The Queene’s Christmas (17 page)

“With his new orders on it, I wonder?”

“Be sure to tell the queen that’s what it looked like to you.”

“And now he’s paying Giles!” she cried as Sussex extended coins to the handsome young man, just as he had to the redheaded pewterer before.

“Seeing is believing.”

“And so, I’ll stay with the earl and you stick to Giles, but not together.”

Her cheeks were roses, and the excitement of the chase seemed to make her usually pale beauty bloom, even in this big barn of a place.

“Why not together?” he challenged and squeezed her waist. “We’ll be careful.”

But their quarries separated, and Meg went her way, probably back to the palace, behind the Earl of Sussex. With Ned shadowing him, Giles walked out of the cathedral and strolled down the bitterly cold, broad and windy Cheapside, gazing at the ornate swinging signs of goldsmiths’ shops as if it were the mildest June day. Giles had told his fellows in the actors’ company that he wanted to walk the city whatever the weather, and that seemed to be the truth. Hell’s gates, but Ned had no intention of gawking at this man while he gawked at London. He was heading home.

But as he strode back through the nave, then out into the wind again, as if it were a sign from heaven that he’d been ignoring Meg too long, there she was again, huddled behind the big gray hulk of St. Paul’s Cross.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, making her jump again. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders, how-ever much he was trembling, maybe not only from the cold, but the closeness to her again.

“You won’t believe it,” she said, pulling him behind the cross, “but Sussex went inside to see Bishop Grindal, and that croaking raven Vicar Bane met him at the door to let him in. I’ve never seen Bane as much as smile, but he out-and-out grinned, and they started whispering right away!”

“The plot thickens,” Ned said, “and plotting they must be.”

Chapter the Ninth

A Christmas Fool

The curdled custard called “fool” is an excellent dish for all the year, but with the dates and caraway comfits, fit for a special Yule dinner for young or old, poor or rich or royal: Take a pint of the sweetest, thickest cream, and set it on the fire in a clean scoured skillet, and put into it sugar, cinnamon, and a nutmeg cut into 4 quarters, and so boil it well. Take the yolks of 4 hen’s eggs, and beat them well with a little sweet cream, then take the nutmeg out of the cream, then put in the eggs, and stir it exceedingly, till it be thick. Then take fine white manchet bread and cut it into thin pieces, as much as will cover a dish bottom. Pour half the cream into the dish, then lay your bread over it, then cover the bread with the rest of the cream, and so let stand till it be cold. Then strew it over with caraway comfits, and prick up some cinnamon comfits, and some sliced dates, and so serve it up
.

“I’VE BROUGHT YOU A STURDY MARE WITH STUDDED
shoes for the river ice,“ Robin told Elizabeth as he bowed before her in her presence chamber early that afternoon. “I know, consummate horsewoman that you are, you would appreciate a grander mount, but this one’s closer to the ground, and I’m sure you don’t want your usual horse chancing a fall and broken leg.”

“His or mine? Well, Robin, as you are Lord of Misrule by my own hand this season, I had best ride out with you to see how my people are doing. I believe it will do me good.”

Yet she felt torn as she went into her privy chamber to don warm boots, cloak, and hat. She wanted to stay here until Jenks reported from Greenwich and Meg returned from following Sussex. Cecil was down on the riverbank with her guard Clifford, ascertaining that the twelve stones were indeed hewn from the foundation of her palace. Kat was napping while everyone else went hither and yon, preparing gifts for the New Year’s exchange or arranging their fantastical costumes for the mumming this evening.

But the queen refused to be kept prisoner in her own palace, and she did want to be out with her people and with Robin. She was taking no chances she would be made to look the fool or put herself in danger. She rode out between Robin and Harry with Rosie and three other ladies in her wake. Four yeomen guards were mounted, and ten others walked the ice, keeping their distance but also keeping her in their sight.

The cold and the thrill of riding on the river invigorated her. After yesterday’s storm, the sky was a shattering blue, and the sun-light off the expanse of ice was almost blinding.

“It’s like another world,” she told Robin as they slowly walked their horses straight out from the palace. Her sometimes sooty, dirty city seemed to sparkle, as if she rode the gold, gem-studded streets of heaven. When the Thames was water, she thought, it never looked as wide as this. From the palace to the broad bend that hid distant London Bridge, she could see her people as busy as ants, working to build their Frost Fair. However cold, they looked happy and so festive that her oppressive mood lifted even more.

“Needless to say,” Robin told her, “the closer you get to the city proper, the more activity there is. Oh, by the way, with your gracious permission, my queen, I thought I’d plan something special for New Year’s Eve. I’ve ordered my men to explode small bits of gunpowder on die ice—much noise and flash to bring in the new year. We’ll save the rockets and fire wheels for Twelfth Night.”

“As Lord of Misrule, you are in charge of all that.”

The wind whipped their words away in puffs of breath. “Good day to you,” she called to a group of men hammering to erect a stall. Amazed it was their queen, they cheered and huzzahed, which made others come running and sliding. Elizabeth saw that some citizens had built bonfires on the ice and were cooking food; one enterprising lad had cut a hole through and was fishing.

“Robin, look at that plug of ice he’s pulled out. The river has frozen to at least a foot thick here! I don’t think even your gun-powder blasts could break that ice.”

Their gazes caught and held. Robin sucked in a deep breath, and his nostils flared. He was, she mused, like the powerful gunpowder he believed was the future of warfare. Like her, he was of volatile temperament; together they were match to saltpeter in a blast of heat and light. But gunpowder could blow everything apart.

Not wanting to be seen lurking outside the bishop’s house, Meg and Ned hied themselves back toward Whitehall, rehearsing all they had to tell the queen. Meg was so excited to be with Ned she almost forgot to breathe. It had been so long since just the two of them had worked together.

“At least we’ve discovered something to pursue,” Ned said.

“It will be your best defense if you think Her Grace and Cecil believe you could have been involved,” Meg tried to encourage him. “Dreadful how being part of the Privy Plot Council soon has you suspecting everyone. Next, we’ll be thinking poor Kat’s in on this, and then I’ll know we’ve taken leave of our senses.”

“Let’s stop off at this tavern to get warm,” he urged and steered her toward the Rose and Crown.

Despite how she was enjoying her time with him, she almost panicked. This was hardly like old times when Ned taught her to carry herself like the queen, to talk properly, and to read in those heady days she came to care for him. So much had changed.

“But we're almost back,” she protested.

“Just for a few moments. To warm up.”

“I should return this cloak you so sweetly—generously,” she amended, “loaned me. I can’t be walking into Whitehall in it anyway.

“Jenks would understand.”

“He wouldn’t understand us spending time in a tavern, now would he?”

“But this is the very place my uncle’s troupe played for a day or two, so I thought we’d best ask a few questions here, to be able to report to Her Majesty how Giles behaved then. Actually, if we weren’t so chilled, we ought to visit the inn where I found them and inquire there, too. Meg, this won’t take long,” he wheedled. “Jenks will understand, as he’s always devoted at any cost to Her Majesty’s best interests.”

Despite her better judgment, she went.

Shading her eyes in the blaze of sun on ice, Elizabeth turned her horse reluctantly toward the palace. Cecil and Clifford were no longer outside by the palace’s foundations. Rather, a mounted man who looked familiar was there on the snowy bank.

“Robin,” she said, pointing, “that man ahorse near the palace directly under my apartment windows. Is that not Simon Mac-Nair?”

“I believe it is, my queen, for I recognize his Scottish border mare. He wanted studded shoes on it and on another fine beast he said belonged to Duncan Forbes, his messenger to the Scots queen.”

Elizabeth turned to look Robin full in the face. “Have you ever sent notes to
that
queen by MacNair’s messenger?”

“Never, I swear it,” he vowed, hastily crossing his heart like a fond lad.

“You did not entrust to him a privy letter saying Queen Mary should not consider you for her husband?”

His cheeks colored, more than they had in the wind. “No, I sent my own man with that.”

“I don’t believe the Lord of Misrule must tell the truth,” she said, looking away from him, “but then neither do most men believe it is a necessity.”

“Your Grace, you wound me sore to imply such. I knew Kat was parroting your words the night before last when we told our stories and she denounced men.”

“You like to tell stories, I warrant,” she shot back. “I’ve not forgotten MacNair’s mention of that large portrait of Queen Mary in your privy rooms, my Earl of Leicester. Come on, then,” she cried, and urged her mount forward, “but I shall speak with Sir Simon alone.”

Though he looked as if he’d argue more, Robin kept her entourage back as Elizabeth, still mounted, approached MacNair.

“There is great excitement in the air, Your Majesty!” the Scot called jauntily to her and swept off his feathered cap in a grand gesture.

She did not move her horse onto the bank itself but stayed at the edge of the ice. Staring hard at him, she replied, “Since the view is so lovely out here, Sir Simon, why are you studying this ragged hole in the wall?”

“I would never have noted it, but I saw Secretary Cecil trying to rebuild it, or, shall I say, fitting stones into these holes. Is he also head of your building repair office, Your Grace?”

“You were there the day of the hunt,” she said, deciding to challenge this man instead of jest with him or put him in his place for his subtle impudence. “You saw someone sent me a box of stones, and, amazingly, they came from there. I must say, someone has a sick sense of humor—a fool’s sense of humor, and here we are now on the Feast of Fools day.”

She studied him closely, for she had positioned herself so that he must stare into the afternoon sun to face her. Not a flicker of guilt or even further interest crossed his broad countenance at that sally. She’d best try again.

“Where is your messenger whose horse you asked to be shod with studs?” she asked.

“I don’t rightly know, Your Grace, as Forbes headed north the day before yesterday with a letter to Her Majesty in Edinburgh. Sad to say he probably was caught in the snowstorm, but he’ll fight his way on northward. We Scots are a hardy lot, you know.”

“I do know. And what did you report to your queen?”

“That I wished her the heartiest and healthiest New Year, and told her I would soon send her a fine gift By the way, some Scots call New Year’s Eve Hogmanay, you know, Your Majesty.”

“A strange name and not, I warrant, because you have many roasted hogs on that day?”

“It’s spelled Hog-m-a-n-a-y, Your Grace, though most north of the border can’t spell worth a groat”

“Are you implying that since I misspelled it, I would make a good Scot?”

“But you could only be a queen, Your Majesty, and then we would have one queen too many in fair Scotland.”

“When I became queen there in place of my cousin Mary, I would dub the day Queenmanay and order both roasted hogs and Christmas fool custards for all my loyal Scots subjects. I shall see you at the feast this Feast of Fools, will I not, my Scottish lord?”

He gave a hearty laugh at her wordplay, and at the moment she rather liked the man. “You will see me but not recognize me,” he said, “for I will be with the group of mumming men performing for Your Most Gracious Majesty. And I hear we are not allowed to talk but only sing—or laugh.”

Their gazes met and held. Apparently open and honest, seemingly bluff and good-natured, Sir Simon MacNair appeared to be a hail-fellow-well-met. But the queen knew better: Like all political creatures—actually, like all men—he bore watching. She’d known that from the first Christmas she could recall, when her father had called her his little dearest on one day and named her bastard of a whore the next.

Once Ned convinced Meg to go into the Rose and Crown with him, he felt very nervous, and that wasn’t like him. Was it suddenly because it seemed as if he were courting her, or because he had so much at stake convincing the queen to believe Giles was not to be trusted? Whether or not Giles was guilty, Ned needed him to look guilty. Not that he’d want the pretty boy to be arrested, of course, for if it began to look bad for him, he’d tip Giles off and suggest he flee London and never return.

“You're frowning something dreadful,” Meg said as he seated her on a bench in the back corner of the common room near the hearth. Unlike the other day, the place was nearly deserted.