Emilia

1581

is 12

By the age of twelve, Bassano knew that most people saw only what they expected to see. She thought about this as she lay on her belly, her skirts bunched up beneath her, her chin on one fist. With her free hand, she was building a faerie house. The whitest pebbles from the front drive of Willoughby House ringed a carpet of moss. On it, she had crafted a tiny home of twigs, laced together with long shoots of grass and capped with a roof made of birchbark. Dog-rose blossoms served as windows; twined columbine and kingcup lined the entrance. She added a spotted red toadstool she'd found in the woods, a perfect throne.

She'd filched a polished obsidian king from Peregrine Bertie's chess set. Also known as the Baron Willoughby, he was the brother of 's guardian—Susan Bertie, the Countess of Kent. It was their quarrel that had made flee outside to escape. She placed the chess piece close to the toadstool. I'll call him Oberon, thought, naming him after the king of the elves in the French poem Huon de Bordeaux, which she'd studied last week with the Countess. "Your Majesty," said, "here's your lady wife." She reached for a second piece she'd taken from the chess set, a smooth ivory queen.

If Oberon had a wife in the poem, she wasn't important enough to mention.

needed a name that made her unforgettable. A faerie queen who's larger than life, she mused. "Titania," she pronounced.

Finally, she set down the third chess piece between the king and queen. A small, dark pawn.

She could still hear the argument between the Baron and the Countess, as clear as day.

I can't bring with me, the Countess had said, when hadn't even known she was going somewhere.

Nor I, Susan, her brother argued. I must leave for Denmark soon.

Take her, the Countess replied. She's a girl, not gunpowder.

Now stroked the pawn with a fingertip and reimagined the story. The pawn was a child. An orphan. The king and queen both want you, she mused. They cannot stop fighting over who gets to keep you. They love you so much that it will tear the whole world apart.

"There you are!" With a rustle of skirts, the Countess sank down beside her. She didn't scold for disappearing or tell her that there would be grass stains on the silk of her dress, and for this, if for nothing else, adored her. The Countess was only in her twenties, and had already been widowed. For most women that would spell freedom—no longer owned by their fathers or husbands—but she'd been summoned back to court by Queen Elizabeth. Sometimes the Countess made think of a wolf willing to chew off a limb to escape a golden trap.

It was not extraordinary for a girl of limited means to be trained up into service in an aristocratic household. 's family were court musicians and had emigrated from Italy at the request of King Henry VIII, after he heard them play their recorders. 's own father had taught Queen Elizabeth, then a princess, how to play the lute and speak Italian. However, although 's family now played for the entertainment of the Queen, they never would be nobility.

had been sent to the Countess at age seven, when her father had died and her mother had left London in service to another aristocratic family. Her parents had not been married, but they lived together while her father was alive. did not remember her mother very well, except for the fact that she was young, much younger than her father, and so lost in her own daydreams that, even as a child, knew not to rely on her. Baptista Bassano, her father, had the same olive skin as , and called her passerotta— little sparrow. She remembered the melodies he played on his recorder, some haunting, some jaunty; how the notes curled through her. She remembered her mother saying, almost regretfully, that her father's music could coax the stars from the sky. Those were the only bits she had left of her parents now. took the memories out regularly, like silver that had to be polished, lest you become unable to see the intricacies of its pattern.

"What have we here?" the Countess asked, as if it were perfectly normal to play in the dirt under the shrubbery. "A faerie house?"

"Another world," confirmed. She considered asking the Countess where she was going and begging to come along.

The Countess's mouth tipped at one corner. "What a pity we live in this world, where it's time for lessons." She extricated herself from the hedge more gracefully than did, but not before she gathered up the chess pieces. "If the Baron finds these missing, he'll become a bear."

pictured a wild beast dressed in the Baron's doublet and breeches, a stiff lace ruff beneath its bristled snout.

"Cheer your heart, child," the Countess said, chucking under the chin. "Once we're gone, perhaps the real faeries will come live in the house you've built them."

fell into step behind the Countess. She wondered if it were that simple; if anything became possible when no one was watching.

—

sat in the great hall, which was the room in the Baron's home where the family gathered. In their Lincolnshire country home, Grimsthorpe, there was a separate room for tutoring, but in London the library was used by the Baron. studied languages, reading, writing, and dancing (music had been dropped after it became clear that could have taught her tutor more than he could teach her). Because the Countess herself had been educated—which was far from the norm for a woman—she oversaw 's reading. The Bible, of course, but also tracts on decorum and Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies. Today, the Countess had translating Marie de France's lai "Bisclavret." It was about a baron whose wife worried about his repeated disappearances. To 's delight, the husband confessed: at times he transformed into a werewolf, and only donning his human clothes allowed him to turn back into a man. The wife, disgusted, promised to give her love and her body to a knight who'd been flirting with her if he stole Bisclavret's clothes—ensuring that the baron would not return. But when the werewolf pledged his fealty to the king, the wife's plan was thwarted.

"This cannot be right," said, doubting her own translation. " More than one woman of that family / Was born without a nose to blow, and lived denosed. "

The Countess laughed. " Oui, parfait, " she said. "And what is the message of this poem?"

"Men are beasts," said flatly. She imagined, again, the Baron with the face of a bear.

"No, my dear. This is a poem about loyalty," the Countess said. "The wife turns on Bisclavret, and is punished for it. Bisclavret is loyal to his king, and is rewarded for it."

"So they're both beasts," answered.

"Should the wife be forced to stay married to a werewolf? And if not, what tools does she have to extract herself from that bond? Teeth and claws are weapons…but so are a woman's body and her love." She shrugged. "You can't blame Bisclavret for being cursed as a werewolf. Yet nor can you blame a woman cursed by her sex."

"But she loses her nose," pointed out.

"Life as a woman is not without risks," the Countess said. She covered 's hand with her own. "Which is why," she added softly, "I am to wed Sir John."

had met the man when he visited.

The Countess cupped her cheek. "Afterward, he will take me to Holland. I shall write," she promised.

felt her eyes burn. She thought of the little dark pawn on the chessboard, being moved around at the whims of whoever was playing the game. Yet she had learned to show people what they wanted to see, so she smiled until a dimple appeared in her cheek. "I wish you all joy," she said.

—

The first thing you noticed about London was the stench—body odor, feces, and vomit, mingling with the smells of woodsmoke and cooked meat. The streets knotted and tangled as if they had been mapped by a child. Sellers hawked their wares, from feathers to jugs of milk to rush lights, their voices competing with the clatter of hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels. darted out of the way of conveyances and the occasional diving bird, the kites scavenging a moldy crust or a scrap of thread for their nests. Her leather boots slid on cobblestones that were slick with mud and refuse. Beggars with rags wrapped around their oozing limbs sat on the thresholds of doorways, hands plucking at 's skirts. She passed a cockfight ringed with men shouting out their bets; and when a brawl between two skinny boys spilled into the street, she ducked into an alley. There, a light-skirt was making a quick coin, her skirts pulled up to her waist. She stared blankly over the shoulder of the man rutting into her, as hurried by.

When in London, visited her cousin Jeronimo's family for Friday supper. Although she'd grown up outside the city gates, in Spitalfields, with her mother and father, the rest of her cousins now lived on Mark Lane, in the Italian community.

Mark Lane was jammed with two-story wooden homes that listed drunkenly, like a smile made of uneven teeth. Before had even turned the corner, she could hear music spilling from various houses. She could play almost any instrument, but she would never be as fluent as her cousins. They effortlessly strung together notes the way she entwined words—spinning a melody so perfect you couldn't imagine that a moment before it had not existed in the world.

The red belly of the sun was scraping the roof of her cousin's home when finally stepped inside. Jeronimo's sons, Edward and Scipio, barreled into her legs in greeting. Their mother, Alma, laughed. " Piccolini, let her breathe."

From the corner of the room closer to the hearth, her cousin looked up from the lute he was stringing and smiled. "How is the world of the nobility?" he teased.

"The same as it was yesterday when you were at court," said.

Jeronimo made a noncommittal sound. She knew, as did he, that the Bassanos' reign as Queen Elizabeth's musicians would last only as long as her favor—and that it could be revoked at any time. Then what would become of them?

swung one of her small second cousins onto her hip and glanced around the little home. Her relatives were not as wealthy as the Countess and the Baron, of course, but thanks to their roles at court, they were still gentry. They had carved wooden chests brought from Italy and curtains instead of plain wooden shutters. But they also had only a single loft bed, in which they slept with the children. Even if she asked her cousin to take her in after the Countess wed, there was not space for her. She was a shadow caught between two worlds, like the faeries.

"Tell us a story, ," the smaller boy said, reaching for the braided rope of 's hair. When she came to Mark Lane she dressed as a commoner, with her hair down and a plain kirtle over her chemise.

sat on the hearth with the boy in her lap, letting his brother settle beside her. "Do you know who I met today?" she said. "A faerie queen."

"Was she beautiful?" one boy asked. "Like you?"

Beauty, knew, was relative. Her olive coloring was far from the fashionable pale skin on display at court; her hair was darker than night; her eyes a ghostly silver. Taken separately, her features were arresting, odd. But combined, they drew attention—men's glances, their wives' narrowed eyes.

"Prettier even than Queen Elizabeth," said, and she heard her cousin muffle a snort.

Alma winked at her, opening a cupboard to retrieve a folded square of linen embroidered at the edges. It was probably the finest item in the household.

"The faerie queen had promised to care for a friend's orphaned babe, but her husband, the faerie king, wanted to take it away from her."

"Why?" one of the boys asked.

considered this. She could not remember being as young as her little second cousins, and certain that nothing on God's earth could separate a child from their parent.

"Because the faerie king feared that the queen would love the babe so much, she would forget him."

The boys leaned toward her, rapt. "What happened?"

"The king…wanted to teach the queen a lesson. So he told his faerie servant to find a purple flower that would make someone fall in love with the very first thing they saw. And he brushed that flower over the queen's brow as she slept."

Alma smoothed the embroidered linen over the scarred wooden table in the center of the room. ", cara, " she said, "the shutters?"

slid away from the children and stood, dusting off her skirts as she crossed to the open window that lacked the leaded glass panes the Baron had. "But who did she fall in love with?" asked one boy.

A donkey cart rattled past outside. "Why…an ass!" said, and the children fizzed with giggles.

"That's enough," Alma chided. "Jeronimo?"

The sun had slipped below the horizon. 's cousin made sure the shutters were closed and then wriggled a loose stone from the fireplace. Behind it was a small safehole, from which he drew a parcel wrapped in muslin, and another piece of folded linen. He unwound the muslin like he was peeling an apple, revealing two brass candlesticks that he set on the table. Alma added tallow candles and then reached for the linen to drape over her head. took her little cousins' hands and led them to the table, bowing her head. " Baruch atah Adonai, " Alma sang, lighting the candles with tinder from the hearth. " Eloheinu melech ha-olam asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik neir shel Shabbat. "

Amen, the rest replied, in perfect harmony.

A secret prayer, for a forbidden religion. Like the other converso Jews who had come from Spain and Italy, the Bassanos were Christians now in the eyes of the world, attending church and praying to the Virgin and her Blessed Son.

People saw what they wanted to see.

—

Going to court had always felt to like a performance. Although she did not play recorder or lute beside her male relatives in the great hall, she had been carted along as an apprentice of sorts even when she was very young. She knew the frenetic scramble to present competent nonchalance as the Queen arrived in the room; she understood how music was meant to regale at times and fade into the background at others. Being a courtier was not that much different.

The Queen and her entourage had only recently returned to the palace at Whitehall from St. James's, moving between those properties and Hampton Court, Greenwich, Richmond, and Windsor Castle. There were so many confidants and advisers to Her Majesty, in addition to ladies-in-waiting and visitors from other royal houses, that a palace would periodically become overrun and foul with debris and waste. Then the entire troupe would relocate while it was cleaned and aired.

Dressing for court was the opposite of dressing for her forays to the Italian community in London. would be rubbed down by a maidservant with clean cloths, and then with perfume. Over a long linen smock she wore a pair of bodies— an outer layer made of brocade with whalebone stitched in vertically, a busk jammed between her budding breasts all the way to her belly. The bodies were ratcheted tight down the back through eyelet holes and finished with false sleeves crusted with lace and pearls. Tiers of skirts in black and white—the Queen's colors—completed the outfit, until could not even breathe without rustling. Her hair was dressed and a headpiece fitted to her scalp, ensuring a megrim at her temples before the end of the night. She looked like a miniature version of the Countess, without the swells of cleavage.

The Baron was in attendance, too, although he wasn't happy about it. "If Oxford is here," he muttered, as they waited to enter the crush of the great hall, "I shall not be held responsible for my actions."

"If Oxford is here," the Countess said with a laugh, "I shall eat my fan."

The pumping lifeblood of court was gossip, and the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, had provided plenty this spring. Back in April, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting—Anna Vavasour—had given birth to Oxford's son. The scandal wasn't that Oxford was already married, but that this love affair had happened without the Queen's consent. She had thrown both of them into the Tower, and rumor was that Oxford had been released this week.

There was no love lost between the Baron and Oxford, who was the brother of the Baron's wife, Mary. The Baron's marriage nearly hadn't been allowed because the Queen didn't like how Oxford treated his own wife, accusing her of adultery and declaring their child a bastard. He was, simply, a wild card.

They were swept forward into a glittering sea of people. Entertainment varied from masques to bearbaiting to jousting in the tiltyard to 's favorite: plays performed by troupes that had the patronage of a noble. She had grown up with music filling all the spaces of her childhood and knew that the right notes in the right order could make one weep or make one feel lighter than air. The same could happen with the right words, spoken in the right order, by the right actor.

Tonight, though, the entertainment was to be dancing. could hear the lively strains of her cousins' instruments, but the gallery for the musicians was on the far side of the hall, and she had about as much chance of reaching them in this crush as she did of getting to the Far East. Long, narrow windows let a spill of moonlight wash over those partnered in the vigorous dance. An enormous fireplace held banked flames even though it was warm outside, so the room reeked of sweat and soot. Tonight's music was a galliard—a pantomime of courtship, where the men chased the women. Sometimes the man would reach under a lady's busk to lift her in the air, or raise his thigh and balance his partner upon it. It was shocking to watch, and even more shocking to perform—which was exactly why the Queen used to dance it with her favorite—Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester—before he'd lost her regard. Now she was in the middle of the floor, partnered with Sir Christopher Hatton.

It was easy for to slip away, though she knew it would be frowned upon, or worse. She ducked past the guards at the edge of the room, trying to find a space less crowded and cooler, only to be cornered by Lord Archley. Although she did not know all the nobles at court, she'd had the bad fortune to meet this one before. He was nearly as wide around as he was tall, with a nose like a pomegranate and a ruff so stiff that it tilted back his head. When he saw , his eyes gleamed. "Ah," he said, his breath stale and gusty. "The lioness has let the young cub from her sight."

It was true that the Countess discouraged male courtiers from getting too close to . Archley dropped a kerchief and bent, his hand sliding under her skirts to graze her ankle. 's jaw tightened and she stepped back. "My Lord Archley," she said, and curtsied. Lord Arsely, she thought.

"Such pretty manners," he said. "In one as fair as the sun."

refrained from rolling her eyes. Like every other woman at court, she had powdered her face white as an homage to the Queen. Against her olive skin, however, the powder looked like a mask and only drew attention to how different she was from the rest. "Merely a daughter; no sun am I," she quipped.

Archley leaned close enough for her to see the food stuck in his teeth. "And yet, you make me rise."

Well, he wasn't the only one experiencing an anatomical upsurge, thought, suddenly queasy. "My mistress calls," she lied, and she tried to edge past him, but Archley's arm snatched her around the waist. She thought of the places the Countess had told her about, soft tissues where one could unman a man with a knee. Archley wore a codpiece, so instead lifted her foot and ground her heel into his instep. A moment later she was running away blindly. She flew around a corner and smacked hard into another gentleman.

"Please, my lord, excuse me," gasped.

The man grasped her shoulders to steady her. "I cannot," he said, "as I am the one who stepped in your path."

He was lean and old, with silver hair and kind eyes. There was gold thread in the brocade of his doublet, which marked him as the highest of nobility, a privy counselor.

"You are Countess Bertie's ward," he said. She sensed that he knew more about than she maybe knew of herself.

Straightening her spine, she met the stranger's gaze. "If you tell Her Majesty I stepped out of the room," said, "I shall tell her you were already outside it."

The man smiled, delighted. "You know…I believe you would."

Flustered, dropped another curtsy and spun, edging back into the great hall, where the dancing had reached fever pitch. The crowd swelled and receded like a great beast. picked the Countess out of a knot of women and fought her way to her side.

The Countess glanced down, smiling faintly. "And where were you?" she asked.

"Visiting my cousins," she lied, glancing toward the musicians' gallery, her eyes snagging instead on the gaze of the gentleman with the gold-threaded doublet. He stood talking to the Baron now, watching over the rim of his goblet.

—

After the Countess was remarried and living in the Netherlands, was shuttled between London and Grimsthorpe with the Baron and his wife. knew that the Baroness did not particularly like her, and when the Baroness fell pregnant, she became even less willing to look after .

Which is how found herself on a rain-lashed, three-decked merchant galleon headed to Denmark, certain that she was going to die.

The Baron had been sent on a diplomatic mission and had no alternative but to drag along. Unlike him, she had never been on a ship, much less one in a storm. spent the first half of the voyage battling seasickness. After a week, she had become accustomed to the rolling of the world beneath her feet, but she still spent most of the time in her tiny cabin. Sometimes she wrote to the Countess, using a writing box that she'd been given as a goodbye present ( Put your stories to paper, , and send them to me ). Other times she read books on decorum in the hope that she could make herself as unobtrusive as possible in the Danish court. On the Sabbath, she lit the candle on her bedside table and silently recited a Hebrew prayer, worshipping in the secret temple of her own mind.

That was, in fact, what she was doing when the ship listed so sharply that the candle tumbled, rolling across the cabin's wooden floor. dove for it, imagining there could be nothing worse than a fire on a galleon. As the flame fizzled in a growing puddle, she realized how wrong she was.

was certain a leak was something the captain ought to know about. She pulled a wrapper over her night rail and opened the cabin door.

It was like stepping through the doorway of Hell.

A spray of salt water lashed her face, making her eyes burn. The water was ankle deep here, and more was streaming through the scuttle, the hatchway that led to the galleon's third deck. Wood creaked, stretched to its seams. A rending like a splintering tree roared in 's ears, and then a crash shook the entire ship.

hovered, her slippers soaked, until the galleon tilted again and smacked her hard against the wall. She rubbed her head where it had struck the wood as one of the young sailors streaked past her, holding coils of rope. "Get back below, milady," he yelled out.

She pictured herself trapped in the little room as the ship drifted in a slow ballet to the bottom of the ocean. Then she turned to the ladder the boy had shimmied, tucked her skirts between her legs, and started to climb.

The hub of the ship was the third deck, the one exposed to the elements. had taken a turn there on calmer days, but this was a different world. Each strike of lightning illuminated chaos: One of the three masts broken in pieces, having crushed a railing on the side of the ship. Great billows of canvas sails whipping free in the wind, the crew in a losing battle to pull them in. Orders being piped through the boatswain's whistle, drowned out by the gales. A sailor, drenched and wild-eyed, tied to a mast that still stood, squinting into the darkness with a spyglass.

screamed when a wave rose, knocking her off her feet and sending her skidding across the deck. She scrabbled with her fingernails and managed to grab on to an iron cleat. She heard her name, torn like parchment, and looked up to see the Baron struggling with the steersman to hold the whipstaff, the pole that attached to the rudder. The Baron wore only his linen underclothes and trousers, molded to his body by the pounding rain. "," he cried, hoarse. "Go below!"

The driving rain and seawater seemed to seal her to the pitched deck until she felt an arm jerk her upright. The boatswain, a beefy man who had let her play his carved bone flute once, yanked to his side. He half-dragged her, half-threw her down the scuttle, where she landed in a heap at the bottom of the ladder in six inches of standing water.

Shivering, aching, crawled back to her tiny cabin. The silence, after the scream of the wind, hurt her ears. She hauled herself onto the canvas that served as a bed, folding her legs beneath her.

As her eyes adjusted to the black of the cabin, she saw her nails were ragged and there were splinters in her palms from the wood on the deck. But what drew her attention was the spreading dark stain on her wet night rail. twisted, scanning her body to find the source of the wound. She was tender in places that would be bruises, but she could not find a cut or a scrape. It wasn't until she held her hand between her legs and her fingers came back streaked with blood that she realized she must have grievously injured something inside her.

lay back on the cot, crossing her arms over her chest, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Her lips moved silently, praying for the second time that night to her god.

She would die here, either drowning in the storm or bleeding until her breath stopped. Her body would be wrapped in a canvas and tossed overboard, among the mermaids and sea dragons. Finally, she would no longer be anyone's problem to solve.

—

The galleon didn't sink, and did not die. But she did not recover, either. She continued to bleed slowly but surely, like air being let out of a bladder.

Days later, when the galleon limped into the port of Helsing?r, joined the Baron and his small entourage to seek an audience with King Frederick and Queen Sophie of Denmark on behalf of Queen Elizabeth.

blinked up at Kronborg Castle, still under construction. It rose impressively tall, shining pale walls capped with a glittering copper roof. It was, in her opinion, much lovelier than Her Majesty's Whitehall, which wasn't white at all but tarnished with soot and grime.

They had been given chambers to refresh themselves, which was critical because their clothing was all but destroyed by the storm. sat while a maid who did not speak English brushed her hair until it shone like a raven's wing and braided it into an intricate puzzle. She was given a robe while her court clothes were dried and pressed. But when the little maid tried to help into her velvet bodies, she panicked. Wadded in her drawers was a strip torn from a shift, which she had been using as a bandage. grabbed the edges of the robe and held it tight, but the maid said something she did not understand and yanked, revealing in her linen underthings, speckled with dried blood.

's cheeks burned. She kept her eyes averted as her laces were done up, and then she went to meet the Baron, taking quick, tiny steps so as not to dislodge the wad of linen between her thighs. Her bodies was black and her skirts were white, and she feared the blood would stain.

The Baron was pacing in the hallway before the throne room. He gave her an appraising look. "We represent the Queen today," he said, his pale eyes meeting hers. "Consider this a test."

's mouth dropped open. What was she being tested for? Her usefulness at court upon her return? Was she to charm the Danish monarchs enough to be left behind as their new responsibility?

With that, the heavy paneled doors opened, and they were ushered inside. Courtiers flanked the hall, dressed in a flamboyance of velvet and brocade. There were other diplomatic envoys presenting flowery speeches to the monarchs. shifted from foot to foot as she and the Baron waited their turn. The maid had tied her laces so tight she could barely draw a breath, and her belly felt as if someone was making a fist inside of it. As stars danced at the edges of her vision, she tried to remember when she had last eaten.

Instead, she forced herself to focus as bags of pungent spices were lifted from a chest inlaid with cabochon gems, as a ceremonial sword from a Spanish explorer was offered up to the Danish king. When it was the Baron's turn, they proceeded toward the thrones with guards who bore the ceremonial jewelry of the Order of the Garter, an honorary knighthood for King Frederick from the Queen. They hoped, in return, to receive assurance for Her Majesty that English ships would not come to any harm in Danish waters.

The Baron bowed, and sank into a deep curtsy. From beneath her lowered lashes, she looked up at the royals. Queen Sophie was delicate, like a wren that had once made a nest outside 's bedroom window at Grimsthorpe. King Frederick was much older, which was the way of things. But his hand rested on the arm of the Queen's throne, their fingers laced together. There was something unexpected about that that made 's heart thump.

The King spoke, and the Baron straightened. did the same, but the room swam a little, and she stumbled. From the edge of her vision, she saw the Baron's jaw twitch at her mistake.

Then she felt the drip of blood down her leg.

Sucking in a breath, she shifted her foot to cover the red spot she'd left on the flagstone, trying to rub it away with her slipper. She clenched her legs together. A bead of sweat ran down the busk between her breasts.

Minutes, told herself. You have only to last minutes, and then you may retreat to your chamber and expire.

The Baron droned on in French, and followed the puffery of compliments being winged to the dais on behalf of the Queen of England. Finally, he gestured for the king to be given the carved wooden box that held the Garter Star. A member of the Danish privy council ferried the box the last few feet to the king. " Vi acceptere denne ?re fra den engelske domstol. M? Guds velsignelse over?se Elizabeth Regina, " King Frederick intoned, pointing to the spot on his velvet cape where he wanted the jewels pinned.

hoped it would be done quickly. There was a buzzing in her ears.

Then King Frederick gestured at the star and switched back to French. " Et maintenant, nous célébrons. "

A celebration? Now?

The Baron began to back away from the thrones, expecting to do the same, but she was terrified to move and reveal the smear of blood under the cover of her belled skirts.

" Attends, " Queen Sophie said, rising. Wait. In French, she asked her name.

opened her mouth to answer, and promptly fainted.

—

When woke, she was in an unfamiliar bed, a heavy counterpane pulled up to her chin. The maid who had dressed her was sitting in the corner on a stool and popped to her feet as soon as tried to sit up. Immediately, her debacle in the throne room rushed back. She vaguely remembered a guard hoisting her into his arms and carrying her up the stairs as whispers followed her like the train of a coronation gown. She groaned just as the door opened and Queen Sophie entered, trailed by her ladies-in-waiting.

tried to scramble to her feet to curtsy, but the Queen waved her off. " êtes-vous bien? " she asked. Are you well?

She bit her lower lip, trying to keep herself from crying. This is a test, she reminded herself. But surely it was wrong to lie to royalty?

shook her head, staring down at the bed linens. " Je pense que …" she began, and then swallowed hard. " J'ai peur de mourir. " I fear I am dying.

At that the ladies-in-waiting all tittered, hiding their smiles behind feathered fans. thought how unfair it would be to die far from home, in the company of such cruelty.

To her shock, Queen Sophie climbed the small stool beside the bed and sat on its edge. " Le Baron a dit que vous n'avez pas de mère. " The Baron said you do not have a mother.

She beckoned to one of the ladies behind her, who produced what seemed to be a miniature pillow, like one a mouse might dream upon. The Queen handed it to . It was in fact a small pouch, stuffed with what seemed to be dried moss.

"You are not dying," the Queen said, explaining what was happening to her—that her butterfly body was rising from a cocoon of childhood, that she could count the weeks between the flow, that certain herbs would help with the dull ache inside her.

grimaced. "What a nuisance," she muttered.

She had spoken in English, and Queen Sophie turned to one of her ladies to translate. Then the Queen shook her head. " Mais non, " she corrected. " C'est un cadeau. "

"A gift?" scoffed. Of what?

The Queen's lips curved, the same smile that Eve had tossed over her shoulder at Adam, that had been used by the Sirens in Ancient Greece, that Medusa gave a moment before turning a man to stone. " La puissance, " she said. Power.

—

Weeks passed as the galleon's mast was repaired for their return voyage, and the Baron used the time to curry the King's favor. As Queen Sophie had promised, soon felt well enough to join the festivities King Frederick organized to showcase Denmark's wealth and command—twenty-four-course meals, commissioned plays, raucous music and dancing, and endless vats of wine.

There were other guests in attendance—artists and scientists summoned to feed the King's thirst for knowledge and beauty. One evening, in the massive hall, watched players enact the story of a mythical prince, Amleth, who at the moment seemed to be feigning madness. was trying very hard to follow along, but the performance was in Danish and it was nearly midnight. She surreptitiously covered a yawn.

A voice spoke behind her in heavily accented English. "The name Amleth, you know, means stupid. "

Without turning, she hid a smile. "Fitting, perhaps, as his plan does not seem particularly sound," whispered.

The play, adapted from Saxo's tale, was about two brothers who ruled Jutland. One brother married the king's daughter Gerutha and had a son named Amleth. Jealous, the other brother murdered his sibling, married his brother's widow, and ascended to the throne. Amleth, certain he was going to be the next casualty, faked insanity while plotting his revenge.

leaned forward as a beautiful woman—or in this case, a young male actor who was bewigged and skirted—was sent to seduce Amleth into betraying his true motives. When the woman sided with Amleth, the crowd cheered.

Next the king sent a spy to listen in Queen Gerutha's chambers when Amleth chastised his mother for her hasty remarriage. Amleth killed the spy, hacked up the body, and left it to be devoured by a feral boar.

"Temper tantrum," the man behind her murmured.

giggled. "Sir," she murmured, "you shall ruin the story for me."

"Can one ruin a tale that relies on wild pigs for plot?"

The rest passed by quickly: the king sending Amleth to England with a note directing the recipient to execute him; Amleth swapping out the letter for one saying his escorts should be killed instead. Arriving back in Denmark during his own funeral, Amleth finally murdered his uncle and became monarch.

A rousing wave of applause swallowed the actors as they finished the play, bowing to the King and Queen. A lavish meal would now be served for hours, until the sky turned a bashful pink.

"I insist upon your delightful company during supper," the man behind her said. Smiling, turned toward him for the first time.

He was missing a nose.

Instead, a polished gold triangle was affixed to his skin where the feature would be.

Bisclavret, thought with a pang, remembering the French medieval poem she had translated with the Countess.

He bowed. "Tycho Brahe, at your service."

knew that this was all wrong; that he was a favorite of the Danish King and she was a nobody, and because of that, she should be the one being introduced to him, so that he could refuse the conversation if he didn't want to speak with her. And yet, he didn't seem to stand on ceremony. " Bassano," she said, dropping a quick curtsy.

He was elaborately dressed and had ginger hair, in addition to a mustache with two long tails like an inverted V beneath the prosthetic. He offered his arm to escort her into the dining hall. "A sword fight," he said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You are wondering how I lost it." He lifted his free hand, circling his face. "At the university in Rostock. My cousin and I were arguing over which of us was the better mathematician." He slid his glance toward , grinning. "He won…by a nose."

"So you are a mathematician?" she asked.

"An astronomer," he corrected. "And you, I assume, are a lover of theater?"

"I love stories of all sorts," said.

"Then I must know what you thought of our production."

She considered her answer. "I find it truthful," she offered, "as a fool is rarely thought to be a threat. And yet the play has flaws."

The astronomer paused, his brows raised. "Flaws?"

"The young woman sent to seduce Amleth instead saves his life without wielding so much as a knife. Is that not an intriguing character? And yet, she is never named—nor fully developed. And Gerutha—daughter of the Danish king—must outrank both her husbands. But she is an object in the play, not a subject. Had she been allowed to speak, why"— smiled cheekily—"we might have had a first course before daybreak."

Brahe threw back his head and laughed. "One day I shall read your version of the tale, which no doubt shall surpass this one."

They entered the feast hall, down the center of which ran a long wooden table. A tongue of red brocade licked from one end to the other, dotted with venison cooked in ale and platters of mackerel, roasted capon and shellfish pies, honey tarts and bread pudding. A wooden trencher sat at each place setting, and let Tycho Brahe steer her toward one. He waved his arm in the direction of two gentlemen sitting across the table. "Cousins, may I introduce Mistress Bassano, whose wit and charm has been the finest entertainment of this evening."

She was not a mistress, technically, because she was not a gentlewoman. But she was having too much fun to reveal the hand that would end the game.

"I am Rosenkrans, mistress." A fair-haired man offered a quick bow.

The second fellow, taller and balding, followed suit. "Guldensteren."

As they dined, turned to the astronomer. "What is the most glorious thing," she asked, "that you have ever seen in the sky?"

He thought for a moment. "Almost ten years past now, I marked a new star. It was brighter than Venus, and had appeared in a spot beyond the moon, where there never had been a star like that before. A supernova, I called it, because it was new, and brilliant."

"Can one still see it?" asked eagerly.

"Not anymore, mistress. But it can still be felt. You see, all the scholars and scientists believed until then that the harmony of the world was ensured by the stars, which were fixed and ageless. But my star, my supernova? It proved otherwise. It meant that the Heavens can shift and alter. And if that is true…then the world itself can change."

thought, inexplicably, of the unnamed woman in the play and wondered what became of her. If she, too, might be driven mad by being a pawn in someone else's game. "Do you believe such a thing?" Her words were so soft, they might have been missed. But Tycho Brahe was good at seeing things that were not visible to others.

He nodded gravely. "Indeed, my lady."

She met the gaze of this man who'd rewritten the stars. "So do I," she breathed.

—

The voyage back to England was uneventful. There, the oppressive summer was cooling to autumn, and a letter from the Countess was waiting for her. She wrote of a stray cat that had claimed their Amsterdam home as its own. When read it, she could hear the Countess's voice telling the story, and she scanned it over and over until she had the words memorized.

Two days after their arrival, the Baron went to see the Queen. When he returned, he summoned , telling her to dress for travel and to report to his study. She hesitated at the threshold of the room, her gaze falling on the chessboard in the middle of an unfinished game. Oberon, the former faerie king, was two moves from checkmate.

The Baron stood with his back to her, hands clasped behind his doublet. "There is a matter to discuss, ," he said. "It would not be right, you understand, for you to stay here."

"Yes, my lord," she agreed. She knew that the Baron's wife would be having their baby soon. They would leave soon for Grimsthorpe, naturally.

"It would not be right for you to stay with me, " he clarified. "You are no longer a child. My sister was married at your age, after all. You were a credit to Her Majesty in Denmark. The Countess versed you well in conversational skills and languages." His gaze slid away.

stilled. Was she to be wed, then?

Her head swam. Who was her suitor to be? Would he be handsome? Kind? Wealthy? Had they crossed paths during a masque at court, or in this very house?

The Baron cleared his throat, his face fiery. "You have but one talent left to master," he said. "And then I have no doubt that you will bring great happiness to a man."

's stomach churned as he led her to the waiting coach. She was too afraid to ask the Baron anything about her intended, lest he find her ungrateful. She had no dowry, which meant that maybe the Countess or the Baron himself had settled a small portion upon her.

The coach rattled over the cobblestones for some distance before she rallied the courage to speak. "My lord," she said softly. "In case I forget to say it later…many thanks."

Before he could respond, the coach swayed to a stop. The Baron stepped out and handed down , who stood on the muddy road, puzzled. They were in St. Helen's Bishopsgate, a part of London filled with affluent foreigners.

followed the Baron toward one narrow building. He rapped three times, and a servant opened the door. Gentry then, at least, thought . "My lord," the maid said as she bobbed, stepping aside to let them enter.

"Ah, tesoro, perhaps I should not let you in, and torture you with my absence as you've tortured me." The voice, flecked with an Italian accent, belonged to the woman who was gliding down the stairs toward them. She must have been sleeping, although it was midday. She was wrapped in a silk robe without even a shift below it. She wore a triple strand of pearls with a ruby clasp in the shape of a flower. She had the largest breasts had ever seen, and fingernails like talons.

If that wasn't shocking enough, the Baron let her mold herself against him and press her mouth to his.

A small huff of breath escaped . It was not a surprise that he had a mistress; most men at court did. But she had never really thought about who those mistresses were, where they lived, what they did when they were not entertaining the gentlemen who supported them.

The woman unraveled herself from the Baron and stood in front of . Her lips were rouged; kohl angled from the corners of her eyes. She was monstrous and fearsome and so beautiful that could not turn away. "So," she said. "This is the one?"

"," the Baron said. "This is Isabella. You will stay with her while she tutors you for the next few months. I trust you'll listen well to her instruction."

With a curt nod, he left. could hear the coach pulling away, a thunderstorm of hooves.

"Hmm," Isabella said, walking in a slow circle around . She felt like a fly being wound in the silk of a spider. "What am I to do with you."

It wasn't a question, not really, but pretended it was. "I am to be married," she said, hoping that if she spoke it, it would be true.

Isabella's wide red mouth opened like a wound, and a laugh spilled out of her. "Married," she repeated. "To whom?"

's imagination had always been both a blessing and a curse, and she suddenly could see herself in a robe like the one Isabella wore, her feet bare, her mouth painted. Never married, no.

Suddenly she thought she might be sick on the thick carpet that the Baron had surely bought. Murmuring excuses that made no sense, turned and raced out of the house, mud splattering on her hem as she ran through the streets. She made her way to Mark Lane, tears streaking her face. By the time she banged on the door of her cousin's home, it was so dark that vagrants were becoming shadows, and shadows were becoming nightmares.

The door opened only a slice, and then it was wrenched wide. "!" Alma cried, alarmed at her ravaged face.

"He is selling me," burst out.

"Now," Alma said evenly. "What is all this?"

"The Baron," said, sobbing. "He expects me to be someone's whore." On the table were the Sabbath candles, already lit, but all she could see was herself diligently studying with her Latin tutor to master Ovid, and the Countess carefully teaching her to navigate the maze of social politics at court. What was the point, if she were always going to wind up on her back with her knees spread?

When she lifted her gaze, Jeronimo was standing in front of her, but he would not meet her eye. Two spots of color burned on his cheeks. "He will treat you well, piccolina, " her cousin said, and at that moment realized that it had not been the Baron who had brokered her future.

It had been her own cousin.

" You, " she seethed. "You chose this for me?"

" Chose? " Jeronimo scoffed. "As if there are options! You are not one of us any longer, . Look at you, in your finery. It's a wonder you weren't robbed blind on your way here. But you are also not one of them, and you never will be." He sighed.

's cousin was more than a head taller than she was, but she lifted her chin and stared at him. "What did you get in return?" she demanded.

" —"

"What," she repeated, "did you get?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "The Bassanos will remain the court musicians. And Hunsdon will allow us to bring over a dozen more relatives from Italy to join us."

Hunsdon. A name. filed this away.

She had been sold by her family, for her family.

She felt brittle and empty, as if a gust of wind might scatter her. With a nod, she turned and wrenched open the door of her cousin's home.

She stepped into the night, drew the stars around her like a cloak, and grew up in the space of a heartbeat.

—

It was hours before made her way back to the house of the Baron's courtesan. It was a marvel she wasn't assaulted or knifed or robbed, although in her state of mind she would have welcomed it. But that was not her fate this night, and Isabella herself greeted her at the door, holding a goblet of wine.

Without saying a word, Isabella fell back, inviting to enter. stepped onto the thick carpeting in the hallway, giving no consideration to the mud on her slippers. Her head throbbed; she felt raw and flayed.

Isabella took her hand and led her up the staircase, following like a lamb on a lead. She sank onto a peach velvet settee indicated by Isabella. The woman crossed to a table near the tremendous bed and poured a second glass of wine from a decanter. "Drink," she ordered.

She sank to the floor in front of in a rustle of silk and took a long sip from her own goblet. "French," she said, lifting it in a toast. "And very expensive. You see, it is not all bad."

"Do you love him?" blurted out.

The question surprised Isabella. "Does it matter?" she asked. "Anything that signifies in this world is a business transaction. Including my relationship with the Baron. And, for the record, his marriage to his wife." She leaned forward, conspiratorial. "There is a difference, , between being kept—like me—and being owned—like a wife. That difference is freedom. I do what I want and I go where I want, as long as I make myself available otherwise."

The world began to spin. hadn't eaten today, she had gulped this wine, and none of the words Isabella was saying were right…yet they made sense.

Isabella stood and plucked the goblet from 's hand. "Come," she said. Then she gently tugged 's wrist until she, too, was upright. They walked toward a mirror, a large rectangle of polished glass that was set by the bed. watched her reflection as Isabella stepped behind her, putting her hands on 's shoulders. "You've been to a masque, yes?" nodded. "Then you know what it is to play at being someone you are not. We are all actors, cara. There is only one caveat to accepting this role," Isabella said. "Be sure you make yourself worth keeping. And for that, you must learn how to use your body as a tool. A weapon."

stood motionless as Isabella pulled off her sleeves, untied the laces of her bodies, tugged it over her head, slid her skirts to a froth on the floor. She stood in her shift, Isabella's hand on the small of her back.

"What do you see?" Isabella asked.

cataloged what was before her. A question mark of posture. Legs knobby as a colt's.

But, too, there were now curves at her waist, her hips. Small, high blooms of breasts, her nipples beading under the linen as she stared.

Thick black hair, and skin that wasn't unfashionably dark, but only brushed in shadow.

A head that held a library's worth of knowledge.

A mouth made to keep secrets.

Like Queen Sophie had said: saw power.

Isabella's hands began to knead 's shoulders, relaxing the knots, accustoming her to the touch of another's hand. "I will teach you how to give a man pleasure," she said.

In the mirror, watched a flush climb from her chest to her neck to her face. "Are women not given pleasure, too?"

Isabella's eyes sparked. "Women are given nothing," she said flatly. "You must learn how to take what you want."

She stepped to the side so that could see Isabella's image in the mirror, too. Reaching between the shadows of her robe, Isabella slipped her fingers between her own thighs. She met 's gaze. "We know what we are," Isabella said. "But we know not what we may be."

had always been an excellent student. She lowered her hand to her own dark triangle, visible through her thin shift. She pressed down, and gasped.

Isabella smiled in the reflection of the mirror. " Allora, " she said. "Let's begin."