London - Edward Rutherfurd [339]
Edmund and Lady Redlynch passed through the gateway and entered the palace courtyard. Jane followed them.
There were several dozen people gathered in the yard, a number bearing torches. November, despite the cold, was usually a cheerful time at court, for in the middle of the month, on the anniversary of the queen’s accession, there was a big pageant at Whitehall and a joust. Some of the spirit of these coming festivities seemed to have infected the crowd, which was in a happy mood. Edmund waited eagerly.
Minutes passed. The torches flickered. And then she came. The doors of a council chamber opened. Two, four, six gentlemen in gorgeous tunics, short cloaks, their hands resting on jewelled swords stepped out. Then pages, carrying torches. And then, six more gentlemen, carrying a litter in which, magnificent in a billowing, jewel-encrusted dress, a huge lace ruff, and wearing a tall feathered hat against the cold, sat the queen. A cheer went up. Slowly, stiffly, her painted face like a mask, she turned and seemed to smile. My God, thought Edmund, thinking of his perhaps too gallant letter, has she grown so frail? Yet a moment later she partly dispelled his doubt, for in reply to the usual cry – “God save Your Majesty” – her voice rang out across the yard, as clear as it had to her troops before the Spanish came: “God bless you, my good people. You may have a greater prince, but you shall never have one more loving.”
She said it every time, and it never failed to please.
They carried her across to the doorway that led to the great staircase. After that, for a short while, she was lost to view. But then, at the entrance to the gallery leading to the private apartments, suddenly candles appeared. Then more. And a few moments later, at a slow and stately pace, the little cortège made a decorous procession down the gallery, the queen walking now, the candlelight gleaming on her jewelled dress as she appeared behind one glass window, then another, and then another. It was charming; it was magical; it was haunting; it was, Edmund realized, pure theatre.
And at the third window, there was no mistaking it, she paused, half turned, raised up her hand in silent salutation, and let fall a handkerchief.
Jane followed Edmund and Lady Redlynch back all the way to Ludgate and into the city. Once, as they crossed the Fleet, she heard them laughing. She followed them also as they turned into Blackfriars and went into Lady Redlynch’s house.
In the shadows of one of the gateways she watched Lady Redlynch’s house for three long hours, until its last lights were out. Then she slipped back through the city and walked in the darkness up the empty lane to Shoreditch.
At dawn the next day, Edmund awoke with a new hope and, thinking of Jane, decided it would soon be time to part from Lady Redlynch; but Jane had not slept a wink, and she was still weeping silent tears.
“We are to present four plays at court.”
They were all there in the room – the two Burbage brothers with their heavy-set, clever faces; Will Shakespeare; the other leading actors.
“I told you it would be so.” He had gone to the Burbages the morning after the incident with the queen, to put heart into the company. At first they had not believed him. Then word had come from the royal household that the Master of the Revels ordered them to prepare a selection of their best-loved plays for the court festivities at Christmas.
“We shall offer them three by Shakespeare, including Romeo and Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the elder Burbage went on, “and one by Ben Jonson.” He smiled: “If they accept that it will mean the poor