The Queene’s Christmas by Karen Harper
Elizabeth gestured for Jenks to show Robin the stiff parchments with the heavy slashes of dark lettering. “It’s someone clever with words,” Robin said, frowning at one message and then the other. “He’s clever but so evil that he’s actually enjoying this, making a game of it all. And he hates me with a passion.”
“And therefore hates and defies me,” Elizabeth added. “All right, then, Meg, remain with me, and Jenks, be off with you.”
“Sit again, please,” Robin pleaded, patting the bed.
Instead, she shoved the nearest chair close and sat, leaning for-ward to hold his hand. “I assure you, I have a list of those who could want to shame or harm you, Robin. Sussex at the top, for obvious reasons.”
“I’d wager my entire fortune on that.”
“But he is so obvious, we must not jump to judgment. The wily Scot MacNair obviously resents your slighting, and therefore insulting, his queen. Lord Darnley and his mother detest you, since they want Darnley to wed Mary and probably think you're simply playing hard-to-catch with her, though I have reason to believe Darnley did not harm Hodge. Some suspicion for Hodge’s demise has been thrown on that new blond player, Giles Chatam, but I can’t fathom he’d dare all this. Oh, and have you had harsh words of late with Vicar Bane or his master Bishop Grindal?”
“I have indeed. A fortnight ago Bane warned me in no uncertain terms to steer completely clear of you but for council business. He believes I’m a bad influence, of course, a libertine who draws you even farther from the stern Protestant faith.”
“His version of it,” she amended. “Cecil and his wife have Puritan leanings, yet they are hardly harbingers croaking doom for such things as snowballs and a little fun at Yule.”
“Exactly. At any rate, I saw Bane huddled with Sussex, so he may have put Bane up to warning me off. As Bane snidely put it, our relationship, yours and mine, my queen, might look morally compromising if I had the queen’s ear—and perhaps had even more of her than that.”
“He said that? The weasel! Then he is to be watched even more than I thought. And I saw him throw down his mumming mask tonight as if it were a gauntlet and stalk out early. Pray God he didn’t do this to you and then don armor to try to shame me with that crude mummery of the dolls. My father was right to outlaw mummery however much everyone loves the tradition.”
“Speaking of the mummery tonight,” he said, “pray tell me about those dolls.”
“All right The last mummer to leave the hall pressed together two small figures which mimicked us in a most lewd way.”
“Or in a loving way?” he countered. “Lucky dolls.”
Though his grin was more of a grimace, she at least knew she had her Robin back. But things were different now. She would allow him to help her in the investigation. Cecil might balk, but she could use the extra help, and Robin must now be protected at all costs.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” she told him. “Why haven’t your servants returned?”
“I gave them leave to watch the festivities in the hall, then take their leisure with the kitchen workers tonight,” he explained, scooting down in the bed as if he’d take a nap, “but it’s not of my servants I must speak.” He squinted toward Meg, then added, even more quietly, “You see, now I do recall seeing a single person on that staircase tonight”
“Meg?” the queen whispered.
“No, Ned Topside.”
The next day, December 30, was Bringing in the Boar Day, originally a time to replace the domestic hogs supposedly eaten so far during the holidays with fresh meat. But, despite wanting to cling to tradition, the queen canceled the hunt, claiming cold weather. The truth was she could not face some other dreadful occurrence. She still was not sleeping well, for the same horrid dream had disturbed her more than once.
In it, she and Robin walked the riverbank after their wedding. The marriage was not the nightmare of it, for she rather relished that, at least until the horrid part began. Down they went, holding hands, their feet and legs, then bodies, sucked into the bog along the banks. And all around them, as river water rushed in to drown them, stood a pack of dogs howling at the skies and baying for their blood.
Even now, she shook her head to clear it. She must ignore such sick fancies and solve what crimes had already been committed. She must stop whatever dreadful deed her tormentor planned for New Year’s Eve and the first day of 1565, the seventh year of her reign.
“You wanted to see me, Your Majesty?” Ned’s voice carried from the door of her privy apartments. She had told her yeomen guards to let him in where she and Cecil sat catching up on writs and decrees that could not wait for the new year.
“We did,” she said, gesturing him in. She could tell that he was not happy to see Cecil and that he took note when her favorite yeoman guard, Clifford, stepped into the room instead of simply closing the door behind him.
“Ah,” Ned said, “Secretary Cecil here, too. I heard there was a Privy Plot Council meeting earlier this morning without me, so I assume you want to catch me up on everything now. Your Grace, must I really stick so tight to Giles Chatam? He’s starting to think I favor him, when I want him out the door when the players head for the shires again.”
“Would you like to sit, Ned?” she asked.
“If it please you,” he said and sat across the table from her and Cecil.
“Anything else to report on Giles?” she asked.
“He’s got the heart of a rustic but the brain of a courtier, I fear. Sad to say, if he can’t win me over—which he cannot—he’d probably just as soon knock me on the head to get my post”
“Knock you on the head? An interesting turn of phrase. Are you hinting that he might have knocked the earl out and wants to do the same to you?”
“I would not go that far—yet,” he said.
“Then how far would you go?” Cecil demanded.
Ned had seldom been afraid, but he was now. Surely Her Grace could not believe, after all they’d been through together, that he was guilty of heinous acts. Ned knew how she still cared for Robert Dudley, her damned precious Robin. Why, if Dudley hadn’t been suspected of murdering his wife several years ago, he’d probably be in Elizabeth’s lap in more ways than one, and Ned would give anything to counter that.
But now he was starting to be terrified he wouldn’t be around to keep that from happening. A few years back when the queen had discovered Meg had defied and lied to her, there’d been hell to pay, and that wasn’t even a question of murder. However much she cared for Meg and valued her skills, the queen had banished her from court.
“How far would I go?” Ned threw back at Cecil, knowing he was about to play one of the most important scenes of his life. “I’d go to hell and back to help Her Grace.”
“Then tell us,” Cecil went on as if he’d suddenly become the queen’s inquisitor, “why the Earl of Leicester saw you on that staircase where he was struck and from which he was, no doubt, carried or dragged to his room to be trussed like a dead boar. Ned, you really should have volunteered that you saw him rushing up that back staircase, to help jog his memory.”
Ned’s insides cartwheeled, but he fought to remain calm. “I thought it best to let the earl tell his tale while things were fresh in his mind, and then the queen ordered me away. The plain facts are that I saw him run out of the mumming preparations last night and thought he might need help, so I followed him. Of course, I would have brought all this up later in a Privy Plot meeting—if I’d been invited to the meeting.”
“You say you thought you’d be of help to the earl, but you haven’t been, have you?” Cecil parried, folding his arms over his chest. “To him or us?”
Ned didn’t like the staging here, sitting across a table facing both queen and Cecil, but too late to change that now. He’d have to carry this off with commanding eye contact. “I called to him,” he explained, speaking slowly, “but he was a ways ahead of me on that twisting staircase. When I caught up to him, he said I should head back down
“On your own?” Cecil interrupted. “It seems no one recalls helping you don your armor, and most remarked they needed aid with it.”
“Yes, on my own, my lord,” he said, trying to keep his rising dread in check. Cecil had just given away the fact that they’d been questioning others besides Leicester. “After all, I’ve been in and out of stage armor half my life, and that’s what that was, most of it,” Ned plunged on. “The weather was too cold to send someone to the Tower to fetch pieces from the royal armory, so some of it was the property of my uncle’s troupe.”
“Yes, we heard. But back to the topic at hand.”
Ned swallowed hard. Cecil was too wily to give things away without intending to, so he must mean to make him sweat a bit Now he’d let on they were asking the Queen’s Country Players about his behavior. Ned had not tried to change the subject just now, and curse Cecil for implying that in front of Her Grace. He prayed they hadn’t questioned Meg about his trying to get her to vouch for him, because she’d said she wouldn’t He to the queen or even to Cecil.
“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—
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.