Queen Without a Crown by Fiona Buckley Read Free Book Online

Hoxton was not just a Clerk Comptroller, which was in her eyes a very exalted being; he was also a man with a reputation. The word among the maidservants was that he couldn’t keep his hands to himself and that if he had a real fancy for a girl, she’d better say yes or she might find herself mysteriously out of a job. His only merit, according to the other women, was that he never got anyone into trouble.
    In fact, she found the way easily, though she was puzzled by some curious thuds and bangs from behind the door which she thought must be Hoxton’s. The kitchen hand who had directed her had said that there was a tapestry of a hunting scene on the opposite wall, and that seemed to be right. The noises were growing louder. What on earth could Master Hoxton be doing? Doubtfully, she went to knock.
    Before she could do so, however, the door was flung open and Hoxton burst out of it. Madge recognized him, but only just, since he was completely naked, and with his face flushed to crimson and his eyes so huge and dark, he looked wild enough to belong in a menagerie.
    Madge shrieked and recoiled, appalled by the blatancy of him: the dark fur on his chest and arms; the unconcealed privates; the spittle in his fringe of black beard. He stopped short and stared back at her with those enormous eyes.
    ‘Don’t go in there. The ceiling’s coming down! It’ll squash you flat!’ he shouted. He then plunged past her, seized the wall hanging in two very hairy hands, made a noise like an animal snarling, and ripped it off the wall, rending the fabric and splintering the panels as the nails which had held the tapestry in place were torn out. The hanging fell in a heap on to the floor, whereupon he snatched it up, threw it away along the corridor, and whirled round. Thinking he meant to attack her, Madge reeled back in fright, but his target this time was a wall sconce just above his door. He grabbed hold of it and tried to wrest it off the wall.
    The stout iron bracket withstood him, and with another snarl he rushed back into his room, knocking Madge impersonally aside and causing her to crash into the doorpost. Clutching at the post, gasping and petrified, she caught a glimpse of the room’s interior. And then, for several moments, gaped at it, as much in astonishment as fear.
    The ceiling looked perfectly normal, but it was the only thing that did. The place was strewn with items of clothing and also with the bed curtains, which looked as if, like the wall hanging, they had been dragged forcibly down, while the door of the clothes press hung drunkenly, half off its hinges.
    A chest settle had been overturned so that the spare coverlet and half a dozen candlesticks which had been stored inside were scattered across the floor as well. Hoxton himself was now tearing the legs off a stool, hurling each in turn across the room. Finally, flinging the mutilated stool away from him, he leapt at the rails which had held the bed curtains and began trying to wrench them loose.
    And then, abruptly, stopped short and was sick.
    Occasionally, even Madge’s healthy family ate things which didn’t agree with them, or overindulged in times of plenty. She knew about vomiting. Sufferers usually huddled over a basin and threw up miserably; they didn’t stand upright and spew in a hideous arc like the contents of a hurled bucket. At this ghastly spectacle, Madge screamed aloud and fled. She fell over the tumbled heap of tapestry, got up sobbing, and then just ran and ran.
    This time, she did lose her way in the unfamiliar upper regions of the castle, until one of the White Staves, the noble and godlike beings who oversaw the counting house and the organization of the royal household, found her wandering tearfully in an upstairs gallery, where no maid from any part of the kitchens had any business to be, and pounced on her.
    ‘You’re a wench from the Spicery. I know from the colour of your dress. What are you doing up here?’
    Madge, much alarmed