“Mr. Simmonds, would you mind if we went back a move?”
The master at arms nodded and Cumberland replaced two pawns, which were in position to take.
“Now then, see here. Chess is a dreadfully dull game, in my opinion, but this makes it fun. Normally with two pieces of equal power we’d throw a die or a coin to decide which wins the fight.”
“Yes,” said Carey who actually preferred the newfangled way of doing it where the first that was in place took, regardless of power. That removed chance from the game and made it a matter of pure skill which suited him better. “And you’re fighting a veney instead?”
“Exactly! First hit wins the piece.”
Carey laughed. Cumberland was a very good fighter. “What an excellent martial exercise.”
“Of course. I think I’m doing better with this game than the last one, Mr. Simmonds.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Simmonds tactfully and Carey smiled knowingly at him because it was obvious to him from the board that in the long term, the Earl would lose no matter how good his veneys.
“Are you playing a puissant queen?” Carey asked.
“Oh yes, compliment to Her Majesty and all that. Makes it a better game anyway. We should play a game, Sir Robert.”
“I’d be delighted, my lord,” said Carey, quite truthfully with a little tickle of excitement under his ribs at the idea he suddenly had for some side bets on himself to win.
“So, what are you doing here anyway?” asked Cumberland later as they sat on a couple of stools and Carey munched the heel of a game pie from the Earl’s table. “Lowther already kicked you out of Carell?”
“Not yet, though it’s a tricky situation,” Carey explained as much as he was willing of the tricky situation, then changed the subject. “I’m really here to talk to the Queen about my warrant and get my fee…”
“Hah! Good luck. She’s in a terrible mood at the moment.”
“Why? She’s usually happy on progress.”
“No idea. Everything was fine until just after we got to Rycote and then suddenly…clouds! Thunder! Kaboom! Zap! Poor Devereux didn’t know what had hit him.…”
“How much trouble is he in?”
Cumberland smiled. “On Friday Devereux was driven from the presence in a hail of shoes, muffs, and one surprised lapdog, and today is out hunting to recover his spirits and bring Her Majesty some suitable trophy to calm her down…ideally venison.”
“So what did he do?”
The elegant tawny shoulders shrugged. “Nothing. For once he’s been angelic. He’s starting to get the benefit of the customs farm of sweet wines though he hasn’t found anyone to manage it for him yet. He’s recovered financially from his forays into France, more or less, though there are the usual rumours that he’s done something stupid with his money again.”
Carey said nothing to this despite Cumberland’s expectant look. He also didn’t mention that the Earl of Cumberland himself was famous as the man who was taking good fertile land and pouring it into the sea as he fitted out one privateer after another in hopes of taking a big enough prize to recoup himself. The Royal Spanish treasure fleet probably wouldn’t be enough by now.
“So you don’t know the reason for Her Majesty’s ill humour?”
“No, it’s probably just the wind changing in her internal weather, that’s all. What do you expect if you call her Astraea?”
“Do you know where my lord of Essex is hunting?”
“No idea. He’s ignoring me at the moment. It’s all Cromwell and Mountjoy and his other cronies. Maybe tonight at my ball-poor Norris asked me to arrange it so the Queen won’t be bored.”
They look around at the destroyed hedges, foraged apple trees, dung heaps, and escaped dogs that made a ragged new perimeter to the village. Every landowner dreaded the arrival of the Queen and all her Court on progress, and many had been known to fake absence so as to avoid the honour.
“My Lord Norris was saying he’ll have to remit all the rents for the next five years until the place recovers,” Cumberland commented as he went back to his chess-veney game. “Thank God I live too far north for her to turn up at my place.”
Carey laughed. “Your wife would love it.”
“She wouldn’t. She’s not a fool. What about you? My Lord Hunsdon found you a juicy little heiress yet?” Carey shook his head. Cumberland looked comically appalled. “Oh, for God’s sake, Carey, you’re not still mooning after Lady Widdrington?”
Carey’s expression chilled and he cocked his head as his hand dropped to his sword hilt. The Earl put his hands up, palms out placatingly.
“All right, all right, let’s not fight about it, I completely agree that your cousin Elizabeth is a wonderful, sagacious, virtuous, and beautiful woman and a perfect match for you, but for pity’s sake…”
“Yes?” growled Carey.
“She’s poor!”
“So what?”
“And she’s married. I heard something about your last run-in with her husband. But even once he’s dead, how can you ever afford to marry her? It’s just not practical.”
Carey’s expression was mulish. “I love her,” he said.
Cumberland shook his head at his friend’s lunacy. “What does your father say?”
“He married for love, too.”
“Maniacs, the lot of you. I blame the Royal blood. Come on then, which way should I go here?”
Carey blinked down at the board. Simmonds’ face was carefully neutral so Carey looked for a trap. There were two obvious moves that would lead to a very nice ambush, but there was one move that wasn’t obvious at all. Carey was willing to bet that Cumberland hadn’t noticed it. Damn it, what his friend said was perfectly true and only what all his friends had been telling him for the last five years, but…
He didn’t care. He was a landless younger son and common sense dictated he must marry money or land. But he had to have Elizabeth. There was simply no alternative.
“You could move your puissant queen from here to here,” he said. Simmonds’ granite face shifted infinitesimally to sadness. “Sorry, Mr. Simmonds,” Carey added, because he had just destroyed a very nice march on the king.
Cumberland stared, frowned, stared again. “By God, Carey, how do you see these things? Amazing! Right.” He moved the carved ivory queen. “Check, I think.”
Carey was sitting down, playing Mr. Simmonds at the new style of chess with no veneys, dice, or coins plus the puissant queen who shook everything up so well, when he heard a caressingly familiar voice beside him.
“Alors, M. le Depute,” came the Italianate French. “Je suis vraiment enchante de vous voir autrefois.”
Carey shot to his feet. There was a tiny pause during which he checked to make sure that it was indeed none other than Signora Emilia Bonnetti, looking amused. Cumberland had a very unattractive smirk on his handsome face.
“Emilia!” he said, bowing to hide the fact that his memory was in an uproar. “Signora Bonnetti, I, too, am utterly delighted to find you here in such an unworthy setting.” He said it in English because that was a dig at Cumberland who was clearly playing his very own puissant queen. Anyway, it would be rude to speak French in front of the earl who was no linguist.
Emilia smiled again, with her head tilted perkily. This time instead of a feathered mask and crimson silk gown and dancing slippers, Signora Bonnetti was modestly dressed in a black devore velvet slashed with grey satin in a Parisian style and was wearing small but determined hobnail boots. Her black hair was modestly tucked under a white linen cap, but she wore a crazily tilted little black hat with a feather in it, making every other woman in the world look unforgivably dowdy.