The Queen's Dwarf A Novel (30 page)

At least he was no longer sleeping by the window in the menagerie’s lodgings. He’d been given a bed in a room with Robin Goodfellow and Simon Rattlebones, though Rattlebones complained the queen might as well have given the bed to his dogs. Boku still slept by a window, nothing but a threadbare black robe to shield him from the cold stone.

I might have made jest of his behavior had it been anyone else in the menagerie. But there was something unassailable in Boku, a dignity that reminded me of the gyrfalcon he had charmed. Sharp eyes seemed to see everything, and dismiss us all—a world of scurrying mice not tasty enough to rouse him from his branch.

I wondered if the countess of Carlisle and Buckingham intended him for a spy, as well. Would a magician that powerful be manipulated as easily as I was? For once, I agreed with Will Evans’s judgment of character: “The rest of us in the menagerie are creatures of hearth and wall, tamed to the queen’s hand. Boku is wild.”

The queen also had tried to cling to dignity as war with France and Spain loomed. Not even her “curiosities” or the masque Inigo Jones was designing afforded her pleasure. She fretted over the deepening rift between the king and Parliament. The Commons was outraged at the measures the king was taking to finance the war. Soldiers must be fed and munitions bought, ships mustered together and fitted out, if there was to be a war. Where was the funding for this great enterprise to come from when a bunch of moneygrubbing merchants and farmers in the House of Commons refused to vote the king the money he needed unless he met their upstart demands?

Buckingham’s shameless manipulation of the king was making the duke’s enemies more vocal than ever. The queen would not have objected had Buckingham been besieged thus. But royal subjects questioning the divine right of kings was unthinkable.

She picked at the tangled threads of loyalties and love, knowing it was impossible to make them smooth again. Her stitching often lay idle in her lap, her mood so close to tears that the sound of a lute could make her dab her eyes with her kerchief. Everyone hoped that the birth of Mitte’s puppies would ease Her Majesty’s bleak humors. Instead, the litter of furry rogues made the queen more withdrawn than ever.

Her Majesty had even sent her ladies of the bedchamber away when I arrived on a rain-washed morning two months after the hunting party at the Carlisles’. I found Henrietta Maria in a position unsuitable for a queen, sitting on a thick rug, three chestnut-and-white pups playing hide-and-seek with one another under the folds of her skirt. The barrier our stations built between us thinned, until she seemed almost within my reach. I would have stood there silently and watched her much longer if I could have found a way to excuse such behavior. But the king himself had asked me to discover what grieved the queen. It touched me that in spite of Charles’s ongoing battle to wrest his due from Parliament, he showed such concern for his wife.

“Majesty, are you well?” I asked as I drew near her.

“Am I not allowed time alone to read letters from home?” She tucked a folded paper deeper into her sleeve. I wondered what was in it. News of the war? Complaints about the English? Demands that she put an end to the hostilities any way she was able? As if one young woman could hold back men’s hunger for wealth and power and glory and the war such lust unleashed.

God knew she could not receive a letter from France without the whole court believing they had a right to snatch it from her hands and learn what was inside it. I merely invaded her writing box—though not as often as Buckingham would have wished. For the moment, I had set intrigue aside. I was more concerned with the fact that she seemed to be pining away.

“Forgive me, my queen. I know you grieve the enmity between your husband and your homeland. I do not mean to vex you. But you grow pale and only pick at your food.”

“I’ve been lost in musings.” She gave me a tremulous smile. “Jeffrey, are not babes the most wonderful creatures—be they pups like these or chubby babes like the ones the garden lass brings with her to nurse while she is deadheading the roses?”

I had not realized the queen had noticed the servant and child, and I feared the young mother might be reproved. Yet there was wistfulness in the queen that made me hope otherwise. “You will have a babe in time. The king visits you more often than ever.” In spite of Lady Carlisle’s continued efforts to distract him, I added to myself. “Although I could not help but notice the past few weeks you have retired for the night alone. I know it is forward of me to pry, but I have been hoping you had found more happiness here in England.”

“I am becoming used to the changes. I miss home, especially Mamie. She is as much family as my mother is. More, in truth. I rarely saw my mother even before my brother Louis exiled her to Blois. Gaston, the brother closest to me in age, tried to comfort me at the time. But the tales people told—how Louis watched through a window as his guards murdered Concino. And Concino’s poor wife. They burned her as a witch after…” She shuddered.

“Concino? Was that one of your brothers?” I asked, horrified.

“No. He was my mother’s most trusted adviser. She brought Concino from Florence when she wed my father. The fact that he was Italian was reason enough for my brother’s courtiers to hate him. Concino’s wife had been my mother’s childhood friend—her Mamie. I remember thinking that if the Concinos could die so horribly, if my lady mother could be imprisoned by her own son, if my father could fall to a madman’s dagger, then how could I ever be safe?”

I wanted to reassure her, but how could I? I made her world more dangerous with every secret she confided in me.

“I had such nightmares,” she continued. “Gaston insisted all would be well in time.” She plucked a bit of straw from one puppy’s ear. “But we were never a family again as we were before that breach.” A faint line appeared on her forehead. “Perhaps we were not a real family even before it. I was only six months old when my father was murdered.”

“All Europe has heard stories of Henri le Grande’s tolerance and wisdom and courage.” I imagined what it would be like to have a father I could admire.

“I was so envious of Mamie,” the queen confessed. “I loved the way her mother would scoop the little ones up to dry their tears. My mother was too busy trying to make us a credit to France and to herself. I suppose she had little opportunity to do anything else—an Italian de Medici far from her native land, surrounded by enemies. I understand her better now.”

Her forgiveness said more about her time here in England than anger could have.

“But it was Mamie’s father who fascinated me. The way he would toss his children high in the air and always catch them before they fell.”

I wished that I could give her that feeling of safety—not because she was my queen, but because she was crumpling her gown while playing with the puppies on the floor. Because she allowed the sadness of her fatherless childhood to creep into her voice. I was tempted to tell her my own truth—that fathers sometimes throw you into dangerous worlds on purpose, with no intention of catching you if you fall. Instead, I said nothing. I merely let one of the puppies gnaw on my finger. The queen filled the sudden silence.

“Why does God not grant me a babe, Jeffrey? Am I failing Him somehow?”

“Majesty, I am certain in time—”

“Time is running out. The duke of Buckingham is determined to spur the king into war with France. My brother refuses to negotiate, in spite of my pleas. I write him and try to explain.… to beg.… Do you remember when His Majesty sent Mamie and the rest away? I begged him to send me back to France.”

A reckless plea, some might even say a treasonous one. I loathed the fact that I should pass it on to Buckingham. “How could I ever forget your pain?” I asked. Especially since I was the one who had caused it.

“Now, with war brewing between our countries, I fear that His Majesty’s advisers will convince the king to dump me at the gates of Versailles, barren, damaged, a failure in every part of being a wife, a queen, daughter of Henri le Grande.”

“Whatever the Privy Council thinks, I know the king does not see you that way.”

“You have not seen his face when he hears other ladies are breeding. Lady Carlisle tells me he counts the weeks between my courses, hoping.”

It surprised me, her sharing womanly secrets with me. But why should she not speak of moon cycles to her pet Jeffrey? To her, I was no man. “I hardly think His Majesty confides such concerns in Lady Carlisle,” I said. “He is particular about propriety.”

She considered this for a moment. “My husband is very fond of Lady Carlisle. He was right to advise me that English ladies could teach me the ways of his court. The countess has even given me paint to redden my cheeks after I have sleepless nights—though His Majesty and his more somber advisers are not pleased when I wear it.” Her mouth set in misery. “It is not my fault if I must resort to such measures. I am distressed by the trouble with my homeland, fear what might happen when the king locks swords with the combined might of Spain and France. Here in England, His Majesty’s own subjects refuse to grant the king the funds he needs. It is humiliating! The king having to borrow against the Crown Jewels because gentlemen are choosing to go to jail rather than grant him the loans the law requires of them.”

“His Majesty would use those funds to make war on your brother,” I said softly.

“I know. But to see my husband—the king of England—treated like a beggar is unbearable. Even Parliament’s attacks on Buckingham are an attempt to undermine the king’s authority. You know how I loathe the duke, but what does Parliament expect His Majesty to do? Fling his favorite into their hands knowing that—if they have their will—it is a mere step from impeachment to a headsman’s block on Tower Hill?”

For a moment, the downfall of Buckingham glimmered in my imagination, a possibility to free myself from his toils. But had not the duke warned that such falls from grace often dragged servants to hell with their masters? All it would take was one of the notes I had passed to the duke to surface and I would fall with him. “The king shows great loyalty,” I said. “But it is probably best His Majesty sent Buckingham off somewhere.”

“To Plymouth to take charge of the king’s ships,” the queen said. “I confess I am relieved. It is harder for the duke to chasten me about my gambling debts from there. Before Buckingham left, he took the king and me to see his new yacht. It was cunning and light and swift as the wind, but His Grace made such unpleasantness over my debts that the man giving us a tour of the vessel intervened. He sent me a most gallant letter, saying he would be honored if I would accept a loan. He had made some fortune investing in East India cargo. He wrote that if he ever succeeded in mounting a venture to the Americas and it proved fruitful, Maryland might be a fine name for a tract of land.”

I took a fool’s liberty. “Doubtless this gallant hopes his generosity will be repaid in something more valuable than coin: Your Majesty influencing the king to regard this enterprise with favor.”

“Everyone at court seeks some sort of boon. Master Ware is no worse than any other.”

Thank God one of the puppies decided to set up a yapping, hiding my reaction. Uriel Ware had volunteered to loan the queen money? Was he working for Buckingham, or had he seen an opportunity to circumvent the duke and seize some control of his fate by securing the goodwill of the queen? If Buckingham had still not granted Ware permission to attend to his oceangoing vessels and mount the explorations Ware hoped would fill the ship holds with spices and precious metals, the man must be frustrated beyond bearing.

The queen gathered the agitated pup to her breast. He chewed the lace at her collar. “It does Master Ware credit that he did not even mention my predicament to a friend as intimate as you.”

“Friend…” I could not think of a way to explain my relationship with the man. Another frustrated captive of the duke’s power?

“Do not be distressed, Jeffrey. I know you are sensitive about your connection to the duke of Buckingham. Sometimes when His Grace is about, you look quite fierce. I suppose it is because you love me.” The word jolted me. She seemed so certain of that love. As if it was expected. Her statement drove deep.

“You dislike Buckingham because of his behavior toward me. Is it not so?”

“I loathe him, Your Majesty.” That much was true.

“Master Ware told me how wretched you were under the duke’s roof. I am glad Master Ware took such kind care of you. One would not have expected it of such a grim man upon first meeting him. But perhaps the distressing incidents Lady Denbigh told about Master Ware’s childhood explain his demeanor. Of course, you broke through his reserve. You are such a winning little fellow. Who can blame him for being as charmed by you as all the rest of us have been?”

“I am a charming fellow.” It helps deflect suspicion when I’m dredging out people’s secrets.

“I felt quite safe confiding the woes of my purse to him once I knew of your connection.”

Except that Ware—and Buckingham—had already known of the queen’s debts. I looked down at the puppies, but instead of white-and-russet fur, I saw the note I had scrawled to Buckingham just over a week ago. Had the duke supplied Ware with funds to be loaned? Or was Ware really acting on his own?

“Normally, I would shy away from speaking so freely to someone outside my circle, Jeffrey. But you are the best judge of character that I know. Perhaps it is because you see people from the boots up.” She loosened the pup’s teeth from the exquisite threads woven by a convent in France for her trousseau.

“I tend to register a favorable impression of people if they do not tread on me,” I said. I did not add that I had the prints of His Grace’s boots over every inch of my body.

“Ah Jeffrey, you do make me laugh. How would I fare without you and dear Lucy to guard me and guide me when things seem so bleak?”

Oh, yes, we would guide her between us. Right off the nearest precipice Lady Carlisle and Buckingham could find.

But Buckingham would be sailing for Ile d Ré any day now. Perhaps he was even now on the prow of a ship that was cutting through the waves of the English Channel. I could only hope the French would do the queen and me a favor and blast the duke to hell, where he belonged.