The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (17 page)

“What has that to do with—”

“This woman’s is the fiercest I have ever seen. There is something exceptional about her. Something I have wondered about these many years. Some are destiny’s children. I cannot say why it is so. Mistress Nell is one of them. I would swear it on my life to any who asked. Now if the two of you will excuse me, Mistress Nell can gather the books Her Majesty sent her to fetch. I must read the queen’s letter.”

He withdrew to the far corner of the room and broke the wax seal.

I saw the doctor frown.

Chapter Fifteen

Mid-June 1564

D
URING THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED
I
GREW EVER MORE
restless. Sir Gabriel’s appearance at Mortlake challenged everything I believed about the man, while Dr. Dee’s words about the mysterious force that surrounded me haunted me until I peered into the mystical mirror, searching for some hint of what he saw in my face.

God knew, my presence seemed to please the queen less than ever. She had favored me when she had determined to send me to Mortlake. But sometime after, all between us had changed. Time and again the sharp edge of her temper cut me. No service I provided seemed to satisfy. If I carried the train of her gown she claimed I rumpled it. If I fastened her necklace she swore I pinched her skin. She raised subjects well known for their controversy, pushing to gain my opinion, as if testing me in some way.

She quizzed me on religion, demanding to know if I thought it best to root out Popery harshly or curb the dissenters gently so as not to push them into rebellion. She tempted me into dangerous waters, asking what lengths God’s anointed ruler should go to in order to preserve peace. Was it just to crush rebellion before it took root? If so, should Katherine Grey not die? And what should be the fate of the woman’s son? As for the succession, was it not generous to sacrifice the man one loved most of all, wed him to a royal cousin so his sons would sit upon a throne? All the court had heard that Elizabeth wished for Dudley to marry the Scots queen. Yet was there not a trap waiting for anyone who agreed with her? Her anger at the reality of losing Dudley to Scotland? The enemies of Lord Robert ready to lash back at one foolhardy enough to espouse the cause of Dudley becoming king, even in a foreign land?

Courtiers watched me, waiting for me to lose what little footing I had with the queen, wondering what had caused this shift in her favor. I wondered, too. The constant scrutiny chafed like an ill-fitting shoe, and when evening came with its card games in the queen’s Privy Chamber or entertainments where music painted the air, Sir Gabriel’s attempts to draw me into arguments in the queen’s company only unsettled me the more.

“Mistress de Lacey has spent too much time considering More’s
Utopia,
Majesty, to be of any use in debates. Perhaps for discussions you wish to pursue with her she should read Machiavelli . . . ,”said he.

I had no doubt Wyatt had committed the author’s masterpiece to memory, and so had the queen we both served. Now, I almost felt they were in collusion. As if the queen used Wyatt’s gifts to plumb some depth I could not understand.

I waited for my chance to steal away from court duties, slip into the night-shrouded gardens where I could lose myself in calculations, trying to plumb the mysteries of the heavens. My mind itched inside my skull; only solving a puzzle that challenged every corner of my brain could soothe nerves frayed by my encounters with the queen and Gabriel Wyatt.

I had carried out my mission to Mortlake faithfully and delivered Dr. Dee’s written reply. So why did matters between the queen and me seem strained?

Perhaps the queen’s mood has nothing to do with you
. I could hear Father’s reasoning.
She may be preoccupied by some other matter and have no patience with maids of honor.
Yet I could not shed the feeling that Elizabeth Tudor watched me more closely, something in her eyes urging me to caution.

E
IGHT DAYS AFTER
my visit to Mortlake the chance to escape to the gardens arrived—a star-scattered night when I was not serving the queen and Wyatt was nowhere in sight. Slipping into the deserted Maids’ Lodgings, I rummaged through Father’s traveling chest to find the leather bundle he had carried on astronomical excursions. I added the ungainly lengths of his Saint Jacob’s staff for plotting points, and the map of the heavens covered with notations in his spidery hand. I placed the bundle on the bed, adding a corked bottle of ink, parchment, and two freshly mended quill pens.

After donning my old mantle of tawny velvet and strapping pattens on my feet to protect my slippers from mud, I paused before the gilt-framed looking glass. What mystic force had John Dee seen in me? I wondered again, glimpsing not the slightest hint of light. Only my astrolabe gleamed in the candlelight. I reached behind my nape to unfasten the chain that held the instrument. The gold disk slipped as it so often did when I removed the necklace to bathe, and I barely caught it before it rolled beneath a stool. I pinned the chain to my waist, so I would be able to use the instrument once I reached my destination without risking its loss.

Praying I would encounter no one who would detain me, I tucked the leather bundle under my arm, then hastened toward the nearest garden door. As I stepped into the night, torches spun haloes of light, reclaiming wobbling circles of lawn from the darkness so pleasure seekers could find their way through the labyrinth of walled gardens. I could hear muffled voices, the sound of laughter—lovers who had stolen away to some secluded corner, seeking privacy for their lovemaking? Or courtiers plotting the best way to gain royal favor?

Thrice in the past I had stumbled across Sir Gabriel while on some errand in the gardens. Another time I had surprised Lettice, her lips kiss swollen, while a man with an uncanny likeness to Robert Dudley retreated through the nearest garden door. But the haven I sought tonight was seldom favored by anyone—a spot near the kitchen gate with the clearest view of the sky. I made my way toward the Base Court where the kitchens lay, the gardens boasting fat cabbages and frothy carrot tops instead of flowers. Herbs for cookery and simples and for strewing smelled sweet.

Laughter echoed from the scullery as servants polished coppers, wiped plates clean. It would be hours before the kitchen staff could drop onto their pallets to sleep. I was sniffing the faint scent of roasting meat when someone called my name. Startled, I wheeled around to see a boy of about nine racing toward me, his jerkin dirt-stained, cheeks wind-burned from hours in the sun.

“Mistress, wait, I pray you!”

My stomach sank as if I had been caught in thievery. Perhaps my reaction was not so strange. I
was
bent on stealing something precious and rare at court—time alone.

“What is it?” I asked.

He snatched off his dun felt hat, regarding me as if he expected me to cuff him for his impertinence in addressing me. “Be you Mistress Elinor de Lacey? Your hair looks red, but there be an uncommon lot of ladies around here with the same.”

“I am Mistress de Lacey. Who asks for her?”

“That I cannot say.” The lad hitched up his stocking. “Only this be a most important message. I am to be paid a whole guinea if I bring you along quite secret like.”

Wariness surged inside me. What message could be so important that someone would offer such a sum? Who might be rich or rash enough to send it? Sir Gabriel maneuvering to get me alone? I frowned at the boy, remembering the queen’s warnings. “How did you know where to seek me?”

“I was told to look where the stars shone brightest. You’d be peering up at them.” Whoever sought me knew my fascination with astronomy. That made me more uneasy.

“The man who sent you . . . he was not a tall gentleman, with dark hair?”

“It were not a man at all.” The lad peered at me with eyes round as the coins he had been promised. “It be a
lady
who asks for you, Mistress. She said you would appear some clear night if I kept watch. Since tonight seemed perfect, I sneaked her in the servant’s gates when I was fetching swans to be plucked for the queen’s dinner.”

A woman was seeking me? Surely this mysterious visitor could not be mother. She would enter the palace grounds with the same pomp I had. Unless something had gone dreadfully wrong back home in Lincolnshire. It seemed a wild flight of fancy, yet who else could be seeking me here? The possibility of unnamed peril spurred me. Not wanting to be slowed by the equipment I carried, I hid my leather bundle beneath a bench, where no one would find it. I scrabbled at my waist to find Father’s astrolabe. Holding it tight as a talisman against God knew what, I followed the boy through the maze of walled gardens. My pulse drummed as one shadowy enclosure spilled into another. Tall wooden posts bearing carved animals glinted, gilt in the moonshine, the royal banners clutched in paws or hooves fluttering like ghosts. A distant fountain burbled a haunting melody, the shadows seeming to conceal my worst fears.

By the time we reached our destination, my fingers felt numb from clutching the astrolabe so tight. My gaze probed otherworldly shapes, shrubs trimmed into creatures—a griffin, a stag, a dragon with wings outspread. At first I discerned no human shape, but after a moment a figure separated from the darkness. Enveloped in a black stuff cloak, the lady did not possess my mother’s active, birdlike frame. Rather, someone short and stout stretched arms out to me. Even before her cloak fell back to reveal her face, I guessed who my visitor was. “Eppie!” I cried, hurtling into my beloved nurse’s arms.

Eppie crushed me against the bosom where I had cried childish tears, sweated out winter coughs, and snuggled to sleep. Even now, her warm lavender scent drove away any threat of nightmare. I laughed, I cried, the sweetness of our reunion piercing deep. “Oh, Eppie! It has been a hundred years since I saw you last! Where have you been? I am so glad you found me!” I was too delighted to wonder why she finally
had
.

“When I heard you were at court I could not believe it. Some men on their way to a bear baiting stopped at my sister’s inn. Dudley’s men they claimed to be. Talked about the new maid of honor—red-haired, wondered how long before she caught their master’s eye. ‘Sweet Nell’ they named her and I thought . . . I feared . . .” She stroked my hair with calloused hands. “Dear God, how could she thrust you in such danger!” Suddenly Eppie’s eyes widened with alarm when they fell on the boy. “Pay him off! Mary, Jesus, and Joseph, what he might tell—”

Fear scratched my nerves with tiny claws as I scrabbled in my pocket for a coin, pressed payment into the kitchen lad’s hand. “What is your name, boy?”

“Posthumus Thomas, Mistress. I was born after me father got crushed under a miller’s cart.”

“Posthumous Thomas. Run along now.”

“I’ll not forget you, Mistress!” He goggled at his good fortune. “I’ll not forget you
nor
the lady who sent me to find you!”

I heard Eppie whisper, beneath her breath, “God save us all.”

Clutching Eppie’s hand, I tugged her deeper into the palace grounds. “Eppie, what is wrong?”

“I would not have come if I could think of any other way. Would have sent my sister. But I could not—her poor babes . . . I would not leave them motherless.”

“You are not making sense, Eppie. Come to the Maids’ Lodgings. I will have Moll heat you up a lovely flagon of ale and send to the kitchen for something to eat.”

“Not the palace.” Alarm stitched her voice. “No one must see me. I have news that only you must hear.” A torch flared. Eppie cringed, startled as a wild animal. For the first time I got a good look at her face. What I saw turned my blood cold. Haggard, haunted, she looked as if she had not slept in weeks. She clung to the shadows as if she were hunted. Perhaps a little mad. I remembered my mother accusing Eppie of being just that. Eppie darted a glance over her shoulder. “Hasten! They may be after me even now.”

“Who might be after you?”

“I always watched for it, dreaded it would come. She has eyes everywhere. Hurry, let us secret ourselves away. There is much to tell and I must be gone before any save the kitchen boy know I was here.”

My mind leapt to the only person I could think Eppie might wish to hide from. “Mother is still at Calverley. You need not fear.”

Eppie stifled a strange laugh. We retraced the path Thomas and I had taken, through walled retreats and blocks of flowers and white sand that reminded me of a chess board stretching from the palace walls. At last, we stepped into the nook where I had hidden my bundle.

Eppie ferreted about the shrubbery, searching as if she feared some invisible army might pounce. Finally I could bear it no longer. I grasped Eppie’s hand and pulled her to a stone bench, forced her sit. Eppie clutched my fingers, and I was surprised to find I held my astrolabe as she pulled me down beside her. She clung to me so tight that the gold disk dug deep. My breath hissed between my teeth at the pain. Starting at the sound, she wrenched my palm upward, peeling open my fingers. The astrolabe glinted. “What is this?” She looked as if the disc concealed the tiny people I’d once imagined were trapped in Dr. Dee’s scrying ball, tiny hands noting every word she and I spoke.

“It is a device for measuring stars. Father gave it to me before he . . .” Even now, I could not say the word
died
.

“The good master . . .’twas his then? No evil can lurk inside it. No strange magic. He would not hurt
you
. Even if he curses me from heaven.”

“Father curse you? How could you even imagine such a thing?”