Queen's Own Fool by Jane Yolen Page A

had been bathed in the four Maries’ tub and was wearing one of their velvet dresses, I was sent to the servants’ quarters. There I shared a cramped bunk with two other girls. Still it was the softest bed I had ever had. Far softer than the roadsides and hard pallets that had been my lot the past year.
    The two girls with whom I shared the chamber kept their distance. I tried to speak to them, even asked them questions about the court. But they looked at me as though I were carrying the plague and turned their faces to the wall, falling asleep without a word.
    I did not sleep well. Both of them snored.
    In the morning I ate breakfast in the kitchen among the servants, many of whom were already hurrying about their duties. I filled myself to the bursting point in case I got no more food that day. But the others paused only briefly for a snatch of bread or a swallow of water. Their gossip was full of names I did not recognize, duties I did not understand. And all of them seemed wary of talking to me.
    I could only guess that, as the queen’s own fool, I was neither one of them nor one of their masters. Yet I had no idea what I was to do or where I was to go. Or how I could once again talk to the queen.
    When I could not eat a morsel more, and it was clear I had no other reason to remain in the kitchen, a potboy pointed to the back stairs.
    â€œYou be wanted there,” he said.
    I climbed slowly, still marveling at the fairy tale my life had become. Who needed friends or duties, surrounded by such luxury?
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    On the second floor, I heard again the harsh jangle of the Scottish tongue and found my way to the room of the four Maries. They barely looked up from their embroideries to greet me, though Pious Mary eventually arose and came over.
    â€œThat hair!” she said, making a tsking sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, as Maman used to do when the cat got among the chickens.
    She was but slightly gentler than she had been the evening before, pulling the brush through my hair stroke after stroke till it crackled like summer lightning. Then she parted my hair in the center, twisted and tucked it into a fluted cap. When she showed me the results in a hand mirror, I did not recognize the girl who stared back at me.
    â€œThat will do, then,” Pious Mary said, taking the mirror away. “Any more is an invitation to the sin of pride.” As she finished speaking, the cathedral bells rang out a cheery invitation.
    â€œWhat am I to do?” I asked. “Where am I to go?”
    â€œWhy—to mass with us,” Pious Mary said. “Where else?”
    â€œWith the whole court,” Jolly Mary added.
    â€œAnd the queen?” I asked.
    â€œForemost the queen,” said Pretty Mary, standing. She had a small book in her hand.
    â€œAfter the king, of course.” Regal Mary’s voice was stern. “Always after the king.”

    We went down to the cathedral where the young king had been crowned only the day before. But now, instead of watching cold and weary from a grey street while nobles hurried by, I was to be a part of the court’s own worship service. I pinched the skin of my arm, thinking I was dreaming, but I did not wake.
    The four Maries sat on special benches up in the front of the cathedral, only slightly behind the royal family. I was well in back, though not as far back as the kitchen staff. Squeezed in between a girl with crooked teeth named Eloise, who was a handmaid to the Maries, and a rather fat maid-in-waiting who had obviously never waited for a meal, we were on the same bench as the dwarf La Folle, who snored on and off through the entire mass.
    Up in the pulpit, the cardinal in his brilliant crimson robes preached a long sermon about heretics. He called them traitors to both God and the king and said they should be burned at the stake. “The smell being an incense to the Lord,” he roared.
    Burned! I shivered with the thought of