The Queen's Dwarf A Novel (22 page)

Buckingham’s sister came next, but even with chains of jewels draped upon her wrists and neck, Susan Feilding, the countess of Denbigh, seemed a paste imitation of her gemlike brother. The Villiers’s triumph gave a smug primness to her mouth until the queen’s spaniel grabbed the hem of her gown in its teeth. “Majesty,” she said, trying to appear graceful while tugging the satin. Mitte would not release her hold and the woman had to drag the growling spaniel along the floor while the countess of Carlisle stepped to the fore.

Lucy Hay’s skirts pooled into a satin rose on the floor as she curtsyed. Her body formed a stem of exquisite beauty as she tilted her body toward the king so her breasts showed to best advantage.

“Majesty, I’ve been enraptured, watching your masques,” she said to Henrietta Maria. “We English do not like to admit it, but we know the French are true masters of the art form. I am eager to revel in the magic you have brought from the most glittering court in the world.”

“Your interest in acting must explain why you paint your cheeks so dark.” The queen’s disapproval reassured me the countess would have little influence on her in the days to come. “Such tricks make you visible onstage but are too gaudy for everyday wear.”

The countess’s lashes lowered, but not before I glimpsed anger. “The restraint in the French court is known throughout the world.”

The duchess of Buckingham curtsyed last, and I understood why the duke had presented the women in such an order: Placing his duchess after the other women should make her the most appealing confidante by contrast.

“Your Majesty, our husbands wish for us to become fast friends,” the duchess said.

I could sense Henrietta Maria’s contempt for the duchess’s every word. “Yes. I have heard that the early days of your own marriage were tumultuous.”

The king caught his breath, and I feared the queen had been unwise.

If the duchess felt any sting, she did not show it. “The great changes marriage brings can be difficult until you become accustomed. It does not mean your new life will not be sweet.”

The queen glanced toward her husband, but she accidentally caught Lady Carlisle’s eyes. Carlisle pressed a hand to her heart and rolled her gaze heavenward, openly scorning the woman whose husband was her lover.

I wondered who the countess was most determined to snare in her formidable web. The king Buckingham intended her to bed? Or the heart-sick French princess whose husband did not understand her?

*   *   *

The Freaks’ Lair was shrouded in gloom when I trudged through the door sometime later.

Sara scrambled down from a stool, compassion softening her face. “Jeffrey!” she cried, waddling toward me. “We’ve been hearing such awful things! The king’s guard marching on the queen. The surgeon running to Her Majesty’s quarters. People are whispering that the queen was so desperate, she slashed her wrists! Suicide is a mortal sin. She would never…”

“Her Majesty’s soul is safe,” I replied. “She was pounding on a window and her fist shattered the pane. She did not cut herself on purpose.”

Sara murmured a prayer of thanks.

“Do not rejoice too soon,” Dulcinea said. “Suicide will look more inviting in the days to come.”

“This is no jesting matter.” Rattlebones scooped Scrap up, hugging him so hard, the spaniel whimpered. I hoped Mitte was nestled in the queen’s arms.

“I’m not jesting.” The rope dancer’s mouth turned down. “Imagine our poor mistress—Buckingham’s women stripping off her gown, bathing her, smoothing lotion on her skin. One of them will even sleep on a cot in her bedchamber. They will run to the duke when her moon blood flows, eavesdrop on the marriage bed and carry tales.”

Tears spilled down Sara’s cheeks.

Robin shot Dulcinea a quelling glare. “Stop rattling on. Can you not see how upset Sara is?”

“How did Her Majesty look when you left her, Jeffrey?” Rattlebones asked.

“Alone,” I said, feeling hollow inside.

“Not while she still has us.” Sara squeezed my hand. I gave a yelp as pain burned through the cut I had gotten while aiding the queen. Sara released me, dismayed. “You are hurt!”

“It is nothing.” I tucked my throbbing hand against my middle. “Just a bit of glass.”

“Gotten while helping the queen,” Will said. “The tale is flying everywhere—how Jeffrey defied the duke of Buckingham, charged past him and into the chamber where the king was holding the queen. Jeffrey might have saved Her Majesty from bleeding to death.”

“But I didn’t. The veins in the wrist were not severed.”

“Only by the grace of God,” Will insisted.

“It was a brave thing you did, Jeffrey,” Sara said. “One the king and queen will not forget.”

“Nor the duke of Buckingham, I’ll warrant,” Robin said, his face grim. Was he warning me there would be reprisals? Or was he stinging over the fact that Sara had taken my hand?

“I do wonder who carried the tale.” Will puzzled over this with his best sergeant porter frown. “The guards were escorting the French from the palace with me. There was no one save the king, the queen, and Buckingham to witness Jeffrey’s actions. Someone else must have seen.…”

God knew, with all the intriguers about, it was possible. Far more likely Buckingham had scattered the tale. What better way to hide the fact that I was his spy? In one stroke, he had cast himself as my adversary and enshrined me as the dwarf who saved the queen from bleeding to death.

*   *   *

The next morning when I went to attend the queen, her eyes were as red as her gown. I wondered how she had managed to weep without Buckingham’s women hearing her.

“I am dissatisfied with the work on this altar cloth,” the queen told her new ladies. She gestured to the rumpled length of satin that had been spilled from her sewing basket in the scuffle the day before. “You will take it where the sunlight is strongest and pick the stitches out.”

I stared at the pattern of lambs and lions I had watched the queen and her French ladies chatter over so gaily, their needles flashes of silver. Her willingness to destroy their exquisite work alarmed me.

Buckingham’s sister looked dismayed at the behemoth task, his mother cross. The countess of Carlisle’s lip curled in amusement over the queen’s device for banishing her new attendants as far from her as possible. The duchess of Buckingham took up the rich cloth and traced a lion’s mane with her finger.

“Majesty, are you certain you wish us to rip this pattern out?” she asked. “I have never seen more perfect stitches.”

“The Carmelite nuns I stitched with in France held me to higher standards than you English ladies have. Be it in needlework or morality.”

The duchess’s eyelids narrowed as she carried the cloth to the window. Taking up a tiny pair of scissors, she began to pick out stitches. The other women followed her example, leaving me with the queen.

Henrietta Maria sighed, as if a stone had been lifted from her chest. She favored me with a smile, so drained of its liveliness that I wondered if joy would ever light her face again. “Jeffrey, I was afraid Buckingham would tear you away from me as he did my French household. He wants me to have no one who loves me nearby. They will not even allow me the solace of my confessor. I can wander anywhere in the castle at will, but I might as well be locked in a Tower cell.”

It was true. Every waking moment, Buckingham’s ladies held her hostage behind walls of English customs and determined cheerfulness. As the weeks passed, Buckingham’s mother swelled with self-importance, until I imagined lancing her like the boil she was upon the queen’s existence. The ravishing countess of Carlisle’s sparkling wit made even Henrietta Maria’s loveliness seem drab.

I had heard that some women welcomed a mistress who would relieve them of their husbands’ attentions. I wondered if Henrietta Maria would care if Lucy Hay seduced the king now, broken as the queen’s spirits seemed at her husband’s hand.

At least Henrietta Maria knew enough of Carlisle’s reputation to insist the countess was not a fit companion for a virtuous queen. Not that her protests had mattered. The king had dismissed the queen’s concerns, insisting the rumors of the countess’s indescretions were unfounded. Yet despite Henrietta Maria’s determination to ignore her, the countess had a kind of merriment that drew light into the queen’s chamber, whether Her Majesty willed it or not. I did not know if I should be grateful that she might spark life in the queen again, or if I should tamp down the least flicker to protect Henrietta Maria from the heartache that could ensue if the countess of Carlisle had her way.

*   *   *

The gardens rang with laughter as the king’s courtiers and the queen’s ladies drank in the sunshine as His Majesty attempted to bring color into the queen’s wan cheeks. The pair had withdrawn from the rest of the company to sit beneath an arch of roses. From where I stood with some of the menagerie, I could see Her Majesty, still stiff with hurt but attempting an occasional smile. Yet the eyes of everyone else followed the lively game of shuttlecock being led by the countess of Carlisle.

“The countess is very beautiful,” Sara said, tucking a tendril of hair beneath her wide-brimmed hat. “Look how everyone clusters around her.”

“I wish to Heaven they would get out of my way.” Goodfellow craned his neck to the left as his hand flew over the page. Half-formed figures seemed ready to dance off the page the moment he sketched in their legs. “Why can they not go hang about the Buckingham women under that lovely tree?”

“The countess of Buckingham scares
me,
” Rattlebones said with a comic shudder. “Would you want to approach the duke’s mother when she is looking like that?” He juggled three of the apples he had tucked into his doublet when we broke our fast that morning. He’d already eaten two others, as well as a wedge of cheese. I still could not believe how much the man ate. Perhaps he was right and some creature lived in his belly and gobbled the food before it could stick to his bones.

“Perhaps she is pondering some business her son is about,” Robin suggested. “He has been gone for six days now, and it is not like His Grace to be out of the king’s company so long.”

I had been relieved at the respite Buckingham’s absence afforded today—until Robin made me wonder what mischief the duke might be about.

“Never has a man had more power to bedazzle women,” Simon said. “I think the duke could get those three ladies to leap from a parapet if he told them to fly.” He nodded toward the Buckingham women and had the ill fortune to catch Archie Armstrong’s eye. For a moment, even I wondered if Simon meant to summon over the querulous fool. But Rattlebones groaned as if he were as dismayed as the rest of us were when Archie left the king’s other servants and strode toward us with what Goodfellow called his “angel of discord” expression on his face.

Armstrong bowed as Lucy Hay’s clear laughter rang out, teasing the young swain who had missed the feathered shuttlecock. “I almost feel a trifle sorry for the fair Lucinda,” Archie said. “She is cleverer than any of these men, yet she must hide it behind dimples and plump breasts and seductive smiles. I live for the moments her pretense slips and the real Lucy cuts through—sarcasm that leaves stupid people bewildered and frustration snapping into temper.” He laughed. “She is her father’s daughter, then.”

“Who was her father?”

“A Percy of Northumberland. Damned stiff-necked breed for centuries. Her father, the earl, may have been the most unpleasant of the lot. Damned useful, though, when it came to plying my trade.”

“Useful?”

“When King Jamie and I came down from Scotland, I was looking for a butt for my jests. God, how the English nobles hated Jamie’s hangers-on—Scots like James Hay, snatching royal appointments they thought should have belonged to them. So easy to torment, the English were. Warms my heart just to think of it.”

A fly tried to land on Goodfellow’s paper. Sara brushed it away before the insect could interrupt the flow of Robin’s drawing. Robin cast her a glance filled with tenderness as Archie went on.

“Liked a bit of the bawdy, did the king, and Northumberland and his wife got in such howling good fights, half the kingdom waited to hear about their doings. Of course, preachers say God grants a man the tools he needs. Gave Northumberland the gift of being deaf in one ear. Made His Lordship impatient as the devil, especially when he was hard at his experiments or chattering science with those mad friends of his. I think he was actually relieved to be locked up in the Tower once he knew his head wasn’t going to roll. He could drown himself in books and glass vials and heathenish tools without interruption.”

I frowned. “I cannot imagine being glad to be locked in one of those dank cells, no matter how vexing my wife might be.”

“Oh, the earl was not in the kind of cells we’d be shoved in. He and his friend Raleigh lived fine as ever they did beyond the Tower walls. Just couldn’t pass beyond the gate. Northumberland had his wife send all his rich furnishings and servants to wait upon him. He even built himself a stable on Tower grounds because the regular accommodations weren’t fancy enough for his horses.”

“Save your jests for someone easier to dupe.” I nodded toward the nobles who were playing shuttlecock on the lawn.

“What Archie says is true,” Sara said, her tone earnest.

“Most of what I say is true, people find out to their woe.” Archie chuckled.

“What are you laughing about?” I asked, wondering if he was mocking me.

“I was thinking that of all the luxuries allowed the earl, the one that amused me most was the shed the Lord Lieutenant had built for him out in the Tower yard.”

“A shed?”

“Where Northumberland could do his mad experiments. That way, he would only blow himself to kingdom come.”

“I had not considered that such trials might be dangerous.”

“Why would court fools like us consider science at all?” Robin cursed when his charcoal snapped. He took up the stub and began carving a fresh point. “We’re too busy trying to keep roofs over our heads to worry about the paths of the stars.”

“Yet, with all the possible subjects here for you to choose from, you attempt to capture the incomparable Lucinda on your page,” Archie said. “Is she not a star of sorts?”