Youth will needs have dalliance,
Of good or ill some pastance;
Company me thinketh the best
All thoughts and fantasies to digest.
or idleness is chief mistress of vices all;
Then who can say
But pass the day
Is best of all?
— KING HENRY VIII
“YOUR MAJESTY,” NED TOPSIDE SAID, HIS fine voice carrying out over the courtiers and servants assembled in a corner of
the great hall of Windsor, “I am honored that you will grace my masque with your presence
onstage rather than having the revelries presented to you this time.”
“I decided,” Elizabeth replied, “that if Lord Robert is to enact the part of Apollo, I would never hear the end of it were I not to take the part of the goddess Diana myself.”
“But they were brother and sister and not enamored,” she was certain she heard someone behind her murmur, and it sounded like her once-trusted Lord Cecil. Though he and de Quadra would not be in the cast for the drama, they were quite the hangers-on lately. Did the unease she’d felt since she arrived at Richmond this summer, she wondered, mean that those statesmen were spying on her, even if not in person? When she’d lived in exile, Cecil had stooped to having a cook keep an eye on her, entirely for her own good, he’d said.
“Now, the key parts are these,” Ned said, gesturing grandly and striding about to position people. “If you wish to catch a glimpse of the scenery or costumes later, I have sketches done by Her Majesty’s clever Gil Sharpe.” The queen saw that Ned already had some of the two-tiered set erected and draped with diaphanous cloths. She tugged one long piece free and wrapped it about her shoulders and throat, just to feel more in the part of this fantastical setting.
Looking nervous that the queen was undoing his scenery, her principal player and fool—who was never, indeed, a fool—plunged on, “This is a rendition of the myth of Niobe, who dared to defy a goddess and to place herself above her.”
“And that goddess was?” Elizabeth encouraged, fully expecting him to say it was her part as virgin goddess of the hunt, Diana, the part he’d promised her.
“That would be Leto, Diana and Apollo’s mother, Your Majesty, a Titan who bore Zeus those twin children.”
“But they are not children in the drama, I hope, man,” Robin prompted.
“No, my lord, for you see,” Ned said, “they are grown to adulthood now and, besides, I’ve turned it into a political allegory also and you can’t have children in something like that.”
Elizabeth heard Cecil snort and this time turned to glare at him. Cecil and the Spanish ambassador huddled together near the stairway of the set as if they were boon companions rather than competitors who would turn to enemies should events warrant. But seeing de Quadra gave Elizabeth a thought.
“Ned,” she said, her voice low, “we do not insult Spain or King Philip in this play?”
“Oh, no, Your Grace. ’Tis France takes the brunt of it.”
“Fine,” she clipped out, amused to see him look relieved and pleased for once. “Say on.”
“Now everyone, hearken please,” Ned said, rapping his knuckles on the wall of the set to recapture their attention. “Her Grace is Diana, and we need four ladies to be her attendant nymphs for the first act. Meg Milligrew will serve as the queen’s tiring woman backstage to fetch her bow and quiver, et cetera, and perhaps have a bit part onstage. Lord Robert Dudley as Apollo must needs have at least one follower too—Jenks, are you up for that?”
“I’m more used to guarding Her Grace, but fine,” Jenks agreed, and stepped closer to Lord Robert.
“Ah, now,” Ned went on, “the mothers’ parts. Kat Ashley had best, I believe, portray Apollo and Diana’s mother, Leto, who is insulted by Niobe’s braggadocio. But who shall play that pompous woman who puts herself above Leto and Diana, so—”
“Katherine Grey is young but her voice is strong and we can deck her in white hair,” the queen cut in. “She shall play that role. And what is the allegory then?”
“You and Apollo, Your Grace,” Ned explained as Katherine stepped forward, somehow looking both pleased and piqued, “shall represent not only the children of Leto, but fair England herself. Therefore, Lady Ashley stands for Mother England. Katherine Grey is not only Niobe, but France, always criticizing England. But in the play when Diana and Apollo strike down Niobe’s—that is, France’s—children, she learns never to challenge a goddess again.”
“A timely theme,” Elizabeth declared with a decisive nod. “Perhaps since rumors and gossip flow from the court of France as if from a gutter, some of you will spread the word what we English do for amusement.”
Some grinned, some snickered, yet the queen seethed inside. Mary, Queen of Scots, and France had no right to sully her reputation or Robin’s either. Someone had said that Mary claimed not only that the queen of England would wed her Horse Master, but that she would dispatch his poor wife to do so. That was blasphemy and grievously dangerous.
“Now,” Ned went on, “each time Diana appears, Felicia Dove will play a bright theme on her lute from behind the facade of the scenery.”
“Since,” Elizabeth interrupted, “Apollo is the god of music, Felicia may play for his entrances and exits. Trumpets, I think, for Diana. By the way, what is the name of this masque?”
“I had thought,” Ned said, drawing himself up to his full height and lifting his chin, “The Lesson of Niobe.”
“Too obscure,” Elizabeth said. “Try The Triumph of Diana.”
“Oh, of course,” Ned agreed, shuffling papers and passing them here and there for a read through of the lines, but looking more confused all the time. He gestured his betters to their positions but tugged people like Meg and Felicia into place.
“Now, Apollo had the art of healing too,” Ned went on, “so at the end, perhaps he should resurrect those children of the grieving Niobe whom the twins have slain.”
“But that would give Apollo the last say in this drama,” Elizabeth protested. “Besides, Robin is no doctor, which reminds me, I meant to send for Dr. Dee. My Lord Robert, send my new barge and bargemen to fetch him at his house in Mortlake, will you not? He used to help present plays years ago with fantastical effects. Yes, send for Dr. Dee posthaste.”
“To—to be in the masque, Your Grace?” Ned asked, looking nearly beside himself.
“Perhaps to give the goddess Diana a grand finish,” the queen said only, leaving her sudden inspiration a secret. “You all read through your parts, and I will add my voice, and perhaps a few new lines, later. I believe this entertainment will be even grander if we can move it outside to the fountain court.”
“B-but,” Ned stuttered, his eyes darting at the half-erected set.
“Don’t fret,” she told him. “You’ll have much help to move it outside, and of course, if it rains, we’ll have to do it here.” Elizabeth turned to leave the room, for she had promised Cecil she would sign the writs she’d ignored and she wanted to get that over, to have the rest of the day free.
She bumped smack into Luke Morgan, who must have been hovering. They momentarily clung to each other to keep from going off balance, then let go but not before Robin jumped at them to pluck Luke’s hands from her. Jenks leaped forward too.
“Watch where you stand and not so close to Her Majesty’s person, sirrah,” Robin clipped out.
“Lord Robert, this is a trusted man of Lord Hunsdon, so unhand him,” she ordered. “He has done me good service and may yet do more.”
Though it was the slightest of incidents, she saw Robin’s jaw clench and his neck vein throb. Was he embarrassed or jealous? she wondered, and a shiver shot through her. Or was he just annoyed she yet kept him in his place? Poor Jenks had just reacted instinctively from years of oft being her sole protector. But what was strangest of all was that the lutenist, far on the fringe of the crowd, had also flung herself forward, as if to protect her queen.
AFTER HER MAJESTY HAD FINALLY SIGNED THE SMALL PILE of papers Cecil set before her, he went back down to the play practice to see if de Quadra was still about. He found that the ambassador and the players had flown, but Felicia Dove sat in a corner, playing some doleful lament while wrapped in the same swathe of material the queen had draped herself in earlier.
He was nearly to her before the girl noticed him and glanced up, stopping her fingers in mid-melody. “I see you are left-handed,” he observed as she scrambled to her feet and pulled the cloth from around her slender shoulders. “Do you know the Latin for left-handed?” he went on, stopping a few feet from Felicia to study her closely. When she shook her head warily, he told her, “Sinister, which used to imply unlucky or fated, though, of course, it means evil now.”
“Say what you intend, my Lord Cecil.”
Ah, he thought, the girl had pluck too, but he continued his little charade of an interview with her by shrugging slightly. “If Her Majesty has taken you back, it is your lucky day and you can do naught but good for her with those quick hands and quicker brain.”
“I’m not exactly back in Her Grace’s good graces,” she said, straight-faced at her own witty wordplay.
Yes, cleverness would help too, Cecil mused. “I’m a man of business, Mistress Dove, so I will cut to the quick and be brief,” he explained, “not that I wouldn’t like to hire you to write me a song for my dear wife or one to soothe the savage beast that rears its head about here from time to time lately.”
“I tell people I cannot write, my lord, but in truth I can—a bit, though please tell no one else. So I could write a song for your lady wife, e’en the notes. I’ve already done one for Lord Robert, though not for his wife. But no, for you, it must needs be a song like this one.”
The service is unseen
That I full long have served,
Yet my reward hath been
Much less than I deserved
Yet for those graces past
And favor that I found
Whilst my poor life shall last
I find myself still bound.
“Ah,” he said, stunned this mere slip of a girl had read him and perceived the political situation here so well. “Did you pen those lines, mistress?” he asked.
“I believe they were by a courtier the queen banished a while ago.”
“Ah,” he said again, beginning to be annoyed this girl kept surprising him. “And who was that?”
“I think I heard it was John Harington, but I know him not.”
“I did. A loyal man, but one who went astray, though I think Her Majesty’s been missing him and his lady wife lately and may have them back soon.”
Felicia stopped playing. “That remains to be seen, as does everything with this queen,” she whispered, frowning.
“Quite so, especially this summer. Then, mistress, I am hoping you and I can come to an agreement, at least while we are both on the edge of Her Majesty’s favor. If you will follow my guidance, I shall become your patron—of sorts,” he added, and slightly rattled the coins in his dangling purse. “Might we work together on something that is not a song, not exactly, at least?”
“A deal that is a duet, my lord?” she said, and her eyes lit. “You know,” she added, carrying her lute and walking with him toward the door that went down toward the river, “the fact I play left-handed makes it easier for me to teach others because—for example—when the queen looks at me to copy my fingering, it’s just like looking in a mirror, almost as if I were her. And then, she trusts me more.”
Before he could garner a reply, the girl began to strum and sing,
The night right long and heavy
The days of my torment
The sighs continually
That throughout my heart went
My color pale and wan
To her did plainly show
That I was her true man
And yet she thought not so.
The queen’s principal secretary almost stumbled. For once, William Cecil was at a loss for words.
“YOU WERE ROUGH ON ME AT THAT PLAY READING TODAY, my queen,” Robin complained almost peevishly as they strolled the fountain court in the shade while her retinue promenaded the intersecting paths.
“Robin, I merely want the masque as it should be. By the way, I’m planning to have your friend Dr. Dee fly my Diana out with his ingenious, invisible harness.”
He looked shocked but quickly recovered. “But if we’re holding it here in the courtyard, what if a big wind comes up?” he protested. “I’ll not have you hurt.”
“Do you not trust your friend you have oft recommended to me?” she countered, as if they were fencing. “With my approval of such a feat, that silly rumor he is some sort of sorcerer or wizard will be ended and he can be of more use to me. Besides, my lord, it is you who are the sorcerer or wizard.”
“You mean of your heart, I pray. My queen, may I not come to your rooms this night? Keep Mary and Kat about if you will, it is just that I long to have you alone … nearly alone … to show you how much I adore you.”
“That is one of the costs of being queen, Robin, not lack of privacy, for I manage that at times, but not being certain whether proclamations, however impassioned, of adoration are to be trusted. A little voice inside me asks if my subjects love me for myself or for the fact I hold might and riches in my hand. Chi ama crede is not such an easy thing.”
Looking furious that she had turned his own lure upon him, he stopped walking. “You don’t mean you question how I truly feel? You cannot mean that, and if so, it is because, as I just said, you will not let me show you fully.”
“Ah, well,” she said, and turned down a cross path to take him unaware and make him hurry to keep up.
“Elizabeth,” he said, when he almost never dared her Christian name, “do not doubt that I love you as a man does a woman. Why, if you were a country lass and I some rural swain, I would love you ‘til I died.”
“ ’Til you died …” she whispered, closing her eyes dreamily.
When she caught her toe on a brick, she stopped to kick at it as if it were that object’s fault for ruining her reverie. Pain shot through her toes. That reminded her she wanted to talk to Robin about Amy’s health, but she could not bring herself to so much as mention it now. If anyone found out she had asked, would it not give credence to rumors she awaited Amy’s demise? But if Robert Dudley were indeed free to wed, would it change anything? Worse, if Amy were to die, her enemies could say the queen caused it somehow, so she’d best pray for Amy’s health, more even than her own.
“About tonight,” she whispered, “I do not know.”
“We could talk naught but politics,” he said, his lips tilting in the hint of smile.
“Talk that now,” she commanded. “You have spoken with de Quadra about the Grey girl as my heir, I take it?”
“I did, and he wanted it so badly he trusted me and took the bait whole. He says I am his friend now.”
“I knew it, but never trust or believe him fully. Do you think he might already have hatched a plot to help her?”
“I—truly, Your Grace—I think he still has hopes you might consider a Catholic fiancé who could then wed and bed you and in one generation have a Papist back on your throne.”
“Then he has a lot to learn,” she said, hitting her fists one atop the other as they walked, though her toe still pained her.
“He does indeed, but then, like me, he is merely a man.”
She turned to study Robin’s expression. Hurt but hopeful too. She did love Robin and want him desperately. But that made her fear him too—or was it herself, her womanly weaknesses, she feared?
“Robin, some evening soon,” she whispered, pointing upward at the Round Tower that so dominated Windsor, “I will walk there on the battlements, around and around, and mayhap I will see you there at twilight—before darkness falls.”
She turned and swept back toward the royal apartments, while others hurried to keep up. The wind lifted the fountain spray to coat her salmon-hued bodice so it seemed to turn a shiny, bloody crimson.
MEG HAD BEEN RELIEVED TO HEAR THAT EVEN THOUGH Her Majesty’s new London barge and rowers had arrived today, she’d already sent them away to fetch Dr. Dee. Not that Meg liked doctors. Though she could recall little of her life before the queen’s aunt, Mary Boleyn, took her in and nursed her after a kick in the head by a horse, Meg sensed they had not trusted doctors at her family’s apothecary shop in her earlier life. When her mother was dying, the old woman had warned against trusting them too, and Meg had been forced to bar the old leech Her Grace had sent in good faith from hurting her mother more.
As Meg kept cutting more roses, she glanced through the leafy, leggy autumn bushes down the slant of lawn toward the landing. The barge that had been repaired bobbed at its moorings, guarded by two louts arguing about something. Their angry voices carried clear up here. Of course it was just her imagination, but one voice sounded familiar and filled her with foreboding. Mayhap he was the bargeman who had called out the rhythm for the oarsmen from time to time.
“Can’t believe the varlets couldn’t keep this barge off the rocks,” the man in question told the other. “Why, I been shooting the rapids under London Bridge at high tide and hardly e’er lost a one.”
The other lout hacked and spit into the river and said something back about the queen, but Meg heard no more. Ben Wilton was a bridge shooter. It—it could be him. But it had been over a year since she’d seen him, and then she’d been far off or had hidden her own face with hair.
She squatted down behind the rosebushes and carefully parted two stems, ignoring the prick and scratch of thorns on her hands.
“Mercy, oh Lord, have mercy,” she whispered.
It looked like Ben Wilton, sounded like him too. Somehow he’d been brought here, then left behind when the other new oarsmen went to fetch Dr. Dee. Meg grabbed her basket and, hunched, did a low duck waddle to get farther away from the barge landing. A few times the queen had ordered her to take to the royal bed while Her Grace went somewhere else garbed as an herb girl, but now Meg would have to take to her own bed. Anything to keep clear of running into that man or she was as good as dead with Her Grace and probably, literally, with Ben Wilton too.
But she backed right into a pair of sturdy legs, gasped, turned, and looked up. She was half expecting Ned had been spying on her, but it was Lord Hunsdon’s man, that Luke something-or-other. Like the queen had taught her, the best defense was an attack.
“Do you dare to spy on the queen’s strewing herb mistress?” she demanded, rising to her full height but keeping her back to the river.
“Looks to me like you’re spying on those two men talking down there, and the question is why?” he said with a smirk. “Do you fancy them, then? I don’t know their names but I could present you just like a fine lady. They say bargemen have strong arms to hold and please a lady and great thrusting thighs to—”
“Leave off!” she ordered, putting a bit of the metallic clang in her voice as the queen sometimes did. Ned hadn’t taught her to mimic Her Grace’s carriage and tone for nothing.
“Leave off?” Luke threw back at her, and hooted a laugh, hooking his thumbs in his belt as if he were lord of all he surveyed. “Now what red-blooded man—including those oarsmen, I warrant—would want to do that when he came upon a blushing wench hot and flushed out here amid these sweet flowers?”
Furious with this lout and with herself for getting caught where he might force her to face Ben Wilton— damn all men—Meg grabbed her rose basket and fled toward the palace. But he caught her easily and swung her around to face him.
“Don’t run off. Since you’re so close to the queen, you and I can strike a bit of a bargain, all right? I long to serve her closer too, to know what pleases her so—”
“What pleases her is her cousin Harry’s lackeys, kin or not, keeping their ham-hock hands off her servants!” Meg cried, and shook herself free to run again. This time he let her go, but she didn’t like that he’d seen her spying on the bargemen, especially since he had the habit of tat-telling to the queen.
“YOUR MAJESTY, I’VE JUST RECEIVED MISSIVES FROM AN informant in France about certain occurrences there,” Cecil told Elizabeth, stretching his strides to keep up with her as she led courtiers down to the barge landing to greet the eminent Dr. Dee.
“Has war been declared on us again, my lord?”
“No, Your Grace, but—”
“More of that she-wolf’s lies about my character?”
“There are subtle hints of religious unrest and cruelties against the Protestant Huguenots that—”
“Save it for later, mayhap for the Sabbath. Besides, Cecil, Dr. Dee might just be one to give us better intelligence about France someday than subtle hints and rumors. Hurry, everyone, as I want this to be a good welcome, and then we get to work on the masque again!” she called to her stampeding entourage behind her.
Cecil swore under his breath and stopped trying to keep up. He was done with this, and if Elizabeth of England wanted him out of her frivolous path to destruction, so be it—except for his card up his sleeve.
He waited to let everyone stream by toward the landing, as if he were a stone in a brook. But he snagged the lutenist’s sleeve as she passed.
“Behave yourself,” he muttered.
She nodded. He turned up toward the castle to pack his things so he could go to town to hire a barge of his own. But he heard Felicia sing the saucy lyrics to a catchy melody, and he wondered if it was meant for his untuned ears:
I shall do anything for you
To stand in your good graces.
Perhaps if you won’t favor this,
I’ll put on other faces.
“CECIL WHAT?” ELIZABETH DEMANDED AS MEG HANDED her the goddess Diana’s bows and arrows just before her final entrance. Her silk mask was bothering her too. It kept slipping, so she had trouble seeing straight ahead. And as if this bejeweled bodice wasn’t already tight enough, she wore Dr. Dee’s flying harness under it and had to keep a good watch not to tangle the ropes and wires over her head.
“They say my Lord Cecil packed and left posthaste yesterday, Your Grace,” Kat repeated, tying the strings of the queen’s mask tighter. “Mayhap his wife was of a sudden taken ill or some such thing—”
“You have the wrong wife for that,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Don’t you think I’ve been fearing Robin might be so called away? Besides, Mildred Cecil is as healthy as a horse, and I will settle with my lord secretary later. For now, tell Ned to have someone else of some gravity read the final moral I’ve newly written for our masque, then.” Kat hurried off, out of breath.
Indeed they were all rushed and breathless, Elizabeth thought, feeling a bit nervous herself. Plenty of things had gone wrong at the last moment and with the courtyard packed with courtiers and townsfolk for this masque, the first she’d been in for years. And, it seemed, everyone—except herself, of course—was just trying to get attention.
Meg had pleaded a sour stomach and tried to beg out of acting in this play, but agreed to keep her small part when she saw her costume included a wig and veil in addition to a mask, so Elizabeth could only surmise that the girl was trying to catch Ned’s eye again, and she simply would not have that going on. Stephen Jenks was still in a fine snit since Elizabeth had picked Luke Morgan to hoist Diana up to heaven with Dr. Dee’s wires. Robin had continued to sulk over Luke’s attendance on her too, as if the poor man were some sort of foreign suitor she could wed instead of just a handsome, smitten young man whose attentions pleased her.
Even Felicia was evidently out of sorts, probably because she played not for the queen’s entrances and exits but only for Robin’s. From time to time, no doubt in protest, Felicia had amazingly hit a sour note from where she sat just behind the painted canvas, far across the stage from where Luke was stationed.
The trumpet fanfare that marked the goddess’s final entrance blared. Elizabeth walked onto the alfresco stage as Robin joined her from the other side to Felicia’s strummed chords.
“O rare Diana, sister,” Robin said, projecting his lines out over the mesmerized crowd through his full-face mask, “never again will the pompous Niobe censure or disparage our dear mother, Leto, for we heavenly beings have taught her the lesson of her life.”
“And so must others learn,” Elizabeth’s voice rang out, “that we, the folk of fair England, cannot be separated nor conquered.”
“I go now on another charge to do my duty,” Apollo cried, and strode from the stage with his quiver of arrows raised high. Felicia struck more chords, one or two, the queen noted, most annoyed, misfingered again.
“And I must return to my heavenly realm from which I shall dispense justice forever,” Elizabeth concluded, and braced herself to be lifted off her feet.
As Ned himself stepped out onto the stage and began to read the closing moral, which she’d meant for Cecil to say, she waited for the tightening of the harness and the upward ride to the platform above. In their two rehearsals it had worked well, and she had soared above them all, keeping her balance until her feet touched down on high. Now the distinctive trumpets blared again to fill this void of action. At last, she felt the lift.
A set smile on her face under her half mask, she heard the winch Luke used to elevate her. She rose only about ten feet above the pavement of the courtyard and, strangely, hung there suspended. Why was she not swung over? The trumpets played, longer and louder, evidently holding their last note not to leave her dangling like a target on the archery range. When the trumpeters were out of breath, Felicia’s lute filled the void. At least, the queen thought in the back of her mind, the girl got to play for the royal exit.
“Curse Luke Morgan,” Elizabeth muttered, trying to keep control. The two main wires above her, cantilevered out from the corner tower above the scenery, did not seem snagged. Where those two joined behind the scenery, Luke held a master rope. He needed to counterbalance her weight by walking his scaffold plank to pull her over. Then he must put her down gently, and he knew that well enough. If this was his idea of a jest…
She saw Dr. Dee leap to his feet in the front row of the audience where she’d had him sit. He’d been watching with his observation cylinder to see close-up that his wires and ropes worked. But now he took the cylinder and his hands from his face. He looked so alarmed she panicked too, her eyes darting up, all around, though a scream snagged in her throat. Horrified, Ned ceased his speech and ran behind the scenery.
Everyone looked up, gaping at her. No music sounded, neither trumpets nor lute. Her heart began to thud against the constricting harness. Surely the ribs of it and of her body would break. Though the breeze was cool, she began to sweat. Her mask slipped from her forehead and nose so she could not see but she could not right it. No one could reach her from above or below. A trembling began deep inside her. She kicked her feet, trying to swing over. Was this all happening in a moment or eternity?
The wires jerked her hard once, twice to lower her a bit. Dr. Dee began to run toward the stage, while Harry, Jenks, and others gathered under her to break her fall. Another jolt shook her and then the lines went slack.
The men below her broke her fall; yet she went off balance to her hands and knees on the pavement. Her voluminous skirts both slowed her fall and cushioned her, but for a goddess and queen it was damned undignified. Disheveled and dismayed, she could have skewered Luke Morgan.
The final trumpet fanfare pierced her ears, the crowd’s shouts, a woman’s scream, then a man’s voice—Ned’s—shouting from behind the scaffolding.
“Luke Morgan tripped and fell, and he’s not moving!” Ned cried, bringing back her black memories of Geoffrey’s fatal fall. At least she was alive. Shakily, Elizabeth got to her feet, helped by those around her.