Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [32]
A ragged cheer went up from the younger servants. Amelian wine was the rarest and choicest of vintages, and very expensive. The queen’s court swept from the hall.
Maggie said, “Oh, Roger, why does she want you?”
I was too stunned to answer. Only one thought raged in my dazed mind: Maybe Lady Cecilia would be there, too, in the queen’s rooms, at midnight.
12
“WHERE IS THE QUEEN’S new fool?” a voice said loudly in the darkness of the apprentice chamber. Boys woke and cursed—until they saw who stood in the doorway, lamp raised high. Then some clambered out of bed and dropped to one knee, although there is nothing sillier than a bow made in a nightshirt. Others pretended to be still asleep. A murmur ran through the room, low as wind in grass and just as hard to locate: Lord Robert, the queen’s favorite, Lord Robert . . .
I scrambled from my pallet, still in my one suit of clothes; I had not put on the nightshirt that Joan Campford had made for me from a worn bedsheet. But I had it rolled beside me, along with my change of small clothes, my wooden comb, and a little knife for shaving: all that I owned in the world. I didn’t know what to expect from this night, and after I saw Lord Robert, I knew even less. Why had he come himself instead of sending a page? At least he had known to look for me in the apprentices’ chamber and not the laundry as the queen had told him.
“I’m here, my lord!” I called, and the high, squeaky voice did not sound like my own.
“Then come with me.” He sounded impatient, and yet there was a note of amusement, too. I didn’t see anything amusing. I trailed after him, my little bundle in my hand, and the others watched me go.
By the torchlight in the courtyard, I could see him better. After the queen and her courtiers had left the kitchen, Maggie had told me about Lord Robert Hopewell. In her shock over my summoning, her coolness had vanished. Lord Robert was perhaps forty, tall and well built. He had courted Queen Caroline when they were both young, but she had chosen instead another lord, far less strong, less handsome, less intelligent, as consort. Maggie had not said why, although from the way she pursed her lips, I imagined that she had a theory. Maggie always had theories. The queen’s consort had given her two sons, and then a daughter to rule after her, Princess Stephanie, now three years old. Shortly after the heir’s birth, the consort had died of the sweating sickness. I had the impression from Maggie that nobody much missed him. But this, too, was not spoken aloud. Since then, Lord Robert had again become the queen’s favorite.
He led me from the servants’ portion of the sprawling palace through courtyards I remembered from my visit, so many months ago, to Emma Cartwright. Wide, quiet courtyards, their trees and barely budded bushes now white in the cold moonlight, ringed with buildings of painted gray stone. Then buildings faced with smooth, white marble. Finally, buildings faced with mosaics of pearl and quartz, with small fountains playing among them. On this trip, however, there were no people. And we went farther than the quarters of the ladies-in-waiting—was Lady Cecilia in there, fast asleep under Emma Cartwright’s stern guardianship?
We went all the way to the courtyard of the young queen.
It was magnificent: bright with torchlight, tiled with green mosaics, set about with gilded branches of red berries in tall, exquisite green urns. Soldiers dressed in green tunics stood guard. They flung open doors for Lord Robert and we passed through a large, dark room empty save for benches against the wall. Then another large room, also dark, but this one furnished and hung with tapestries. Finally a much smaller room where candles and fire burned brightly, and the queen sat alone at a heavily carved table set with wine and cakes.
She still