The Queen's Christmas Summons. Amanda McCabe

lovely green eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘It is a badge of honour from battle. You are fortunate to have a caring mother.’

      ‘Does your mother not have medicines for you when you’re ill?’ Alys asked, thinking of all her mother’s potions and creams that soothed fevers and pains, just as her own cool hands did when Alys was fretful.

      He looked away. ‘My mother died long ago.’

      ‘Oh! I am sorry,’ she cried, feeling such pain for him not to have a mother. ‘But have you a father? Siblings?’ She remembered the vile George’s taunt, of Huntley’s ‘drunken father’, and wished she had not said anything.

      ‘I seldom see my father. My godfather arranges for my education. No siblings. What of you, my lady?’

      ‘I have no siblings, either. I wish I did. It gets very quiet at home sometimes.’

      ‘Is that why you came to look at our game?’

      ‘Aye. It sounded very merry. I wondered what it was.’

      ‘Have you never played at football?’

      ‘I’ve never even heard of it. I have seen tennis, but few other ball games.’

      ‘It’s the most wonderful game! You start like this...’ He leaped up to demonstrate, running back and forth as he told her of scoring and penalties. He threw up his arms in imagined triumph as he explained how the game was won.

      Caught up in his enthusiasm, Alys clapped her hands and laughed. He gave her a bow.

      ‘How marvellous,’ she said. ‘I do wish I had someone at home to play such games with like that.’

      ‘What do you play at home, then?’ he asked. He tossed her the ball. She instinctively caught it and threw it back.

      ‘I read, mostly, and walk. I have a doll and I tell her things sometimes. There isn’t much I can do alone, I’m afraid.’

      ‘I quite understand. Before I went to school, I was often alone myself.’ His expression looked wistful, as if his thoughts were far away, and Alys found herself intensely curious about him, who he was and what he did.

      ‘Alys! What are you doing?’ she heard her father shout.

      She spun around and saw him hurrying towards her, frowning fearsomely. ‘Papa! I am sorry, I just...’

      ‘I fear your daughter took a bit of a fall here, my lord,’ her new friend said, stepping close to her side. She felt safer with him there. ‘I saw her, and I...’

      ‘And he came to help me, most gallantly,’ Alys said.

      Her father’s frown softened. ‘Did you indeed? Good lad. I owe you many thanks.’

      ‘Your daughter is a fine lady indeed, my lord,’ Huntley said. ‘I am glad to have met her today.’

      Her father softened even more and reached into his purse to offer the boy a coin. Huntley shook his head and her father said, ‘My thanks again. We bid you good day, lad, and good fortune to you.’ He swung Alys up into his arms and walked away from the grand palace.

      Alys glanced back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of her friend. He smiled at her and waved, and she waved back until he was out of sight. She thought surely she would never forget him, her new friend and gallant rescuer.

       Chapter One

      Dunboyton Castle, Galway, Ireland—1578

      ‘And this one, niña querida? What is this one? What does it do?’

      Lady Alys Drury, aged ten and a half and now expected to learn to run a household, leaned close to the tray her mother held out and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. Despite the icy wind that beat at the stout stone walls of Dunboyton, she could smell green sunshine from the dried herbs. Flowers and trees and clover, all the things she loved about summer.

      But not as much as she loved her mother and their days here in the stillroom, the long, narrow chamber hung with bundles of herbs and with bottles of oils and pots of balms lining the shelves. It was always warm there, always bright and full of wonderful smells. A sanctuary in the constant rush and noise of the castle corridors, which were the realm of her father and his men.

      Here in the stillroom, it was just Alys and her mother. For all her ten years, for as long as she could remember, this had been her favourite place. She could imagine nowhere finer.

      She inhaled again, pushing a loose lock of her brown hair back from her brow. She caught a hint of something else beneath the green—a bit of sweet wine, mayhap?

      ‘Querida?’ her mother urged.

      Alys opened her eyes and glanced up into her mother’s face. Elena Drury’s dark eyes crinkled at the edges as she smiled. She wore black and white, starkly tailored and elegant, as she often did, to remind her of the fashions of her Spanish homeland, but there was nothing dark or dour about her merry smile.

      ‘Is it—is it lemon balm, mi madre?’ Alys said.

      ‘Very good, Alys!’ her mother said, clapping her hands. ‘Sí, it is melissa officinalis. An excellent aid for melancholy, when the grey winter has gone on too long.’

      Alys giggled. ‘But it is always grey here, Madre!’ Every day seemed grey, not like the sunlit memories of her one day at a royal court. Sometimes she was sure that had all been a dream, especially the handsome boy she had seen that day. This was the only reality now.

      Her mother laughed, too, and carefully stirred the dried lemon balm into a boiling pot of water. ‘Only here in Galway. In some places, it is warm and sunny all the time.’

      ‘Such as where you were born?’ Alys had heard the tales many times, but she always longed to hear them again. The white walls of Granada, where her mother was born, the red-tiled roofs baking in the sun, the sound of guitar music and singing on the warm breeze.

      Elena smiled sadly. ‘Such as where I was born, in Granada. There is no place like it, querida.’

      Alys glanced out the narrow window of the stillroom. The rain had turned to icy sleet, which hit the old glass like the patter of needles as the wind howled out its mournful cries. ‘Why would your mother leave such a place?’

      ‘Because she loved my father and followed him to England when his work brought him here. It was her duty to be by his side.’

      ‘As it is yours to be with Father?’

      ‘Of course. A wife must always be a good helpmeet to her husband. It is her first duty in life.’

      ‘And because you love him.’ This was another tale she had heard often. The tale of how her father had seen her mother, the most beautiful woman in the world, at a banquet and would marry no other, even against the wishes of his family. Alys knew her parents had not regretted choosing each other; she had often caught them secretly kissing, seen them laughing together, their heads bent close.

      Her mother laughed and tucked Alys’s wayward lock of hair back into her little cap. ‘And that, too, though you are much too young to think of such things yet.’

      ‘Will I have a husband as kind as Father?’

      Her mother’s smile faded and she bent her head over the tea she stirred. Her veil fell forward to hide her expression. ‘There are few men like your father, I fear, and you are only ten. You needn’t think about it for so long. Marriages are made for many reasons—family security, wealth, land, even affection sometimes. But I promise, no matter who you marry, he will be a good man, a strong one. You will not be here in Ireland for ever.’

      Alys had heard such things so often. Ireland was not really their home; her father only did his duty here to the Queen for a time. One day they would have a real home, in England, and she would have a place at court. Perhaps she would even serve the