“So, I am sure you will organize the perfect welcome for our new friends from the north, Kate.” Elizabeth returned to her Venetian looking glass, and smoothed the tendrils of red hair that had escaped from her cap, as slow and careless as if the Spanish ambassador was not waiting for her. As if she was not, as Kate feared, contemplating aiding rebels who sought to overthrow Mary, Queen of Scots, and her mother. It would mean war, which was something Elizabeth had been so carefully avoiding.
“I will do my best, Your Grace,” Kate said.
“Perhaps you could use some assistance,” Elizabeth said, with a new, brighter smile, a teasing smile. “What of that handsome Rob Cartman? His strutting upon the stage is always amusing—and most diverting. I could send for him to help you.”
Kate was startled. Did Elizabeth somehow know about her conversation with Violet, about the tiny lute pendant hidden under her bodice? The queen did seem to see everything at her crowded court. “Rob Cartman?”
“Aye.” Elizabeth spun around, her smile more open, teasing. She suddenly seemed younger, as she had last summer at Nonsuch, with Robert Dudley at her side for every hunt and every dance. “I know you do like him, Kate. Fain to deny it.”
“He is my friend,” Kate said carefully. “He understands my love of music, and is indeed a talented actor.”
“He rather reminds me of my own Robin,” Elizabeth said musingly.
Kate couldn’t help but laugh. “Of Sir Robert Dudley?” Rob Cartman was blond and blue-eyed, fair and golden as a summer’s day. Sir Robert was often called “the queen’s gypsy” for his darkness, his swarthy skin, and black, curling hair.
“Oh, aye. There is an adventurous spirit about them both, a bold attitude. Do you not agree?”
Kate did agree. Rob’s adventurous spirit was always intriguing—and sometimes trouble. “There is certainly much boldness about Master Cartman, Your Grace.”
“Too much so sometimes? Just like Robin—such men do sometimes need to be put in their proper places by women of equal adventurous spirit,” Elizabeth said, picking up her feathered fan and silver pomander. “So, it is settled. We shall send for Master Cartman to assist with these Christmas revels. I understand he is employed by my cousin Lord Hunsdon.”
Kate glanced over her shoulder, making sure they were alone. “Yes, Your Grace. Lord Hunsdon has asked him to form a troupe at his estate at Eastwick.”
“Henry does love a good play. A Boleyn trait, I think. He will not mind if we borrow his prize player for a time.”
And Kate would not mind seeing Rob again. Nay, not at all. “I will be glad of the help.”
“Just remember . . . ,” Elizabeth said, suddenly stern. She could go in an instant from playful intimate to distant monarch. “Now is not the time to be distracted by romance, Kate. I need people I can truly trust close around me, and those are so very few. I must not lose them, not now.”
“I will always be Your Grace’s most loyal servant,” Kate said. It was Elizabeth who had saved England from darkness, Elizabeth who promised a glorious, prosperous future. Elizabeth alone who stood between the battling claimants to be her heir. Kate would always do all she could to preserve that.
Elizabeth nodded, her eyes closing for an instant as if in weariness. “I know you are, as your father has always been. But right now there is work to be done that is far less pleasant than an old-fashioned Christmas for Mistress Ashley. Will you come with me to meet with the Spanish ambassador?”
“To meet with Bishop de Quadra?” Kate said, surprised.
“Aye. You knew the bishop’s predecessor, the Count de Feria. Perhaps you will have some opinions on their differences? Things I cannot see, things they will keep carefully hidden from me. You do have an actor’s eye.”
Kate did recall the count—and what happened to her in the cold halls of the Spanish embassy at Durham House. “I daresay you also have a fine actor’s eye, Your Grace. But I will do what I can.”
Elizabeth nodded. A knock sounded at the door, and she sighed impatiently. “Enter!”
It was the queen’s chief secretary, Sir William Cecil, who pushed open the door. Though Cecil was only in his thirties, he already seemed older, bowed by his long hours of work for the queen and for England, gray threaded through his brown beard, a walking stick in his hand. The silver trim on his black velvet garments glinted in the light. “The Spanish ambassador awaits, Your Grace,” he said, his tone so endlessly steady. “He is becoming rather impatient.”
“Does he press his master’s latest prospect for our hand in marriage?” Elizabeth said with a laugh. “Ha, but surely he must know how busy our court is this time of year. How many suitors we must answer. These things must be carefully considered. Look what happened when my father did not properly think over his matrimonial prospects.”
Cecil frowned. “It is never wise to antagonize the King of Spain, not when England needs allies. And the Archduke Charles would not be a poor choice as consort.”
Elizabeth waved off his words with her fan. “I do not intend to antagonize anyone, dearest Cecil. King Philip is, as ever, my dear brother-in-law—even though he certainly married his French princess with such haste after declaring undying love for me.”
“We must keep the Spanish and French balanced, Your Grace,” Cecil said. “With Queen Mary the queen of France now, Philip must stay our friend.”
“Quite right, my dear Cecil. We shall keep de Quadra waiting no longer. Kate, bring me that box on my desk. A small Christmas token for King Philip.”
Kate nodded, and hurried to fetch the small ivory-and-gold box atop a pile of papers on the queen’s desk. As she picked it up, she glanced out the window and noticed a lady in a black cloak rushing down the path, a gentleman in bright green behind her. She shook her head, and he held out his hand beseechingly.
“Kate,” the queen called, pulling her attention from the garden. Elizabeth took Sir William’s arm and swept out of the room, with Kate rushing to follow. The chambers outside the bedroom were crowded with courtiers waiting to catch the queen’s attention. They all bowed and curtsied, hoping for a royal nod, a word.
One of those was the queen’s cousin, Lady Margaret Lennox, who had once been given precedence over Elizabeth when Mary was queen. She hovered there with her tall, pale son, Lord Darnley, who merely looked bored to be dragged along by his mother to seek favor with the queen. Elizabeth sighed to see them, but gestured to Lady Margaret to follow her.
Kate fell into her place at the end of the queen’s train of courtiers, watching the faces around them carefully. Everyone smiled, laughing and making merry with the spirit of the festive season, but she had seen all too often how quickly the laughter turned to fury, and danger to Elizabeth lurked around every tapestry-draped corner.
CHAPTER THREE
The queen processed from her privy apartments and turned toward the great waterside gallery, where the Bishop de Quadra waited. As always, knots and crowds of people hovered just beyond the doorway, their smiles strained as they longed to catch the queen’s precious attention, their petitions held in trembling hands. Elizabeth just smiled and nodded, sailing forward on her way. There was not time to linger now.
Kate followed closely in the path of Elizabeth’s black and silver velvet skirts, the box held in her hands. She moved quickly, quietly, trying to be unobtrusive as always in her simple dark blue silk gown, her hair drawn up under a plain net, watching what happened in the queen’s colorful wake. That was always the great advantage of her position as the queen’s musician. She was one of the few female players at court. She was always there, at grand feasts and in quiet chambers, yet few took any notice of her.
They were far too busy jostling for attention with the queen and her favorites, such as Robert Dudley. She could learn much of importance to the queen—see the expressions they tried to hide behind courtly smiles and hear the whispers they thought no one
heard.
The great gallery was a long, wide passage running along the side of the palace that overlooked the Thames. One wall was made up almost entirely of windows, sparkling panes of the finest Venetian glass that revealed the vista of the river and let in whatever gray winter light could be gleaned. Fine tapestries covered the opposite wall, a series of summer picnic scenes woven in vivid reds and greens, shimmering with hints of gold thread. The hangings struggled valiantly to keep the cold drafts from the windows at bay.
The vaulted ceiling was painted blue and gold, with the beams carved and gilded, like a summer sky. Vast fireplaces at either end were laid with crackling flames all the time, giving the grand space at least an illusion of intimacy.
It was one of Kate’s favorite spaces in the meandering warren of the palace, and she liked to linger a bit whenever an errand took her there. She loved to peek out at the river and the city beyond, glimpsing the church spires and bridges. A few times, she had put on her boy’s breeches and doublet and gone out into those streets herself, amid the jostling crowds, the shop windows and taverns and houses. At court, she was usually kept much too busy to think much beyond her work for the queen, but in snatched moments she sometimes dared imagine the freedom of those streets.
The great gallery was also a gathering place for so many courtiers in their idle moments. They played at cards near the warmth of the fireplaces and whispered in the light of the windows. All sorts of interesting tidbits could be overheard.
But not when the queen was there. When she took her strolls along the gallery, everyone flocked to her.
Bishop Alvarez de Quadra, the Spanish ambassador at court since the Count de Feria left in the summer, waited with his followers near the farthest fireplace. Where Feria had been handsome and sophisticated, yet never quite able to hide his dislike of England’s new Protestant queen, de Quadra was older and always calm and ponderous. He looked like a plump, dark crow in his black bishop’s cassock, and his shiny brown eyes watched the English world from under thick graying brows. He seemed affable, friendly, and especially enjoyed conversing with Cecil.
Kate could not quite decipher the man. She had grown up in staunchly Protestant households, starting with her childhood in the household of Queen Catherine Parr, who had led studies of the writings of the new religion with her ladies and written her own works, and later with Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield. Kate had learned to speak some Spanish, as so many popular songs came from Spain, and had studied their ways when Mary was queen. But she still found them rather labyrinthine.
Elizabeth sailed toward the bishop, smiling serenely, nodding to some of her favorites as everyone curtsied and bowed in a rustling satin wave when she passed. Kate studied the Spanish as they moved closer.
The bishop wore his usual black, austere in color but, like Cecil’s, made of the richest velvet and lined with glossy fur, and a ruby-and-pearl cross on a gold chain hung from his neck. Behind him stood a knot of older gentlemen, whom Kate had seen several times. They were de Quadra’s constant advisers; some of them had been in England with King Philip when he was king consort. There were also two new men, younger than the others by several years, and, she couldn’t help but notice, rather handsome.
“Bishop de Quadra,” the queen said, smiling easily as if she was not at all late. “We must give our Yuletide greetings to your master, our good brother King Philip. I hope he is settling happily into his new marriage. They say his French princess is uncommonly charming, for all her great youth.”
“Your Grace,” the bishop said, bowing as he leaned heavily on an ebony walking stick. Kate noticed that its handle was a golden serpent with emerald eyes, winking in the gray light. “The king is indeed most content with his marital state. He sends his best wishes that you, too, might find such felicity very soon.”
Elizabeth laughed merrily. “King Philip swore he was most devoted to courting me, and then he abandoned me most precipitately. Now he presses me onto someone else?”
The bishop, too, just kept smiling. He had heard the queen’s words often, ever since King Philip abandoned his suit of Queen Elizabeth, which everyone knew was futile anyway, and wed Princess Elisabeth Valois. “King Philip speaks most highly of his kinsman, the Archduke Charles of Austria, Your Grace, and declares he knows you two would be of compatible natures.”
Elizabeth waved his words away with her fan, even as Cecil nodded at her side. It was well-known that he, too, favored the archducal match. That, at least, was something Cecil and the Spanish ambassador seemed to agree on—according to Cecil, Archduke Charles was much preferable to no manly consort in England at all. But Robert Dudley scowled, as he always did at talk of the queen’s many suitors.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kate noticed Lady Catherine Grey slipping away from the other ladies and out a side door, her black skirts a shadow.
“It is too fine a day for such talk, Bishop,” Elizabeth said. “We are much too merry thinking about Christmas. You must present these two young men to us. We haven’t seen their handsome faces at our court before.”
For an instant, de Quadra looked as if he might like to disagree, to go on pressing the archduke’s case, but of course he never would. He bowed again, and waved the two young men forward.
Up close, Kate could see that they were indeed quite handsome. They looked so alike they could surely be brothers, with glossy dark hair and fashionably short beards, and they were clad in stylish brown satin and black velvet, slashed and puffed, sewn with pearls.
Yet Kate could see that one of them looked as if he might burst out laughing at any moment, and his eyes were a lighter brown, almost amber. The other looked most solemn indeed, like so many of the priests she had once seen around Queen Mary. He shifted on his feet, as if he longed to flee the crowded scene. His smiling friend tugged him forward.
“Your Grace, may I present my new secretaries, who have lately arrived from Madrid,” the bishop said. “Senor Sebastian Gomez and his cousin Senor Jeronimo Vasquez.”
They made elaborate bows, and Kate heard the queen’s ladies giggle.
“Secretaries?” Elizabeth said. “Then I do hope they will be of much help to you, Bishop—and help liven up our court for the holidays, as young men do. Do you bring us the new Spanish dances, senors?”
The solemn one, Senor Jeronimo Vasquez, looked as if “dance” was an unknown word to him, and certainly an unknown action, but the merry one laughed, and gave the queen an even more theatrical bow. “A branle cope, Your Grace? Or mayhap a baja danza? They are most lively.”
“I do like a lively dance the best,” the queen said, giving him an appraising glance. “You must also teach them to my ladies. And perhaps some Spanish songs to my chief musician, Mistress Haywood.” She held out her bejeweled pale hand and gestured for Kate to step forward. “Now, my dear bishop, we wish to give King Philip a token from his English sister on his marriage.”
Kate curtsied and handed the box to Bishop de Quadra. As he lifted the lid to reveal a gold-chased timepiece, Elizabeth leaned closer to Kate and whispered, “Did you see my cousin Lady Catherine talking to the handsome Senor Gomez when we came in, Kate?”
“I did, Your Grace,” Kate whispered back.
“She has been rather too friendly with the Spanish of late,” Elizabeth said, the merest whisper of a frown rippling over her smiling mask. “Would you keep watch on her?”
Kate remembered Lady Catherine at Nonsuch Palace the summer past, how she crept into corners with Lord Hertford, rumored to be her lover. Lady Catherine seemed to have lost some of her lively, flirtatious ways in her mourning, but she had indeed seemed rather animated in her conversation with Senor Gomez. And de Quadra’s predecessor, Feria, had seemed most intent on keeping Lady Catherine’s friendship.
Kate nodded. “Keeping watch” on Lady Catherine Grey with her flighty ways, while also organizing a masque and composing the music for dances and f
easts, made her want to sigh. But Lady Catherine was the queen’s cousin, her nearest relation at the English court, and some whispered she was the best possible heir to Elizabeth’s throne. What she did was always of import to the queen.
As Elizabeth took the bishop’s arm to stroll with him along the gallery, followed by his new secretaries, Kate slipped away to look for Lady Catherine.
Lady Catherine was usually to be found at the center of her large groups of friends, almost always with Lord Hertford’s sister, Lady Jane Seymour, at her side, laughing and whispering.
Until now. To Kate’s surprise, Lady Catherine was not with her young friends, playing cards or chasing their lapdogs, giggling at the fashions of everyone who was not part of their circle. She was sitting by herself next to the fireplace of one of the small withdrawing rooms beyond the great gallery, her hands folded in the lap of her black skirts. One of her many little dogs, who always seemed to follow her around, peeked out from under her fur-trimmed hem. She stared into the crackling flames, her pretty heart-shaped face very still and pale.
Kate suddenly felt uncomfortable, and glanced back over her shoulder to see if any of Lady Catherine’s friends were near. Such solemn sorrow, especially from a lady who was usually so light, tugged at Kate’s own heart. She knew how that time of year, meant to be so merry and joyous, sometimes pulled forward too many sad memories, too many lonely hours.
But Lady Catherine glanced up and saw Kate in the doorway, so it was too late to back away. “Mistress Haywood?” she called.
Kate was rather surprised. She wasn’t sure Lady Catherine knew her name, though they were often in the same room at court. They had never spoken before.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, Lady Catherine,” she said. “I just wondered if you were quite well.”
“I am well enough. It was just very crowded in the gallery. Please, do come sit with me for a moment,” Lady Catherine said. Her face looked rather hopeful, as if she much desired some distraction from whatever her sad thoughts were. “If my royal cousin can spare you.”
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