The Queene’s Christmas
As in her dream, she heard the dogs coming closer, closer. Was she in the water already, drowning, dying?
When the first dogs leaped at MacNair and Forbes, she knew it was no dream. The entire pack of them, yipping, snapping, twenty at least, attacked the two men, but they knew their mistress and did not harm her. Backing away from the onslaught, Mac-Nair and Forbes tried to kick the hounds away, but MacNair’s face was streaming blood, and he couldn’t see. Forbes tried to help him at first, then seemed to slip in MacNair’s dark blood on the graying ice.
With a shout, Forbes fled toward the Greenwich forest with dogs in hot pursuit. With a massive splash, MacNair fell into the hole. At that very moment, Elizabeth saw the first of her huntsmen among the hounds.
“Oh, pardon, milady,” the man cried when he saw her, “but the fireworks drove them to distraction, an somehow they got loose. That a hole in the ice? Back, my boys, back!” he cried to the dogs, which circled it now, barking into it.
“Fetch a board or some rope!” she screamed, shoving her hair back from her face to see better. “We must get the men out of the water!”
Both huntsmen stood among their yapping charges, staring at her. “Your Majesty?” one said.
“Yes. Quickly, do as I say!”
“We’ll fetch him out,” the second man cried, “ 'cause there’s only one.”
Still standing amidst the remains of the writhing pack, the queen turned and gasped. Only one man was in the water. She fell to her knees and, trembling, crawled to the edge of the ice.
Robin! Thank God, it was Robin!
“Where did he go?” she shouted, lying down flat amidst the dogs and reaching a hand to him.
“Tried to hold to m-me. I hit him of-f-f,” he said, through chattering teeth. “W-w-went under.”
She held on to him while the keepers of the pack fished him out with a tree limb. “Despite the darkness,” she told the men, “I want you to follow the hounds on the trail of the one who fled.”
“Oh, aye, Your Majesty, we’ll fetch a coupla lanterns, and he’ll not get far, not with a few of the lead dogs on his tail. They musta had the scent of wild animal on their persons for the dogs to act like that.”
“Yes, wild animals indeed, unless the pack just came to rescue their queen,” she muttered, offering silent thanks to the Lord for her deliverance. The moment Robin was out of the water, she swirled her cape around him and carefully led him toward Greenwich.
“T-that f-f-ire will f-feel good,” he told her. “Look, it’s almost out But w-what h-happened?”
“MacNair and his man were behind it all.” She tried to stay calm, to help him walk quickly toward the shelter of the palace. But she stopped in her snowy tracks when she saw who walked toward them from Greenwich—and the single man approaching on foot from the forest.
“Ned! Jenks!” she cried. “And my Lord Sussex!”
Her servants looked like two blackened, singed scare-the-crows as they limped toward her, arms around each other’s shoulders. But she could not stop here: Robin was slowly turning into an ice man, and Sussex was shouting something about being hit over the head.
In relief and joy, Elizabeth cursed anyone who claimed she lived by intellect and not her feelings, for she burst into tears. She hugged each man in turn, the most precious Yuletide gifts she’d ever seen. And never had she been more proud to be their friend and be their queen.
Afterword
Twelfth Night Cake
In a bowl, combine ½ cup of juice of orange with 1 cup golden and 1 cup dark raisins and let stand. Cream 1 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups wheat flour, and a fresh hen’s eggs. Add the undrained raisin mixture and a pinch of cinnamon. Stir all together and bake until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Do not overcook, or it can become hard as a rock. Melt 3 tablespoons of honey to glaze the cake, decorating it with ¼ cup of candied cherries. In Scotland and rural shires, they add a pea and a bean, so that the finder of the bean is king for the evening and the finder of the pea is queen. But we do seldom follow such practices in civilized London town.
TWELFTH NIGHT
JANUARY 6, 1565
“OF ALL THE YULETIDE HOLIDAYS I’VE HAD, LOVEY, THIS was the best!” Kat told Elizabeth and reached to take her hand as they sat in armchairs facing the low-burning hearth. “Why, I had to laugh at the look on Master Stout’s face when you told him the extra meat pies you ordered were all to be sent to the kennels on the Isle of Dogs. Kind of you to think of your hunt packs there.”
The old woman chuckled while the queen fought back tears of relief that these holidays were officially over, and that Kat had not known all her queen had been through to keep Christmas for her. After the Twelfth Night Revels in the Great Hall tonight, led by Ned Topside, since Robin had taken to his bed with a dreadful cold, the two old friends sat late in the queen’s privy chamber before the hearth.
“I’ve asked Ned, Meg, and Jenks to come up when the corridors clear,” Elizabeth said, gesturing toward the three other chairs she’d pulled up. “In all the chaos of Christmas, I failed to give them their gifts.”
“I thought you were just holding back for Meg’s marriage.”
“I’ve intentionally not pressed her on that No, I mean to give them their gifts tonight”
“I suppose I should not have spoken so fondly of these holidays with the deaths of the two Scots on top of Vicar Bane’s and poor Master Hodge’s sad demises,” Kat went on. “Your royal Catholic cousin will say you’ve sent her wretched news for the coming year to have her envoy and his man fall through the ice and drown.”
Elizabeth said nothing, but that is the story Cecil had written to Mary of Scots. Though MacNair had drowned under the ice and his body had not been recovered, Forbes had been caught but had hanged himself in his cell before he could be questioned. However much the queen would have liked to accuse the Scottish queen of being privy to their plot, Cecil had found nothing in MacNair’s or Forbes’s effects to prove such, though he had found her stolen bracelet.
“I am sending Queen Mary a gift she will like, though,” Elizabeth said, more to herself than to Kat “Lord Darnley is the messenger Cecil is sending north when the roads clear, and the stage is set for Darnley to entrance her.”
“Hmph. You must have known she’d never trust Leicester, your Robin,” Kat said, taking another piece of Twelfth Night Cake from the small parquet table between their chairs. Like a child, Kat always ate the candied cherries off the top first.
“Yes, I knew that well—from personal experience,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
The queen also knew the battle lines had been drawn between her and Mary, however cordial and correct they might be to each other in the future. In a single year, more than MacNair had tried to plot against Elizabeth in the Catholic queen’s name, and, no doubt, more would. But she, with her friends, her true friends, would be ready for the next onslaught.
Elizabeth herself rose to answer Meg’s distinctive knock on the door and let the three of them in. Meg looked as if she’d been crying; Jenks seemed glum, and Ned either exhausted or pathetic Ned and Jenks still had bandaged hands and singed eyebrows and hair from the fire at Greenwich, which had been successfully put out after some dreadful damage to the east wing. It, like the boat-house, would need to be rebuilt this spring, along with a feigned, polite relationship with Queen Mary.
“Welcome all,” Elizabeth told them as she gestured them in. “Take the chairs and warm yourselves.”
To her surprise, the two men sat in the seats on the other side of Kat, while Meg took the single one by the queen. “Let me serve, Your Grace,” Meg said, popping up when she saw the queen pouring ale for them, but Elizabeth pressed her back into her chair.
“I’ve asked you here tonight to thank each of you for all you’ve done for me this holiday season,” she said, not mentioning specifics, for their endeavors of detection had been kept from Kat as well as from most of the court. “Also, your friendship and support these
first six years of my reign have been invaluable.”
“And many more years to come!” Kat chimed in.
The queen gave an ale-filled, heavily embossed silver goblet to Meg, Jenks, and Ned. “To the new year and the future,” she said and lifted her drink to them.
“Oh, Your Grace, it’s beautiful!” Meg cried, the first to catch on that the vessel from which she drank was her gift “Look, such shiny silver with entwined roses around the queen’s name: From a grateful monarch, Elizabeth the Queen, to my dear Strewing Herb Mistress Meg Milligrew.”
“Tudor roses, of course,” Ned put in, coming to life at last as he perused his goblet. “Why, on this side it has my name and Master of Queen’s Revels scripted in. Done by our St. Paul’s pewterer, Your Grace?”
“He got out of his sickbed in a minute when I sent him the order for them,” she said with a smile. “Meg, you see, yours has herbs as well, and Jenks’s has a saddle and bridle.”
“That’s a good one,” Kat put in, “seeing as how he’s about to get bridled and saddled himself in holy matrimony with Meg.”
Silence fell. Only the hearth crackled away.
“We have decided to delay that,” Meg whispered.
“To delay it indirectly,” Jenks added.
“Indefinitely,” Ned amended. “The three of us—well, for my part, after Jenks saved my life, I just realized all I owed him, that’s all.”
The queen could see that was not all, but she’d question Meg about it later. Elizabeth sensed that the men, in their new-fledged friendship, had somehow decided for Meg. Not wedding because something better and grander was at stake—yes, the queen grasped that full well.
The five of them sat, staring into the settling fire in companionable silence. In that precious moment of peace, Elizabeth felt that no memories of the past could hurt her, nor did the future frighten her. With friends who were dearer than family, she could not only look forward to Christmases to come but enjoy life each day, beginning here and now. Somehow, that was the greatest gift of all.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
AMAZINGLY, MANY TUDOR RECIPES REMAIN, ALTHOUGH I WOULD NOT recommend following those I’ve included here, since some of them are shortened or amended, or just plain untrustworthy with unusual or vague directions. Sources for these recipes include some fascinating books such as Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1580; Gervase Markham’s The English Housewife, 1615; and anonymous, The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchen, 1594. Also, a book with excellent drawings about food and banquets is All the King’s Cooks, by Peter Brears. Food and Feast in England, by Alison Sim, was also a great help. Thanks to Sharon Harper for her recipe for Maids of Honor.
I am also appreciative that Kirrily Robert has an excellent Web site with original old English recipes to be found at http://infotrope.net/sca/cooking.
As in all the books in the Elizabeth I Mystery Series, I take key plot points from history. On December 21, 1564, the Thames froze solid for the first time in years, and it is recorded that “the queen walked upon it” The years of 1608 and 1683 are listed as excellent freezes for Frost Fairs; 1814, the last year for such a fair, saw a catastrophe when the ice cracked and booths and people fell into the river. I have taken literary license with the fact that Lambeth Palace traditionally housed the archbishop of Canterbury rather than the bishop of London,
Under the Protestantism of Edward VI and his sister Elizabeth, some of the early raucous, pagan Yuletide practices and Catholic customs were halted, but “Elizabeth herself paid for holly and ivy to deck the palace each Christmas,” As the queen could be tight with her money, this was no small concession to these holidays for her.
The queen’s beloved Lady Katherine (Kat) Ashley, early governess, confidant, and the only mother figure Elizabeth Tudor had ever known, died, “greatly lamented,” in 1565. It was the same year in which Mary, Queen of Scots, wed Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and lived to rue that day. Their child, King James VI of Scotland, later James I of England, followed Elizabeth on the throne in 1603. But in the thirty-eight years between the time of this story and the queen’s death, there are many momentous events—and mysteries—to come.
I hope that those of you who have or know of book discussion groups will find the “food for thought” questions that follow useful. Although each of the Elizabeth mysteries can stand alone, this series is also an extended study of a fascinating woman and her times. The queen was a powerful historical figure but also an amazingly modern woman in many ways.
READING GROUP GUIDE
The Queene’s Christmas
DISCUSSION IDEAS
1. Many amateur sleuth or detective stories are told only from the main character’s first-person point of view. Why do you think the author of The Queene’s Christmas uses multiple viewpoints?
2. In what way does the Prologue frame or foreshadow the action to come?
3. We are all partly products of our pasts. What family baggage does Elizabeth Tudor always carry with her, despite her position of power and prestige?
4. Although Elizabeth is the heroine of the tale, she is all too human. Cite examples of her honorable acts and her underhanded ones. What strengths and weaknesses does she exhibit? Do these make her sympathetic or not?
5. This book in the series and the previous one (The Thome Maze) emphasize the queen’s growing conflict with her cousin the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. How is Mary contrasted with Elizabeth, even though the reader never meets Mary? (Elizabeth never met her, either.) How do their contrasting personalities act as strengths or weaknesses in their serving as rulers?
6. How do the recipes that begin each chapter tie in with the action and intent of the story? How do they throw light on or foreshadow events?
7. Food imagery is used throughout the story to tie in with the holiday recipes theme. Beginning with the Prologue, can you cite examples of this?
8. Comment on customs in the story that have their roots in Old England, such as drinking a toast.
9. Discuss clues laced throughout the story to hint that the villain could be any of several characters. Did you at some point suspect, like the queen, that the culprit could be Ned Topside or the Earl of Leicester? At what point were you certain who was the guilty one? Did you figure it out before the queen, with the queen, or after her?
10. Although the book is set in 1564—65, did you find some characters’ thoughts of and reactions to the holidays modern? Perhaps even like your own? In what ways?
11. How is Elizabeth’s relationship with her people similar to or different from that of Queen Elizabeth II or an American president? Have we lost or gained from the differences?
12. Elizabeth’s longtime relationship with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was an up-and-down one. Why do you think she never wed him? Did she really wish to? (Earlier books in the series, especially The Twylight Tower, expand on this turbulent relationship.)
13. Many of the folk poems commonly called “nursery rhymes” hail from early England. Examples include “Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross,” “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” and “Humpty Dumpty.” If the political and personal origin of Mother Goose rhymes is of interest, you might peruse The Annotated Mother Goose, by William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould. Note that “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” is supposedly a comment on Mary, Queen of Scots. Can you find other Elizabethan-era links?
14. There were remnants of pagan superstitions amid the Christian Christmas celebrations of Elizabethan England—for example, the one about holly leaves in Chapter One. Are there others you can find?
15. Last names in Tudor England (in this book, Wainwright, Thatcher, Stout, Green, etc.) obviously come from occupations, physical traits, or even dress. Do you have such an English last name, or can you think of anyone who does?
KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM KAREN HARPER’S NEXT MYSTERY
The Fyre Mirror
COMING SOON IN HARDCOVER FROM ST. MARTINS MINOTAUR
LONDON APRIL 23, 1565
r /> “WANT TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?” SOMEONE SHOUTED.
Gilbert Sharpe threw himself out of the way of the lumbering cart and just missed being hit by another. He knew better than to dart across the street while looking back over his shoulder, but he’d been fearful that man was following him again. Now, he hoped, it was just his imagination.
Another voice yelled, “Stand aside, you clay-brained curl” Curses chased Gil as he silently thanked God in both English and Italian for his escape. His broken leg had never healed quite right so he couldn’t run anymore. Gripping his hemp sack of sable brushes, rolled canvases, and clothes packed around his precious Venetian mirror, the seventeen-year-old pressed himself between the arches of the huge gateway and let the carts and horses supplying Whitehall Palace stream by on Kings Street.
As he scanned the passing flow of faces, Gil shook his head to clear it. Surely he was safe in the city, for he’d been certain he’d given his nameless, faceless pursuer the slip at Dover. If Maestro Scarletti had hired someone to silence him, would that man pursue him even into the depths of the queen’s court?
He heaved a huge sigh, and surveyed the area again. On one side of the gate lay the symbol of his old life, the Ring and Crown Inn. It was there, while he and his mother tried to steal draperies years ago, they’d been caught by the queen. Instead of sending them to prison—partly because of his artistic talent—she’d taken them to the palace on the other side of the gate and into her care.
Now Gil noticed something he would never have seen when he left London three years ago: This gate which straddled the street was an awkward blend of English and Italian. Its style was like his own, he thought, and he could only pray that his beloved queen would like the pastiche. After all, what he’d become was partly Her Majesty’s doing.