to Court when you come hither this sennight, and Kit and I shall play and sing with thee. You sing, mistress?’
‘Again, a little.’ Then, daringly, because he had ordered her to call him George, which must mean friend, ‘And you, sir—’ for ‘sir’ seemed a fair compromise ‘—do you also play?’
‘George, I said, mistress, and yes, I play the fiddle, and, like thyself—’ he mocked at her with his voice again ‘—I sing a little. Kit shall write us a new song, or find us an old one—he hath a talent for discovering them—and we shall sing in concert and the great and simple shall be astonished by our talent, and Tom Killigrew will hire us to play in his theatre.’ He pointed to a tall, fair man, of middle years, who sat listening to Kit, face rapt.
Kit finished his last song and refused, smiling, to sing any more. ‘You will have a disgust for me if I sing too much. Let me leave and you will be happier to hear me again.’
Buckingham called him over as he finished speaking. ‘I have discovered that thy astrological mistress hath a talent for music, Kit, and I have persuaded her to share it with us.’ Which made Celia indignant for, sure, she had said no such thing and besides, she was not Sir Christopher’s mistress. The Duke presumed too much, but then she supposed that he always did and, being great, none could say him nay.
She said so to Kit when he meekly obeyed Buckingham and walked her into the garden—and why should he do that? He was his own man, was he not? she thought, but that meant that he truly wished to walk with her, which made her happy.
Her father was happy, too, watching his daughter patronised by the great ones of the world and walking with one of the King’s favourites—for it was plain by the King’s manner that Kit was, and Buckingham favoured him as well. There were no clouds in his sky today, which was perhaps fortunate, since they might come later.
Kit led Celia down a gravel walk to a sundial which stood in the middle of the lawn like the one which she had seen in the Privy Garden. She read what was written about the rim: ‘I tell only the sunny hours.’
‘There are many sunny hours in this year,’ she observed slowly, ‘at least in such gardens as these. It is not perhaps so pleasant in St Giles in the Fields where the plague walks.’
‘An ill thing to think on a fair day,’ was Kit’s only answer looking at her troubled, downcast face. ‘I would have expected that such success as thou hast achieved today would have cast out gloomy thoughts.’
‘I am a little like the old Romans,’ replied Celia, her voice low, ‘who, at the moment of their greatest triumphs, liked to be reminded of their mortality. Too much pride at today’s work might gain me a reward I would not care for.’
Kit shivered at her answer and thought painfully of the true reason why the King had favoured her—that he was placing her in a position where Kit might—or might not—win his bet. In truth, her seemingly easy success owed little to her own merit, or to her father’s, and he thought that she was clever enough to guess that—although the old man would not. He had too great an appreciation of his own worth and thought it was that for which he had been honoured, and not his daughter’s chastity, which was to be held up for auction as it were.
Something told Kit that, while Celia might not guess at the truth, she knew that something lay behind the Antiquises’ effortless success. For one mad moment he thought to tell her of the bet, and then hand George the ring as the price of his calling it off. He opened his mouth to speak, but was forestalled. Unknown to them both, as they stood admiring the sundial, the beauty who had spoken to Kit as Celia and her father arrived was on them. Behind her was a small train of pretty young women who seemed to be her acolytes.
‘So, Kit, there you are, with today’s new toy, no less.’ Her beautiful, insolent eyes were hard on Celia, disparaging her plain dress, her neatly coiffed hair, her whole modest carriage. ‘So, Mistress Celia, the astrologer’s daughter, you have carried all before you this afternoon? The King and the Queen’s grace, no less. And shall Kit write you a song to celebrate your success? What kind of song will he write, I wonder?’ She said this after so meaningful a fashion that Celia, innocent though she was, was suddenly aware that the lady’s words carried a double meaning.
‘And doubtless, mistress, since you are new to Court, you will be asking yourself who addresses you so freely? Sir Christopher Carlyon, my erstwhile courtier—for I see that you have acquired a new mistress—pray introduce Mistress Celia to me and enlighten her as to who makes so free with her. And you.’ Standing on tiptoes, she stretched herself languorously and placed her mouth on Kit’s, to the accompaniment of screeches from the ladies who attended her.
Kit endured the kiss and made no attempt to respond to it, only saying coldly when, pouting, she took her mouth from his, ‘My Lady Castlemaine, this is, as you already know, Mistress Celia Antiquis, now the Queen’s own astrologer. I present her to you in the hope that if she needs protection you will protect her.’ His eyes dared the lady to say otherwise.
Celia curtsied, her eyes enormous. This beauty, to whom Kit spoke so cavalierly, was Barbara Palmer, wife of Lord Castlemaine. She had been the beautiful Barbara Villiers and the King’s first mistress when he came to England, and still held him, and many others, in her toils—for her amours outside her marriage to Castlemaine and her affair with the King were notorious. Had she been Kit’s mistress, too, as Celia now realised that she had been hinting?
Well, what was that to her? Sir Kit was beyond her reach and she would never be his doxy—no, never. Neither his nor any other man’s. Even here in Charles’s dissolute court she would preserve herself, whatever the cost. She would be no man’s light of love and, when she straightened up after her curtsy, that message was written plain on her face for both man and woman before her to see.
‘Oho,’ sighed Barbara Palmer plaintively. ‘What have we here? The lady is consecrated to the moon, I think.’ And she paused for Celia to say, astonished at her own daring,
‘My sign is the moon, lady, which is clever of you to guess, and so I serve the moon. Diana is my mistress, and my mentor. She caused her hounds to gore Actaeon when he dared to dishonour her and I pray God that I, too, will so be able to treat any who might dare to dishonour her.’
For a moment she thought that she had gone too far. Barbara Palmer looked thunder, but then her face cleared, and she began to laugh.
‘By the sun, who is my master, I honour thee, Mistress Celia, and I hope that all the gallants of the court will avoid bringing thee into a dispute with them, for sure I could not tell who might win. Begin with friend Kit, here, for he will be the fiercest to rebuff, and if you can hold him off then you may dismiss anyone.’
‘You honour me overmuch,’ said Kit shortly. He was not happy that Barbara Palmer should so name him whoremaster.
Celia looked from him to the lady, not certain whether her description of Kit was correct. She had not thought him to be a pursuer of women; he had seemed so different from the Duke and others.
Her brow cleared. The lady was jealous. Not only because of Kit; common sense told her that Barbara would not look too kindly on any whom the King might favour. She would remember what the lady had said, but would not judge any man because of it.
After that, Barbara Palmer spoke of this and that to Kit and to Celia. Celia could not remember afterwards what she had said, only that it was light and jeering, that she was half warning Celia and half derisive in the warning. At length she dismissed them both, almost regally, to Celia’s amusement. The King’s whore thought that she was half a Queen, was her unkind and shrewd judgement
