Kathleen Harrington (4 page)

F
ollowing the feasting, the entertainment for the evening would commence. At her place between the two foreign emissaries, Francine took a deep breath and tried once again to compose herself. She could barely follow the conversation of her table partners. She was having second thoughts about the farce she’d devised for the evening’s revel.

A farce she’d devised prior to meeting the earl of Kinrath, more commonly known in England as the Sorcerer of the Seas. Why, oh, why, hadn’t she been told of his presence at court before that morning?

She certainly didn’t want to cause an international incident between England and Scotland, or endanger the newly signed peace treaty her departed husband had worked so hard to negotiate.

Seated next to her, Spain’s representative to the Tudor court, Don Javier de Ayala, brought his thin lips unpleasantly close to Francine’s ear every time he attempted to converse. She tried to scoot farther away from the persistent gentleman, but the portly ambassador of France hovered on the other side.

Pressing her palm to her chest to slow her racing heart, Francine admitted to herself that she hadn’t duly considered the comic skit she’d written for the Master of the Revels. She’d merely wanted to entertain the court and provide a bit of merriment for their foreign guests.

That was before she’d met the Scots leader.

If she’d had any inkling he would be the dreaded Lachlan MacRath, she would never have written that foolish comedy.

Her father, when she was young, and Mathias, during their marriage, had both cautioned Francine to rein in her willful streak in the presence of strangers.

If only she’d heeded their advice!

What exactly would a sorcerer’s retribution be for a perceived insult? Would she spend the rest of her life as a cat?

Francine glanced nervously across the room to find the earl of Kinrath glaring at her with a ferocious scowl.

Mercy.

If he was angry now, wait until after the entertainment.

What he was perturbed about, she couldn’t imagine. She hadn’t spoken a word to the man since that morning’s introduction by the king.

The thought of what he might do, once the revel was over, sent a stab of apprehension through her. If an outraged Kinrath, as the personal representative of the Scottish king, demanded an apology from the English crown, the responsibility would be upon her shoulders. She bit her lip in apprehension, wondering if the Scotsman had anything approaching a sense of humor. And just how favored a courtier of King James he might be.

Truth be told, the dangerous Scot wasn’t the only person who could easily take offense at the revelry this evening. She’d also included a caricature of Lychester in her production. What had she been thinking to risk the fury of such a powerful, vindictive man? She’d allowed her intense dislike of her childhood neighbor to cloud her reasoning.

Francine missed the mellowing influence of her late husband, who’d always counseled forbearance, though where Elliot Brome, second marquess of Lychester, was concerned, even Mathias harbored an enduring contempt.

Other than the immediate participants, few people knew that Francine frequently oversaw the creation of the masques and disguisings that entertained the royal guests at Richmond and Whitehall. And almost no one was aware that she’d penned the lines for some of the dialogue, poetry, and madrigals, herself. Mathias had known, of course, and had indulgently encouraged what he’d labeled her “artistic musings.” But now her beloved protector was gone. As was the queen, who’d also enjoyed Francine’s dramatic presentations.

Only King Henry, himself, and his trusted retainer, Charles Burby, Master of the Revels, knew just how much of tonight’s pageant had sprung from the fertile mind of the dowager countess of Walsingham.

Well goodness! Whatever the outcome, it was too late to change a thing now, for as the guests grew quiet, the revelry began.

First came the acrobats, flying across the floor and soaring into the air. The troupe of handsome, well-muscled men from Romany amazed the audience with their feats of artistry and grace. They were followed by masked mummers, dressed as for
carnavale
, whose clever antics brought peals of laughter from the ladies while the gentlemen slapped their knees in appreciation.

In the silence that followed, people stirred restlessly, waiting for the next display. Ten burly Yeomen of the Guard heaved and pulled on thick golden cords, drawing a great pageant wagon onto the spacious oak floor. Atop the wagon stood a whimsical castle with gilded arches, carved turrets, and ten shuttered windows.

Over each window the name of a virtue, such as Patience, Humility, and Chastity, appeared. The walls of the castle were decorated with pink and red roses, white trumpet lilies, deep purple lilacs, and vines of pale yellow honeysuckle, their sweet perfume wafting through the Great Hall. Amongst the leaves nestled replicas of exotic birds with brilliant plumage. Butterflies and bees sipped honey from the blossoms.

Suddenly, with a blare of trumpets from the musicians’ gallery, the shutters were pulled open by the uniformed guardsmen to reveal ten beautiful maidens. A ripple of delight spread through the watching crowd as they recognized the unmarried daughters of the English aristocracy present in the hall that evening. The gratified parents smiled at the sight of their offspring portrayed so charmingly.

The young gentlewomen, attired in the long pale togas of ancient Rome, sat on tufted window seats, each holding a harp or a lyre or a cittern. Their hair was pulled up with bejeweled combs, and loose ringlets fell in cascades of curls down their backs.

Not one demoiselle made a sound nor played a note. Each remained perfectly still and silent, as though frozen.

Everyone burst into spontaneous applause at the fanciful sight.

On the topmost battlement of the castle, a golden-haired angel, complete with halo and feathered wings, appeared. Lady Constance, the oldest daughter of the duke of Essex, opened her arms wide as she addressed the hall’s fascinated listeners.

“Alas, my dear noblemen and gentle ladies,” the Angel of Love called down to them, “I implore your help in freeing these lovely maidens. They have been imprisoned, each within her own circle of silence. No longer able to play their musical instruments, nor even to sing, these unfortunate innocents are doomed to wait in stillness for a valiant hero to free them.”

The spectators seated at the tables looked around in curiosity, wondering who the maidens’ stalwart rescuer might prove to be.

At the nearest doorway, however, rather than a gallant figure, a crimson devil emerged, sporting horns and a tail and carrying a long pitchfork, which he jabbed toward the onlookers in a threatening manner.

“No paltry human can rescue these damsels,” he announced, his words booming like the roll call on Judgment Day. “I am Lucifer, prince of the underworld. Should any foolish mortal come forth to save them, I shall drag him, screaming and begging for mercy, into the very bowels of Hell.”

“Wait!” a shrill male voice called from the far side of the room. “I will save these beautiful maids. Forsooth, I shall be their knight in shining armor!”

The audience turned as one to see the king’s dwarf, Reginald the Fool, sporting a black wig and goatee and attired in armor, save for the helmet, stride into the room, broadsword banging at his side. On his oversized shield was the heraldic device of a wolf snarling at a frightened sheep. Minus the sheep, it was similar enough to the arms of the marquess of Lychester that the resemblance was nigh unmistakable.

A surge of laughter spread through the room as those watching made the connection and waited impatiently to see if the small knight, portraying the proud marquess, would defeat Lucifer.

From his table at the far end of the room, Lachlan’s attention once again drifted to the countess of Walsingham, more interested in the sight of her vivacious features than the ridiculous farce being played out in the banqueting hall. He was surprised to see Lady Francine raise her hand to her brow and peek from between her fingers. Her worried gaze sought out a nobleman with straight black hair and a close-trimmed beard who sat at a table nearby. The man sat glowering at the court buffoon, his swarthy face flushed and his fists clenched on the white tablecloth in front of him.

Bloody frigging hell.

Lachlan recognized the irate gentleman.

Though it had been eight years since he’d seen the marquess of Lychester, Lachlan could never mistake the cold-blooded murderer who’d taken his young compatriot’s life on the deserted battlefield of Cheviot Hills.

Lachlan swung his gaze back to the bonny widow. Apparently as discomfited by the comedy taking place as Lychester, she stared down in fascination at her glass of wine, as though the answer to some perplexing riddle bobbed like a cork in the ruby claret.

Lachlan had the uncanny feeling that, somehow, the dowager countess of Walsingham knew exactly what was going to happen next in the struggle between the king’s fool and the devil. And that she was fearful of Lychester’s reaction.

“I will save all of you!” Reginald shouted again. “I’m not afraid of Satan!”

The diminutive knight started to race across the room toward his formidable adversary, his short arms pumping. As he ran, he turned and waved proudly to the young maidens in the castle above, tripped on his sword and fell flat on his face. His breastplate clanged loudly, as his shield spun across the hardwood floor, to be scooped up by a laughing, broad-shouldered bystander. Reginald rolled over and over in apparent agony, clenching his torso and groaning comically.

Shouts of hilarity rang out from the crowd. But the hall quieted immediately as Lucifer, with a fiendish, earsplitting howl, leaped to the center of the room and, dancing around the prone hero, attempted to prod him with the sharp prongs of the pitchfork.

“Take that, you little fool!” he bellowed. “I’ll teach you to fear Evil Incarnate!”

Jumping nimbly to his feet, Reginald dodged the lethal blows. Then to the devil’s surprise, the dwarf knight struck out with his large sword, not to parry the long-handled weapon, but rather directly at his opponent’s shins. He whacked Lucifer on the knees and ankles repeatedly. As a musician in the gallery kept beat on a drum, the archfiend hopped around the floor to the assembly’s delight.

In the end, Lucifer turned craven and ran from the room, shrieking in outrage and pain.

Freed from the wicked spell, the ten maidens rose from their window seats high in the castle and blew kisses to Reginald.

“Our Lancelot,” they called down to him. “You saved us. You may choose one of us for your bride.”

Just as the little jester was essaying a series of flamboyant bows to his approving audience, two more evil spirits sprinted across the floor. They grabbed him by the arms and pulled him, screeching at the top of his lungs, through the door.

Before the lords and ladies had time to react to the hero’s sudden departure, the sound of marching feet, accompanied by the wailing of a bagpipe and the beating of a drum, came from the opposite direction.

Into the hall marched ten Highlanders—easily recognizable as the troupe of Romany acrobats, attired now in tartans and bonnets. Their tall leader, wearing a bright red wig, soared above the others, for he walked on stilts, his skinny wooden legs covered with checkered hose.

“We
brrrave, brrrawny
Scotsmen will wed these beauteous maidens,” he announced, rolling his “r’s” outrageously. “And I will have the loveliest one for my
brrride
.”

As great peals of laughter thundered through the hall, Francine propped her elbows on the table, bent her head and covered her face with her hands. Cautiously peering between her fingers, she met the suspicious eyes of Lachlan MacRath.

He was staring straight at her.

Great God in Heaven.

Whatever his faults, the reviled Sorcerer of the Seas most definitely wasn’t stupid.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

D
rawing in a long, steadying breath, Francine watched in surprise as the earl of Kinrath and his cohorts laughed good-naturedly at the troupe of acrobats dressed in Highland costume and marching around the faery castle.

The Scots might be laughing now.

They certainly wouldn’t be laughing by the time the revel was over. And if their anger exploded into an ugly scene, someone could be hurt or even killed.

Except for the Yeomen of the Guard, no Englishman, under the pain of high treason, would dare draw his sword in the presence of the king. Should the irate Scottish clansmen be so foolish, a bloodbath would likely ensue. Then the proxy marriage between the Scottish sovereign and the English princess would be declared null and void. The Treaty of Perpetual Peace between the two kingdoms would be rent asunder.

And she, Francine Granville, dowager countess of Walsingham, would, quite possibly, end her few remaining days in the Tower. Her sweet, innocent daughter, Angelica, would be left a penniless orphan, for the estates of a convicted felon were forfeited to the crown.

Should the worst happen, Francine certainly couldn’t protest her innocence. No, she, and she alone, would be responsible for any loss of life and limb.

Since childhood, she’d never shirked from admitting that she had instigated one calamity after another due to lack of caution and foresight, while her docile younger sister, Cecilia, had been the perfect, obedient daughter.

Headstrong and self-willed to a fault, Francine had tried the forbearance of her patient father, bless his departed soul, nearly up until the day her husband had taken over the responsibility for her good behavior and proper decorum. And Mathias had been even more indulgent than Lord Parmer.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” their neighbors had warned her parent after each unfortunate episode. And now, the very result they had foretold hovered over Francine’s head like a gathering cloud of doom.

Francine closed her eyes.

Merciful Father in heaven,
she silently prayed,
if you save me from this debacle, I promise
. . .
I promise
. . .
I promise, I will never do anything so foolish again. And please don’t let him turn me into a cat. You know who I’m talking about. Amen.