All the Queen's Players Read online

  All the

  Queen’s Players

  ALSO BY JANE FEATHER

  A Husband’s Wicked Ways

  To Wed a Wicked Prince

  A Wicked Gentleman

  Almost a Lady

  Almost a Bride

  The Wedding Game

  The Bride Hunt

  The Bachelor List

  “Holiday Gamble” in the Snowy Night with a Stranger anthology

  JANE FEATHER

  All the

  Queen’s Players

  Gallery Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Jane Feather

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  First Gallery Books trade paperback edition April 2010

  GALLERY and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Feather, Jane.

  All the queen’s players / Jane Feather.—1st Gallery Books trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  I. Title

  PS3556.E22A79 2010

  813’.54—dc22

  2009021110

  ISBN 978-1-4165-2554-7

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6898-1 (ebook)

  To Maggie Crawford, my editor, without whose insights and creative

  perceptions this book would probably never have seen the light of day.

  Thank you so much, Maggie.

  All the

  Queen’s Players

  Prologue

  Fotheringay Castle, February 8, 1587

  THEY HAD COME to her the previous evening. Amyas Paulet, her jailer and Puritan tormentor, and dear, loyal Shrewsbury, who had looked as if it were his own impending death he had come to announce.

  It was Shrewsbury who had spoken, tears running down his cheeks. Her death warrant, signed by the queen, had been received. She was to die in the Great Hall at eight o’clock the following morning. Little enough time for her final preparations, the letters to be written, the disposition of her personal possessions, her final confession. But the death warrant had come as no surprise for all the unseemly haste of its execution.

  And so here she was, at the appointed time, in the Great Hall. It was a bitterly cold morning, still dark outside. Within, sconced candles threw shadows against the walls. Her visitors of the previous evening stood behind the newly erected scaffold at the far end. Other members of the household, together with the sheriff and his men, her ladies, with the exception of the two who attended close beside her on this, her last, walk, stood against the walls, some with downcast eyes as she approached the scaffold.

  Mary became aware of her little Skye terrier pressing into the voluminous folds of her black velvet skirts. She paused for an instant, her gaze roaming the hall, lingering on the faces of those who had come to witness her death. Her eyes stopped, rested on the face of a woman, younger than her other ladies. She raised a hand and the young woman stepped forward and came over to her. She curtsied low.

  “Rosamund, will you take my dog?” Mary asked softly. “I fear he may become distressed if he remains too close to me.”

  “Of course, madam.” Rosamund bent and picked up the little creature, caressing his rough head. She stepped back into place again, and the Queen of Scots continued to the scaffold.

  Mary mounted the five steps. A disrobing stool stood beside the block, a kneeling cushion in front of it. She averted her eyes from the bloodstained butcher’s ax. Presumably all they could find at such short notice, she reflected. Royal castles did not, in general, include a headsman’s ax among their furnishings. Fleetingly she wondered if they had remembered to sharpen it after its last use on some luckless animal.

  But there was no time now for further thought. Her ladies and executioners were moving to disrobe her. She removed her cross and the Agnus Dei from around her neck, giving them to her attendants as she blessed them both with a prayer and the sign of the cross.

  Her executioners knelt for forgiveness and she smiled, saying clearly, “I forgive you for you are about to end my troubles.” Her ladies fastened a Corpus Christi cloth over her face, a veil that she herself had embroidered.

  Rosamund Walsingham held the little terrier against her breast, turning its eyes away from the scaffold. Her own remained riveted as the executioners and the two women removed Mary Stuart’s black gown, two petticoats, her corset, until she stood only in her petticoat and chemise. Both garments were scarlet, the color of martyrdom. Rosamund knew she must be sure to include that detail in her report to Sir Francis. There were official witnesses of this execution, but Sir Francis Walsingham would, as always, demand from her a personal, unofficial, and totally accurate description of even the most minute and seemingly irrelevant detail.

  Mary Stuart smiled faintly as they undressed her and made some soft comment to the executioners that Rosamund could not hear. Her attendants helped the queen to kneel, and Mary placed her head upon the block, her hands gripping the wood on either side.

  One of the executioners moved her hands, and Rosamund shuddered at the significance. Had they been left there, they would have been struck off with the head. Mary Stuart stretched out her arms behind her and offered her final prayers in loud, clear tones.

  The little dog whimpered against Rosamund’s breast as her arms tightened convulsively with the first stroke of the ax. In horror, she saw that the ax had missed its target and had struck the back of the victim’s head. Mary’s lips moved soundlessly. The ax fell again.

  Rosamund closed her eyes when the executioner sawed at the last remaining tendon that held the woman’s head still affixed to her neck. And then he lifted the head free, declaiming, “God save the Queen.”

  A collective gasp of shock ran around the gathering as the veil that had been fastened to her hair came free in the man’s hand, and with it the long auburn tresses of a wig. Mary Stuart’s own hair was short and gray. The head fell to the straw, and the face was that of an old woman, barely recognizable as the tall, elegant, auburn-haired beauty of before.

  It was over at last. Rosamund, soothing the terrier with soft words and a gentle hand, joined the mass exodus from the Great Hall as the sheriff and his men prepared to take the body abovestairs to where the surgeons waited to embalm it.

  Her legs started to tremble and at the head of the stairs she sat down on the wide stone ledge of a mullioned window and gazed out at the Northamptonshire countryside. How responsible had she, Rosamund Walsingham, been for Mary’s execution? She had borne some part in it . . . had had no choice but to do so. She just hadn’t realized how her participation in that secret world ruled by her fearsome cousin Francis could be used, twisted to suit his purposes. She should have known, of course. Her
brother Thomas had dropped enough hints, but his little sister had thought herself impregnable, safe behind the fortress walls of her own self-will. But she should have remembered what was said about those who touched pitch.

  Her hands were clammy and she felt her heart begin to race. She tried to remember what Kit Marlowe had told her of the actor’s trick of breathing to overcome stage fright. Or maybe it had been Ned Alleyn? It would make better sense, he was after all an actor. Kit lived and breathed the stage, but he had never trodden the boards. His passion lay in playmaking.

  This dark, dank imprisonment seemed to have lasted an eternity. What she would give for another tantalizing glimpse of the wonderful boisterous, roistering, down and dirty wildness of the players’ lives.

  She thought of Will, and that one glorious afternoon they’d spent with the players. Perhaps by now Will, if he was not performing some service for Sir Francis, was back in their midst, drinking with the players, applauding in the pits, eagerly showing his own attempts at playmaking to Kit, or Thomas Watson, or Tom Kyd. And when he was not among the players and playmakers, he would be at court playing his lute, reciting his verses, singing his love songs. Will was a courtier who knew he must make himself pleasant to those who mattered. He had perfected the skills, observed the manners and techniques of those older and more experienced than he in the art of influence peddling so necessary to survival in Elizabeth’s court. And yet Rosamund would never forget the mischievous glint in his eye, the wicked spontaneous suggestions that led them both into paths that should not have been trodden.

  That night in the buttery at Chartley seemed to have happened to two other people in another life. Even her arrival at Fotheringay seemed a thing of distant memory. And only a few months later, it had brought her to this day of Mary’s death.

  The little terrier wriggled in her arms and licked her chin. She carried him to the inner apartments where Mary and her ladies had been housed. The Queen of Scots’ bedchamber door was open and servants were stripping the bed of its hangings. Already the sense of death, of finality, lay heavy over the chamber, and the little dog whined.

  Twelve months ago Rosamund Walsingham had barely given the Queen of Scots a second thought, and now she wept for her, cradling the terrier against her breast, her tears falling thickly on his head.

  But her servitude here would soon be over, Rosamund thought. The queen did not easily forgive the offenses of those she considered she had favored, but maybe her cousin would speak for her. She had served him well. She had done her duty, fulfilled her obligations to Sir Francis, surely she had earned forgiveness.

  And not just forgiveness. She had unfinished business, bones to pick, and she would relish the picking.

  Chapter One

  Scadbury Park, Chiselhurst, Kent, May 1586

  THE LEMONY LIGHT of the early-spring sun seemed to accentuate the delicate new greenery of the apple trees and the soft blush of pink on the creamy white flowers. The blossom was so delicate, so fragile, so impossible to capture to her satisfaction, that Rosamund Walsingham, from her perch high in the crotch of an apple tree, muttered an imprecation under her breath, wiped the slate clean of chalk, and began anew. Chalk was not a good medium for such dainty work, but paper was a luxury as Thomas was always telling her. His usual refrain of not being made of money, so oft repeated, had become a mantra. Not that it prevented him from dressing as richly as he chose, or from riding a handsome gelding with the finest leather saddle and silver harness, she reflected, her nose wrinkling as she studied the blossom anew.

  And in all fairness, her brother kept her short of nothing important, and he only limited the supply of paper, which merely meant that she couldn’t afford to make mistakes. Once she’d captured something to her satisfaction with chalk on slate, then she could transfer it to paper with the sharpest, finest quill she could find. It wasn’t perfect, but she could manage.

  Absently she brushed back behind her ear a stray lock of chestnut hair that was tickling her nose and leaned against the trunk of the tree at her back surveying the slate with a critical frown. It was almost perfect, and it would be easier to capture the impression of the blossom trembling a little against the leaf when she had the fine nib of a quill pen at her disposal.

  Voices drifted into the orchard from below her hidden perch. Rosamund listened, her head cocked. It seemed her brother Thomas was back from his travels. He never sent warning of his returns from his frequent absences, so that was not in the least strange. And neither was it strange that he would bring a visitor with him. The voice was not one she recognized. Thomas had many visitors when he was down at Scadbury, some of them friends, others rather harder to define. The latter moved around in the shadows, it always seemed to Rosamund. They rarely acknowledged her with so much as a glance or a nod, and never spoke at all. They came and went at odd times of day and spent their time enshrined with Thomas in the study. Rosamund had learned to disregard them and was quite happy to keep to herself at such times.

  She peered through the pale greenery as the voices came closer. Something about being hidden up here, looking down at the two men as they strolled the alley arm in arm between the fruit trees, brought her a little thrill. She was about to announce herself when they stopped on the path and turned to face each other, their conversation suddenly ceased.

  Rosamund watched, fascinated as they kissed, murmuring softly, their hands stroking, moving over each other with increasing fervor. And now she wished she were anywhere but hidden in the apple tree. Her moment to declare herself was gone. Now she could only pray that Thomas would never find out that she had been a witness to this, whatever it was. Her brother was easygoing for the most part, carelessly affectionate to his younger sister when he was in her vicinity, but in general he paid her little attention, and that suited them both. He did, however, have a fearsome temper when aroused, and Rosamund had no desire to be on the receiving end of what she knew would be a terrifying rage if she was discovered.

  So, trapped, she watched. They moved off the path, still holding each other, and the stranger leaned up against a tree, Thomas pressed against him. And then they slid slowly down the trunk and out of sight in the lush grass of the orchard. Rosamund could not see, but she could hear, and she’d heard enough stable talk in her rough and ready growing to have an idea what was happening between them, although the logistics of the act had never been clear to her. When her brother gave a howl that sounded as if he were in pain, she clamped her hand over her mouth. She could hear moans mingled with little cries, then silence.

  After a minute that seemed to last an eternity, she heard them whispering, laughing softly, and the grass rustled. Their voices rose and fell barely above a whisper, so she could make out little of their words, but they sounded happy, in tune with each other. And then Thomas said in his normal tone, “Ah, Kit, if it’s coin you need during the long vacation, then you must speak with my cousin. He is always looking for men such as yourself.”

  Rosamund could see Thomas again now as he stood up and leaned down, laughing, to hold out a hand to the brown-haired stranger who went by the name of Kit. The stranger rose, lacing his trunks, then brushing the dust of the ground from them. He was dressed poorly, his shirt darned, his black trunks shiny with grease, his dark cloak threadbare. He seemed a strange companion for her always elegant brother. But then Thomas frequently kept strange company.

  Rosamund was excruciatingly uncomfortable in her apple tree. Her bladder ached, her back itched as if ants had dropped down her neck, and she longed to stretch her cramped legs. But she held herself still, barely breathing, lest something make them look up through the delicate screen of leaves and blossom. But they were too taken up with themselves to give thought to their surroundings, and finally they moved away down the alley towards the sweep of lawn that led up to the half-timbered, slate-roofed house.

  She dropped her slate and chalk to the ground, then swung herself down from one of the curved branches to drop beside them. She dived into
the trees to relieve herself in the thick grass at the side of the orchard, then she straightened her skirt and petticoat, picked up her chalk and slate, and made her own way up to the house.

  She entered through a side door and walked down the narrow, stone-flagged passageway that led from the servants’ quarters at the back of the house to the front hall. As she emerged into the sunlit hall, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. A shadowy, black-clad figure sidled into the gloom on the far side of the central staircase. It would be Frizer, of course. Ingram Frizer, her brother’s . . . her brother’s what? She was hard-pressed to think of what role Ingram Frizer played in Thomas’s life, but it was certainly ever-present. Thomas rarely came to Scadbury without Frizer clinging to his coattails, hugging the shadows in brooding silence. He seemed more a servant than a friend, but more a confidant than a servant. Their manner towards each other seemed to imply shared secrets. Somehow though Rosamund couldn’t imagine that Thomas and Frizer would have the kind of congress her brother had been having in the orchard with the stranger.

  Where was the stranger? Who was the stranger? If Thomas didn’t want his little sister to meet his visitors, he ensured that she didn’t, but this particular visitor Rosamund was determined to meet. She hurried up the curved oak staircase towards her own bedchamber thinking of various casual ways to effect an introduction.

  As luck would have it, she was halfway down the corridor that led to her bedchamber when Thomas emerged from his bedchamber, accompanied by the stranger. He stopped as he saw his sister coming towards him.

  “Rosamund, where have you been hiding?” His voice was cheerful, no indication of an underlying motive to the awkward question.

  “I was walking in the fields, sketching a little,” she offered as she curtsied. “I am glad to see you home and well, Brother.” Her eyes darted as she spoke to the figure standing beside him. It was the stranger from the orchard, but he was transformed. The threadbare, grimy garments were replaced with a winged doublet of emerald velvet slashed over a lining of cream silk, his trunks were the same velvet, and his shirt was adorned with a collar of Thomas’s favorite cobweb lace. Thomas’s generosity extended even to his wardrobe it seemed. The two men were much of a size, and of similar coloring.