The Queen's Dwarf A Novel (13 page)

“You always had the most passionate heart when it came to injustice.”

“My
feelings
are of no use to anyone unless I act on them, Mamie.”

I saw the queen’s cheeks flush, heard the resolve in her tone. I searched for an opening to speak—about what? I was to make the queen laugh. Priests being hanged, drawn, and quartered were hardly amusing.

“You can do nothing at this moment,” Saint-Georges soothed. “Allow yourself time away from this misery. Gather strength so you will better be able to fight.”

“I do not know how to fight this, Mamie.”

I considered dancing up to her with an imaginary sword, reminding her I was to be her champion, but Saint-Georges stroked the queen’s shoulder and the moment for action seemed lost.

“The way will appear, Your Majesty.”

The queen laughed without mirth, and I remembered the delight rippling from her throat the night before. “How will ‘the way’ appear? By magic?”

Instinct shoved me. This time I listened. I swept forward in my strange garb. “Perhaps inspiration will spring from a pie,” I suggested in perfect French.

Murmurs of surprise filled the room. “You speak French!” Her Majesty exclaimed. “Why did I not know this?”

“More important, why did the dwarf hide it until now?” Madame Saint-Georges demanded.

“I sought only to honor the wishes of the king. I was told His Majesty preferred English.” I feigned confusion, glancing from Saint-Georges to the queen. “Majesty, I beg you, forgive me if I was mistaken.” I prayed my explanation would satisfy her. The queen smiled.

“Whatever the king prefers, here in my household we speak French. How beautiful your accent is!” she exclaimed. “Did you travel there? Oh, have you seen how beautiful it is when fields of lavender are in bloom? The way the sun catches on the chestnut trees? And the music in people’s voices when they speak!”

“I have smelled lavender. My mother kept a sprig tucked in her chest of clothes.” She said Father had given it to her when they were courting. His first wife had died after Ann was born. He had needed a mother for his child. It was the only time he had ever seemed like a lover.

“I had never been beyond the boundaries of Oakham before coming here, Majesty,” I confessed. “But I’ve heard France is a fairyland, and even its castles have spires and elegance far different from England’s own.”

“Tutors tried to teach me English before I came here, but I am still not very good at it.” She made a face. “It is like the thick-tongued lowing of cows. Your French is well spoken, Jeffrey. How proud your tutor must have been of your accent!”

“I never studied under a tutor, only scraped up whatever learning I could. Some Huguenots moved in near my father’s cottage. When they spoke, the language sounded so beautiful, I grew hungry to learn it. I was hungry to learn anything.” I stopped before I could finish the sentence: anything that carried me beyond the ugliness of the shambles.

I groped for a way to shift the conversation in another direction—something to make her smile and to hide my vulnerability as Goodfellow’s cloak concealed my patched-together clothes. My clothes. “Majesty, I know I have only just arrived here. But there is a matter I blush to bring to your attention. It is only a small boon.”

A pained line dug at the corner of the queen’s mouth, the animation of moments before gone. I was aware how many times a day people must ask for royal favors. “What is this boon?”

“Last night, you vowed I would have the finest the court had to offer.”

How weary she looked. “What is it you want?”

Surreptitiously, I slipped one hand to my waistband. Hooking my thumb under the knot I had rigged to hold up Archie’s breeches, I gave a tug. The breeches nearly tumbled down and I caught them with comic exaggeration. “I was wondering—might we begin with a ball of royal twine? These breeches are cowardly fellows, determined to flee down my legs to the floor.”

Her lovely face transformed, charmingly tender and earnest. “Mamie! My sewing case.” That lady rushed to a nearby cupboard, opened it. I saw skeins of embroidery silks and wondered if even artist Goodfellow knew there were so many colors in the world.

Once the elegant box was delivered, the queen laid hold of scissors in the shape of a long-billed bird. I gaped, stunned as she snipped off a length of ribbon that decorated her gown. “Will this do, Sir Jeffrey?” she asked as she tied the sash about my waist. “You did vow to serve as my champion. You should wear your queen’s favor.”

Her luminous brown eyes sank a hook in my heart. I could feel them drawing me in. I bowed, flinging off Goodfellow’s cloak, baring my ridiculousness on purpose. Laughter rose from the ladies and even the queen herself.

“I fear you are shrinking like a sugar cone left in the rain,” she said. “Have a care, or there will be nothing left of you!”

The queen clapped her hands, calling for her own seamstresses, and in no time the chamber was awash in materials to fashion a wardrobe worthy of a queen’s fool. Mamie Saint-Georges had the gentleman usher place me on the table, this reminder of my first encounter with Buckingham helping me break the spell the queen’s sorrowful gaze had cast.

Her women wrapped me in fabrics, touching me in places no woman save my mother ever had. They stripped me to my shirt, then pulled that off as well, despite my protests. I shivered, clutching a bit of fabric like Adam’s fig leaf. Plump bosoms swelled above their décolletage as they bent over me. The bare skin brushed my arms; feminine fingers measured from ankle to crotch.

Mamie Saint-Georges strayed far too close, and I could not hide my body’s reaction. She giggled. “It seems Lord Minimus’s parts are in working order, though they be small!” I fought the urge to dive under the mountain of tawny velvets, green brocades, and blue damasks. I wanted the queen to chastise her. Or defend me? But she played with the single-minded delight of a child, ignoring the unpleasant. I had to salvage what I could of my dignity.

“Her Majesty knows it is not the height of a lover that matters, but his devotion. In that, even Sergeant Evans cannot outstrip me.”

“Oh, Mamie! Lord Minimus is a perfect name for him! Think how cunning he and Sergeant Evans will be when they play together in our masques!” The queen smiled as she held a bit of trim near my hair to see if it suited me. “What games we can play with them!”

That was what this all boiled down to, I reminded myself. A game. One I had only hoped to survive. But as I looked at the wealth spread about me—tiny pearls to be stitched on doublets, gold braid and lace like spider’s webs, I understood Archie’s greed. When Queen Henrietta Maria tired of playing, I would carry away whatever gifts she lavished now.

I would study to learn what made her smile—pry tiny sparkling moments out of the rocky ground the rest of the world forced her to tread. The flash of her smile made me eager to mine for more.

Take care,
Buckingham’s warning whispered inside me. It was a cliff’s edge I walked—one that could crumble should I lean to either side. I knew I must never forget the queen saw me as a toy. I had to see her as a “thing,” as well—an object that could move Samuel closer to a decent future. Fill the table back at Oakham, make my mother’s life and Ann’s not so hard. As for my own—there were valuables I might take with me when I left. Not the hoard of trinkets Archie had amassed, but, rather, skills and knowledge.

I looked down at the letters that were scattered around my feet and sighed.

“Your new fool sounds lovesick already, Majesty,” a pretty blonde said. “Have you fallen in love with one of our ladies?”

I chose boldness, battening in place a defense should someone ever see me looking at documents as I was now. “I fear I am in love, Your Majesty. With your writing box and these letters you have about. The ink looks as if it is dancing across the page, and all those mysterious drawers with their tiny pulls—I want to open them and see what lies inside.”

The queen gasped, and the other ladies seemed taken aback.

“Not to pry into your correspondence. It is just that I have never seen any box so fine, and imagining what tools you might have inside fascinates me: a penknife, bottles of ink, vellum thicker and finer than anything I have ever seen. And sealing wax. How do they make the impressions stand out so stark? Everything here is so fine, Majesty. I wish…”

“What do you wish?”

“I am proud to be known as the queen’s fool, Majesty. But I loathe being a fool in life. I may be small in size, but I believe my mind and heart to be big as any man’s. If only I had a chance to learn about the world beyond … I would rather have that than the finest clothes in England, grateful as I am for these garments.”

The queen tilted her head. “You are a strange little man. But why should you not have both wardrobe and wisdom? You shall have the use of my library.”

Did that mean I would be left alone there? Even if it were for brief times, it would give me an opportunity to poke around.

“Father Philip will help guide you if you need help with your studies. I shall quiz you and be quite stern if you do not know your lessons.”

I could hardly believe my good fortune. I was to have the freedom of Her Majesty’s library and to question her confessor. I had come from her enemy, even if she believed I had wanted to escape him. She was a fool to place so much trust in someone she had barely met. Or did she think I had neither the wit nor stature to be a danger to her?

The question haunted me until I was dismissed. I hastened out of the queen’s chamber victorious. I had survived humiliation. I had resisted the queen’s charm. I had gathered bits of information that might satisfy His Grace when next we met.

I could only hope they would be enough.

E
IGHT

Archie waited outside the queen’s door, his arms folded across his middle. “You had better not have damaged those clothes.” He scrutinized the rumpled doublet. “They’re going to an East India Company man who fancies rigging his wee son up in garb from court. He’ll not pay for damaged goods.”

“He’ll have no reason to complain.”

“Good. Your trunk was delivered by a one-eyed crow. I had him take it to Evans’s lodgings. You can change as soon as you rid yourself of the fellow. He insisted on waiting for you.”

The notion of Ware alone in Will Evans’s chamber unnerved me. “You’ll have to show me the way.”

Secure in Evans’s company, I had not bothered to pick out landmarks to guide me. But if I were to be effective at all, I would have to memorize every secret of this palace. I remembered what the queen had said about Catholics gathering here, about priests in hiding. Were there priest holes carved out even here? Would I go to hell if I betrayed them?

I was still contemplating hellfire when Archie pointed to a heavy door that looked vaguely familiar. “The crow is inside. I’ll wait here.”

I should have been relieved he was not accompanying me into the room. Ware and I could not speak freely with Archie listening. But even Archie’s company was preferable to facing Ware alone.

I entered Evans’s room and shut the door behind me. It took a moment to get my bearings. My trunk sat by the window, the lid open, light streaming over belongings that Ware had obviously rifled through. Anger burned in me as I looked for the man who had violated my privacy.

I started as a shadow peeled away from the cupboard that held Evans’s things. Ware withdrew his hand from the pouch he held, the queen’s badge embossed on the leather.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Seizing the opportunity fate offered. You will learn to do the same. While I waited for you, I learned what I could about the queen’s porter.” Ware crossed to me. “Evans is a sentimental fellow. He preserves every paper he has ever received so carefully that he does not even break the seal. Fortunately, I have learned how to skin seals off and replace them after, so most people would never know I had meddled with their letters. It is a skill you will master.”

I thought of the queen’s chamber, crowded with ladies-in-waiting, priests, ambassadors, and servants coming and going. To pry through the queen’s state correspondence was treason. I shuddered, remembering Clemmy’s description of the Jesuits he had seen die a traitor’s death.

“Are you afraid of the lessons the duke insists I teach you, Jeffrey? Good.” Ware returned the pouch of letters to the cupboard. “That will cause you to plan your moves on the court’s chessboard carefully. Fear can be a great ally. Sentimentality is the enemy.”

“I am not sentimental.” I never had been, except where Samuel was concerned.

“You save ragged clothes. Your mother’s seam work leaves much to be desired.”

My throat caught. “She has so much to do by day that she can only stitch by firelight.”

“Perhaps your employment with the duke will provide her with enough candles to set a decent seam.” He touched the ribbon the queen had given me. “I wager you did not bring this pretty scrap from home. How fares Her Majesty today? Pleased with her new plaything?”

“I believe so.”

“His Grace is eager to hear of your first impressions with his own ears.”

I heard Archie’s voice through the door, then a rumble like thunder.

“It is Sergeant Evans returned,” I whispered. My pulse skipped at the possibility that Evans would notice Ware had been sifting through his belongings.

The door swung open and Evans ducked under the lintel. When he straightened, I could see a hopeful camaraderie. “Ho, Jeffrey. I heard your time with the queen went well, and—”

“Sergeant Evans,” I said, interrupting. “This is Master Uriel Ware, come from York House.”

The porter slammed to a halt, as if I had thrown a snake in his path.

“Your servant,” Ware said, sketching the giant a bow. “I was charged with bringing Jeffrey’s belongings to him. But I fear I have bungled the task. His ring is missing.”

I stared at him, bewildered.

“A ring,” Evans echoed, confused.

“I told Jeffrey that Her Majesty will be generous with such baubles—far grander ones than he can imagine—but the dwarf will not be reasonable. Says this ring belonged to his grandfather and cannot be replaced by a casketful of jewels.”