Crossing Over by Anna Kendall

trailed after him, my little bundle in my hand, and the others watched me go.
    By the torchlight in the courtyard, I could see him better. After the queen and her courtiers had left the kitchen, Maggie had told me about Lord Robert Hopewell. In her shock over my summoning, her coolness had vanished. Lord Robert was perhaps forty, tall and well built. He had courted Queen Caroline when they were both young, but she had chosen instead another lord, far less strong, less handsome, less intelligent, as consort. Maggie had not said why, although from the way she pursed her lips, I imagined that she had a theory. Maggie always had theories. The queen’s consort had given her two sons, and then a daughter to rule after her, Princess Stephanie, now three years old. Shortly after the heir’s birth, the consort had died of the sweating sickness. I had the impression from Maggie that nobody much missed him. But this, too, was not spoken aloud. Since then, Lord Robert had again become the queen’s favorite.
    He led me from the servants’ portion of the sprawling palace through courtyards I remembered from my visit, so many months ago, to Emma Cartwright. Wide, quiet courtyards, their trees and barely budded bushes now white in the cold moonlight, ringed with buildings of painted gray stone. Then buildings faced with smooth, white marble. Finally, buildings faced with mosaics of pearl and quartz, with small fountains playing among them. On this trip, however, there were no people. And we went farther than the quarters of the ladies-in-waiting—was Lady Cecilia in there, fast asleep under Emma Cartwright’s stern guardianship?
    We went all the way to the courtyard of the young queen.
    It was magnificent: bright with torchlight, tiled with green mosaics, set about with gilded branches of red berries in tall, exquisite green urns. Soldiers dressed in green tunics stood guard. They flung open doors for Lord Robert and we passed through a large, dark room empty save for benches against the wall. Then another large room, also dark, but this one furnished and hung with tapestries. Finally a much smaller room where candles and fire burned brightly, and the queen sat alone at a heavily carved table set with wine and cakes.
    She still wore her masquing gown, low cut and sumptuous. Her white breasts gleamed in the firelight. But she had taken down her hair, and it fell in rich dark coils around her face and shoulders.
    “I have brought him,” Lord Robert said. “Although I still don’t believe any of it.”
    “Thank you, Robin,” the queen said. I dropped clumsily to one knee. “Rise,” she said. “Are you frightened, boy?”
    “Of course he’s frightened,” Lord Robert said, grinning. “For one thing, he’s dyed yellow. No man can be at ease when dyed yellow.”
    “But he can’t help that,” she said sweetly. This midnight she was all sweetness, a different woman from the one I had seen crackling with hatred for her regal mother. “He must do whatever work the laundresses demand of him. Is that right, Roger? ”
    “Y-yes, Your Grace.” She knew my name.
    “But you have no reason to be nervous here. No one will hurt you.”
    How many times had I heard that sentence from Hartah, always followed by “ if you do as I say” ? But she had no need to utter the rest of the sentence aloud. She was a queen. Everyone did as she said.
    “Well, since he is here, give him some wine,” Lord Robert said, pouring himself a goblet.
    “No, not yet,” she said. “Roger, how old are you?”
    “Fourteen, Your Grace.”
    “Just a little older than my oldest son,” Queen Caroline said. “Percy is eleven. Can you read, Roger?”
    “No, Your Grace.”
    “And where is your family?”
    “All dead, Your Grace.”
    “Like the crew of the Frances Ormund .”
    I almost staggered and fell, held upright only by my hand on the corner of the table. She knew. Somehow she knew about the wreck . . . and what else ?
    “You talk in your sleep,”