The Fugitive Queen Read Online Free

I forget what you’ve seen and done in your life—and what depths you have, and what skills.”
    â€œI didn’t like doing it,” I said somberly. “It was necessary, that’s all. I used shock tactics because I thought they might succeed, and I did it because I’m very annoyed with her—but also worried about her. We’re about to face the queen and I daresay she’ll tell us that our ward is in disgrace and must be removed.”
    â€œElizabeth is fond of you. She owes you much.”
    â€œShe won’t like this, ” I said.
    The walk to Elizabeth’s rooms took us through the lively bustle that pervaded all her palaces. Elizabeth was a human magnet who drew people to her. The wide passages and lofty galleries, the tapestried anterooms and winding staircases of Richmond were crowded. Page boys and servants hurried hither and thither and the Lord Steward’s chief officials, carrying white staves as symbolsof office, went hither and thither as well, in more measured fashion, transmitting orders and inspecting the work of underlings, ready at any moment to pounce on the page boy overheard being less than respectful or the maidservant caught dusting too carelessly, spilling the goblets on her tray, or getting out of her betters’ path too slowly.
    And, of course, there were the courtiers: queen’s ladies and council members; the ever-present but ever-changing group of foreign emissaries (all moving as often as not in a cloud of their own clerks, secretaries, or interpreters such as Master Rowan); and numerous hopeful young men who had come to court to make their careers. By right of well-born or sometimes merely rich and influential fathers, they had the entrée to the public rooms of the palaces, and came there daily at their own expense, hoping to be noticed by the queen or one of her great men, and thus obtain employment or a patron for their poetry and music. The court was a world to itself and as busy as an ant heap, full of well-dressed ants.
    We found the queen in a thronged gallery. It had deep window bays, almost small rooms in their own right, and she was standing in one of them, talking to a couple of her councilors. We caught her eye as we came to the entrance to the bay, and with a faint nod, she let us know that in a moment, she would beckon us in. While we waited, lingering where she could see us, I looked with interest at the little groups of men and women, strolling or standing all about us.
    I absorbed, as I always did, the byplay of it all, especially the cheerful smiles and studiedly confident stance of people who were not quite as richly dressed as those to whom they were talking, but were trying to give the impression of belonging to some worthwhile inner circle—because to be an outsider is humiliating and besides, life is so perverse that it is easier to attract a patron if people think you already have one. Those who understood the signs could tell at a glance who really mattered and who did not.
    A rich variety of perfumes scented the air and the whole gallery was full of murmuring voices and rustling silks. As mygaze moved around, I noticed a well-made man with a face both weather-beaten and intelligent, and a doublet cut differently from the doublets of the English courtiers, in earnest conversation with a dark-complexioned individual who had an agreeable smile and very good clothes, which I thought were in the Spanish style. I had been away from court affairs for so long that my memory of faces was rusty, yet I thought I had seen the weather-beaten man somewhere before and I was almost certain of his companion’s identity, too. As I watched, I saw the probable-Spaniard attempt to detach himself, and then check politely as the other man laid a hand on his arm.
    If I were looking about me, trying to recognize people, there were also those who recognized me. A tall and splendid figure in a mulberry taffeta doublet, the