QUEEN'S CHRISTMAS SUMMONS, THE

by MCCABE, AMANDA

  ‘And because you love him.’ This was another tale she had heard often. The tale of how her father had seen her mother, the most beautiful woman in the world, at a banquet and would marry no other, even against the wishes of his family. Alys knew her parents had not regretted choosing each other; she had often caught them secretly kissing, seen them laughing together, their heads bent close.

  Her mother laughed and tucked Alys’s wayward lock of hair back into her little cap. ‘And that, too, though you are much too young to think of such things yet.’

  ‘Will I have a husband as kind as Father?’

  Her mother’s smile faded and she bent her head over the tea she stirred. Her veil fell forward to hide her expression. ‘There are few men like your father, I fear, and you are only ten. You needn’t think about it for so long. Marriages are made for many reasons—family security, wealth, land, even affection sometimes. But I promise, no matter who you marry, he will be a good man, a strong one. You will not be here in Ireland for ever.’

  Alys had heard such things so often. Ireland was not really their home; her father only did his duty here to the Queen for a time. One day they would have a real home, in England, and she would have a place at court. Perhaps she would even serve the Queen herself, and marry a man handsome and strong. But she could conceive of little beyond Dunboyton’s walls, the cliffs and wild sea that surrounded them. There had only been that one small glimpse of the royal court, the boys playing at football, and then it was gone.

  ‘Now, querida, what is this one?’ her mother asked as she held out a small bottle.

  Alys smelled a green sharpness, something like citrus beneath. ‘Marjoram!’

  ‘Exactly. To spice your father’s wine tonight and help with his stomach troubles.’

  ‘Is Father ill?’

  Elena’s smile flickered. ‘Not at all. Too many rich sauces with his meat, I have warned him over and over. Ah, well. Here, niña, I have something for you.’

  Alys jumped up on her stool, clapping her hands in delight. ‘A present, Madre?’

  ‘Sí, a rare one.’ She reached into one of her carved boxes, all of them darkened with age and infused with the scent of all the herbs they had held over the years. Her mother removed a tiny muslin-wrapped bundle. She laid it carefully on Alys’s trembling palm.

  Alys unwrapped it to find a few tiny, perfect curls of bright yellow candied lemon peels. The yellow was sun-brilliant, sprinkled with sugar like snowflakes. ‘Candied lemon!’

  Her favourite treat. It tasted just like the sunshine Alys always longed for. She couldn’t resist; she popped a piece on to her tongue and let it melt into sticky sweetness.

  Her mother laughed. ‘My darling daughter, always so impetuous! My brother could only send a few things from Spain this time.’ She gave a sigh as she poured off the new tisane of lemon balm. ‘The weather has kept so many of the ships away.’

  Alys glanced at the icy window again. It was true, there had been few ships in port of late. Usually they saw many arrivals from Spain and the Low Countries, bringing rare luxuries and even rarer news of home to her mother.

  There was the sudden heavy tread of boots up the winding stairs to the stillroom. The door opened and Alys’s father, Sir William Drury, stood there. He was a tall man, broad of shoulder, with light brown hair trimmed short in the new fashion and a short beard. But of late, there were more flecks of grey in his beard than usual, more of a stoop to his shoulders. Alys remembered what her mother had said about his stomach troubles.

  But he always smiled when he saw them, as he did now, a wide, bright grin.

  ‘Father!’ Alys cried happily and jumped up to run to him. He hugged her close, as he always did, but she sensed that he was somehow distant from her, distracted.

  Alys drew back and peered up at him. She had to look far, for he was so very much taller than she. He did smile, but his eyes looked sad. He held something in his hand, half-hidden behind his back.

  ‘William,’ she heard her mother say. There was a soft rustle of silk, the touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. ‘The letter...’

  ‘Aye, Elena,’ he answered, his voice tired. ‘’Tis from London.’

  ‘Alys,’ her mother said gently. ‘Why don’t you go to the kitchen and see if our dinner will soon be ready? Give this to the cooks for the stew.’

  She pressed a sachet of dried parsley and rosemary into Alys’s hand and gently urged her through the door.

  Bewildered, Alys glanced back before the door could close behind her. Her father went to the window, staring out at the rain beyond with his back to her, his hand clasped before him. Her mother went to him, leaning against his shoulder. Alys dared to hold the door open a mere inch, lingering so she could find out what was happening. Otherwise they would never tell her at all.

  ‘There is still no place for you at court?’ Alys heard her mother say. Elena’s voice was still soft, kind, but it sounded as if she might start to cry.

  ‘Nay, not yet, or so my uncle writes. I am needed here for a time longer, considering the uprisings have just been put down. Here! In this godforsaken place where I can do nothing!’ His fist came down on the table with a sudden crash, rattling the bottles.

  ‘Because of me,’ her mother whispered. ‘Madre de Dios, but if not for me, for us, you would have your rightful place.’

  ‘Elena, you and Alys are everything to me. You would be a grace to the royal court, to anywhere you chose to be. They are fools they cannot see that.’

  ‘Because I am a Lorca-Ramirez. I should not have married you, mi corazón. I have brought you nothing. If you had a proper English wife—if I was gone...’

  ‘Nay, Elena, you must never say that. You are all to me. I would rather be here at the end of the world with you and Alys than be a king in a London palace.’

  Alys peeked carefully through the crack in the door and watched as her father took her mother tightly into his arms as she sobbed on his shoulder. Her father’s expression when he thought his wife could not see was fierce, furious.

  Alys tiptoed down the stillroom stairs, careful to make no sound. She felt somehow cold and fearful. Her father was almost never angry, yet there was something about that moment, the look on his face, the sadness that hung so heavy about her mother, that made her want to run away.

  Yet she also wanted to run to her parents, to wrap her arms around them and banish anything that would dare hurt them.

  She made her way to the bustling kitchen to leave the herbs with the cook, hurrying around the soldiers who cleaned their swords by the fire, the maids who scurried around with pots and bowls. London. It was there that lurked whatever had angered her father. She knew where London was, of course, far away over the sea in England. It was home, or so her father sometimes said, but she couldn’t quite fathom it.

  When he showed her drawings of London, pointing out churches and bridges and palaces, she was amazed by the thought of so many people in such grand dwellings. The largest place she knew was Galway City. When she went to market there with her mother, Father said London was like twenty Galways.

  London was also where Queen Elizabeth lived. The Queen, who was so grand and glittering and beautiful, who held all of England safe in her jewelled hand. Was it the Queen who angered him now? Who slighted her mother?

  Her fists clenched in anger at the thought of it as Alys stomped across the kitchen. How dared the Queen, how dared anyone, do such a thing to her parents? It was not fair. She didn’t care where she lived, whether Galway or London, but she did care if her father was denied his true place.

  ‘How now, Lady Alys, and what has you in such a temper?’ one of the cooks called out. ‘Have the fairies stolen away your sugar and left salt instead?’

  Alys had to laugh at the teasing. ‘Nay, I merely came to give you some of my mother’s herbs. ʼTis the col
d day has me in a mood, I think.’

  ‘It’s never cold down here with all these fires. Here, I need a spot of mint from the garden and I think a hardy bunch still has some green near the wall. Will you fetch it for me? Some fresh air might do you some good, my lady.’

  Alys nodded, glad of an errand, and quickly found her cloak before she slipped out into the walled kitchen garden.

  The wind was chilly as she made her way to the covered herb beds at the back of the garden, but she didn’t care. It brought with it the salt tang of the sea and whenever she felt sad or confused the sea would calm her again.

  She climbed up to the top of the stone wall and perched there for a glimpse of the sea. The outbuildings of the castle, the dairy and butcher’s shop and stables, blocked most of the view of the cliffs, but she could see a sliver of the grey waves beyond.

  That sea could take her to London, she thought, and she would fix whatever there had hurt her family. She would tell the Queen all about it herself. And maybe, just maybe, she would see that handsome boy again...

  ‘Alys! You will catch the ague out here,’ she heard her father shout.

  She glanced back to see him striding down the garden path, no cloak or hat against the cold wind, though he seemed not to notice. His attention was only on her.

  ‘Father, how far is London?’

  He scowled. ‘Oh, so you heard that, did you? It is much farther than you could fly, my little butterfly.’ He lifted her down from the wall, spinning her around to make her giggle before he braced her against his shoulder. ‘Mayhap one day you will go there and see it for yourself.’

  ‘Will I see the Queen?’

  ‘Only if she is very lucky.’

  ‘But what if she does not want to see me? Because I am yours and Mother’s?’

  Her father hugged her tightly. ‘You must not think such things, Alys. You are a Drury. Your great-grandmother served Elizabeth of York, and your grandmother served Katherine of Aragon. Our family goes back hundreds of years and your mother’s even more. The Lorca-Ramirez are a ducal family and there are no dukes at all in England now. You would be the grandest lady at court.’

  Alys wasn’t so sure of that. Her mother and nursemaid were always telling her no lady would climb walls and swim in the sea as she did. But London—it sounded most intriguing. And if she truly was a lady and served the Queen well, the Drurys would have their due at long last.

  She glanced back at the roiling sea as her father carried her into the house. One day, yes, that sea would take her to England and she would see its splendours for herself.

  * * *

  ‘That lying whore! She has been dead for years and still she dares to thwart me.’ A crash exploded through the house as Edward Huntley threw his pottery plate against the fireplace and it shattered. It was followed by a splintering sound, as if a footstool was kicked to pieces.

  John Huntley heard a maidservant shriek and he was sure she must be new to the household. Everyone else was accustomed to his father’s rages and went about their business with their heads down.

  John himself would scarcely have noticed at all, especially as he was hidden in his small attic space high above the ancient great hall of Huntleyburg Abbey. It was the one place where his father could never find him, as no one else but the ghosts of the old banished monks seemed to know it was there. When he was forced to return to Huntleyburg at his school’s recess, he would spend his days outdoors hunting and his evenings in this hiding place, studying his Latin and Greek in the attic eyrie. Making plans for the wondrous day he would be free of his father at last.

  He was nearly fourteen now. Surely that day would be soon.

  Edward let out another great bellow. John wouldn’t have listened to the rantings at all, except that something unusual had happened that morning. A visitor had arrived at Huntleyburg.

  And not just any visitor. John’s godfather, Sir Matthew Morgan, had galloped up the drive unannounced soon after breakfast, when John’s father was just beginning the day’s drinking of strong claret. When John heard of Sir Matthew’s arrival, he started to run down the stairs. It had been months since he heard from Sir Matthew, who was his father’s cousin but had a very different life from the Huntleys, a life at the royal court.

  Yet something had held him back, some tension in the air as the servants rushed to attend on Sir Matthew. John had always been able to sense tiny shifts in the mood of the people around him, sense when secrets were being held. Secrets could so seldom be kept from him. His father used to rage that John was an unnatural child, that he inherited some Spanish witchcraft from his cursed mother and would try to beat it out of him. Until John learned to hide it.

  It was secrets he felt hanging in the air that morning. Secrets that made him wait and watch, which seemed the better course for the moment. A fight always went better when he had gathered as much information as possible. Why was Sir Matthew there? He had only been at the Abbey for an hour and he already had John’s father cursing his mother’s memory.

  And it had to be his mother Edward was shouting about now. Maria-Caterina was always The Spanish Whore to her husband, even though she had been dead for twelve years.

  John glanced at the portrait hung in the shadowed corner of his hiding place. A lovely lady with red-gold hair glimpsed under a lacy mantilla, her hands folded against the stiff white-and-silver skirt of her satin gown, her green eyes smiling down at him. On her finger was a gold ring: the same one John now wore on his littlest finger.

  One side of the canvas was slashed, the frame cracked, from one of Edward’s rages, but John had saved her and brought her to safety. He only wished he could have done the same in real life. To honour her, he tried to help those more helpless any time he could. As he had with that tiny, pretty girl once, when she was hit in the head with the football. He sometimes wondered where she was now.

  He heard the echo of voices, the calm, slow tones of his godfather, a sob from his father. If Edward had already turned to tears from rage, John thought it was time for him to appear.

  He unfolded his long legs from the bench and made his way out of the attic, ducking his head beneath the old rafters. He had had a growth spurt in his last term at school and soon he would need a larger hiding place. But soon, very soon by the grace of his mother’s saints, he would be gone from the Abbey for good.

  He made his way down the ladder that led into the great hall. It had been a grand space when his great-grandfather bought the property from King Henry, bright with painted murals and with rich carpets and tapestries to warm the lofty walls and vaulted ceilings, but all of that had been gone for years. Now, it was a faded, dusty, empty room.

  At the far end of the hall, his father sat slumped in his chair by the fire. He had spilled wine on his old fur-trimmed robe and his long, grey-flecked dark hair and beard were tangled. The shattered pottery remains were scattered on the floor, amid splashes of blood-red wine, but no one ventured near to clean it up.

  Sir Matthew stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest as he dispassionately surveyed the scene. Unlike Edward, he was still lean and fit, his sombre dark grey travelling clothes not elaborate, but perfectly cut from the finest wool and velvet. With his sword strapped to his side, he looked ready to ride out and fight for his Queen at any moment, despite his age.

  What had brought such a man to such a pitiful place as Huntleyburg?

  Sir Matthew glanced up and saw John there in the shadows. ‘Ah, John, my dear lad, there you are. ʼTis most splendid to see you again. How you have grown!’

  Before John could answer, his father turned his bleary gaze to him, his face twisted in fury. ‘She has cursed me again,’ he shouted. ‘You and your mother have ruined my life! I am still not allowed at court.’

  Sir Matthew pressed Edward back into his chair with a firm yet unobtrusive hand to his shoulder.
‘You know the reason you are not allowed at court has nothing to do with Maria-Caterina. In fact, she is the only reason your whole roof did not come crashing down on your head years ago.’

  John looked up at the great hall’s ceiling, at the ancient, stained rafters patched with newer plaster. It was true his mother had been an heiress. But that money was long gone now.

  ‘She cursed me,’ Edward said pitifully. ‘She said the monks who once lived here would take their rightful home back and I would have naught.’

  Sir Matthew gave him a distasteful glance. He poured out another goblet of wine and pressed it into Edward’s hand, smiling grimly as he gulped it down.

  ‘We have more serious matters to discuss now, Edward,’ Sir Matthew said. ‘Maria-Caterina is long gone and you have tossed away any chance you may have had. But it is not too late for John.’

  ‘John? What can he possibly do?’ Edward said contemptuously, without even looking at his son.

  ‘He can do much indeed. I hear from your tutors that you are most adept, John, especially at languages,’ Sir Matthew said, turning away from Edward and beckoning John closer. ‘That you should be sent to Cambridge next term. Do you enjoy your studies?’

  Somewhere deep inside of John, in a spot he had thought long numbed, hope stirred. ‘Very much, my lord. I know my Greek and Latin quite well now, as well as French and Spanish, and some Italian.’

  ‘And your skills with the bow and the sword? How are they?’

  John thought of the stag he had brought down for the supper table, one clean arrow shot. ‘Not bad, I think. You can ask the sword master at my school, I work with him every week.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Sir Matthew studied John closely, tapping his fingers against his sleeve. ‘And you are handsome, too.’

  ‘He gets it from his cursed mother,’ Edward muttered. ‘Those eyes...’

  Sir Matthew peered closer. ‘Aye, you do have a dark Spanish look about you, John.’ He poured out even more wine and handed it to Edward without another glance. ‘Come, John, let us walk outside for a time. I haven’t long before I must ride back.’