Love's Labyrinth (6 page)

“It’s the Queen,” Olivia replied, feeling her own face flush and then pale. “We have to be careful. Watch and do what I do.”

And then there was no more time for words, for the entire party was upon them, and Geoffrey was bowing low, a polished courtly bow that was in some way subtly different from the theatrical bows Olivia was used to seeing, but there was no time to consider in just what way, for she, too, was sinking into a low curtsy that brought her nearly to the ground, and Alison, Olivia saw out of the corner of her eye, was imitating Olivia with a grace that made her suddenly grateful that her friend was such an accomplished athlete.

“And this, my lord, we assume is your brother, Geoffrey,” a female voice, surprisingly low and lyrical, but commanding, spoke from just above Olivia’s head, and her heart fluttered in her chest. There could be no doubt from the tone who was speaking. “A scholar of some repute, I trow? Dr. Dee has mentioned him to me in passing, my lord. You must be very proud.”

Geoffrey gently raised both women to their feet as he himself straightened, and Olivia met the bright-eyed scrutiny of one of the most formidable women in all of history.

“Geoffrey Talcott, at your service, Your Majesty. It is an honor this poor scholar never hoped to have.”

“You speak as prettily as your brother, sirrah. I see whatever else you lack, it isn’t want of manner.” Elizabeth nodded approvingly, her gaze lingering on Geoffrey’s shoulders. Olivia felt almost embarrassed by the frank, assessing stare. She hadn’t expected such bold scrutiny from someone her father had revered almost as a goddess. She stole a glance at the courtiers who crowded around Elizabeth. Nearly all of them were male, and most were uncommonly good-looking. Elizabeth might well be the Virgin Queen, but she certainly had an eye for a handsome young man. No wonder she smiled up at Nicholas Talcott with such coquettish charm. “And who are his companions, my lord?” continued the Queen, turning a far less favorable look upon first Olivia and then Alison.

Nicholas himself looked puzzled as he opened his mouth to speak, but Geoffrey cut in, answering with a smoother lie than Olivia would have thought him capable of fabricating. “Cousins, Your Majesty, but newly arrived from the North.”

Elizabeth raised one questioning eyebrow and looked the women over carefully, assessing their clothing with a jaundiced and well-practiced eye. “Indeed, Master Talcott?” It was obvious that her brain was working furiously, doubtlessly assessing the attire that was in actual fact nothing but a semblance of proper Elizabethan dress. Beside her, Nicholas’s dark brows were gathered in one thunderous line across his face. He knows something’s up, thought Olivia. If he knows anything at all about Geoffrey’s theories, he has a good idea where we’ve come from. Nicholas had opened his mouth once more to speak, when Olivia, taking a deep breath, interrupted him.

“Distant cousins, Your Majesty,” she said, aping Geoffrey’s accent as best she could. She stepped forward and sank once more into a curtsy that she hoped was authentic. “My name is Olivia Lindsley and this is my sister, Alison. We are deeply honored to meet you.”

“A forward chit,” murmured Elizabeth. “Are you, now, girl? Stand up and let me look at you. Such clothing as yours I’ve never seen outside a mummers’ show.”

Olivia rose slowly, forcing her face to stay smooth. She was aware of undercurrents running through the crowd.

Lindsley was a Scottish name, and it had raised a stir amongst the courtiers, who were crowding ever closer.

She raised her eyes to the Queen’s. Elizabeth gave her a smooth-faced stare, and then, with the abrupt change in manner chronicled by the contemporary accounts Olivia had read, dismissed her. “She looks thin and sallow, as one must when bred in the North. What say you, Lord Nicholas? The air of southern England is healthier, no doubt, and produces far more beautiful women.”

“Your Majesty is, as usual, quite correct,” Nicholas replied. This time his thunderous look went right to his brother, who smiled weakly in response. “And my brother,” he gave the word an ominous emphasis that Olivia didn’t think boded well for any extended welcome, “was about to take our two” here he gave Geoffrey another baleful stare, “
guests
inside and show them to their lodgings. They must be wearied by their journey.”

“What do they here?” put in one of the courtiers. He was a burly man, big chested and bulky, dressed nearly as fantastically as the Queen, in green embellished with tiny gems that sparkled in the sunlight. His gray hair was clipped close to his head, but the lower half of his face was hidden by a full gray beard. His legs were slender in the tight-fitting hose, but his paunch hung over his sword belt, from which dangled an elaborately decorated scabbard. He gripped the hilt of his sword and leaned over the Queen with a certain proprietary air.

“My sweet Robin, do you think assassins hide in women’s clothing these days?” Elizabeth chided. She tapped Nicholas’s arm and tossed her head coquettishly. “Have you any more relations hiding about, my lord? My lord of Leicester will be poking about beneath the beds and twixt the stairs ‘til he uncovers all your secrets.”

Nicholas’s face was murderous, and Geoffrey made a little choking sound that might have been a word that stuck in his throat. Olivia knew at once that the speaker was none other than Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth’s favorite since girlhood and the one man in England who’d come closest to marrying the Queen. The silence stretched out ominously, and Olivia, glancing at both brothers in turn, realized neither was capable of answering. There was much tension here, she thought.

With a bright smile and an aim to defuse the mounting stress, she said, “We—we but thought to sing Your Majesty a song—a song to welcome you to Talcott Forest. We were about to take our places when you came upon us—we were somewhat startled by your arrival.”

“Ah.” Elizabeth smiled. “How clever of you, my lord.”

She raked the women once again with the same intense gaze, but smiled up at Nicholas, as though the explanation satisfied. Nicholas returned the Queen’s smile with an uncomfortable one of his own that bordered on a grimace.

“Have we so discomfited you, then, that the song is out of the question? Or will you sing it for us now, maiden?”

Olivia gulped, thinking quickly. “As Your Majesty wishes.” She glanced at Alison, who was staring at her with a shocked look. “Just, um, follow along, Alison, and Geoffrey, you know your part?” She prayed that the much-vaunted Elizabethan ability to harmonize was one that had been encultured in Geoffrey. She drew a deep breath, hoped that Shakespeare had borrowed from popular culture, and launched into the first song that came into her head.

Sigh, no more, ladies, sigh no more;

men were deceivers, ever,

One foot on land and one on shore,

to one thing constant, never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

and be ye blithe and bonny,

Forgetting your cares and woe

with a hey, nonny, nonny!

Alison hummed, a little off-key, but Geoffrey managed to produce a smooth harmony that blended all three voices into one melodious whole.

Elizabeth looked first a bit taken aback, but smiled graciously as the song came to an end. “So you’d bid me have no care for men, would you, mistress?” she asked as the song ended. She clapped her hands with a sly grin at both Nicholas and Leicester. “Well done, wench. You’re a saucy thing, and you have an able voice. Take this, with our gratitude.” From her belt she removed two white gloves, lavishly embroidered with pearls, and handed one to Alison, who looked startled, and the other to Olivia, who immediately sank into a deep curtsy. Geoffrey bowed, pulling Alison down beside him.

“You are a most gracious majesty,” murmured Geoffrey.

Elizabeth smiled appreciatively as both Olivia and Alison murmured thanks. Olivia dared a peek at Nicholas.

He was standing stock-still, his expression still thunderous and not at all mollified by the Queen’s fortunate reception of the song. “We’re on our way to the pavilion, Geoffrey,” Nicholas said through clenched teeth. “Will you join us as soon as you’ve seen to our guests?”

“In a moment,” Geoffrey replied. “Mistress Alison felt a trifle unwell.”

Olivia, watching the Queen beneath lowered lashes, saw Elizabeth raise one eyebrow and step back instinctively.

“’Tis just the heat, Your Majesty,” she murmured. “My sister and I aren’t used to this weather.”

Elizabeth looked relieved. “Who could be? This air is frightfully close.” She tapped Nicholas’s arm. “Lead on, Lord Talcott. ’Tis best that none of us dither any longer in the hot sun. Let us away into the shade.”

Nicholas bowed smoothly, an elegant, courtly bow that was at once so natural and so polished, it put Geoffrey’s to shame. There were more actors than she could count who would give an arm to be able to move that gracefully. She noticed that he walked with the same easy grace, and that the lines of his shoulders beneath the embroidered doublet were broad, and tapered to a narrow waist and slim hips that even the puffed Venetian breeches could not hide. No wonder Elizabeth leaned upon his arm, glancing up at him as flirtatiously as a girl, despite her age, which in this year had to be at least fifty or fifty-five, thought Olivia, calculating rapidly.

She sank into a deep curtsy as Nicholas led the Queen and her party past. She dared another peek through her lashes, and noticed another man following closely at the Queen’s heels, one who seemed out of place among all the gaudily dressed courtiers. He was a tall, spare man, dressed in unadorned and unrelieved black, and his expression was stern and completely at variance with the laughing courtiers. In contrast to this man, Leicester, the Queen’s sweet Robin, reminded her of an aging football player—a big man softening to fat after years of indulgent living—and he scowled at Nicholas as the Queen’s laughter rose above the rest in response to some jest.

Beside her, she could feel Geoffrey trembling as the Queen’s retinue went past. They rose, and Geoffrey, taking both their arms, led them firmly in the direction of the house, moving quickly past the curious glances of the courtiers. “Come with me, mistresses. Quickly.”

Without any more conversation, he led them into the house. Olivia scarcely had time to absorb the furnishings of the high-ceilinged hall, but noticed that a huge fireplace dominated one end of the room, and that two other fireplaces, both so high a tall man could stand inside them, flanked both sides. The floor was covered with long reeds—rushes, thought Olivia—and from the rushes rose a woodsy, herbal scent. She noticed lavender heads strewn among the rushes. A raised dais at the opposite end of the room from the fireplace was placed in front of an ornately worked screen. Without pausing, Geoffrey led them behind the screen and indicated a staircase that led from the hall to the floor above. Olivia noticed a sort of balcony that overhung the hall. The musicians’ gallery, she thought, but all within the hall was quiet. The feast, the revel—whatever they called it—was obviously being held outside.

“Come.” He gestured, indicating that the women should climb the stairs. Alison looked dubious, but obeyed. They followed Geoffrey down a short passageway, past two doors on either side, and then paused as he pushed open a third door. “In here.”

The two women stepped past him into an Elizabethan bedroom. A huge bed with heavily carved posts and headboard dominated the entire room. The wood was dark, but not nearly as black as similar furnishings Olivia had often seen in museums and restored houses. It was hung with embroidered hangings of red wool. They looked, thought Olivia, stepping closer, as her curiosity got the better of her, as though they’d seen better days. A table and two chairs stood next to a relatively small, diamond-paned window. The floor was bare, and the floorboards, though clean, were worn smooth. The walls were white, as bare as the floors, and the ceiling was relatively low.

“You must both wait here,” Geoffrey said, indicating the chairs. “I’ll return as soon as—”

“Wait!” cried Alison. “What do you mean, wait here? For how long? We can’t wait here—we have to get back to our own time. Where are you going?”

Geoffrey glanced from one to the other with an apologetic look. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, mistress.” He glanced over his shoulder, and, shutting the door behind him, stepped into the room. “You must understand that the Queen’s visit is a great honor, and one that my brother has most devoutly sought.” He looked frustrated for a moment, and then spoke rapidly, in a low voice, as though he were afraid the very walls might overhear and report their conversation. “You should know, mistresses, that the fortunes of my family have suffered much since King Harry decided he knew better than the Pope of Rome how best an Englishman should worship God. We Talcotts have always been Catholics: loyal to the King, but loyal also to the Pope, and ever mindful of the Lord’s injunction to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. But those are sometimes dangerous sentiments, even now, under our Gracious Majesty. She can blow hot and cold, and Nicholas, who desperately hopes to restore the fortunes of our family—”

“Then why not convert to the new religion?” interrupted Alison. “What difference can it make?”

Geoffrey looked a trifle shocked, but recovered quickly with a wry grin. “I see you come from a far more practical age than ours, mistress. Nicholas thinks much as you do, and has, in fact, gone over to the new religion, but allegiances, and the perception of allegiances—even to an outworn creed—die hard in ours. We Talcotts are seen as Catholic because our father and grandfather before him were Catholic. I am not so sure what difference it makes, either, but in the meantime, until he proves his loyalty to the Queen, such a thing as your appearance in this time and place—” He broke off, and his mouth was grim.

Suddenly he looked very old, and Olivia realized that the stresses of the sixteenth century were every bit as acute as those of the modern age. “We could be burned for witchcraft, if it were suspected who you are,” he finished.