Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [13]
Seeing how Frances relished my discomfort, I was determined not to show any. So I let the air chill my bosom as we walked the short way to Durham House. Frances and I held up the queen’s train, while our own skirts were left to brush the dusty cobbles. I knew Frances was silently fretting about her treasured petticoat.
Walter Ralegh himself met us at the gate, attended by a dozen or more gentlemen. I thought him resplendent in a doublet of bright blue taffeta with wide, slashed sleeves, matching trunk hose, and a buff-colored jerkin. Gold buckles shone on his shoes. He led the way through halls and stairways hung with Flemish tapestries as richly hued as any in Whitehall Palace. The queen stopped often to admire them, which seemed to please Ralegh.
On the topmost floor of Durham House was the library, a room filled with books, maps, strange instruments, and a globe of the world. The windows were open, letting in the cries of hawkers in the streets and wherrymen on the river. As Elizabeth entered the library, three men waiting there dropped to their knees.
“Thomas Harriot at Your Majesty’s service,” said one of them to the floor. He had wispy hair and a beard to match and wore the long black robe of a scholar. The queen bade him rise.
“Thomas and I were at Oxford together,” said Ralegh. “He is a scholar of languages, a conjurer of numbers, and an expert in navigation.” Then he introduced the other two men, captains of the ships he would send to North America. One was dark and of small stature, while the other was tall with an honest gaze.
Frances and I seated ourselves on a bench by the door. The queen picked up a compass—the only instrument I recognized—and examined it, then addressed herself to the business of Harriot and the captains. I tried to follow the conversation, but it contained many unfamiliar words and phrases.
“Will Your Majesty consent to peer through my radius astronomicus, with which I view the stars?” asked Harriot, his voice rising with excitement.
“I should like nothing better,” she said.
“It is in my chamber under the eaves,” said Harriot.
“Then let us go there,” she said, putting down the compass. “Come, gentlemen.”
But Ralegh demurred. “Thomas’s room is quite small. I crave Your Majesty’s permission to wait here.”
The queen nodded and left the library with Harriot and the captains. Ralegh bowed as she passed, and when he stood upright again he was smiling. Frances poked me. I opened my mouth but no words came out. There was so much I wanted to ask, I didn’t know where to begin.
Frances stepped into the silence. “Master Ralegh, if you please, where is North America?”
He beckoned us to the table, on which a large map was spread, the corners held down with books. He pointed to England, then ran his finger across the map, leaning slightly into me as he did so, and rested it on North America.
He smelled of civet. Father always wore civet, too. A wave of longing surged in me, but I pushed it down and stared at the map. England, our island kingdom, was crowded with names of rivers and towns. But North America, inside her jagged coastline, was a blank, featureless expanse. Tiny ships marked the seas between the two lands.
Frances touched a ship, then measured the gap between England and North America with her spread fingers. “That’s not so far to sail,” she said.
I felt nervous laughter bubble up inside me. “Oh, silly Frances, the ships are not drawn to their true proportion,” I said. “If they were, this one would be greater than all of London!”
I clapped my hand to my mouth, embarrassed at my outburst. Frances slunk back to her stool, sat down, and stared at a shelf of books. I felt guilty for shaming her and knew that I would undoubtedly pay for it.
Ralegh was too much of a gentleman to laugh at either of us. But I detected a note of humor in his voice when he said, “And you, Lady Catherine, would you like to travel on such a great ship as that?”
His deep voice reverberated within me. I kept