“My lords, ladies, gentlemen, and goodmen,” she said in a penetrating contralto voice. “We thank you for your loving greeting and attendance upon us and hereby order you all to your feet in our presence, so we may enjoy the dancing arranged for our entertainment by our well-loved Lord Norris and Earl of Cumberland.” A round-faced man with a worried look stood up and bowed low to her. The Queen clapped her hands.
“Up, up, on your feet, all of you, never mind your knees,” she said with a magical smile. “What shall we have first, Mr. Byrd? A coranto?”
The short fat man bowed and pointed two fingers. The musicians started up the dance-measure as the lines of courtiers quickly sorted themselves.
Hughie had no idea how to dance Court dances, though he could give a good account of himself at the Edinburgh fair day, which put him in mind of something he had done for Lord Spynie once at a Court dance and that had worked very nicely. Everybody had thought that the fat burgher, whose daughter Spynie had taken a fancy to, had gone outside for air and then died suddenly of a fit sent by God in punishment for his avarice.
Hughie watched as Carey joined the lines of dancers, smiling and talking to the small dark Welshman on his left. Hughie sidled along the wall to be nearer the musicians. He wanted a metal harp or lute string, that was all. You never knew when you might get the opportunity to earn your gold.
Saturday 16th September 1592, evening
Emilia watched Sir Robert Carey and calculated where she stood among the other women so she would be his partner for the measures halfway through the country dance that was next. Oddly enough, her prey seemed not to have noticed her yet. Perhaps he was being coy.
She fluttered her fan across her face, the last crimson remnant of what had worked for him in Scotland and smiled to him under her lashes. He acknowledged her with a polite tilt of his head but that was all. Had he been gelded by the Scots then?
She took hands with the provincial English girls on either side of her in their ugly provincial English gowns, stepped forward, stepped back, her borrowed velvet rocking around her hips with the other women’s careful farthingales, stepped sideways, stepped back, such a boring dance, thank God she had a mind that learned such things easily, stepped forward, take hands with a spotty boy that had used far too much white lead on the spots, spin, dance a measure with him, spin again and back to the women’s line, and so along by two partners.
At the far end she knew the Queen was in the line of women and at the other end was the ginger man, Essex, her mignon and no doubt her paramour, the wicked old bitch.
And step forward and back and sideways again. That bad man Cumberland was giving one of the prettier provincial girls the kind of smile he had given her across a hall in Dublin, and that was unfair, the use of a culverin to sink a rowing boat, for the girl was stricken by it like a rabbit at a fox. Perhaps she would be well-guarded by her menfolk.
Emilia sighed, spun, danced, stepped forward and back and then, quite unexpectedly, there was M. le depute who had so helpfully and expensively sold her guns for Ireland. Well, he had sold them to her stupid husband who had been too excited at the thought of blackmailing the Queen’s nephew to check them properly and so nearly brought about not just their deaths, which Emilia could perhaps have forgiven from Purgatory, but much worse, their ruin.
She smiled at him and wished for a feathered mask. He looked down at her gravely, spun her, danced, spun her again and all with the most depressing propriety.
Damn, damn, damn him, he was playing hard to get because there was a clear admission of guilt in his humorously raised eyebrow and the sparkle in his so-blue eyes.
Jesu, what an annoying man. Her stomach was fizzing again; she was lusting after him like one of the stupid provincial girls. That was not at all the way to do it. He was supposed to be hot for her, not the other way around. However there was no question that she wanted more of what he had so scandalously and lustily given her in Scotland. She definitely wanted him. When they danced, her whole body had risen to him, trout to a lure. Goddamn him.
She smiled again with particular lasciviousness at the next man to spin her round, a willowy youth in pearl-grey satin. And then she quite consciously stopped herself. She had to bank her fires so they could work where they were really needed. But she still needed that valuable introduction to the Earl of Essex. Her satisfaction for the guns would have to wait. It was lucky she had a secret contact here.
She paced forward and back and sideways again and found herself dancing with the Earl of Essex himself, now in white satin and white velvet, sparked with diamonds, trimmed in gold. He blanked her completely. Should she dare to ask? No, the music was too loud and the Queen would see. She had to take the normal route, through Carey or another follower of the Earl. Damn. Of course, that was why Carey was playing hard to get, he had been ten years a courtier. He knew his worth.
She let the moment pass. At the last measure, cleverly timed, the Queen and Essex danced together. The Queen was a good dancer, light and brisk on her feet. Then Essex expertly played the part of a man in love and leaned solicitously over a woman at least thirty years senior to him, who giggled and flirted and Holy Madonna, had her stays scandalously low and her hair uncovered by a cap, as if a maid of fourteen. Disgusting!
The two bowed and curtseyed to each other-the Queen not very much and the Earl a great deal from his great height and the other dancers all clapped.
Emilia’s feet were already sore and pinched in their borrowed dancing slippers and much-darned silk stockings. What could she bribe the Deputy with if not herself? She had only received one good necklace so far from Cumberland and it looked as if she would have to say goodbye to it now.
Hmm. She moved toward the broad-shouldered lad whom Carey had had at his back when he came in, instead of the lanky dour-faced man he had in Scotland. This one had a square raw-boned face and seemed only quarter-witted, but was wearing an Edinburgh cut doublet. He had been hanging around near the musicians, who weren’t bad at all, considering. Now the youth was at the back, near the bowls of wine and mead, watching for the signal from his master.
It came-Carey caught his eye and made a move with his hand. The youth bowed slightly, turned and poured wine into a plain silver goblet he was holding. He took a quick mouthful, surprisingly well-trained to Court ways, then brought it over to his master, a small towel on his arm and offered it with a bow. Carey drank it off.
Then he turned to bow to the Queen, who said something to him that made him tense. Emilia was getting used to English after becoming quite proficient at the barbaric tongue of Scotch-the two languages were brothers after all. She was sure the Queen had said something about singing. Carey bowed again and moved through the crowds to the musicians where the men of the chapel were lining up to sing. Carey stood at the end of the row, took a sheet of music and squinted at it. He looked very odd there, gaudy in his pearls next to the plain chapel men with their black robes and white collars.
The fat music master was explaining the music, Emilia thought, saying something about writing it that very afternoon and would Her Majesty care to hear his poor rough first attempt sung for the very first time? The Queen inclined her head, said something which caused sycophantic titters of laughter among the courtiers.
Carey smiled like a man accepting a challenge to duel, opened his mouth, waited for the beat, and sang the opening, perfectly on the note. The boy-sopranos speared their way into his line and the bassos, other tenors, and altos came in. It was a Spanish air, newly set in the modern Italian way, but she hadn’t heard it before. It was somehow both sprightly and wistful.