‘Yes, Madam,’ said Seton gently. ‘The King was always happy when he was with you.’
‘And little Henri rode on the Shetland pony I’d brought him from Scotland. Now Henri is a man and King of France. How strange to think that little boy is now a king! I wonder what happened to Bravane. And the dogs too. How many did I have in those days?’
‘Sixteen, Madam.’ That was Jane.
‘Sixteen…but they were big dogs. It would not be fair to keep big dogs now, would it, Folly?’
‘Grrf?’ I said, recognising my name.
‘Big dogs need to run beside a horse, and there is no more riding for me now. Not while my cousin keeps me here. Not till I am free…Now, let’s see if you have learned to sit quietly on my lap,’ she added to me.
What did ‘sit quietly’ mean? I wondered. Maybe it was something to eat.
I gazed about the room as the Queen picked up a piece of material from the stool next to her. There was a needle in it, with a length of golden thread dangling down.
We could have a fine game with that, I decided. I tried to grab the thread with my teeth. But the Queen held it out of my reach.
She smiled. ‘A dog with a taste for embroidery! No, sit, boy, sit! I have worked weeks at this. It’s to be a present for my cousin Elizabeth, who is a queen too, and my gaoler, to remind her that I languish in this prison. I have written to her more times than I can remember, pleading for my freedom. But presents make Elizabeth sweeter than letters.’
‘Gruff, gruff!’ I yapped. I tried to get the thread again, but the Queen held me back.
Jane grinned. ‘Her Majesty your cousin has no fine French embroidery unless it comes from you, Madam.’
The Queen smiled, but made no answer. She lifted me off her lap and onto the floor, then began to work the needle in the cloth.
I sat on my bottom and stared at her. Why didn’t she want to play? We could have had a grand tug-of-war…Humans were strange creatures, I decided. Even my Queen.
Besides, I wanted to be back on her lap.
I jumped up, my paws against her dress. ‘Yip, yip!’
‘Sit!’ The voice was firm. Somehow I found myself obeying. I put my paws down and sat on my bottom. The spaniels looked superior, then settled down to doze at the Queen’s feet.
Boring!
I tried to doze as well. But I was younger and bouncier. It was too tame to be there doing nothing! But what game could I play all by myself?
Finally a dust mote floated by, lit with sunlight from the window. I snapped at it, but it kept floating on. I chased it across the room, over the soft carpet. But it stayed too high for me to reach.
Finally it faded in a dark corner. What could I chase now? I looked back hopefully at the Queen. ‘Yap, yap, yap?’ which meant, ‘Come and play or walk outside?’
Mistress Seton laughed. But Jane frowned. ‘Should I take him downstairs if he can’t sit still, Madam?’
‘He does no harm.’ The Queen’s voice was wistful now. ‘It’s good to see something dance again. Even if it’s only a dog.’
Jane subsided, though she still cast me a black look.
So I explored the room. There were crumbs to snuffle on the carpet. There was a fine smell of rat in one corner behind a chest, and a dead fly to chew under a window. I chased my tail for a while, too, though by now I knew I didn’t have much chance of catching it, then I sat on my bottom again, in front of the Queen, as Fléance and Douceur sat either side.
But that embroidery hung just above my nose. And it was watching me!
I lifted my nose and sniffed it, just as a breeze lifted a loop of the gold thread and it brushed across my whiskers.
It had attacked me!
With one great leap I grabbed the corner of the cloth in my jaws, and dragged it out of the Queen’s hands. I sat on one edge of it with the other end in my mouth, and pulled, waiting for the satisfying ripping sound.
Nothing happened.
‘Madam!’ cried Seton.
‘Oh, Madam, your fine work!’ yelled someone else.
I grinned. It was good to be noticed again! I’d show them just how strong I was!
I tugged again, and felt it rip between my teeth.
Victory!
These jaws might still be small. But they were Mam’s jaws, badger-gripping jaws. No measly bit of embroidery was going to beat me!
I plonked my bottom back on the ripped embroidery and looked up, grinning, waiting for the applause.
Suddenly Jane’s hands hauled me up by the scruff of the neck again. ‘You horrid puppy! Madam, all your work! Is it quite ruined?’ She handed the embroidery back to the Queen.
‘Gruff,’ I said reproachfully to Jane. I didn’t like her at all. I wondered if I should snap at her fingers, then decided against it.
The Queen examined the cloth, while I dangled there, like a weasel in Mam’s jaws. What had I done wrong now? I had ripped it beautifully!
‘Perhaps he hasn’t quite learnt manners yet. No, I can trim the torn bit here and here…and if no one tells my so dear cousin that a dog’s bottom has been on her image then she will be none the wiser.’
The women in the room laughed at this.
‘Yip?’ I said. I wasn’t sure if I was being praised or scolded.
‘Put him down,’ said the Queen. Then, as the page came into the room. ‘Who is it?’
‘Madam, the Countess of Shrewsbury.’
‘Very well,’ she nodded at Seton. ‘I think the dogs had better leave, don’t you? If there is another insult to the embroidery the Countess is sure to tell my cousin. Why, Madam, how good to see you…’ she said as a woman all in blue and silver swept through the doors and across the floor.
The woman glanced down at me. ‘Another plaything, Madam?’
My Queen’s voice was cool. ‘What do I have left but playthings?’
She didn’t even look at me as we were taken out.
CHAPTER 10
I Decide to Make the Queen Love Me
The Manor, Summer 1583
And so our days continued. At least now I was taken up to the Queen with Douceur and Fléance every afternoon. She patted me on her lap, or watched me play around the room. But every evening Jane took us back downstairs. And every time I felt as though my heart would break.
I grew, though not by much. Douceur and Fléance were twice as high as me, and half as long again. My coat grew longer. I learnt how to cock my leg, though I politely avoided places where Douceur or Fléance had wee-ed first.
I chewed up two wooden spoons, a basket of wafers, three butter pats, one of Monsewer’s stockings, and a bucket that the dairymaid used to fetch the cream. The bucket tasted best.
I ate two slugs and a snail in the rose gardens. I nearly caught three mice in the granary. I would have caught the dairy cat, but it turned and hissed at me.
I only fell into the kitchen sink once.
I got a new name, ‘Get Out Of It You Silly Pup’, as well as the name the Queen had given me, ‘Folly’. It didn’t really matter what I was called. We dogs know each other by our smells. And as for the rest…well, I knew who I was without a name.
Our days fell into a routine. First the morning walk—to the dovecote, perhaps, to chase the pigeons. Then came the combing and the washing and drying of damp paws, and our journey up to see the Queen. Afternoons were spent in her big room, with the rich carpets on the floor and the scent of many candles. The Queen embroidered or dictated letters, while we lay at her feet.
Sometimes she called a page to help her stand (for her feet and legs hurt). She’d lean on his shoulder, with Seton on her other side, and we’d walk slowly through the rooms to the tower where the birds were kept.
Cage after cage of turtledoves and Barbary fowl and wild birds too, larks and tiny robins, sitting in pairs in their tiny cages, singing and gazing at the sky. The page would carry a bag of wheat, and the Queen would take some grains in her hand and the birds would peck from her fingers. And then we’d walk again, slowly, always sl
owly, back through the carpeted rooms to her gold and red chair and her canopy.
I had the best life a dog could ask for. The best food in the world, all the scraps from the Queen’s table that I could eat and more, the softest cushions by the warmest fire, a time to walk and a time to play…
But I wanted more. I wanted what my Mam had with her Master.
I wanted the Queen to love me best. Better than Fléance and Douceur. Better than the birds in their cages.
This is a thing that any dog will understand.
Fléance and Douceur had each other, friends from puppyhood. They knew each other’s smells and ways. They chased butterflies together down in the meadows (while no matter how I tried my legs could never quite keep up).
They weren’t unfriendly. They were polite dogs, would even stand back to let me have my turn at some special treat, like a scrap of fresh deer’s liver, still warm and steaming from the hunt. But they didn’t need a Mistress like I did.
I needed someone of my own. Not just anyone either. The Queen.
I had to work out how to make her mine.
CHAPTER 11
I Become a Mighty Hunter for my Queen
The Manor, Summer 1583
How could a dog like me impress a queen?
I was small and I was hairy. But they weren’t enough to make her love me best.
Maybe Jane was right. Maybe a penny-sized dog was no use to my Queen at all.
And then I had it!
There was one thing I could do that those French dogs could not. I could hunt!
But hunt what? When I grew up I’d be able to rip a badger apart in my jaws—if I ever found a badger, which didn’t seem likely now. I wasn’t even sure what a badger smelt like. But there was something here I could catch!
I grinned to myself as I chewed a ribbon I’d pulled from one of Monsewer’s shoes. Who cared that there were no badgers in the manor, nor even any weasels or foxes? I had caught the scent of rat up in her room.
At least I was bigger than a rat!
I would catch the rat for the Queen! It would be a grand, tremendous battle, me against the rat. Then when I’d won I would present the body to her, all nice and smelly, a gift just for her—like Master Pages brought up new embroidery silks for her to choose from, or Monsewer brought up sweets shaped like a crown. A big fat rat, dangling from my jaws, would show everyone how brave I was, how clever and determined.
Even Jane would have to admire me if I caught a rat.
I waited till the next day. One of the kitchen women took us for our morning walk. The spaniels ran ahead, as they always did, leaving me behind. We ate our scraps from our bowls by the door. We visited the courtyard, too, which I was glad of. The last thing I wanted was another embarrassing accident in front of the Queen.
And then we were taken to Her Majesty.
Up the stairs again…I still had to jump up each step, even though my legs were longer now. Along the corridor…the doors opened, and there she was.
The spaniels rushed forward. But I stayed standing in the doorway. I lifted up my nose, and sniffed.
‘Well, Folly? What is it?’ The Queen looked at me, her arms around the spaniels. ‘Won’t you come and say hello?’
‘Woof,’ I said politely. My voice had deepened lately, so I woofed instead of yapped.
But my nose was busy. Where had the rat smell been?…Yes, it was over there in the corner behind the big wooden chest. And the scent still fresh too. I growled deep in my throat, like a proper hunter should. I padded forward.
‘What’s that dog doing now?’ said Jane suspiciously. ‘I hope he’s not going to lift his leg.’
‘Shall I bring him to you, Madam?’ said Mistress Seton.
‘No. Let him be. He looks like he’s hunting something. I’m curious.’ The Queen sounded amused.
I growled again and put my nose to the ground. That rat was somewhere here…it had to be!
Don’t let it have vanished in the night, I thought. Let it still be here…
And then I caught the scent again. This time the smell was stronger, and told me more. An old rat, and a big one. What a present for my Queen! It was behind that chest…
It was only a small gap. Just big enough for a rat—or a terrier puppy. I wriggled forward between the chest and the wall. Further, further…
Halfway along there was a hole in the wall behind the chest where a stone must have fallen out. It was dark inside the cavity—too dark to see, but my nose told me more about the world than my eyes anyway.
And suddenly, there it was, almost as big as I was, its yellow teeth bared.
For a moment I nearly widdled in terror, but I would not run. I wouldn’t whimper either. I simply darted forward.
The rat leapt, its teeth aimed at my throat. But I had Mam’s jaws. I had her courage too, though I never knew I had it until now. I whipped under the rat and bit up into its neck and I held firm. I could feel the pulse in its neck against my teeth. My nostrils filled with its stink. I shook my head as hard as I could, over and over, with my teeth still clamped onto the twisting and squirming quarry.
The rat wriggled desperately. It tried to scratch me with its claws. It snapped at me with yellow teeth. But I kept shaking! Harder and harder…
I could hear muffled voices out in the room. Little did they know what a fierce battle was going on behind the chest! But there was no time to think more about that now…Suddenly the rat’s struggles slowed. It fell limp between my teeth.
I’d won.
I backed out slowly, through the gap, careful not to lose my lovely rat. Then we were out in the open.
I stood up proudly, my tail high. The lifeless rat dangled from my jaws. Its tail and paws trailed on the ground. A trickle of blood dripped from its nose onto the floor.
Seton gave a little scream. Ha! I thought. No need to scream now. This was one rat that wouldn’t be scrabbling anywhere any more!
‘Ooh,’ cried the woman called Mistress Curle, as I trotted up to the Queen, my prize in my mouth. ‘Madam…oooh, someone stop him…’
‘It’s only a rat!’ That was Jane. ‘I’ll take care of it, Madam. I said he was a mucky pup! Trust him to find something nasty in the walls! Come here, you horrid dog. I’ll make sure he is kept down in the kitchens now, and—’
‘No! Leave him alone. And the rat too.’ It was the Queen’s voice. It was filled with something I had never heard in this grand place before.
Laughter, that was it. There had been laughter back in Nanny Breeks’s kitchen. But I had never heard it here. Not till now.
‘Good dog!’ said the Queen, and there was love and admiration in her voice too. ‘You caught that rat for me!’
‘But, Madam, a rat!’ said Seton. She didn’t sound as though she thought my rat was a great gift at all.
‘A prize of war. The best that he could give. As dear to me,’ said the Queen, as I laid my nice smelly rat at her feet, ‘as a basket full of rubies. But, Folly, dear, if you do not mind I won’t pick it up. That’s right, just leave it there. Jane will take it and put it where it deserves to be.’
‘I will do that,’ muttered Jane.
The Queen reached down and picked me up.
‘I think,’ added Jane, as she bent to take my rat by its tail, ‘I’d still rather have rubies, Madam.’ She carried it at arm’s-length from the room.
My heart still thumped wildly from the excitement of the hunt.
I had given the Queen something, I realised as she smiled down at me. Not just a rat. Perhaps it wasn’t even the prize I’d thought. But there was something my Queen needed more.
Laughter. I didn’t know why she never left the Manor, or why she had barely a handful of visitors, but I did know that she was laughing, and that when humans laugh, something good has happened to them. I licked the Queen’s cheek, and though she made a face at the smell of rat I heard her laugh again.
And I was happy too.
I had imagined dancing in triumph on her lap, wit
h everyone admiring me, even Jane. But now I was there I had no thought for that. I was home. More truly home than I had been, even in Nanny’s kitchen. I reached up to lick her face again.
‘Erk,’ said Seton. ‘Madam, how you can let him lick you…?’
The Queen smiled. ‘Perhaps it is not the best fragrance in the world.’ She held me a little way from her and rubbed her nose on mine. ‘Tomorrow, small friend, let’s hope your breath no longer smells of rat. Seton, no embroidery, I think. My fingers ache too much to sew today. Which one of you shall read to me? Some of Ronsard’s poems. Oh, Seton, do you remember his first poem to me? I was only fourteen. He called me the Roman Goddess of the Dawn…’
Seton smiled. ‘“The beautiful and more than beautiful, the charming Aurora…” And you were, Madam. The most beautiful woman in France. They all loved you, every man at court.’
The Queen smiled down at me. ‘At least I have a new courtier to bring me gifts today. What poem would a dog write, Monsieur Folly?’
‘Woof?’ I said. The Queen laughed again.
And so I sat there, on her lap, while the spaniels dozed at her feet. The Queen listened to the poems, and stroked my ears. And I dozed too, more at peace than I had ever been.
CHAPTER 12
I Become the Lapdog to the Queen and She Has a Bath
The Manor, Summer and Autumn 1583; Winter 1583–1584
And so I lived with the Queen. Well, partly, at any rate. Most of my life was still spent in the kitchens, for it was still just the precious afternoons I spent with her.
I missed her terribly when we were apart. What if another dog invaded our territory? One of the Earl’s dogs maybe? All sorts of people might come to her rooms without me to woof an announcement of their arrival.
I was the Queen’s dog! It was my duty to bark at everyone!
At least now I was the one who spent the afternoon on her lap, while Fléance and Douceur sat at her feet.
Life was good. There was always something interesting happening: the sentries’ boots to sniff outside, or a live carp being lowered into the pot, thrashing wildly as it hit the boiling milk, or roast peacocks being covered in gold leaf.
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