The Twylight Tower by Karen Harper Page B

London,” which everyone was soon singing:
    A friar was walking in Exeter-street

Dressed up in his garb like a gentleman neat;

He there with a wanton young lady did meet

And freely did offer and earnestly proffer

To give her a bottle of wine.

His glittering guinnies soon dazzle’d her eyes,

That privately straight she began to devise

By what means she might get his rich golden prize;

Two is a trifle, his purse I will rifle;

I hope to have all now or none.
    “Will you take a guinny or two to come play with my musicians at Richmond and elsewhere?” the queen asked the flushed lad, a genius of his craft, she was sure now. She intended to surround herself with such brilliance in all arts during the years of her reign: in music with this boy; in science with men like Dr. Dee; in theater with actors like Ned Topside and his ilk.
    “ ’Tis my life’s dream,” Franklin Dove said, interrupting her thoughts. “Someday will I go to London too?”
    “If I can keep you from falling into the clutches of some lecherous friar on Exeter Street,” the queen said with a laugh and a sharp look at Bishop de Quadra.
    Everyone—even Cecil and de Quadra—laughed while Franklin turned teary-eyed with joy.
    “I SHALL MISS YOU SORELY, ROBIN,” ELIZABETH TOLD HIM two days later as he took his leave to head forty-five miles to Cumnor in Oxfordshire to see his wife. “Late last night, I regretted I did not have my imp of an artist sketch your face so I at least have that with me. You know I need you here in many ways, my eyes.”
    “Give the command, and I’ll never leave you,” hevowed, stepping closer in the courtyard, where his saddled horse and those of his two companions blocked other courtiers and gawkers from seeing them. His boot toes touched her slippers, shoving her voluminous skirts behind her.
    “No, it is right that you should go,” she insisted, though she was tempted to try to keep him here again. “You must give Amy my best hopes for speedy recovery from her bodily ailment. If you find her more ill than you surmise, I shall send a physician.”
    “But not Dr. Dee,” Robin said with a little smile as he pressed Elizabeth’s clasped hands to his leather-clad chest. “Amy’s not much for learning or the learned.”
    “What is she for then?” Elizabeth asked, though they seldom talked of Amy, almost as if she didn’t really exist.
    “Baubles, trinkets, gifts, pretty tunes.”
    “She’s not getting my new Dove of the lute.”
    “And,” he added, almost as if he hadn’t heard her, “quiet, rural charms with no complications.”
    “Mm. No wonder she abhors court life. And if she yearns for your face—to see your eyes—as much as I, I pity her indeed.”
    “I believe, my beloved queen, that is the sweetest thing yet you have said to me. You haven’t let me kiss you half enough, but—”
    He didn’t get the words out before she leaned close and kissed him quickly, almost pertly. “Be off now, Robin, and safe journey.”
    He held her wrists tighter as she tried to step away. “Your lips were so lovely, but unexpected, my queen.Let me kiss you back when I know what bounty will befall me, and you’ll see.…”
    “Go, you braggart, for I have another now to keep me company.”
    “If you mean anyone but that beardless boy, I’ll run the blackguard through!”
    She laughed at his bravado, however much it thrilled her. “Besides the horses, that’s the other reason I keep you about, my lord,” she told him, and stepped away so he could mount. “I need an overly passionate swordsman to counterbalance my overly rational scrivener Cecil.”
    AFTER ROBIN RODE AWAY ELIZABETH DRIFTED DREAMILY into her bedchamber, feeling suddenly aimless. Writs awaited her signature, and she could call a Privy Council meeting to tend to swelling business, but she needed Robin there to—as she said—keep a leash on Cecil’s urging this and that. Three days. Three days without Robin. And he would be with Amy and