And to think that Gloriana herself had dined at Blackfriars earlier this year in the Earl of Worcester’s house! She’d been met at the river and carried up the hill on a palanquin, I recalled with a sigh. At Blackfriars too the queen’s noble cousin, the Lord Chamberlain, the players’ patron, lived in elegant style in Hunsdon House. Maybe, I thought, his lordship had put in a good word for Will and his men in this Essex mess, so the queen had decided not only to forgive them but to reward them.
Still hieing myself along apace with the boy down the public street edging the area, I had to watch where I stepped to avoid the reeky central gutter and the occasional pan of slop thrown from upper windows. Others were abroad, but the streets still seemed greatly forsaken in the wake of the ruined rebellion. The half-timbered facades and their thatched brows frowned down on us, making the narrow streets even more oppressive.
We entered through the eastern gatehouse I so admired. As ever, I craned my neck to savor the venerable grandeur of its three stories. Its diamond-paned windows gazed like winking eyes over the city with fine views of mansions and their great privy gardens, old Bridewell Palace across the Fleet to the west, the city walls and even the bustling Thames.
Will and I had once found the gatehouse’s lower door ajar. Holding hands, we’d tiptoed up the twisting stairs. Standing stripped of goods, the rooms were being whitewashed for new owners. Such narrow but elegant, sunny chambers!
“Next time ’tis offered, I’ll buy it for you,” Will had promised grandly, though he had but three pounds to his name after sending money back to Stratford.
“Says you, the dreamer, my marvelous maker of fine fictions,” I’d retorted. But our lovemaking had been very real, and I yet treasured the memory. Nor, I told myself, would I forget this one, for I’d never been inside the vast structure that housed the queen’s wardrobe, that which was not of immediate need and kept at Whitehall Palace.
I’d adored Elizabeth of England from the first moment I’d seen her, gorgeously gowned, on a white horse, when I was but eleven and she’d come to visit her favorite, the Earl of Leicester, near my home in Warwickshire.
The boy led me round the corner into an alcove hidden from the street. He knocked thrice upon it.
“Do you serve Her Majesty?” I asked while we waited.
“I serve those who serve her,” he said only.
I meant to question him further, but the door creaked open and an old woman with face wrinkles like cobwebs stood there with her sleeves rolled up. She wore a broadcloth apron as if she were tending a kitchen. “Follow me,” she said, not waiting for introduction or comment. The boy did not enter with us but closed the door behind me. It thudded nearly as loud as the beating of my heart, which I told myself was only from our quick pace and my excitement to see this place.
“Farthingales here. Watch your head,” the old woman muttered.
I trailed her through a narrow alleyway of swinging metal hoops, like lonely bird cages, over which the queen’s elaborate kirtles and petticoats would be draped. We plunged down an alley of sweet-smelling sleeves arranged by color, though the limited lantern light made the rich tawny, ruby and ivory hues all seem dusky. Boned bodices came next, then an aisle of fur-edged capes and robes. Of a sudden, the sweet scent of lime and lavender from the garments changed to some sharp smell that made me sneeze.
“Camphor to keep out moths,” my guide said.
I jammed a finger under my nose to halt a torrent of sneezes. The maze deepened: swags of green and white Tudor bunting lined the way, then dusty, draped flags and battle banners. Suddenly, my stomach clenched with foreboding. Why would not the garments to be given me simply be ready at the door? We seemed to have passed from attire to military materials. As we rounded the next corner, my worst fears leaped at me from the shadows.
Within a dimly lit grotto of garments, behind a small portable table sat a man simply but finely attired all in black; his amber eyes shone flatly, like an adder’s. It took me but a moment to realize I knew him—that is, I knew who he was. I had glimpsed him at court the time the players had taken me with