The Twylight Tower

by Karen Harper

  “Luke’s good-looking,” Ned put in, “and a bit forward, a rank and position climber, I warrant too. He didn’t say something or—”

  “Something like what?” Meg cried, smacking her hands on the table. “If you mean flirting with the female servant staff, you ought to know, Ned Topside! If Luke Morgan was a climber at court, it’s not going to be on the skirts of the strewing herb mistress, that’s sure. No, I hardly spoke to the man, and anyone who says different better get Dr. Dee to lend him that glass cylinder of his so he can see better. Forgive me, Your Grace, but I’m going to be sick,” she muttered, and lurched for the door.

  Frowning, Elizabeth let her go, but as Kat started after her, she added, “Kat, see that she’s all right, but then we need to discuss Geoffrey’s demise too.”

  Meg ran back in, right around Kat, her hand over her mouth so they could hardly catch her garbled words. “Lord Harry sends word to come quick, Your Grace. Luke can’t talk, but his eyes are open.”

  THE QUEEN CONSULTED WITH HER PHYSICIANS, COMFORTED Harry before he went off to send a message to his wife, then emptied the small room to be alone with Luke. For the time being, the patient could not do much but blink and breathe, Dr. Spencer had told her. It would, Elizabeth thought, have to be enough for what she intended.

  “Poor man,” she said, standing by the side of his makeshift bed so he could see her as she leaned slightly over him. The doctors had put his head in a carved-out block of wood to keep his neck stable, and he could only look straight up. “I am sorely grieved for your condition and pray you will recover. I will do all I can to see you are well cared for. Luke, do you recall anything of your fall from the high walkway? I know you cannot answer, but can you blink once for yes and two for—ah, that’s it. Good man,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears at his single, deliberate blink. “You see, Luke, I intend to find who harmed you and make them pay.”

  His appearance frightened her. His once ruddy skin had gone waxen white, and his usually expressive eyes seemed flat and dull. He was too exhausted—or worse—to manage facial expressions, and the doctors had said his capacity for speech was temporarily gone too, and they knew not if it would return. Still, it seemed to her he frowned. Perhaps he blamed her for everything.

  “Luke, I hope you can help me with this. Do you think you can?”

  One blink. His mind was intact, and he was willing. Yet those eyelids drooped.

  “First of all, I know you are exhausted just now, and I will not overtire you but to ask what I can do for you. Lord Hunsdon will return to your side soon, but would you like the doctors to return?”

  Two blinks.

  “Are you quite warm enough?”

  A surprised look—a slight widening of the eyes, then one blink. She knew that the doctors had siphoned some wine down his throat with a poppy potion to make him sleep. She would let him rest an hour or so, carefully guarded, then come back.

  She put her hand on his big shoulder, so limp now, all of him, but she had no notion if he could feel her touch or not. The queens and kings of England held traditional curing ceremonies for a disease called scrofula—the curing of the king’s evil, some still called it. She wished desperately that, like the Lord Jesus’ touch, hers could heal this man.

  “Sleep, Luke, sleep,” she whispered, and left his side. She was pleased to see Robin waiting down the corridor to escort her upstairs.

  “I know this grieves you, my queen,” he said as she laid her hand properly on his arm, “so let me comfort you. Meet me in the Round Tower tonight as you had hinted you would.”

  “As I had said I might,” she corrected him. “But tonight, with this great sadness, I can hardly …”

  “Not for our own pleasure, but to talk everything out,” he coaxed, his voice so strong and yet so gentle.

  “To talk out something about Luke’s fall?” she asked.

  “I know naught of that, as I stood far across the stage near Felicia’s playing post. Now that Cecil’s turned tail and run off, I want to advise you about replacing him.”

  “I will think on it,” she said, but she was only thinking how much she needed Robin’s strong arms around her. She almost told him so, but Felicia sat on a bench outside the royal apartments, cradling Geoffrey’s lute to her as if it were made of solid gold.

  “Felicia,” she said, and the lass jumped up and hurried to them. “Lord Hunsdon is sitting with the injured man downstairs, so go down and play them both something soothing—nothing sad and nothing lively.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Felicia said with a quick curtsy to her and then one to Robin, before she evidently realized she need not show him that courtesy in the queen’s presence and stopped in mid-bob.

  “And though you were playing from too far across the backstage setting to see what went on,” the queen told her lutenist, “I still would speak with you later about everyone else’s entrances and exits.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And, Felicia, I heard those sour notes of protest that I used the trumpets for my masque music instead of your lute. Considering all the changes in your life in the short time you have been at court, best learn to be both obedient and grateful without sour notes.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the girl repeated as if she were some sort of pet parrot. Elizabeth glared at her as she hurried off.

  “So,” the queen whispered, “she gave you a curtsy too—of sorts, Robin. Does she know something I do not about your being elevated to the peerage or some such?” she inquired as she swept on down the corridor.

  “A distant dream but entirely in your hands, as am I,” he whispered. His lips twisted in a rueful smile as he strode faster to keep up with her. “As for the lass, she’s green but yearns to learn, and at your side, my queen.”

  “That sounds like the lyrics to another song,” she murmured, then stopped and bit her lower lip.

  “Your birthday is in but four days,” he whispered, “and I long to give you the best gift I can offer—myself.”

  “There is no time for celebrations or such talk now,” she insisted, but she was appalled that she almost tilted into him. She longed to cling to those broad, sturdy shoulders. Instead she forced herself to leave him standing alone outside her door.

  Chapter the Nineth

  I find no peace, and all my war is done,

  I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice,

  I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise,

  And naught I have and all the world I seize on;

  That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison,

  And holdeth me not; yet can I ’scape nowise,

  Nor letteth me live nor die at my devise

  And yet of death it giveth none occasion.

  — SIR THOMAS WYATT, the Elder

  FELICIA WAS SURPRISED TO SEE NO ONE BUT Luke Morgan in the room where they’d put him. She knew which chamber it was; she’d been keeping an eye on everything and would send the details soon to both Cecil and de Quadra, without letting either of them know she worked for both. Holding her lute by a stranglehold on its neck, she tiptoed in.

  The man was sleeping. They had his head in a carved-out block of wood with a leather strap across his broad forehead, evidently to keep him still, for she’d heard he’d broken his neck and they weren’t sure what faculties he would recover. She could discern the slight rise and fall of his chest but no other movement.

  She’d like to think this was God’s retribution on the whoreson bastard for making her life so hard since she’d been at court, but she believed only in fate now. Ever since she had realized she’d been born into an illegitimate line, despite the fact King Henry’s blood roared through her veins as royal as Elizabeth’s, she’d felt cursed. So she’d get as close as she could to the riches and power that could have—should have—been hers if fate had but twisted crooked circumstance the other way.

  “Luke, can you hear me?” she whispered nearly in his face, and gave his shoulder a good rock. “Luke Mo
rgan!”

  She’d overheard the royal physicians tell the queen he had brain swelling and was partially paralyzed. The physicians had also privily told Her Majesty that they were not even certain if he would live or die, though Felicia would like to have a say in that.

  Slowly Luke opened his eyes. His gaze flew wide when he saw her. So he did remember who she was and what had happened between them.

  “The queen sent me to sing you a song, and I have a special one,” she hissed, her spittle flecking his face. “It’s called ‘I Find No Peace,’ and it’s all about being in a hellish earthly prison. Probably an escape to hell itself would be far better,” she whispered smugly.

  She leaned against his high, narrow bed, began the intricate melody on the strings, and sang in a quiet, controlled voice the lines, ending with,

  Without eyes I see and without tongue complain;

  I desire to perish and yet I ask health;

  Likewise displeaseth me both death and life.

  “A fine song, just for you,” she said, and went back over the earlier lines about fearing and hoping and not being able to arise. “I suppose your state is like a prison now,” she interspersed her own quiet torments between the lyrics. “And since you’ve been so curious about me and wanted to tell Her Majesty each thing you learned or even imagined—you know, I warrant you’re a eunuch now—I’m going to confide in you truly, Luke Morgan.”

  She heard stirrings in the hall, distant footsteps, the buzz of voices. No time to savor the horrified look that had fixed itself on his face. Amazing and delightful, she mused, how a man dazed, drugged by the doctors, and mostly paralyzed could show such fear. But she had no time to revel in this revenge. She had much more of that coming to make her rejoice.

  “I know,” she went on, still strumming, leaning close into his face, almost breathing in unison with air from his flared nostrils, “what it is to be trapped, you see. To have your parents and betters bid you wed and bed someone you cannot stomach. To realize the only playing you will ever do—lute or otherwise, however gifted you are—will be in your own parlor while you breed brats for some lackbrained country squire who can hardly afford an uncracked chamberpot. Someone just like you, I warrant, who expects to just crook a little finger to get a willing woman in his bed. I wager you can’t even crook so much as a finger now, can you, clever man?”

  She giggled, then went on. “So you should never have tampered with me, Luke Morgan, never have tried to bring me down with the queen. I have run away before, you see, but don’t intend to again, not unless it’s to run to something better, something I deserve—or something to put her in her place. Do you know the Spanish ambassador believes Her ungracious Majesty’s behavior with Lord Robert could even cost her her crown? Now, I’d like to help that happen and then to reveal some surprises.”

  She changed to yet another melody, but did not break her lyrics she was writing just for him. “What, nothing to say, man? I thought you always had something to say. Can’t back me against the wall and ogle me and think I will gladly couple with you at the snap of your fingers? That part of you—and I don’t mean fingers—doesn’t work anymore, I warrant, my Lord Luke!”

  He stared aghast in raw fear, or was it smothered fury? No matter, for she had the power now and could swim in it all night. That thought reminded her that this man had jumped into the Thames to save her, but—no, she told herself. That was just another of his ploys to find favor with the queen. He would have jumped in for the royal lapdog.

  “You can’t keep me from her anymore,” Felicia said, segueing into a quicker tune. “She wants me near, her lover pays me to write songs, I spy for great men. I fit perfectly into her clothes, and I could fit perfectly into her skin. Because her blood is mine, you see, her very blood—”

  “Felicia, Her Grace said she sent you to play for Luke,” Lord Hunsdon’s voice came at the door. “How is he faring?”

  “I’ve been playing various tunes, my lord,” she said, straightening and stepping back from the bed a bit, though she kept up the melody. “Shall I stay the night with him then, even if you and the doctors must withdraw?”

  “I would count it a great favor and reward you thusly,” Lord Hunsdon said. Felicia saw Luke was trying to blink oddly at his lordship, a series of double blinks, then a rest, then two blinks again.

  As Lord Hunsdon, who evidently didn’t notice, sat on the single chair beneath the window, beyond which the sun was sinking, Felicia stared at Luke, putting herself between the two men for a moment. “I’ll do all I can to take care of him, my lord,” she assured the older man while she gave the prone, paralyzed one her sweetest smile.

  MY DEAREST WIFE AMY, THE LETTER BEGAN, AND IT WAS taking her the longest time to read it. It wasn’t just that the sun was setting and shadows were eating up everything out here behind the house at Cumnor. And she was used to reading Robert’s hand. But the dead abbots’ voices had plagued her today ever since her physician left. She had asked for more potions to dull the pain, but he had said he feared she might overdose herself. And indeed, she admitted, she might.

  Since she’d had that unholy thought, the holy men had been chanting from under their turfy graves, dissonant, nasal. Because their Latin drowned out Robert’s words in her head, Amy decided she should read them aloud. She sat on the low stone wall surrounding the graveyard and bent over the letter again.

  I cannot visit you now, for Lord Cecil has deserted Her Grace, and this is my best opportunity to advise and counsel her the more. When the court returns to London, I fear she may lose some of the frivolity—

  What did frivolity mean here? Amy agonized. Robert had used that word to refer to her love of fun and little gifts, so how could that refer to the queen of England? Didn’t she have to stay stately and regal, and wouldn’t the gifts anyone gave her have to be very grand?

  —lose some of the frivolity that our sojourn in the sweet countryside had provided this year—

  “The sweet countryside,” Amy said aloud, crumpling the letter in her lap. “Our sojourn in the sweet countryside.” Cumnor wasn’t sweet anymore without Robert. It was more and more like a prison. She felt trapped here with that tumor inside her body, maybe reaching for her heart, the heart Robert had already broken.

  She smoothed the letter out over her knees again and bent over it, trying to shut out the Glorias and Aves buzzing in her brain.

  My dearest wife, trust that you are yet and ever queen of my heart. And so, soon I shall send Fletcher with a gift fit for a queen for you.

  “While you stay with her,” Amy cried, “with her!”

  There! She had drowned out the abbots for once. Yet as she had before, she lay flat on the grass on her back between two gentle grave mounds. She wished the earth would swallow her. Then the voices came louder, sweeter, so she didn’t have to be seduced again and again by Robert’s promises of gifts, when she wanted only him.

  THE QUEEN WAS PLEASED THAT FELICIA STILL PLAYED AND sang, standing close over Luke’s bed when she entered. Then Elizabeth noted he was awake and looked agitated. At Felicia’s side, she bent over the prone man, then gestured for the lutenist to step to the foot of his bed.

  “Does music not please you, Luke?” the queen asked.

  He blinked twice. Felicia gasped and stopped playing. “I thought it would soothe him, Your Majesty,” she protested, sounding hurt. “Is he—giving you answers in code with his eyes?”

  Elizabeth fixed her own gaze on Luke’s as he kept glancing deliberately toward Felicia—or mayhap Harry, who sat at the foot of the bed—then blinking twice for “no” over and over. They were such big blinks the queen could almost imagine he was shouting, “No! No!”

  “Felicia, step out, and you too, my lord,” she commanded.

  “I hesitate to leave his side, Your Grace,” Harry began, but got up directly when he saw the look on her face. Felicia, pouting, shuffled slowly out, and Elizabeth went to close the door behind them.

  “Luke, I am going to list the
names of everyone I can think of. You must blink once if it is the name of one who hurt you. Can you do that?”

  One decisive blink, then the sudden darting of his eyes toward the door she had just closed. Surely he was not trying to tell her Harry had harmed him, because he had been onstage nearly until the accident and then exited in the other direction. That slip of a girl Felicia? But both of them—and Robert—were far across the wide expanse of scenery and could vouch for each other. And Felicia’s playing had never missed a cue during the masque despite the sour notes.…

  Missed a cue … A sudden suspicion struck Elizabeth: Had she herself missed a clue? Young Hester Harington had run away from home, and so had Felicia, according to one of her early stories. The musician had gone white as bleached linen every time the queen had mentioned the Haringtons. Over a year ago, Elizabeth recalled, when John Harington had first described his rebellious daughter, he had said the girl cared deeply for her lute and music. It was a longbow shot but could Felicia—possibly—be the lost Hester? Somehow, the queen vowed, she must find a way to test this possibility without making her musician bolt.

  Elizabeth jumped as someone knocked loudly on the door. “Your Grace!” Harry called. “Word’s come Kat Ashley’s fallen!”

  The queen leaped for the door. “Fallen? Is she all right?”

  “In pain and calling for you. It’s nothing like Luke,” he whispered, “but she insists she needs you.”

  Elizabeth glanced back at Luke, lying immobile. Kat had been a mother to her, comforting her through all her pains both large and small.

  “Guard,” she called to the yeoman warder standing just down the corridor, “to me.”

  When he came running, she told him, “Lord Hunsdon may sit at Luke Morgan’s bed and my doctors be let in, but no one else. You will stay in his room every moment until I return.”