The Stolen One (17 page)

F
rom that day forward I became as indispensable to the queen as she became to me—like two halves of a copper coin we were. And I felt it had always been so. I provided the potions, with Mrs. Twiste’s help, for her nervous attacks, for they worked better than most, aye, they did. I mixed new creams for her poxed face, and stitched lovely gloves for her hands, and offered a gentle ear for her many woes. And she in turn kept me busy and entertained and merry, for she knew I mourned my loss although we never, ever spoke of it. And I was content. What did it matter who I was now that I was in the lap of the queen? I was content. I was. Any girl in the whole kingdom would take my place. Except
for Anna. But I willed myself not to think of them.

But Grace was right when she said the human heart does not lie, aye, she was. For I woke up in the middle of the night screaming of ghosts and beasts and fierce creatures of the sea. But the image that is burned in me forever from the day Christian came in the rain is that of the queen standing in the window quietly watching with her dark eyes, her hands clasped in front of her. Yes, the heart does not lie. It was telling me to be content, and not question my soul. And so afraid of sleep I was, like Grace, that I started staying up late at night, stitching and stitching the queen’s dress, for hours on end, until I’d finally nod off in my chair.

But like the village shrew, fate has its way of interfering. One day not long after Christmas I found myself alone with Mrs. Ashley in the wardrobe store, and I couldn’t help but feel she had engineered it that way, for it wasn’t her usual duty to be there. Iris had long since disappeared. Dorothy forever plagued me to try to locate her, but I ignored her. We had just argued about it again, when she was called away in search of pins. I was mending the seam of one of the queen’s French hoods.

It was but a moment before I realized I was being
watched. I looked up to see Mrs. Ashley standing in the doorway.

“Yes?” I asked her.

“I was thinking that in the firelight you look like him. The slant of your cheek, the spark in your eyes. You very much embody him, you know. I knew the instant I saw you.”

“Who do you speak of, Mrs. Ashley?” I asked, tying off a thread. I threaded another needle.

“I loved him,” she said, and I quickly looked up. “But alas, every woman did. Including your mother, the poor soul.”

“You knew them? Both of them? Who are they?”

“You do not know?” she asked, a small smile turning at the corners of her mouth.

“No” was all I managed to utter.

“Good,” she murmured. And then she was gone.

“I don’t like the quiet,” the queen once told me. “It makes me chew upon the past.” But here she was in the garden, the next morning, tucked behind a rosebush, reading a small prayer book with not a soul to attend her. In all the time I had been at court I had never seen her alone or still. I’d come to sketch. Strangely, it reminded me of home, being there.

“I’ve given them the slip,” the queen said when I approached her, referring, I knew, to her ladies. She wore a simple gown of blue satin. “I do adore them, I do, Spirit.” She sighed. “But sometimes I do tire of their endless chatter.” She patted the bench where she sat. I joined her, putting my sketchbook to the side. “Dorothy.” She smiled slightly. “God’s me, I don’t know how you abide her sometimes.” I looked away, fingering the friendship ring the queen had given me the night of the masque. “Hints and allusions, tiptoeing and whispering.” The queen laughed. “Why can’t anyone ever be honest with me? Why does everything have to be danced around? I do have a kind heart, I do. If she’d just ask me for her kitchen boy, perhaps I’d give her the answer she wanted.”

“Would you?” I asked, quite surprised.

“Not now, no.” She sighed. “I don’t like making decisions. Decisions are for another day.” Just then one of her councilors, Lord Burghly, walked across the garden at a rapid pace, his eyes swiveling about. “Oh, why do my councilors have to harangue me so? It never ceases, never. I can’t have a moment’s peace.” She glanced down at my sketchbook.

“What do you draw, Spirit?” she asked.

“Where the true beauty of nature lies,” I said. “The stem of a flower, the vein of a leaf. There is much to see if one looks carefully.” I pushed the book away discreetly. But I needn’t have worried; her mind was elsewhere.

“Ah, Spirit,” she mused. “I think I shall never marry. Not if I can’t have him.” She sighed as deep as a last breath. “I do love him, you know, but as a woman, not a queen.”

I indeed knew, for I saw it a thousand different ways all during the day.

She took another deep breath. “Do you think perhaps a loved one forgives once they are laid beneath the ground?”

I shook my head. “I think perhaps,” I offered, “that it is only God one can seek for forgiveness.”

She laughed. “A queen does not seek forgiveness. Not from anyone. Ever.”

It was quiet a moment longer. “Tell me, Spirit, do you know what they say of us?”

“That I am your daughter, Your Majesty.” I continued to finger the ring she had given me. I could not meet her eyes.

“But isn’t it ridiculous? Why do you not jest? Do you
think it true? As though I could conceive at fourteen? Ha. Now that’s a silly story, and there have been many of them through the years, believe you me.”

“Can a heart fall in love at fourteen?” I asked in wonder, peering at her. And then I thought of Christian. Had I loved him from the beginning?

“Yes. But a first love is always false, Spirit. Banish him from your heart, as I have banished him who deceived me.” And before I could respond, she announced, “Meadowsweet. That’s what this garden needs. I shall tell my man to plant some tomorrow. My mother loved the scent. I have very few memories of her, but I do remember that. It’s strange how scents can evoke memories. Have you heard of it, Spirit?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. The berries can be used to soothe the nerves.”

“Ah yes, the nerves.” She laughed. “You’ve been the only one who has ever eased me on that account. Oh, how they’ve plagued me. If I were a man, perhaps my life would have been easier. A man’s heart is made of steel, I think. A man is never brought down by love, that is the God’s truth.”

“I’m glad I can be of help, Your Majesty,” I replied.

“I hear that Anne Twiste assists you with my potions.
Can a simple laundress be trusted?” she asked. “There’s not a chance I should suddenly be found dead, sleeping at peace, my face raised to the Lord?”

“No, Your Majesty, no,” I told her. “I make everything for you. I promise.”

“Well then, my life is in your hands, Spirit,” she said, pulling a winter rosebud over to her face and smelling it. “When you may be executed at any moment, your whole being changes,” she continued. “You never forget or feel calm again. Ever. When death has almost reached you, it never leaves. It lingers like the ghost of an old friend, around the corner, beckoning with one long, curled finger.”

“No one wishes your death, Your Majesty,” I told her. “You are beloved. Indeed you are, by everyone.” I could smell the rose she held.

“Ah, you are naïve, my dear,” she laughed. “And that’s why I adore you so. You remind me of myself when I was young, before, before. My own sister wished for my death, Kat, and when one’s sister wishes that, you know there is no surety to one’s life ever. A king is never safe. A sword hangs above his head at all times. God, I smell juniper; I told him to remove the juniper, I did. It stinks.”

I smell wolf’s juniper
, Grace had said that day, the day
the dwarf arrived. The day everything began.

“I think it is quite pleasant,” I told her, for I had always loved the smell of juniper.

She closed her eyes a moment and smiled. “Any of my ladies would have agreed with me. Only you would dare to disagree.”

“Juniper has many pleasing qualities,” I said. “It can be used to—”

“Oh spare me,” she interrupted. “I don’t like it and you shan’t change my mind. It reminds me of my stepmother.” She clutched the prayer book to her chest protectively as though she held a baby bird.

“And this brings unpleasant memories, Your Majesty?” I asked very quietly.

“Only regrets,” she murmured. “Just regrets. She’s the only one who truly loved me, you know. She brought me back to my father. He had rejected me. Declared me a bastard so my brother could inherit the throne. But my stepmother brought me back to him, made him see reason. I wouldn’t be the queen I am today without her. She was the kindest, most intelligent woman who ever lived. And the only mother I ever had.” Tears began to well in her eyes.

“Your ladies love you,” I said.

She snorted. “Yes, they do. Blanche Parry is my rock. And Katherine Ashley has been imprisoned for me twice, did you know that? She’d lay down her life for me, she would. But she also led me astray once, and I shall never forget it.”

“Astray?”

She waved her hand dismissively, and I knew I had gone too far.

“You shall be by my side always, won’t you, Spirit? You won’t leave me, will you? You do know there is no going back, do you not? Your shepherd married your maid, I’m sorry to tell you.” But when I looked in her eyes, I did not see sorrow, only a shadow tinged with cruelty. She was lying. She had to be lying. I thought I could not breathe, and the ring upon my finger seemed to burn. I quietly took it off and held it in my hand.

“And what of your great friend Lord Ludmore?”

Rafael. I peeked at her from the corner of my eye.

“He is not for you,” she continued. “A girl of uncertain birth, mysterious, marrying such a man. Let him dangle for quite a long time, and then cut the string.”

I turned away, but she grabbed my hand. The ring fell down between us, clanking like a lamb’s bell. She picked it up, slid it back on my finger, and continued, “Don’t
be ashamed, Spirit; it’s your humbleness I most admire. It’s the highly born ones I must most suffer. For they have the most to lose.”

“But Lord Ludmore has a mysterious past too,” I said quietly, thinking of him as a minstrel the night I had seen him at the revel and all those years he was missing.

“Yes,” she said, closing her prayer book and attaching it back to a fob at her waist. I noticed for the first time that there was a sapphire shaped as an eye in the middle of the jewel. “And I want you to find out why he has returned after all these years. Do so, to set my heart at ease. Perhaps he has a secret wife, lowly born, in the country, or made friends with my Scottish cousin, or perhaps he’s made visits to Spain. And he has not come for you at all these weeks. He’s courting three different ladies and spends the night hours at the brothels, I hear.”

She broke off the rosebud and handed it to me just as Blanche Parry and Katherine Ashley appeared at the garden gate, gesturing at us. “Ah, I’ve been found out at last.” She stood and walked toward them, but then she turned back. “The gown. You will finish it someday, Spirit?” But it was not a question and she did not wait for an answer.
I pulled off the ring and rubbed my finger. I held it up to the light. The ruby glinted in the sun like old blood. Something caught my eye, an inscription. I brought it closer and read: “I hold what I have.” And next to the words a mark—a tiny half-moon.

That night at a feast to welcome yet another ambassador, a most curious incident occurred. Ipollyta, dressed in a simple gown of gold, appeared at my side as I watched the dancers spin elegantly about the room. My mind wanted to put things together, to search, to seek answers, to think of Christian, but I drowned it all out with sweet, warm wine. The queen tapped her feet in cadence with the dancers while she flirted with the ambassador. Robert Dudley sulked at her side. I kept my eyes away from her, but I knew hers were frequently upon me; I could feel her attention as an insect wrapped in a web knows the spider is nearby, waiting, watching. I could only focus on Ipollyta’s little gold gown. It reminded me of another dress, a dark night, wolves, sickness, and death.

“You know I wish you no harm,” Ipollyta said, planting something in my hand.

“I think perhaps you do,” I replied, wincing in fear
that it was a needle. But it was only an old gold coin, foreign, with a wild-looking queen set upon it. “In fact, I do believe you wish me great harm.” I tried to return the piece, but she had put her hands behind her back and wouldn’t take it.

“My mother came to this land many a year ago. She was told the royals here fancied little people such as us. My father was a normal man, I hear, a groom much loved among ladies. Porfirio was his name.”

“Why are you telling me such things?” I asked, the room starting to spin.

“Because your heart wants to know, as does mine. Perhaps we can help one another. My mother’s name is Jane. Jane the fool.”

Jane the fool. I should have guessed it. I focused on her lips, what she was saying to me.

“But it’s shameful even for a fool to have a bastard. I was hidden. Given away. Did you ever hear of my mother? She has been long lost to me and I seek her. I’m told she roamed the country looking for a stolen fortune. Did she ever come your way?”

Jane the fool. Aye, she had come our way, briefly, that dark night. And she had taken Grace with her. I took another long drink of my wine, for Grace always said it
helped one lie. Aye, I knew where Jane was. As for the fortune she sought—it was sewn into the hem of the dress that I had worn to London and hidden with everything else under the bed. But I did not trust Ipollyta. She had tried to poison me. That I was sure. I closed my eyes.

“No,” I said. “I never heard of her.”

“You might change your mind,” I heard her say. “And someday perhaps I may help you in kind.” She turned and walked away. I dropped the coin and it rolled under feet and legs, and amidst the roar of the room, I heard it rotate and clamor before coming to a peaceful rest.

I arose in the dark and looked out my window into the night. A few minutes later I was down in the garden, my sketchbook in hand, sitting in the moonlight on the bench the queen and I had sat on. Her roses had different hues at night, and I started to sketch. A few minutes later a tall, dark figure walked toward me. I stood perfectly still. It was a man. The figure came directly up to me and stopped. Rafael.