A bubble of space surrounded the seated queen. When she spoke with a lord or lady, their conversation was both private and public. It was private, because no one could hear what was being said. It was public, because no one could mistake the expression on the queen’s face. Just as John Dee had said to Petra during her first visit to the palace, there was always somebody watching in the Watching Chamber, and tonight they were all watching the queen. Right now, several eyes in the room were turned toward the man kneeling at her feet, and everyone could see the frown on Queen Elizabeth’s face as she spoke. The old woman pounded the arm of her throne, her bullet-black eyes wide with anger. The man slunk away.
Then Petra and the Dees were brought before the queen. Petra had thought she would be forced to wait while the adults said whatever dull things they had to say, but Dee waved her forward. “This is the girl in question, Your Majesty.”
Petra stepped in front of the throne.
“Come closer,” the queen ordered, so Petra did.
Queen Elizabeth’s face was sunken, her gaze sharp. Petra could tell that her orange hair was a wig, but the queen wore it like a battle helmet.
“Well, child, did no one teach you how to kneel?”
Petra obeyed. Then she drew her breath to speak.
But Queen Elizabeth spoke first, her hand lifting Petra’s chin. “Petra Kronos, our little Bohemian refugee.” The queen studied her. “So young, and so ready to break hearts.”
Petra asked her question: “Your Majesty, do you have any news of my father?”
The queen’s eyes shot to Dee. “No,” she said in a final tone.
“But will you—?”
Dee looked appalled.
The queen’s grip on Petra’s chin tightened. “People so rarely recognize when they have become tiresome. Why is that, do you think?”
“Please, I—”
Stop, said Astrophil.
But she knows something! I can tell!
And I can tell that she will not answer you. Petra, she could gain political favor with Bohemia by turning you over to the prince. You are under Queen Elizabeth’s protection. Do not make her regret it. Now, repeat after me . . .
“I am sorry, Your Majesty,” Petra mouthed Astrophil’s words. “I know my manners are poor. Forgive me. I was startled by your brilliance.”
“Oh ho!” The queen chuckled merrily. “A flatterer! Well, go play now, child, and speak your sugared words to someone who believes them.” She patted Petra’s cheek, and the girl knew their conversation was over.
Without paying attention to where she was going, Petra stalked away. She fumed at Astrophil: You were laying it on a bit thick, weren’t you? “Brilliance”! Hah! I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing that.
It was for your own good.
Who cares about my own good? Petra argued, walking into a shadowy corner of the room. There was only one other person near her, a seated man scribbling on a piece of paper he had spread over his right knee. Maybe it would be better if the queen sent me back to Prague. Dee wouldn’t cross her decision. And at least then I’d be with Father.
In a jail cell, or worse! The spider trembled in her hair. Please do not talk like that. We have a plan, remember?
“Pardon me,” said the man next to her. He was the same one she had seen kneeling before the queen. “I don’t recall seeing you at court before, and I thought I knew everyone. Who are you?”
“No one special,” she muttered.
Though still seated, he bowed from the waist. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, No One Special. I am a Courtier in Disgrace. Perhaps we are distantly related. I wonder if you can help me. Do you know of a word that rhymes with entangles?”
“Um . . . strangles?”
“No, no, no! That won’t do. Lovers don’t strangle each other. At least, not at first. I’m writing a love poem, not a coroner’s report. Absolutely no strangling.”
What had Ariel said to Astrophil? Never trust a poet. Petra considered the man more carefully. It was hard to believe that this man had any connection to Ariel’s dire words, but Petra asked, “You’re a poet?”
“Sometimes. Especially when I’m in deep trouble. Between you and me, I’m not really writing a love poem. It’s more of a flatter-the-queen poem. But it’s not going so well . . . I am better at composing humorous verse. Have you ever heard my poem ‘To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-Mannered Dog Who Bit Several Persons of Great Importance’?”
“No.”
His face drooped in mock disappointment. “That was my finest hour.”
“Why do you have to flatter the queen? Is she mad at you?”
“It breaks my heart to say it”—he gave a comically sad sigh—“but yes.”
“Why?”
A look of real discomfort crossed his face. “I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say I disappointed her.”
“Well, I don’t see how a bunch of words is going to make her like you.”
“You are wise beyond your years, my sweet No One Special. But it’s my fate to do things I regret, and say words that don’t matter.”
Petra decided to do what Kit always encouraged in fencing. She made an aggressive move. “Did you know Gabriel Thorn?”
The man’s expression darkened. “The West? Of course! He’s the reason I’m stuck here in the shadows. And you know this, don’t you?” He narrowed his eyes.
She shook her head.
“You do! You must. The whole court knows. Why, just the other day that busybody John Dee was asking me about him, wanting to know where I was on the morning of Thorn’s death. I’ll tell you truly, I’d spit on Thorn’s grave and laugh about it, but I wouldn’t be the only one, as Dee himself knows very well!” The man stood, crumpling the paper in his fist, and stormed off.
Petra watched him go, wondering if this man was the murderer. After all, he clearly hated Thorn, and had just admitted to having done things he regretted.
Kit would tell her more about the poet. The only problem was that Kit was nowhere to be seen, so Petra drifted over to Madinia and Margaret. They chattered away, used to Petra’s silence. Petra was wondering why Kit had been so insistent about her coming to this ball if he wasn’t going to bother to show up, when Madinia (for once) fell silent.
“Mmm.” Madinia was looking over Petra’s shoulder. “I suddenly feel an enormous urge to take fencing lessons . . .”
Petra turned. It was Kit. She told herself there was no reason to feel nervous. But her heart stuttered, and she was sure that if she looked down at the thick cloth of her dress, it would be trembling with her pulse.
Kit was finely, though somewhat shabbily, dressed. His eyes lit up when they found Petra’s.
Margaret was good at recognizing a lost cause when she saw one. She took in Madinia’s admiring gaze, Kit’s eagerness, and Petra’s flushed cheeks. Then she said to her twin, “Look at the Essex boys standing over there. Let’s see if they’ll ask us to dance.”
“Ooh, let’s!” Madinia pulled her sister in the direction of the two young men.
Left alone, Petra watched Kit approach.
When he reached her, he bowed in the same manner as all the gentlemen in the room were doing when they encountered a lady. Petra should have curtsied in response, but didn’t.
“You look very different,” Kit said.
“Don’t I know it.”
Kit was startled.
I think you just sounded arrogant, Astrophil observed.
What? When?
When Kit said you looked different and you said—
I know what I said, and of course I look different! I look like a stuffed doll, or a monkey that’s gotten into its mistress’s things, or—
Astrophil poked her scalp.
Petra bit back a cry. What’d you do that for?
I did that because I am not large enough to grab you by the shoulders and shake you!
Then she realized that Kit was touching her sleeve. “That’s samite,” he said,
rubbing the fabric under his fingers.
“I guess,” she said, and knew she sounded rude. But she was just saying whatever words sprang to mind so that she could buy herself time to think about why warm hope gushed through her when she felt Kit’s hand on her arm.
His hand fell to his side and his expression changed. She saw the disappointment, and then he just looked cold.
“The Dees keep you well,” he said. “Samite is a very expensive fabric.” Kit looked across the room, and Petra followed his gaze to see John and Agatha Dee speaking with Queen Elizabeth.
“The dress is a hand-me-down.”
“Well, then, it’s an expensive hand-me-down.” He looked at her again, but warily. “Let’s show it off.” He gestured at the dancers.
“No,” Petra said. Then, anxious not to be misunderstood again, she added, “I can’t. Not like that. I only know folk dances. What they’re doing looks . . .”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Unnecessarily complicated?”
Petra found herself wanting to keep the half smile on Kit’s face, so she said, “Can I tell you a secret?”
“You can, but you’d better not, but I can’t resist a question like that, so yes. Tell.”
Petra, do be careful. Astrophil clutched her braid more tightly.
Petra ignored him. She said to Kit, “You were right about me.”
“Of course I was! But, er . . . right about what, exactly?”
“I don’t belong here. I feel really out of place.”
“Well, that’s no crime. Not like murder.” His voice was teasing. “I hear that you’ve been grilling poor Walter Raleigh about Gabriel Thorn.”
“Walter Raleigh? The poet?”
“The bad poet,” Kit corrected. “But he’s other things, too.”
“How do you know what we talked about? I met him only a half hour ago, and you weren’t even here then.”
“You noticed.”
She blushed. “I want to know how you know,” she insisted. “Do you have a magical gift for eavesdropping or something?”
“I am offended.” Kit laid a hand on his heart. “Here I am, trained from the time I was a toddler to be a spy, and you mistake intelligence and skill for magic. You want to know how I heard about your tête-à-tête with Raleigh? He told me. You really upset him, Petra. I saw him in the hallway as he was leaving. As I’ve said before (once? Twice? Hmm, I must stop bragging), I know a lot of things about a lot of people. How did this come to be? I trade secrets. I have built up a system of favors. If I tell Courtier X that Lady So-and-So is cheating on her husband, then Courtier X owes me a secret later on down the road. Sir Walter Raleigh decided to ask me if I knew something about a pretty, prying, strange girl with gray eyes who was bothering him about Gabriel Thorn.”
Petra tried not to be distracted by the fact that she had been called “pretty.” Raleigh’s word, she told herself. Not Kit’s.
“I would have said silver eyes, not gray,” Kit continued, “but maybe that’s just me.”
“What did you tell him?”
He shrugged. “Not much. I don’t know much.”
“But what did you say?”
“That you were Dee’s distant cousin and I’d been hired to teach you fencing. Nothing more.”
Petra relaxed a little, but still demanded, “Tell me about Raleigh.”
“Even if that means you owe me?”
Petra, Astrophil warned.
But she was tired of listening to him, and tired of being safe. “Yes,” she told Kit.
He looked smug. “What do you want to know?”
“Why is the queen mad at Raleigh, and what does that have to do with Thorn?”
Kit seized her hand. “I’ll show you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t you have a sense of adventure?”
“Yes.”
“Then follow me.”
Kit led her away from the Watching Chamber and down narrow hallways. Petra hadn’t been in this part of the palace, but it looked familiar. Then she realized why: the dimly lit halls reminded her of the underground part of Salamander Castle where all the servants worked. “Are we going to the servants’ quarters?”
Kit glanced back at her and gently tightened his hand, which Petra took to mean yes.
He opened a rough wooden door, and they stepped into the kitchen. It was bustling with activity, but one middle-aged woman wasn’t too busy to notice who had just entered her domain. “Kit! Have you come to talk me out of a cut of the queen’s finest beef?”
“Why, no, Jessie. But if you’re offering . . .”
She ruffled Kit’s cropped hair with greasy fingers. “Well, what do you want, you rogue?”
“I’d like to show my friend Raleigh’s gift to the queen.”
“Oh, that! Go ahead, lad.”
“Petra, do you remember what I told you about Drake, who stole gold from Spain?” Kit asked as he brought her into the pantry. “Well, Raleigh’s an explorer, too. He’s an experienced sea captain, and many people thought that Drake’s assignment should have gone to him. But Thorn spoke up at a councillors’ meeting and said, ‘Why should that brainless Raleigh get the plum job? Drake’s your man. Send Raleigh to America instead, Your Majesty. That’s the place for dreamers like him.’ So Drake went one way, and Raleigh went the other. Drake brought back a boatload of gold and was knighted for it. Raleigh brought back this.” Kit opened a bin and pulled out something that looked like a clod of dirt. He placed it in Petra’s hand.
“What is it?”
“It’s called a potato. You eat it.”
Petra looked at Kit incredulously.
“Now you see,” he said, “why Queen E isn’t so happy with Raleigh, and why he thinks he was cheated out of a different destiny by Gabriel Thorn. You know”—Kit took back the potato—“this thing isn’t half bad.” He stepped back into the kitchen. He reached behind Jessie for a knife, and turned to the wooden table to chop the vegetable. Petra sat on a stool nearby, watching him and remembering her last experience in a castle kitchen. It seemed so long ago.
Kit swept the white cubes into a skillet, added a pat of butter, and placed the pan on the wood-burning stove. Servants scurried around him as he cooked. They didn’t seem to think there was anything out of the ordinary about Kit frying a potato in their kitchen. They all knew him. It was Petra who drew curious glances.
When the cubes had browned, Kit tipped them onto a plate. Then he pulled up a stool and sat next to Petra, the plate balanced on his knees. He and Petra ate with burning, oily fingers.
“Delicious,” Petra declared.
“You can’t eat gold,” Kit agreed. “Raleigh deserves more credit than he gets.” When Kit set aside the empty plate, he said, “In the Watching Chamber, you seemed very much against the idea of dancing. Do you really hate it?”
“No. I’m just not good at it. I used to dance with my father sometimes, at festivals in my village.” She fell silent.
“Petra, about my system of favors and secrets . . . You don’t owe me anything for information about Raleigh, or about anyone else,” Kit said, “if you dance with me.”
“What, here? Now?”
Kit grinned, and Petra realized that she could hear a muffled piping. The servants had disappeared from the kitchen, and Petra guessed they were in a room close by—perhaps in their dining hall, where they had shoved aside the wooden table and benches to clear a space for dancing.
“I won’t know the steps,” Petra warned.
“Am I not a good teacher?” Kit pretended to pout. Petra rolled her eyes. But it was she who led the way toward the piping music, and when Petra and Kit danced with the servants of Whitehall Palace, she stepped on no one’s feet. She easily mastered the steps Kit taught her, and had no trouble keeping the fast, whirling beat of the music.
19
The Court of Wards
PETRA SLEPT IN LATE. She hadn’t done this for a long time, since before she ran away to Prague. When
she woke, she remembered that other Petra whose life had been just about perfect. Now, her cheek still on the pillow, she felt older—but also less sure of herself, which really didn’t seem fair. Weren’t you supposed to feel more confident with every year?
She thought about Kit’s hand on her sleeve and how lightly she had turned in his arms as they danced. She wondered if he had been as nervous as she, and as thrilled.
Petra scowled. She hated feeling confused. Well, then, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t think about Kit at all. She knew what was important: her goal. She clung to its ice-cold clarity: Outwit Dee. Go home. Find Father. A boy she liked too much had nothing to do with her plans.
She hung her head over the edge of the bed and looked into the dark shadows underneath. Astrophil was sleeping soundly in a corner where the bed slats met the frame. “Astrophil!”
The spider gasped and fell to the floor.
“I thought spiders were supposed to be graceful,” said Petra.
Astrophil scrambled to his feet. “Spiders are supposed to be given a decent rest after staying up late posing as hairpins.” He crept over to one of Petra’s dangling braids, which he began to climb.
Petra sat up, and the spider jumped to her earlobe. He continued to speak: “What, precisely, was the point of going to the ball? Beyond flirtation and attempting to insult the queen of England?”
Petra didn’t like the word flirtation, and so she pretended she hadn’t heard it. “We now have a suspect: Walter Raleigh.”
“Him! He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Well, neither would you, and you’re supposed to eat them. Think about it: Raleigh is a poet, like Ariel said, and he had a motive for killing Thorn. We just have to prove that he did it.”
“You cannot take what Ariel said to heart. She also mentioned black teeth, a dirty river, and a tree dressed in robes. We both know that she was not actually talking about a river or a tree. So are we supposed to find Thorn’s killer by looking in the mouths of poets to see if they have bad dental habits? No. We must remember that although Ariel said many things, we do not know what they mean.”
“But Raleigh is our best lead!”