The Queene’s Christmas

  “I have indeed studied my duties well, Your Majesty,” Robin said, suddenly kneeling at her feet. Sussex, evidently not to be surpassed by his nemesis, knelt, too, only to have his wife, Lady Frances, giggle and hook some holly behind his ear.

  “All right,” Robin said, rising and clapping, “let’s hear more singing, not from the fine boys’ choir this time, but the likes of you revelers!”

  With Robin himself leading, the crowd broke into “The Yule Log Carol.” Even Kat’s trembling voice swelled, Elizabeth’s bell-clear one, too, and several fine ones she did not recognize until she turned and saw Ned had brought his band of players into the hall with him. They were singing out strong from the dais that would soon serve as their stage:

  Part of the log be kept to tend

  The Christmas log next year.

  And where ’tis safely kept,

  The fiend can do no mischief here.

  “The fiend,” Cecil said suddenly in her ear, “may have not done his worst yet Your Grace, have you told Leicester about Hodge, or do you want me to explain to him that he must have a care for himself?”

  “I shall tell him as soon as this is over, but now I wish to welcome Ned Topside’s friends.”

  She motioned for Rosie to stick close to Kat and, still smiling and greeting one and all, made her way to the dais. Ned saw her coming, elbowed one man and said something to the rest out of the side of his mouth. They all bowed grandly, one at a time in order, like pins going down on the bowling green.

  “It has been some years since you have helped me with the poison plot which threatened our person,” she told Wat Thompson and Randall Greene.

  Ned introduced the others, including a fair-haired young man who radiated confidence to match his comely face and fine form. “Giles Chatam, Your Grace,” Ned introduced him last, almost as an afterthought.

  “Your Most Gracious Majesty,” Chatam said in a deep baritone to rival Ned’s, “I am neither of those traits my name might suggest. I am not chatty and have no guile, for only loyalty and hard work lie behind this smile.”

  “Stow the poetry ’til later,” Ned muttered, but Giles’s smile was nearly as bright as the Yule log flames now fanned to life.

  “I did not realize others in your old company were as clever as you, Master Player Topside,” Elizabeth said, still regarding Giles Chatam. “I look forward to the mystery play and other performances.”

  As they swept her bows again, she realized that Giles reminded her of Ned when she first took him in, but without that cocky nature. Perhaps she should talk to Ned about Giles joining him as court player, but then, she’d best see how well the young man did performing first.

  As the afternoon wore on, the queen saw that Martin Bane still lurked about, like a harbinger of doom. She glimpsed him shove a paper up his sleeve when she looked his way; he was probably writing notes for the bishop about what everyone said or did. If Bishop Grindal had not been popular, especially for helping to rebuild the burned roof of St. Paul’s with some of his own funds as well as hers, she might consider dismissing him and Bane, despite the upheaval that could cause. She was sorely vexed they didn’t approve of her Christmas. Surely, churchmen would not stoop to something low and immoral to make their dire prophecies of Yule come true.

  When she could slip away, she summoned Robin to her presence chamber from the festivities still going on in the Great Hall. “Is there some problem with the performance this evening?” he asked. “I’ve entrusted most of it to Topside, and I’ll take over the events of the morrow with the traditional fox hunt on St. Stephen’s Day.”

  “Yes, I’m sure planning that is far more to your liking. Will we be able to ride the ice to Greenwich Great Park?”

  “For one last day, we’d best take the bridge,” he told her, sitting beside her on the window seat as she indicated. “We can’t be too careful, you know. But what is it then, my queen?”

  “What you can do for me is to be very careful yourself,” she told him, not protesting when he took her hands in his big ones. They were warm; Robin’s hands were always warm, and hers, especially lately, were always cold.

  “Careful as Lord of Misrule? In what way?”

  “I’ll not have you tell others, but I must warn you in good faith that your person, perhaps your life, could be in some peril. Did you hear how my privy kitchen dresser was decked out when he died?”

  “Holding peacock feathers from the bird he was preparing?” he asked.

  She wondered if such slight misdirection had been noised about or if Robin, enmeshed in his own cares and concerns as usual, had just not paid enough attention to take the full meaning. “Listen to me, Robin,” she said, gripping his hands hard. “Hodge Thatcher was struck on the back of the head, then trussed like a peacock and hoisted up to hang by a noose. I believe he did not take his own life but it was taken from him. And since he was arrayed as a peacock, Cecil and I have construed the message may have been a blow at you.”

  “Aha.” He went ashen, no doubt not realizing how hard he pressed her hands. “Could Sussex have hired someone?” he asked suddenly. “And, forgive me, my queen, but Margaret Stewart and Darnley both detest me, as no doubt Mary of Scots does from afar. I am not exactly the best-loved man in the palace. I was settling into the Lord of Misrule role, hoping some would come to see me in a more lighthearted way—to think better of me.”

  She tugged her hands free and stood; he jumped to his feet beside her.

  “We could be reading too much in, of course,” she said, “but I wanted you to know and guard yourself well.”

  “Yet I suppose,” he said, wringing his hands most unlike him-self, “you could be reading not enough in. If I were you, I’d have a care, too, for the murder was of one called ’the queen’s dresser,’ the man who decorated everything you ate. Christmas delights or not, best have someone watch and taste your food. And since the word dresser has a double meaning and Rosie Radcliffe sometimes helps you don your garments, tell her—unfortunately, Sussex’s fond kin—”

  “I’ll not have Rosie disparaged, I don’t care who her kin are. I trust her with my li—”

  “That’s exactly what you are doing. I beg you to at least have her and someone else search your gowns for venomous barbs or some such. Someone as devious as you describe could have all sorts of harm in mind. And I wouldn’t put it past Vicar Bane to try to prove God’s wrath on us, either.”

  “I’ve long known he bore watching, but your points are well taken. We must all be wary, but we shall not be frightened out of a happy Christmas!”

  Just as the early winter’s darkness fell outside on Christmas Day, they held the mystery play in place of the more raucous mummers’ one with all its maskings and elaborate costumes. “Mysteries and moralities,” the common folk called these simple dramas, which were once trundled about the countryside on carts or per-formed by trade guilds in the cities. The playlets seemed quite staid and old-fashioned now, but Elizabeth knew Kat recalled such with fondness. And the biblical message might serve to calm Bane and any other Puritan elements about the court, even though the plays had been popular under the Papists of England.

  As these were traditional scripts with but a few variables in speech, costume, or staging, many people, at least those who had reached the lofty age of forty, knew the plots and words by rote. Though the queen had seen these done only in her sister’s days on the throne, she too knew what was coming.

  With Ned cast in the main role as the evil King Herod, the players presented the drama in which the three wise men went to the king’s palace to ask for directions to the place where the Savior was born. King Herod, however, was a deceitful liar who wished to kill the newborn babe. So the angel of God appeared to the wise men in a dream and told them to avoid Herod on their way home. The result was that Herod gave orders for many children to be slain, though that was only told in speech, thank God, and never reenacted.

  “Did they have to do a play where the ruler turns out to be a kille
r?” Elizabeth groused quietly to Cecil as he suddenly appeared beside her at the forefront of the standing audience. “I favor that new blond actor, and he’s rightly cast as an angel, at least,” she said with a little grin. “But I think Ned needs a dressing-down for playing the monarch that way. Forgive me, my lord, but, Christmas or not, everything seems a conspiracy to ruin my holidays.”

  They walked slowly off to the side of the crowd, so they could talk without whispering. “Then I hesitate to tell you what I’ve come for, Your Grace.” Her belly knotted again as he went on. “There is someone come to court to see your chief cook, but I believe you will want to meet the visitor.”

  “Stop riddling, for I’ve had enough of that.”

  “Hodge Thatcher’s crippled father, Wills, has been brought clear from Wimbledon on a cart with nail-studded wheels on the edge of the frozen river. It seems Roger Stout sent him a message of his son’s sad demise.”

  “Why should I see him, the bitter man? Or do you mean he’s asking for his son’s body?”

  “I’m afraid so. He’s broken, grieving. Somehow the two men who brought him carried him into the corner of the hall back there,” Cecil said, nodding toward the screened entry to the kitchens, “where he saw the mystery play being performed. But the thing is, he says he sent word to a friend visiting London who used to live in Wimbledon. He asked this friend to go tell Hodge in person that he regretted that cruel note he sent—the one we evidently read last night.”

  “Wait,” she said, gripping Cecil’s sinewy wrist “You're saying Hodge was to have a visitor sent by his father, a man who might have arrived the afternoon he was killed and so could know some-thing about his death?”

  “That’s it, though neither you nor Ned Topside will want to hear the visitor’s name,” Cecil said, raising his voice to be heard over applause.

  “What does Ned have to do with that—or I, either?”

  Cecil nodded toward the kitchen entry again. “It seems Hodge’s visitor is the angel in the play. Hodge’s father thought Giles Chatam was playing at an inn and was surprised to see him here at court, but there you are—perhaps a witness, a fallen angel fallen right in our lap.”

  She did not laugh at his wordplay as her mind raced. “Then, too, the visitor could have killed Hodge,” she muttered, smacking her hands into her skirts. “I’ll see this Wills Thatcher now,” she added, starting toward the kitchen entrance, “and then the bright and shining Master Chatam after he ascends back into heaven in this mystery play.”

  Chapter the Sixth

  Mulled Cider

  For the universal benefit and general improvement of our country, our love for cider shows the Englishman’s favoring of wholesome, natural drinks, even in a prference to the best beer from hops. To make, put 12 cups Kent cider in a large pan or kettle, add 1½ teaspoons whole cloves, 1½ teaspoons whole allspice, 6 sticks of cinnamon, and 1½ cups of brown sugar. Add 1 bottle of fermented cider, which can be strengthened also by freezing. Bring to a boil, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for a quarter hour to blend flavors, then discard spices. If possible, serve in heated pewter tankards. Makes at least 18 drinks. If served at holiday time, include slices of apples and a piece of toasted bread and drink the toast!

  THE QUEEN SAW THAT WILLS THATCHER LAY ON A PALLET in the privy kitchen, his paralyzed legs draped with a woolen blanket. His carriers had put him on a work-table, so that he was easier to see and hear or to keep him off the cold flagstones. Her master cook, Roger Stout, spoke with the wizened old man, and someone had fetched him some-thing to drink. Evidently no one fathomed the queen would come into the kitchens again, for no one so much as looked her way until Harry Carey, who escorted her with Cecil, cleared his throat.

  Amidst a gasp or two and quick bows, the place went so silent she could hear something bubbling in its kettle on the nearby hearth. Only Master Thatcher could not bow; Elizabeth’s gaze snagged his before his eyes widened. His face was wrinkled and ruddy, perhaps from being out in the cold all the way from Wimbledon.

  “This is your queen, Her Royal Majesty, Elizabeth,” Harry announced to the old man, “come calling with her condolences.”

  “Majesty,” Wills gasped, raising himself on one elbow in an attempt to roll into some sort of bow. He lowered his gaze, yet when he looked up again, his eyes were wide as platters. “I—you, here?”

  “Whatever you thought of your son Hodge’s trade, Master Thatcher,” Elizabeth said, loudly enough for all to hear, “he was of good cheer and of much service to me. And he was most loyal. Should I thank you for teaching him those fine traits?”

  “I—Majesty—I heard he died. Since then I regretted each hard word ’tween him and me, I did.”

  “So it took losing him to make you love him?” she asked.

  “More like, it took Christmas, Majesty, my first one alone. I rue each day I didn’t take pride in my boy. Aye, it’s too late to say so to him. But I come for his body now, to bury him at home, near as I can get him to his mother’s grave, though he’ll have to lie in unhallowed ground, a suicide.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes met Master Stout’s; few yet had heard that Hodge had been murdered or that his earthly remains were now burned bones and teeth Jenks had raked together and put in a small wooden box. Stout knew these things but had evidently not yet told Master Thatcher.

  “Leave us now, all of you but Secretary Cecil and Baron Hunsdon,” she commanded quietly. “Master Stout, see that the men who came from Wimbledon with Master Thatcher have hot cider.”

  When the kitchen was quiet and Wills Thatcher, propped yet on his elbow to turn her way, waited, she told him, “Several things I must say about your son, and ask that you keep these confidences—and steady yourself for a shock.” Looking astounded, he nodded.

  “Firstly, Hodge did not kill himself over your harsh note, though he did read it. Indeed, he did not kill himself at all.”

  “He—ill, or his heart failed? At his age?”

  “The thing is, you see, you must not blame yourself for causing his death. Hodge did not die by his own hand. I regret to inform you that your son was murdered, why and by whom we do not know, but I—my people—will discover.”

  The old man sank back flat on his pallet. He sucked in a ragged breath and stared straight up at the lofty, soot-stained ceiling. Tears tracked from his eyes, but she sensed he was both relieved and grieved.

  “Forgive me for asking such a thing now,” she went on, trying to keep her voice controlled, “but Giles Chatam from Wimbledon—you and Hodge knew him, and you sent him to your son?”

  She waited while he composed himself. He struggled to sit, so Cecil and Harry stepped forward from the shadows to help him off the table and into the only chair. Elizabeth sat on a bench facing him. Again, the old man looked stunned at her proximity.

  “Aye,” he whispered at last, after a swig of the mulled cider Cecil fetched him. “Friend of the family, Giles’s parents were. His father a glover, kept the whole town in gloves.” Wills sniffed hard, took another sip of cider, and went on, “I thatched their house, and the lads ran about together for years. Both of them had a fanciful side I could never fathom…”

  “Take your time, Master Thatcher. So Hodge and Giles were longtime friends?”

  “Aye, 'cept when they both fancied the same girl. Had a bad row over that, and she up and wed someone else. Then Giles’s parents perished in a house fire—don’t know how it started middle of the night.”

  “A fire? His parents were trapped and died in a fire, but he was safe?”

  “He got out somehow, that’s all. Took it terrible they were both lost in the blaze, he did.”

  Elizabeth looked at Cecil, but he merely raised his eyebrows; Harry remained unmoved, but she didn’t expect him to follow all this as her brilliant secretary evidently had. Besides, Harry had not almost been roasted alive last night.

  “Go on, please, Master Thatcher,” she urged.

  “After the fire, we took Giles in for a f
ew years. Hodge had already gone to make his fortune in London. Then Giles left with that acting troupe to wander far and wide. But, aye, I had the sexton write a letter to the inn where Giles sent a note he would be in London. Always wanted to see London, that boy. I had the sexton write Giles to go visit Hodge here, try to patch things up—for him and me. I never should of sent that cruel letter, and it was Christmas…”

  “So all should be forgiven at Christmas,” the queen said, rising with a sigh. “Master Hodge, I shall see that you have food and a warm place to stay until your friends can take you home. But one blow more, I’m afraid. We stored Hodge’s body in the royal boat-house on the river, and a fire struck there, too. I regret to tell you that Hodge’s body burned with the edifice last night, but we have carefully collected his remains, and you shall have them in a box to take home with you to bury in holy ground near his mother’s grave.”

  Wills had slumped, then straightened his shaking shoulders. “I thank you for doing your best for him, Your Majesty,” he said, his lower lip trembling. “Is—is there anything else?” he asked, and she could almost see him cringe.

  “Only that your son left you a purse of coins to keep you well. How much was that Hodge had lovingly saved from his wages working for me and my family, Lord Hunsdon?” she asked. She almost quoted to the old man from his spiteful letter about her family ruining the true church, but she held her tongue. After all, it was Christmas, and that’s what had melted old Wills’s heart.

  “I’m not certain, Your Grace,” Harry managed with a straight face, “but he’d saved a goodly amount.” Cecil nodded solemnly.

  “Then you must see to it,” she told Harry, “that Master Thatcher receives Hodge’s purse before he goes home on the morrow. I am sorry for your loss, Master Hodge, and wish you well.”