The Time Garden (13 page)

"'Sblood!" cried good Queen Bess. "What manner of savage is this that stands before the Queen's presence with her nether limbs exposed?"

Eliza had been thinking what to say. Now she said it. "O Queen," she said, "we are strangers come from a far land in our native dress to do you homage."

The Queen's eyes narrowed. "What far land would that be? Not hated Spain?"

"Nay," said Eliza. "We come from America."

The Queen turned to the bearded gentleman, who was busy trying to clean the worst mud from his cloak. "What say you, Sir Walter? Does this wench resemble the natives of your far wilderness of the potato and the tobacco?"

"Not one bit," said Sir Walter. He eyed Eliza shrewdly. "If you are an American, where's your beads and feathers? Where's your wampum?"

Jack felt he had been silent too long. "Wampum," he said, stepping forward, "is a thing of the past. We come from the United States, only they haven't happened yet. We come from the future."

A murmur of disbelief ran through the crowd.

The Queen had not noticed Jack before, and now her eyes dwelt with approval on his youthful frame. She did not seem to mind the knees. "Interesting," she said, "if true." She turned to her companions. "The lad is well-favored, though the lass is a plain enough wench."

Eliza sputtered with indignation, but before she could speak a scholarly-looking gentleman had appeared at the Queen's elbow. "A likely story!" he said. "They are undoubtedly Spanish spies, sent to do harm upon your majesty's person."

"Not necessarily," said the Queen, regarding him coldly. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Master Francis Bacon, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

"Francis Bacon?" said Eliza, jiggling up and down excitedly. "I've heard of you. People say you wrote Shakespeare!"

"
Who
says so?" cried the gentleman angrily. "I never!"

"Good," said Eliza. "
That's
settled, then."

"Silence!" roared the Queen, glaring, at them both. "Hold your tongue, you bold-faced jig! Stand still! Speak when you're spoken to!"

"'And don't twiddle your fingers all the time,'" said Eliza. But she didn't say it aloud.

"Now then," said the Queen, returning to Jack and assuming friendlier tones. "How call they you in this future world you say you inhabit?"

"My name's Jack," said Jack.

"A good old English name," approved the Queen.

"And she's Eliza," said Jack.

"Oho!" said the Queen, bending a more favorable look upon that young lady. "So my fame has traveled even to your far time, has it? She was named for
me,
of course?"

"Not exactly," said Jack, who was a truthful boy. "She was named for Great-aunt Eliza Tompkins."

"But
she
might have been named for you, like as not," said Eliza quickly. "All kinds of modern things are."

"Why, sure," said Jack, getting the idea. "We call this whole century the Elizabethan Age. My English teacher says it was just about the best age ever!"

"True. True," said the Queen, looking around her with utter self-satisfaction.

"One of the greatest ships we have is called the
Queen Elizabeth,
" said Eliza.

"Only fitting and proper," nodded the Queen. "Go on."

"Well, there's Elizabeth, New Jersey," said Eliza, who was beginning to run out of Elizabeths.

"And Elizabeth Taylor," put in Jack.

"Two noble ladies of your century, I presume," said the Queen. "I am delighted to hear it." She raised her voice and addressed the crowd. "I am satisfied that these brats speak the truth. What they have told me of their times has convinced me. And very sensible times they seem to be, with a proper regard for their glorious ancestry! Let us give them a royal welcome. The lad looks ripe for the palace guard. Take him away and outfit him suitably."

"Lucky you," said Eliza enviously to Jack. "We wanted to see them changing the guard at Buckingham Palace, and now you'll be
in
it!"

"Our palace," Queen Elizabeth corrected her, "is called Whitehall."

"That's OK by me," said Jack. "No skin off my neck either way." And a crowd of handsome young men (who all seemed to be splendid fellows) led him away, clapping him on the back and welcoming him to their stalwart company.

"As for the wench," went on the Queen, "let her be carried back to Whitehall as she is, short kilts and all. With her outlandish rig and her fantastical tales of the future, she should afford us more sport than a whole gaggle of court jesters."

Eliza was not at all sure she liked the comparison. But when spirited steeds were brought and she was helped to mount one, and when she galloped away through the streets of London behind the fabled Queen, her heart sang high. And the fact that a gentleman rode on each side of her (and kept strict watch to see that she didn't turn out to be a Spanish spy after all) only added to the excitement. And the way the people lined the streets and shouted and threw their caps in the air made Eliza feel almost as though it were
she
they were cheering, and not that other Elizabeth. She bowed to the right and left in what she hoped was a regal way, and blew kisses to the crowd. And then they were at Whitehall.

As a palace it was not so dusty. The rooms, while not of Emerald City splendor, were big and impressive, and the courtiers who thronged its halls were handsome as heroes of romance and blazing with gems and satin (only none blazed so brightly as Queen Elizabeth herself).

Eliza followed the Queen into the throne room and stood at her right hand. Hardly was Her Majesty seated when a young man even more richly dressed than the average strode into the room and knelt before her, kissing her hand.

"Ha!" said the Queen. "You are late, Robin."

"A thousand pardons, dear Gloriana!" said the young man. "And a pox on the cursed business that kept me from your side a single moment!"

"Humph!" said the Queen. "You have missed prime sport by not attending us sooner. Behold, an envoy from the future has descended upon us with rare news of things to come. How say you, Milady Posterity?" She turned to Eliza. "Is the name of Milord of Essex famous in your far time also?"

Eliza wrinkled her forehead. "I've heard
something
about him," she said, "but I can't remember just what."

"Oho!" said the Queen, and Eliza thought she sounded pleased. "You have not heard, for example, that he married his sovereign and became king to reign with her?"

"Oh no!" said Eliza. "I'm sure it wasn't anything like that. You never married anybody. They call you the Virgin Queen."

"And so they jolly well ought to!" said the Queen, complacently.

The face of the young man fell. If he hadn't been such a splendid young gentleman, Eliza would have said that he pouted. The Queen looked at his face and laughed.

"Cheer up, Robin-a-bobbin!" she said. "You know you are king in my heart. Is not that sufficient?"

The handsome young man quickly put on an adoring smile. "To be sure, it is more than enough, dear Gloriana!" he said (but Eliza did not think that he meant it).

"That's my Robin Goodfellow!" said the Queen, putting out her hand. The handsome young man pressed it between his own hands ardently.

It was at that moment that Eliza remembered suddenly what she had heard about Robert Earl of Essex. And as so often happened with Eliza, she spoke her thought aloud without pause for consideration.

"If you like him as much as all that," she said, "why do you cut his head off later?" A second after she had said it she wished she hadn't.

And well she might. The Earl of Essex turned pale and dropped the Queen's hand as though it had burnt him. The Queen turned even paler than he, and her eyes glittered. The courtiers who were near enough to hear whispered together, and some giggled.

Then the scarlet of anger swept over the Queen's face, and she boxed Eliza's ears in a most unqueenly way.

"'Sblood!" she cried, in an awful voice. "What treason is this? Who told you to say those words?"

"Nobody," said Eliza, in a small voice. "It's true. I read it in a history book."

"I don't believe you," said the Queen. "It's a plot to drive my Robin from my side. I don't believe you are a visitor from the future one bit!"

"Probably a witch," said Sir Walter Raleigh.

"Or a traitress in the pay of my enemies," said Milord of Essex, beginning to recover from the shock.

"Or a spy of hated Spain, just as I said," said Master Francis Bacon.

"Away with her to the Tower!" cried the Queen. "Let her cool her heels in a prison cell till I make up my mind what to do with her. She shall be burnt or beheaded or both, as a warning to all who would harm my Robin-a-bobbin! Guards, ho!"

A score of guardsmen surged forward.

"I take it back!" cried the wretched Eliza. "It probably isn't going to happen at all! I probably got it wrong! I never
was
very good in history! Ask my teacher!"

"Aha!" cried the Queen. "So you have a 'teacher,' do you? I
thought you
were over-young for such miching mallecho without
some
prompting! Mayhap a taste of bread and water and solitary confinement will help you to remember your 'teacher's' name! Take her away!"

Strong arms seized Eliza and began marching her the length of the throne room.

"Don't worry," breathed a shaky voice in her ear. "We wanted to see the Tower of London, didn't we? Now we will."

Eliza looked up and met the familiar gaze of Jack, as he moved along at her side with the rest of the Queen's guard. She had never been so glad to see her brother in her life.

"Thank heavens!" she said. "I'd forgotten all about you!"

But apparently the Queen had forgotten about him, too, and now she remembered. For at this moment her voice rang out.

"Nay! Stay! Halt!"

The guards halted.

"Let the lad who calls himself Jack be arrested immediately and brought to my council chamber. I

would question him in private," commanded the Queen.

"Too bad, old chap," said thé guardsman on Jack's left, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Here. Don't worry about me. Save yourself," hissed Jack to Eliza, shoving something into her hand.

"No fraternizing with the prisoner. Sorry, old man," said the guardsman on Jack's right, taking him by the elbow and turning him around.

And Jack was marched away in one direction and Eliza in another, out of the throne room and through the corridors of Whitehall. Her escort paused at a doorway. Flunkies sprang to open it. Outside a flight of broad stone steps led downward. At their foot lapped the waters of the River Thames. A black and sinister-looking barge stood moored and ready for any who were to make the fatal journey Towerward.

As Eliza stepped onto the barge she unclenched her hand and looked at what Jack had thrust into it. It was the packet of thyme seed.

But before she could do more than read the words "English Mixed," the barge swung with the tide, jolting her, and the packet fell from her fingers. A puff of wind caught it and bore it aloft for a second. Then it fluttered down to the surface of the river and sailed away out of sight, carrying its precious cargo of safety with it.

A sob was heard. Whether it was Eliza's, I will not say. Perhaps it was the remorseful wind.

"Cheer up, little lady. All may yet be well," said a kindly guardsman. But Eliza didn't hear. And she didn't look at the banks of the Thames slipping past, or see the grim fortalice of the Tower draw nearer, or notice the Traitors' Gate as they went through it.

Eliza was in despair.

7. The Last Time?

"I hope the Natterjack's there," panted Roger to Ann, as they raced for the thyme garden. "If it's still disappeared, we'll never find it before it's too late!"

"Where do you suppose it goes in between whiles?" panted Ann to Roger.

"Sort of merges into things generally, I suppose," said Roger. "Like protective coloring, only more so."

"I hope it's un-merged now," said Ann. After that they had no breath left for anything but running.

Luckily the Natterjack proved to be in residence. It was sitting, as usual, upon the sundial. Roger wasted no precious seconds in words. Picking it up, he raced back toward the cliff, while Ann, who had got her second wind, babbled excitedly of what had happened.