felt safe again.

She knelt beside me. “Poor child, are you all right?” she asked in her soft voice.

“We were just trying to wash her hair,” Pretty Mary said.

“She thought we were trying to drown her,” added Jolly Mary.

I did not want Pious Mary to think I was just being silly, and so hurriedly explained, my voice raw from screaming. “A year ago I saw my parents drown. I would have drowned myself, had the Lord not saved me.”

Pious Mary glared at the others before turning back to me. “You are safe here, Nicola. No one would dare harm one of the queen's own house.”

My panic faded and I sat back in the tub. Gradually I relaxed as the Maries scrubbed at my hair and chattered, sometimes in French, sometimes in their own strange-sounding Scots tongue.

I began to drift into sleep.

 

Jolly Mary's voice roused me. “You'd best get dried off and dressed now,” she said, offering a hand to help me out of the tub.

The drying towels were so soft and sweet-smelling it was like rubbing rose petals over my skin. The velvet gown Pious Mary loaned me was very long and loose, but the silken hose were lovely. I had never had any but woolen before. However, they had no shoes that came near to fitting me.

“I have just the thing,” I said, finding my sack next to the pile of my discarded clothes. I pulled out the last pair of boots Papa had ever made me. I had worn them but once before, when the nuns had taken me to a special mass for my parents. The boots had been too big for me then, and I had not tried them on since. But now they fit me nicely, snugged on over the new hose.

Regal Mary turned her nose up at the boots. “Peasant wear!”