Assassin (3 page)

I had to stop because there was a tap at the door. Ellie and Masou crept in, looking very furtive.

“You shouldn’t be here, you’ll get in terrible trouble,” I told them.

“Fie!” said Ellie. “Look, mistress, I’m delivering your nice new smock for tomorrow, isn’t it lovely?”

“Rude!” said Masou. “It’s very rude to say smock. She should say shift. Isn’t she rude, my lady?” He was wagging his finger at Ellie.

“Yes, and don’t call me ‘mistress,’ or ‘my lady,’” I growled.

Ellie stuck her tongue out.

“All right, let’s see it,” I said eagerly.

It was a beautiful smock, in fine linen, embroidered with blackwork. I recognized what Mrs. Champernowne and the Queen had been working on all autumn and smiled, feeling quite touched. The Queen was as excited about the St. Valentine’s Ball as if I were her own true daughter.

“We just ironed it. Look at all them ruffles—I did ’em myself,” said Ellie, who was learning to be a proper laundrywoman. She folded it neatly and put it in my clothes chest.

Masou came over and sat on the bed. He had a little tiny pot made of alabaster. “See, this is kohl,” he said, opening it. “If you put a little, just a very little, around your eyes, they will look beautiful and sparkling.”

“I don’t like wearing face paint,” I said, and pushed the pot away.

He laughed at me. “Not white lead and cinnabar, no, but this will be as if your eyes had grown that way.”

“Masou, please, please tell what the Queen is planning for me,” I begged. “She won’t breathe a word.”

He put his finger on his lips and winked. “Mr. Somers himself said we must not tell, and when he said it he was staring straight at me,” he whispered.

I sighed. Masou would not cross the leader of the Queen’s Troupe.

Then he and Ellie did a ridiculous little dance, while juggling some of Lady Sarah’s dozens of face-paint pots. Finally, they replaced the pots, oh, so carefully, and backed out of the door into the passage, where they immediately became serious and well behaved. They do make me laugh.

I hate not knowing what Her Majesty is up to, even though I know she would never be cruel to me as she sometimes is to other courtiers. Oh, Lord, preserve me. I hope I don’t have to dance by myself! Or sing!

Now I must sleep.

I should not really be writing this at all. We’re in the Queen’s Chapel and the Palace Chaplain has been preaching for at least four hours. Maybe not quite that long, but I’m sure it is nearly dinner time. I am pretending to take notes on his sermon (hah!).

When we processed to chapel this morning, we passed by the Great Hall. It seemed all the Household were there, hanging up red silk banners and scurrying to and fro to fetch ladders and hang tinsel hearts for the ball. When I saw the hustle and bustle, I wasn’t sure if I was excited or terrified, and my heart beat fast.

The Queen isn’t listening to the sermon, either. She’s snorting quietly at something in the paper she’s reading. She always brings her red boxes with her so she can read during the service—as she told me, it’s necessary for her to be there, but the good
Lord knows how busy she is with the idiots of her Council, and will forgive her if she uses the time productively. I’m sure that’s right.

I have to stop now. The Chapel Boys are singing—so beautiful, like birds. I must pack my ink away—the service will finish soon.

I am sitting in a window seat with my daybooke and penner and I shouldn’t be doing this AT ALL. I am all dressed now in my rose-velvet gown, ready for the ball, and if I got ink on my gown … But I feel so scared, my heart is thudding and my palms are like slugs. I have to do something. It’s the sleeves I’m worried about: they’re white, so any speck of ink will show. I suppose I could get Fran to unlace them and put another pair on, but I don’t know which of my pairs of sleeves would match.

After Chapel I had a little food I wasn’t hungry for, and then Mrs. Champernowne called me to the Queen’s Withdrawing Chamber, where all the closets are, to help me dress. First, I had a bath in the Queen’s own tub with rose-water soap from Castile and then, when I was dry, I put on my new smock.

I expect Lady Sarah and Mary Shelton were flurrying around in our chamber, arguing over partlets and false fronts and making accusations about pots of perfume. But it was peaceful in the Queen’s Withdrawing Chamber so I had plenty of time to get nervous.

We waited behind a screen while the tub was taken out by some of the Queen’s Serving Men, and then Mrs. Champernowne rubbed her hands to make them warm. “Now then,” she said to me. “Please do not wriggle, Lady Grace.”

When Ellie gets dressed she laces her bodice over her smock, puts on a petticoat and her kirtle, slips her cap, shoes, and wooden pattens on, and there she is.

Well, me getting ready for a feast takes an awful lot longer than that. Mrs. Champernowne brushed my hair, and her own tiring woman brought my new partlet, all covered with embroidered flowers. The linen is transparently fine; I was scared I’d tear it when I put my head through the neck hole. And I hate the feeling of having the tabs tied under my armpits. It tickles! The Queen has given me a new pair of white silk stockings with rose-wool garters and new rose-embroidered dancing slippers. The
staymaker had brought my new stays. They’re cut French-style, and they’re so tight round the waist I can hardly breathe. Even my bumroll is new, though my petticoat and farthingale are altered ones of my mother’s. The top petticoat is of white damask, embroidered with roses.

My gown is just
amazing
! It is very heavy, because it’s mostly made of rose velvet and all in a piece—so I had to sort of dive in and slide. I popped out with my hair everywhere and my arms waving. It took ages for Mrs. Champernowne and Fran to do all the lacing and tying together. The silver aiglets on the ends of the laces were decorated with roses so I knew they were my mother’s. Suddenly my chest felt stuffed full with sadness that she wasn’t there to help me dress for my first proper grown-up feast.

“Oh, sweetheart,” said Mrs. Champernowne. She gave my shoulders a squeeze, then dabbed my eyes and nose for me. “If you make your nose all red, we will have to paint it with white, look you.”

I nodded and tried to direct my thoughts elsewhere.

When they had finished, they turned me round to look in the Queen’s own looking glass, which is huge and made of Venetian glass and worth as much
as a good horse! It was as if a tall lady had come in and was facing me. While Fran tied a small ruff round my neck, I curtsied to her—the reflection did the same. Well, I knew it was me, really, but I didn’t believe it until then.

“There now,” said Mrs. Champernowne, sounding satisfied. “A very beautiful Maid of Honour.”

“Do you think so?” I thought the strange lady staring at me from the looking glass certainly looked better than I usually do.

“Any man should think himself lucky to have you to wife, my dear,” she said. “Of course,
Sir
Gerald
will be able to buy you as many gowns as you like.”

I smiled to myself. My Lord Worthy had clearly been drumming up support for his nephew. “What about Sir Charles?” I asked, partly because I wanted to put her off the scent of my Lord Robert, who is probably my favourite.

Mrs. Champernowne sniffed. “Sir Charles would more likely give you horses,” she answered. “And as for that young fool, Lord Robert, I hope you do not throw yourself away on him. Sir Gerald was putting him right on something the other day, and all Lord Robert could do was gawp at him.”

It is true that Lord Robert can be a bit tongue-tied,
but at least he isn’t old. He is about twenty. I wonder what he was arguing about with Sir Gerald. I didn’t ask because Mrs. Champernowne clearly wanted me to. And I don’t want any more good advice about how nice Sir Gerald is.

“Off with you now,” Mrs. Champernowne said. “And do not so much as speckle your kirtle, Lady Grace, or I will birch you, by God, Queen or no Queen. Her Majesty must dress now.”

I slipped my pattens on to protect my slippers and wobbled through the door. As soon as I got into the passage, I found Ellie and Masou peeking round the corner from the back stairs.

Ellie clapped her hands. “You look beautiful, my lady,” she said wistfully. “Truly beautiful.”

“Oh, fie,” I replied. “Anyone could look beautiful in this dress.”

Ellie shook her head. She has a bump on the bridge of her nose and quite a lot of spots and her hands are red from the washing soap.

“Anyway, it’s very uncomfortable,” I added. “It’s too tight round my waist and I can’t bend my arms properly and my neck’s stiff from the ruff and I dare neither breathe nor scratch!”

Masou made an elaborate bow to me, then came
close with his little pot of kohl and dabbed a tiny amount on my eyelids. It tickled and I was scared he’d get my ruff dirty, but Masou is very quick and dextrous. I looked in the side of a polished silver jug which stands on a chest near the window, and it did make my eyes look more … mysterious, I suppose. Masou was wearing some for his stage paint already. “You have no necklace,” he pointed out.

He was right, I didn’t.

“Why would that be?” He bowed again, smiling, and I knew it was the clue to the Queen’s riddle that I’d asked for. Then he was off with Ellie because they both had lots to do before the ball.

I am writing this by the watch candle. I’m in my own bedchamber at last. In the other bed, Lady Sarah and Mary Shelton are asleep. Lady Sarah is snoring like a pig, while Mary Shelton is snoring like a badger.

I had to stop quickly earlier and hide everything away because Mrs. Champernowne was coming. (I got Ellie to come and fetch my daybooke and penner to the bedchamber later on.)

Everything in my head is all muddled up—there is so much to tell of this night’s events!

Mrs. Champernowne fetched me to the Presence Chamber and I sat there on a cushion with the other Maids of Honour, feeling like a wooden doll and wishing I could run round the Privy Garden half a dozen times. I didn’t. I think Mrs. Champernowne really would have birched me, if I’d done that. But I did wriggle a bit because of a fleabite on my back.

“Now stay still, Lady Grace,” Mrs. Champernowne scolded. “Remember, the stuff for that gown cost Her Majesty hundreds of pounds, never mind the tailoring!”

I goggled at her.

“You could buy a house in the City of Westminster with that, look you. So none of your hoydenish tricks,” she went on.

I was really glad she hadn’t spotted me using pen and ink.

After a long while of waiting and talking quietly, it was time to go. I felt sick with nerves. The Queen arrived in her wonderful gown of cloth of silver and black velvet. Everybody else was in white or silver damask to match her—it’s quite an honour that I was allowed to wear rose. Lady Bedford, the most
favoured Lady-in-Waiting, arranged the Queen’s long black damask train and veil and then we all set off, walking two by two down the passages where the Gentlemen of the Guard stood in their red velvet, and all the other courtiers cheered and clapped. I had to walk with Lady Sarah, who was furious about all the special treatment I’d received and wouldn’t talk to me.