The Queen's Dwarf A Novel (54 page)

“I did not love her. I only let you believe I did in an ill-considered plan to spare my friend pain. She would have broken his heart. In the end, she did. It seems the hearts of curiosities are as brittle as anyone else’s.”

She turned to her attendants. “Leave us,” she said. “I would have some speech alone with the man who saved my life.”

The countess of Carlisle and the dowager duchess of Buckingham curtsyed, both women’s faces still reflecting the horror of what had happened in the park. What had it been like for the duchess to see an assassin with a knife this second time? See the chaos and violence with her little daughter nearby? What had Lady Carlisle hoped in her secret heart when Ware had attacked? Would she have regretted the queen’s death had Ware succeeded, or did she hope for the opportunity to give succor to a grieving king? The countess might as well have been masked as she was the first time I saw her for all the emotion I could read in her exquisite face. I was grateful when the room emptied.

The queen turned back to me, her smile uncertain. “It has been too long since I have had conversation with you, my dear Jeffery.”

“We both know why you were silent.”

“People who love each other forgive, do they not?” She fidgeted with the watch that dangled from a rope of pearls against her breast. She turned the oval disk over, and I could see a painted image that could only be that of the king.

“I have been receiving reports from all who have tended you these three days. I would have been here to thank you in person sooner except that the king had me practically locked up in a jewel cask until he was satisfied that any who conspired with Ware had been rooted out.”

“His Majesty is a wise man to guard such a treasure.”

“I pray you are not in too much pain from your exploits.”

“I grow better every day. Not that I recommend leaping from a falling mast as an entertaining pastime, nor wrestling a dagger-wielding maniac. There are far pleasanter ways to spend an afternoon.” It was a valiant attempt at humor. She did not show even a hint of a smile.

“You may spend your days however you wish, Jeffrey. You have earned that right.”

“Majesty…”

“The king will reward you in any way you desire: a fine house far from court, a knighthood. You will never have to worry about coin again. Just ask and that life will be yours.”

I reeled at her offer, stunned. I could leave the gawking crowds, the scheming courtiers, the intrigues. I’d be safe from nobles like Buckingham who might seek to use me against the queen. I should have been rejoicing in my good fortune. And yet … I pictured it as if it were on the other side of a window, thick glass separating me from that world, distorting its shapes and hues.

The queen plucked at a tear-shaped sapphire that dangled from a ribbon about her throat. “You have earned the freedom to choose your own future,” she said. “Is it wrong of me to hope that you will choose to stay with me?”

“With you, Majesty?” I felt as if I was plummeting downward aboard the crow’s nest again.

“I need you, Lord Minimus: Your friendship, your humor, your dauntless courage. I do not know what is to come. I know only that with His Majesty and with Jeffrey Hudson, my dearest friend, I can meet whatever the future holds. Will you stay?”

I stared for long moments into a future I had never even dared to imagine. Would I be better off away from the queen? To escape the constant reminder of the love I could never have? Would it not be hell to see her so happy as another man’s wife, even if that man was my king?

For a moment, I hesitated, indecision sharp as Ware’s dagger. Then, the truth washed over me. Leave Henrietta Maria forever? I might as well rip the sun out of the sky. Whatever it cost me, I could not leave her. I turned my gaze to hers.

“Yes, Majesty. I will stay.”

I would have done anything she wished, just to see her look at me as she did now, her heart in her eyes. “Jeffrey, never be ashamed of what you told me when you feared you were dying. I am honored to be loved by you.” She kissed me on the lips, one sweet, aching kiss. “May the next woman who kisses you be a love of your own.”

*   *   *

I couldn’t say how long Will had been gone from the palace, tidying up what remained of Ware’s poison. I was certain he would come see me as soon as he returned, knowing I would be grieving the loss of Samuel. The giant who took up so much space in the world, forever thunking into things with his great shoulders or tramping on things with his boat-size feet, had a remarkable gift for treading softly around people’s bruised feelings. When he did tap at the door, I bade him enter.

“You are the only man I know who would knock on the door to his own room,” I said with feigned irritation from my seat beside the fire. Will’s chair, in truth.

It was a ridiculous place for me to sit, with my ribs still sore and my clothes on for the first time in a week. I wasn’t about to tell him I had made Griggory lift me up into the giant-size chair, wanting to feel closer to my friend.

“I can imagine how hard it has been for you—seeing the queen, learning Samuel is going to France. To lose a second brother … well, I didn’t know if you’d welcome company,” Will explained.

“You’re not company,” I told him. “You’re the brother I’ve chosen. It’s a good thing, too. I’m going to need someone to manage now that Samuel is gone.”

“It seems you are going to have a fair number, since the menagerie is about to grow again, if Rattlebones has anything to do with it. He and the Gargoyle have been trading secrets about how to train dogs.”

“Phineas is free?”

“Sara traced the scented cloth Dulcinea found stitched to the queen’s petticoat, found the woman who handled the skirt last. Boku burned some sweet herb under her nose and wheedled the whole tale out of the girl. A man working in the kennel let the dogs out to attack the queen. The Gargoyle was in the palace by accident, having come to visit you. Boku is an amazing man. Said he learned the trick from a sultan when he was on some mission to gather scientific nonsense for that School of Night the countess of Carlisle’s father belonged to. Confused the devil out of us all, trying to figure out where he had come from. First, he seemed like he’d come from the New World, then Africa, then the Indies—knew of strange religions, Christianity, and Moorish ways.”

“The School of Night. Do you think Boku will share their secrets?”

“He is not the only one whose secrets the menagerie is lusting after. We’ve found our very own wizard with animals. It’s remarkable what Gargoyle can make them do. I wished for the queen to meet him, but I am not certain how she would react to his face. Women like to look upon the beautiful, not the grotesque.”

I caught him looking at his reflection in a mirror. I knew he had hung it there when making his bachelor quarters into a bridal chamber. He’d no more been able to take the mirror down than he’d been able to stop whittling the toy horse. Will, still cherishing fragments of the family he’d hoped to have.

“I suppose some of us are not meant to inspire the love of a woman,” he said softly. “We’re fortunate if we get to watch the ones we love from a distance. See them alive. Happy. As you will be able to watch over the queen.”

“It feels strange to stay at court, now that she knows.”

“That a brave man loved her enough to risk his life for her? Watch over her? Protect her?”

Shame washed through me and I could not bear his praise—no matter what it cost me. “Will, you think too highly of me. You must know the truth. The reason she cast me out of favor.”

He came to the front of the chair. Grasping hold of the chair’s arms, he hunkered down so he could look me in the face. “Samuel told me enough. I pieced together the rest.”

His deep-set eyes seemed to look into me so far that he could see the shriveled parts of my soul. “Ah, Jeffrey, there were signs you were working for Buckingham, just as I knew it was unwise to love Dulcinea. Perhaps I am no better than Her Majesty, choosing fantasies over grim truth, but I would rather see goodness and have someone else snatch it away than to stripe my own skin with a cat-o’-nine-tales made of bitterness and suspicion. Better to give people a chance than to go through life alone.”

“The night Dulcinea died, all I could think of was that I was no different from her. I feared you would hate me when you learned how false I had been to the queen, to the menagerie. To you.”

“You are nothing like Dulcinea,” he said with such fierce affection, I could scarcely believe it was real. “You acted to survive and save your brother’s life. When you rode to kill Buckingham, it was to make the queen and Samuel safe. You could not know Ware’s hand was moving the chess pieces across the board.”

The emotions flooded back to me—the helplessness, the self-loathing, the fear that I would lose this man’s friendship, that I had never deserved to have Will Evans in my life at all.

“God, when I learned Ware was behind it, heard of his plans…” I shuddered.

“He’s dead now,” Will reassured me. “He cannot hurt the queen.”

“But I still cannot think what he hoped to accomplish.”

“We questioned Bartholomew Rowland, the owner of the Saracen’s Bane. He said Ware loathed all things Catholic, said they used dark arts to hold decent men in thrall.” He drew something out of his pocket. “We found this on Ware’s person.” He held out a stone. I looked at the impression on it—a strange creature’s claw held captive in stone.

“A dragon stone,” I said.

“He stole it from Boku’s shelves when he was in the menagerie’s lodgings. Ware’s men said he believed there was some kind of power in such things.”

“His father collected them. There was a French woman who loved to study them, as well. Ware’s mother thought they were in love. She tried to murder her husband in front of the boy, then fled with him.”

“Horrible.”

“The true horror came after. She hid him among Puritans, took him to executions to drive his father’s sinful nature out of him. When she saw him look at a girl with ‘lust,’ she put out his eye.”

“His own mother?”

“She would have castrated him as well if another Puritan hadn’t stopped her.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Will croaked. “How does a lad make sense of it when his own mother wounds him thus?”

“He must have blamed the woman who loved dragon stones. Add to that the loathing of Catholics he was taught by the Puritans, and the queen embodied everything Ware loathed.”

“The men we questioned said Ware thought that once the queen was gone, His Majesty would be willing to challenge French and Spanish power in the New World. The king would see the merit in the East India Company and other such enterprises and be willing to listen to Parliament. The Crown would begin to work with these men who are determined to seize fate on their own terms.”

“I wish his reasoning did not make sense. But in some ways, it does.”

“When Buckingham was assassinated, the king was furious at men of Felton’s ilk—commoners who demanded more than the aristocrats chose to give them. With the duke gone, Ware had to take matters into his own hands. He enlisted the help of those angered by the king’s demands for money. Once the queen was assassinated, they planned to compel the king to listen to Parliament.”

“Ware expected Charles Stuart to sit down and negotiate with men who had just murdered his wife? They do not know His Majesty at all.”

“I fear the king does not know the Commons, either. Ware may have been mad, his scheme so wild that only the most reckless would support it. But there are plenty of commoners who see men like Buckingham—vainglorious fools who are put in command of the fleet, the country, the lives of simple folk. If you could see the arguments they print in pamphlets—”

I shuddered, remembering the broadsheet the countess of Carlisle had given me. Had anyone traced such scandalous printings to the bookshop near St. Paul’s and the family that had welcomed Samuel so kindly, provided a haven for Father Quintin?

“What will happen to the Rowlands?” I asked. “I am certain Ware threatened them as he did me.”

“I can’t say the king is disposed to be merciful to anyone involved in Ware’s scheme, but I believe His Majesty would give you any boon right now to thank you for saving the queen’s life.”

“Then I will ask His Majesty to send Rowland and his family to France. Father Quintin will help them start anew. I only hope there are not other masterless men starting anew, as well. How many others might Ware have spread his contagion to?”

“We cannot know,” Will said, solemn. “All I am certain of is this: Things are changing beyond the palace walls. If we hope to protect the queen, we will have to watch, listen.”

“Fortunately, you’re tall as a house. You can see over any crowd, and I am a most accomplished spy.”

Will chuckled, then grew pensive. “Archie said something that troubles me still. He says we had best not celebrate our triumph too soon. It is possible for a king to love his queen too well. Tend her interests rather than his country’s. Do you think it might be true?”

I motioned for him to lift me down. Will did so with a gentleness that never failed to surprise me. “Archie is a crabbed boil on my arse,” I said. “He can’t bear for anyone to be happy.”

Will laughed. “Ware’s knife didn’t bleed the wickedness out of your wit.”

“No one wants to deal with a morose court fool,” I said, straightening my doublet. “Someone must make people laugh.”

“Even when the tale ends sadly.” Will crossed to where the little wooden horse stood upon the window ledge. I knew he was thinking of a graceful butterfly dancing upon a rope, never imagining she could fall.

I wished I could reach back into time and rearrange things, give him the happiness he’d dreamed of. But that time was over. Or was it? I remembered the day my father had lifted me onto the duke’s writing table and I had lost hold of everything I’d known, set forth on a path I could not even imagine.

I laid my hand upon Will Evans’s boot. “Maybe the end of one story is just the beginning of another, Will,” I said as he looked down at me. “Maybe this time the giant will win a woman who deserves his love.”