Free Six of One by JoAnn Spears

draft of ale is your reward for your forwardness. I shall be forward, too, and request the honor of sharing in your beverage.”
    I nodded my un-milky face in agreement, and my hostess placed the salver on a table and poured the liquid from the pitcher into the glasses. The yeasty smells from the ale and the gingerbread were heady, making me feel relaxed and at ease. We settled down, this cheery woman and I, into the matching caquetoire chairs on either side of the table. For un-upholstered chairs, they were surprisingly inviting and comfortable. The seats were wide, which was especially fortuitous for my amply upholstered companion. The arms of the chairs were exaggeratedly bowed, as if to embrace the sitter. I liked the idea of enjoying a hug, a cookie, and a yummy drink in my nightgown. Throw a boon companion into the mix, and you know there will be female bonding in the immediate future.
    I raised my glass to my hostess, and she responded in kind. “Well met!” she said. “Very well met, indeed!” My new friend was rocking in her chair a bit and chuckling; she was really cracking herself up. I wondered if she had had a nip of that ale back in the kitchen. “What tickles you so?” I asked her.
    “It occurs to me that tomorrow, when you’re in bed with your new husband, if he doesn’t disappoint you when the candles go out, maybe it’s you who will say ‘Well met!’”
    I could not help but laugh with her. A good companionable laugh did not seem to be out of place, as it would have with Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York. This woman was clearly not of the rank of my earlier companions. Judging by her simple gown and linen cap, she portrayed an attendant of some kind. An attendant of the usual kind wouldn’t belly up to the bar with a guest, though. Perhaps she was supposed to be an especially privileged servant or was just a little drunk. Or perhaps, I thought, both were true. I wondered if maybe she was just not as authentic a performer as the last two of my hostesses. Authentic or not, she definitely approved of me.
    “You laugh easily, Dolly, and that means you have a light heart. I like a woman with a light heart! I also like a woman who does justice to her cakes and ale!”
    I think the ale must have gone to my head a bit, because I started talking in the same vein as my newest drinking buddy.
    “Would you have me be lighthearted and stouthearted at once?” I asked her. “What will my new husband think? He will not know where to look for my heart: down on the earth or up in the air. How can his heart tell mine ‘well met’ if he doesn’t even know whether to look high or low for it?”
    “The right man will know where to find your heart without looking, Dolly!” answered my companion, looking me dead in the eye. “I want you to have a stout heart for what you give to life, and a light heart for what you receive from it. Lighthearted only, you have no worth. Stouthearted only, you have no joy. You must have both to do life justice. That’s what I taught my poppet!”
    “Your poppet is your daughter, I take it,” I replied. “I want to hear more about her in a minute. First, though, tell me something about yourself. Your name, for one thing; I don’t even know what to call you.”
    “You may call me Kat, as my poppet does. She is not my daughter, but she is as precious to me as if she were. She was my charge,” said the woman proudly, pulling herself to her full height. “The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII.”
    Thus I learned that my newfound friend was Kat Ashley née Champernowne, the governess of Queen Elizabeth I. And why not? After my Avalonian revel with the Queen of Hearts, a conversation with the Tudor Mary Poppins seemed perfectly supercalifragilistic-expialidocious. I was not to have the chance to get too comfortable with it, though. All in a moment, Kat’s demeanor suddenly changed. Someone was calling her name in the distance, and it put her on her