Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [6]
Dick Tarleton plied his wit among the party. “What a ship of fools is gathered here. Look at Thomas Graham, the fool of fashion. Why, his doublet and hose are all slashed to ribbons. He dueled with a madman and lost!”
Graham’s face turned as red as his hair, but when the queen laughed, he had no choice but to laugh as well.
Then the clown bowed to the queen, who wore the ruff it had taken me hours to set. It stuck straight out from beneath her chin, a full twelve inches all around.
“My mistress, you look delectable with your head upon that great platter.” He licked his lips and pretended to tuck a napkin at his own neck.
The queen smacked his head with her fan. “Fool Dick, I do not like your wit today.”
A hush fell over the company. We followed Elizabeth down the stairs to the water’s edge, where the waves lapped against a barge with a covered cabin, glass windows, and gilded fittings. Oarsmen waited, standing firm despite the rocking of the barge and the rain that had begun to fall.
With a flick of her wrist, the queen indicated those whom she wished to board her barge with her. Graham was not among them, but the clown and Frances were. Emme sighed and boarded the second barge, which was like the first but with less ornament. I was too excited to feel slighted. Stepping aboard, I lost my balance and was pitched onto the seat beside Emme.
As the vessels floated away from the jetty, a peal of bells broke out from across the river.
“God’s teeth!” said the burly Leicester, now in an even worse mood. “Can’t Her Majesty go anywhere without Lambeth Church proclaiming it to the whole city?”
“Tush! Why are you so ill-humored, my lord?” said Lady Veronica, sitting beside him. She was a widow of about thirty and still well favored in her looks.
Other church bells joined the chorus.
“Now the Thames will be clogged with traffic all the way to London Bridge!” grumbled Leicester.
Lady Veronica, not one to be ignored, leaned against him so her bosom swelled over her bodice. She put her lips to his ear.
I looked away, embarrassed. “Is there something about the water that makes everyone so amorous?” I whispered to Emme.
“You see why some prefer not to be on the queen’s barge,” she whispered back.
Opposite Leicester and Lady Veronica, Thomas Graham sat beside Lady Anne, the queen’s distant cousin and the prettiest of her ladies. Stroking her hair, he did not seem disappointed at being relegated to the second barge.
“I don’t think we ought—,” Anne began. She glanced at Leicester, whose eyes were now fixed on Veronica’s bosom.
“He is blind to us,” said Graham.
“The queen has more than one pair of eyes.”
“Frances? That little puritan will never know,” scoffed Graham.
Anne gave Emme and me a significant look. Emme shook her head, as if to say she would not tell.
“Come now, my lady. Don’t be coy,” Graham cooed. She relented and kissed him, inserting her fingertips in the slashes of his doublet.
“Is that how Frances earns her favor?” I whispered to Emme. “By spying on lovers?”
Emme nodded. “And not just that. Why, if you wear so much as a piece of Spanish lace, she’ll report the fact to Sir Francis Walsingham.”
“Who is Francis Walsingham?”
“He is the councilor who always wears the close black cap on his head—the queen’s spymaster. He thinks every Spaniard is the devil himelf.”
“Ah, the man with the eyes like black glass beads,” I said with a shudder.
“Let’s not speak of such grim matters today, Catherine,” said Emme with a wave of her hand.
So I put my mind to watching the city glide by, new to me and full of wonders. Great houses peered over the stone walls that held back the river, walls broken at intervals by steps and streets ending at the river’s edge, where women washed clothes and men cast their fishing nets. They shouted at the sight of the queen’s barge.
Anne was now sitting