Seven Will Out: A Renaissance Revel (5 page)

The tapestries were new to the room, I knew. Otherwise, the room was in fact entirely familiar to me. It might seem odd to you, my having a feeling of déjà vu about so singular a room. But, you see, I had been in it before—on that memorable night when I somehow transcended time and space and met the six wives of Henry VIII, not to mention the distaff side of the extended Tudor family.

On that earlier instance, my ensemble dishabille had consisted of an old-fashioned white nightdress, all billowing linen. I
hoped my present garment was not the same one; I hate being seen in the same outfit twice, particularly on special occasions. I decided to toss off the bedclothes for a nightdress check. It wasn’t as easy as I expected. Eventually, though, thanks to all that Jazzercise triceps work I’d been doing, I was able to move the weighty satins and brocades that were piled high on top of me. After some further tugging and tussling, I was also able to more fully open the heavy satin draperies around the bed and take advantage of what little light there was in the room.

My Herculean efforts revealed to me that I was, indeed, wearing the nightdress I remembered so well. I discovered something else too; I was not alone. I was sharing my quarters with not one, but two other occupants.

Chapter Fourteen

Menagerie and Query

My two welcoming companions were not, as on my last visit, those two medieval beauties, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York, grandmother and mother of Henry VIII.

On my last stay here, I had learned that this was a strictly ladies-only domicile. That is why I rapidly concluded that my companions, who were a couple of dogs, were likely also a couple of bitches. This is not as rancorous a statement as you may think.

You see, my stirring about had agitated two toy-size dogs that had been lying at the foot of the bed, setting them to romping and frolicking around. I settled them down a bit and then zeroed in for a closer look at my strange bedfellows.

One of them I had met before. I had not gotten its name, but I knew it to be the terrier that had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, at the time of her death. Said pup had attended Mary’s execution, hidden under her skirts; it barked piteously as it emerged, bloodstained, unable to decide whether to stay with the decapitated queen’s body or with her head. Eventually it mourned itself to death.

My understanding had been that, after my last visit here, the Tudor denizens of this celestial way station would have vacated the premises for good. But if this dog—and another to boot—were present here, then likely the queen of Scots was again, or perhaps still, in residence. And heaven knew who else.

I looked a little closer at the other dog to try to figure out what, or at least, whose, it was. It appeared to be a sweet little
bichon frise, and it looked back at me with head atilt and tail wagging.

“
Por quoi
!” a female voice called from without the room, and the little bichon perked up its ears.

“
Por quoi
to you too!” I sang out, playing for time as I tried to recall some of my high school French. As I did, I realized that I had just unintentionally given someone “what for.” I hoped this wouldn’t mean that my stay here this time was going to start off with me giving a bad impression. Wanting to take no chances, I got out of bed and began to smooth, as best I could, the wrinkles from my nightdress. As I did so, the person outside my room, getting closer by the sound of her voice, riposted my comment.

“Your French accent is execrable, Dolly!”

I wondered fleetingly if Marie Antoinette was in residence, but this was not the case. The lady who eventually rounded the doorway and entered my room was someone I had met before. She sported the Renaissance equivalent of a hippie-chick outfit that had seen better days. A parrot was circling above her in a holding pattern, and she was trailed by several feline friends whose orange calico markings resembled her own ginger coloring. I knew whose tragic and fascinating presence I was in.

Chapter Fifteen

The Mission Condition

“Arabella!” I called out happily as she entered the room and began to nuzzle my two canine companions. I was happy for two reasons. First, I had taken a shine to Arabella Stuart when we met on my last visit here. Second, I was pleased that, at least for my first interview of the night, there would be none of the guess-who that had featured in my initial visit. Back then, unidentified Tudor ladies had come out of the woodwork at practically every turn, and it was disconcerting until I got used to it. Starting this visit off with a familiar face gave things a different feeling altogether.

“Welcome back, Dolly!” Arabella greeted me with an embrace and a kiss on the cheek.

“Well, thank you very much, Arabella!”

“I’ll bet you thought you’d never visit this place again,” she conjectured.

“You’ve got that right,” I responded. “Looks like the place hasn’t changed all that much from last time.”

“The conditions of exile in place the last time you were here no longer hold, Dolly. That applied to Henry VIII’s six wives only, for reasons that you are of course already aware of. This time, it is a little different. All in residence at present are not exiled; they are here voluntarily.”

“Who, Arabella, besides yourself, is in residence this time? And why?”

“The linchpins of the current house party could be said to be your old friends, Mary and Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s daughters,
and their cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Accompanying them are various cousinly and other relations, and a few of what I guess you might call hangers-on.”

“The latter-day Tudors,” I recapped. “None of the Tudor old guard are here today?”

“None of Henry VIII’s wives are currently in residence. Ann Boleyn and Katharine of Aragon have recently taken possession of the last empty guest chamber for a brief visit, but it is strictly an ad hoc event.”

I’d not heard combustion, racket, or explosions of any kind since my arrival, and this now surprised me.

“Your guest quarters must be quite commodious to hold those two peaceably in the same room,” I commented.

“Ann Boleyn and Katharine of Aragon have gotten quite companionable since your last meeting with them, Dolly,” Arabella informed me.

I was pleased to think that I’d had something to do with that. It was hard to imagine them as besties, but perhaps they had come into their proper relationship as frenemies. I’d managed to get each to pay the other a compliment the last time I was here; apparently, the relationship had flourished even more finely from there.

“What is the ad hoc purpose of their visit here?” I inquired. “Anything,” I asked, hoping I was not being too egocentric, “to do with me?”

“Well, yes and no,” Arabella replied. “It primarily relates to their daughters.”

“So something is afoot with Bloody Mary I, Elizabeth I, and company,” I pondered aloud

“Yes, Dolly; something is indeed afoot—something that required your presence here for another visit, obviously.”

“Well, I hope they won’t be dragging their feet about whatever is afoot. I have commencement activities to see to back home and a house full of guests!”

“You were in a hurry to leave the last time you were here, and you are in a hurry to leave this time. Rest assured we will get you back to your world in good time.”

“So give me the rundown, Arabella, on why I’m needed here again.”

“Based on their mothers’ advice, Henry’s VIII’s
daughters
have decided to entrust you with a vital mission. As the spacious accommodations we are now in were vacant, they petitioned the Almighty for their use to meet with you and set things up. He graciously permitted Mary, Elizabeth, and their compatriots to set up shop here for purposes of the mission.”

Chapter Sixteen

Canny about Grannie

It had taken
much
longer than this to cut to the chase during my last visit; quite frankly, I was stunned to so quickly learn what was at the bottom of my return here. I displayed my amazement by not saying a word for what must have been a full minute, and unfortunately, my uncharacteristic silence put Arabella on her guard.

“I’ve shocked you,” Arabella said, showing a talent for understatement that I had not previously noted. She looked concerned.

“Don’t fret yourself,” I said, recollecting that in life, Arabella’s sanity had been at best a touch-and-go proposition. I certainly did not want to cause her any undue stress. And, less becomingly, I also wanted to keep her sweet so that I could pump her for additional information. “I just haven’t been myself lately, Arabella; please, do not take my silence personally.”

“Not been feeling well, Dolly?”

“A bit off my food lately; I’ve had a lot on my plate, you know.”

“Overindulged in rich foods, have you?” Arabella inquired.

“No, I was speaking metaphorically,” I said. “I think my nerves have unsettled my mind, not to mention my digestion. Company in the house. Chaos in the workplace. Career crossroads. Distracted husband. Big speech to deliver. In short, too much to think about!”

“Well, Dolly, you’d best get a grip on yourself. You’ll have plenty more to think about soon enough. Won’t she, my darlings?” Arabella queried, as she took a seat on a nearby chair and beckoned for the pets that had followed her into the room
to assume a place on her lap. They cavorted about her elaborate Renaissance garb, taking what could only be called liberties with her finery.

“Do tell!” I invited, trying not to let a wheedling tone creep too obviously into my voice. My attempt at subterfuge was not successful.

“I’ve revealed too much already,” Arabella decided aloud, voicing a sentiment with which I was unable to agree. “Elizabeth might get cross with me. But of course, when it comes to the queen, one is used to having her cross with one. My grandmother might get cross with me as well, and as usual. The thought of it all is enough to make
me
queasy too.”

“Which of your grandmothers are you worried about?” I asked with curiosity tinged with pity.

Fate did not gift Arabella with the traditional encouraging, milk-and-cookies grandmothers; unsweetened granola and admonishments would more likely have been on the menu. On her father’s side, the woman in question would have been Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII and relentlessly ambitious mother of two handsome but ultimately disappointing sons. One of those sons sired Arabella; the other paved the way for the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.

When it came to the maternal side of her family, fate had been even less gentle with Arabella. The grandmother in question there was none other than Bess of Hardwick.

“My maternal grandmother is the one to whom I was referring,” Arabella clarified, “although both of my grandmothers are currently in residence. My grandmother of Hardwick is
always
cross with me about something.”

“Well, Arabella, if it eases your mind any, I will not let Bess know—should I happen to meet her—what you’ve divulged. And even if I were to tell her, she’d surely have no reason to be cross with
you
. If I’ve got a job to do for the next Tudor generation, the sooner I can get down to brass tacks, the better.”

A little surprised at how quickly I had gotten used to the idea of being on a Tudor mission, I continued on. “You’ve done nothing but start the ball rolling, so to speak, Arabella. Anything else you have to tell me will only serve to
keep
the ball rolling,” I said hopefully.

“Not the happiest of similes, Dolly, in a place as cursed by rampant decapitation as this one is. We’d hoped your last stay here would have cured you of such foolishness.”

“I thought I’d about run out of execution
faux pas
the last time I was here,” I admitted. “Guess I had one more left. But please, don’t let my ramblings derail your train of thought.”

“There’s nothing else I can give you in the way of information about your mission,” Arabella confessed. “I told you how it is the last time you were here. I am a little bit mad and not, as far as my relatives are concerned, to be trusted with much information on matters of importance.”

I looked at the pretty but plump Arabella, stuffed into an opulent, velvet gown of clashing hues perhaps a bit too bright for good taste. The Elizabethan ruff that encircled her neck quivered ever so slightly even while Arabella herself was as close as she could get to repose, attesting to overstrung nerves. Bits of the lace on both ruff and gown were torn and damaged, attesting to her overindulgence of the felines that she was so fond of.

It saddened me this time, as it had on my last visit, to think about Arabella’s story. As a small child, she was the pampered
mascot of Mary, Queen of Scots. When she was an adolescent and young adult, there might have been room at the top for her in the royal succession, but things never worked out that way. Eventually, an emotionally overwrought spinsterhood turned her into the crazy cat lady equivalent of the Tudor and Stuart courts. A disastrous, late marriage unraveled her completely, and she eventually died in prison, starved and emaciated, quite possibly suffering an eating disorder on top of everything else. I assumed she appeared to me now as the plump Arabella of her youth because, as I had learned during my last visit, the denizens of this place appeared to me at the ages of their choosing.

I had also learned during that last visit that the Tudor ladies then present had entertained numerous earth-dwelling women here down through the ages. This had enabled them to keep up with worldly social and linguistic developments to a degree, making my communications with them fairly easy, at least on a semantic level. On an emotional level, it was different. I have to admit to getting a bit teary eyed thinking both of Arabella’s history and of her present situation with her grannies. My maternal instincts, I was surprised to find, were aroused.

A sigh from Arabella, followed by the scuffling of the dogs as they scampered around in an effort to amuse her, brought me back to reality. Or at least as close to it as I could get in a distaff Tudor court on an unknown astral plane.

“It is not easy to have turned out a disappointment—or worse, a bad luck charm—to everyone one cares about,” she began. I sensed a counseling session in my near future.