Dear Heart, How Like You This by Wendy J. Dunn

What can you mean?” I felt more curious than I had been when I first joined them.
    “Harry, you’ll have Tom distrust our loyalty to the King.” Francis laid a hand on his shoulder.
    “Nay—that never.” I smiled at them both, thinking how long both of them had been attendants to the King. Indeed, Henry Norris had been with the King since they were both young lads.
    “If you wish to join this conspiracy, Tom, you’ll need promise to assist us. We need all the help our friends can give us.”
    “You best tell me then. I give no sworn oath unless I first know what it entails.”
    Henry laughed.
    “He does not trust us, Francis. We must look the part of proper scoundrels—when all we wish to do is serve well the King.”
    “Are we not all here for the same purpose? Harry, speak plain, man.”
    “You heard, Tom, that the King has kindly entrusted me to oversee one of the main festivities celebrating Christmas-tide? Francis has agreed to be my aid in this. What say you, Tom—will you also lend your hand in ensuring the success of these festivities?”
    “Yea—of course. What have you planned, Harry?”
    “A mock battle, taking place here at Greenwich over a period of divers days. On the tiltyard I plan to have built a sham castle of wood and other materials. Look here, Tom.”
    Henry passed to me a paper, roughly scrawled with a drawing of a small castle.
    “The King drew this himself—now ’tis up to me to bring his drawing into being. I envision the Castle of Loyalty—Francis here named it—shall have three turrets stretched between two battlements, each battlement with at least three lancet windows, and the flags of England rising above them. I’ve already asked the artisans to make ready a rampant lion to be fixed upon the gate. Within the castle, I shall place four ladies of our court under the protection of a captain and fifteen gentlemen. I hope one of those gentlemen will be you, Tom. What say you—are you party to this plot?”
    “Why not—I can think of no other men presently at court whose company I’d rather be in than you two—proper scoundrels or not.”
    Thus I became part of Henry Norris’ enterprise to entertain the King at Christmas-tide.
    The castle, I must admit, seemed well made. Nevertheless, I think we who were within its protection spent much of our time being afeared that the castle—our only protection—would suddenly buckle under the constant onslaughts of assays against its outer shell.
    Early in the morning of St. John the Evangelist Day, we sent out from the castle six of our men, armed with lances and on horseback. Thus, signalling the end of the ramming of the castle, ramming thinly disguised under the knightly name of a tilt. Methinks our female companions found other, unflattering words for it, seeing how these ladies would scream in absolute terror whenever the castle was rocked or dented by the assault of yet another knight.
    Our six comrades in arms made their emergence from the castle’s outer shell and the next stage of this feigned battle began—for two ladies, clothed in stately gowns of damask, arrived on the scene, riding upon white palfreys and escorted by two supposedly ancient knights with long, silver beards. Sitting erect upon black steeds, the knights were dressed in rich cloaks suggestive of great nobility.
    Queen Catherine now entered upon the spectacle. The Queen, as well, was very finely dressed in a gown adorned with costly jewels and cloaked in a heavy, purple garment of velvet. Though she looked every inch a Queen, no rich clothes could hide the fact that the Queen’s beauty was no more. Though very short, Queen Catherine remained erect in stature, but was also very stout, looking every day and more of her forty years. I could not help reflecting and wondering at the feelings of the Queen. From the early, blissful days of her marriage to the King, the Queen always had an important part in these elaborate play acts. It was to be the same on