The Winter Queen

Then again, perhaps she was too hasty, she thought, studying his lean, handsome body sheathed in the fine velvet. She had not even yet spoken to him.

‘You are a good dancer, Lady Rosamund,’ the Queen said. ‘I see your lessons were not in vain. It was Master Geoffrey who went to Ramsay Castle, was it not?’

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ Rosamund answered, tearing her gaze from Anton to the Queen. Elizabeth’s stare was so steady, so bright, that Rosamund was quite sure she could read every tiny, hidden secret. ‘I enjoy dancing very much, though I fear I have much to learn.’

‘You are too modest, Lady Rosamund. Surely you have not so much to learn as some at Court.’ The Queen turned suddenly to Anton. ‘Master Gustavson here claims he cannot dance at all.’

‘Not at all, Your Grace?’ Rosamund remembered how he had looked on the ice, all fluid grace and power. ‘I cannot believe that to be so.’

‘Exactly, Lady Rosamund. It is quite unthinkable for anyone not to dance at my Court, especially with the most festive of seasons upon us.’

Anton bowed. ‘I fear I have never had the opportunity to learn, Your Grace. And I am a dismally clumsy oaf.’

Now, Rosamund knew that to be a falsehood! No one could possibly even have stood upright on the ice balanced on two thin, little blades, let alone spin about, if they’d been a ‘clumsy oaf’.

‘No one is entirely unable to learn to dance,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Perhaps they have not as much natural enjoyment of the exercise as I have, or as it seems Lady Rosamund has. But everyone can learn the steps and move in the correct direction in time to the music’

Anton bowed. ‘I fear I may prove the sad exception, Your Grace.’

The Queen’s gaze narrowed, and she tapped one slender, white finger on her chin. ‘Would you care to make a wager, Master Gustavson?’

He raised one dark brow, boldly meeting the Queen’s challenging stare. ‘What terms did Your Grace have in mind?’

‘Only this—I wager that anyone can dance, even a Swede, given the proper teacher. To prove it, you must try and a dance a volta for us on Twelfth Night. That will give you time for a goodly number of lessons, I think.’

‘But I fear I know of no teachers, Your Grace,’ Anton said, that musical northern accent of his thick with laughter. Why, Rosamund realised, he is actually enjoying this! He was enjoying the wager with the Queen, the challenge of it.

Rosamund envied that boldness.

‘There you are wrong, Master Gustavson.’ Queen Elizabeth spun round to Rosamund. ‘Lady Rosamund here has shown herself to be a most able dancer, and she has a patient and calm demeanour, which is quite rare here at Court. So, my lady, I give you your first task at my Court—teach Master Gustavson to dance.’

Rosamund went cold with sudden surprise. Teach him to dance, when in truth she barely knew the steps herself? She was quite certain she would not be able to focus on pavanes and complicated voltas when she had to stand close to Anton Gustavson, feel his hands at her waist, see his smile up-close. She was quite confused just looking at him—how would she ever speak? Her task for the Queen would surely end in disaster.

‘Your Grace,’ she finally dared to say, ‘I am sure there are far more skilled dancers who could—’

‘Nonsense,’ the Queen interrupted. ‘You will do the job admirably, Lady Rosamund. You shall have your first lesson after church on Christmas morning. The Waterside Gallery will be quiet then, I think. What say you, Master Gustavson?’

‘I say, Your Grace, that I wish to please you in all things,’ he answered with a bow.

‘And you are also never one to back away from a challenge, eh?’ the Queen said, her dark eyes sparkling with some mischief known only to her.

‘Your Grace is indeed wise,’ Anton answered.

‘Then the terms are these—if I win, and you can indeed dance, you must pay me six shillings as well as a boon to be decided later to Lady Rosamund.’

‘And if I win, Your Grace?’

Elizabeth laughed. ‘I am sure we will find a suitable prize for you among our coffers, Master Gustavson. Now come, Ambassador von Zwetkovich, I crave another dance.’

The Queen swept away once again, and Anne followed her to dance with Johan Ulfson. She tossed back a glance at Rosamund that promised a plethora of questions later.

Rosamund turned to Anton in the sudden quiet of their little corner. It felt as if they were enclosed in their own cloud, an instant of murky, blurry silence that shut out the bustle of the rest of the room.

‘I believe, Master Gustavson, that you are a sham,’ Rosamund hissed.

‘My lady!’ He pressed one hand to his heart, his eyes wide with feigned hurt, but Rosamund was sure she heard laughter lurking in his voice. ‘You do wound me. What have I done to cause such accusations?’

‘I saw you skating on that pond. You are no clumsy oaf.’

‘Skating and dancing are two different things.’

‘Not so very different, I should think. They both require balance, grace and coordination.’

‘Are you a skater yourself?’

‘Nay. It is not so cold here as in your homeland, except this winter. I seldom have the chance of a frozen pond or river.’

‘Then you cannot know if they are the same, ja?’ A servant passed by with a tray of wine goblets, and Anton claimed two. He handed one to Rosamund, his long fingers sliding warmly against hers as he slowly withdrew them.

Rosamund shivered at the friction of skin against skin, feeling foolish at her girlish reaction. It was not as if she had never touched a man before. She and Richard had touched behind the hedgerows last summer. But somehow even the brush of Anton Gustavson’s hand made her utterly flustered.

‘I am sure they are not dissimilar. If you can skate, you can dance,’ she said, taking a sip of wine to cover her confusion.

‘And vice versa? Very well, then, Lady Rosamund, I propose a wager of my own.’

Rosamund studied him suspiciously over the silver rim of her goblet. ‘What sort of wager, Master Gustavson?’

‘They say your Thames is near frozen through,’ he answered. ‘For every dancing lesson you give me, I shall give you a skating lesson. Then we will see if they are the same or no.’

Rosamund remembered with a pang the way he had flown over the ice. What would it be like to feel so very free, to drift like that, above all earthly bonds? She was quite tempted. But…‘I could never do what you did. I would fall right over!’

He laughed, a deep, warm sound that rubbed against her like fine silk-velvet. She longed to hear it again, to revel in that happy sound over and over. ‘You need not go into a spin, Lady Rosamund, merely stay upright and move forward.’

That alone sounded difficult enough. ‘On two thin little blades attached to my shoes.’

‘I vow it is not as hard as it sounds.’

‘And neither is dancing.’

‘Then shall we prove it to ourselves? Just a small, harmless wager, my lady.’

Rosamund frowned. She thought he surely did not have a ‘harmless’ bone in his handsome body! ‘I don’t have any money of my own yet.’

‘Nay, you have something far more precious.’

‘And what is that?’

‘A lock of your hair.’

‘My hair?’ Her hand flew up to touch her hair which was carefully looped and pinned under a narrow silver headdress and sheer veil. Her maid Jane had shoved in extra pins to hold the fine, slick strands tight, but Rosamund could feel them already slipping. ‘Whatever for?’

Anton watched intently as her fingers moved along one loose strand. ‘I think it must be made of moonbeams. It makes me think of nights in my homeland, of the way silver moonlight sparkles on the snow.’

‘Why, Master Gustavson,’ Rosamund breathed. ‘I think you have missed your calling. You are no diplomat or skater, you are a poet.’

He laughed and that flash of seriousness dissipated like winter fog. ‘No more than I am a dancer, I fear, my lady. ’Tis a great pity, for it seems both poetry and dancing are highly prized here in London.’

‘Are they not in Stockholm?’

He shook his head. ‘Warfare is prized in Stockholm, and not much else of late.’

‘It is a pity, then. For I fear poetry would be more likely to win the Queen’s hand for your king.’

‘I think you are correct, Lady Rosamund. But I must still do my duty here.’

‘Ah, yes. We all must do our duty,’ Rosamund said ruefully, remembering her parents’ words.

Anton smiled at her. ‘But life is not all duty, my lady. We must have some merriment as well.’

‘True. Especially now at Christmas.’

‘Then we have a wager?’

Rosamund laughed. Perhaps it was the wine, the music, the fatigue from her journey and the late hour, but she suddenly felt deliciously reckless. ‘Very well. If you cannot dance and I cannot skate, I will give you a lock of my hair.’

‘And if it is the opposite? What prize do you claim for yourself?’

He leaned close to her, so close she could see the etched-glass lines of his face, the faint shadow of beard along his jaw. She could smell the summery lime of his cologne, the clean, warm winter-frost scent of him. A kiss, she almost blurted out, staring at the faint smile on his lips.

What would he kiss like? Quick, eager—almost overly eager, like Richard? Or slow, lazy, exploring every angle, every sensation? What would he taste like?

She gulped and took a step back, her gaze falling to his hand curled lightly around the goblet. On his smallest finger was a ring, a small ruby set in intricate gold filigree. ‘That is a pretty bauble,’ she said hoarsely, gesturing to the ring. ‘Would you wager it?’

He held his hand up, staring at the ring as if he had forgotten it was there. ‘If you wish it.’

Rosamund nodded. ‘Then done. I will meet you in the Waterside Gallery on Christmas morning for a dance lesson.’

‘And as soon as the Thames is frozen through we will go skating.’

‘Until then, Master Gustavson.’ Rosamund quickly curtsied, and hurried away to join the other maids where they had gathered near the door. It was nearly the Queen’s hour to retire, and they had to accompany her.

Only once she was entirely across the room from Anton did she draw in a deep breath. She felt as if she had suddenly been dropped back to earth after spinning about in the sky, all unmoored and uncertain. Her head whirled.

‘What were you and Master Gustavson talking of for so long?’ Anne whispered.

‘Dancing, of course,’ Rosamund answered.

‘If I had him to myself like that,’ Anne said, ‘I am certain I could think of better things than dancing to talk of! Do you think you will be able to win the Queen’s wager?’

Rosamund shrugged, still feeling quite dazed. She feared she was quite unable to think at all any more.

Svordom! What had led him to promise her his mother’s ring?

Anton curled his hand into a fist around the heavy goblet, the embossed silver pressing into the calluses along his palm as he watched her walk away. It seemed as if all the light in the chamber collected onto her, a silvery glow that carried her above the noisy fray.

He knew all too well what had made him agree to a ridiculous wager that didn’t even make sense, to offer her that ring. It was her, Rosamund Ramsay, alone. That look in her large blue eyes.

She had not been at Court long enough to learn to conceal her feelings entirely. She had tried, but every once in a while they had flashed through those expressive eyes—glimpses of fear, nervousness, excitement, bravery, laughter—uncertainty.

He had lived so long among people who had worn masks all their lives. The concealment became a part of them, so that even they had no idea what they truly were, what they truly felt. Even he had his own masks, a supply of them for every occasion. They were better than any armour.

Yet when he looked at Rosamund Ramsay he felt the heavy weight of that concealment pressing down on him. He could not be free of it, but he could enjoy her freedom until she, too, learned to don masks. It would not be long, not here, and he felt unaccountably melan choly at the thought of those eyes, that lovely smile, turning brittle and false.

Aye, he would enjoy her company while he could. His own task drew near, and he could not falter now. He unwound his fist, staring down at the ruby. It glowed blood-red in the torchlight, reminding him of his promises and dreams.

‘Making wagers with the Queen?’ Johan said, coming up to Anton to interrupt his dark thoughts. ‘Is that wise, from all we have heard of her?’

Anton laughed, watching Queen Elizabeth as she talked with her chief advisor, Lord Burghley. Burghley was not terribly old, yet his face was lined with care, his hair and beard streaked with grey. Serving the English Queen could be a frustrating business, as they had learned to their own peril. She kept them cooling their heels at Court, dancing attendance on her as she vacillated at King Eric’s proposal. Anton was certain she had no intention of marrying the king, or possibly anyone at all, but they could not depart until they had an official answer. Meanwhile, they danced and dined, and warily circled the Austrians and the Scots.

As for Anton’s own matter, she gave no answer at all.

Maddening indeed. Battle was simple; the answer was won by the sword. Court politics were more slippery, more changeable, and far more time-consuming. But he was a patient man, a determined one. He could wait—for now.

At least there was Rosamund Ramsay to make the long days more palatable.

‘I would not worry, Johan,’ Anton said, tossing back the last of the wine. ‘This wager is strictly for Her Grace’s holiday amusement.’

‘What is it, then? Are you to play the Christmas fool, the Lord of Misrule?’

Anton laughed. ‘Something like it. I am to learn to dance.’

Chapter Five

Christmas Eve, December 24

‘Holly and ivy, box and bay, put in the house for Christmas Day! Fa la la la…’

Rosamund smiled at hearing the notes of the familiar song, the tune always sung as the house was bedecked for Christmas. The Queen’s gentlewomen of the Privy and Presence chambers, along with the maids of honour, had been assigned to festoon the Great Hall and the corridors for that night’s feast. Tables were set up along the privy gallery, covered with holly, ivy, mistletoe, evergreen boughs, ribbons and spangles. Under the watchful eye of Mistress Eglionby, Mistress of the Maids, they were to turn them into bits of holiday artistry.

Rosamund sat there with Anne Percy, twisting together loops of ivy as they watched Mary Howard and Mary Radcliffe lay out long swags to measure them. The Marys sang as they worked, sometimes pausing to leap about with ribbons like two morris dancers.

Rosamund laughed at their antics. For the first time in many days, she forgot her homesickness and uncertainty. She only thought of how much she loved this time of year, these twelve days when the gloom of winter was left behind, buried in music, wine and satin bows. She might be far from home, but the Queen kept a lively holiday. She should enjoy it as much as possible.

Rosamund reached for two bent hoops and tied them into a sphere for a kissing bough. She chose the darkest, greenest loops of holly and ivy from the table, twining them around and tying them with the red ribbons.

‘Are you making a kissing bough, Rosamund?’ Anne said teasingly. She tied together her own greenery into wreaths for the fireplace mantels.

Rosamund smiled. ‘My maid Jane says if you stand beneath it and close your eyes you will have a vision of your future husband.’

‘And if he comes up and kisses you whilst you stand there with your eyes closed, so much the better!’ Anne said.

‘That would help settle the question, I think.’

‘But you need not resort to such tricks, I’m sure,’ Anne whispered. ‘What of your sweetheart at home?’

Rosamund frowned as she stared down at her half-finished bough; last Christmas, Richard had indeed kissed her under one very like it. That was when she had begun to think he cared for her, and she for him. But that seemed so long ago now, as if it had happened to someone else. ‘He is not my sweetheart.’

‘But you do wish him to be?’

Rosamund remembered Richard’s kiss that Christmas Eve. ‘That can’t be.’

‘Do your parents disapprove so much, then?’

Rosamund nodded, reaching for the green, red and white Tudor roses made of paper to add to her bough. ‘They say his family is not our equal, even though their estate neighbours ours.’

‘Is that their only objection?’

‘Nay. They also say I would not be content with him. That his nature would not suit mine.’ Rosamund felt a pang as she remembered those words of her father. She had cried and pleaded, sure her parents would give way as they always did. Her father had seemed sad as he’d refused her, but implacable. ‘When you find the one you can truly love,’ he said, ‘you will know what your mother and I mean.’

‘But you love him?’ Anne asked softly.

Rosamund shrugged.

Anne sighed sadly. ‘Our families should not have such say over our own hearts.’

‘Is your family so very strict?’ Rosamund asked.

‘Nay. My parents died when I was a small child.’

‘Oh, Anne!’ Rosamund cried. Her own parents might be maddening, but before the business with Richard they had been affectionate with her, their only child, and she with them. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘I scarcely remember them,’ Anne said, tying off her length of ribbon. ‘I grew up with my grandmother, who is so deaf she hardly ever knew what I was up to. It wasn’t so bad, and then my aunt came along and found me this position here at Court. They want me to marry, but only their own choice. Much like your own parents, I dare say!’

‘Who is their choice?’

Anne shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet. Someone old and crabbed and toothless, I’m sure. Some crony of my aunt’s husband. Perhaps he will at least be rich.’

‘Oh, Anne, no!’

‘It does not signify. We should concentrate on yourromance. There must be a way we can smuggle a message to him. Oh, here, put mistletoe in your bough! It is the most important element, otherwise the magic won’t work.’

Rosamund laughed, taking the thick bunch of glossy mistletoe from Anne and threading it through the centre of the bough. Surely there was some kind of magic floating about in the winter air. She felt lighter already with Christmas here.

Yet, strangely, it was not Richard’s blond visage she saw as she gazed at the mistletoe but a pair of dark eyes. A lean, powerful body sheathed in close-fitting velvet and leather flying across the glistening ice.

‘Holly and ivy, box and bay,’ she whispered, ‘put in the house for Christmas Day.’

There was a sudden commotion at the end of the gallery, a burst of activity as a group of men rushed inside, bringing in the cold of the day. Among them was the handsome young man who had winked at Anne the day before—and been soundly ignored.

And there was also Anton Gustavson, his skates slung over his shoulder, black waves of hair escaping from his fine velvet cap. They were full of loud laughter, noisy joviality.

The ladies all giggled, blushing prettily at the sight of them.

As Rosamund feared she did too. She felt her cheeks go warm, despite the sudden rush of cold wind. She ducked her head over her work, but there in the pearly mistletoe berries she still saw Anton’s brown eyes, his teasing smile.

‘Mistress Anne!’ one of the men said. Rosamund peeked up to find it was the winker. He was even more good-looking up close, with long, waving golden-brown hair and emerald-green eyes. He smiled at Anne flirtatiously, but Rosamund thought she saw a strange tension at the edges of his mouth, a quickly veiled flash in his eyes. Perhaps she was not the only one harbouring secret romances. ‘What do you do there?’

Anne would not look at him; instead she stared down at her hands as they fussed with the ribbons. ‘Some of us must work, Lord Langley, and not go frolicking off ice-skating all day.’

‘Oh aye, it looks arduous work indeed,’ Lord Langley answered, merrily undeterred. He sat down at the end of the table, fiddling with a bit of ivy. On his index finger flashed a gold signet-ring embossed with the phoenix crest of the Knighton family.

Rosamund gasped. Anne’s admirer was the Earl of Langley. And not old and crabbed at all.

She glanced at Anton, quite against her will; she didn’t want to look at him, to remember their wager and her own foolish thoughts of kissing boughs and ice-skating. But she still felt compelled to look, to see what he was doing.

He stood by one of the windows, lounging casually against its carved frame as he watched his other companions laughing with the Marys. An amused half-smile curved his lips.

Rosamund’s clasp tightened on her bough, and she had a sudden vision of standing with him beneath the green sphere, of gazing up at him, at those lips, longing to know what they would feel like on hers. She imagined touching his shoulders, heated, powerful muscles under fine velvet, sliding her hands down his chest as his lips lowered to hers…

And then his smile widened, as if he knew her very thoughts. Rosamund caught her breath and stared back down at the table, her cheeks flaming even hotter.

‘We were not merely skating, Mistress Anne,’ Anton said. ‘We were sent by the Queen to search for the finest Yule log to be found.’

‘And did you discover one?’ Anne asked tartly, snatching the ivy from Lord Langley’s hand.

He laughed, undeterred as he reached for a ribbon instead. ‘Not as yet, but we are going out again this afternoon. Nothing but the very best will do for the Queen’s Christmas—or that of her ladies.’

‘You had best hurry, then, as Christmas Day is tomorrow.’

‘Never fear, Mistress Anne,’ Lord Langley said. ‘I always succeed when I am determined on something.’

‘Always?’ said Anne. ‘Oh, my lord, I do fear there is a first time for everything—even disappointment.’

Lord Langley’s green eyes narrowed, but Anton laughed, strolling closer to the table. He leaned over Rosamund’s shoulder, reaching out to pick up a sprig of holly.

Rosamund swallowed hard as his sleeve brushed the side of her neck, soft and alluring, warm and vital, yet snow-chilled at the same time.

‘Ah, Lord Langley,’ Anton said. ‘I fear working with this holly has made the ladies just as prickly today. Perhaps we should retire before we get scratched.’

Lord Langley laughed too. ‘Have they such thin skins in Sweden, Master Gustavson? We here have heavier armour against the ladies’ barbs.’

‘Is there armour heavy enough for such?’ Anton asked.

Rosamund took the holly from his hand, careful not to let her fingers brush his. The ruby ring gleamed, reminding her of their wager. ‘They say if the holly leaves are rounded the lady shall rule the house for the year. If barbed, the lord.’

‘And which is this?’ Anton took back the holly, running his thumb over the glossy green leaf. ‘What does it signify if half the leaf is smooth, half barbed?’

‘The impossible.’ Lord Langley laughed. ‘For each house can have only one ruler.’

‘And in the Queen’s house every leaf is smooth,’ Anne said. ‘Now, make yourselves of use and help us hang the greenery in the Great Hall.’

Anton tucked the holly into the loops of Rosamund’s upswept hair, the edge of his hand brushing her cheek. ‘There, Lady Rosamund,’ he whispered. ‘Now you are ready for the holiday.’

Rosamund gently touched the sprig, but did not draw it away. It rested there in her hair, a reminder. ‘Best you beware my prickles, then, Master Gustavson. They may not be as obvious as this leaf, but they are there.’

‘I am warned. But I am not a man to be frightened off by nettles, Lady Rosamund—not even thickets of them.’ He laid his skates on the table, taking up a long swag of ivy and ribbon as he held out his hand to her. ‘Will you show me where your decorations are to go? I should hate to ruin your decking of the halls.’