The Queen's Dwarf A Novel (37 page)

Ware arched the brow over his good eye. “I had not known you were so devoted to Master and Mistress Hudson of the shambles. Everyone at court spoke of your ungrateful behavior when your father came to visit.”

I clenched my jaw. “My father and I do not agree on much, but he has been in ill health ever since the press gangs took my brother. This news of John’s death will be a terrible blow.”

“To lose the one son among three who is neither a freak nor a bookish coward must be devastating. Your eldest brother was meant to inherit the shop John Hudson has worked to bring to fruition these thirty years. The coward would rather do anything except wield your father’s good cleaver.”

“Samuel is no coward.”

“Only time will tell. Your brother is proof that one cannot always predict how hardy a seedling will grow when one thrusts it into the right soil,” he said.

It chilled me, Ware speaking as if he had seen my brother recently.

Ware walked to the table, flicking one of the hoops Rattlebones held for dogs to jump through. “I would not count on Her Majesty’s allowing you to travel to Oakham, despite your family’s loss.”

“Why would she not?”

“It is uglier beyond the palace gates than you might imagine. I travel the roads every day in my labors for the duke. Do you know how many people would love to kill Buckingham? Even the survivors he brought back from France are wrecks of men, starved, maimed, humiliated by their defeat. Every man who died has a family and a street where they were well known, a village they belonged to. Every man has parents, brothers, and sisters or uncles who would see it as a badge of honor to assassinate Buckingham for using their loved ones as fodder for his military vainglory. The queen is hated as much as the duke because her brother is the king who outwitted our forces. Rumors have wings, as you know. They roost in the brain and such trivialities as truth have no power to root them out. They say the French knew how to evade Buckingham’s blockade of the harbor because Henrietta Maria passed intelligence on to her brother.”

For a moment, I wondered if it could be true; then I dashed the disloyal thought aside. I said, “You do not believe that.”

“Don’t I? You would be astonished at people who can be convinced to take part in intrigues: some for coin, some for excitement, and some for a sense of power. Many for a cause they believe in. Of course, there are less congenial reasons. Coercion is sometimes a regrettable necessity. But then, those who resort to such measures believe that the end justifies the means.”

Ware smoothed a wrinkle from his sleeve. “Whichever the case, there is none other like you in ten kingdoms. Everyone who saw you would know Jeffrey Hudson, the queen’s famed Lord Minimus. No. Her Majesty would not be wise to permit you to wander outside your gilded cage. Better to send word through your brother Samuel. He seems the sort one might wish to find on the doorstep if one must receive ill news. A court fool might be tempted to make someone laugh.”

“I do not find my brother’s death the stuff of jests.”

“I could carry a letter to Samuel if you like,” Ware offered with a thin smile. “I take a tender interest in educating the lower order and am intrigued by what I hear of his tutor. I would like a chance to ask Master Quintin where he learned the tutor’s art. Such a gifted man should be cultivated.”

I thought of Samuel’s master, his kindness not only to my brother but to Phineas, as well.
Our Lady has a special fondness for lads, I think
. Quintin’s dangerous words rose in my memory. The last person I wished to visit the booksellers’ was Uriel Ware.

“I will get word to Samuel myself.”

Ware gave a slight bow. “As you wish. My condolences on your brother’s death. Yet, I can’t help but be grateful he saved Felton. Felton and I spent several summers together when we were boys. We sat together at Bible meetings until our arses went numb. Our mothers were distant cousins, you see, and after my mother left the Villiers’s service, she naturally sought family.”

Ware turned his face away, something almost wistful in the cast of his mouth. “Goodwife Felton tried to do right. At night, I could hear her reading parts of the Bible to my mother—the bits about God’s love and having one without sin cast the first stone. But my mother liked those stones in her hands. The power a vicious God gave.”

Ware adjusted his eye patch. “Ah, well, at least having my sins laid bare to the other Puritans on the village green was more comfortable than Tyburn was.”

“Tyburn?”

“My mother liked to take me to public executions there to show me what happened to the wicked. She took the Bible very seriously. ‘If your hand offends thee, cut it off.’”

“Not very far-thinking of God,” I said. “Most of the world would have no fingers if people followed it.”

Ware arched the brow over his good eye. “One does often puzzle over what compels men to become heroes. I would imagine your brother grew reckless because of you.”

The words stung like the lash of a whip. “Because of
me
?”

“Your brother would have had to find a way to prove himself worthy somehow, with the famous Lord Minimus in his family. Must have been a blow to his pride. It is the kind of thing that pushes a man into heroics.”

“Why should John have had to prove himself against me? I have risen to this station through no merit of my own. I was born this way. I was forced into the queen’s service.”

“But you have made the best use of the opportunity. You are a very clever man.”

“If I were, I would have found a way—” I stopped at the last moment. But Ware knew what I was going to say. That I would have thought of a way to escape Buckingham’s toils.

I turned, stalked to the fire. I felt Ware watching me.

“I prefer to deal with my brother’s death alone,” I told him.

“Death must be dealt with, as must the shame of a defeat like Buckingham’s. Much of England is half-mad with grief and outrage. The tiniest well-placed nudge can push someone over the edge of reason.” He looked away, and I wondered if he was picturing his mother smashing the dragon stones. The empathy I felt for that boy was drowned by the thoughts Ware had planted in my head about my brother.

“You’d know just how to apply that nudge,” I said. Had he not managed to push me into places I did not wish to go? Dark places where I wandered now, accompanied by John’s ghost.

I heard noise outside the door, a babble of voices, each person trying to talk over the others. Little Sara and Robin, Boku and Rattlebones tumbled into the room in wild disorder, a reluctant Dulcinea herded before them.

“Go sit and I will put a salve on your blistered foot,” Sara was saying. When they saw Ware and me, they seemed ready to sweep me out of the man’s company, as well.

Dulcinea gave Ware a defiant glare, then crossed to the chair as far away as possible from where Buckingham’s man and I stood.

“I can see that my presence here is causing Mistress Rope Dancer some distress, so I will take my leave.” Ware made a slight bow. “I hope I have been of service to you, friend Jeffrey. It was no easy feat, unearthing the fate of one butcher’s son from a list of five thousand casualties”

“You are not my friend.” Why did I say it for the menagerie to hear, undercutting the excuse Ware had given for his visits to me? Was it worth taking such a risk to warn them Ware was not to be trusted? The man adjusted the ribbon of his eye patch with long white fingers.

“It is an old tradition, this impulse to kill the messenger who brought bad tidings. I do not take offense, but, rather, offer my condolences and trust that our friendship will prove strong enough to survive this momentary breach. My offer stands. I am still willing to take a letter to Master Samuel Hudson, informing him of the death of your brother.”

I heard Simon’s gasp, Sara’s muffled cry of sympathy. It made the cutting edge of John’s death keen. I fought to keep my voice steady.

“I do not want your help.”

”As you wish. Good day, Jeffrey. Until later, my fine freaks.” He bowed one last time, then exited the chamber.

“Jeffrey,” Goodfellow said. “I am so sorry. To lose a brother…”

“To find out about it from that dreadful man!” Sara exclaimed. “I wish there were something we could do to soften your loss.”

Only Boku and Dulcinea were silent—the magician impassive, the beauty’s eyes swollen.

I stood, rigid as my gaze skimmed each face. Ware’s words about upheaval to come haunted me. Hatred needed someone to blame. The outcasts this chamber sheltered would be easy for the ignorant to demonize, a perfect place to strike at the queen. Or what better way to distract ill attention from Buckingham than to make the menagerie into devils? Boku slipped a bundle of dry herbs from his sleeve and set it alight with the nearest candle. A sweet, haunting smoke curled into the air. He began to chant, throbbing words from his distant land.

“Snuff out those herbs!” I snapped. “You must not do such things where men like Ware might see.”

Boku’s hand stilled, the blue smoke coiling like a snake around his arm. “I call your brother from the dark to help his spirit find its way home.”

What could I say? It did feel darker now that John’s life had been snuffed out. It was so strange. Before I learned that John had gone to fight in France, I could have told you every act of brotherly injustice he had perpetrated against me. After I learned that John had sailed, I remembered kindnesses: the way he would shoulder his way through a crowd, feigning impatience as he strode in front of Samuel and me. John’s broad shoulders sliced through the press of people like the prow of a ship, cutting a path for us to follow in his wake. With all those memories in my head, all I could think was that I had never thanked him.

My chest ached as I wondered what it must’ve been like for him—the proud, swaggering youth who had been leader of our pack of brothers for so long. Had it hurt him to see shy Samuel going off with his tutor, the world of books and philosophy and science opening before him? Had it bothered John to listen to the village world he had once ruled marvel over my going to serve the queen? For the first time since Father announced he was selling me to the duke of Buckingham, I wondered what it had been like for John to be left behind.

Boku’s voice drifted to silence, the smoke still curling its sweet, forgetful magic through the air, calming me, even if I did not wish it to.

“Jeffrey, you are not the only one that man distressed,” Sara scolded under her breath. “Ware upset Dulcinea, as well. Look at her! She’s whiter than ice. She didn’t need anyone to put strain on her. She’s already missing her marks when she performs.”

Dulcinea did look haggard as she stared into space, seeming not to hear a word we said. She had appeared wan and miserable for months—when her mood was not soaring so high above everyone else’s that she might as well have been an ocean away.

“How has Ware upset her?” I asked, but Sara only shook her head.

“No one knows. She’s scarce had two words to say to me of late.”

“About that letter to your brother,” Simon said, “Robin and I have business in the city tomorrow. Goodfellow has secured a commission for a miniature some smitten gent wants to pass to his lady love, while I must make a trip to the docks. Boku claims if I can provide him with the appropriate herbs and stones from the Indies, he will be able to dose Mitte with some medicine that will keep her from going into fits. The poor bitch has not been right since the falcon struck her at the Carlisles’ hunt. It will be simple enough to deliver a letter to your brother on our way.”

Sara drew near, pressing a cup of wine into my hands. “Drink this,” she urged.

I took a long swallow. “I am going to my chamber,” I said. “Ask Will to join me there when he is able.”

“He’ll have to finish his duties,” Sara said, “but I know he will hurry as fast as he can. He’ll be as sorry as we are. If you want to talk before he gets here, any of us would be happy to hear about your brother.”

“Sometime later,” I replied, managing to squeeze the words from a throat suddenly raw.

I forced myself to my feet, started toward the door. Pug shrieked like a mewling infant, outraged that I had forgotten to give him a treat.

Dulcinea poked her head up from where she was lying on a divan, her beautiful face contorted. She flung a slipper at the creature. “Quiet that monkey or I will suffocate it myself! I cannot bear such wailing!”

Simon hurried over to scoop up the frantic monkey before Pug strangled himself with his tangled gold chain. “Pug behaves this way all the time,” he grumbled. “Why get upset now?”

I did not stop to find out Dulcinea’s reason, but I passed her on my way to the door, saw her head bowed, hands clapped over her ears. The rope dancer was crying. I wanted to do the same. Cry for John and all the things he would never do. Cry for my mother, who did not know she would never serve John the welcome-home meal I’d imagined her planning for so long. Cry for my father, who would lose the one son who had not disappointed him.

T
WENTY-
O
NE

I did not know how long I slept, only that I awakened to the warm span of Will’s hand draped across my shoulders, a heartening cloak of friendship. I dragged my head up from where I had pillowed it on the table, the letter to Samuel half-finished, the ink now dry in the nib of my quill, ruining that pen. I had been too weary to take up the penknife and sharpen another.

“Jeff, lad, Sara told me the fate of your brother. I am that sorry I never got to meet him.”

“I’m glad you did not.”

I saw Will start at the edge to my voice. I tried to explain. “I would have filled your ears with all sorts of tales of the wrongs he had done me, every trick or slight. I kept a hoard of brotherly wrongs stored up over all these years. Samuel was my good brother, my kind brother. The one I shared everything with. The pair of us against the world from the time our parents shoved us into the little bed in the loft. While John—John got his plate filled first. Got his own bed, near the fire. John got clothes made of whole cloth woven new just for him. Samuel and I—we got breeches patched together from whatever our mother could snip from around the places he wore through the clothes.”