The Queen's Sorrow

by Suzannah Dunn

  After perhaps a day or two, Cecily came into his room, but he didn’t realise it – not properly – until later. He’d experienced it and remembered it as a dream. She’d drawn back his bed-hangings a little and had talked to him, but he hadn’t understood or even tried to understand what she was saying. Later, during a half-waking, he noticed beside his bed a jug, some bread, and what looked like a piece of bark. He touched it: it was bark. Presumably she’d noted his absence and had come to check on him. She shouldn’t have: she shouldn’t have risked contagion. But he was too tired to think any more of it, other than that he must’ve looked a mess and seemed ungrateful, and collapsed back into sleep.

  Some time during that night, he did drink the juice. His thirst raging, he returned to it several times, his body soaking it up, not needing the chamber pot.

  Cecily came again, probably a day later, and this time her knock on the door and her opening it – having had no word from him – cracked into his sleep. But it was as much as he could do to open his eyes, and she would have to accept that. He did want more juice. Perhaps she’d just replenish his supply and leave him as she found him. She wouldn’t need to wake him. Indeed, she should go as quickly as she could, get herself away from danger. She came to the bedside, spoke from the other side of the hangings: a tentative, whispery call of his name. Twice. Then a twitch of the hangings. ‘Yes,’ he replied, finally, and, as he’d hoped, she let the hanging drop. She didn’t go away, though, he knew. She said his name again and this time there was no question in it; it was gently firm. She required him to respond. He moved the hanging – just so she’d know he was attentive – but was careful to keep himself in shadow. She held something in the opening; it was that piece of bark. ‘Rafael,’ she urged, and now he paid it some attention – intrigued, albeit faintly. She crouched down, her face level with his; he held his breath, he knew it would be foul. ‘Rafael,’ she said again, and mimed chewing on the bark. Chewing, definitely, rather than eating: a deliberate gnashing of her teeth. Then, before he could have done anything about it, her hand was on his forehead and quickly to one stubbly cheek, and she was making a sound like disapproval: fever. In spite of himself, his skin sang at her touch. Do that again. With a flourish of the piece of bark – Don’t forget – she rose, saying there was more juice for him, and he murmured his thanks.

  Her visit had unsettled him – he couldn’t get back to sleep – so he did end up chewing on the bark. It was something to do. There was a sweetness to it, which he would never have expected. When he surfaced from his next doze, he felt marginally better, and thereafter kept up with the bark.

  Cecily came daily, and despite his fear of the risk at which she placed herself, and the awkwardness of those brief visits of hers, he lived for them. Her coming into his room while he was in bed made for a delicate situation, with which she dealt by saying almost nothing, just bringing more juice, more bark and a little more food each day, and checking his fever – that quick, cold touch of her fingertips to his brow, his cheek – but keeping her judgement on it to herself. For his part, he’d lie almost totally covered by the bedclothes, taking care not to move: making as little physical impression as possible.

  She sent someone else – a boy – for the chamber pot, which, luckily, he was hardly having to use. A bowl of water was also replenished, so Rafael could rub his teeth with a freshly wet cloth.

  The days were barely days at all, the darkness in his room almost day-long: in that sense, he was missing nothing. What he did miss was the chance to check at the Spanish office for post, and he felt sure, increasingly so, there was a letter from Leonor waiting there for him, although he couldn’t guess at what it would say.

  Eight or nine days had passed before he felt able to get up. Depressingly, it took all his energy on that first day to sit, stunned, on the edge of the bed. Several times he did it, though, determined to build up his strength. The second day, he got to the door to intercept Cecily, to head her off. He’d been waiting for her – it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do – and, at the door, handed over his jug and plate before receiving the fresh offering. He smiled but didn’t meet her eyes, horribly aware of how bad he must look. He intended a proper wash, later that day, but ended up back in bed, asleep. The following day, he did wince and gasp his way through an ice-cold wash, and then managed – with a couple of rests on the edge of the bed – to dress. The day after that, he tried to go downstairs, sitting down once on the way, even if he did then turn around and – with more pauses – come back. He wasn’t yet fit to be seen: he needed a shave.

  For the shave, he’d have to go to the palace. The next day, he reached for his cloak – and discovered its new, much heavier lining. Fustian. Cecily’s doing; must be. He touched it in wonder and profound gratitude. Not only had she risked infection but she’d thought to do this for him.

  He couldn’t go to thank her until he’d had the shave; so, he slipped from the house. Despite the new cloak-lining, the cold hit him like never before and he reeled, close to tears and shocked by his feebleness. The river-journey – the walk, even, to the river – was going to be impossible for a day or two more. He almost whimpered aloud with helplessness and frustration. He’d have to chance a local barber. What would a local barber do? Cut his throat? Well, let him cut it. What he did care about was that he couldn’t go for his letter. Impossibly far away, it was. To his own letter, which he was carrying, he’d added, I wasn’t well but I’m fine now. As soon as he’d realised that he wouldn’t be home in time for Christmas, he’d sent Francisco a drawing of London Bridge. Francisco wouldn’t have got it, yet, though – if he got it at all, if it didn’t end up shipwrecked and dissolved into sea water. Two days of sitting on Coldharbour Steps, it had taken Rafael; he’d got in as much detail as he could. What he would really have loved to send Francisco, though, was a fragment of ice from a puddle. Look, Francisco, see? Hard water.

  He entered the first local barber’s shop he came across and the encounter was fine: the barest exchange of words and a brisk, skilled shave before the yielding of a couple of Rafael’s precious coins. Leaving the premises, he was ready to face the world and Cecily, of course, was whom he went to face first. She was in the kitchen, sewing, her boy nestled up to her. ‘Ah!’ – she seemed surprised and delighted to see him, so much so that he wondered if his recovery had perhaps been in doubt. She was full of praise – he knew from her tone – for how well he was looking, which only served to make him self-conscious as to how truly dreadful he must previously have appeared. He displayed the lining of his cloak: ‘You?’

  She played it down: she’d had some spare, he guessed her to be saying, as she shook her head and indicated a pile of fabrics at her side. He thanked her profusely, telling her in his own language – but with an arm towards the door – how much easier it was now to be outside. ‘Thank you,’ he said again, ‘thank you,’ and she glowed even as she shrugged it off.

  Christmas had been and gone during his illness but the Kitsons wouldn’t be tackling the journey back into the countryside until the worst of the winter weather was over. At his first supper back in Hall, Rafael saw that the young men who usually served at the high table weren’t there and their duties were being undertaken by the blond steward and a couple of ushers. Sitting at the high table, though, were three young men who were definitely Kitsons. So, they’d been away somewhere – serving at high table in someone else’s house? – but were home now for the Christmas season; and the boys who served at the Kitsons’ had probably gone in their turn back to their own homes. What a peculiar arrangement, Rafael pondered. Why wouldn’t a family want its own sons around?

  A couple of days later, the three Kitson lads were gone again and the usual servers were back. Rafael had wondered if he’d see other changes now that winter was biting hard, but there were no obvious shortages of food in the household. Less bread was left over at the end of meals than he remembered from when the full household was last in residence, but that might have been b
ecause the cold was making everyone hungrier. He suspected that the pottage wasn’t quite so thick, but it was spicier as if to hide the fact, which made it tastier. On the whole, though, and especially since his illness, Rafael longed for simplicity, for clarity on his palate. At its best, English wintertime food had taste packed into it, simmered long and hard, but this only had Rafael craving the crispness of something fresh-picked, or the rough and readiness of sausage, the melting milkiness of goats’ cheese, the honeyed gentleness of orange-steeped ground almonds. And an orange itself: how he’d love to nestle the tip of his thumb into an orange, to lever and split it and breathe in its scented gasp.

  Thinking of an orange was in itself a luxury, he knew – there were plenty of people in London who couldn’t think beyond necessities. More of them gathered at the back gate at the end of the day than he remembered from the Kitsons’ last time at the house, and he noticed the paucity of leftovers that the kitchen boys took to them. That was where the Kitsons’ shortages were: at the back gate. That’s where they were beginning.

  Inside, hospitality was stretched among more guests than they’d previously had. There’d been musicians when the Kitsons were home in the summer, and of course they’d stayed for supper, but now they had women and children with them, all of whom had to be fed. Not that there was any sign of a grudging reception. Everyone was graciously provided for. When the Kitsons’ doctor came to dine during the first week of January, he was accompanied by his wife, five children, and an elderly lady, presumably his mother or mother-in-law. A couple of evenings later, one of the business associates who had come to dine with the Kitsons’ secretary in October brought a nursemaid for the youngest of his children and she ate while the child slept in the crook of her arm.

  Cecily didn’t have to shop for provisions when the whole household was in residence. Some food had come with the Kitsons from the country house and anything else was being fetched by the kitchen boys. He heard someone, sometimes, leaving the house before dawn and returning an hour or so later, still before sunrise. Cecily’s household duties had changed back to those she’d had when Rafael had first arrived. They’d reduced in scope but not in volume, to judge from the fabrics with which she was swamped whenever he saw her. That was when he saw her at all. In the full household she was less conspicuous, and he missed her.

  In the second week of January, a servant came to the kitchen to tell Rafael that a man from the palace was asking for him at the main door. Rafael translated this into just one word: home. Was this it – his call home? The Spanish office must have heard back from his original contact and either he’d been absolved of his duty to make the sundial, or he was required to build it after all, but either way he was going home, be it now or, at the most, in a month or so. He began to shake more than he’d have believed physically possible, every breath shattered. Home. Then, though: could this be bad news from home? He’d still heard nothing from Leonor, and wasn’t this what they’d do – call him in to have the bad news broken to him? The fluttering inside turned upside down and hammered at him.

  He hurried to the door and demanded of the liveried lad: What did it concern, this summons? No response, save a shrug. Who, then, was asking for him? Shrug. Rafael gave up, didn’t have time for this; just, ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  One minute, Rafael told him, and dashed upstairs for his cloak; but when he came back down, the lad was gone.

  Rafael didn’t know if the Thames was frozen. Two days ago, the boatmen had been smashing ice around the quays and breaking paths in it to a central, free-moving channel. How else would he get to the palace? He ran down to the river, puddles crunching underfoot and the wind scouring his face, his way lit by little icicles on protruding first storeys. Boats were moving, he saw as he got to the quayside: fewer of them, and with scant custom, but there was traffic.

  Initially, he felt nothing on the wherry but the cold; he knew nothing else, and the shock of it was renewed with every pulse. As time passed, he came up with other possible reasons for his summons. Perhaps Antonio had caused some trouble. Perhaps someone had another job for them to do. He tried to empty himself of his fears – staring on to the dark, blank water – and keep himself open to these various explanations, but thrumming inside him like blood was My son, my wife, my mother? A fall, a fever, a fire?

  Arriving at Whitehall, scrambling from the little boat, he slipped on the icy steps, scuffing his knees and one of his gloves. Picking himself up, he dashed to the Spanish office. There, though, the official looked baffled – and uninterested – before going off, leisurely, to consult elsewhere. Rafael stood recklessly close to the fire and failed to hear the door opening behind him. But when he turned around, there she was: the queen’s lady, Mrs Dormer, the one from the garden, the one with the smile. She’d had good reason to smile when he’d failed to recognise he was in the presence of the queen. ‘Come on,’ she said. So, she’d happened upon him here and was thinking she’d have some more fun. ‘No …’ his English deserted him and it was all he could do to indicate the desk, the official’s vacated desk. He wouldn’t have believed it possible for that smile of hers to widen, but it did. ‘No, me,’ she said. ‘It was me: I sent for you. The queen wants to see you.’

  His insides lurched, stopped dead, but resumed and he breathed a laugh of relief: very funny. Mrs Dormer’s smile, though, faltered; she seemed to be serious. But no one had told him he’d be going to the queen, and he was a complete and utter mess. As she could well see. He’d come as he was, hadn’t even had a shave and was mud-caked from his run to the quayside, scuffed from his fall. She could see that. Yet here she was, holding open the door for him. ‘No, no, no –’ he swept a hand down in front of him, showing her, making it clear: an utter mess. But she sighed as if this were a quibble and an endearing one, at that. ‘You look lovely, Mr Prado,’ she said, in her breezy way. ‘Now, come on.’

  He hurried behind her to continue his objections, trailing in the wake of her swishing, black wool cloak, his own footfalls on the flagstones mere echoes of those made by her thick, new soles. She was fur-coddled and kid-gloved, and she’d have washed, this morning, and properly, too, the water warmed for her. ‘Please,’ he called to her; insisted. ‘Please.’

  ‘Mr Prado.’ She stopped, turned, and he saw how she was enjoying objecting to his objections. ‘You look lovely.’ Again, that laugh, quick and low, and, ‘You look Spanish.’

  The first time, he bet, that had ever been offered in England as a compliment. And if only she knew: he didn’t, not to true-blood Spaniards, he didn’t. He tried anew, countering as best he could in his panicked English: ‘But it’s the queen.’ Her response this time was no response at all, just a mock-glare, and he saw in those widened, resolutely staring eyes that he was losing. He was on his way to the queen of England, unwashed and in damp, mud-strafed clothes. At least could he be told why he was being summoned? That would be the very least she could do. ‘Madam – please – why does the queen ask for me?’

  For once, she seemed to give serious consideration to what he’d said, stopping and turning to him. ‘Sometimes –’ she specified. ‘Today, the queen is unwell.’

  Which brought him up sharp. ‘She’s ill?’

  ‘Not ill. Just’ – touching her forehead – ‘headaches.’ She’d pitched it high as if it were first on a list, but added no more. Her hand came down to touch her heart, though. Malaise, then. ‘Tired. She works very hard, too hard, much too hard,’ and a puff of despair as if to say, I’ve told her, I’ve tried to tell her, confiding not the fact of the queen’s hard work but her own impatience with it. ‘And today her head is bad. She needs cheering up.’

  He was to be a diversion? No wonder she didn’t care what he looked like: she must have tried everyone else and now she was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because Rafael was no conversationalist – not even in his own language, let alone in English. He knew nothing. A sundial maker stuck on a cloud-clogged island: that was all he was. No good, h
ere, to anyone. Oh, why couldn’t he go home? Why wouldn’t they let him be? The queen could do with some true-blood, church-going Spaniard to converse with – that’s what she needed – and he failed spectacularly on both counts.

  It was ridiculous. He’d refuse. Because what would Mrs Dormer do? Manhandle him into the room? Well, that would certainly be a diversion. He’d say he was ill. At the very worst, he could bargain: beg for more time, time to go back to the Kitsons’ and tidy himself up. Two hours. Surely he’d be just as good a diversion, if not better, in two hours’ time. Better prepared. But he was still following her and they seemed to be nearing their destination, turning into a guard-lined gallery. He could try making a run for it, but he was seriously outnumbered. How he must look to these men: a laughing stock, at best; a disgrace, more like. This is not me; he wished they knew: not Rafael de Prado, sundial maker to the king of Spain. This, instead, was the bedraggled, despondent man he’d become during four long months in England.

  But who were they to judge? A couple of years ago these men would have had her die, the woman who was now their queen. Back then, in the reign of her little brother, she’d been a traitor for her beliefs. Here they were, now, though, lined up to defend her. They’d defended her a year ago when thousands of rebels arrived on the opposite bank, led by a charismatic commoner, and the new reign had looked already to be over. They would have been standing here while, behind the far door, the queen’s ladies cowered and the queen paced at the windows: the ladies crying – this was what Rafael had heard – but the queen at the window, wishing aloud that she could go down there and join her men. Something else he was told was that she’d ordered no one risk endangering innocent people by firing across the river. Instead, she would wait for the rebels to come across to her. Her guards wouldn’t have known that the rebellion would soon come to nothing, doors shut against it when it arrived in London’s streets. Up here, they’d have heard everywhere around and below them barricades being shoved at the doors. The clattering of makeshift weapons as grooms and gardeners and laundresses gathered up broom-handles and rakes and paddles.