The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (20 page)

I kept my eyes on the book. There was no denying my father had been both. “He was, Majesty. Small in body, yet mighty in wit.”

Kat Ashley chuckled. “He was small and dark and Thomasin, well, she is like a sparrow. Tell us, Mistress Nell, are you a cuckoo dropped in their nest?”

I fought to keep my voice light. “I am as God made me and my parents do not object. Perhaps I am like my grandfather.” Suddenly portraits I had seen of Henry VIII splashed into my head. My courage wobbled. “Who can say?” I finished, shifting my eyes to where the other ladies sat on cushions, watching our exchange. “Look at Lady Mary’s pups. Some are black and some are red. They have no power to choose.”

Elizabeth frowned. “It is a most intriguing science, guessing which traits will appear in a breeding. There must be some order to it we have not yet discovered.”

Grateful for the distraction, I tried to fix her attention on science. “We may unravel the mystery someday. I think we live in great times. Who knows what might be revealed if the right man does look for it.” Yet another blunder. My cheeks heated.

“Perhaps I should have you speak with Walsingham. My old Moor says much the same thing when my cousin queen in Scotland vexes me.” Elizabeth mimicked her sober Puritan spymaster’s voice. “
Who knows what might be discovered?
As for a man keeping watch over my throne, I could have no better. Walsingham would interrogate a lark for stealing a crumb if he thought it a danger to me. Yes, I am most fortunate to have such a man in my service, even if his methods leave me cold.”

Mouth dry, I tried to judge whether the queen spoke warning to me or was merely praising her most cunning servant. If she were warning me, time to escape this coil might be running out. It would be worth risking an attempt to escape from her service. Once I was away from court she might forget whatever suspicions niggled at her. I had to take that chance. I crushed the book tight in my hands.

“Majesty, when Lady Ashley spoke of sparrows, it made me think. I am missing the de Lacey nest most sorely. Do you think it possible I might return home for a visit?”

An affronted spark lit Elizabeth’s gaze. “You have duties more important than serving your queen?”

“Not more important. I am my mother’s only child, Majesty.”

One brow raised, ceruse paste cracking near her eye. “And yet, you were so eager to come to court that you defied her, if I remember rightly.”

I dropped my gaze to the red leather cover of the book I held. “I am ashamed to recall that is so.”

Kat Ashley spoke up. “Do not fret, Nell. There is little a mother would not forgive a beloved daughter.” She gazed, heart-full, at Elizabeth. “Nor, by God’s mercy, is there much a daughter refuses to forgive a foolish old woman.” Regret years old clouded rheumy eyes.

Elizabeth patted Kat’s blue-veined hand, and I remembered how Kat Ashley had been forced to make a record of Elizabeth’s shameful encounters with Thomas Seymour. Yet it was obvious Elizabeth loved Kat still, without caution, without blame. Did the queen wish to please her old governess? Or did she use Kat’s concern as a ruse to get what she plotted all along? I would never know for sure.

“Kat is right,” the queen said. “Duty should be rewarded in all things. I cannot spare you, Elinor, but I could invite your mother to court for Christmastide this year. Would that please you?”

I froze. “I do not . . . what I mean to say is that I am grateful for Your Majesty’s kindness, but Calverley is a great estate, and–”

Elizabeth scowled, not bothering to veil her displeasure. “It can hardly take more care than ruling a nation, and even I am able to celebrate Christmas. I will send a royal summons at once. Surely six months should give Lady Calverley plenty of time to discharge her duties. I am determined she will join me come December. I have much to ask that only she can answer.”

My knuckles stood out white against the leather binding. I fought to keep my face from showing fear.

“Now read, Mistress. Read,” the queen snapped. “You make me quite fidgety, leaping to and fro. First wanting your mother, then thinking her too busy to wait upon her queen. A great honor for any subject, mind you.”

“I am aware of that, Majesty.”

“Good. Kat will tell you it is not wise to try my patience. I lost all will to master my temper during the weary time I spent prisoner in the Tower. Listening to the workmen hammering on a scaffold frays a woman’s nerves. It is an experience I hope none of you ladies ever suffer.” She included them all with a sweep of her hand—Isabella Markham and Mary Sidney. Lettice and Mary Grey. Yet the queen kept her gaze pinned upon me. I had to force myself to breathe.

After a moment that seemed to last forever, Elizabeth retrieved her stitching. “But on to happier thoughts, Mistress Elinor,” she bade me, her voice still holding a hint of frost. “Christmastide and your mother, here at court with you. Now you may thank me.” She offered me her hand to kiss.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” How I squeezed the words out through a throat choked with fear, I do not know. I brushed my lips across her cold, white fingers.

I wished to escape the Virgin Queen’s snare.

Instead, I was the bait to lure Thomasin de Lacey into the Tudor lioness’s den.

Chapter Seventeen

December 1564

S
UMMER VANISHED QUICK AS A FAIR-DAY RIBBON STOLEN
by stiff wind. The court traded summertime London’s plague-ridden streets for an orgy of pleasure at the finest country estates in England. Peer after peer played host to their queen.

We maids of honor jounced along in Elizabeth Tudor’s wake, part of the jumble of carts and litters that carried the queen’s household, the awe-inspiring spectacle displaying an entire royal court on the move. We clogged rutted roads and drew flocks of village folk come to press almond cakes and meadow flowers into their beloved queen’s hands. Bewildered, I tried to fit the shape of the people’s Elizabeth against that of the cunning stateswoman I had come to fear. Her graciousness to the grubbiest farmer, her patience as she listened to whatever petitions they brought her, and her tender compassion to those cursed with troubles astonished me. In spite of my wariness, I admired her when she was powdered with travel dust, listening intently to simple cares.

Yet as soon as we arrived at the next grand estate, the Elizabeth Tudor I dreaded emerged again. Each entertainment must be more extravagant than the last, the queen’s most powerful subjects expected to beggar themselves to win royal favor.

I teetered on the knife’s blade of the queen’s cunning, never knowing when I might fall. When we were engaged in scholarly pursuits she challenged my powers of reason to the very limit, fascinated almost against her will. At other times she watched me, her eyes brimming with mistrust. I tried to convince myself my imagination had run wild: Elizabeth Tudor was capricious with all her ladies save the increasingly frail Kat Ashley. And yet, none of them posed the threat to the throne that I did. They did not wake every morning knowing the queen they served would order their death if she unearthed an old woman’s rumor, or recognized the scrap of bed curtain hidden in my writing desk’s most secret drawer.

Why had I not destroyed such damning evidence? Because some part of me wanted to show it to my mother. Use it to cross the uncharted passage between my present and my past, an astrolabe of silver stitches that might reveal where I came from.

One relief in this time of uncertainty—Sir Gabriel Wyatt remained absent from court, setting the other ladies buzzing with curiosity as to what improvements he was making to his estates and to Robert Dudley’s. Wyatt was planning to take a wife, rumor said. I could breathe more freely once knowing I did not have to encounter the Gypsy’s Angel prowling around every corner.

Still, once court returned to London and the queen’s own palaces, dread thickened in me again. And as December loomed, I felt the queen taking a tender interest as to when my mother would join us.

“On Christmas Eve,” I told Her Majesty, according to Mother’s last letter.

Mother’s letters had grown increasingly tense and anxious, as if she could sense trouble and needed to assure herself that I was well. Despite her desire to see me I detected uneasiness, too, as if she were about to step out on an icy staircase where she had taken a bad fall. My mother was wandering into a tempest and there was little I could do to warn her. A letter might be intercepted by one of Walsingham’s men. Any hint of trouble between the queen and I might be just the spur his agents needed to delve deeper into my past. On the thirteenth of December, fat flakes of snow smothered the garden. I wished I could deaden my foreboding as well. The queen summoned me to wait upon her, and I hastened to her Privy Chamber where she sat examining a strange crystal sphere. “Mistress Elinor, guess who has come to bid me Christmas cheer.”

A cupboard door moved, revealing a familiar figure in dark robes. I dropped my gaze. “Happy Christmas, Dr. Dee.”

“I have asked him to predict my fortunes in the coming year. It was quite enlightening. So intriguing watching him use his gifts. Yet one gets distracted when it is one’s own future being foretold.”

“I do not foresee the future, Your Majesty,” Dee corrected. “I only read what the stars have to tell.”

“And yet, what astonishing secrets you uncover. I have seen Dr. Dee pluck amazing things out of what seems thin air. And so, I thought, would it not be fascinating to watch him cast someone else’s horoscope? Try to unveil their future? Their past?”

Unbidden, my hands curled together, my fingernail catching upon the proud flesh of my scar. “I think that a very fine idea, Your Grace. I will fetch Isabella Markham at once. She will make a perfect subject.”

“I know too much about her to make such a reading entertaining. I prefer it be someone I have known a shorter time. Someone with a mind to challenge Dr. Dee.” Her lips thinned into a smile. “I have chosen you.”

My pulse tripped. “No, Majesty. I pray you would not.”

“What? Such a devoted scholar unwilling to delve into the mists of her own fate? I cannot understand it. Surely an innocent maid like you has nothing to hide? And you cannot say such things make you uncomfortable. You have been acquainted with Dr. Dee even longer than I have. Your father’s friend.”

“Mistress Nell, in my experience it is best to accept Her Majesty’s generosity at once and regard it as the honor it is.” Dr. Dee looked wary as he approached a table laid out with volumes of star charts, pens, and quills. The queen placed upon it the crystal sphere. The scrying ball, I noted with a chill. Mere possession of such a thing could condemn its owner to the stake. Yet Elizabeth did not recoil from the object. I remembered Dee’s efforts to foretell a propitious day for her coronation. Had that mystic question led to others until the embattled queen’s fascination with seeing her future outweighed even the stain of dark magic? And if the situation shifted, would she shrink from bringing the full power of her crown to punish those whose skills she once sought?

I approached the table and sat down. What choice did I have? Dee took the bench next to me, his scent a comforting blend of ink and parchment and dusty books. A scent like that of my father. My eyes stung at the irony.

“Actually, I did Mistress Nell’s star chart long ago, at her father’s urging. It was strange, a most memorable accounting and one that gave me pause.”

“Pause?” the queen echoed. “Why?”

“Saturn promised she would be gifted in sciences. A strange reading for a girl. Mars predicted conflicts ahead and yet—a great partnership. A congress of minds.”

“Who is this partner?” the queen demanded. “A man?”

“I cannot say. I am not even sure whether they will be ally or foe. That is yet to be decided. But the strangest thing was the position of one of the constellations, a trickster who ushers in both dark and light. Draco the dragon. That is why I gave you the dragon book, Mistress Nell.”

I flinched. “My father was blinded by a dragon.”

“What?” The queen queried sharply.

“A firework he had created for my twelfth birthday. It was in the form of a dragon. It exploded and ignited the whole hill where he was setting off the display.”

“Troublesome beasts, dragons,” the queen said. “Ones every good knight should set out to drive from the earth.”

Dr. Dee smiled. “Dragons do not really belong to the earth, Majesty. They are meant to fly. Yet I would guess that even dragons sometimes need the right instrument to help them find their way back to the sky.”

“I am more interested in Mistress Nell, Dr. Dee,” the queen said. “I wish you to attempt the scrying ball.”

Dr. Dee nodded. “Place your hands upon the scrying ball, Mistress Nell, let your essence seep within it.”

The queen leaned closer, her eyes sharp. “Dr. Dee tells me that often in secrets of the mind success depends upon the openness of the subject.”

I cupped the sphere as if it were melting glass. I tried to think of anything except what might betray me: Eppie’s tale, the haggard cast of her face. And yet rather than blocking the condemning images, they flooded into my mind. What would happen if Dr. Dee was able to discern the truth? How would I know what he told the queen once I left? My mother was even now on her way to London. She might be outside the city walls, outside the palace gates. And I, all unwilling, might even now be betraying her secrets, condemning her along with myself.

Dr. Dee cupped his hands over mine on the ball. “Look at me, Mistress Nell. You have nothing to fear.”

“Look at him!” The queen demanded. My gaze snapped to his. I felt as if I were falling into someplace dark. A tunnel. A cell. Before I struck the bottom, Dr. Dee startled me, pulling the sphere from numb fingers. I trembled, waiting for him to speak.

“Mistress,” Dr. Dee said. “I vow your father would be most disappointed. You are the dullest subject I have yet attempted. Majesty, I fear Mistress Nell is very young. Perhaps we might attempt another reading when something happens in her life worth probing.”

I hardly dared count my good fortune. “You saw nothing?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Guilt over her father’s accident, but that is the burden of a dutiful child and can be of little interest to either of us.”

“But you claimed there is a light about her. A fierce light you saw in your mystic mirror.”

Dee shrugged. “I mistook it for something important. It was not. The light I saw was what Mistress Nell would be to her father after Lord Calverley lost his eyes.”

“You may leave me, Mistress,” the queen said. “Go join the other ladies decking the halls.” I left the room much shaken. Was it possible I had deceived the greatest mystic in England? Or was Dr. Dee telling her my secret even now? More astonishing still, had John Dee seen all and risked the queen’s wrath to shield me?
Do not fear
. Dee’s voice seemed to whisper in my mind. And yet, how could I do anything else?

I
CURLED UP
in a window seat apart from the other courtiers milling around the gallery. An open book lay forgotten in my lap as I peered out the mullioned panes to the road my mother would ride. Suddenly, across the room, I caught a glimpse of cloak flung back over familiar broad shoulders. I readied to make my escape as I had so many times in the three days since he had returned, but this time Sir Gabriel was too fast for me, blocking my flight from the alcove.

He wore a crimson velvet cap and his cloak was as green as the emeralds around the queen’s throat that morning. Silvery fur edged the folds, and I knew where the twin to that fur had gone, his gift to Her Majesty. “I had this imported from the Russias,” he had told the queen. “The pelts are much thicker there. I like wearing wolf because it reminds me that there are always predators about.”

“Ah, but does it protect you against the predator you are closest to?” The queen’s eyes shone with delight. “My new Earl of Leicester is looking quite thunderous since your return.”

“Lord Robert? A predator?” Wyatt had seemed all astonishment. “Surely you cannot mean to warn me against him, Majesty. The predator I am closest to is right here.”

Sir Gabriel tapped his chest with a grimace that set the ladies laughing. But it was not Wyatt’s usual grin. Somewhere on the road the Angel had lost his smile.

“Greetings, my lady Grace.”

I resented his reminder of the hunt where I had retched my insides out. But I was too weary to lock swords this day. “My name is Nell, as you know.”

“Forgive me for cutting off your escape, but you have a talent for vanishing whenever I am around.”

“Then perhaps you should leave me in peace.”

He drew closer, leaning against the wall a hand’s breadth from where I sat. He smelled of winter fires and warm stables, not the perfume other men wore.

“There is something I am anxious to show you. I am conducting an experiment, growing a strange fruit a sailor stole from a Spanish ship returning from the West Indies. It is called a pineapple.” He took what looked to be a yellow half-moon with a harsh brown rind from the leather pouch affixed to his waist. “Taste it,” he said, offering the fruit to me. “I cut into it just this morning and saved some for you.”

“I am not hungry.”

“The yellow meat tastes sour and sweet at once and seems to bite back. It reminded me of you. Are you not curious?”

I hesitated. My curiosity seemed a pale shadow of what it had once been. Yet I was still enough the girl raised by a scholar to take a tiny bite. The flavor burned with sweetness, too intense, like the court around me.

“What think you?” he asked. “I plan to take some to Dr. Dee. Perhaps you can arrange to join us at Mortlake. Between the three of us we can learn much about this fruit. See if it has healing properties, or might be used for a dye of some sort. Would that not please you?”

His words surprised me. There was kindness in them. And an understanding of me that had not been there before.

I shrugged. “My time is much taken up by my duties. Better you should pursue the matter of this fruit on your own.”

Wyatt’s gaze strayed to the window. “Are you waiting for the stars to come out? A winter sky can be beautiful as a spring one.”

“I do not study skies at all anymore. I have everything I can do to keep track of things here on the ground.” I fingered the naked hollow of my throat. “I lost my astrolabe in the garden all those months ago.” My father’s gift was gone forever.