Part 1 (1/2)

Cate of the Lost Colony.

by Lisa Klein.

Part I

Chapter 1.

The Queen's Maid.

At a young age I learned how quickly one's fortunes can change, a truth that never betrayed me. One day I was the beloved daughter of a Hamps.h.i.+re gentleman who had been chosen to serve the queen. The next, he was killed fighting in the Netherlands, and I was an orphan. My mother was already dead and my old nurse was almost blind, so I was taken to live with my aunt and uncle. They had three daughters of their own, none of whom desired another sister. Nor did my aunt want me, especially when it was discovered I had no inheritance, for my father had spent it all to win the queen's regard. At the tender age of fourteen I was at the bottom of the G.o.ddess Fortune's wheel, poor and loved by no one. Not two months later, that fickle wheel had turned again, carrying me to the top.

The messenger stood by, waiting as I read the letter. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes at the first lines, but I blinked them away and read hastily to the end. The page trembled and I had to steady my hands on the back of a chair.

”Read it to me, now,” commanded my aunt.

So I did, my voice halting with amazement.

13 October 1583To the Lady Catherine ArcherThough misfortune has befallen you, be a.s.sured your Father in heaven has not forgotten you, nor has your loving queen, who is mother to all her people. I understand your grief, for at a young age I also lost my father.For his sacrifice on the field of battle, Sir Thomas Archer will be remembered as a most true and faithful subject. I am told that he loosed from his bow a keen arrow in you, his only offspring. Your attendance upon me at Whitehall I would consider a due and honorable extension of your father's service. With all confidence that you will prove a young woman worthy of a place among my ladies, I remain your loving queen,Elizabeth R My aunt reached out to pluck the letter from me, but I held it fast to my bosom. The queen of England had penned this message and folded it with her own fingers! My aunt would not take it from me. I had little enough that was my own.

”The queen requires me to attend her!” I said, my voice rising with excitement. To be granted such a prize was like being invited into the firmament to s.h.i.+ne next to the sun.

My aunt lifted her eyebrows in disbelief. Or was it relief? I knew she was thinking of her own daughters, who needed food, clothing, and dowries, while her husband did nothing but gamble and drink.

”It is an honor she does not merit,” she said in rebuke to the messenger. ”It will not take long to pack her things. Go, Catherine.”

I floated from the room on a cloud, wondering if the queen was as beautiful as everyone said. Was her bed covered with cloth of gold? Did she eat from plates made of crystal? Were her shoes set with jewels? I would see these glories for myself, living in a palace and waiting on the queen daily.

My cousins, cl.u.s.tered in the hallway, sniffed and made sour faces.

”Uncle always did think he was better than us,” said the eldest.

I wanted to remind them that my father had died in the queen's service, while theirs was little more than a drunkard. But I said nothing and only stuck out my tongue as I pa.s.sed.

The queen had sent a litter for me, a covered chair atop a brown palfrey. A small chest with my few belongings was secured behind. We set out before dawn the next day. I felt like a grand lady riding so high, but I was a little afraid of falling off. The messenger on his horse seemed to be smiling at me, whether in pity or friendliness, I could not tell.

All the way to London I thought about my father. I had sat dry-eyed through his funeral, unable to believe he was dead. His visits home had been rare, for he lived at court as a gentleman of the queen's privy chamber. He even spent Christmases there. I never questioned why he chose the queen over his family. It was just the way things were. After all, who would not desire to be in the queen's presence? I had never been out of Hamps.h.i.+re County and I s.h.i.+vered with the antic.i.p.ation of arriving in the greatest city in the kingdom and meeting the queen. As we pa.s.sed through the villages and the golden fields and woods of russet-leaved trees, I wished my father could see me riding in the litter. I longed for him to hug me. He would smell of civet and his beard would tickle my face as he kissed me. But alas, he was dead. I would not see him at court or anywhere ever again.

A dull pain pressed behind my ribs and rose into my throat. This was more than missing him. This was grief at last, and I let it out in quiet weeping as raindrops spattered on the canopy overhead.

Why had my father gone to the Netherlands? He had written in a letter, ”It is a great honor to be chosen to escort the French prince from London to Flus.h.i.+ng. Thankfully Her Majesty, after much indecision, has declined to marry him. Rejoice, daughter, for England need no longer fear submission to a Frenchman, one who is, moreover, a papist.” Though I did not understand everything he wrote, I was proud of my father. I expected him to return once the prince was delivered overseas. He did not write that he would stay in the Netherlands and take up arms. Perhaps he did not want me to worry. My uncle explained that Elizabeth was supporting the Dutch Protestants who were trying to drive Spain out of the Netherlands. I only knew that Spain was wicked for wanting to rule England and to force its Catholic religion on the people of Britain.

So while I had imagined my father on the deck of the queen's flags.h.i.+p, wearing a cloak with fur-lined sleeves, he had been fighting in a field in the Netherlands, knee-deep in mud and blood. I thought of him riding into battle, proudly wearing the queen's livery. Did he call my mother's name when he died, or Elizabeth's?

He came home in a coffin, and we buried him in the churchyard beside my mother.

I drifted in and out of sleep as night fell. The smell of damp horseflesh filled my nostrils and I remembered standing in the midst of a cheering crowd in the rain when I was about six. Bells pealed from the cathedral tower and fiery squibs shot into the sky. The queen was pa.s.sing through Winchester with my father in attendance. I watched for him, but all the men looked the same in their velvet doublets and feathered hats. I was close to tears because I could not find him.

Then I saw the woman on a white palfrey with blue trappings. Her white gown was embroidered with gold, and a crown sat atop her long golden hair. With one hand she held the reins while extending her other arm to the onlookers. I could not take my eyes off her brightness, which even the rain did not dim.

”Long live the queen!”

”G.o.d bless Your Grace!”

Forgetting my father, I ran forward to touch the queen. Trying to reach the hem of her skirt, I grazed the horse's fetlock and smelled its wet flesh. Then my mother pulled me back.

”Mama, she is more beautiful than anyone in the world!”

I felt my mother's arms stiffen around me.

Father did not visit us that day. When I asked my mother why, she only said through tight lips, ”He serves a most demanding mistress.”

Had I really seen the queen pa.s.s and touched her horse? If I had, why couldn't I recall her face? I wondered if it had all been a dream. I could no longer ask my mother. The plague had taken her five years ago. But she really died of loneliness long before that.

It was late at night when we arrived at the queen's palace. A woman of middling height with a few wrinkles in her pleasant face greeted me, introducing herself as Lady Mary Standish. She wore a nightgown and a coif as if she had come from her bed. I followed her to the kitchen, where she gave me some cold meat, bread, and ale. As I was eating, a man dressed in motley skipped into the kitchen. He was short and st.u.r.dily built, with bright eyes and a nose pressed flat against his face, which gave him an odd look.

”Good e'en, Lady Mary, guardian of the maids and their maidenheads.” He winked at me and plucked at his hair. I could not help staring at him.

”d.i.c.k Tarleton, why are you here so late? You had better not be dallying with the scullery maid,” she scolded.

”Nay, never!” he said like an actor overplaying his role. ”Our royal mistress was melancholy tonight and demanded a jest. But by Jove-or rather, by the suffering Job-my poor feet ache from so much cavorting. My calluses feel like barnacles on the bottom of a boat.” He appealed to Lady Mary. ”Oh rub my feet, kind lady, and I will repay the favor at your will.”

”Go to, fool,” said Lady Mary gently. ”You have a wife at home.”

”She will truss me like a turkey and baste me with my own juices,” he complained. Then, cowering under his raised arms, he minced out of the room.

”Is the little man a lunatic?” I asked Lady Mary.

She burst out laughing, then, remembering the late hour, put her hand to her mouth. ”No, he is the queen's clown and the only person who can say whatever he pleases without any consequences.”

”Even lies and lewdness?” I asked, thinking of his jest about maids.

”Even lies and lewdness,” she echoed. ”He manages to turn it all into truth.”

As she spoke, Lady Mary led me up three floors to the maids' dormitory. There several girls slept in beds crowded under the rafters like a flock of sheep curled in the lee of a cliff. It took me but a moment to fall asleep.

Awakening some time later to the murmur of voices, I pretended to be still asleep.

”I just peeked at her. She's a plain one,” said someone with a high voice.

”No, just a little roughened from her journey,” came Lady Mary's voice.

”She has no fas.h.i.+onable clothes,” said the first voice again, with a note of pity.

Then a third voice said with disdain, ”What do you expect of one bred in the country?”

”Emme and Frances, you shouldn't spy in her trunk,” Lady Mary rebuked them.