The Winter Queen (8 page)

‘But you would surely be St Lucy because of your beauty. Lucy is always a lady with fair hair, blue eyes and the ability to convey sweetness and generosity. Those two attributes are surely not negated even by copious doses of stubbornness.'

Rosamund could feel that cursed blush creeping up again, making her face and throat hot in a way no one else's compliments could. He thought her beautiful? ‘Perhaps, then, that is one tradition we could borrow from Sweden.'

‘And so you should.' Anton stepped off the stool, examining their handiwork. ‘Does it please you?'

‘Does what please me?' she asked, still dazed. Pleased by him? She very much feared she might be. He was so different from Richard.

‘The decorations.'

‘Oh—aye. It looks most festive.'

‘
Ganska nyttig
. Shall we find a place for that, then?'

He reached for the kissing bough Rosamund still held, half-forgotten. ‘It is a silly thing,' she protested, stepping back. ‘The Queen would surely not want it in her hall.'

‘Why is that?' Anton persisted, moving closer until he could take the sphere of greenery from her hand. As
he examined the mistletoe, the fluttering ribbons, a slow smile spread over his face. ‘A kissing bough!'

Rosamund snatched it back. ‘I told you it was silly.'

‘My mother said when she was a girl she made kissing boughs at Christmas to divine who her future husband might be.'

‘Well, that is not why I made it. I merely thought it looked pretty.'

Anton stepped even closer, leaning down to whisper in her ear. His cool breath stirred the curls at her temple, making her shiver. ‘She also said if you kiss someone beneath it at midnight on Christmas Eve they will be your true love for the rest of the year.'

Rosamund closed her eyes, trying to ignore the way his voice whispered over her skin. ‘I had best not hang it up, then. True love seems to wreak enough havoc here at Court.'

Anton laughed, taking the bough from her hand. ‘Nay, it is much too pretty to hide. We will hang it over there, behind that tapestry. Only those who truly need it can find it there.'

Before she could protest, he carried it off. A tapestry depicting a bright scene of wine-making was looped up, revealing the gap between it and the panelled wall. Anton leaped up to attach the ribbon loop to a ripple in the carving.

The bough swayed there, all verdant-green and enticing. Anton unhooked the tapestry, letting it fall back into place before the little hidey-hole.

‘There now, Lady Rosamund,' he said with a smile. ‘Only we two know it is there.'

Their secret. Rosamund longed to run away as she had when she'd first seen him by the frozen pond. Yet she could not. It was as if she was bound to him, tied
by loops of ivy and red ribbon. Caught by the dark glow of his eyes.

She touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips, watching as his gaze narrowed on that tiny gesture.

‘Is the Thames yet frozen through?' she queried softly.

‘Very nearly,' he said roughly. ‘They talk of a frost fair in the days to come.'

‘A frost fair? There has not been one of those in many years, not since my mother was a child, I think.' Rosamund twined her hands in her velvet skirts, feeling suddenly bold. ‘Then will you be able to teach me to skate, do you think?'

‘You seem a quick enough learner to me, Lady Rosamund. And will I be able to dance at Twelfth Night?'

‘That remains to be seen. Our first dancing lesson is not until tomorrow.'

‘I very much look forward to it.'

Rosamund curtsied and hurried away. She too found she looked forward to their lessons. Lessons of
all
sorts.

Z'wounds!
She had been so comfortable in her cozy life at Ramsay Castle. Now she felt so unsure of everything. She felt as if she balanced on the edge of some vast, unknown precipice, between her old self and a new self she did not yet see. Just one push would send her one way or the other.

Or she could jump. But that was probably for bolder souls than herself, much as she wished to.

She rushed out of the hall, turning towards the staircase that led back to the maids' apartment. But she went still as her foot touched the first step.

Anne stood in the darkness of the landing just above, deep in conversation with Lord Langley. Their voices were low and intense, as if they quarrelled. He reached
for her hand, but she stepped back, shaking her head. Then she fled up the stairs, her footsteps clattering away.

Lord Langley swung round to come back down, and Rosamund shrank back against the wall, hoping he would not see her there in the dim light. He did not seem able to see anything. His handsome face, so alight with merriment earlier, was solemn, taut with anger.

‘Bloody stubborn woman,' he muttered as he strode past her.

Rosamund lingered there for a moment, unsure what to do. Her own romantic life was so very confused, she was quite sure she could be of no help in anyone else's. But Anne was her friend, or as close as she had here at Court.

Feeling like she dove between Scylla and Charybdis, Rosamund climbed the stairs and made her way to the maids' dormitory.

Unlike last night, when the laughter and chatter had gone on for hours, the chamber was silent. All the other ladies were still decking the halls, and Anne lay alone on her bed, her back to the door.

She was very still, making no sound of tears or sighs. Rosamund tiptoed closer. ‘Anne?' she said softly. ‘Is something amiss?'

Anne rolled over to face her. Her eyes were dry but reddened, her hair escaping in dark curls from her headdress. ‘Oh, Rosamund,' she said. ‘Come, sit beside me.'

Rosamund perched on the edge of the bed, reaching into the embroidered pouch at her waist for a handkerchief in case it was needed.

‘Tell me more about your sweetheart at home,' Anne said, sitting up against the bolsters. ‘Is he very handsome?'

‘Oh!' Rosamund said, startled by the request. She
forced herself to remember Richard, the way he had smiled at her. A smile with no hidden depths and facets, unlike Anton Gustavson's.

‘Aye,' she said slowly.

‘Is he fair or dark? Tall?'

‘Fair, and only middling tall.'

‘But a fine kisser, I would wager.'

Rosamund laughed. ‘Fine enough, I think.' Though she had little to compare him to.

‘And he loves you. He wants to marry you and always has.'

Rosamund hesitated at that. ‘He said he did, when last I saw him.' But then he had vanished, leaving her alone to argue their cause with her parents. The servants had said he had even quit the neighbourhood entirely in the autumn.

‘You are fortunate, then,' Anne sighed.

‘Does Lord Langley not want…?'

‘I do not want to speak of him,' Anne interrupted. ‘Not now. I would much rather hear of your love, Rosamund.'

Rosamund lay back with a sigh, staring up at the embroidered underside of the hangings as if she could read her answers in the looping flowers and vines. ‘I have not heard from him in an age. I am not sure now I want to hear from him at all.'

‘I would wager he has written to you but your parents intercepted the letters,' Anne said. ‘That happened with my friend Penelope Leland when she wanted to marry Lord Pershing.'

‘Truly?' Rosamund frowned. She had not thought of such a thing. ‘How can I be sure?'

‘Aye. We must find a way to contact him,' Anne said, her voice full of new excitement at coming up with a scheme. ‘Once he knows where you are, he will surely come running to your side.'

Rosamund was not so certain. Her infatuation with Richard seemed to belong to someone else, a young girl with no knowledge of herself or of the world. But if it helped to distract Anne, and herself, she was willing to attempt it.

Perhaps then she would cease to drown in a pair of winter-dark eyes.

 

‘Round your foreheads garlands twine, drown sorrow in a cup of wine, and let all be merry!'

Rosamund laughed helplessly as the entire Great Hall rang with song. It was quite obvious that the whole company had already drowned their sorrows copiously as the Christmas Eve banquet progressed. The long tables were littered with the remains of supper, with goblets that were emptied, and the musicians' songs were louder, faster than they'd been early in the evening.

The decorations of the hall, lit now by a blazing fire and dozens of torches, fairly shimmered with rich reds, greens and golds, making the vast space a festive bower. Laughter was as loud as the song, and glances grew longer and bolder, ever more flirtatious, as the night went on.

Not everyone was happy, though, Rosamund noticed. The Austrians seemed rather ill at ease, though they tried gamely to enter into the spirit of the holiday. A few of the more Puritanical of the clergymen hovered at the edges of the bright throng, looking on with pinched expressions.

Surely they would be happier if everyone passed the holiday in solemn prayer, Rosamund thought, not frisking about with song and greenery, which echoed of the old days of popery. But Queen Elizabeth seemed not to notice at all; she sat on her dais, clapping in time to the song.

On the wall behind her was a large mural, an early
Christmas gift from her minister, Walsingham. It was an allegory of the Tudor succession, centred on an enthroned Henry VIII, right here in the Great Hall of Whitehall, with a young Edward VI kneeling beside him. To his left was Queen Mary, with her Spanish husband King Phillip with Mars the god of war, all dark blacks, browns and muted yellows. To his right was Queen Elizabeth, with Peace trampling on a sword of discord, trailed by Plenty, spilling out her cornucopia. They gleamed in bright whites, silvers and golds.

Just as the Queen herself did tonight, presiding over her own feast of plenty and joy. She wore a gown of white satin, trimmed in white fur and sewn with pearls and tiny sapphire beads. She looked on the holiday she had wrought with a contented smile.

The others on the dais with her did not look so very sanguine. The Queen's cousin Lady Lennox, Margaret Stewart, sat to the Queen's left with her son, Lord Darnley, her ample frame once again swathed in black. He was handsome enough, Rosamund had to admit, with his pale-gold, poetic looks set off by his own fine black-velvet garments. But he looked most discontented, almost sulky, as if there was somewhere he would rather be. Chasing the servants into his bed, as Anne had said?

Next to them sat Lord Sussex and his wife, sworn enemies of Leicester, and thus united with Lady Lennox in their cause. On the Queen's other side was Lord Burghley and his serene wife Mildred, and the Queen's cousin, Lord Hunsdon, and his wife. The marital delegations were at their own tables tonight, just below the royal dais.

Rosamund peeked at Anton over the edge of her goblet, remembering the kissing bough that hung
behind the tapestry, known only to the two of them. She remembered the warmth of his hand as it had touched hers, the brilliant light of his smile.

He smiled now as he listened to the song, his long fingers tapping out the time on the table. His ruby ring caught the light, gleaming like the holly berries. He saw her looking over and his smile widened.

Rosamund smiled back. She could not help herself. Despite her nervousness, her uncertainty of life at Court and what she should do, every time she looked at Anton Gustavson she felt lighter, freer.

There was still her family, her home, her duties—still Richard out there somewhere, as Anne had reminded her. But when Anton smiled at her for just an instant she forgot all of that. He made her want to laugh at the wondrous surprise of life, the delightful mysteries of men.

But she only forgot for an instant. She turned away from him, and found Anne watching her quizzically. Rosamund just shrugged at her. She remembered Anne's red eyes all over Lord Langley and some mysterious romance gone sour. Rosamund wanted none of that for herself, or for her friend. Not now. Not when it was Christmas.

The large double doors of the hall burst open in a flurry of drums. Acrobats tumbled through, a blur of bright-coloured silks and spangles, tinkling bells and rattles. They somersaulted down the aisles between the tables, leaping up to flip backwards through the air.

As everyone applauded their antics, another figure appeared in the doorway, a broad-shouldered man swathed in a multi-coloured cloak and hood. His face was covered by a white leather Venetian mask painted in red-and-green swirls.

He rattled a staff of bells as the acrobats tumbled around him.

The Queen rose to her feet. ‘What do you do here at our Court?' she demanded.

‘I am the Lord of Misrule! I am the high and mighty Prince of Purpoole, Archduke of Stapulia, Duke of High and Nether Holborn, Knight of the Most Heroical Order of the Helmet and sovereign of the same,' the cloaked man announced, his voice amplified and distorted behind the mask. ‘For this holiday season, I declare all kingdoms my dominion—the realm of merriment.'