The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (12 page)

“Of course,” Gabriel drawled.

“Sir Gabriel, you could benefit from Her Majesty’s displeasure, if you were not Dudley’s man. Truth to tell, your ambition is rumored to be so great, perhaps you are the one who arranged last night’s mischief, now I think on it.”

“You flatter me. But since I have no idea what mischief you speak of, Lady Knollys, I can hardly take credit for it.”

“The queen sent for Lord Robert late last night.”

“That is no great news.” Gabriel brushed a loose thread from his tawny velvet doublet. “It was to discuss some tangled matter of national importance, no doubt.”

“Such as the most inconvenient death of Dudley’s wife?” Lettice’s upper lip curled in amusement. I felt a twinge of empathy for the poor woman who had died so suspiciously four years past. Some whispered Robert Dudley had ordered his wife murdered, she being the only obstacle standing between himself and a crown. But Father insisted the theory made little logical sense. The queen of England could never wed a man tainted by such a scandal.

“There is no man the queen trusts more than Lord Robert to ease the burdens she bears,” Gabriel said.

“Trust is likely to be in question this morning, since even Dudley’s devoted servant had no idea where his master had gotten off to last night.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Lord Robert is a very busy man. Even a servant of Tamwith’s excellence cannot be expected to know of his master’s whereabouts all of the time.”

“Perhaps matters at the stable demanded Lord Robert’s attention,” I suggested, wishing she would take her gossip and Sir Gabriel elsewhere. “When our best mares at Calverley are ready to foal, our Master of the Horse practically sleeps in the stalls until they are safely delivered.”

“I think Dudley’s absence had more to do with mounting mares in heat, rather than safe deliveries. But then, he is a lusty animal. No one knows that better than the queen. Even she cannot expect him to deny his own nature.”

“Dudley has another lover?” I knew it was a mistake the instant I spoke.

“Another?” Lettice’s elegant brows winged upward.

“Since his wife died,” I amended quickly. Lettice was not fooled.

Mary Grey sidled over, so quiet I wondered how much she had heard. “You should look to your own virtue around Lord Robert,” Mary said. “He has a weakness for red hair and reckless wits.” With a snort of displeasure, Lettice flounced away, Mary Grey following behind her. Sir Gabriel turned to me. His knuckles brushed my skin as he moved the tiny cog on the astrolabe. “It is good you are not important enough to have made any enemies, Mistress, when you would put such sharp weapons as your devotion to Copernicus in their hands.” His warning both chilled and burned me. “You need not look so pale. Your secret will be safe with me.” Wyatt looked as if he meant it for a moment, then his lips curled. “At least it will be as long as you make it worth my while.”

My mouth went dry. “What do you mean?

“In return for my silence, you must grant me a boon. Payment for favors rendered is the way of life at court.”

“What kind of boon?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

“Two boons, actually. First, dance with me whenever the queen does not choose me to be her partner.”

That would be quite often,
I thought, since she so obviously favored Lord Robert.

“Answer now, Mistress Elinor,” Sir Gabriel demanded. “Will you dance or no?”

“Agreed.” The concession tasted bitter. I remembered what the queen had said.
You are a bad dog . . . but you wear my collar
. Lady Ashley’s warning whispered through me as well. “I have to dance with someone. At least you are not shorter than I am. You said there was a second condition?”

“That I may call you what Lady Ashley does. Mistress Nell.” He caressed the syllables of my name, turned it to music. I felt as if he had trailed his fingers not just across my throat, but across my spirit. “Mistress Elinor does not suit you, although I could imagine you riding into battle beside your man, bare-breasted, as Eleanor of Aquitaine did so long ago. Yes, I can see passion fire up those magnificent eyes of yours. And so our little game begins.”

“I was never fond of games. They are a waste of time. One could be reading.”

“Something like Copernicus?” His smile faded. “People have burned for less.”

The voices in the corner rose, the queen’s shrill. The expectant hush deepened in the room, the minstrels plucking nervously at their instruments, waiting for the signal to begin playing their dancing measure. With an oath, Elizabeth stalked away from Dudley, Lord Robert’s handsome face surly.

“Sir Gabriel! I have need of you!” The sound of his name rapped out in Elizabeth’s regal voice made the Angel leap to attention. Without so much as a glance at me, he strode to her side. “My Horse Master and I were discussing the traits necessary to create a fine bloodline,” Elizabeth said.

Wyatt bowed. “I am certain Lord Robert has given much thought to the matter. He has imported horses from Barbary.”

“It is not horses I am interested in at present. My councilors are eager for me to marry.”

“All loyal subjects wish for your happiness, Your Grace,” Wyatt observed with diplomatic care.

“A fine answer,” Elizabeth snapped. “Far better than those I hear from my council. I chose you as my example of what I deem worthy in a mate.”

I watched something change in Sir Gabriel’s face, a keen, sharp edge to him that had not been present moments before.

“You have many virtues, sir,” the queen said. “You are a fine musician. A gifted scholar and a ruthless huntsman.” Her eyes lit on me for a moment, and I caught a glint of something dark in her. “Add to that your skill in the dance, Wyatt, and I vow you could partner the Three Graces themselves. Which is why you puzzle me greatly in your choice of a partner this morn. Our newest maid stumbles about as if she were a new colt. She is a country-bred child and has only rustic training. Your talent will be wasted upon her.”

I bit the inside of my lip, trying to hide my reaction as the rest of the room laughed in approval. Only one face looked even less amused than mine. Robert Dudley’s eyes looked furious.

“Lord Robert, come here.” The queen crooked her finger at her favorite as if he were of no more import than the spit boy who turned the roasting meat in Calverley’s kitchens. “You are most knowledgeable about such matters. If Sir Gabriel were a horse, would he not be the finest stud in the royal stables? Mated with the prime mare, Sir Gabriel would sire a dozen strapping sons.”

“That I cannot tell,” Dudley said, a vein in his temple throbbing.

“When judging breeding stock the wisest course is to look back into the fruitfulness of that particular bloodline. The Dudleys have filled their nurseries to bursting for generations. I, myself, was one of twelve healthy babes.”

“Yet you did not produce a single child with your own wife, sir. Why is that, I wonder? Perhaps the Dudley fruitfulness is not present in you?” The court gaped, silent.

“I beg you will excuse me,” Dudley said, each word weighed like lead. “Since it is obvious Your Majesty has no need of me at present.”

“I have no
need
of you at all. You would do well to remember that,” Elizabeth challenged him. “Go, Lord Robert. I know that Cecil is perishing to add Sir Gabriel’s name to my list of prospective husbands.”

Dudley bowed and backed from the room, turning at the door and striding out. I felt a presence at my elbow. Mary Grey, back again. “Lord Robert must be in distress,” she observed. “He thought his best hound was locked upon your scent.”

“I do not know what you mean,” I said.

“It has been obvious to the rest of the court Dudley gave Sir Gabriel orders to sniff out your weaknesses. Everyone knows the Dudley faction’s creed is to think and hunt as a pack. Still, it seems the young lion may supplant the older one in time. Sir Gabriel is mad for power and will sacrifice anything or anyone to achieve it. Given the chance he may well devour his master one day. He only lacks the right weapon to unseat him. What is worse, Dudley knows it.”

The musicians struck up their opening salvo; I watched the queen dance with Sir Gabriel Wyatt, the two as magnificent as the finest animals in the royal stables.

F
OR A FEW
days, the balance of power shifted, teetering on the queen’s royal whim. Yet before the week was out, Dudley was back at Elizabeth’s side. And I was held to the bargain I had struck with the Devil’s own Angel. With each leap, each touch of hands as Sir Gabriel Wyatt swept me across the council room floor, one thing was clear. During our fray the morning Dudley almost fell from grace all the rules had changed.

Chapter Eleven

June 1564

H
AMPTON
C
OURT
P
ALACE

T
HREE WEEKS PASSED BEFORE THE QUEEN MOVED US
from Whitehall to Hampton Court, the Surrey palace I was most eager to explore. I was lucky to see it at all, Moll informed me while she stitched a rent in the petticoat of my riding habit. Lettice Knollys’s maid had told Moll that Elizabeth had avoided the sprawling redbrick structure since she nearly died of smallpox there two years ago. The queen still insisted the air at Hampton Court was unwholesome. But a group of French dignitaries must be entertained, and Hampton Court glittered on such occasions, every wall shining with gold and silver, the woodwork gilded or painted in vivid hues of red and yellow, blue or green.

More exciting to me than the splendors of this, the most elaborately decorated of all the royal palaces, was the opportunity I intended to seize: to test the mystical mirror Dr. Dee had sent my father, the instrument said to reflect the colors of souls, alive or dead. My mother had little use for such superstitions, but Father and I had been fascinated with the shimmering oval from the first moment we unwrapped it. “Who,” Father had insisted, “can tell what device might be scientific and which a fool’s trinket? One day we will measure things we do not even know exist. Whole worlds must march along beside us, just as the tiny dimple of an ant’s hill conceals a bustling city beneath the turf. Why not a world of spirits?”

When I packed the mirror at Calverley I imagined what it might reveal in the place haunted by Henry’s dead queens, determined to see if the gleaming surface could reflect Jane Seymour, who had died after bearing the king’s only son; Catherine Howard, who ran through the halls begging to be spared the axe; or Anne Boleyn, whose initial still twined with Henry’s on the ceiling of the Great Hall. Spectral images mortals could not see, but that could be reflected in an enchanted mirror—so Dr. Dee claimed.

Most enthralling of all, I wanted to explore the magnificent astronomical clock Nicholas Kratzer had built for Henry VIII, a clock with a sparkling gilt face that showed the workings of the universe—the sun and all the planets revolving around the earth, its vital center. The machine told not only minutes and hours, but the seasons, days of the week, month, and when it was high and low tide upon the Thames. I could not wait to beg entry into the great room where the workings of the clock lay hidden, explore the gears and cogs and inner mysteries, discover how the vast timepiece functioned.

But my excursions would have to wait. For we had barely arrived when I was forced to confront the occasion I had been dreading ever since the other maids had begun to babble about the entertainments our royal mistress loved best. I was country born and bred. I had gone on hunts with Father and Mother and their friends. Attended parties where we had tested our skills with crossbows and bows and arrows, or sailed hawks into the sky to make the kill. But in my eleventh year what pleasure I had taken in the hunt vanished altogether because of what happened one fine spring day. I had concocted tricks ever since to hide my loss of enthusiasm, but they would not save me here at court. Elizabeth loved dancing and the hunt above all things, so I knew I would have to face old demons sometime. But I did not realize that by the time it happened my aversion to the chase would cut me to a far more personal level: I would know exactly the panic the hart must feel, fighting to keep ahead of the pack.

Hounds in human form had been circling me as the weeks bled past, courtiers’ eyes feral as they tried to discern why I—a nobody—seemed so high in the queen’s royal favor. The tale of the key had been bruited about, but it did not change the opinion of most
. “After all, who is Mistress Elinor de Lacey?”
I heard Lettice Knollys say to Isabella Markham. “
Daughter of a baron who avoided court as much as possible. Daughter to a former lady-in-waiting the queen dislikes and makes little effort to hide it.
” Elizabeth’s courtiers could not resist the urge to pick at threads of my past, trying to unravel reasons why the queen had raised me so high.

As I mounted Doucette for my first hunt with the queen, I feared she would not look upon me so favorably when we returned to the palace heavier by the weight of several kills. Even Doucette, my sweet-tempered mare, sensed my unease and became restive. Or was it the showy antics of the men trying to impress Elizabeth with their rich velvets and magnificent horses that unsettled my mount? I glimpsed Sir Gabriel among the queen’s admirers, his laugh ringing out, reckless as his blood red stallion nipped the arse of the queen’s mare. Her Majesty’s horse squealed, lashing out with one back hoof to catch the stallion in the shoulder.

“Let that be a warning to you all!” Her majesty called merrily. “That is what happens to rogues who take liberties with the ladies! It is a lesson Sir Gabriel should take to heart. Especially since Mistress de Lacey has been trying to teach him just that these many weeks!”

Everyone in the queen’s service was bemused by my behavior toward Sir Gabriel. I danced with him, yes. But the instant the musicians fell silent, I made every effort to avoid him. A circumstance that amused Lord Robert Dudley when he threw us together in games of skittles or hoodman-blind.

The scarf pinned about my throat seemed to shrink. Looping both reins around one hand, I fumbled with the amber brooch that held the length of Lincoln green silk in place. The folds loosened but gave me little relief as Lettice Knollys picked her way toward me on her dainty black palfrey. Her riding habit was the color of lapis lazuli. “Mistress Elinor.” She ran her gaze over me with a slyness that made me want to squirm. “You have piqued Sir Gabriel’s interest and that of Lord Robert as well. You would do well not to pique anything else belonging to a man. My royal cousin denies herself natural pleasures, and she expects her ladies to remain chaste as she does.”

“It poses a greater problem for some of us than others.” Lady Mary gave Lettice a snide look from atop her own stocky brown horse; she was clinging to her perch like a misshapen cocklebur.

“It is true there are ladies who love the taste of cream.” Lettice glanced at Lord Robin, the queen’s beloved. Few except the queen were blind to the times Lettice disappeared from her bed. Speculation was rife as to who might be her lover. “Lady Mary, I know it must be vastly tiresome for you, deflecting the assaults courtiers make on your virtue. But if they importune you too much, you can always hide beneath a footstool with the spaniels. Mistress Elinor is not so fortunate.”

I was edgy and angry and wanted Lettice far away from me. The brooch I was attempting to refasten “slipped” in my hand. The point pricked the rump of Lettice’s horse; the mare screeched in protest and sprang away from us. Taken by surprise, Lettice tumbled from her horse. Lady Mary stared at me with her overlarge eyes. “You are a very stupid girl.”

“It was clumsiness. Nervousness on my first hunt with the queen.” That much of my excuse was genuine enough.

“Any fool could see you did that on purpose. Mistress, everyone is wondering why you came to court. You do not care for flirtations or fine gowns. I am beginning to think your sole purpose is making enemies.”

I meant to protest, but Mary drew the truth from me. “I am glad Lettice fell. Perhaps now she will stay away from you.”

For an instant something flickered in Mary Grey’s eyes, then vanished beneath a hard shell. “No. She will torment me worse because you interfered. I do not need anyone’s pity. The whole world can mock me all it likes. I have the blood of kings in my veins. One of my sisters was queen for nine days. The other, Katherine . . . she is imprisoned in the Tower right now because Elizabeth fears her.”

All at court knew Katherine Grey’s crime—secretly wedding the Earl of Hertford, a man whose claim to the throne was as strong as her own, then daring to produce a healthy son, an heir of royal blood where Elizabeth had none.

“We Grey sisters have no stain of bastardy to taint our claim to the throne,” Mary boasted. “No one, not even my royal cousin, can take that legacy from me.”

“Hush, Mary! It is dangerous to speak so.”

“You? Lecturing me on what is dangerous? That is amusing.” Her expression shifted, as if she were a dog wary of being kicked. She wheeled her horse away from me. In a moment, I saw why. Sir Gabriel Wyatt wound his way toward me through the crowd.

I leaned close to Doucette’s neck, fiddling with her emerald velvet-trimmed bridle, fixing all my attention on my mare in an effort
to what
? Lettice Knollys’s spiteful voice demanded in my head.Hide beneath a footstool like Crouchback Mary? That spur made me straighten in my saddle, meet Wyatt’s eyes.

“Mistress Nell, it seems neither of our horses is in the mood to play well with the rest of the beasts,” he said, with a knowing smile. “We shall ride together.”

It was not a question, and I knew him too well now to try to dissuade him.

As the company raced through the woodland, I admired his horsemanship. He rode as if he were one with the magnificent animal beneath him. We splashed through streams, leapt fallen trees, pushing each other to new heights, faster lengths, until either of us would have considered a broken neck a small price for besting the other. We passed the rest of the riders, my mare and his stallion outstripping each until only the queen and Robert Dudley surged ahead of us. The hounds bayed sweet music, and then my heart sank as a doe sprang from the underbrush, her eyes ringed white with terror as she ran for her life.

Shouts of triumph rang out as we gave chase. I reined in a little, wishing to be as far to the rear of the party as possible when the inevitable happened. I prayed Sir Gabriel would be so caught up in the fray he would stay at the head of the pack. But no. He checked his own horse, staying close. A crossbolt sang through the air, the queen herself piercing the deer’s glossy hide. The doe staggered, blood blooming on her side as her hooves scrabbled for purchase. But even the desperate will to survive could not save her. The doe’s legs buckled. My stomach lurched as the animal struck the turf, the dogs snapping and snarling around her, only the Master of the Hounds keeping them from tearing the doe apart.

The Master of the Hunt dismounted and drew his long knife. “And who should have the honor of slitting the animal’s throat if not Her Majesty?” He shouted. The doe raised her head, as if she could understand every word. A cry of approval went up from the party. I tried to smile, my hands sweating in their leather gauntlets. I trapped a rein beneath one arm, stripping a glove off with my other hand so I could rub the dampness from my palm.
It will all be over soon,
I told myself as I repeated the process to bare my other hand. The queen motioned to the crowd and it fell quiet. “I have killed many a deer on royal hunts, but today we have among us one who has never ridden behind my royal hounds. One who has pleased me greatly these past weeks. Come forward and take the knife, Mistress Elinor de Lacey!”

Every gaze fixed upon me.
God, no
. I pleaded silently. But there was no escape. A polite smattering of applause broke out. “Your Majesty, I do not deserve such an honor,” I averred.

“I say you do.” The queen frowned. “Do you know better than your queen?”

“No, Majesty. Of course not. I am most honored.”

“Then dismount at once and finish this beast.”

Before I could make myself move, Sir Gabriel was standing on the ground holding Doucette’s reins while a groom took charge of his stallion. The Angel helped me from my saddle, making it seem as if he were taunting me. I prayed he did not detect my knees shaking as I landed upon the ground. The Master of the Hunt pressed the knife into my hand, the hilt smooth ivory inlaid with tiny gems. I had to clutch the weapon so hard it seemed the carbachons would embed themselves in my palm forevermore.

The huntsman wrenched the helpless doe’s head up again, and I could not help thinking it was the creature’s last glimpse of sky. She made faint effort to struggle, but the fight in her was gone, her throat with its white patch exposed. There was no escape for either of us now. I forced my hands to move. The blade’s edge bit deep, the deer giving a wet, gurgling sound. Hot blood gushed over my hand.
You must not faint,
the warning drummed in my head as whoops of approval filled the air.

“We will all dine on venison this night!” I forced myself to call out. The queen dipped her fingers in the doe’s blood. She smeared a streak on my left cheek, then my right. “A brave show you have made today, Mistress Elinor!” she cried. “Now, let us away to find this animal’s mate. It will be mercy to kill him as well, will it not?” she asked Dudley and the other men. “You males are forever saying your lives would be worth nothing were I not here to receive your love. We do not want the stag to suffer.”

Raucous laughter blurred around me, the men vying for her attention as they galloped off. I cannot remember how I got back on my horse. I believe I rode a quarter of an hour before I feigned the need to answer a call of nature. I climbed down from Doucette, grateful as the music of the hounds faded away from me, the hoofbeats of the other riders softer, until distance muffled them to silence.

Alone, I stumbled to the mossy bank of a stream, sank down to my knees. I plunged my bloody hands into the water, splashed the bracing wetness against my blood-daubed face. I scrubbed at my cheeks with the edge of my cloak, not caring if I spoiled the garment, not caring about anything but obliterating the metallic stench of the doe’s blood. But before I could finish, the image of her throat rose in my mind, the bite of blade, the gurgle of her last breath, the hot cascade of scarlet over my hands.

I could hold back no longer. I retched into the grass. Retched until my hair tumbled from my headdress and it seemed my insides should spill onto the ground. Then fingers gathered my straggling hair back out of my way. When my vision cleared, I could see the toe of a man’s boot. I was too spent to fight when its owner pressed a silver gilt flask into my hand.