The House Of Allerbrook. Valerie Anand

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СКАЧАТЬ without incident. But when the maids of honour had been shown to their new dormitory and the baggage was brought in, Jane’s biggest hamper wasn’t there.

      “Oh, madam, I knew something would go wrong with your things. I knew it!” wailed Lisa.

      “Well, it isn’t your fault,” Jane said soothingly. “Or mine, either,” she added, frowning. “My brother painted my name on all my hampers and boxes before I left home and I stuck two labels on each piece of luggage, as well. I begged some glue from the Greencloth room. They keep it so that the kitchen staff can mend pots and pans and so on. Look, you can see them on the other things. I can’t understand it.”

      Appealed to, Mistress Lowe said there was a room where unlabelled baggage was put until it was claimed, but when Jane and Lisa followed her directions, with difficulty, since Whitehall was a tangled maze of courtyards and separate buildings, they found that the room was now part of an extended Greencloth office and no one seemed to know where mislaid baggage had been stowed. A little later Peter Carew, finding Lisa and Jane down on the landing stage distractedly peering around, asked what they were about.

      “I wondered if a hamper of mine had been left here by mistake,” Jane said. “It hasn’t been brought to our dormitory.”

      “There’s a room where unidentified luggage is put,” said Carew comfortingly. “Come. I’ll show you.”

      “We’ve been there,” said Jane. “But it’s being used for something else—there are clerks in it.”

      “I don’t mean that one, I mean the new one. It’s been changed. No one ever remembers to tell anyone anything in this court! Details are always going wrong. Come with me.”

      He led them to the right place, and the missing hamper was there. “The labels must have been torn off by accident, madam,” Lisa said. “I saw the way the porters just toss things about. Disgraceful, it is.”

      “But both labels have come off—and they’ve been ripped off,” said Jane, examining the hamper. “There are just scraps of them left, and look! Someone’s splashed something over the place where Francis painted my name. It’s been covered over by—well, it looks like ink.”

      “Is there someone at court who doesn’t like you, Mistress Sweetwater?” Carew asked, quite seriously.

      “It’s a woman, if so,” said Lisa. “This is what spiteful women do. And I can put a name to the hussy, as well!”

      “Leave it,” said Jane. “Let’s just take the hamper to the dormitory and not speak of this. I’ve got my property back. Master Carew, I must thank you for your help.”

      “I’m always willing to assist a young lady in distress,” Carew said. He added suddenly and cryptically, “Remember that. Especially if there is spitefulness about.”

      He left them before Jane could ask him what he meant. She asked Lisa instead, as they were carrying the hamper into the empty dormitory. “I don’t understand,” she said in puzzlement.

      “I do,” said Lisa. “And I can put a name to the girl who did it.”

      “Who?”

      Lisa opened her mouth to reply, but closed it as the door opened and Dorothy came in with her tirewoman Madge. “So you found your things after all,” said Dorothy rudely. “You ought to take more care with your labels. Fancy gluing them on so feebly that they just fall off.”

      Madge, who was very partisan as far as her young mistress was concerned, turned away quickly, but not quickly enough to hide a sly, smug smile. Jane looked at Lisa, who nodded.

      “Start the unpacking,” said Jane, and turned grimly to face Dorothy.

      “I took every care. Most people tie their labels on, so how did you know I used glue? I didn’t announce it and you weren’t in the room when I was sticking them on. They were wrenched off deliberately and where my name was painted on the wicker, someone has blanked it out with ink. Now, I wonder who did that?”

      Dorothy coloured but tossed her head. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you mean.”

      “No?”

      “Oh, don’t put on such righteous, haughty airs! Just because the king and Master Carew both dance with you…”

      “Dorothy, what in the world is the matter with you? You surely don’t care whether you dance with the king or not.” It was incredible to Jane that anyone could actually wish to be physically close to the malodorous Henry. “And you have a handsome man of your own. Aren’t you going to marry Ralph Palmer?”

      “There’s an understanding. We’re not formally betrothed yet and if we ever do marry, Ralph Palmer will be marrying my dowry, not me,” Dorothy retorted. “If yours were bigger, he’d take you instead and he’d probably rather. I saw him looking at you sometimes on the way here.”

      “Oh, Dorothy!” said Jane helplessly.

      She worried about it all through the May Day celebrations, with their tournaments and masques. On the following day Queen Anna said to her, in her slow English, “Hanna has written…how to make a dish I like. It is like a cake made with rice and covered in…bread in tiny bits….”

      “Crumbs?” said Jane.

      “Yes, so. Crumbs. And fried and served with cold, sharp stewed apples. Very good. Hanna does not like talking…to English officials. Take this to the kitchen and explain. I wish it tomorrow at supper.”

      I don’t like giving orders to officials, either, Jane thought, but orders from the queen must be obeyed. However, the White Stave she spoke to in the Greencloth room was not one of the overdignified ones and was kind enough to tell her a quicker way back to the queen’s apartments.

      “Whitehall is confusing, I know. But—” he pointed through a window “—you can cut through that building there. It has a small council chamber downstairs and the king is in conference there now, but there is a staircase just inside the door and no one will mind if you go up one floor and walk through the upstairs gallery. At the far end is another staircase and you can go down to a courtyard. The side door to the queen’s lodging is just a few steps to your left.”

      Jane was glad of the guidance, since the good May Day weather had now given way to rain. She found the building the White Stave had pointed out and went up to the gallery, a wide and handsome place with a long row of windows. Settles with arm-ends shaped like lions’ heads and crimson cushions with gold fringes strewn on the seats, stood here and there, and oak chests with gold-inlaid carvings were placed between the windows. Rain blew against the diamond-leaded panes and she was glad to be on the indoor side of them.

      Then, as she was walking through the gallery, a figure she decidedly did not want to meet entered through a small door near the far end. The conference, presumably, was over. At any rate, King Henry had left it.

      He had seen her. There was nothing to do but stand aside and curtsy. He seemed to be on his own and he looked angry. She kept her eyes down as he approached, hoping he would just walk past, but instead he stopped, stretched one of those beefy hands down, slipped it under her elbow and raised her.

      “Mistress Jane! You’re a healing sight for СКАЧАТЬ