Christopher Stasheff

‘Nay,’ the big man muttered, shaking his head in confusion. ‘What is the point to it all, master?’

Rod stretched, let his body snap back to relaxation. ‘The point is that no matter who wins, it’s going to be hard on the wicket.’

‘Aye!’ Big Tom nodded vigorously. ‘Most certain true, master.’

‘Now I get the feeling that there’s a colossal game of cricket going on around here; only there’s three teams in the game: the councillors, the beggars…

‘The House of Clovis,’ Tom muttered.

Rod’s eyebrows went up in surprise. ‘Yes, the House of Clovis.

And, of course, the Queen.’

‘Then who,’ asked Big Tom, ‘is the wicket?’

‘Me.’ Rod rolled over on his side, thumped the pillow with his fist, and lowered his head onto it with a blissful sigh. ‘And now I am going to sleep. Good night.’

‘Master Gallowglass,’ piped a page’s voice.

Rod closed his eyes and prayed for strength. ‘Yes, page?’

‘You are called to wait upon the Queen at her breakfast, Master Gallowglass.’

Rod forced an eyelid open and peered out the window; the sky was rosy with dawn.

He squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten, almost dozing off in the process. He drew in a sigh that would have filled a bottomless pit, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. ‘Well, no rest for the wicked. What’d I do with my damn uniform, Tom?’

Rod had to admit that Catharine Plantagenet had a good dramatic instinct and, moreover, knew how to use it on her court. The guards were at their stations in the dining hail before sunrise.

The lords and ladies who were privileged - or, more accurately, cursed - to share the Queen’s dawn breakfast arrived right after the cock’s crow. Not till they were all assembled, and all waiting some time eyeing the breakfast meats, did Catharine make her entrance.

And she definitely made an entrance, even at that hour. The doors of the hail were thrown wide, revealing Catharine standing in a pool of torchlight. Six buglers blew a fanfare, at which all the lords and ladies rose and Rod winced (pitch was more or less a matter of taste in that culture).

Then Catharine stepped into the hail, head high and shoulders Christopher Stasheff

back. She paced a quarter way around the wall to the great gilded chair at the head of the table. The Duke of Loguire stepped forth and pulled the chair back. Catharine sat, with the grace and lightness of a feather. Loguire sat at her right hand, and the rest of the company followed suit. Catharine picked up her two-tined fork, and the company fell to, while livened stewards invaded from the four corners of the hall with great platters of bacon and sausage, pickled herring, white rolls, and tureens of tea and soup.

Each platter was brought first to Brom O’Berin, where he sat at the Queen’s left hand. Brom took a sample of each platter, ate a morsel of it, and placed the remainder on a plate before him. Then the huge platters were placed on the table. By this time Brom, finding himself still alive, passed the filled plate to Catharine.

The company fell to with gusto, and Rod’s stomach reminded him that all that had hit his digestive tract that night had been spiced wine.

Catharine picked daintily at her food with the original birdlike appetite. Rumor had it that she ate just before the formal meal in the privacy of her apartments. Even so, she was so thin that Rod found it in himself to doubt the rumor.

The stewards wove in and out with flagons of wine and huge meat pies.

Rod was stationed at the east door; he thus had a good view of Catharine, where she sat at the north end of the table, Milord Loguire at her right hand, Durer, at Loguire’s right band, and the back of Brom O’Berin’s head.

Durer leaned over and murmured something to his lord. Loguire waved a hand impatiently and nodded. He tore the meat off a chop with one bite, chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with a draft of wine. As he lowered the cup to the table, he turned to Catharine and rumbled, ‘Your Majesty, I am concerned.’

Catharine gave him the cold eye. ‘We are all concerned, Milord Loguire. We must bear with our cares as well as we may.

Loguire’s lips pressed tight together, his mouth almost becoming lost between moustache and beard. ‘My care,’ he said, ‘is for your own person, and for the welfare of your kingdom.’

Catharine turned back to her plate, cuffing a morsel of pork with great care. ‘I must hope that the welfare of my person would indeed affect the welfare of my kingdom.’