‘I did not,’ I was able to answer truthfully, ‘for my father thought me too tender for any such work even if he undertook it himself, which I never saw, although certainly he used fire to make the white star of antimony which is a sovereign cure for many ills if taken with care and according to instruction.’
‘Come Dr Gilbert,’ the countess said then, ‘you have run through your whole armoury of shots and Amyntas has suffered them all and turned them back.’
‘I have others madam he shall not find so easy.’
‘Then you must try them another day. The game no longer amuses me.’
Gilbert bowed and left us.
‘Did your father not seek after those things Amyntas? Tell me truly,’ she asked when he had gone.
‘He did madam but not in my presence and not for gain but for knowledge. He laboured ceaselessly and it brought him early to his death as I see it but he never allowed me to observe him at that work.’
‘A pity. We might have continued with it. I should like to be first to find that which so many have lusted after. Did your father believe with Copernicus that the earth and the planets circle the sun?’
‘He did madam. He said that it was only pride that had led us into that error that the sun revolved about the earth and made man the centre of all things, and that Copernicus his theory was not contrary to scripture, for the Bible says only that God created the sun, stars and moon and set them in the sky as lights to divide day from night, and to govern the length of days and years and the seasons, but nothing of which should circle the other. And that all is to be understood as in a picture which shows on a small flat plane that which in life has depth and magnitude so that a whole landscape of trees and meadows may fit into a work by Hilliard or Oliver less than the size of a child’s palm.’
‘Some say that the matter cannot be resolved, for the same calculations in astronomy are agreeable to both theories and satisfy the same phenomena. Therefore it is wise to accept both indifferently until the philosophers agree with each other or some astronomer finds a way to settle the question. Now how shall we amuse ourselves in these twelve days of Christmas? Shall we make an actor of you Master Boston?’
‘I cannot say madam.’
‘Bring me the new little book of pieces, Mr Davison’s Poetical Rapsodie my son has sent, hoping to soften my heart. It is beside my bed. And call my ladies.’
I went on my errand through the long dark passages of the house and up the stairs, taking a lantern with me whose flame leapt and flickered in the draught, for the short day had closed on us already.
‘Your mistress bids you attend her in the great hall.’ They had been gossiping of lovers past, present or to come, I thought, for their chatter had stilled as soon as I entered the room. Some were playing cards while one picked out a new song by Dowland brought over from Flushing by my lady’s brother Sir Robert. The lutenist was a papist forced to seek employment overseas in Denmark since the queen would not let him come home although she kept the papist Byrd as her organist in the Chapel Royal.
‘I saw my lady weep,’ the girl sang.
The duenna clapped her hands. ‘You will all weep, if you do not put by your cards and attend her at once.’
Going through into the bedchamber I picked up the book. Her bed was still tousled as if she had just risen from it and I put my hand between the sheets almost expecting them to be warm. I thought I could smell the now familiar fragrance of her perfume. Picking up her nightshift of fine white linen embroidered with black silk and with panels of delicate lace as also at the neck and wrists, I held it to my cheek and drew in her scent. Then I was forced to hurry behind the ladies as they clattered down the stairs.
In the great hall the sconces had all been lit, the fire burned bright and the countess had caused a little dais to be brought in with a Turkey carpet over it on which she sat in a great chair as if enthroned. I thought no queen could have looked more regal and that truly this was a court in little so that I bowed as I presented her the book.
‘This is the dialogue of Astrea I wrote for the visit of the queen’s majesty that was suddenly cancelled. But she need not be present for it to be played in her honour and the country invited to see it. You Amyntas shall play Piers. Now I need someone for Thenot who be old.’
‘Not I my lady,’ said the duenna. ‘I am too old to keep words in my head. And besides it is not womanly. I could not dress myself in breeches at my age.’
‘Then we shall have to try you Mistress Griffiths how you shall look in a grey beard. You may hide your legs under a long gown like an alderman or beneath a shepherd’s smock.’
‘I do not care about the legs madam but the grey beard I hate.’
‘Then Secretary Samford must do it. He will need no addition to his grey hairs. One of you fetch him.’
‘He has been confined to his chamber with a rheum madam ever since we arrived here.’
‘See if he is well enough to attend us.’ When he came, for of course he darst not refuse, she said, ‘We shall have an entertainment for twelfth night that shall be my dialogue of “Astrea” made for the queen’s majesty.’
‘Why did her majesty not come madam when all was prepared for her?’ I asked.
‘It was a bad year, rain fell all through August, and her advisers thought it might injure her health. They said of course that it would be injurious to her people to wait on her in such weather which they knew was the argument she would best heed.’
‘Madam I have never acted before,’ Secretary Samford said.
I myself had never yet even seen a play except for the Salisbury street mummers at festival time enacting some old story of Robin Hood.
‘You remember Mr Samford,’ the countess went on, ‘that in my husband the late earl’s time we had our own troupe of players when four years after the coming of the Spanish ships the plague closed the London theatres and sent them out on the road where they were forced to sell their very play books and attire. Yet my lord had them to play in Shrewsbury and Ludlow and other places of his patronage. My brother Sidney writes that the lords are every day at plays in London when they are not at court, and even there the players come to perform after at the queen’s bidding. Now take the book between you and read the verses to us.’
So we began with our theatricals and although we stumbled at first because the words were new to us, the countess was pleased to say that we should do very well with practice and that we should quickly get our lines by heart.
‘We shall need rustic music to bring you in,’ she said, ‘and after it is over there shall be country dances. Then there must be shepherds’ weeds for the actors, and for my ladies they shall be dressed as shepherdesses and dance a hey. That should make us some sport.’
That night as I lay on my pallet outside my lady’s door I thought that the actor’s life was strange personating others, for I felt a confusion in my own mind that Amyntas-Amaryllis must now be Piers. Yet when I thought on the words that I must say which the countess had written, it was not Astrea I praised not even the great queen she personified but my own queen.
Naught like to her the earth enfolds.
And as I lay there I saw in the half-light from a lantern far off, a shape glide into the passage and towards her door. It stayed beside me and I could hear its breathing in the gloom and smell the pomander that hung on its belt. I judged