The Twylight Tower (21 page)

“But my face—it’s mine, Your Gracious Majesty, so why should it be taken without my permission?” she wheedled, arms spread beseechingly.

Time for another card, though not the trump. “I want to send it to friends of mine in exile from court.”

That
rattled the girl even more, the queen noted, gripping the carved arms of her chair. She was about to win this hand. Gil kept drawing madly.

“Who are those friends, if you please, Your Majesty? And if they are in exile, doesn’t that mean they’ve displeased you, so why would you send them a gift—and why that?”

“Felicia, did you
ever
leave your assigned place during the masque?” Elizabeth countered. “You see, I’m trying to fix in my mind’s eye where everyone was when Luke fell. Someone must have seen what happened.”

“I didn’t see but I heard—when he fell. But then so did everyone else, I warrant, and came running. Besides, you know I was playing and that takes all my concentration.”

“Really? I’ve seen you play while walking, while talking, and who knows what else you could manage while your music seduces, like Sirens luring Odysseus’s ship upon the rocks. Then too, there were those sour notes. And, come to think of it, during the trumpet fanfares, who knows if you were playing or not?”

“Don’t you recall, up on the roof at Richmond I found I was scared of heights, Your Grace? I assure you, I was not going one whit higher than that little landing I was standing on. I believe the scaffold where Luke stood was much higher, and I couldn’t have set foot on it even if I wanted to.”

“Ah, well, then that is a fine alibi,” Elizabeth retorted, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Wringing her hands, Felicia shifted from foot to foot. She was wearing a new green gown that swayed
rhythmically back and forth. “Your Gracious Majesty, I pray you do not accuse me of harming Luke. It’s true that he annoyed me mightily in playing up to you at my expense, but I live to create beauty, not to mar or ruin it, neither the masque with your fine performance or a handsome man like Luke Morgan. And I would do nothing e’er to bring on your displeasure, for my dream in life is to play for you, to be near you.”

So the girl had admitted Luke annoyed her. No prevarication there. And she hung her defense, such as it was, on her dislike of heights, her love of beauty, her passion for playing the lute, and her admiration of her queen. Indeed, some or all of that could be valid. Best, Elizabeth thought, return to the tack that seemed to be shaking her more than mere suspicion of murder.

“Let me see the drawing, Gil,” Elizabeth said, and held out her hand. With a flourish, the boy reached over to give it to her. It was a good rendering, even bare bones without shading, cross-hatching, or details so far. Gil had somehow caught the pluck and pride that came through, even when Felicia Dove was in a precarious position.

The queen held the sketch toward Felicia. “Do you think he’s captured you?”

“Captured
me? Oh, I see what you mean. He’s good. But he’s made me look … too defiant when I am once again begging Your Gracious Majesty just to let me do what I was born to do, no matter what others accuse me of, no matter what men or the whole kingdom says about me behind my back.”

“Meaning?” Elizabeth asked icily, thrusting the drawing back at Gil, who snatched and bent over it again.

“Like you, I defy rumors and accusations.”

Elizabeth knew full well what she meant, but how dare she pull this stunt again, the implication that they were alike that had so softened her royal wrath before. And that had been the second time she caught the girl in a lie, in a change of identity. Who knew if the girl was Felicia Dove or not? Suddenly Elizabeth glimpsed something almost familiar about her.

And then it hit her as it never had before. She jumped up and snatched the sketch from Gil again, sending a jagged streak of charcoal pencil right across the paper.

That was it! Felicia Dove resembled John Harington, whom the queen had sent into exile with his wife for not telling her the truth in a murder investigation. She had not noted the similarities before because Felicia always seemed to be changing. But this girl, who had the stamp of his face softer on her, the broad forehead, the full mouth, reminded her so of John when he too was distraught. Her wild guess that Felicia could be Hester suddenly looked like brilliant strategy.

Elizabeth got hold of herself and cleared her throat. She sat back in her chair. Trump time. “Since you asked, Felicia, and I am deciding to trust you again, I will tell you this sketch is being sent to my friends, John and Isabella Harington. They have a daughter of your age who has a passion for the lute and ran away.
It seems she would not wed the man her father wanted, would not stay in the countryside, though God only knows what has happened to her since. I had imagined once she might come to me. Has she?”

“Despite some chance similarities in her life, what is she to me?” Felicia dared.

“It is more a question of what the Haringtons shall be to you. When I summon them back to court, you may fill some of their loss for them, playing for their pleasure. I will tell them so in a letter I shall send them with this drawing.”

She had studied the girl minutely as she spoke, almost as if she had her fixed with Dr. Dee’s observation glass. Felicia had hardly moved, even stopping her swaying. Was she listening intently or shocked to immobility?

“I have ne’er heard of your friends,” Felicia said, each word calm and clear, “though I am sorry for their loss, Your Majesty. I look forward to meeting and playing for them when they arrive. But now I shall play a song for you,” she cried, and lunged for her lute across the room as if that would change the subject. Her movement was so quick, she startled the guard at the door, who moved to block it. “Lord Robert has given me a new song he wrote for you,” Felicia added hastily, “but I shall play only its melody now.”

“No song now, not even that one,” the queen ordered. “You will return immediately to Eton to live in my cousin Hunsdon’s house as you did before until—”

“But I thought you believed and trusted me,” she
said, holding the lute and striding closer. “Then I can stay here, play for you.”

“I will send for you when I think best,” the queen commanded, pointing toward the door. When Felicia came closer, the queen summoned the guard with the flick of her wrist.

But as Felicia knelt before her chair and bent her head over her lute, Elizabeth noted something caught in the top of her sleek hair. The queen’s slender fingers picked out one small brown piece of matter and then another.

“How, pray tell,” she asked, “did you get bits of a sponge in your hair?” She displayed them on her open palm before the girl’s face.

Felicia boldly blew the pieces away without missing a note. “It’s just tree bark,” she said, still playing the plaintive melody. “I was practicing outside, leaning back against a tree, that’s all. You know, one of the things I love most dearly about a lute is that when you hold it against you, the notes resonate all through you, become part of you. Perhaps that’s how it is to be pressed against one’s lover, to feel his very pulse beat, to adore someone so that …”

Her words were as smooth as her countenance, her turnings of topic and mood as subtle as twists in her song—and heart. But the queen knew she could not trust her now, not until the Haringtons said she was not Hester. For Hester—as her niece, illegitimate or not—had a strain of Tudor blood in her that could make her nearly as deadly as her Tudor cousins.

“Guard,” the queen said, standing, “keep my lutenist close restrained at the Hunsdon House in Eton until I send for her. Lord Harry will be attending a funeral this afternoon, but he will be back after.”

Felicia’s wails and shrieks were the only truly dreadful sounds Elizabeth had ever heard from her.

HIDDEN BEHIND A CRENELATION IN THE
roofline wall of Windsor, Meg Milligrew watched the royal barge depart with Luke Morgan’s coffin and mourners, including Lord Robin and the queen. Wishing she had Dr. Dee’s observation glass to be certain the man she feared was Ben Wilton was indeed on that barge bent over his oars, Meg waited until it was out of sight. Then, rubbing her belly, for she had not lied to the queen that she felt queasy, she went down the outside steps of the old guard tower and headed out the King Henry VIII gate into town.

Despite the warmth of the late afternoon, she kept her cloak pulled tight and her battered, broad-brimmed garden hat low. She wanted no one in the thatched, wattle-and-daub house where she’d learned the bargemen were billeted to be able to identify her
later. And if by chance Ben Wilton was not at the oars today, she didn’t want him recognizing her. Nothing on earth could make her go back to a man she didn’t recall and was quite certain she’d fled over three years ago because of his brutality. Sometimes in nightmares she heard his loud voice and felt his hard hands upon her.

Pretending a stone was in her shoe, Meg waited outside the house on the palace-side edge of town. If only she could trust Ned to have come along. He could have played some part and asked questions for her. But she feared he’d tell the queen, just as she had feared Luke Morgan would if he guessed the truth, God rest his soul. Besides, Ned would never grow to care for her if he knew she was already wed, even though that hardly stopped some of her betters at court. Mercy, not even counting Lord Robin’s longing for Her Grace, Meg had overheard and seen a thing or two of cheating on one’s spouse in the hallowed halls of the queen’s palaces.

Meg strained to shut out the normal street noises. Through the front door set ajar, the house sounded quiet but for a muted thumping. Hoping she didn’t puke, she edged to the doorway and peered in. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior. A bent, white-haired woman in the common room was putting pewter plates onto a bare trestle table.

“Excuse me, good woman,” Meg called out once, then louder until the old dame looked up.

“Ey?” she said, making the web of lines around her eyes and mouth deepen even more.

Meg pushed the door open a bit farther. “Is this the place where the queen’s bargemen live during the queen’s stay here?”

“Ey. Looking for some’un special? Mostly, they’s out.”

Mostly?
Though Meg saw or heard no one but the woman, she almost turned and fled. Still she went into the little speech she’d rehearsed.

“It’s just I lost my stepbrother years ago in the north of England, name of Benjamin Wilton, and someone told me there’s an oarsman here by that name, though of course it might not be him, seeing there’s probably lots of Ben Wiltons.”

“Ey.”

“Ey what?” “He’s here.”

“Now?” Meg cried, jumping back.

“For the queen’s visit. Out rowing her now for a funeral but don’t know whose.”

Meg’s heart nearly thudded out of her chest, but she stood her ground. Ned had taught her never to make hasty exits, even if you’d made a mistake onstage.

“A Ben Wilton, thin and blond—from the north?” Meg forced herself to go on with this charade, her voice a mere squeak.

“Ben Wilton all right, but no barger’s ever thin. This ’un a brawler, not blond, and hails from London. Brags a being a bridge shooter, a lusty, loud ’un too, worse ’n most. Where you live in town? Thought I knew ’em all in town. Ey, where you going?”

Meg turned back and, thinking of Ned’s admonition,
said, “I told the man who mentioned it that our Ben Wilton would never have been an oarsman, not even for the queen, so pray don’t mention a thing to him. My Ben was a traveling player, and a fine, handsome one too. Good day to you.”

When she turned the first corner, she picked up her skirts and hustled back to the palace.

THE SUN WAS SETTING OVER THE TWISTING THAMES WHEN
Elizabeth climbed the steps of the Round Tower alone, exhausted from facing down Felicia, and Luke’s funeral. She had asked Jenks to examine the tower, from foundation to lofty parapet, to be certain it was deserted and safe. Then she’d sent him to fetch his Lord Robert and keep a watch down below so they weren’t disturbed.

Other than Jenks, who was loyal to both her and Robin, Elizabeth had told no one where she was. Ordinarily Kat or Mary Sidney would have known, but Kat was sleeping from the concoction Meg had given her under Mary’s supervision. Now though, the mere thought of Robin’s soon joining her poured strength into her walk and made her heart beat faster.

The queen had circled the high walkway of the tall tower only twice when Robin appeared before her, gasping for breath from his quick climb. Twilight muted his robust complexion and his gold velvet and forest-green satin garb to make him seem all shimmery silver. She felt caught in a trembling trance between daylight and nightfall.