Free Six of One by JoAnn Spears Page A

guard.
    “Kat,” I asked, “why so worried? You look as if you’re waiting for the ax to fall.”
    Before the words were fairly out of my mouth, Kat had set up a racket, knocking on the wooden bedpost to ward off any evil omens. I would have to learn to choose my words more carefully in a place that was as execution-aware as this one was.
    I immediately offered my apologies to Kat. “It was needless of me to be so heedless just now. I can see that you ladies really hate to tempt fate, so I will try to be more careful.” I doubt if Kat heard me over the din at the bedpost.
    “The summons for me to leave does not worry me, Dolly. It just tells me that I need to hurry. Our time together is almost over, and I have a question to ask you before we part. Tell me please: how does posterity judge my poppet? I know what the poets and the sycophants said about her while she lived, but I want to know what the wise and weighty have said of her down through the ages. I ask you because you are a scholar yourself. So was my poppet—and so, in my time, was I. Tell me, please—and the truth , mind you, be it good or bad.”
    What was I supposed to say about the great Gloriana, Elizabeth I, to the person who taught her to make her heart a moving target? Me being dressed en dishabille and compressed on timeframe, it was not easy to compose a scholarly answer on the spot. Still, I imagined myself wearing my doctoral robe and some panties and delivered my answer.
    “Kat, your teaching on heart management produced one of the world’s great white-knuckle diplomats. She has never been anything less than a legend. History has speculated endlessly about the statecraft behind the naval victories, the Machiavellian foreign policy, the exploration of new lands, the endless flirtations of the Virgin Queen. Who knew that it was all so simple, that she was just doing—by heart—what you had taught her all along?”
    “Then she was ever the same,” said Kat. Sniffling but smiling, she wiped a tear from her eye with the corner of her apron. She was right about us being short on time. My royal friends Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort entered the room just then, looking none too happy.
    “Kat, get going!” said Margaret Beaufort sternly. “You have been here much longer than is necessary. I hope you weren’t trying to question one of our guests for your own ends— again . You know it is forbidden! Dolly,” said Margaret, turning to me, “has Kat been holding conversation with you, anything beyond a humble ‘good evening’ and a respectful ‘may I help you’?”
    Kat, giving me a conspiratorial wink, busied herself clearing away the refreshment tray.
    Even though mother had always advised against it, I told a lie. “Kat has been a model of deportment,” I replied.
    “That’s as is should be,” Margaret said. “Our guests are not here to vindicate us for what we did in life. They are here to give us a chance to relieve a curse and a burden. We have failed, so many times, in obtaining that relief. Maybe, Dolly, you will be the one who helps us to attain it. If not, we will simply prepare to entertain yet another guest. We have gotten quite adept at making the arrangements, because we have had so many guests here over the years.”
    “Your ensemble’s performance so far proves that you really are very good at what you do. The woman who played Kat was marvelous, so engaging and natural—in what little she said, that is. She was a model of circumspection as well as deportment.” I returned Kat’s wink with the compliment.
    “Circumspection, indeed! Such a great big word from such a little lady,” muttered Kat, bowing out of the room with the remains of our repast. In a whispered aside to me as she left, she added, “My poppet had an excellent vocabulary, too. I saw to it personally!”
    “The woman who played Kat is a pip, a real rip. What a trip!” I said to Margaret and Elizabeth when Kat was safely out of the room.