Ffynne realises that the dawn has come without his noticing it, the snow is so thick. Gradually the horizon grows pale, revealing a palace like some gigantic alpine peak, a London half-buried in snow, a Thames on which ice is forming even as the ship moves through it.
All is white and silent. Tom Ffynne stops his stamping to stand in wonder at the sight of Albion’s capital on this New Year’s Day, beginning the thirteenth year of Gloriana’s peaceful reign and, according to old Doctor Dee, the Queen’s astrologer, the most significant both in her life and in the history of the Realm.
Tom Ffynne lets out a huge, billowing breath. He claps mittened hands together and shakes little icicles from his dark beard, grunting with pleasure at the sight of his home port, in all its proud, frozen glory; its temporary tranquillity.
THE SECOND CHAPTER
From white sheets, in a huge ivory gown trimmed with silver lace, her hair enclosed in a cap of plain linen, her pale hands decorated by nothing but two matching rings of pearls and platinum, Queen Gloriana pushed back bleached silk bed-curtains, rose and crossed to the window. On snowy lawns albino peacocks paced between carved yew hedges which this morning were like marble. A few flakes still fell to cover the darker tracks of the birds, but the milky sky grew lighter as she watched and there was even a trace of the faintest blue. She turned to where her little maid of honour, Mary Perrott, stood beside the breakfast tray with its heavy burden of silver. “You’re very pretty this morning, Mary. Good colour. Womanly. But tired, I think.” In affirmation, Lady Mary yawned. “The festivities…” “I fear I left the masque a little early. Did your father like it? And your brothers and sisters? Was it enjoyable to them? The entertainers? Were they amusing?” She asked many questions so that none might be answered.
“It was a perfect night, Your Majesty.”
Seating herself at the delicate table, Gloriana lifted covers to choose kidneys and sweetbreads. “Cold weather. Are you eating enough, Mary?”
As her mistress began to devour the food, Mary Perrott seemed to quiver slightly, and Gloriana, detecting this, waved a fork. “Return to your bed for an hour or two. I’ll not need you. But first place another log on the fire and bring me the ermine robe. That dress is a new one, eh? Red velvet suits you. Though the bodice seems too tight.”
Lady Mary blushed as she leaned over the fire. “I had intended to alter it, madam.” For a moment she left the chamber, to return with the ermine, placing it across her mistress’s broad shoulders. “Thank you, madam. Two hours?”
Gloriana smiled, finished the kidneys and started quickly on her herrings, before they should grow cold. “Visit no swain and let none visit you, Mary, but sleep. Thus you’ll be able to fulfil all your duties.”
“I will, madam.” A curtsey and Lady Mary slipped from the Queen’s austere room.
Gloriana found that the herrings were not to her liking and rose from them suddenly. She walked to the mirror on the wall beside the door, grateful for unanticipated privacy. She investigated her long, perfect face, her delicate bones. Her large green-blue eyes contained an expression of faint, objective curiosity. The cap gave a starkness to her features. She removed it, releasing her auburn hair, which curled immediately against her cheeks and on her shoulders; she unlaced her gown, threw off her ermine, so that she was naked, soft and glowing. She stood a full six inches over six feet, yet her figure was ideally proportioned, her flesh unblemished for all that, like some lover’s oak, she had been carved, in her time, with a dozen initials or more; struck, since girlhood, with almost every sort of whip and weapon, tortured with fire, scored, bruised, scratched-first by her father himself or by those who, serving her father, sought either to educate or to punish her; secondly by lovers whom she had hoped might rouse her to that single important experience still denied her. She stroked her flanks, not from any narcissism but abstractedly, wondering how such sensitive flesh as this could be so thoroughly stimulated and yet refuse to reward her with the release it had afforded the majority of those she lent it to. A little sigh and the robe was re-donned, the fur drawn around her, in time to call “Enter” when a knock came and in walked her closest friend, her private secretary, her confidante, Una, Countess of Scaith. The Countess wore a grey brocade marlotte, its high collar completely enclosing her neck and emphasising, with its short puffed sleeves, her heart-shaped face, flaring to reveal her gown’s hooped skirt, dark red and gold. Una’s grey eyes, intelligent and warm, looked into Gloriana’s-a brief question already answered-before they embraced.
“By Hermes, let there be no further doctors like those that were sent to me!” The Queen laughed. “They pricked me all night with their little instruments and bored me so, Una, that I fell solidly to sleep. They were gone when I awoke. Will you send them some gift from me? For their trouble.”
The Countess of Scaith nodded, being careful to share her friend’s deliberate mood. She left the bedchamber and entered an adjoining room, unlocking a small writing desk and taking from it a notebook, calling back: “The Italians? How many?”
“Three boys and two girls.”
“Gifts of equal value?”
“It seems fair.”
Una returned. “Tom Ffynne is just come home. The Tristram and Isolde docked at Charing Cross not three hours since and he’s eager to see you.”
“Alone?”
“Or with the Lord Montfallcon. Perhaps at eleven, when your Privy Council meets…?”
“Discover from him something of the nature of his anxiety. I should not like to offend the loyal admiral.”
“He has no loyalties but to you,” agreed Una. “These old men of your father’s place a higher value on you than do the young ones, I think, for they remember…”
“Aye.” Gloriana became distant. She misliked memories of her father or comparisons, for she had loved the monster increasingly as he grew older and sicklier and, at the end, had learned to sympathise with him, knowing that he had been too weakened by the burden she herself was barely strong enough to shoulder. “Appointments, today?”
“You wished an audience for Doctor Dee. That is arranged to follow the meeting of the Privy Council. Then there is nothing until after you have dined (at twelve until two) with the ambassador from Cathay and the ambassador from Bengahl.”
“They dispute some border?”
“Lord Montfallcon has a paper and a solution. He’ll tell you of that this morning.”
“After we’ve dined?”
“Your children and their governesses. Until four. At five, a ceremony in the Audience Chamber.”
“The foreign dignitaries, eh?”
“The usual presents and assurances, for New Year’s Day. At six, the mayor and aldermen-presents and assurances. At seven, you agreed to consider the case of the new buildings by Greyfrairs. At eight, supper: the Lords Kansas and Washington.”
“Ah, my romantic Virginians! I look forward to supper.”
“After supper only one thing. Sir Tancred Belforest requests an audience.”
“Some new scheme of chivalrous daring?”
“I think this is a private matter.”
“Excellent.” Gloriana laughed as she entered her dressing room, ringing the bell for her maids. “It will make me happy to grant at least one boon to the poor Champion; he yearns eternally to please me, but all he knows is battle and gymnastics. Have you any inkling of his desire?”