Queen of Ambition by Buckley Fiona

Author:Buckley, Fiona [Buckley, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC035000
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2010-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

14

A Time for Tears

I wanted to rush out of the shop and go to Dale then and there. But when Ambrosia and I went downstairs again, after Woodforde had gone, we found a surge of business. The queen’s entourage was arriving in force by now, and some of the less exalted ones, the grooms and wagoners, the laundresses and scullions, were roaming around Cambridge in search of cheap suppers. The shop was full, and Jester in his most chivying mood.

Since I really did want another look at those drawings, I needed to keep my character as an employee and as such, I had no more chance of getting out of the shop that evening (or of getting up to the attic either) than of growing wings and flying to the moon. At the end of the day, when at last we all went wearily to bed, I found that Ambrosia was still worrying about her mother. “What if you can’t get another message to her and can’t get the playlet stopped either?”

“I will get word to her, whatever happens. There’s still time. Leave it to me and don’t worry.”

But she did worry, to the point of lying sleepless. I knew this because I was seething with such impatience that I was sleepless too. I tried to calm myself, because a dull ache had started above my left eye and I was afraid of developing a sick headache. In the event, the ache eventually faded, but sleep I could not and as I lay there, I now and then turned my head and saw Ambrosia’s open eyes gleaming in the dark. Once or twice I thought that she was crying.

Toward morning I dozed but was wakened early by Ambrosia, who was getting up. She was too restless to stay abed, she said when I heard a distant watchman proclaiming that it was four of the clock and all was well, and protested. In the dawn light, I saw that she looked exhausted and from her reddened eyelids, I knew that I was right; she had wept in the night. When we were alone for a moment because Phoebe, who had also woken up, had carried our chamber pots out, she said to me: “You promised.”

“I know. I’ll see to it. I’ll go as soon as I can.”

I felt dreadfully weary as I went downstairs with Phoebe, and at first, I could not think how to get away. I would have to ask Ambrosia to invent an errand for me, I thought, at some moment when her father wasn’t within hearing. However, Ambrosia, who had gone down ahead of me, had eaten quickly and gone straight out to the yard to save Wat a task by helping her father kill fowl, so that I couldn’t speak to her at once.

Instead, however, I ate my breakfast comfortably at the table, along with Phoebe and Wat. Some rolls and drippings and a good drink of small ale, taken for once in peace and in company that didn’t include Roland Jester, had the effect of clearing my mind as if by magic.

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