Queen's Own Fool

by Jane Yolen

  I sighed deeply. “I can no more stop time than catch smoke in a basket.”

  Just then the queen entered with two attendants at her heels. Pious Mary and I stood and the hated embroidery hoop tumbled to the floor. I did not bother to stoop and retrieve it.

  “Good day, Mary. Good day, Nicola. Why is your face so long, child?” the queen asked.

  “It is nothing, Your Majesty,” I said. “A mere pinprick.” I showed her my thumb.

  “That face is not for a small hurt, I wager,” she said, “but a large one. Come, you must tell me.” She sat and we did the same.

  “I cannot bother you, Madam, when you have so many more important things to worry about.” I looked down at my hands.

  “And if I cannot worry about my people, what kind of a queen would I be?” She took my hand in hers. “All these little finger-sticks do not add up to a fool’s distress. If my fool is unhappy, then so am I.”

  “Oh, Madam,” I blurted out, “it is Signor Riccio. I will miss him.”

  Pious Mary put her embroidery up before her face as if she was smiling at my misery.

  The queen leaned back in her chair and signalled to one of the servants for a glass of wine to be brought to her. “We will all miss his lovely voice, Nicola.”

  “And his lute,” said Pious Mary from behind the hoop, her voice almost strangled by laughter.

  I nodded, unable to say a miserable syllable more.

  Then, as if bringing out a trump card from the deck, the queen said, “Which is why I spoke today with the duke of my desire to retain Signor Riccio in my service.”

  “Oh, Madam!” I cried, and then was suddenly tongue-tied.

  Pious Mary dropped her hoop into her lap and clapped. “Oh, Madam, it is so hard to hold secrets!”

  The queen laughed. “But you were letter-perfect, my dear Mary. She never guessed. Did you, Nicola?”

  I shook my head but was silent, overcome by happiness.

  “What kind of fool has nothing to say back?” asked the queen.

  Still I could not speak.

  “It has all been agreed,” the queen went on. “Davie will remain here as my master of music, and he seems delighted at the appointment. His belongings are even now being moved into an apartment in the east wing. I expect you will find him there.”

  I jumped to my feet and was halfway to the door before I remembered myself. I whirled around and bobbed excitedly before the queen. “With your permission, Majesty?”

  “Of course,” the queen said, waving a hand to speed me on my way. “Go quickly to your friend before you burst!”

  I sped down the corridor and galleries and only when I reached the east wing did I realize that I did not know which apartment Davie was in. Suddenly I felt like little “Miss Wrong Turning” all over again.

  A servant on some errand of his own came around a corner and I seized him by the sleeve.

  “Please. Signor Riccio, the queen’s music master, do you know where his apartments are?” I asked.

  “You mean Signor Monkeyface?” he asked. “Little man, big hump?”

  My stone expression must have told him all.

  “Right at the end of the corridor there, two doors down.”

  I left him without a word of thanks, so angry that he should call Davie names and not know the good in him. I stomped away down the corridor, made the turn, and found the right place.

  The door was slightly ajar and I could hear Davie’s voice within. Suddenly I worried he might be with the duke, making his farewells. I knew better than to burst in on a nobleman.

  Widening the doorway a crack, I peered in. At first all I could see was Davie’s lute propped in a corner, and a trunk next to it, on which was piled sheets of music. A wardrobe flung open revealed all his finery.

  I stepped further into the room and there was Davie hunched over a table, entirely alone. He was so absorbed in whatever he was doing, he did not hear me come in.

  “The queen here ...” he was saying. “The knight next. I will move the swords there ...” He chuckled.

  I tiptoed closer and saw he was playing a card game, placing some cards in piles, and others faceup in orderly lines. The cards were of the Italian style, with suits of swords, batons, cups and coins, and four dress cards: king, queen, knight, page.

  “And to complete the court ...” Davie muttered.

  “You need a music master and a fool!” I said.

  Startled, he spun around and lifted an arm to protect himself, a move of such instinct, I almost burst into tears.

  “Have you no caution, Nicola?” he demanded, then walked past me to the door of the chamber and shut it.

  I was stunned. “But you were only playing a game. What is the harm in that?”

  He turned. “Suppose someone should find you alone here with me? A pretty young girl with Signor Monkeyface.”

  My jaw dropped. “You know ...”

  He smiled sourly. “What I am called? I make it my business to know. But what does it matter what I am called?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Then what does it matter if someone sees us together.”

  He shook his head. “Little Nicola, I have been to many of the courts across Europe and they are all hotbeds of malicious gossip. I say this for your sake, not for mine.”

  “There is nothing between us to give rise to gossip.”

  He took my hands, his face serious. “Do not be a child. Gossip needs no substance to nourish it. It feeds upon itself.”

  I squeezed his hands. “This court is not like those others, for it is ruled over by a queen like no other.”

  At last his face softened into a smile. “Perhaps you are right, Nicola Ambruzzi. I have spent so much of my life flinching from blows, I shield myself out of habit. Come, let me teach you a new game I have just had from a traveler. It is a game for one player.”

  “What fun is that, when you have a friend to play with?”

  “It teaches one the art of patience,” he told me, spinning me around so that I looked at the table where the cards were laid.

  “Oh, patience!” I said. “I have had enough of that for one day.”

  Laughing, he plucked the ace of batons from its lowly position, then fingered it thoughtfully for a long moment.

  “Davie,” I said, “card games are for fun, not for such grim study.”

  “Like chess, cards can teach us strategy.” His voice was serious but he put the card back on the table.

  Sighing, I said, “Strategy is for kings and queens, Davie, not for us. Surely we must learn to be happy over turns of chance.”

  “For chance it was that brought us together, Nicola?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Or was it fato, ” he said in Italian. “Fate?”

  I had not heard that word since leaving Italy. I shuddered. “Or fate,” I said.

  23

  THE MARRIAGE RACE

  Davie quickly became a favorite of the queen’s, singing and playing for her evening dinners and entertaining her with gossip from the European courts.

  Soon Scottish nobles began to vie for a place at the queen’s table because of the gaiety there and because the queen was unwed. At nineteen and a widow, she was now the most eligible royal in Europe, except for her cousin Elizabeth. The question of who Queen Mary’s next husband would be led to an enormous guessing game that went on for month after month. Toasts were offered on the subject at almost every dinner the queen gave. I overheard people in the streets talking of it.

  Even in the quiet of our own chambers, who the queen would marry—and when—was the topic most discussed.

  “Don Carlos of Spain,” said Regal Mary, laying out cards for a game of solitaire.

  “Why not the young King of France?” asked Jolly Mary, looking over her shoulder. “Or even her cousin Henry de Guise? Then we could all go home.”

  “You are home,” Pious Mary reminded her.

  “Whom do you favor, Nicola?” Pretty Mary asked me.

&n
bsp; “Why must the queen marry at all?”

  Pretty Mary giggled. “For the succession, of course, silly fool. If she does not have a child, she will be like Mary Tudor, whose kingdom went to her sister, Elizabeth, who looks not to wed at all.” She stared in the mirror, examining her face for blemishes.

  “I favor Sir John Gordon,” Jolly Mary said.

  “That cockscomb?” Having gotten stuck in her game, Regal Mary reshuffled the cards and laid them out again. “He is nothing.”

  “Well, at least he is Catholic,” Jolly Mary said. “His father has lands and money. Besides, I think he is quite handsome.”

  “Very handsome,” Pretty Mary said to her reflection.

  Handsome, Sir John certainly was. Even I had to admit that. He had hair the same auburn as the queen and an open, guileless face. His eyes were a merry blue and he smiled rather a lot.

  “Rather too much,” I remarked to the queen. “Like a fox, after the hen.” That made her laugh.

  “The man is a dandy and a fool,” she said.

  When I made a face, she added quickly, “And not a wise fool like you, Nicola.”

  But Sir John must have thought that his handsome face would commend him to the queen as a fine husband. When it did not, and she turned him down, Sir John decided to try a different approach. He tried to abduct her as she toured her northern Highland provinces, thus forcing her to marry.

  I had not gone on that trip, being abed with a flux called “The New Acquaintance.” Davie brought me a box of comfits.

  “Sweets for my sweet friend,” he said. He also handed me a book of Italian verses I had admired in his room. But he did not stay long for fear of catching what I had. And he kept his handkerchief over his face all the while he visited.

  When the queen returned from the Highlands progress, she came directly to my sickbed to recount her adventures.

  “Now it is my turn to tell you a tale,” is how she began.

  “Are you not worried you might get this flux, Majesty?”

  She smiled and sat down beside me. “The doctor says you are well on the mend and no longer able to pass on the contagion.”

  “Then tell on, Majesty. Though if you are any good, I may have to make you my fool!”

  How she laughed. Then she suddenly grew serious. “Sir John’s men dogged us during the journey. The silly creature had not listened to my rejection.” She smoothed down the front of her dark riding skirt. “I believe the man is in love with himself.”

  “Not a good husband, then, for he should love his wife.”

  She smiled at me. “A good point, my little fool. Another reason against Sir John’s suit. Well, we bypassed him, setting him a trap, and all with the help of my loyal Highlanders.” She took off her hood and laid it on my bed, then took the pins from her hair.

  “Are they as fierce as I have heard, those Highlanders?” I sat up weakly and she fluffed the pillows behind my back.

  “Fiercer. They wear nothing but skins and plaids, and sleep out on the heather. Neither wind nor storm drives them in. I wore plaids to please them and they rewarded my small gesture with a loyalty I could not have bought.” The queen looked serious, remembering.

  “What happened then?”

  “It turned from a silly escapade into a full-scale rebellion,” the queen said, “for Sir John’s friends and his father whipped some of the towns into a frenzy against me. That, of course, I could not countenance.”

  “But you won, Your Majesty?”

  “With God’s help, how could I have failed?”

  “What will happen to Sir John now?” I asked.

  Her smile faded. “That is yet to be decided. But I am afraid, Nicola. Of more hangings. Of more beheadings. Of more death.” She stood and went over to my window, staring out as if she could see something awful there.

  And suddenly remembering the bodies twisting from the balconies at Amboise, and the bloody block beneath the gallows, I was frightened, too.

  The queen was right to be afraid, for Lord James and Maitland and the other ministers informed her forcefully the very next week that she must personally witness Sir John’s execution.

  I was up from my sickness by then, and was in her chamber as her hair was being combed when they came to tell her this.

  “If you do not attend, Madam,” Maitland said, his voice urgent and low, “rumors will surely spread that you encouraged his mad plan to abduct you.”

  She turned from her mirror to stare at him, her hair around her shoulders, looking like some beautiful ghost from a story, just rising from the grave. “But why would I do such a thing when it would have been so easy just to say yes to his suit?”

  “You have lived so long in France, Majesty,” Maitland replied smoothly, making a deep bow. “The Scottish people believe that the French love the romantic gesture. And with this execution, you could say the choice to marry Sir John was not yours, so that the other nobles could not be put out that they were not selected to be your king.”

  “Yours is a devious mind, Lord Maitland,” the queen said, turning back to her mirror.

  “A diplomat must know which way the wind blows, Madam, and trim his sails accordingly.” He gave a little head bob.

  “You must watch the beheading, Mary,” Lord James put in. “You have no choice.”

  I gasped at the use of her name that way, but she was so appalled at what he said, she never noticed.

  So the queen had to witness Sir John’s execution. She begged me to be at her side.

  What could I say? She was my queen and needed me.

  I went.

  Sir John cried out to a hushed crowd, “Your presence, great queen, brings solace to me in my final moments, for I die of love.” Then he put his head on the block in one elegant movement.

  The queen put her hands to her breast. The look she gave him was not one of disdain. Not even pity. It almost seemed to be a look of love.

  The executioner was clumsy and it took three strokes to finish what he had begun. Sir John’s merry blue eyes remained wide open, as if he stared at the queen even after his head had rolled to a stop.

  I closed my eyes and fought back the tears.

  Unlike at Amboise, the queen could not run to a dark corner and weep. But, immediately after the execution, she left for her chambers, pulling me by the hand.

  “Only Nicola stays with me,” she commanded her maids. “Only Nicola.”

  So I was the one who held the bowl in which she was sick, and the one who bathed her forehead with scented water. I sang to her in French till she slept. And, when she woke, I held the bowl again till all she heaved up was green bile.

  There was no one to hold a bowl for me, though. I had to keep my sickness within.

  And then silly Chatelard, not content with making poems to the queen’s beauty—as any court poet does—became so smitten with her, he dashed into her chamber and hid under her bed. Luckily he was found by the grooms of the chamber and sent away from court.

  He then made things worse by following the queen to the holy city of St. Andrews.

  While we sat in the queen’s chamber—Queen Mary, Jolly Mary, Pious Mary, and me—he burst in declaring his great love for her, putting his hands on her shoulders and calling her “beloved” right in front of us. He even tried to embrace her and, in doing so, shook her so hard, her glorious hair tumbled down around her shoulders. Pins scattered everywhere—in my lap, on the floor.

  Taking her embroidery hoop, Pious Mary hit him on the head, which only seemed to inflame his ardor. Jolly Mary ran screaming from the room for help. The queen’s terrier bit him on the ankle and I grabbed hold of him from behind, crying, “Leave go, you stupid loon. Leave go.”

  But he would not—or could not.

  Just then Jolly Mary returned with Lord James in tow, and spying him over Châtelard’s shoulder, the queen cried out, “Run him through, Jamie, run him through.”

  Weeping hysterically, she kept trying to pull away from Châtelard’s encircling ar
ms. All the while Châtelard—I can only believe he was totally mad—called her his “desire” and his “mistress” and his “lady wife.”

  Lord James grabbed hold of Chatelard and tore him from the queen. Ripping a bellpull from the wall, I handed it to Lord James, who quickly bound the poet’s hands behind his back. Châtelard was still calling on the queen to witness his great love, when at last he was dragged from the room.

  He was executed a month later, going to his death—so it was reported—with the words “Adieu, the most beautiful and the most cruel princess in the world.”

  This time we were not forced to attend.

  It was Châtelard’s final words that made me understand at last the power majesty and grace holds over men. And I understood at last that if the queen did not choose a husband for herself, it might not be long before another ambitious lord or crazed commoner scaled the castle walls and tried to seize her. I no longer asked why she needed to marry, but entered the guessing game with the others.

  Once more the name of Don Carlos was proposed. But fresh news from Spain came by ship that he had taken a fall while chasing one of his serving maids. The resulting blow on the head had left him subject to fits of homicidal mania.

  “Hardly a suitable suitor,” I said in Scots at a royal dinner. It was a phrase which was picked up and spoken around the court and even—so Eloise said—on the streets of the city, where it was put into a scurrilous song called “The Seven Loves of Queen Mary,” the first two lines of which went:Sir John came a courting upon his high horse,

  A suitable suitor, a saleable suitor ...

  On the very next ship came word that war had broken out in France between the Huguenots and the Catholics.

  Queen Mary, hearing the news at dinner, was stunned. “What can this mean?” she asked for days after hearing.

  I knew she had to be thinking once more of Amboise.