By Royal Command Page 2

  ‘There is nothing to be frightened of!’ I assured her, but she took up her cloak and left very briskly indeed, and before we’d even tried to clean her gown.

  When she’d gone I made up the fire in the kitchen and sat before it thinking of my life, wondering about Ma and my family and how they were all faring, and also when I might see the queen’s fool again, for he’d been merry and charming to me – and besides, had silvery-grey eyes – and I’d liked him very much. Thinking on him, I naturally thought of Her Grace, and felt for the little token that I always wore on a ribband around my neck. This was but a forged coin, worthless in itself, but bearing the queen’s image and therefore very precious to me, for I had long held our queen in the highest regard and, as a child, it had been my one desire to serve her.

  I closed my eyes, allowing my thoughts to drift and settle (which was a great luxury, for my life did not usually offer such a time) and not long after there was thumping and swearing in the outside passageway which told me that Mistress Midge had arrived back from seeing her sister.

  She flung open the back door: large, red-faced and furious, crying, ‘Would you ever believe such robbery?’

  I looked at her expectantly, not a bit surprised at her manner, for Mistress Midge was a woman prone to tempers and tantrums.

  ‘That knavish no-good ferryman charged me three pence to bring me across the river in the fog! Three pence! And then he had the gall to hold out his scurvy hand for a tip, telling me that the weather was so bad he shouldn’t have been out at all.’

  ‘It is horrid . . .’ I began.

  ‘Horrid? Lord above, I’ve known it ten times worse than this. My father was a ferryman and he went out in gales so fierce they could lift a body off her feet! Tonight? Pah!’ She spat into the fire. ‘’Tis nothing!’

  I hid a smile as she stamped around the kitchen, swearing to herself, scratching and muttering, at length finding a piece of cake in her pocket and stuffing it in her mouth. After a few moments of this she went to the barrel and poured herself a glass of small beer, then pulled up another stool in front of the fire.

  ‘Is your sister in good health?’ I now felt it safe to enquire.

  She nodded. ‘As fine and sprightly as ever she was. And she sixty years old and more!’

  ‘And has she set eyes on the queen of late?’ I asked, for her sister was a washerwoman at Syon House, a noble household where the queen was sometimes a visitor.

  ‘Not lately – but what do you think?’ She paused and took another mouthful of beer. ‘Her Grace has another suitor, and he’s a Frenchman and Catholic to boot!’

  I gasped at this, knowing there would be much dissent amongst the people if she should marry a Catholic.

  ‘They say he’s a short man with a pock-marked face, but has won the queen’s heart with his elegant conversation and a bag of pearls.’

  ‘Never! But what of the other suitors?’ I asked eagerly, for the queen’s romantic associations were a great conversation piece amongst us all. ‘What about the Earl of Leicester?’

  ‘Exactly. What about the Earl of Leicester?’ Mistress Midge said. ‘They say he’s broken-hearted and hasn’t been at Court for days. And what of Francis Drake, back from his travels and set to woo the queen? And young Oxford?’

  ‘And Walter Ralegh?’ I reminded her.

  ‘Indeed!’

  We made ourselves comfortable in front of the fire while we waited for the Dee family to return, looking forward to an evening spent talking of Her Grace, of whom she might marry and whether or not it was too late for her to provide the country with an heir. And, that night at least, I didn’t think any more about the strange noise I’d heard.

  Chapter Two

  ‘You should not have done such a thing,’ I heard Dr Dee say as I entered the library the following morning to make up the fires. He was dressed as normal in the long black robes of a scholar, and had a skullcap perched atop of grey hair so long that it tangled with his beard. The beard and tangled hair made him look far older than he really was, for his eyes were still as piercing a blue as the eyes of his two daughters. ‘Indeed you should not have done it. ‘Tis too risky for a man in my position.’

  ‘Tush! You must take these opportunities where you can,’ said Mr Kelly, who was much younger and sharper of feature, with trimmed beard in gingery-brown. ‘Besides, we need money in order to achieve our goals. There is costly equipment we need. We must lay out gold in order to make gold.’

  ‘But to put the person in question here! I would rather you had not. I would rather not be associated with such a venture.’

  ‘You’ll be pleased enough to be associated when we receive the money, no doubt,’ said Mr Kelly. ‘For I was told by Ariel that an occasion would present itself shortly whereby we might become wealthy, and that when that time came, we should not hesitate. This opportunity was offered by the angels, Dee!’

  I added coal to the fire, trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible, for I knew Ariel was one of the spirit-angels Mr Kelly purported to speak to and I wanted to hear more.

  ‘We must not go against the wish of Ariel,’ added Mr Kelly piously.

  Dr Dee said, ‘Hush!’ and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, him nod towards me, but Mr Kelly tossed his head dismissively as if to say I was not worth consideration. He said, ‘We’ll leave it a day or so for the family to get concerned about her, and then send a letter.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Dr Dee said. ‘You know how servants hear things and gossip amongst themselves. News spreads from one house to another . . .’ He suddenly raised his voice. ‘Haven’t you finished yet?’ he called to me.

  I was sweeping coal dust from the hearth – slowly, of course, for I was greatly interested in their conversation. ‘Nearly, Sir,’ I said meekly. ‘Almost done.’

  ‘Then hurry yourself a little more,’ Mr Kelly snapped.

  I was made cross by this – for I was not employed by Mr Kelly and felt he had no right to speak to me so – but I merely picked up my coal scuttle and brush and went to the door, bobbing both gentlemen a curtsey at its threshold. They did not acknowledge this or even nod at me, however, for they were intent on speaking of money. As the door closed I heard Mr Kelly say, ‘Twenty gold angels is a considerable sum, but ‘tis easily come by for men such as her father.’

  This was intriguing, and I walked back through the house wondering what was going on and wishing that I could have stayed and heard more. Thinking that, I smiled to myself, for it seemed strange that the very thing I’d oft been admonished about by my mother – my curiosity – was set to be of use in my work for the queen. Not, I thought, that Dr Dee or Mr Kelly were engaged on any task which might oppose Her Grace, for I had heard Dr Dee say more than once that he revered and loved her more than anyone else in the world and even above his wife.

  Back in the kitchen, Merryl and Beth were both kneeling on stools at the table with their horn books, copying letters of the alphabet, and Mistress Midge was calling out words for them to write down. Every so often she’d check what they’d done and declare either that the words were excellently well spelled, or that they had been writ too hastily and must be done again. Although Beth and Merryl knew that Mistress Midge was only pretending – for she couldn’t read a word – this didn’t seem to spoil the exercise. I, too, often played this game with the girls and could now read a good many things, even though I’d been unable to manage as much as my name when I’d first come to the house. Writing my letters, however, I still found difficult.

  Mistress Midge was preparing rabbit stew for the midday meal and three furry pelts were laid out on one of the work counters, ready to be sold to a furrier down-river. Skinning is exacting work if you want to sell the pelts after, and the girls’ constant pleas for new words, a hammering at the door from a tradesman wanting money and her wrongly cutting and spoiling an otherwise perfect coney skin made Mistress Midge suddenly fling down her knife in a temper.

  ‘It’s Mistress Midge
this and Mistress Midge that from morn to night. It never stops!’ she cried. She glared round at us. ‘We had a proper butcher at the old house!’ she declared – for she had once worked at the house of Mistress Dee’s parents. ‘And a fishmonger and a pastry cook and a baker and two butlers and Lord knows who else, but here I’m supposed to do everything. Why, in a proper and noble household the housekeeper wouldn’t have to lower herself to skin rabbits!’

  ‘No, I’m sure she wouldn’t,’ I said, trying to placate her.

  ‘It was one person for each job and each job for one person. The baker wouldn’t be expected to sweep floors, the poulterer wouldn’t gut fish and the lady’s maid wouldn’t despoil her dainty self by emptying the night stools into the river!’ She wiped her bloody hands on her apron. ‘But here I’m expected to do the lot!’

  The girls and I rolled our eyes at each other, for such complaints were commonplace with Mistress Midge – although I knew the magician’s household was unusual in employing so few servants. This, Mistress Midge had informed me more than once, was because most servants were lily-livered creatures who took fright on hearing strange noises in the night, or, upon seeing a shadow or a mouse flash along the wainscoting, would convince themselves that they’d seen an apparition. The other reason was that until quite recently the household of Dr Dee had been a very poor one for, as the role of queen’s magician was dignified by no fee or salary, there was never any money to spare for servants.

  I’d come to the house by chance; I’d been walking along the riverbank towards London in order to find work, and had come across Beth and Merryl in trouble on the foreshore. Dragging them out of the mud, I’d found myself in the happy position of being offered a job as their nursemaid, and had been here ever since. I missed my ma sometimes, and my sisters, but my father had been one of the main reasons I’d left home, and I didn’t miss him a jot.

  ‘I do the lot!’ Mistrress Midge repeated bitterly. ‘I gut fish, joint poultry, bake bread, clean the house, wash linen, tend that animal and brew beer! It’s a wonder they don’t stick a broom up my fundament and ask me to sweep the floor as I go along.’

  Beth and Merryl giggled at this, knowing, of course, that she spoke the truth, for until I’d been taken on, Mistress Midge had also looked after them.

  ‘And when do I get a little time for myself?’ she demanded. ‘I work twenty-four hours in every twenty-eight!’

  ‘But there are only twenty-four hours in a day,’ Merryl pointed out.

  Mistress Midge glared at her. ‘There may be only twenty-four hours in your day, but in mine there are twenty-eight.’

  ‘There cannot possibly be . . .’ Beth began, and I, thinking quickly to change the subject and soothe her ruffled feelings, began asking the girls about the birthday party they’d attended the day before. I was immensely curious about the famous Walsingham family.

  ‘They live on Barn Elms,’ said Beth, ‘which is a large estate.’

  ‘With a park containing many fine and expensive trees from all around the world,’ put in Merryl, who, although only five years old, was a sensible and serious child. ‘The house is noble and very large, and built in the shape of an “E”, which is for the first initial of the queen’s name.’

  ‘And there are a good many servants, too, no doubt!’ said Mistress Midge, before huffing a great deal and then returning to her rabbits.

  ‘There are as many servants as there are rooms,’ said Beth. ‘About nine hundred.’

  ‘Silly! There are not that many servants in the world!’ said Merryl.

  ‘And how were the Walsingham children?’ I asked quickly. ‘Were they fun to play with?’

  ‘No, they were not!’ both girls said together.

  ‘We had to stay all the day in the nursery wing,’ Beth said, ‘and weren’t allowed about the house on our own.’

  ‘There were six children and they all kept hiding from us. And they spoke French the whole time and said we were babies because we did not!’

  ‘Then that was very horrid of them,’ I said.

  The handbell from upstairs rang, indicating that either Mistress Dee or Mistress Allen wanted something, and I spoke up quickly, saying I’d go with the girls and see what was required.

  They ran ahead of me up the stone staircase to their mother’s chamber and I followed at a more leisurely pace, pausing on the first step by the window which overlooks St Mary’s Church, for it was there, in the church porch, that I’d last seen Tomas, and it was there that he’d told me I’d be given secret work to do for the queen. On parting from him – I felt my face flush with pleasure as I remembered – he’d pressed a kiss into my palm, telling me to keep it safe until next we met. It may have been foolish of me, but I’d looked for him almost every day since, for as the queen and Court were still at Richmond Palace, I knew he must be nearby. Looking for Tomas wasn’t as easy as it sounds, however, for he was usually in disguise and I’d been fooled by him before, so I always took special care to be charming towards any young men concealed in strange garb, or those who wore hooded cloaks so that their faces couldn’t be seen.

  I smiled, thinking of the kiss, and then the smile dropped from my face, because suddenly I could hear the sound again: the eerie, sighing sound. So faint was it, however, that had I not already heard it on the previous evening, I might never have noticed it. Startled, I looked out of the window to see if the yew trees in the churchyard were moving in the wind, or if I could spy anything else which might have made such a sound. I could see nothing, though, no tree, bush or tall grass moving, no cat, dog or pig amongst the tombstones.

  A tingle ran down my spine. Was it something truly evil? A demon set free by Dr Dee, unable to find his way back to the spirit world? For – as Isabelle frequently told me – when necromancers meddled with the dead, such things were a possibility.

  ‘Lucy!’ Merryl’s voice called high and far away, breaking into my thoughts, and I roused myself and hurried up the stairs to Mistress Dee’s bedchamber. I’d think on the likely cause of those strange sounds later.

  The mistress of the house was younger than Dr Dee by some thirty years, but was not a well woman. She’d recently been confined and consequently was still weak, although the babe, Arthur, was with a wet nurse. I hardly saw her out of her rooms, for she took all her meals within them and – when she was not in her bed – spent her time quietly, darning stockings or embroidering clothes for the newborn. Her personal maid, Mistress Allen, was like a shadow of her mistress but much more sour-faced, and they hardly moved but together.

  Mistress Dee was out of bed on this day, however, and sitting by the fire, wearing a faded wrap. Built very slight, she was sad of eye and her nightcap, having slipped sideways on her head, showed a scalp where the hair grew very sparse and thin. Looking at her, it seemed to me that the babe she had recently birthed had taken all the strength away from her.

  By her feet, the girls had emptied a tin of pearl buttons on to a rug and were making flower pictures from them. They made an enchanting picture sitting there, for they were pretty girls with the bright blue eyes of the Dee family and long fair hair which curled in profusion. Beth was taller, being the elder by near two years, but her sister was fast catching her up.

  ‘Good morning, Lucy,’ Mistress Dee said. ‘As you see, I’ve risen from my bed again.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to see it, Madam,’ I said, bobbing a curtsey.

  ‘And I feel much better for my excursion to the Walsinghams’ yesterday.’

  ‘That’s good news, Madam,’ I said with pleasure, for she was a kind lady and – though I hardly ever saw her – a good mistress.

  ‘We found the Walsinghams stimulating company.’

  She paused here and I waited, wondering what was coming next.

  ‘And, after seeing their six children so bright and bonny and so clever in all they do,’ she went on, ‘Dr Dee and I have been speaking in earnest about the education of Merryl and Beth.’

  I heard these words w
ith some dismay; I feared that she was going to tell me that the girls were going away from home to attend school, or would be taking lessons as part of the Walsingham household and thus my services would no longer be required. The girls thought the same, obviously, for Beth jumped up and Merryl scrambled on to her mother’s knee. ‘Mama!’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Where will we have to go for this education?’

  ‘Oh, please don’t send us away!’ Beth cried.

  Mistress Dee hugged them both. ‘Of course my heart’s darlings won’t go away,’ she said. ‘But we want to engage a tutor for you both – and soon Arthur can come back from the wet nurse and all three of you can have lessons together. Arthur won’t be as able as you, but he can learn his letters and colours and will soon catch up.’

  I smiled to myself, for I saw her plan. Much as the two girls were her heart’s darlings, the new babe, Arthur, was even more so, and she’d been deeply unhappy ever since he’d gone off to his wet nurse. In this way she could ask for him to be returned to her quicker than was usual.

  ‘We had a tutor here once before, you know,’ Mistress Dee said to me, ‘but my husband thought having girls educated was an unnecessary extravagance. Now we have our son, and now Dr Dee is becoming more successful in his undertakings, I’ve persuaded him that we must have a proper tutor for them all.’

  ‘An excellent idea, Madam,’ I said, knowing that the more the girls learned, the more I might learn along the way, for – provided their tutor was a reasonable man – I might be able to sit in on their lessons and be taught alongside them.

  ‘And, God willing, is good there may, in time, be other children in the family to be educated.’

  I dipped my head. ‘Indeed, Madam,’ I said. It was, of course, a woman’s role in life to give birth to as many children as she was capable of.