main hunt, leaving the fields for the woods, bent, it seemed, on scraping the tiny ermine-muffled figure off its back. Shadowy shapes materialized from the concealing woods, darting and nipping at the beast’s foam flecked nose, keeping him to the meadow and out of the wood. I spurred my horse into a gallop at the first outcry, easily matching my stallion’s pace to that of the runaway, and reached for the Queen, to drag her to safety. She looked furiously at me, starting to motion me away, when something seemed to catch her eye. She kicked free of the pommel, stood balanced on the planchette, then slung herself towards me just as the flash and blast of a pistol discharging rent the night, echoed by shouts and screams from the court.
I jerked and nearly dropped my precious burden with the shock of the pain that lanced through my upper arm, but I recovered and settled Elizabeth’s child-like body firmly on the horse before me. The wolves had already betaken themselves to the woods, and were probably well on their way back to Chelsey, their part in the night’s adventure accomplished. A second shot rang out and the Queen’s horse, some ten yards ahead of us by now, screamed and dropped, only his head thrashing about for a few seconds before he was still. Elizabeth was cursing as only a Tudor could when the laggard court caught up to us. Someone had called for torches, and in the flickering light my enhanced sight confirmed my suspicions. The horse had been shot through the neck just above the withers, the warm blood from the wound steaming upon the snow. The Queen gave orders that all were to return to Oatlands, rebuffing Essex’s offer to take her upon his own horse, and the court, buzzing like a wasp’s nest, straggled along after us. I saw Ralegh examining the body of the slaughtered horse and noted the uneasy looks sent his way by Essex and his followers.
We passed through the arches into the courtyard, ablaze with torches and cressets, the court spilling in behind us, milling about and getting in the servants’ way. Elizabeth slid from the saddlebow to the ground, and several of her ladies cried out at the sight of the dark blood soaking and staining her cloak and the front of her gown. She ignored them, catching at my rein, her hooded almond-shaped eyes boring into me. “My lord prince, dismount at once,” she commanded, and her voice brooked no opposition. I swung out of the saddle, protesting that it was nothing, but allowing myself to be led indoors. Ralegh flanked me, taking me by my unhurt right arm, but speaking softly first, as he approached from my blind side. I was taken to a small parlor where the wound, which proved indeed superficial though quite bloody, was already beginning to close as it was dressed by Ralegh. He dismissed the idea of calling in a surgeon with a disdainful wave of his hand, and murmured to me that we would speak later.
If the Queen seemed disinclined to question the presence of a banished man at the hunt, not so Robert Cecil. His twisted form slid in the door like some goblin’s shadow before it had quite closed after Sir Walter.
“Your grace, I must have speech with you touching this attempt upon her Majesty’s life,” he said softly, pulling a stool close to the bench where I slumped against the wall. He ignored my weary nod, and proceeded to question me closely about the Fantasticals, and my association with Almsbury and Essex. I answered noncommittally.
“Why were you at the hunt, my lord, after being banished from the court in disgrace?” Cecil barked abruptly. My head snapped up at that, and I regarded the minister much as I would something unpleasant adhering to the sole of my boot. “It seems most likely that you contrived this dangerous scheme as a device to return yourself to her Majesty’s favor. You will return to Chelsey and consider yourself under house-arrest there until the matter may be taken up by the council.” Cecil rose and strode from the room, lingering neither for assent nor protest. Council trouble again—it was passing strange, the coils I could fall into. At any rate I had at least packed Roger off to complete his convalescence in his own lodgings the week before. The possessive jealousy that the puppy had shown upon Rózsa’s return from abroad was intolerable, and exacerbated