Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [4]
“Get up, my dear,” came the gentle voice. It was the queen speaking to me.
“I cannot, Your Majesty,” I replied, for I was trembling all over. “Without your gracious help,” I added.
Then the queen took my wrists and lifted me to my feet. Her hands were slim, her fingers long and tapered. I counted four rings on each hand.
“Do not fear to look upon me, child. Think of me as your mother now,” she said. It was a command, though softly spoken.
I lifted up my eyes to meet hers. They were bright and pale. She smiled and it was like the sun beaming from behind a cloud. I no longer saw graying hair against her cheek. I saw the woman on horseback who had once ridden through Winchester, ageless and beautiful. Gratitude welled up in me and I knew I would love the queen, even worship her, as long as she ruled. I would do whatever she commanded me.
Whitehall Palace was a bustling, crowded place. Besides six maids and a dozen ladies-in-waiting, the queen employed more than fifty grooms, footmen, and handsome guards known as Gentlemen Pensioners. She kept jesters and dwarves for entertainment and an army of servants, cooks, and kitchen maids. Everyone had a duty. Mine was to help Emme and Frances care for the queen’s clothing.
When I first entered the wardrobe, a room twice as large as the maids’ dormitory, my eyes could not take in everything it contained. There were cupboards with separate drawers for bodices, stomachers, coifs, gloves, and hats. Dozens of pantofles, overshoes with thick cork soles, lined the shelves. I counted fifty-one bodices and eighty skirts on rows of hooks before I gave up, my head spinning. With envious fingers I touched the gowns made of heavy brocade, floral damask, and shiny sarcenet. I admired the velvets wrought with embroidery as varied and colorful as a summer garden.
Lady Veronica, mistress of the wardrobe, opened a thick ledger before me. “Every new item of dress must be recorded here, and the removal of every worn out or damaged piece noted,” she said. “Anything out of fashion goes to the tailor to be remade, unless the queen decides to give it away.”
“Give it away,” I echoed in wonder. “To whom?”
Lady Veronica shrugged. “To one of her ladies. Whoever is her favorite at the time.”
Frances looked up from the chemises she was folding and smiled. “Her Majesty gave me one of her petticoats at my last birthday. The hem was damaged, but I repaired it.”
I glanced down at her skirt. Following the current fashion, it was open in front to show the underskirt.
“I’m not wearing it now,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It is much too fine.”
I wondered why Frances, who seemed so unpleasant, had received such a gift. But I said nothing, only watched Lady Veronica as she showed me how to pair the sleeves and undersleeves and store them with the matching partlets.
Caring for the wardrobe proved more demanding than I had expected. The queen often got ink on her sleeves, which required dabbing with urine, a distasteful task that usually fell to the laundress. But in a pinch we had to clean many a spot of grease and dirt from the queen’s clothes, sprinkling fuller’s earth mixed with alum upon the garment and brushing to remove the stain. Lady Veronica taught me how to wash lace by laying it flat on a board, covering it with fine cloth, applying soap, then sponging it with fresh water.
The queen was most particular about her ruffs. They had to be made of the softest cambric so as not to irritate the skin of her neck. No laundress could set the gathered frills to her satisfaction. So I set out to make this my skill, brushing starch into the folds, drying, dampening, dyeing, and starching again, then poking the hundreds of pleats into perfect folds. The first time it took me all afternoon, though with practice I could soon starch and set a ruff in two hours.
It took that long—two hours—to get the queen clothed in the morning, her hair dressed, her jewels pinned on, her face painted and powdered. Sometimes she would change her clothes at midday or in the evening, especially if there