Twylight Tower

Pastime with good company I love and shall until I die. Grudge who will but none deny May God be pleased, thus live will I For my pastance, hunt, sing, and dance My heart is set on goodly sport For my comfort, who shall me let? --King Henry VIII July 28, 1560 William Cecil strode rapidly from his hired barge through the edge of town to Richmond Palace. Though but forty years old, the pounding ride from Edinburgh had made mincemeat of his muscles, so he'd managed to come the last few miles on the Thames. Usually he was glad to see the tower-topped silhouette of Richmond, the queen's favorite summer home, but today he wasn't so sure. Rumors the queen was besotted with Robert Dudley were rampant, even in the northern shires, and he could tell from afar she was letting her royal duties slide. Did she think the business of her kingdom could go on a holiday at her whim? He'd been away from court two months, and that was two months too long. Cecil stopped and stared at the looming palace. Situated eight miles outside London with thick orchards and a game-filled park embracing it, Richmond offered all sorts of pleasant diversions and escapes, though this visit promised neither. As he gripped the leather satchel with his important papers close to his chest, hoping something would calm him, his eyes skimmed the balanced beauty of the place. Unlike jumbled Whitehall, the queen's principal palace in London, the main structure here had been laid out in a planned and orderly fashion. It was a place after his own heart, he thought as he trudged across the outer quadrangle. The first Tudor ruler, the queen's grandfather, King Henry VII, a stern and disciplined man, had overseen Richmond's construction. Ironic, Cecil mused, that his heir, Henry VIII, was of the opposite disposition, all passion, appetites, and swagger. And their heir Elizabeth? Somehow she was both personalities at war with each other. "Good for you, Lord Secretary, settling the Scots war with profit for our England!" someone called to him from a cluster of courtiers as he entered the gate to the middle court. He lifted his free arm in reply, but kept going toward the entrance to the state apartments, a series of rooms with the finest views in the vast place. Out one set of windows was the great hall in all its Gothic splendor, and in the opposite direction, the stunning chapel royal. Glancing up, one saw various of the fourteen towers of the palace proper with their bright banners and gilded weather vanes, not to mention the eastward river view over lush gardens and orchards. Human traffic thickened the closer Cecil got to the queen through the presence chamber, then the gallery to the privy chamber. He recognized most courtiers; a few gave him good day, but he kept going at a swift clip so as not to be drawn into conversations. Still, more than once he was sure he heard the sibilant whispers of the words Scots and Cecil, interspersed with the duller, drumlike thud of Dudley, Dudley. Beyond the next closed set of double doors lay the royal withdrawing room, bedroom, bathroom, and library, among other privy chambers, but still he saw no queen to greet him. With each step he became more annoyed. He'd specifically instructed the two messengers he'd sent ahead yesterday to request that he see Her Majesty privily before they faced her council together about this treaty he'd sweated and nitpicked over to get her the most advantageous terms from the rough Scots and prideful French. Not only was no one prepared to welcome him, but not even to receive him. So as not to seem as frustrated as he felt, Cecil slowed his steps through the privy chamber. The queen's ladies of the bedchamber and maids of honor sat about on cushions, chatting and embroidering, playing with lapdogs and an azure parrot that kept squawking, "Yes, Your Grace! Yes, Your Grace!'' Why had these women not been sent out?Harper, Karen is the author of 'Twylight Tower', published 2002 under ISBN 9780440235927 and ISBN 0440235928.