The Queene’s Christmas (19 page)

“Shall I fetch you the poem for proof, then, Your Majesty?”

“My lord, as you know, there is someone skulking about our court, mocking our attempts to have a happy and holy holiday. The only proof I want from you
is
that you keep your well-honed eyes for enemies wide open and report to me should you note anything amiss.”

“You—you suspected me?” he asked, aghast.

“I suspect anyone who acts suspiciously, my lord. Frankly, your foot fit the print of the one we believed murdered Hodge in the kitchens.”

“M-murder? But—boots are made in such general sizes by so few boot makers and imported. These were,” he said, frowning down at them.

“I realize all that.”

“Who took my print, or did someone just eye my size? But why would I kill your privy dresser in the kitchen?”

“Never mind all that, Sussex, but heed my words to be watchful. I will not have another bizarre affront on me or our holidays here. And I charge you to keep this quiet.”

“Because I detest Leicester, is that it?” he asked, evidently not knowing when to leave well enough alone, but the man’s family pride was meat and drink to him. “And the corpse decked in pea-cock feathers mocked him? Ah—you asked me earlier, Your Grace, by what sobriquets he was known at court. But he has many enemies beyond me, I assure you, and some not so vocal about it who might sneak around to do something vile and sordid, which I would not.”

“You may go, my lord, but I do thank you for your testimonial about how many others hate him and about your innocence in the matter of murder or general mayhem.”

He looked as if he would argue more, but he bowed and left.

“I’ve done something I don’t usually do, my lord,” she told Cecil when the door closed.

“Anger an important courtier?”

“No, I’ve actually confronted two of the possible culprits today, three if you count Ned, and tried to put the fear of God— or of queen—in them. But MacNair and Sussex have both stood up well.”

“So you're discounting them?”

“If I’m not discounting my dear Ned, I’m discounting no one. Keep a good eye out tonight, my lord, for at the Feast of Fools everyone will be disguised, not only the man we must unmask.”

Despite being strung tight as a lute string, Elizabeth enjoyed the evening. The roast suckling pig was good—the first solid meat that had appealed to her in days—and naught appeared under silver serving lids on platters that should not be there. She had a double helping of the rich date-and-cinnamon Yule fool, the music pleased her, and everyone seemed happy to be wearing splendid costumes, Kat especially. Vicar Bane was the only one not so attired, though he did deign to don a plain half mask with huge eyeholes, the better to spy on everyone, she thought. But evidently the fun and gaiety were too much for him, for she saw him rip his mask off and depart in a huff after dinner.

She soon began to breathe even easier. At Robin’s sign, while the ladies waited, the men who would return as the mummers slipped out to prepare their grand entrance. For some reason, the audience waited for an inordinate amount of time. She supposed she should have kept Ned as Lord of Misrule, for Robin was surely a novice at all this.

But everyone oohed and aahed when the men piled into the room helter-skelter, laughing and singing about “Good King Wenceslas,” though the second time through they changed the chorus to “Good Queen Elizabeth.” Along with everyone else, she tried to pick out who was who, but the mummers wore matching armored breastplates and helmets with their visors down. Identical bouncing white plumes made them look like knights ready for joust or battle. Yet everyone was soon laughing that their singing, echoing strangely, came from inside those domes of steel.

“I should think they would all go breathless and deaf in those!” Rosie cried, holding her sides she was laughing so hard.

Occasionally, two or more of the mummers would stage a willy-nilly sword fight between songs, or open a visor just enough to gulp down more ale or mulled cider. Cecil, nervous as a cat, came up to stand beside her chair.

“Ordinarily, they’d all be in the Tower for so much as drawing a sword in the monarch’s presence,” he groused.

“My dear Cecil, it’s Fools day,” she chided gently, “and the Lord of Misrule is in charge tonight, not me. Besides, my yeomen guards stand at the ready all around the room should someone step out of line.”

Even though she was tempted to give a sign to Robin to stop the swordplay, she couldn’t be sure which knight he was. Their tall helmets and feathers made them look the same height, the same build, and they all wore black hose and shoes. She supposed that was why her father finally halted the mumming years ago. Men got away with drunken or raucous deeds and were completely disguised. But she could tell the mummers were running out of strength and breath in those hot shells. Soon they would lift their visors and be done with this tomfoolery.

She was wrong, though, for they were leaving, being herded out by someone, though that knight didn’t carry himself like Robin. Nor like Ned. Perhaps Ned’s uncle or even Giles Chatam was taking charge of the scattershot exit.

But as all but one cleared the door, that man pulled out two small stuffed dolls from inside his breastplate. Everyone grew silent to see what was coming next One doll had red hair and a wire crown; the other was a male doll with peacock feathers sprouting from his bum.

The queen gasped. Had Robin arranged to make light of his own nickname, or of what had happened to poor Hodge? It all happened so fast, in a blur.

The lone mummer held the dolls tight face-to-face, rubbing them together as if they were kissing—or performing a more lewd act If that was Robin, she would kill him for this. Lord of Misrule or not, he had greatly overstepped.

Her ladies and the few men scattered throughout the audience remained silent but for a smothered snicker or two far behind her.

“Enough,” Elizabeth declared, rising, “whether those poor puppets stand under the kissing bough or not'” Appalled, she fought to keep from blushing. She didn’t care whether Robin would plead Misrule’s rights or Fools night or the end of the world, she was going to have his head on a platter, either for doing this or allowing this.

“Cecil,” she whispered, “see that my guards detain that man, I don’t care if it is Leicester.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said and disappeared into the crowd as her ladies prepared to follow their queen from the room. But when she glanced again at the door, it was empty, for the lone knight had disappeared behind the others.

Elizabeth went directly to her rooms and dismissed her entourage, saying Kat and Rosie would help her undress for bed. But the moment the back hall cleared, she asked Rosie to look after Kat and, with only her yeoman Clifford with her, headed for Robin’s rooms. Good rooms, she fumed, warm rooms, she’d given him. Whether drunk with liquor or with power, he had gone too far.

Nearing his chamber, she came face-to-face with Ned, Jenks, and Meg, coming her way in a rush down the corridor, so she sent Clifford back to his post.

“What happened?” Ned cried.

“Were you among the mummers?” she asked him, not breaking her stride. They wheeled about to follow her.

“Yes, but I only heard something happened at the end I didn’t see. Who did what?”

“I saw,” Meg said. “I went to see how Jenks was doing guarding the kitchens, but I saw it. Jenks and I just met Ned in the hall.”

“Wait here,” Elizabeth said and pounded her fist on Robin’s door. If he was not back, she’d post Jenks here to bring him right away when he returned. His tide of Lord of Misrule was going back to Ned forthwith, and Robin was being banished from court.

“Guess he’s not back yet,” Meg said.

“If he has one bit of brain left, he’ll just keep going, clear to Scotland or to hell!” Elizabeth declared. “I trust him to keep a lid on things, and he makes it all worse.”

But as she turned to march back to her apartments, she heard a muffled sound. Had she knocked on the door so hard that she’d pushed it partway open? Had it not been closed or latched?

She gave the door a little shove, and it swung easily inward.

Trussed with a web of ropes, Robin lay belly down, stark naked on a table, with his lower legs bent up behind him. His blue face contrasted with the red apple jammed in his mouth. He was desperately trying to keep his ankles close to his head, for if he let them straighten, the noose around his neck cut off his air like a garrote. Stuck within the ropes were two crudely lettered parchment signs, which partly hid his nakedness. One read
YULE FOOL
and the other
ROAST SUCKING-UP BORE
.

Chapter the Tenth

Roast Suckling Pig

To roast a pig curiously, first tie the legs back. You shall not scald it but draw it with the hair on, then, having washed it, spit it and lay it to the fire so that it may not scorch, then, being a quarter roasted, and the skin blistered from the flesh, with your hand pull away the hair and skin, and leave all the fat and flesh perfectly bare; then with your knife scotch all the flesh down to the bones, then baste it exceedingly with sweet butter and cream, being no more but warm; then dredge it with fine bread crumbs, currants, sugar, and salt mixed together, and thus apply dredging upon basting until you have covered all the flesh a full inch deep; then, the meat being fully roasted, draw it and serve it up whole. Place an apple in its mouth and surround it on the platter with baked apples and onions, also sprigs of rosemary and bay
.

“
HELP HIM
!”
ELIZABETH CRIED, BUT SHE TOO RAN TO
Robin. Ned held his legs to ease the strain on the noose as Jenks cut his cords. Forgotten for now, the two bizarre messages sailed away and were trodden underfoot. The queen loosened the rope around his neck as Meg seized his shirt from the floor and covered him.

“Jenks,” Elizabeth said, “carefully cut the apple in half so we can get it out of his mouth. Robin, you're all right now, you're safe,” she told him, plucking the fruit out in two pieces. While he heaved in huge breaths that shook his big frame, she grasped his shoulder, then rubbed his bare back as if she were comforting a child.

“He would have died for sure if we’d not come!” Jenks said as he finished cutting and tearing the ropes away.

Attempted murder! Elizabeth thought. What if she had lost Robin? Brushing tears from her cheeks, she felt flushed, but her skin was gooseflesh. To think that she’d blamed him for that rude affront downstairs when he was fighting for his life up here.

“You must have been tied before the mummers entered the hall tonight,” she told him as Jenks pulled a sheet off the nearby bed to wrap him. “And the demon who did this could have taken your place among them.”

With their help, Robin sat up slowly. “Would you prefer a chair or bed, my lord?” she asked. He nodded toward the bed Jenks had just ripped apart, and they helped him to it. However, he sat up in it, leaning back against the carved headboard, his face now livid, his neck red and welted where the noose had chafed him.

The queen fetched wine and held it to his lips. Weakly, he lifted one hand to hold her wrist. Though no doubt still shaken and shamed, he lifted his gaze to hers at last.

“I thought I would die,” he whispered, “and never see you again. My last thoughts—of you.”

“Meg, go fetch one of my physicians,” the queen commanded.

“No!” Robin whispered, gripping her wrist. “No doctor. I do not want this all over the court and country. Please tell no one, my queen.”

“Yes, all right. The three of you, wait just outside the door,” she ordered, “and leave it ajar. I will speak with my lord alone a moment to hear what happened.”

The three of them did as bidden; she could hear them whispering in the corridor. She lifted the heavily embossed flagon of wine so Robin could sip again and stroked his wayward tresses off his forehead, wet with sweat Carefully, she sat on the edge of his bed, her hip next to his knee.

“I should have heeded your words of warning,” he said. “Because of all we mean to each other, the love I bear you, someone wants to humiliate and kill me. I desperately need your help and protection, my queen.”

“God as my judge, you shall have my help!”

“And your love, too? Just a bit?”

“You know I do—I have and do,” she stammered. “But to keep you—all of us—safe, I must discover who did this.”

He frowned and lifted both hands to his head. Rope marks marred each wrist “Splitting head pain,” he whispered. “I cant recall much. After the feast, I was in a flurry, getting the mummers ready. I realized I’d left my speech upstairs… here, in my chamber. My servants were downstairs, helping everyone into armor, so I ran up here to fetch it, up the back servants’ staircase.

“So you weren’t with the mummers,” she repeated, feeling greatly relieved. “You were no part of what they did. But did you see anyone with two dolls?”

“Dolls? There were no dolls.”

The sheet slid off one muscular shoulder, and she hastily reached to rewrap him. Now that her panic had ebbed, cold clarity and common sense set in: the Virgin Queen of England was alone with her so-called favorite on his bed, and he was naked under that sheet It terrified her how much she wanted to stretch out beside him to comfort and be comforted. But she must plan her next move, though that was rather like playing chess with a phantom.