P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

Hughie coughed. “Will Ah be attendin’ ye at the dancing, sir?” he asked. He had brushed his woollen doublet and cannions, just in case. Carey’s answer was a swift critical glance, sweeping Hughie head to toe and somehow making him blush again. There was a curt nod. It seemed Hughie passed muster.

They walked with a herd of other gallantly overdressed young men to the orchard which was now a glowing palace, the fruit still left on the trees making a sweet fresh scent to battle with the rose-scented candles and the raucous smell of men and wine.

The musicians sat and stood in a corner on the new boards of the dance floor. They were playing loudly-it would be a noisy night as the boards creaked and thundered under the boots and slippers of the Court.

Of course all the local gentlefolk were there with their unmarried daughters and sisters-the women tricked out in as much costly splendour as the men or indeed more, wearing tokens of their dowries. They gathered in shy drifts near the banquet tables and the high stands of candles.

The Queen wasn’t there yet, nor were the great lords of her Court-the Earls of Essex, Oxford, Cumberland. Carey hesitated as he looked at the groups of henchmen and courtiers and then made some kind of decision, took up a place near the Earl of Essex’s men. He started talking to a man with a sharp Welsh face.

Hughie stood behind him near the canvas wall, watching carefully, wishing his Edinburgh doublet was better fashion since all the other servingmen were very fine in good wool or even velvets with brocade trim.

Many of Essex’s henchmen were in tangerine and white which suited nobody except the ones who were rosily ginger, and not really even them, Hughie thought critically.

They all waited, talking quietly while the music tinkled in the background, conducted by a short round man. Every so often he would pick up and play a different instrument.

Hughie jumped. Trumpets had sounded, the short man stood up and waved his arms, there was a rustle of tension, the sound of boots on boards. Hughie craned to see the red and gold livery of the Gentlemen Pensioners of Her Majesty’s Guard. They fanned out and stood by the entrances and by the carved wooden seat with an awning of brocade lions set at the end of the dance floor.

Hughie was expecting the Queen next, but it was a herd of women, to the sound of pipes and viols. They were arm in arm, some of them older, eight of them juicy and pert in their teens and all wearing the Queen’s black and white colours, designed to their taste. It was a fine sight and interesting for the mixture of French and Spanish fashion, with the big wheel farthingales coming in now even in Scotland.

The music stopped. More trumpeting. Men were shouting “The Queen! The Queen!”

Hughie blinked. A broad long man in dazzling white with red hair and an impressive beard paced in slowly, leaning down to someone much shorter in black velvet and white damask blazing with jewels and pearls, who had her heavily ringed white hand tucked in the crook of his arm.

In a smooth sweeping motion, the whole mob of people in the tent went to both their knees. Nearly falling over, Hughie did the same, squinting to see the cause of it clearly.

Through the lanes of cramoisie, green, black, tawny, rose, and even daring sky blue, all the men with their hats off, went…

A smallish elderly woman entered wearing a bright red wig sparkled with diamonds and a small gold and pearl crown, different-coloured ribbons all over her black velvet gown with a huge Spanish farthingale under it. Her face was white with red cheekbones and her eyes snapping and sparkling black as they looked about around her people. Hughie’s blood went cold as he realised he still had his hat on and scrabbled it off before she could see, leaving his hair standing up on end. The penetrating gaze swept past and didn’t seem to have spotted him.

There was a loud shout of “God save the Queen!” and all the people shouted it three times.

The Queen walked to the chair under her cloth of estate, turned about as she let go of the big man’s arm, smiled down at her kneeling courtiers.

“My lords, ladies, gentlemen, and goodmen,” she said in a penetrating contralto voice. “We thank you for your loving greeting and attendance upon us and hereby order you all to your feet in our presence, so we may enjoy the dancing arranged for our entertainment by our well-loved Lord Norris and Earl of Cumberland.” A round-faced man with a worried look stood up and bowed low to her. The Queen clapped her hands.

“Up, up, on your feet, all of you, never mind your knees,” she said with a magical smile. “What shall we have first, Mr. Byrd? A coranto?”

The short fat man bowed and pointed two fingers. The musicians started up the dance-measure as the lines of courtiers quickly sorted themselves.

Hughie had no idea how to dance Court dances, though he could give a good account of himself at the Edinburgh fair day, which put him in mind of something he had done for Lord Spynie once at a Court dance and that had worked very nicely. Everybody had thought that the fat burgher, whose daughter Spynie had taken a fancy to, had gone outside for air and then died suddenly of a fit sent by God in punishment for his avarice.

Hughie watched as Carey joined the lines of dancers, smiling and talking to the small dark Welshman on his left. Hughie sidled along the wall to be nearer the musicians. He wanted a metal harp or lute string, that was all. You never knew when you might get the opportunity to earn your gold.

Emilia watched Sir Robert Carey and calculated where she stood among the other women so she would be his partner for the measures halfway through the country dance that was next. Oddly enough, her prey seemed not to have noticed her yet. Perhaps he was being coy.

She fluttered her fan across her face, the last crimson remnant of what had worked for him in Scotland and smiled to him under her lashes. He acknowledged her with a polite tilt of his head but that was all. Had he been gelded by the Scots then?

She took hands with the provincial English girls on either side of her in their ugly provincial English gowns, stepped forward, stepped back, her borrowed velvet rocking around her hips with the other women’s careful farthingales, stepped sideways, stepped back, such a boring dance, thank God she had a mind that learned such things easily, stepped forward, take hands with a spotty boy that had used far too much white lead on the spots, spin, dance a measure with him, spin again and back to the women’s line, and so along by two partners.

At the far end she knew the Queen was in the line of women and at the other end was the ginger man, Essex, her mignon and no doubt her paramour, the wicked old bitch.

And step forward and back and sideways again. That bad man Cumberland was giving one of the prettier provincial girls the kind of smile he had given her across a hall in Dublin, and that was unfair, the use of a culverin to sink a rowing boat, for the girl was stricken by it like a rabbit at a fox. Perhaps she would be well-guarded by her menfolk.

Emilia sighed, spun, danced, stepped forward and back and then, quite unexpectedly, there was M. le depute who had so helpfully and expensively sold her guns for Ireland. Well, he had sold them to her stupid husband who had been too excited at the thought of blackmailing the Queen’s nephew to check them properly and so nearly brought about not just their deaths, which Emilia could perhaps have forgiven from Purgatory, but much worse, their ruin.

She smiled at him and wished for a feathered mask. He looked down at her gravely, spun her, danced, spun her again and all with the most depressing propriety.