“Unity with what?”
“Our reunion with the old religion, with the pope. Just one religion for all. High time, I say.” She gave a haughty little sniff.
“But Edward was a Protestant.”
“Well, no more of that,” Sara said firmly.
“Were you a Protestant?”
“Yes, when the ruler was. But I don’t believe you can have it both ways. We need to let the queen decide now. And she wants just one religion.”
“Isn’t there room for many? Why can’t people decide for themselves?”
“Decide for themselves?” Sara’s eyes opened wide. “Are you daft, Rose Ashley? Everything would be willy-nilly! So disorganized. You of all people should know. Supposing you make a single dress using several patterns, stitch it with twenty different kinds of thread? Make it of fifteen different colors? It would be motley—like Jake the juggler over there in fool’s motley.”
Motley was the many-colored costume that that some fools wore. Rose glanced at Jake, who was wearing stockings with a diamond design in four different colors, finished off with a tutu and jiggling bells attached here and there. And then, to top everything off, a pointy hat! But Rose did not get Sara’s comparison of this costume to religion. Not a good analogy, Rose suddenly thought, as Mr. Ross’s word list came to mind.
Interrupting her thoughts on motley, there was the sudden sound of horses’ hooves against the stone floor of the great hall. Rose and Sara both got up to peek around the screen, as did other backstage people.
There was a man on horseback in bright armor, with a soft explosion of ostrich feathers on top of his helmet.
“It’s Sir Edward Dymoke,” Sara whispered.
“He’s a big deal, I guess.”
Sara looked at her, confounded. “Big deal?”
“Uh, just an expression.”
“From where?”
“It means he’s a very important person.”
“Indeed!”
And at that moment Sir Edward Dymoke unfurled a scroll of paper and began to read. “‘Whosoever shall dare to affirm that this Lady is not the rightful Queen of the Kingdom I will show him the contrary, or will do him to death.’”
Every pair of eyes in the room shifted from the queen to Princess Elizabeth. All eyes except for those of Mary. She tried to cast her eyes down modestly, but Rose saw the smile. Like two fat worms, her pale lips stretched. The tincture of smugness spread into a genuine smirk.
At the same moment Rose felt a little tug on her kirtle. She looked down just as Bettina the dwarf from Princess Elizabeth’s retinue scampered off.
Then she felt something in her pocket. “What’s that?” Sara asked.
“A note.” Rose had to suppress the yelp of joy that nearly burst from her. She read it silently to herself. The court goldsmith requests the first seamstress to make an adjustment in the imperial state crown. He shall be found in the metals shop.
“What’s it say?”
“Oh, it’s about the imperial state crown. Uh . . . an inside headband is needed so she can wear it with ease on Wednesday for the opening of her first Parliament.”
“Now? You have to do that now?” Sara asked
“I guess so . . .” Then Rose remembered something her mother always said. She replied to Sara, “Ours not to question why, ours but to do or die.”
“Oh, now that’s very clever. Where’d you learn that?”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure. Some poem. Or something.”
Her mother would often say this, but Rose wasn’t sure if it was a poem. Her mom had been an English literature major in college and was often quoting poems and Shakespeare as well. He, of course, hadn’t been born yet.
Rose started to gather her sewing things together to leave.
“But Rose, what if there is a situation? What if those fastenings on her sleeves give way? What shall I do?” Sara asked in a pleading voice.
“Don’t worry. I went over them this morning.”
“But what if?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Ask Her Ladyship Jane Dormer,” Rose said.
She then turned to Jane the Bald. “Jane, I can’t walk out there, not into the banqueting hall. I have to get to the goldsmith, to work on the imperial crown. He’s in the metals shop in the Jewel Tower, other side of the courtyard. Everyone will see me.”
“Not to worry. Everyone is supposed to see me. I’ll be a distraction. Just cut across at those first pillars of the colonnade. Once you’re there, you can get out to the courtyard with no one seeing you. A fool can go anywhere. No questions asked.” She winked at Rose with her good eye. The other bulged slightly.
“Thank you, Jane, and don’t get too close to any flaming torches.”
“Let’s hope not.” But this was not a fool’s voice. It was cold. Deadly cold, as if the blood in her veins had frozen to ice. She did not move for several seconds and her bulging eye, which usually was jittering about, froze as well. It was an awful moment.
“I’d best run along,” Rose said.
“You’d best,” Jane echoed, then sprang out from behind the screen and turned three quick cartwheels. Someone shouted out, “Show ’em your drawers, girl.”
“I’ll wear your trousers to my bed! And put my drawers on my head!” Jane yelled back.
People cheered wildly.
Rose scooted off and began streaking toward the shadowy gallery behind the columns that encircled the main dining area. She dodged between footmen bearing trays laden with roasted swans, their wings reattached, feathers and all! A culinary practice she found horrifying. There were long planks on which enormous roasted pigs were being carried with apples stuffed in their mouths and little roasted baby piglets surrounding them as if nursing! The whole banquet was a vegetarian’s nightmare.
She turned the corner and was at least out of the way of the traffic from the kitchens when she spotted two shadows entwined behind a pillar. One shadow was speaking.
“Oh, I just want to kiss you, my darling. Kiss you and kiss you and don’t make me cry, milady, don’t make me lie, milady.”
Rose slowed down. The man, whoever he was, almost seemed to be singing. And the melody, the beat, and even the lyrics were awfully close to BWB, Boyz Will Be Boyz, and the adorable Yuu Park. Yuu’s song began to stream through her own head. She might as well have had her earbuds in. . . . “I just want to make out with you. I want to make time with you. I want to be true to you and only you. Don’t make me cry, girl. I just want to sigh, girl. I don’t want to lie.”
Park wouldn’t be around for another four hundred fifty years or so. How had this happened? Then she heard a big sloppy smooch and the couple stepped away from the shadow cast by the column and stood in the light of a dim lantern.
Rose pressed herself up flat against the gallery wall. She could not believe what she had just seen. It was Edward Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, on the short list of potential husbands for Mary—well, kiss that goodbye, Rose thought. But almost as surprising was the object of the earl’s affections—the recipient of the sloppy kisses was none other than Lady Margaret Carrington, otherwise known (at least to Rose) as Snail Head because of her hairdo in a style called coquillage, coquille being the French word for “snail.” Rose thought it was the ugliest hairstyle she had ever seen, for Lady Margaret’s bangs had been twisted into little snail shapes that marched across her forehead.
She had heard a rumor that Snail Head had left the service of Princess Elizabeth to be a lady-in-waiting for Mary, but what about all this smooching? Well, she couldn’t stand here and wonder. She had to get to the metals shop in the Jewel Tower, where her father had said to meet her.
But now Snail Head and Edward Courtenay were lingering, and there seemed to be no way to get away from where Rose was standing.
Then she heard a peal of laughter and something tiny rolled out from the dining hall close to the pillars where Snail Head and Edward were embracing.
“Oh, forgive me,” squealed Bettina.
/> “You . . . you loathsome dwarf.” Snail Head spat out the words. She actually bent down, picked up Bettina, and began shaking her like a rag doll. Rose gasped as she watched this and then saw the shadow of Edward Courtenay quickly slide away—like a rat off a sinking ship.
“What did you see?!” Snail Head hissed like viper now.
“Nothing, milady . . . nothing at all . . .”
Rose was stuck to the stone floor. She could not move, but she realized she must. This was her chance. Bettina’s eyes were looking wildly around as if searching for her. She had created this disruption at her own risk, to provide a cover for Rose.
Rose charged out from where she stood. She was now in the cool autumn air. No sooner had she crossed the courtyard than she felt herself being grabbed from behind.
“I saw nothing, my lord, er, earl . . .” Oh, it was so confusing what one was supposed to call people with all these titles. “I saw nothing.”
But when she turned around she saw it was not the Earl of Devon at all.
“Dad!”
Ominous Signs
Chapter 13
A Proper Head for a Proper Crown
“Oh, Dad!” Rose gasped.
Nicholas Oliver’s face broke into a smile. His eyes sparkled with tears. She buried her head against his chest. His ruff scraped her forehead. It all felt so wonderful, the scrape of that collar, just saying his name. His smell. He smelled good and fresh. Nobody smelled like this in this century. She bet her mom had told him about taking baths more than once a month and maybe even brought over some deodorant. But she’d take him any way he came—smelly or not.
“I thought I was to meet you in the Jewel Tower.”
“No, my dear, just a ruse.” He took a deep breath. “You have to get out. It’s just too dangerous. Things are going to turn very bad soon.”
“Dad, first of all, I’m not going without you.”
“Me? How would I live in that century?”
“You would. I’d help you.” They were back to the same old argument.
“No, you must leave as soon as possible. This queen spells doom. She’s not right in the head, Rose. She’s going to start the new religious laws immediately. Much sooner than anyone anticipated. They have already begun rounding up people.”
“Rounding up for what?”
“New laws will be passed in a matter of days, wiping out the Protestant church, the Church of England that was created by her father, King Henry the Eighth, and then protected by the laws of his son, King Edward the Sixth.”
“Dad, this is so complicated. What does that really mean?”
“The queen forces you to go to Mass, does she not?”
“Yes, but you know I don’t take it too seriously.”
“She might test your faith in a way for which you are unprepared.”
“A test?” She thought suddenly of the French test and math test that were scheduled for next week. She hadn’t studied at all.
“Just don’t get caught with a Bible.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
“Look, my dear child, you must trust me.”
“I do trust you, Dad.”
“Then you must leave.”
“It’s not as easy as you think.”
“What do you mean? Your mother did it all the time. You know, when she felt she had to get back to you. I hardly knew she’d been gone, really. It was as if she had left a kind of shadow behind. Gradually I was able to perceive the difference between the shadow and her real presence. It was as if . . . I can’t really explain, but her spirit lived within me. But then gradually it grew thinner and there was only the ache of missing her. Finally I realized she had gone . . . gone for good.”
“I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be gone from you for good. And I’m not sure how Mom did it when she went back to her home century. For me it’s harder. I’m good at getting here. But going back . . . well, I haven’t mastered that. It just happens when I least expect it.”
She knew, or at least sensed, it had something to do with the damask rose. She thought of that graftling rose now that she had been standing in front of, bundled up in her parka and hat with earflaps, when she had crossed over this last time. Her grandmother had told her that grafting a rose was very difficult. They could not be expected to bloom sooner than two or three years, and often failed before that. When she had stood there gazing at it, she was trying to imagine the graftling’s rootstock poking, squirming down into the soil. She had clamped her eyes shut. A sudden terror streaked though her now. She could imagine a tiny, infinitesimally small viper burrowing into the soil, its fangs lusting for those roots.
“What is it, Rose? Are you all right, child?”
“Of course, I’m fine.”
“The color left your face. I thought you might faint.”
“Never. I’m not the fainting type.”
“Look, Rose, there is absolutely no telling what might happen. How soon the raids might start.”
“Raids?”
“Yes, raids, as soon as the queen gets her Statutes of Repeal passed. The acts that will demolish all the religious legislation that her late brother, King Edward, put in place. Then the raids will commence and those still worshipping in the manner of the Protestants shall be rounded up. The first Parliament is four days from now. And that is when the old laws will be abolished and the new ones of this bitter queen put in place. Will you promise me you’ll leave as soon as possible?”
“Yes, Dad.” She was tempted to cross her fingers and lie outright. But she couldn’t do that to her father. “But I told you it might not be possible. And one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If I go, if I figure out how to leave when I want to, I’m going to figure it out for you too, Dad. You have to promise me you’ll come if I can get you across.”
He took her face in his hands and cradled it. His eyes were the deepest, darkest blue she had ever seen. She felt as if she were looking into a night sky spangled with stars, the faraway stars that knew nothing of time or distance.
“All right, my dear. I promise.”
“Now what about the crown?”
“Oh, that crown will never fit properly on her. There is not a crown in all of Christendom made for her. Perhaps we can look to the future for a proper head. Princess Elizabeth, if she survives and keeps her head.”
By the time Rose returned to the banquet hall, the dancing was about to begin. The dancers were arranged in two rows facing each other. The queen and Princess Elizabeth were squarely opposite one another. And to Rose it looked more like a face-off than a dance. They were glaring at each other as the pipes struck up. It was a vigorous French dance, a galliard, that involved quite a bit of leaping on the men’s part and some mild hopping and skipping for the ladies.
Rose and Sara peeked out from behind the screen at the lively dancers. Jane the Bald’s head was bobbing between the two rows like an airborne golden bowling ball. Every once in a while she would emit a cock-a-doodle-doo and fling feathers into the air. Rose couldn’t help but think that it didn’t take much to entertain these people. But the dance looked fun.
“Don’t you wish we could join in?” Sara said wistfully.
“Yes. Have to say I’m almost having a major FOMO moment.”
“A what?” Sara said. Her face crinkled in utter confusion.
“Oh, just an expression.”
“Expression from where?”
“Uh . . . West Ditch near Twickenham.” This was the village Rose told people she had come from.
“What does it mean—FOMO?”
“Um . . . just what it sounds like. Fear of missing out.”
“I love it!! It’s sooo perfect. Yes! I feel completely FOMO.”
“Me too, totally!”
“Totally!” Sara said gleefully. “You really do have a way with words, Rose. It must come from reading so much.”
“Not the Bible!” Rose said impulsively.
“Of course not! I would never suspect you of reading the Bible, Rose. Not ever, especially since we are in service to the queen.”
Now the music began to die down and the dancers returned to their seats while a half dozen dwarves ran out to the middle of the dance floor. They began their own version of the galliard that included somersaults and popping into the air, turning flips. The audience went wild.
“Oooooh! Aren’t they cute? This is my favorite thing.”
“Really?” Rose asked.
“Yes.” Sara’s brow furrowed. “You don’t like them?”
“I like them, especially Bettina, but I don’t like making fun of them.”
“But they’re having fun,” Sara protested.
“Are you sure?” Rose said.
Just at that moment Her Ladyship Jane Dormer rushed up to them.
“Quick, Rose. This is an emergency. That vile Princess Elizabeth stepped on the queen’s hem and ripped it. Her Majesty can’t leave the banquet table.”
“Then how am I supposed to fix it?”
“You need to crawl under the table with your sewing kit. Just where the Duke of Gloucester is sitting. He’s been alerted and has moved his chair over a bit to make way for you.”
“But the queen is at the far end of the table from here.”
“All you do is dash out to this near end during the next performance by Jane the Bald and Jester Will Somers. All eyes will be on them. As you know, Will Somers is the only one who can make the queen laugh. I’ll give you your cue as to when you need to dash out there.” Jane Dormer stepped closer to Rose with a piercing gaze. “You understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Now stand by me and I’ll give you the cue as I said.”
The cue was a sharp poke in Rose’s ribs. She dashed out from the screen and slid under the table. There were, of course, the Duke of Gloucester’s bowed legs. She’d recognize then anywhere. A band around the bottom of the breeches that helped hold up his hose. It was as if she had entered a forest of legs. Not simply legs but the voluminous skirts of ball gowns as well. Some had billowing flounces. Others were elaborately swagged so that the silks and satins seemed to crest like breaking waves. The hems were elaborately embellished with ribbons, laces, and lavish embroidery in gold and silver thread.
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