The Queene’s Christmas (21 page)

“Ned,” Her Majesty put in, “several of the mummers say you planned the activities for last night, though I take it the speech Leicester left in his chamber was his own. People have said that you planned the similar armor that made everyone look so alike. Furthermore, I recall that in a jesting way you mentioned to me both a peacock and roast boar shortly before Hodge Thatcher and the Earl of Leicester were attacked and horribly displayed as such.”

He shifted his gaze, carefully, not dartingly, from Cecil’s hard stare to the queen’s worried countenance. Desperately he hoped she, at least, could be convinced to be on his side.

“Mere circumstance, Your Grace. As for the earl being named Lord of Misrule, frankly, it’s been entertaining to help him. I’m happy to do it, for all the detailed planning is really not his strength, you know.” He managed a slight smile and little shrug.

“What is his strength, then?” Cecil pursued, leaning over his clasped hands on the table. “Leicester seems to think you, like several others at court, might resent Her Grace’s friendship with him.”

“I’m just an actor, my lord, a servant, and not some peer of the realm to be dabbling in political or personal matters.”

“Can you deny,” Cecil said, narrowing his eyes, “you were especially annoyed that Her Grace named the earl Lord of Misrule in your place, when, indeed, so much of the work and planning for the Twelve Days has been yours in the past—let alone how all your preliminary work this year was simply assumed by him?”

Yours
in the past
—the words seemed to echo in Ned’s stunned mind. What if the queen dismissed him and his career at court was in the past? What if he was forced to go on the road again, or worse, if she kept the handsome Giles to replace him? God forbid, what if she had him arrested for further questioning?

It was then that he made a gut-wrenching decision. All life was a gamble, wasn’t it? He opted for being insubordinate and defiant rather than proper and cowering.

“Your Majesty and Secretary Cecil,” he said in such a clarion voice that they both blinked and sat back a bit, “I see no reason such insinuations and slights should be aimed at one who has served Her Majesty well and would give his very life for her, indeed, for both of you. If you think I’ve done aught amiss, or am behind the dreadful deeds which I have been proud and vigilant to help you probe, say so and let me deny it plain. God’s truth, but I am guilty of naught but perhaps pride and a bit of bombast here and there, a necessity in my calling. And as for not favoring the Earl of Leicester, I believe you yourself, my lord Cecil, have had harsh words with him and even harsher feelings for him over the years. Am I dismissed or worse, Your Most Gracious Majesty?”

“A pretty speech, but—” Cecil began, his usually controlled voice aquiver with anger.

“You are dismissed,” the queen cut in, “only from the Privy Plot Council for now, Ned, because I want you to keep a closer watch on Giles.”

“I see,” he said, not budging immediately. Actually, he did see. How like the brilliant queen he’d adored and studied for over six years. She would keep her true motives close to her chest, but she would also keep him close. Time and again he’d seen her do that with those she suspected of deceit or treachery before she cut them down.

“I suppose I should be grateful you are even willing to see me,” Margaret Stewart, Countess of Lennox, told Elizabeth that afternoon. The countess gave her usual disdainful sniff as the queen walked the Waterside Gallery for exercise with her ladies trailing behind. You might know, Elizabeth thought, in this Yuletide season, when most wore merry colors, Margaret was cloaked in black velvet and satin. As they turned back along the vast array of windows overlooking the frozen Thames, Margaret sniffed yet again.

“Have you a cold or the ague, Margaret?”

“No, I have what goes beyond a physical complaint, Your Majesty, and I thought it best I tell you.”

“Please do. I much favor honesty. And so I will tell you that when the northern roads clear, Lord Darnley may visit his father in Scotland and, of course, personally deliver my best wishes to Queen Mary.”

“But you have said so before and changed your mind.”

“What is that they say?” Elizabeth countered. “Ah, ’Do not look a gift horse in the mouth,’ I believe. Consider it my New Year’s gift to both of you. And what is it vexes you so sore, Margaret?”

“This holiday especially you have treated me as if I am of inferior or no rank, Your Majesty. Kat Ashley is not of royal blood nor of the peerage, and you favor her more than you ever have me, worrying whether she enjoyed this or did she see that Best queens should heed rank if they want theirs heeded. You did not ask me to tell a tale of my memories of Christmas the other night, but Kat told hers. And do you know what my Yuletide memory would have been?”

“I believe you will tell me,” Elizabeth murmured as they turned and walked back again. Through the windows, she kept her eyes on activities on the Thames rather than on Margaret’s sour face. It looked so cold out there, but she preferred it to the chill she’d always felt with this distant relative who had been so cruel to her in her youth when she desperately needed friends at court Besides, Elizabeth was in a wretched mood today and didn’t need Margaret’s carping. She had a meeting with Vicar Martin Bane soon, and the mere thought of that was ruining the whole day.

“I recall,” Margaret plunged on, “the Christmases when I was treated as one of the Tudor family, which I am. I recall the times I was esteemed and honored, harkened to, and trusted for counsel—”

“Times before you sent your son to woo Mary of Scots in France, perhaps, in direct opposition to my royal wishes?” the queen interrupted, keeping her voice low and sweet. “Times before, once she returned to Scotland, you parlayed behind my back with the Scots lords, perhaps times before there were Christmases when someone tried to ruin things with a dead kitchen worker, a box of stones, and a fox’s head in place of a boar’s head on a platter.” Elizabeth wanted to throw the outrage about Leicester in her face, too, so she could read her reaction, but she bit her tongue. Perhaps whoever was responsible would make some sort of slipup on that.

“Well,” Margaret declared huffily, “I have no notion of why you're fussing about all that to me!”

“Good. Let us keep it that way by not talking about this any-more, or talking at all. You see, I have a Christmas memory of when I was ten and you intentionally ruined my gown with gravy and told me I was skinny and whey-faced and had freckles bad as pox marks and that your ties to the Tudors would always elevate you over a king’s bastard, so that I must walk at least two steps behind you. But Margaret,” she added, taking a breath and ignoring the woman’s shocked stare, “thanks to my good graces, here you are in step with me—perhaps even several steps ahead.”

Abruptly, the queen stopped walking. Margaret swished past before she could turn back, but Elizabeth had already headed for the corridor to return to the royal apartments where Kat was waiting.

“You know,” Kat whispered when Elizabeth told her what Margaret had said, “the countess was in a foul mood last night, too. Even though her son was to be among the mummers, she left the hall before they came in. She was probably upset she wasn’t the center of attention or given some special honor.”

“Kat, you never cease to amaze me,” Elizabeth said and gave her a hearty hug. “Do you remember when you used to help the Privy Plot Council solve crimes, and you’d keep an eye on people for me?”

“I do, but I’m glad it’s not those dreadful days again, even if we are having an old-time Christmas.”

Elizabeth smiled grimly as she left her ladies to go alone into her bedchamber to use the close stool. There she startled Rosie Radcliffe, bending over the table, rifling through the stack of court documents she had yet to sign.

“Oh, Your Grace!”

“Rosie, whatever are you doing? Why aren’t you with the others?”

“I—I was, but I seem to have lost a piece of your jewelry—a bracelet, the one with rubies and emeralds you favor at Yule—and thought it could have come unclasped or snagged in these while you and Secretary Cecil were working earlier today.”

Rosie went red as a rose indeed; the queen knew the bracelet was missing, but she had thought she’d lost it on Feast of Fools night Could Rosie, who cared for the jewelry cases now that Kat no longer could, have hidden it to give herself an excuse to snoop?

The queen’s stomach knotted, and her head began to hurt again. Surely Rosie had not been sent by her uncle Sussex to discover how much the queen knew of his plotting against Leicester. Lest that be true, Elizabeth knew she must keep an eye on her too. It was a sorry state of affairs, the queen fumed, that at this joyous season, she couldn’t trust dear friends much more than she could her enemies.

Chapter the Eleventh

Christmas Candles

At Christmastide only, much delight of the season can be added to candles, and not only through dipping them to additional thickness. As ever, for making fine beeswax candles use linen rags to wax and roll, but with links or torches use coarse hemp. For the holidays, the wax can be scented with scents such as lavender, rosemary, or lemon verbena. Dye the molten wax red or green, expensive though it may be. Red hues can be achieved by adding ground imported sandalwood or brazilwood from East India, imported by galleys on the Thames and purchased from a booth on St. Paul’s Walk. If used at court, a rich Tudor green can be made by adding juice of spinach or crushed green wheat. Of course, such are the colorings used to make puddings, sauces, and gravies bright at table the year round
.

STATELY AND LOVELY AS THE STURDY FIR, SO STANDS
our queen, who may bend to help her people but shall never break. And should cold winds of foreign discord buffet her, she shall shed her cares like melting snow and be our guide and sign of green and sunny springtide days and years to come…”

Elizabeth heard the flattering words echo off the hammerbeam ceiling of the Great Hall. From behind the decorative screen that kept drafts from creeping down corridors, she stood listening to the Queen’s Country Players rehearse their new drama.

She knew they were planning a play that Ned had written but Robin had carefully overseen lest other disasters befall. People were yet whispering of the dead privy dresser and the severed fox’s head. Cecil had said rumors were rampant that the insults were aimed not only at Leicester but at her for championing him. Vile gossips were insinuating that a queen who could not control a court Christmas could hardly command a kingdom.

Now she and Robin were determined that all other entertainments planned for this holiday season must throw favorable light on the queen, for well they knew that stagecraft could be state-craft. Beyond that, how she hoped that her once trustworthy Ned did indeed believe those flattering words of praise he had written for this play.

With Lady Rosie and Lady Anne Carey with her, Elizabeth stepped from behind the screen into the hall near the dais the players were using for a stage. She surveyed their scenery. A wooden ladder poked above the canvas backdrop of painted snow and frozen Thames.

The first to see her, Ned’s uncle Wat, gestured for the rehearsal to halt. She was both annoyed and alarmed that Ned was not among his fellow players. She had expected to see him here and perhaps spot Jenks off in the corner, for she’d told him to keep an eye on Ned and Giles, even if Ned did catch on. Should Ned question Jenks, he was simply to say that the queen had put a second watch on Giles.

“Welcome, Your Majesty! We are most delighted to have you visit our humble efforts,” Wat Thompson told her with a grand bow immediately aped by the other actors, including the two boys dressed and bewigged to play women’s parts. The handsomer of the two was attired as richly as a queen; indeed, he sported a red wig and a crown. The curly-haired lad wore a Tudor green gown with white puffs of satin on his shoulders and atop his hat and very bushy skirts. Then Elizabeth realized he
was
a bush—a fir tree, at least.

“What is the plot of this play?” she asked, though she’d meant to inquire first where Ned had gone.

“Ah, Your Majesty, you are puzzled by the two lads’ parts,” Wat said and gestured the boys forward. “Rob is the personification of you, the beloved monarch of our realm, as the sturdy fir—though graceful, too. Look graceful, lad,” Wat muttered
sotto voce
. “And Clinton, more slender and prettier of face, is to represent you at the end of the drama, Your Majesty, as eternal queen triumphant.”

“I’ve been symbolized by a great oak once, but never by a fir.”

Even as Wat opened his mouth to reply, Giles Chatam stepped from behind him and spoke. “The fir is ever green, Your Most Gracious Majesty, ever young, strong, and supple despite the bur-dens of snow, wind, or cold—”

“Or,” she put in, noting a stuffed nightingale stuck on Rob’s shoulder, “despite birds in her branches. I am certain it is a lovely play. Shall I lend you a tiara in place of that tin-looking one?” she asked, gesturing toward Clinton’s head. She frowned at the sight of it The thing reminded her of the wire one the mummer’s doll had worn last night.

“We would be most honored,
most
honored,” Wat declared, stepping in front of Giles in turn, “and will guard it most closely. The performance is for January the third, Evergreen Day, Your Gracious Majesty.”