Yet Adorna could not allow the chance to pass. She stayed in her curtsy, sending a haughty glance towards the man before making her reply. ‘Your Majesty is most kind. My mare is still young, though one would have to struggle to find a similarly good excuse for others’ unmannerliness.’ There was no mistaking the butt of her remark, the man in question glowering at her as if she were a troublesome sparrowhawk on his wrist, while the Queen and her Court’s laughter tinkled around them like splinters of breaking ice.
But Adorna’s glance had given her the information that she had already suspected, by his imperious manner and cultured voice—he was a self-opinionated wit-monger, albeit an extremely good-looking one, whose imposing stature was exactly the kind the Queen liked to have around her. Ill-featured people were anathema to her, especially men. He was dark-eyed and boldfaced with a square clean-shaven jaw, his head now bared to show thick dark waves brushed back off his forehead, a dent showing where his blue velvet bonnet had recently sat. His shoulders were broad enough to take her insult and, as the Queen signalled them to rise, Adorna saw that his legs were long and muscular, outlined in tight canions up to the top of his thighs to where his paned trunk-hose fitted. His deep blue velvet complemented her paler version perfectly, but that appeared to be their only point of compatibility.
The Queen was still amused. ‘There now, Sir Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Apparently it is not so much what one does as the manner in which one does it. I shall expect more from you when I have the misfortune to fall into the river.’
Sir Nicholas had the grace to laugh as he bowed to her. ‘Divine Majesty,’ he said, ‘I believe the Lady Moon will fall into the river before you do.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ She accepted the compliment and turned again to Adorna. ‘Mistress Pickering, there are few women who could look as well as you after such a fright. I hope you’ll not leave us.’
Adorna knew a command when she heard one. ‘I thank Your Majesty. I ask nothing more than to stay.’
‘Then stay close, mistress, and let my lord of Leicester’s man teach your pretty mare a thing or two about obedience. Sir Nicholas, tend the lady.’
Sir Nicholas bowed again as the Queen moved away to yet another scattering of applause at her graciousness, but Adorna had no intention of being tended by this uncivil creature, whatever the Queen’s wishes. She turned to Peter Fowler, but the voice at her back held her attention.
‘Mistress Pickering. Sir Thomas’s daughter. Well, well.’
Adorna spoke over her shoulder. ‘And you are one of the Master of Horse’s men, I take it, which would explain why you are more polite to horses than to their riders. What a good thing the same cannot be said of your master.’ It was well known that the handsome earl, Her Majesty’s Master of Horse, was desperately in love with the Queen.
‘My master, lady, has not yet had to drag Her Majesty out of the river in front of her courtiers. It’s not your pretty mare that needs a lesson in manners so much as its rider needing lessons in control.’ By this time the golden mare was eating something sweet from Sir Nicholas’s hand, as docile as a lamb. ‘Believe it or not, that is what Her Grace was telling you.’
Furiously, she rounded on him as Peter and two of her friends came to her aid, wringing the water from the hem of her gown. ‘Rubbish! There is no one in the world who speaks more candidly than the Queen. If that’s what she’d meant she’d have said so. Her Grace commands me to stay close and that is what I must do. I have thanked you for your assistance, Sir Nicholas, but now you are relieved of all further responsibility towards me, despite what Her Grace desires. Go and practise your courtesies on your horses.’
‘Mistress!’ Peter Fowler’s alarm warned her that her own courtesy was fraying around the edges. ‘This gentleman is Sir Nicholas Rayne, Deputy to Her Majesty’s Master of Horse.’
Before she could find another cutting retort, Sir Nicholas made a bow to Peter, smiling. ‘And you, Master Fowler, are the gentleman with the longest title in Her Majesty’s service. Gentleman Controller of All and Every Her Highness’s Works. Did I get it right?’ He was already laughing.
‘To the letter,’ said Peter. ‘In other words, Head of Security.’
But Adorna was not prepared for any signs of amity. She thanked her two friends and turned to Peter for assistance in remounting, though by now he was diverted by laughter and forestalled by Sir Nicholas who, in one stride, caught her round the waist and hoisted her into the saddle as if she were no more than a child.
For a brief moment, her view of the world turned sideways as her head came into contact with his neck and shoulder, her cheek feeling the softly curling pleats of the tiny white ruff that sat high above the blue doublet. She caught a whiff of musk from his skin and felt the firmness of his hands under her shoulders, and then the world was righted and she was looking down into his face, into two dark unsmiling eyes that held hers, boldly, for a fraction longer than was necessary. Confused by what she saw, she blinked, took the reins from him and waited as he and Peter unstuck the clinging fabric from her legs and arranged it in damp folds around her.
The Queen’s party had begun to move away.
‘Thank you, Sir Nicholas,’ she said, coldly, to the top of his blue velvet bonnet, watching the white and gold plumes lift and settle again. ‘I think you should go now.’
He made no reply to that. Instead, he took his own horse from a groom and vaulted into the saddle in one leap, reining the horse over expertly to walk on her other side, his nod to Peter cutting across her stony face.
By the time they reached the wide open fields well away from the river, Adorna’s composure was settling into an act which convinced those about her that she was comfortable. This was far from the truth, but showed the level of pretence of which she was capable. The wetness from her beautiful pale blue gown had now seeped up to her saddle, warm, sticky, and chafing her thighs: her golden mare’s hindquarters were caked with mud and the shining bells on her harness were clattering instead of tinkling. Far worse than any of that was the disturbing presence of the one who had saved her from a complete soaking, whose inscrutable expression gave her no inkling of his real reason for staying nearby, whether because he wanted to or because he had been commanded to. The pressure of his hands could still be felt, but she would not let him know, even by a sneaking exploration, that he had had the slightest effect.
As the Queen had commanded, Sir Nicholas drew her nearer to the centre of things than she had been before, which did even less for Adorna’s comfort. Having changed her peregrine falcon for a rare white gerfalcon, the Queen held it, hooded, on her wrist as a distant heron flew away upwards, ringing into the sky. The gerfalcon was released to pursue it, to climb even higher and then to stoop and dive, bringing the lovely thing down to the retrieving greyhounds whose speed prevented any injury to the precious raptor. Again, there was applause, then the announcement that they would have the picnic.
At this point, Adorna sidled invisibly back to her friends on the edge of the party, accepting whatever morsels of food were brought and passed around by the young pages. She made an effort to dismiss the incident of the river and to make herself affable to Peter, but her eyes had a will of their own, straying disobediently towards the tall well-built figure in deep blue braided with gold whose laughter was bold and teasingly directed towards a group of the Queen’s ladies.
Dressed entirely in white, the young Maids of Honour made a perfect foil for the Queen’s russet-and-gold that suited her so well. Like Adorna herself, she wore a high-crowned hat with a curl of feathers on the brim, a man’s-type doublet that buttoned up to the neck, and a full skirt. But whereas Adorna’s outfit was relatively modest in its decoration, the Queen had spared no effort to load herself with braids, chains and rings, frogging across her breast overlaid by pendants, and jewels winking from every surface, even from her neck-ruff of finest white lace.
Adorna’s gown had begun to dry by now and they would soon be away again on a search for herons and cranes, perhaps larks for those with smaller