by King, Susan
By sunset, they arrived in the small town below the palace of Linlithgow. On a wide green hill above, the stone walls of the palace gleamed rosy and smooth. William dismounted at the base of a cobblestone hill, and Tamsin did the same. Glad for the chance to stretch her stiffening muscles, she walked her horse slowly upward to the gates beside William.
"Oh! 'Tis lovely!" she said. The south gate was flanked by round towers and decorated with carved and painted armorials. To the left, she saw a wide, calm loch extending behind the palace, surrounded by meadows and low hills.
"Aye, 'tis a beautiful place," William said quietly. She remembered that he had spent much time at Linlithgow. Here too he had first loved Jean Hamilton. At that thought, she sighed. Then she remembered the manner of their loving the night before, and an echo of that joy rushed through her. She glanced at him shyly. He sent her one of the low, gentle smiles she loved.
A guard came forward. "Rookhope, sir!" he said. "Welcome! Ye're just in time to see the merriment."
William frowned. "Merriment?"
"Some Egyptians have come to court, to offer singing and dancing, and the telling o' fortunes. A long while has passed since this palace has seen such gaiety. Some o' them are just inside the courtyard, sir, and the rest are in the great hall, I do think. Ye'll hear the music when ye go inside." He waved them through the gate. They walked the horses through the gatehouse tunnel toward the open inner court.
Tamsin gasped. Pink evening light poured into a courtyard that was open to the sky and faced on four sides by high, windowed walls. An ornate stone fountain dominated the center of the court, its basins and spouts dry.
Around the courtyard, she saw Romany—nearly three or four score, she realized as she glanced around. Some talked and lounged, while others danced, performed tricks, or played music. Still others had set up makeshift market stalls, using small carts or blankets thrown on the ground. They offered an array of baskets, cloths, cakes, rope, horse trappings, and metal goods. A few of the men repaired kitchen ware and horse gear brought to them by palace servants. In a far corner, some Romany men showed horses for sale, discussing them with palace noblemen.
Elegantly dressed men and women walked among the Romany as if at a market fair, observing, bargaining, murmuring. At each corner, royal guards stood in red and yellow livery, their halberds relaxed in hand while they watched the activities with interest.
On the circle of grass around the fountain, a Romany man juggled leather balls in the air, while two young girls performed acrobatic dancing, leaping over one another. In a corner, a woman in a head scarf and a shawl bent over the offered hands of two noblewomen. Three men played a viol, a cithera, and a drum, while a young woman sang in the Romany language. Beyond them, a man performed feats of sleight-of-hand while a few courtiers watched in amazement.
Tamsin and William stood beneath the south arch and stared. The walls seemed to echo with music and chatter, and more music emanated from open windows on the eastern side of the palace.
A page ran forward and took their horses, leading the animals toward the stable to the right of the entrance. Tamsin stood gazing at the scene. She recognized many of the Romany in the courtyard. When William glanced at her, she nodded.
"This is my grandfather's band, and many others, perhaps Lallo's people too," she said. "Why would Grandfather take a bribe from Arthur Musgrave? I warned him, and he promised that he and the band would wander far out of the Borders until danger of that had passed."
"This is far out of the Borders, my lass," William murmured.
She bit her lower lip and nodded. "I dinna see him here."
"The guard said that some of the gypsies are entertaining in the great hall—up there, in the eastern wing. John and Nona might be there."
"Perhaps," she said. She clung to the shadows beneath the entrance arch, hesitating. Two facets of her existence, old and new, met here: the Romany world in which she had been born, and the realm of the nobility of which William was so much a part. Her father's world, of reiving and small lairdship, lay somewhere in between. She had hoped to be able to enter William's world to please him.
But when she looked at the Romany, so familiar to her, and then looked at the refined noblewomen who strolled among them, she was unsure of herself once again. Standing here in a plain gown, with undressed hair, she was more a Romany lass than a noblewoman, after all. She glanced at William, and saw him look anxiously toward the windows that faced the palace walls.
"You go ahead," she said. "I know you want to go inside. I will stay here and find my grandfather."
William frowned. "If you find your grandparents and discover the truth of Musgrave's plot, I want to know. I will come to look for you. But if we havena found each other by darkness, then meet me in the northwest block, there." He pointed toward an inner corner. "Take the stair to the first level. You'll find a corridor with a tall window overlooking the loch. Wait there for me."
She nodded. He leaned down in the shadow of the vaulting and kissed her, swift and hard, with an underlying tenderness that made her sigh. Then he strode across the courtyard at a half run, cutting through the crowd. He spoke to a guard and entered the east wing, vanishing inside an archway.
Tamsin stepped into the courtyard, nodding to those she knew from her grandparents' band. Some greeted her, others ignored her. In the far corner, she saw Baptiste Lallo near the Romany horses, talking with some gentlemen. She deliberately wandered that way.
Lallo stopped talking to stare at her. A young Romany woman initiating speech with a young man would be immodest, but she slowed near him and caught his gaze. She paused as if lost.
He came toward her. "Romanichi," he said. "Romany girl. What are you doing here? Your grandfather said you married a rich gadjo. Is he one of the rya in this place?"
She looked at him, his face dark and gaunt, but pleasant, his eyes large and black above an inky mustache. He smiled, showing pale, well-formed teeth.
"Oh, that rya is not with me," she replied in a half-truth. "I am here to find my grandparents. Have you seen them?"
He frowned at her. "Did you leave the man?"
"I broke the jug between us," she said.
"Ah," he said, nodding. His eyes gleamed.
"Where is my grandfather?" She looked around the courtyard.
"He has gone with some of the others into the palace. I will take you to him. Follow me." She did. He strutted with animal grace, swaying his shoulders from side to side, swinging his arms. She saw some Romany women look at him with interest.
Baptiste spoke with a guard, explaining that they were with the players who had already gone to the great hall. The guard stepped aside to admit them to the stairs that led upward.
"Baptiste Lallo," she said, as they climbed. He turned. "What is going on here? I have only just arrived."
"We were invited to this place," he said. "I myself was given the invitation by a rya who paid me in advance for our services. The queen of this land wants singing and dancing and entertainment. And we, of course, are the best," he boasted.
"The queen of this land is an infant," she said.
He shrugged. "Then her mother must have requested our presence. We have been juggling and dancing and playing music since this afternoon. We will soon be packing up to leave the palace, for the guards have told us we cannot stay here past dark. I know your grandmother has made some good silver telling fortunes today. I myself earned good coin by selling two of my horses. They are the finest."
"I am certain of it. Have you seen the baby queen?"
"I saw her," he said. "She is not pretty, for she is pale as milk, and thin, with hair the color of copper." He paused on a small, circular landing to wait for her. "My own children are plump, nut-brown, and smart. You will like them, Tchalai. You must come to my wagon to meet them. My mother cares for them now, but she is old and irritable." He smiled as she stood beside him. "Now that you have left that gadjo, you will be eager to wed a Romany man, a real man. Myself."
She
looked away to discourage him, for he looked at her as if he already owned her. "Which way is the hall?" she asked. She heard music, buffered by stone, and was uncertain of the direction.
Baptiste stepped closer, and she nearly jumped when he took her upper arm. "I will forgive you for wedding that man, since you have divorced him," he said. "I told John Faw that I would take you, even though you were born with a curse, for I think you are a fine woman. And I keep my word." He nodded. "Your grandfather will be glad to see you have found some sense and left that man, and come home to your Romany family."
She shook off his hand, her heart beating hard, but somehow he did not frighten her. She nearly left him there, but realized that she might be able to learn of the plot from him. He took her arm again. This time, she let him.
"I have missed the Romany, that is true," she said. "Tell me, who invited you to this palace, and paid you to bring the entertainment? Is he here to greet the Romany? I would like to meet such a generous man."
He laughed and leaned close. He smelled of horses, and his hand on her arm was firm. "You have told this man's fortune," he said. "He was in the camp the night of the wedding, when you were there. I chanced to meet him later that night, out on the moor. He and his friend offered me coin and told me to have the Romany here on this day. A gift for the Scottish queen from the English king, they said." He shrugged. "What do I care the reason? Silver is silver."
"Ah," she said. "Is he here?"
"No," he said. "Friends of his are here. They bought garments from me and my mother earlier today, headcloths and cloaks and jewelry. The people of the court like Romany dress, they said. We wear more comfortable clothing than they do, that is true! My mother showed them how to wrap their heads, because they insisted on wearing headcloths and cloaks. They looked foolish when they were done, like old Romany women!" He laughed. "But they seemed pleased with themselves."
Tamsin stared at him, her mind rushing over what he told her, and beyond. Baptiste was either truly unaware of a plot to steal the queen or else he pretended stupidity. "Can you show these men to me?" she asked.
"Avali, yes," he said. "We can laugh at them. You and I will laugh much together, Romany girl. I like your smile." He leaned forward and kissed her, his mustache prickly, but his lips surprisingly gentle. She shoved at him.
"Modest?" he asked in surprise. "You have been a married woman. And I will make you happy, I, a good Romany man. Ah, come here!" She ducked into the corridor, and he launched after her. At the end of the corridor, a guard stood before wide doors. She hurried toward him, Baptiste following.
"We are Romany, come to perform," she told the guard in a breathless voice. He nodded, his gaze traveling up and down her body. He said nothing, but opened the door to admit her, then Baptiste, who pounded up behind her.
She entered the room and stopped to gaze at its grandeur. The enormous chamber seemed full of light and color, crowded with people and music and laughter. Well over a hundred feet long and a quarter of that wide, the hall had a soaring, elaborate timber-work ceiling, painted and tapestried walls, huge arched windows, and a tripartite fireplace dominating one wall. The three glowing fires that burned between its carved pilasters were mere sparks in the overall brilliance.
"Beautiful," she breathed to herself, looking around.
Baptiste, behind her, grunted. "Wasting good gold on houses, when they could spend it on horses—and give some riches to the Romany, eh? Look, John Faw is there."
She glanced where he pointed. Across what seemed like a sea of people, her grandparents mingled among a group of Romany in the center of the room. Three girls danced in a cleared space as a crowd of people, both courtiers and Romany, watched.
The girls swirled and undulated in bare feet, with delicate bells ringing on wrists and ankles, and filmy silk scarves floating around them. Men played drums and viols to accompany them, with insistent, driving rhythms that thrummed in the air.
Tamsin looked past the dancers and past her grandparents, who had not yet seen her, to scan the crowd. But she did not see the one face she sought, that of a dark-haired man with sky-blue eyes. She twisted, looking, but he was nowhere in sight.
She turned back to Baptiste. "Show me these men who wear headdresses like Romany women," she said.
He nodded and took her arm, and she allowed him to guide her as they edged their way between people. "There," he said. "Just there, see! Ah, now they disappear again. They were near the little queen and her mother, who are watching the dancers."
"What?" Tamsin raised up on her toes to peer through the throng. A dais was set up along one long wall, with a brightly embroidered canopy draped behind it. Seated on a huge carved throne chair in the center of the platform, a woman in a black gown held a child in her lap. The cleared space for the dancers and musicians extended to the dais itself.
Tamsin shouldered her way to the edge of the crowd. Baptiste followed, his fingers still wrapped around her elbow in a possessive way. She edged nearer the dais, stopping to peer between two women, elegantly gowned and perfumed, who glanced at her and immediately turned their backs to ignore her. In her simple brown kirtle over a chemise, and with her hair loose and wild, she knew they took her for one of the gypsies.
She drew herself tall, standing between them. Their haughty glances made her want to insist to them that she was, indeed, one of the gypsies.
She leaned forward to look toward the dais. The queen dowager, Marie of Guise, must be the woman holding the child, she thought. The woman was tall and slender, splendidly gowned and coifed in black silk and black velvet trimmed in silver and pearls. She smiled and tapped a foot to the music.
The little queen stood on her lap, a lively, pink-cheeked infant in a long, voluminous gown of creamy damask, with a little lace cap over her reddish gold hair. The child was so excited by the music and the crowds that she squealed, waved her arms, and bounced, standing, on her mother's knee while the queen dowager circled her small torso with long, tapered fingers.
Tamsin smiled, watching Queen Mary Stewart, and seeing Marie of Guise's warm pride as she kissed the child's cheek. She thought of Katharine, who often refused to sit, preferring to bounce on straight, stubborn legs in just that way while someone held her. Suddenly she felt an overwhelming urge to find William, to be with him and to help him protect this royal child, just as she wanted to help him keep his own daughter safe.
She glanced past the dais, still searching the crowds for William, but she could not find him in the vast room. The men Baptiste had described did not seem to be about either. Nudging Baptiste's arm, she pulled him with her.
"I must speak with my grandfather," she said over the blare and beat of the music. "And you must show me these foolish men!"
He nodded and craned his head to look over the people; he was not a tall man, but taller than she. "Come," he said, and put his arms around her shoulders, leading her beside him and shoving through the crowd in a confident manner. They wended through the assembly until they approached John and Nona Faw. Baptiste tapped John Faw on the shoulder, who turned.
"She has come back to be with us," Baptiste said. "To be with me! I knew she could not stay away." He sounded proud.
"Tchalai!" Her grandfather took her into his arms, jostling Nona, who turned and uttered a glad cry. Tamsin went into her embrace next, and then stood back. Smiling, she held her right palm up to delay their rapid questions about how, and why, she came to be at the royal palace.
"I will explain," she said in Romany. "But first there is a much more important matter to tell you about. We must find some men who are disguised as Romany." She turned to Baptiste. "They are bad gadjo, you know," she said, taking a chance.
He frowned, mustache twitching. "They are stupid to pay silver to wear women's garments. But bad? I am not aware of this. If they are bad gadjo, we must keep away from them."
"No, we must find them. Listen," she said. Baptiste and her grandparents leaned toward her, and she explained, in rapid Romany and
simple terms, what she knew. "They are men from England, come here to steal the baby queen," she said. "They disguise themselves as gypsies. I think they will try to sneak the royal child out with the Romany when our people leave here. They mean to blame the crime on the Romany."
Nona gasped, and John Faw scowled at Baptiste. "Did you know any of this?" he asked.
"No, no," Baptiste said. "I would not allow them to harm a child! We must find them. I will kill them with my bare hands!"
"That is not needed," Tamsin said. "We must keep them away from the queen and urge the royal guards to capture them. Come. Show these men to us, Baptiste Lallo."
"I will," he said firmly. She heard his anger, and felt the sincerity of his hand at her elbow. Suddenly she liked Baptiste very much, for his simple pride in himself and his people. Her grandfather, she realized, would never have asked her to marry a man she could not like.
She looked back, and saw that her grandfather followed them, while Nona stayed with the Romany. Baptiste guided them closer to the dais, where Marie of Guise stood, now, to hand the infant queen to another woman, who Tamsin assumed was the child's nurse. Mary Stewart seemed temperamental, fussing a little, cramming a fist in her mouth as her nurse murmured to her.
The women glided off the dais in the company of a man in a green velvet coat and brocaded doublet. The crowd parted, and the royal party disappeared through an arched doorway.
Although the music had stopped for their departure, the Romany performers began again, this time with young male acrobats and jugglers, and the music resumed for the crowd that remained. Tamsin looked at Baptiste, who still searched the throng.
"Ah," he said. "There they are! This way!" He pulled on Tamsin's right hand and half dragged her toward the exit that the queen and her party had taken.
Four men, in bright head wrappings and striped cloaks, shouldered toward that doorway as well. The men murmured to the guard at the door and were allowed to leave. Tamsin and the others approached the guard.
"All 'Gyptians must go down to the courtyard," he told them. "No roaming about the palace." He held the door open. "And we want ye out o' here by dark, ye know that."
