Queen's Own Fool (20 page)

I left him to rehearse, and that night he performed before the queen. Once he had completed the set of songs with the three valets, he brought out his lute and begged the queen's indulgence.

She clapped her hands. “I hope you have good tone.”

“And good tunes, Majesty,” he said in reply.

The queen was delighted by his quick wit and was the one person there who seemed oblivious to his appearance.

As Davie sang, he seemed to cast off his misshapen body and rise upon wings of music, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.

We were all entranced, the queen above all.

She leaned close to me. “Who is this charming fellow, Nicola? He reminds me of one of the puppies we had back in France, the weakest of the litter. Francis thought it not worth keeping, but I nursed it till it grew strong and loved me entirely.” She put her hand down and that same little dog, now full grown, licked her fingers.

“David Riccio, Your Majesty. He is in the keep of the Duke de Savoy. I met him walking in the garden.” I thought it best to say no more than that, lest I spoil the evening.

“We must persuade him to stay for a while,” the queen said.

I nodded eagerly, pleased for Davie that he had found favor in the queen's eyes. And even more pleased for me.

 

In fact, I was only able to snatch an hour or so at a time in Davie's company over the next few weeks, for he still had duties to perform for his own master. But in those moments we discovered that we shared a love of Monsieur Ronsard's poetry and knew the same songs from Italy. I entertained him with my maman's stories, especially the fables in which foxes and lions and mice play their parts. He told me all the news from Italy and France. I had not enjoyed such moments of friendship since Pierre had gone.

Yet a cloud over every meeting was the knowledge that day by day the time was coming closer when he would be sailing back to France with the duke.

Two days before that departure I was sitting in the queen's parlor with Pious Mary, who was—once more and with little success—trying to teach me embroidery.

“Why is it,” I complained as I laboriously unpicked my latest disaster—a leaf whose bough looked mightily like a caterpillar. “Why is it that I can dance and garden and tumble and my hands give me no problem. But set an embroidery hoop in them and each finger becomes a thumb. Ow!” I dropped the hoop into my lap and sucked on the thumb I had just pricked.

She laughed, then leaned towards me, picked up the hoop, looked at it critically, and set it back in my lap. “It will come. All things come with patience. And time.”

I sighed deeply. “I can no more stop time than catch smoke in a basket.”

Just then the queen entered with two attendants at her heels. Pious Mary and I stood and the hated embroidery hoop tumbled to the floor. I did not bother to stoop and retrieve it.

“Good day, Mary. Good day, Nicola. Why is your face so long, child?” the queen asked.

“It is nothing, Your Majesty,” I said. “A mere pinprick.” I showed her my thumb.

“That face is not for a small hurt, I wager,” she said, “but a large one. Come, you must tell me.” She sat and we did the same.

“I cannot bother you, Madam, when you have so many more important things to worry about.” I looked down at my hands.

“And if I cannot worry about my people, what kind of a queen would I be?” She took my hand in hers. “All these little finger-sticks do not add up to a fool's distress. If my fool is unhappy, then so am I.”

“Oh, Madam,” I blurted out, “it is Signor Riccio. I will miss him.”

Pious Mary put her embroidery up before her face as if she was smiling at my misery.

The queen leaned back in her chair and signalled to one of the servants for a glass of wine to be brought to her. “We will all miss his lovely voice, Nicola.”

“And his lute,” said Pious Mary from behind the hoop, her voice almost strangled by laughter.

I nodded, unable to say a miserable syllable more.

Then, as if bringing out a trump card from the deck, the queen said, “Which is why I spoke today with the duke of my desire to retain Signor Riccio in my service.”

“Oh, Madam!” I cried, and then was suddenly tongue-tied.

Pious Mary dropped her hoop into her lap and clapped. “Oh, Madam, it is so hard to hold secrets!”

The queen laughed. “But you were letter-perfect, my dear Mary. She never guessed. Did you, Nicola?”

I shook my head but was silent, overcome by happiness.

“What kind of fool has nothing to say back?” asked the queen.

Still I could not speak.

“It has all been agreed,” the queen went on. “Davie will remain here as my master of music, and he seems delighted at the appointment. His belongings are even now being moved into an apartment in the east wing. I expect you will find him there.”

I jumped to my feet and was halfway to the door before I remembered myself. I whirled around and bobbed excitedly before the queen. “With your permission, Majesty?”

“Of course,” the queen said, waving a hand to speed me on my way. “Go quickly to your friend before you burst!”

 

I sped down the corridor and galleries and only when I reached the east wing did I realize that I did not know which apartment Davie was in. Suddenly I felt like little “Miss Wrong Turning” all over again.

A servant on some errand of his own came around a corner and I seized him by the sleeve.

“Please. Signor Riccio, the queen's music master, do you know where his apartments are?” I asked.

“You mean Signor Monkeyface?” he asked. “Little man, big hump?”

My stone expression must have told him all.

“Right at the end of the corridor there, two doors down.”

I left him without a word of thanks, so angry that he should call Davie names and not know the good in him. I stomped away down the corridor, made the turn, and found the right place.

The door was slightly ajar and I could hear Davie's voice within. Suddenly I worried he might be with the duke, making his farewells. I knew better than to burst in on a nobleman.

Widening the doorway a crack, I peered in. At first all I could see was Davie's lute propped in a corner, and a trunk next to it, on which was piled sheets of music. A wardrobe flung open revealed all his finery.

I stepped further into the room and there was Davie hunched over a table, entirely alone. He was so absorbed in whatever he was doing, he did not hear me come in.

“The queen here ...” he was saying. “The knight next. I will move the swords there ...” He chuckled.

I tiptoed closer and saw he was playing a card game, placing some cards in piles, and others faceup in orderly lines. The cards were of the Italian style, with suits of swords, batons, cups and coins, and four dress cards: king, queen, knight, page.

“And to complete the court ...” Davie muttered.

“You need a music master and a fool!” I said.

Startled, he spun around and lifted an arm to protect himself, a move of such instinct, I almost burst into tears.

“Have you no caution, Nicola?” he demanded, then walked past me to the door of the chamber and shut it.

I was stunned. “But you were only playing a game. What is the harm in that?”

He turned. “Suppose someone should find you alone here with me? A pretty young girl with Signor Monkeyface.”

My jaw dropped. “You know ...”

He smiled sourly. “What I am called? I make it my business to know. But what does it matter what I am called?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Then what does it matter if someone sees us together.”

He shook his head. “Little Nicola, I have been to many of the courts across Europe and they are all hotbeds of malicious gossip. I say this for your sake, not for mine.”

“There is nothing between us to give rise to gossip.”

He took my hands, his face serious. “Do not be a child. Gossip needs no substance to nourish it. It feeds upon itself.”

I squeezed his hands. “This court is not like those others, for it is ruled over by a queen like no other.”

At last his face softened into a smile. “Perhaps you are right, Nicola Ambruzzi. I have spent so much of my life flinching from blows, I shield myself out of habit. Come, let me teach you a new game I have just had from a traveler. It is a game for one player.”

“What fun is that, when you have a friend to play with?”

“It teaches one the art of patience,” he told me, spinning me around so that I looked at the table where the cards were laid.

“Oh, patience!” I said. “I have had enough of that for one day.”

Laughing, he plucked the ace of batons from its lowly position, then fingered it thoughtfully for a long moment.

“Davie,” I said, “card games are for fun, not for such grim study.”

“Like chess, cards can teach us strategy.” His voice was serious but he put the card back on the table.

Sighing, I said, “Strategy is for kings and queens, Davie, not for us. Surely we must learn to be happy over turns of chance.”

“For chance it was that brought us together, Nicola?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Or was it
fato,
” he said in Italian. “Fate?”

I had not heard that word since leaving Italy. I shuddered. “Or fate,” I said.

23

THE MARRIAGE RACE

D
avie quickly became a favorite of the queen's, singing and playing for her evening dinners and entertaining her with gossip from the European courts.

Soon Scottish nobles began to vie for a place at the queen's table because of the gaiety there and because the queen was unwed. At nineteen and a widow, she was now the most eligible royal in Europe, except for her cousin Elizabeth. The question of who Queen Mary's next husband would be led to an enormous guessing game that went on for month after month. Toasts were offered on the subject at almost every dinner the queen gave. I overheard people in the streets talking of it.

Even in the quiet of our own chambers, who the queen would marry—and when—was the topic most discussed.

“Don Carlos of Spain,” said Regal Mary, laying out cards for a game of solitaire.

“Why not the young King of France?” asked Jolly Mary, looking over her shoulder. “Or even her cousin Henry de Guise? Then we could all go home.”

“You
are
home,” Pious Mary reminded her.

“Whom do you favor, Nicola?” Pretty Mary asked me.

“Why must the queen marry at all?”

Pretty Mary giggled. “For the succession, of course, silly fool. If she does not have a child, she will be like Mary Tudor, whose kingdom went to her sister, Elizabeth, who looks not to wed at all.” She stared in the mirror, examining her face for blemishes.

“I favor Sir John Gordon,” Jolly Mary said.

“That cockscomb?” Having gotten stuck in her game, Regal Mary reshuffled the cards and laid them out again. “He is nothing.”

“Well, at least he is Catholic,” Jolly Mary said. “His father has lands and money. Besides,
I
think he is quite handsome.”

“Very handsome,” Pretty Mary said to her reflection.

Handsome, Sir John certainly was. Even I had to admit that. He had hair the same auburn as the queen and an open, guileless face. His eyes were a merry blue and he smiled rather a lot.

“Rather too much,” I remarked to the queen. “Like a fox, after the hen.” That made her laugh.

“The man is a dandy and a fool,” she said.

When I made a face, she added quickly, “And not a wise fool like you, Nicola.”

But Sir John must have thought that his handsome face would commend him to the queen as a fine husband. When it did not, and she turned him down, Sir John decided to try a different approach. He tried to abduct her as she toured her northern Highland provinces, thus forcing her to marry.

I had not gone on that trip, being abed with a flux called “The New Acquaintance.” Davie brought me a box of comfits.

“Sweets for my sweet friend,” he said. He also handed me a book of Italian verses I had admired in his room. But he did not stay long for fear of catching what I had. And he kept his handkerchief over his face all the while he visited.

 

When the queen returned from the Highlands progress, she came directly to my sickbed to recount her adventures.

“Now it is my turn to tell you a tale,” is how she began.

“Are you not worried you might get this flux, Majesty?”

She smiled and sat down beside me. “The doctor says you are well on the mend and no longer able to pass on the contagion.”

“Then tell on, Majesty. Though if you are any good, I may have to make you my fool!”

How she laughed. Then she suddenly grew serious. “Sir John's men dogged us during the journey. The silly creature had not listened to my rejection.” She smoothed down the front of her dark riding skirt. “I believe the man is in love with himself.”

“Not a good husband, then, for he should love his wife.”

She smiled at me. “A good point, my little fool. Another reason against Sir John's suit. Well, we bypassed him, setting him a trap, and all with the help of my loyal Highlanders.” She took off her hood and laid it on my bed, then took the pins from her hair.

“Are they as fierce as I have heard, those Highlanders?” I sat up weakly and she fluffed the pillows behind my back.

“Fiercer. They wear nothing but skins and plaids, and sleep out on the heather. Neither wind nor storm drives them in. I wore plaids to please them and they rewarded my small gesture with a loyalty I could not have bought.” The queen looked serious, remembering.