The Queene’s Christmas Read Free Page A

Thames-side window, frowning over documents Cecil had given her to read. She could hardly discipline herself to heed her duties, for the palace was already astir with plans and preparations. This evening began the special Twelve Days of Christmas celebration she had promised her people, Kat, and herself, though December 25 itself was always counted as the first day.
    “Kat seems to do well with that mistletoe powder in her wine,” the queen observed, sanding her signature. “Using it has been worth the risk, and heaven knows the royal physicians haven’t come up with anything better.”
    “I’ll never forget the look on your face, Your Grace, when I told you that taking too much of it is poison. But just enough has calmed the heat of Kat’s heart’s furnace and given her new life.”
    “I knew to trust your knowledge on it, and pray I will always know whom to trust,” Elizabeth said as if to herself. She rose and turned to the window. Scratching the frost off a pane with her fingernails, she gazed out. Though a small stream of open water still flowed at the center, the broad Thames was freezing over from both banks. She took that for a fortuitous sign that a Frost Fair on that vast expanse was a good possibility.
    As the queen returned to her work, the mistress of the herbs worked quietly away, and the mistress of the realm was content to have her here. Since before she was queen, Elizabeth had gathered about her several servants as well as courtiers she could trust. She and Meg Milligrew had been through tough times together, and Meg was a member of what the queen dubbed her Privy Plot Council. Should some sort of crime or plot threaten the queens court or person, Her Majesty assembled her covert coterie to look into it and work directly with her to solve the problem.
    Meg greatly resembled the slender, red-haired, pale queen and so could stand in for her, at least at a distance, if need be. Kat Ashley had been a valued member of the secret group before her faculties began to fade, and the brilliant, wily Cecil had ever served his queen as well privily as publicly. Stephen Jenks, Meg’s betrothed and a fine horseman, had been the queen’s personal bodyguard in her days of exile and now was in the Earl of Leicester’s retinue, though ever at the royal beck and call.
    The queen’s cousin Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon, a courtier she relied on, had served in her Privy Plot Council, too. Edward Thompson, alias Ned Topside, a former itinerant actor and her Master of Revels at court, was invaluable whether working overtly or covertly. Ned, the handsome rogue, was a man of many faces, voices, and personae and rather full of himself at times. But how-ever witty and charming the blackguard could be, she would scold him roundly for being late this morning.
    The queen had sent for Ned to hear of his preparations for the holiday traditions and tomfooleries. For the six years she had been queen, Ned had served as Lord of Misrule, the one who planned and oversaw all Yuletide entertainments, both decorous and raucous. She wondered if Meg had appeared because Ned was coming. Elizabeth knew well that the girl might be betrothed to the quiet, stalwart Jenks but had long yearned for the mercurial, alluring Ned.
    “It’s a good thing for you,” the queen clipped out the moment Ned was admitted, “that the Lord of Misrule’s whims can gainsay all rules and regulations in these coming days, for your presence here is long overdue, and I must leave soon.”
    Ned swept the queen a deep, graceful bow. “Your Most Gracious Majesty,” he began with a grand flourish of both arms, “I will be brief.”
    “That will be a novelty. Instead, write out what merriments we shall see each night, for I want no surprises. As penance for my own frivolity, I must meet with the Bishop of London’s aide, Vicar Martin Bane,” she added with a dramatic sigh that would have done well in a scene from one of the fond romances or grand tragedies Ned