Did the Queen pause fractionally there, taking a breath? “Bah,” she snorted, “superstition and witchcraft. No doubt he made it up thinking thereby to persuade me to execute my cousin Queen.”
“Yet it distressed you.”
The Queen looked away and Thomasina wondered if she would be dismissed for impudence. No, for both she and the Queen knew the nature of her office: to say things to the Queen that others dared not and be held harmless for it.
“It reminded me . . .” The Queen looked away and her face was pinched. “It reminded me of something best forgotten.”
Thomasina said nothing. The silence lay between them, like a thing of substance, not absence, until she would have sworn it dented the counterpane.
The Queen sighed heavily but there were no more tears. “Yes,” she said very quietly, nodding to herself. “Yes.”
Thomasina waited. At last the Queen spoke again.
“If I had one I could trust, one that did not serve Davison or Walsingham or even my lord Burghley . . .” The Queen’s red-rimmed eyes held Thomasina’s. “If I knew of such a one, who was loyal to me, not to the Queen nor to the throne, not to the realm nor yet to God, but only and solely to me, Elizabeth, I would ask a service of . . . her.”
“I am only your fool, Madam,” said Thomasina. “I know nothing of thrones or realms.”
The Queen seemed not to hear. “I would ask her to find me a book I once made, when I was a foolish girl, of recommendations to the state of virginity, by Saint Paul and Saint Augustine and such like. It had a cover of blue velvet wrought with a white-and-silver unicorn in needlework and a ruby for its eye.”
“A book, Your Majesty?”
“Yes, Thomasina. Only a book. Do you know of anyone that can find it? Quietly. Without telling my faithful councillors nor any other woman of my court.”
“I am not a woman, Your Majesty, but a muliercula.”
“I could be hard to find, for I lost it long ago, long ago, while my brother was King.”
Why on earth did the Queen want her book now, after so long a time? wondered Thomasina but did not ask. Instead she sat up on her knees, took the Queen’s hands and kissed them both.
“Would it ease your distemper if I found it for you?” she asked and the Queen laughed, a bitter laugh quite unlike her.
“Oh yes.”
“Then I shall.”
The Queen’s smile was now sad and patronising.
“I think it may be too hard for you. Never fear if you cannot run it to earth.”
A little puff of rage woke in Thomasina’s breast although she understood why the Queen would underestimate her. It is hard to be taken seriously if you are both female and under four feet high.
“Your Majesty took me into your service when I was twenty-five,” she said. “Since then you have given me whatever I pleased: food, lodging, servants, the most beautiful dresses and money for my old age. You have treated me only with kindness and gentleness and in return I have turned a few somersaults and sung a few songs.”
It had not occurred to the Queen until then to wonder how Thomasina had lived before she came to the Court.
“Was it hard for you when you were young?” she asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty, very hard,” said Thomasina, sitting up rigidly on her knees, her eyes turned to stony pebbles. “When it was clear I would never be a woman, but always a child, men thought my understanding was only a child’s. Worse, they thought of me as an animal rather than a child, a thing to be used for their pleasure and profit. They thought I would never remember what they did.”
“Did they beat you?”
“Yes, but there are worse things than beatings.”
The Queen frowned and Thomasina wondered how much of the world she knew, how much it was safe to tell her. Too late.
“Did they . . .?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, answering the Queen’s gesture, not her words. “For there are men that fear women so greatly they lust after children instead.”
The Queen’s eyes narrowed with sympathy, her hands went out to hold Thomasina’s arms. “Oh, my dear. But if you get with child . . .”
“It would kill me, of course. But they never concerned themselves with that.”
“Men seldom do.”
Thomasina took a mighty breath to crush down the anger still living in her. “But at last I came to safe harbour and here I am now, Your Majesty’s most faithfully liegewoman, and all desire is to serve you.”
The words came tumbling out in a breathless rush. The Queen sat up and embraced her. “Thomasina, if only I had a Privy Council of mulierculae . . .”
“We would have to stand on the chairs to address you.”
It was a very poor joke but it made the Queen laugh and that was good enough.
XX
THE CLATTER OF THE heavy door woke the prisoner from a doze. Some light filtered in, showing dried-up things among the sodden bits of straw that he had rather not think about.
“Out!” came the order from beyond.
Not knowing of anything he could do save obey, he eeled himself along a short narrow passage and almost pitched out of it onto his head. Someone caught him and set him on his feet.
“Thank you, sir,” he muttered, too stiff to stand straight and swaying on feet too far away, his eyes blurring with tears at the brilliance of the daylight.
A tall thin gentleman and a short round commoner were watching him judiciously. Two other men in buff jerkins loomed behind them, holding lanterns.
He looked away from them and down at his hands, which was a mistake. The double braceleting of swollen flesh about his wrists was black, red, moist and ugly to see. But their combined gazes were worse: watchers in a bearpit had more sympathy with the bear.
“Well?” demanded the languid black-bearded one, who seemed to be laughing at him silently.
It was an English voice. So at least he was in England, a thought which surprised him by bringing him no comfort. There was another crumb to add to his store of knowledge of himself. Of course I am English, said his homunculus stoutly, what else would I be? Bloody Spanish? Dutch butter-eater?
They seemed to be waiting for him to say something. What colour is my hair? What colour are my eyes? he wondered distractedly. What should I say?
It came to him that generally, when in doubt, it was best to say nothing. Who had told him that? He could not remember.
The tall one rolled his eyes.
“Have you reconsidered, Ralph?”
The gentleman is addressing me, so that must be my name, he thought, wondering why there was no comfort in that either.
It would be offensive not to answer and he had no desire to offend.
“Reconsidered what, sir?”
“Your duty to the Queen.”
“I cry you mercy, sir, but I know nothing of . . .”
The two looked at each other and he trailed off, his voice stopped with fear. Then the short one came forward and touched his elbow confidingly, to turn him a little aside.
“Come, Ralph,” said the man, “this is all foolishness. We want names, places, dates. We want your press and warehouses. And we want all you can tell us about the Book of the Unicorn.”
He blinked down at the man, dizzy from hunger and thirst and the pain in his body. His hose felt loose on him, which was no surprise at all, though he still seemed to own a big enough belly.
“Are you a friend, sir?” he asked, still bewildered. “Will you tell me where I am?”
The short man laughed a little uncomfortably, shrugged his shoulders. His grey woollen suit was better cut than the other’s silk.
“I’m the nearest to a friend that you have here in the Tower.”
He blinked down at the man and then spoke out of his choking desperation. “If you are a friend, then I pray you will tell me your name.”
The little man’s square clean-shaven face darkened.
“You know me well enough.”
He shook hi
s head. “I know nothing, sir. Some dreadful accident has happened to my wits. I know nothing beyond waking up in this . . . this place. I remember nothing. I am . . .” he fought for control, found his poor swollen fingers trying to turn into fists. “I am like a babe newborn in a man’s body.”
The short one wrinkled up his face and laughed cynically. “By God, that’s a new variation, Ralph.”
“Shall we get on, Mr Munday,” said the elegant one wearily.
“He says he remembers nothing before his last waking.” Munday’s voice had a mixture of spices in it: cynicism, amusement, a little grudging admiration.
He felt it was misplaced.
“We had best remind him then,” said the elegant one.
“Come,” said the short one, Munday. “This is amusing, but hardly to your help, Ralph.”
“It is the truth. I was not even sure which country I was in until I heard you speak. I have forgotten my own name.”
“Well, the name you’ve been using is Ralph Strangways, but I expect you have others.”
They had at last said something of which cut through the confusion; suddenly a skeleton in tawny velvet rags flashed past his mind’s eye, jabbering nonsense. Then the moment was gone and he could recall nothing more. Munday had taken his elbow in a painful grip and was pushing him between the two men-at-arms.
He tried to take a step, was brought up short by the chain, his stockinged feet slipped on the stone and he nearly pitched on his nose. This time nobody helped him, though he kept his feet.
“Why would I lie to you, sir? I am a loyal servant of the Queen.”
Both of them smirked then.
“For the avoidance of pain,” said the elegant one, “men will tell many strange lies.”
At that deadly insult, despair boiled suddenly into rage and a knowledge from nowhere lifted him up. He lunged at an angle and drove his chained elbows into the elegant one’s side, pinned him bodily against the wall, brought his knee up into the man’s crotch and butted with his head at the aquiline nose.
Three others caught him, pulled him away because he was weak and hampered by chains and the two men-at-arms held him while Munday hit him in the stomach, a dispassionate wondering expression on his face.
The world was flickering around him. Gasping in a helpless bow in the grip of the two men-at-arms, he wondered in despair why he could not keep his temper. But fighting was a relief, something he understood. Oh God, for a sword and his hands free . . .
“You are something of a brawler for a priest.” Munday’s voice reached him from far away.
“A priest?” he croaked stupidly. “I’m not a priest.”
“Then why will you not tell us what we want to know?”
The elegant one was less elegant now, he noticed as he began to be able to straighten up. Grosgrain silk had ripped across from a roughness on the irons, blood from the man’s nose and mouth were decorating his ruff. He pushed himself away from the wall slowly, his teeth bared.
“Oh, now you have annoyed Mr Ramme,” clucked Munday. “Steady, James, don’t kill him, that’s what he wants.”
Ramme shook off Munday’s hand and closed in on the man vengefully. Long, beringed fingers caught the open front of his doublet, straightened him, and the other hand cracked its rings across his face, once, twice . . . Munday was there again, hanging on Ramme’s arm.
“Not his face, you fool,” hissed Munday. “He has to look presentable for his execution.”
Ramme blinked absently down at Munday, bunched a fist and let him see where he was going to punch before swinging up and into the prisoner’s privates.
Moaning in a ball on the dirty stones, he heard Munday tutting again. They were dragging him, one of the Yeomen was cursing him for his weight. Their grip on his shoulders hurt, his toes scrabbled at earth and gravel, he could not see, he was too busy trying to breathe. There was a moment when his sight came back and he saw daylight and a square white tower. Then it was in at a door and down spiral stairs to a vaulted place half-piled with junk: cracked cannon, holed breastplates, strange bucket-shaped helmets of his grandfather’s day. Under one of the arches was an ugly wooden frame and pulleys, covered with dust. Someone’s brawny arm was holding his head in a lock while they released him from the irons, stripped off his clothes. But now somebody, Munday, told him to put his hands out. Terror filled him at the order. He would not, he resisted with all his strength, but they forced him, one to each arm. Then it was Ramme who crammed iron manacles, which had a bar between them instead of a chain, into the ulcered furrows on his wrists, locking them.
He whimpered, stumbled up steps as he was push, felt his arms lifted above his head by a man on a step-ladder and the bar was hooked onto a high bracket. The steps twitched from under his feet and he screamed as his wrists took his full weight, his bones cracking and creaking as he swung.
He thought the blood must be exploding from his fingers like fireworks. He scrabbled desperately at the void with his toes to find a relief for his wrists, and made the raging flames in his arms worse from the movement. At last he hung gasping, keening, wishing to scream again but without enough air to do it. Tears and sweat stung the graze on his face.
“There,” said Ramme’s voice, a little behind and below, rich with satisfaction. “We shall see if this reminds him.”
“Names, dates, places, your warehouse, your press,” droned Munday’s voice. “And the meaning of the unicorn, this vaunted Book of the Unicorn. None of this is necessary, Ralph. We regret it, truthfully we do. If it were not God’s work, neither of us would stoop to this.”
Far away he heard his voice croak, “Romero . . . said that . . . too.”
When? He wondered. Who was Romero? Why did I say that?
“Romero?” asked Munday sharply. “Who’s that?”
“A Spaniard,” smirked Ramme, “obviously. No doubt his master.”
“Or another traitor.”
“I am not . . . a traitor,” he gasped. “I’m the Queen’s loving subject.”
Munday snickered. “Why do they always say that? Is your memory still defective, Ralph?”
Tears were running down his face from pain and despair.
“Yes,” he whispered.
He was no longer in darkness. Light filtered down from high barred windows between the vaults and in the distance was a tinny clanging, but all he had to look at was the pillar he hung from.
There were footsteps, murmuring voices, the door slammed and locked. Christ have mercy, could they not even be bothered to watch him suffer? He wanted to shout and curse them but his ribs could not open enough, his breath wheezed through his teeth with each surge of blood in his hands.
The cold was dabbling experimentally in the sweat soaking his shirt. Oh Jesus, let me not shiver.
Anvils clanged like iron drums in the distance.
XXI
SINCE MR SECRETARY DAVISON would never waste in mere pleasure time that might be devoted to salvation, it was no accident that he met his cousin Bethany as she walked muffled in cloak and sealskin boots in the snow-covered Privy Garden with the Queen’s three lap-dogs, to exercise them. They instantly set up an excited yapping when they saw Mr Davison coming towards them down the path by the knot-garden. The boldest of them started making little scurries and dashes to and fro from the safety of Bethany’s skirts to growl at Davison’s boots.
“Cousin,” he said, lifting his hat and looking about to see that they were all alone in the garden. “How is the Queen?”
“She has distemper in her stomach, has taken physic and the doctor will see her again this evening.”
“So I had heard.” Davison turned to accompany Bethany. The little dog kept making brave forays at his boots.
“Eric, stop that,” said Bethany sharply. “Leave off, you bad dog.”
Eric looked up at her and barked importantly, quivering with aggression. If we had eaten the magical salmon of the Irish which teaches men the speech of beasts, we could hear him telling
her of Davison’s hatefulness, and offering gallantly to rip his throat out. Or, at any rate, his calf muscles. Eric’s two friends, Francis and Felipe, backed him up, being his pack.
Bethany frowned and waggled her gloved finger. “Stop it, all of you,” she scolded. “Go and . . . go and fetch.” She found a stick broken off a yew tree by the wind and threw it for them. Immediately forgetting their enemy, the dogs yapped off to fetch it, bounding like deer through the snow and sneezing when it got up their noses. Bethany smiled wearily after them.
“I had hoped for more information from you,” Davison said when his waiting silence had not done its work.
“Cousin, I do not want to be your informer against the Queen.”
“Not against the Queen, Cousin Bethany, never against the Queen. I only desire more information than the Court is given, the better to serve her,” Davison explained, believing it.
“Whatever it was you said to her upon Saint Stephen’s Day, it upset her greatly.”
“I know,” said Davison, not seeming very worried. “I am forbidden her august presence.”
“She woke in the night screaming with the pain in her stomach and then, after she had taken the sleeping draught, she woke again with some new dream that made her weep all morning.”
“And what do you think is the cause of her distress?”
“The Queen of Scots. She is desperate not to sign the warrant.”
“But she must. It is essential she stamp on the serpent she has nourished in her bosom for so long.”
Bethany looked at him sidelong under her sooty lashes. He was so prosaic, it was always a surprise to hear him using the flowery phrases of the Court.
“Why is it so urgent?” Bethany demanded. “Why can it not wait? It has for twenty years.”
“Twenty years too long. And it is urgent because I believe we have wind of a plot to release the Scottish Queen and no doubt to do away with our own Royal Mistress.”
“Again?” said Bethany distantly. “Such a multitude of plots.”
“Do you not believe in them?”
“The Queen does not, so why should I? She says they are all playhouse fantasies and theatrics cooked up by you and Sir Francis, and she has said that after the way you and he entrapped poor Babington she will never again believe either one of you.”
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