Mary Gentle (44 page)

While his Majesty educated us as to the history of Clio, Virtue, Vice, and a number of other abstruse subjects, I took care to look attentive, and promised myself the pleasure of bracing up Edward Alleyne’s failing nerve by unloading on him all the frustration being overseer of players had caused me.

“Ay, Master Alleyne, you and your men may leave us,” James said irritably. I bowed, with another flourish. Halfway to the pavilion’s doorway, the King added, “You, Monsieur de Rochefort, you know much of this masque—we have a question or two to ask you: wait behind.”

The remaining courtiers he dealt with speedily, in an increasingly thick Scots accent, and the ushers were clearing the tent before the quarter-part of an hour passed. I stood towards one side of the pavilion tent, in the shade now that the sides of the pavilion were being affixed for privacy, and candles lit.

Either I will be asked some obscure literary question in Greek or Latin, I thought—none of which I recall—or this James of England and Scotland is practised in making a pretext to speak with a man alone.

At least James knows nothing of any conspiracy,
I reflected, cooling my heels. Like enough he does wish to consult with me about his role in ‘The Engineer of Shadows.’ Is this a moment to send word to Cecil that, without the Muse Clio, neither he nor Robert Fludd will get a masque? No, there is not time to get word to London….

The last of the ushers bowed his way out, closing the porch-flap of the tent, and exchanging quiet words with the guards outside. James lurched up onto his feet and got down from the dais, one hand each on the shoulders of a pair of pretty page-boys.

“Do you come with us, sir.” It was not a request.

As the servants leaped to clear the main part of the tent, the King led me to the canvas wall dividing off the sleeping-chamber half of the pavilion. The pages held the curtains apart. He passed through, beckoning me to follow.

Now suppose it were I with a dagger down my shirt?
I thought, on his heels.

The pages stripped their King, offering him a thickly embroidered day-robe, and I stepped past the group of them, into the space beyond. An intact and complete tester bed took up most of this room beyond the curtain, with a chest at its foot, and a hound asleep beside it; and a cluster of candlesticks set on a low table, despite the sunlight sifting through the painted canvas.

A little dark hunchbacked figure stood up from the table and bowed to the King.

“Ay, Robbie,” James Stuart said, sounding good-humoured.

“Milord Secretary.” I bowed, chiefly to give myself a moment.
Robert Cecil here at Wookey!

I had little enough time to think.

“Master Secretary has informed us of this nonsense of a conspiracy,” James remarked, stomping across the room and settling himself in the opened bed-covers of the tester bed. “‘In danger of our life,’ ha!”

He waved us to sit. I took a joint-stool beside Cecil, trying to read his face in the dimmed sunlight, and gaining no wisdom from the attempt.

“It may be lunatic, your Majesty,” I ventured. “That does not, unfortunately, prevent it from being factual. Milord the Secretary is correct when he says your majesty is in danger of your life.”

“Ay?” James’s gaze drifted to his first minister. I saw a hint of friendly irony in his expression. “You’ll be right, then. We doubt anything less could ha’ made him bring the matter to us. He likes his secrets, does Robbie.”

The hunched back stiffened. “Your Majesty—in front of a broken-down spy and adventurer—!”

I thought what I had thought six years ago: that there is something of the old married couple between the Scottish King and the English courtier who put him on his throne. M. de Sully had been pleased to speculate, at the time, which was the husband and which the wife.

I devoutly wish it
were
six years past, I thought, and I not where I stand now.

“Milord Secretary would not wish to worry your Majesty unnecessarily,” I said as smoothly as I could. This is not Henri of Navarre, who called a spade a spade; this is James Stuart, who would prefer not to know what a spade is for, nor when another man must wield one for him.

Querulously, James said, “This scholar, this physician Fludd, we may think him guilty. We are beset by conspiracies! God reaches out His hand to save us, however, as is to be expected. But we will not believe this nonsense and blather—that my
son
is involved!”

There is a little too much bluster in that,
I thought. I stood, and moved to kneel by the bed, in front of the King. A man in his late middle years, dis-robed now to his gown and cap, seemingly chill among blankets, gazed down at me, not quite able to conceal his dread.

“Your pardon, milord King. It is true. If the evidence that Milord Secretary brings is not sufficient, then…I, myself, have had Prince Henry say to me that he will take the throne.”

“Ye misunderstood him.”

I raised my head where I knelt, aware that if I rose I should tower over the stout King. “Sire, I wish I had. I did not. Your Majesty will see it when you take the conspirators, when they’re all gathered together before the masque—my advice is to let them think it will go forward, though it cannot now, and take them all together. Then, sire, you will find that the Prince carries a dagger about him.”

“We do not believe he carries it for any ill!
Any
man may carry a dagger.”

I managed surreptitiously to catch the eye of Mr Secretary Cecil. The politician had an expression that led me to think I went over well-worn territory.

“We will not believe it.” James thumped the bolster passionately. “We will not believe it until we see him with the dagger and feel him strike home! Monsieur de Rochefort, this is our Prince, our son, our heir—we cannot believe this of him!”

Arguing with kings is often futile. I bowed my head, as of a man submissive to his monarch’s will, and momentarily wondered why I desired to keep this obstinate and deluded father breathing.

Dariole.
To flush Robert Fludd from cover, and let her heal her ills by putting an end to him. And because young Henry is a little viper, himself. As well as my present connection to France depending on Cecil’s good graces.

Seating himself at the table, Cecil said, “There
is
a way to establish this, your Majesty, but you must indeed let him strike. Monsieur Rochefort has been a soldier, he can arrange to conceal upon you a gorget for the throat, and a jack of mail.”

James Stuart’s head came up like his hound scenting a deer. “Very well, very well. If this serves to prove his innocence, we shall do it!”

The sight of this much backbone in the King surprised me—and, evidently, surprised Cecil, I established with another glance in that direction.
Milord Secretary has outsmarted himself, it seems.

“It can be done,” I said cautiously. “You must bear in mind, sire, that it is possible to conceal mail in a doublet, and a gorget under your Majesty’s ruff, but if an assassin strikes for the face…then your Majesty is not safe at all.”

Cecil, difficult to read as he generally was, seemed to have an air of relief, hearing me say this.

“He won’t strike his father in the face,” James Stuart said, with a quiet dignity at odds with his usual stiff formality. “You may believe us in that, Master Secretary Cecil.”

I thought the little man was all but wetting his trunk-hose, and I couldn’t blame him. Here he is, first minister to a king, with his informers set up to protect his King from spies and assassins. And here is that same King prepared to step out like a bull-calf into the slaughterhouse.

“We will issue no orders for arrest until we do this,” James said.

Cecil slammed his fist down on the table in a small, tight arc. “Your Majesty does this entirely against my advice!”

“Our Majesty is not constrained by your advice, Master Secretar’!” James’s accent became impenetrably thick. He ranted at Cecil. I understand how
I will do this!
sounds from a king in whatever accent or dialect.

It will do no harm to have Robert Cecil think I try to assist him, I decided. “But, sire, the masque cannot go forward. It’s as Master Alleyne says. We have no Clio, and no time to train a boy as a replacement before tonight.”

James Stuart harrumphed again. He shifted his ungainly body, getting off the bed, and—despite the Summer day outside—called in servants to bring in a brazier of coals. In his robe, he paced up and down the length of the carpet while Cecil and I stood at the King’s pleasure.

Abruptly, James stopped in front of me. He looked me up and down.

“You are very fluent with the Muse of History’s lines, Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“I’ve been much at rehearsals, your Majesty.” I did not add that, for a player, the boy playing Clio had a dog’s memory.

The King’s head wobbled as he tilted it to one side. His gaze on me would have been unnerving to a lesser man. “And will you tell us, do you think, that you recall all the lines of Dame History as she spoke them?”

“It would do no good, sire,” I said. “I could not teach another boy to say them in the time, even if Master Alleyne had an apprentice.”

James Stuart turned and walked back to the table, where Mr Secretary Cecil stood. The King muttered something in his impenetrable brogue that made the little man’s eyebrows shoot up. James turned back to face me.

“Well, now.” He put his hands behind his back. An expression of satisfaction bloomed on his face. “Monsieur de Rochefort, it seems to me that you’ll make a bonny lassie.”

I gaped.

“A little old, mayhap, as you said, but Dame History has been with us for many a year.”

I stared, not sure I’d heard what he appeared to be saying.

“But,
yes!
” Robert Cecil stepped forward. “It will put Master Rochefort on stage in the best position to
guard
your Majesty. Beside you! Sire, if you are determined on this rash action, then I beg of you, do it with this man for bodyguard!”

The King did not even make objection to the word
rash
. He smiled. From the depths of my shock, I thought it a smug smile.

“Well, well, Robbie. We thought you would like that.” James lumbered awkwardly back to bed, and seated himself, gazing at me. “We had thought we might bring you into the masque beside us, in a small role, Master de Rochefort, but players have always such complaints about that. Here is a thing no man may argue with! You fill a role which they cannot. And without you, the masque cannot go on.”

I am not completely sure what I said. I spluttered something in French, but not a pure enough French that the King of England might admit to understanding it.

“I can’t do this!” I protested, my wits coming back to me. I looked at the King and his minister. “I’m no player!”

“You are a spy, that is close enough.” Cecil limped across the carpet and looked up at me. “You know the part.”

It is unfortunately too late to deny it.

“The most part of it,” I admitted, with reluctance. “I might con it over between now and the banquet, and have it adequate in my mind. But—” I turned to appeal to James Stuart. “Your Majesty, I do not know how to behave on a stage! I shall be walking into other players. Dancers. Scenery.”

I do not know why it gives shorter men so much apparent satisfaction to see a man of my size reduced to abject confusion. Certainly Robert Cecil rubbed his elegant small hands together, and his King beamed with amused satisfaction.

“We shall spare your time from us,” James remarked, “so that you may rehearse on the stage. We plan to rest now, before the banquet. There’s time, the while.”

I can’t argue, I realised.

The bitter truth of it is, if James
is
to survive a masque with his homicidal son in it, then all that stands a chance of preserving his life is an armed man at his elbow….

Myself on stage, Cecil’s soldiers, James’s household guards—yes, that comes close to giving the King the overwhelming force on his side that may bring him out of this alive.
I must send urgently to Captain Spofforth
.

“You shall play Clio for us.” The King hauled bedding over his lap. “And Dame Clio will be a wee bit more belligerent than she is usually played, will she not?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” I said, keeping my voice neutral with an effort.

Dear God! Caterina desired unpredictable actions—she has one!

It was not until the meeting broke up, and I walked out into the afternoon sun, and away through the tents, that it occurred to me.

What will Dariole say when she hears this?

A
re you sure
you
would not like to change your clothes, Monsieur Dariole?” I enquired bitterly. “Certainly you’ll be pissing in your breeches if you continue so!”

Ned Alleyne glanced across the cavern that had been converted into one of the players’ back-stage dressing rooms. “Do not deride Monsieur Rochefort, young Dariole! He is doing us an inestimable service by taking this role and allowing us to perform before the King.”

Dariole leaned up against the limestone wall of the cave entrance. She waved a casual hand. “Oh, don’t mind me….”

Her voice came breathless with the aftermath of a paroxysm of laughter.

“No, I swear!” she added. “I truly
do
appreciate the actions of Messire Rochefort in this.”

“See that you do!” Alleyne said.

So it comes to this, I thought gloomily. I am defended by a theatre-owner, a tradesman, an
actor
. If I had preserved any remnant of pride in my forty years, this would extinguish it.

Likewise, had I known I would be standing in a state of undress before a young “man” who, by reason of there being no modesty between players, is not asked to leave this place….

The floor of the cavern was covered by three or four layers of carpet thrown down underfoot. It was not cold to be standing there in my stocking-hose. A vast number of boxes, crates, trunks, and chests had been shoved against the cave walls; most had a motley array of candlesticks and nips set on top. The smoke and heat went up to blacken the limestone ceiling, and caught in the back of my throat. I coughed.

Habit moved me to wonder if the players might be sensibly aware of fire—and, yes: at the far end, where the cave roof sloped down towards the sandy floor, a still pool of water gleamed. Five or six wooden fire buckets had been stood along the ledge around the pool. And another two, full with sand.

My tailor—dear good God, the day has dawned when I must call a
tailor
friend!—sat with his apprentice, frantically tacking and altering a costume. He muttered, swearing, as he had been doing for the past several hours; the more frantically now that the hour of performance was close upon us.

The apprentice rose and hovered around me, getting himself in Alleyne’s way. I folded my arms across my bare chest and stared as they shouted, the one at the other.

“You’re not taking
everything
off?” Dariole’s enquiry held a text that I deciphered, although it appeared only polite to the general audience.

“Hose are hose, no matter who wears them,” I said, straining for dignity. My burgundy-coloured knit silk hose sagged, ungartered, below my knees.

“But—”

“No,”
I said firmly.

Despite the lack of a corresponding female garment, I had not seen fit to abandoned my under-linen.

Dariole, in bleached linen doublet and a pair of charcoal Venetians, the very picture of a court page, stepped further into the cave and sat down on a beech-wood chest.

“Don’t let me keep you, monsieur,” I emphasised. “There must be much you have to do, with the banquet now beginning.”

“Oh, I’m not busy….”

“Then be quiet!” Edward Alleyne interrupted her faux innocence.

Probably as well, I reflected, finding myself within an ace of hauling the brat over my knee and dusting the seat of her breeches for her.

No…she has suffered too much indignity this last month.

That thought touched me with a feeling I could not identify.

“I’ll help you con your script a last time, Valentine,” Alleyne announced, searching a stack of scribbled-over paper, and glancing anxiously at me. “A shame there’s no time for Will to walk you through your part on the stage in costume, but they’re dining shortly. No matter, we’ll succeed! Now. ‘When grave the Muse of History stood’….”

“When grave the Muse of History stood,” I remarked grimly. My tailor approached me with a woman’s chemise.

I managed not to glance at Dariole. It would at this moment be difficult to see myself through her eyes. In Paris, I knew how she would have reacted to a Spaniard-looking man some two yards tall, standing in nothing but stocking-hose and under-linen. Now, after the assault on her, I felt that my bare upper body must be an affront to her, woman as she is.

I could think of no way to appeal to a modesty that does not exist between older man and younger man.
If she is distressed….

“‘When
brave
the Muse of History stood,’ I think you’ll find, messire.” Dariole grinned at being able to correct me.

One moment it is as if nothing has happened to her. The next….

Ned Alleyne wiped sweat from his red face, glaring at Dariole. “If you know this part, Master Page, perhaps we need not trouble Monsieur Rochefort?”

Her features assumed a look of innocent reasonableness. “I don’t know it all, Monsieur Alleyne, and my English isn’t so good.
I
wouldn’t like to have to go on stage, in a role I don’t know, speaking lines I haven’t rehearsed….”

There was a deadpan look of devilment under her innocence; I wondered Alleyne did not see it. The player-manager grunted acceptance and turned away. Over his shoulder, I saw the young woman’s eyes glow, almost with warmth. Swiftly, she put her hand up to her mouth. Not quickly enough—I saw the smile that she couldn’t prevent her mouth shaping.

The King,
I thought grimly, while I strove to remember Clio’s next line, and the two tailors built the Muse of History’s costume with much reference to my body. I am in this role to protect a man I need to keep alive. There is
no
shame in it.

Measurements done, I was permitted to don my boots and garter my hose—which felt odd enough without breeches. Two words into the next couplet, I found myself suddenly swathed in linen. The tailor and his assistant pulled at it, settling about my body what I saw to be, as my head emerged, a woman’s chemise.

The tailor smiled up at me, fussing about settling the fine linen straight on my shoulders, and getting my arms into the sleeves. “Lift your arm, monsieur.”

I did, and found it taken between his two hands to bend. With the flexing of muscle, I heard the seam split.

He shook his head, smile becoming strained. “We’ll adjust it. Now….”

He pulled the draw-cords at each wrist. The gathered neck hung wide open, halfway down my chest. Ned Alleyne leaned in and—without a word of apology—pinched the flesh of my upper chest.

“Don’t make the bodice with too much showing,” he said. “Even with padding, there won’t be much there. And there’s some need for shaving.”

By the door, Dariole made a choked sound. I did not turn my head to look at her.

“Shaving?” I got out.

“Yes, monsieur, we’ll take this off.” He flicked my shoulders and pectoral muscles, where dark hair begins to cover my torso. “I regret, also, your moustache and beard—”

“No!”

I swore, violently. Behind me, Dariole choked again.

“But, Clio, a lady—cannot have a beard!” Alleyne also choked, but because I had my hand in his ruff. “Rochefort!”

“I apologise.” With an effort, I unclenched my fist, and loosed him. “I merely had not thought of the matter. Since I hardly expected to be playing a stage-part.”

I suppose I thought—
if
I thought—that player’s paint would hide all. Plainly not.
I have not been smooth-cheeked since I was a boy of Mlle Dariole’s age.

Keeping my back turned to her did not assist me; I could feel her amusement as clearly as if it were radiating from her, like a hearth’s heat.

Alleyne rolled his shoulders, settling doublet and ruff back into their proper places. The tailor took off my chemise, altered it with a swift rip of cloth and half a dozen stitches, and threw it again over my head. It smelled of perfumes layered on, one over the other. I discovered I was standing the more fiercely upright, as if there must be no aspect of the lounging catamite in my pose.

The great muscles in my thigh still twinged as I did so. The first few nights, I had sought brandy to aid me to sleep, quieting the nagging pain. Wounds to the flesh heal: I am expert as a physician in knowing how long before I might put trust in the limb again. I do not heal as fast as I used; for all that, I am healed for all that matters.

The tailor tied the strings at my wrists, and pulled the drawstring at the neck of the chemise, tying it off when the fine gathered fabric barely covered my nipples. He flicked at my hair, where the long coils caught under the cloth.

“What about this, Master Alleyne?”

The player-manager reached out and weighed a handful. “We’ll crop it close, for Clio’s wig.”

I closed my hand around his wrist.

In theory I could snap it as a twig snaps. But this is Alleyne, whom we need for the masque in forty minutes…. In practise, it seemed I mightonly arrest his hand that held the thick coil of hair, and give him a look that held all my absolute refusal.

Alleyne’s eyes widened. He said rapidly, “Or we can dress your hair, and add a hairpiece! Yes…that and the jewels we used for
Sophonisba
…It will look very well. Very well!”

The tailor, back at his table, stopped sewing. I caught his eye, and Alleyne’s white face in the corner of my vision. It may not be so evident to them, I thought, that I will not break a man’s hand over a matter of my vanity.

I loosed Alleyne, and gave him a sharp nod. It was beyond me to consent to hairpieces and jewels aloud. Fortunately, this did not seem to be needed.

He continued to rehearse me, and I responded automatically. Movement made me miss a line: I began again. Dariole crossed the cave, walked down to look at the pool and pinnacles, and walked slowly back. Once in the centre of the candles, she sat herself down on a rock-shelf, one ankle up under the opposite buttock, and both hands down in support.

I permitted myself to meet her eye. It was that or blush, most unfortunately, at being observed by her, and in that way look even more ridiculous.

Half in my mind was the conceit that, if I could withstand
her,
stage-fright would have no terror for me.

True, I am on stage as a bodyguard. But I must still give Madame Clio’s words, aloud. On stage, in a part you do not know, in a role you have not rehearsed….

Bitch!
I thought, meeting her gaze.

In my forty years, I have done any number of things which do not become a gentleman. I wondered where I would find anything in memory to compete with this: standing dressed in women’s under-garments, under the gaze of Mlle Dariole.

She looked up, and spoke without a quaver in her voice. “This Dame History—she’s a large woman?”

Alleyne glared. “I won’t warn you again!”

She held her palms up in surrender. “No, Monsieur Alleyne.”

That contrite look should not fool any man. Least of all a player!

I was about to riposte when the tailor returned with another garment and began feeding my arms through the straps. Only as the garment hung from my arms, and he went behind me to tug it onto my body, did I recognise it for a corset, or, as the English call it, a pair-of-bodies.

He got the straps over each of my shoulders, loosened their ties to the main garment, and began to whip the cord that would pull the side-seam closed through the eyelet-holes.

In the face of this indignity, I was almost immune to whatever should come after. I dared not meet the eye of Mlle Dariole. The tailor laced up the corset, coming around to tug the chemise under it downwards, so that it was merely a frilled edge along the top.

Women wear their pair-of-bodies a little clip-fitting, to act as a restraint on their bosoms. Until now, I had thought my acquaintance with them would be confined to removing them from willing partners. I felt the garment tugged more tightly about me, as the tailor returned to the side-seam, swearing oaths under his breath as he caught his fingers under the cord. The pair-of-bodies squeezed me tightly.

I looked down. My enclosed pectoral muscles bulged up over the tight bodice, giving an impression—if a man were in dim light and at five yards’ distance!—of a woman’s breasts.

I heard something slide, and a weight hit the carpet. I looked towards the noise. The boy-girl sat on the cavern floor, her arms wrapped tightly about her ribs, and her face pink. It relieved me only a very little to see her incapable of speech.

I stood, my gaze taking in only the limestone of the walls, while the tailor and Alleyne put on me a farthingale, a number of petticoats, and the under-skirt, skirt, stomacher, and bodice that made up the Muse of History’s masque costume.

“You should sit, while Matthew attempts your hair.” Alleyne set a joint-stool on the carpet.

Meekly, and after considerable difficulty with the frame of the farthingale, I sat. What seemed endless fathoms of black silk hung from my waist. My only consolation was that I could not see myself.

With my natural hair wound into a hairpiece, I was fitted with a gold net for the bun of braids, jewels for my ears, and a wire-supported ruff of spider-web gold lace. It felt odd and appalling to have a weight of hair piled above my temples. The fine cloth that served for modesty’s sake to cover the hair was threaded through with gold beads, crude up close, but doubtless effective at the distance an audience would be. I thought I must stand all of six feet and ten inches tall.