Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [39]
“My lady . . .”
“And we shall start now! With the lute! Come!”
“We can’t now,” I said with enormous relief. “The queen is calling for dancing.”
Queen Caroline had just raised her hand to the musicians who waited obediently in a corner of the room. “The jereian!” she called. Ladies began to form one line, gentlemen another facing them. Those not dancing crowded back to the walls, I among them. The queen’s fool did not dance; not even Lady Cecilia was mad enough to think that. She skipped away to join the line of ladies, and the dance began.
Like all the court dances, it was slow, stately, sedate. More suited to the old queen than to Queen Caroline. I remembered the drunken masquers tumbling into the kitchen on the eve of the prince’s wedding, and knew there was wildness caged among these courtiers, just as there was in Cecilia. It was troubling. But why didn’t Queen Caroline introduce other, more vigorous dances? They existed; I had seen them at faires, among villagers exhilarated with holiday, with ale, with a day’s freedom from labor.
But I did not understand the queen. She contained mazes, labyrinths. Crafty, kind, passionate, ruthless, just, deceitful—she was all of these. The one thing that never changed was her determination to obtain the throne that should already rightly have been hers. I had no doubt that she would do nearly anything to that end—as she had once told me herself.
The queen chose to watch, not dance. She sat on a big, carved chair beside the fire, Lord Robert beside her on the stool that Lady Jane Sedley had vacated. I scurried to take my place at the queen’s feet, now that the sour-faced stranger had left the room. From here I could watch Lady Cecilia move her graceful little body in and out of the figures of the dance, weaving slowly forward and back, her slim waist swaying and her green skirts changing color in the flickering firelight. . . .
“Enough,” the queen said. She raised her hand and immediately the musicians stopped playing. “I find I do not want dancing, after all. I am weary. Good night.”
It was still very early. Courtiers and ladies gazed at each other in bewilderment. The queen turned to walk through her rooms, and the ladies of the bedchamber picked up their skirts to scurry after her. Cecilia was not one of these. She stood with a disappointed pout in the middle of the room. “Could we not dance anyway . . . ?”
But, of course, they could not. Not without the queen. Some courtiers, the older ones, left the room, including a reluctant Lord Robert. I knew he would be back later, much later, alone, to be admitted to the queen’s privy chamber. And then Lady Margaret left, one hand on her belly. “If you will excuse me . . . the pork at dinner . . . will not you young ladies retire as well?”
“It’s so early,” murmured Lady Jane.
“So early . . .” “Not at all tired . . .” “So very early. . . .”
With a sad smile, Lady Margaret walked from the room, her hand still on her aching belly. The younger courtiers’ eyes sharpened. They would stay, and without the sharp and intelligent eyes of Lady Margaret upon them. Or the eyes of their queen.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Usually the queen retired very late and her ladies at the same time, and I went to my alcove to sleep. But Lady Jane was right—it was far too early to sleep . . . Should I stay here? What should I do?
Learn all you can, the queen had told me once. Nobody notices a fool.
I would stay. I wanted to stay. Lady Cecilia was here.
“Let us wager!” Lady Jane cried. She seized a pair of dice in a golden cup.
“I’ll wager with you, pretty Jane,” said Lord Thomas Bradley, “but not for a coin.”
“For what then?” Lady Jane asked, widening her eyes with mock innocence. “A kiss?”
“Oh, I think more than a kiss.”
“How much more?”
“A game is no good unless the stakes are very high. Such as . . . everything.”
Lady Jane smiled at him over her fan. “Everything against what? What do you put up for your side of the wager?”
“My best mare.”
“Done, my lord!”
I was shocked. This did not happen in the queen’s presence.