The Girl in the Glass Tower Read Free

God. A pebble of disappointment dropped into me. I had expected to find her glorious, seated beneath a canopy of state, festooned in jewels and haloed in gold light, like in the cobwebby paintings of the saints that were stored away in the cupboard at the back of the chapel. Grandmother had scolded me for ‘putting my nose where it didn’t belong’ when I’d asked her what they were doing there. I was puzzled by those paintings, for I knew it was wrong to revere the saints and supposed that must have been the reason they were gathering dust in the dark.
    There was a movement in the corner and a woman I hadn’t noticed heaved herself up from a prayer stand, stepping into view. She was tall as a man and stout with it. ‘Ah,’ she said, opening her arms wide. ‘Let me look at you; come, my eyesight is not what it was.’ Her voice was odd, not quite French like the dance master and not quite Scottish like the head falconer, but a mixture of the two.
    I stood rooted to the spot, unsure of how to behave. This great lumpen matron dressed in black was surely not the beautiful Queen of Scotland. That pebble of disappointment seemed to swell. But then I saw something, a haughtiness in her demeanour, a spark of pride in the eyes, which made me drop in a curtsy all the way down to the floor.
    ‘Up, up,’ the Queen said. ‘Come and sit with me.’
    The ladies hustled round, procuring a pair of chairs, which they placed by the hearth. The Queen lowered herself into one, fitting her bulk tightly between its arms, and patted her lap with the command, ‘Up, Geddon,’ for a small dog to jump on to it.
    ‘Mary, would you bring us something to drink,’ she said. ‘We have three Marys here: Mary Devlin,’ she pointed to a woman who was filling two cups from a ewer, ‘and two more there,’ she waved an arm in the general direction of the embroiderers. ‘And
I
am Mary, of course. There is your aunt Mary Talbot too, though we never see her these days. It’s a shame. I was fond of her.’
    She crossed herself, something I had only ever seen done once by one of the stable lads; the head groom had cuffed him for it. ‘All named for the blessed Virgin.’ She waved her arm towards the prayer stand, where a painting of the Virgin, puce-cheeked with a brilliant blue gown, dandling a plump, haloed baby, was hung. Only then did I notice a large jewelled crucifix in a corner and the rosary beads that hung from all the ladies’ girdles. Everybody knew the ScottishQueen was Catholic but, seeing those prohibited objects, things the household chaplain denounced in his sermons as the tools of heresy, reminded me of the strangeness of that other faith.
    I couldn’t help but think about the stories I had heard the servants whisper, of Catholics who tried to poison Queen Elizabeth, who sought to destroy all we knew to be good and right, and the priests being dragged from hiding places hardly bigger than rat holes and taken to the Tower for interrogation. My maids often sat in my bedchamber when they believed me asleep and discussed what happened there. I would spread my limbs out in the bed and try to imagine what it might be like to be stretched on the rack. I had never questioned the wickedness of Catholics, but the Scottish Queen, smiling and petting her dog, seemed as far from an enemy as a robin from a raven.
    ‘Your parents chose a Scottish name for you; not really a name you think of for an English queen, is it? But just as well you are not a Mary too. That would be most confusing, though I would like to think you had been named for me. I suppose that would have been too much to expect, given that I am such a wicked woman.’ She emitted a small, bitter laugh. ‘But I am so very glad to have this chance to see you, Arbella.’ She reached out and squeezed my hand tightly.
    My first instinct was to snatch it back. It had been drummed into me from infancy that I, as royalty, must never be touched without permission, but I reasoned that