The Winter Queen (6 page)

‘Is she as beautiful as they say, your Queen Mary?' she asked.

Master Macintosh's gaze narrowed. ‘Aye, she's bonny as they come.'

Rosamund glanced at Queen Elizabeth, who fairly glowed with an inner fire and energy, with a bright laughter as she swept towards the dance floor with Master Vernerson. ‘As beautiful as Queen Elizabeth?'

‘Ah, now, you will have to judge that for yourself, Lady Rosamund. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.'

‘Will I have that chance? Is Queen Mary coming here on a state visit soon?'

‘She has long been eager to meet her cousin Queen Elizabeth, but I know of no such plans at present. Perhaps Lord Leicester will let you study Queen Mary's portrait, which hangs in his apartments. Then you must tell me which you find fairer.'

Rosamund had no time to answer, for the musicians started up a lively galliard, and the Queen launched off the hopping patterns of the dance. Rosamund had no idea what she could have said anyway. She had no desire to be in the midst of complex doings of queens and their courtiers. She liked her quiet country-life.

Even being at Court for a mere few hours was making the world look strange, as if the old, comfortable, familiar patterns were cracking and peeling away slowly, bit by bit. She could see glimpses of new colours, new shapes, but they were not yet clear.

She took Macintosh's hand and turned around him in a quick, skipping step, spinning lightly before they circled the next couple. In her conversation with him, she had forgotten to look for Anton Gustavson, to see where he was in the chamber. But as she hopped about for the next figure of the dance she was suddenly face to face with him.

He did not dance, just stood alongside the dance floor, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched their merriment. A small, unreadable smile touched his lips, and his eyes were dark as onyx in the flickering half-light.

Rosamund found she longed to run up to him, to demand to know what he was thinking, what he saw when he looked out over their gathering. When he looked at
her
.

As if he guessed something of her thoughts, he gave her a low, courtly bow.

She spun away, back into the centre of the dance, as they all spun faster and faster. That sense she had of shifting, of breaking, only increased as the chamber melted into a blur around her, a whirl of colour and light. When she at last slowed, swaying dizzily in the final steps of the pattern, Anton had vanished.

As the music ended Rosamund curtsied to Master Macintosh's bow. ‘Are you quite certain you have never been to Court before, Lady Rosamund?' he asked laughingly, taking her hand to lead her back to the other maids.

‘Oh yes,' Rosamund answered. ‘I am certain I would remember such a long journey!'

‘You dance as if you had been here a decade,' he said. His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Better even than your queen, my lady, though you must never tell I said so!'

With one more bow, he departed, leaving Rosamund standing with Anne Percy.

‘Did you enjoy your dance with the Scotsman, Rosamund?' Anne asked.

‘Yes, indeed,' Rosamund said.

‘That is good. I wouldn't be
too
friendly with him, though.'

‘Why is that, Anne?'

‘They say he has been meeting often of late with Lady Lennox, Margaret Stewart.'

‘The Queen's cousin?'

‘Aye, the very one.' Anne gestured with her fan towards a stout, pale-faced lady clad in heavy black satin. She stood near the fireplace, watching the merry proceedings with a rather sour look on her face. ‘She cares not for the Queen's scheme to marry Leicester to Queen Mary, and it is said that some of the Scots party agree with her.'

Rosamund eyed the dour woman suspiciously. ‘Whose marital cause would they advance instead?'

‘Why, that of Lady Lennox's own son, Lord Darnley, of course. I don't see his Lordship here tonight. He must be off chasing the maidservants—or the manservants—as his mood strikes him,' Anne said.

‘I vow I will never remember who is who here,' Rosamund muttered. ‘Or who is against who!'

Anne laughed. ‘Oh, you will remember soon enough! They will all make sure you do.'

They could say no more, for Queen Elizabeth was hurrying towards them, the Austrians and Swedes
with her. They looked like nothing so much as an eager flotilla drifting in the wake of a magnificent flagship.

Rosamund and Anne curtsied, and as Rosamund rose to her feet she found Anton Gustavson watching her again. He no longer smiled, and yet she had the distinct sense he was still strangely amused.

By her? she wondered. By the whole glittering scene? Or by some secret jest none could share?

How she wished he was a book, a text of Latin or Greek she could translate, if she only worked diligently enough. Books always revealed their mysteries, given time. But she feared the depths of Anton Gustavson would be too much for her to plumb.

Then again, perhaps she was too hasty, she thought, studying his lean, handsome body sheathed in the fine velvet. She had not even yet spoken to him.

‘You are a good dancer, Lady Rosamund,' the Queen said. ‘I see your lessons were not in vain. It was Master Geoffrey who went to Ramsay Castle, was it not?'

‘Yes, Your Grace,' Rosamund answered, tearing her gaze from Anton to the Queen. Elizabeth's stare was so steady, so bright, that Rosamund was quite sure she could read every tiny, hidden secret. ‘I enjoy dancing very much, though I fear I have much to learn.'

‘You are too modest, Lady Rosamund. Surely you have not so much to learn as some at Court.' The Queen turned suddenly to Anton. ‘Master Gustavson here claims he cannot dance at all.'

‘Not at all, Your Grace?' Rosamund remembered how he had looked on the ice, all fluid grace and power. ‘I cannot believe that to be so.'

‘Exactly, Lady Rosamund. It is quite unthinkable
for anyone
not
to dance at my Court, especially with the most festive of seasons upon us.'

Anton bowed. ‘I fear I have never had the opportunity to learn, Your Grace. And I am a dismally clumsy oaf.'

Now, Rosamund knew
that
to be a falsehood! No one could possibly even have stood upright on the ice balanced on two thin, little blades, let alone spin about, if they'd been a ‘clumsy oaf'.

‘No one is entirely unable to learn to dance,' Elizabeth insisted. ‘Perhaps they have not as much natural enjoyment of the exercise as I have, or as it seems Lady Rosamund has. But everyone can learn the steps and move in the correct direction in time to the music'

Anton bowed. ‘I fear I may prove the sad exception, Your Grace.'

The Queen's gaze narrowed, and she tapped one slender, white finger on her chin. ‘Would you care to make a wager, Master Gustavson?'

He raised one dark brow, boldly meeting the Queen's challenging stare. ‘What terms did Your Grace have in mind?'

‘Only this—I wager that anyone can dance, even a Swede, given the proper teacher. To prove it, you must try and a dance a volta for us on Twelfth Night. That will give you time for a goodly number of lessons, I think.'

‘But I fear I know of no teachers, Your Grace,' Anton said, that musical northern accent of his thick with laughter.
Why
, Rosamund realised,
he is actually enjoying this!
He was enjoying the wager with the Queen, the challenge of it.

Rosamund envied that boldness.

‘There you are wrong, Master Gustavson.' Queen
Elizabeth spun round to Rosamund. ‘Lady Rosamund here has shown herself to be a most able dancer, and she has a patient and calm demeanour, which is quite rare here at Court. So, my lady, I give you your first task at my Court—teach Master Gustavson to dance.'

Rosamund went cold with sudden surprise. Teach him to dance, when in truth she barely knew the steps herself? She was quite certain she would not be able to focus on pavanes and complicated voltas when she had to stand close to Anton Gustavson, feel his hands at her waist, see his smile up-close. She was quite confused just looking at him—how would she ever speak? Her task for the Queen would surely end in disaster.

‘Your Grace,' she finally dared to say, ‘I am sure there are far more skilled dancers who could—'

‘Nonsense,' the Queen interrupted. ‘You will do the job admirably, Lady Rosamund. You shall have your first lesson after church on Christmas morning. The Waterside Gallery will be quiet then, I think. What say you, Master Gustavson?'

‘I say, Your Grace, that I wish to please you in all things,' he answered with a bow.

‘And you are also never one to back away from a challenge, eh?' the Queen said, her dark eyes sparkling with some mischief known only to her.

‘Your Grace is indeed wise,' Anton answered.

‘Then the terms are these—if I win, and you can indeed dance, you must pay me six shillings as well as a boon to be decided later to Lady Rosamund.'

‘And if I win, Your Grace?'

Elizabeth laughed. ‘I am sure we will find a suitable prize for you among our coffers, Master Gustavson. Now come, Ambassador von Zwetkovich, I crave another dance.'

The Queen swept away once again, and Anne followed her to dance with Johan Ulfson. She tossed back a glance at Rosamund that promised a plethora of questions later.

Rosamund turned to Anton in the sudden quiet of their little corner. It felt as if they were enclosed in their own cloud, an instant of murky, blurry silence that shut out the bustle of the rest of the room.

‘I believe, Master Gustavson, that you are a sham,' Rosamund hissed.

‘My lady!' He pressed one hand to his heart, his eyes wide with feigned hurt, but Rosamund was sure she heard laughter lurking in his voice. ‘You do wound me. What have I done to cause such accusations?'

‘I saw you skating on that pond. You are no
clumsy oaf
.'

‘Skating and dancing are two different things.'

‘Not so very different, I should think. They both require balance, grace and coordination.'

‘Are you a skater yourself?'

‘Nay. It is not so cold here as in your homeland, except this winter. I seldom have the chance of a frozen pond or river.'

‘Then you cannot know if they are the same,
ja
?' A servant passed by with a tray of wine goblets, and Anton claimed two. He handed one to Rosamund, his long fingers sliding warmly against hers as he slowly withdrew them.

Rosamund shivered at the friction of skin against skin, feeling foolish at her girlish reaction. It was not as if she had never touched a man before. She and Richard had touched behind the hedgerows last summer. But somehow even the brush of Anton Gustavson's hand made her utterly flustered.

‘I am sure they are not dissimilar. If you can skate, you can dance,' she said, taking a sip of wine to cover her confusion.

‘And vice versa? Very well, then, Lady Rosamund, I propose a wager of my own.'

Rosamund studied him suspiciously over the silver rim of her goblet. ‘What sort of wager, Master Gustavson?'

‘They say your Thames is near frozen through,' he answered. ‘For every dancing lesson you give me, I shall give you a skating lesson. Then we will see if they are the same or no.'

Rosamund remembered with a pang the way he had flown over the ice. What would it be like to feel so very free, to drift like that, above all earthly bonds? She was quite tempted. But…‘I could never do what you did. I would fall right over!'

He laughed, a deep, warm sound that rubbed against her like fine silk-velvet. She longed to hear it again, to revel in that happy sound over and over. ‘You need not go into a spin, Lady Rosamund, merely stay upright and move forward.'

That alone sounded difficult enough. ‘On two thin little blades attached to my shoes.'

‘I vow it is not as hard as it sounds.'

‘And neither is dancing.'

‘Then shall we prove it to ourselves? Just a small, harmless wager, my lady.'

Rosamund frowned. She thought he surely did not have a ‘harmless' bone in his handsome body! ‘I don't have any money of my own yet.'

‘Nay, you have something far more precious.'

‘And what is that?'

‘A lock of your hair.'

‘My hair?' Her hand flew up to touch her hair
which was carefully looped and pinned under a narrow silver headdress and sheer veil. Her maid Jane had shoved in extra pins to hold the fine, slick strands tight, but Rosamund could feel them already slipping. ‘Whatever for?'

Anton watched intently as her fingers moved along one loose strand. ‘I think it must be made of moonbeams. It makes me think of nights in my homeland, of the way silver moonlight sparkles on the snow.'

‘Why, Master Gustavson,' Rosamund breathed. ‘I think you have missed your calling. You are no diplomat or skater, you are a poet.'