The Queen's Christmas Summons. Amanda McCabe

There had only been that one small glimpse of the royal court, the boys playing at football, and then it was gone.

      ‘Now, querida, what is this one?’ her mother asked as she held out a small bottle.

      Alys smelled a green sharpness, something like citrus beneath. ‘Marjoram!’

      ‘Exactly. To spice your father’s wine tonight and help with his stomach troubles.’

      ‘Is Father ill?’

      Elena’s smile flickered. ‘Not at all. Too many rich sauces with his meat, I have warned him over and over. Ah, well. Here, niña, I have something for you.’

      Alys jumped up on her stool, clapping her hands in delight. ‘A present, Madre?’

      ‘Sí, a rare one.’ She reached into one of her carved boxes, all of them darkened with age and infused with the scent of all the herbs they had held over the years. Her mother removed a tiny muslin-wrapped bundle. She laid it carefully on Alys’s trembling palm.

      Alys unwrapped it to find a few tiny, perfect curls of bright yellow candied lemon peels. The yellow was sun-brilliant, sprinkled with sugar like snowflakes. ‘Candied lemon!’

      Her favourite treat. It tasted just like the sunshine Alys always longed for. She couldn’t resist; she popped a piece on to her tongue and let it melt into sticky sweetness.

      Her mother laughed. ‘My darling daughter, always so impetuous! My brother could only send a few things from Spain this time.’ She gave a sigh as she poured off the new tisane of lemon balm. ‘The weather has kept so many of the ships away.’

      Alys glanced at the icy window again. It was true, there had been few ships in port of late. Usually they saw many arrivals from Spain and the Low Countries, bringing rare luxuries and even rarer news of home to her mother.

      There was the sudden heavy tread of boots up the winding stairs to the stillroom. The door opened and Alys’s father, Sir William Drury, stood there. He was a tall man, broad of shoulder, with light brown hair trimmed short in the new fashion and a short beard. But of late, there were more flecks of grey in his beard than usual, more of a stoop to his shoulders. Alys remembered what her mother had said about his stomach troubles.

      But he always smiled when he saw them, as he did now, a wide, bright grin.

      ‘Father!’ Alys cried happily and jumped up to run to him. He hugged her close, as he always did, but she sensed that he was somehow distant from her, distracted.

      Alys drew back and peered up at him. She had to look far, for he was so very much taller than she. He did smile, but his eyes looked sad. He held something in his hand, half-hidden behind his back.

      ‘William,’ she heard her mother say. There was a soft rustle of silk, the touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. ‘The letter...’

      ‘Aye, Elena,’ he answered, his voice tired. ‘’Tis from London.’

      ‘Alys,’ her mother said gently. ‘Why don’t you go to the kitchen and see if our dinner will soon be ready? Give this to the cooks for the stew.’

      She pressed a sachet of dried parsley and rosemary into Alys’s hand and gently urged her through the door.

      Bewildered, Alys glanced back before the door could close behind her. Her father went to the window, staring out at the rain beyond with his back to her, his hand clasped before him. Her mother went to him, leaning against his shoulder. Alys dared to hold the door open a mere inch, lingering so she could find out what was happening. Otherwise they would never tell her at all.

      ‘There is still no place for you at court?’ Alys heard her mother say. Elena’s voice was still soft, kind, but it sounded as if she might start to cry.

      ‘Nay, not yet, or so my uncle writes. I am needed here for a time longer, considering the uprisings have just been put down. Here! In this godforsaken place where I can do nothing!’ His fist came down on the table with a sudden crash, rattling the bottles.

      ‘Because of me,’ her mother whispered. ‘Madre de Dios, but if not for me, for us, you would have your rightful place.’

      ‘Elena, you and Alys are everything to me. You would be a grace to the royal court, to anywhere you chose to be. They are fools they cannot see that.’

      ‘Because I am a Lorca-Ramirez. I should not have married you, mi corazón. I have brought you nothing. If you had a proper English wife—if I was gone...’

      ‘Nay, Elena, you must never say that. You are all to me. I would rather be here at the end of the world with you and Alys than be a king in a London palace.’

      Alys peeked carefully through the crack in the door and watched as her father took her mother tightly into his arms as she sobbed on his shoulder. Her father’s expression when he thought his wife could not see was fierce, furious.

      Alys tiptoed down the stillroom stairs, careful to make no sound. She felt somehow cold and fearful. Her father was almost never angry, yet there was something about that moment, the look on his face, the sadness that hung so heavy about her mother, that made her want to run away.

      Yet she also wanted to run to her parents, to wrap her arms around them and banish anything that would dare hurt them.

      She made her way to the bustling kitchen to leave the herbs with the cook, hurrying around the soldiers who cleaned their swords by the fire, the maids who scurried around with pots and bowls. London. It was there that lurked whatever had angered her father. She knew where London was, of course, far away over the sea in England. It was home, or so her father sometimes said, but she couldn’t quite fathom it.

      When he showed her drawings of London, pointing out churches and bridges and palaces, she was amazed by the thought of so many people in such grand dwellings. The largest place she knew was Galway City. When she went to market there with her mother, Father said London was like twenty Galways.

      London was also where Queen Elizabeth lived. The Queen, who was so grand and glittering and beautiful, who held all of England safe in her jewelled hand. Was it the Queen who angered him now? Who slighted her mother?

      Her fists clenched in anger at the thought of it as Alys stomped across the kitchen. How dared the Queen, how dared anyone, do such a thing to her parents? It was not fair. She didn’t care where she lived, whether Galway or London, but she did care if her father was denied his true place.

      ‘How now, Lady Alys, and what has you in such a temper?’ one of the cooks called out. ‘Have the fairies stolen away your sugar and left salt instead?’

      Alys had to laugh at the teasing. ‘Nay, I merely came to give you some of my mother’s herbs. ʼTis the cold day has me in a mood, I think.’

      ‘It’s never cold down here with all these fires. Here, I need a spot of mint from the garden and I think a hardy bunch still has some green near the wall. Will you fetch it for me? Some fresh air might do you some good, my lady.’

      Alys nodded, glad of an errand, and quickly found her cloak before she slipped out into the walled kitchen garden.

      The wind was chilly as she made her way to the covered herb beds at the back of the garden, but she didn’t care. It brought with it the salt tang of the sea and whenever she felt sad or confused the sea would calm her again.

      She climbed up to the top of the stone wall and perched there for a glimpse of the sea. The outbuildings of the castle, the dairy and butcher’s shop and stables, blocked most of the view of the cliffs, but she could see a sliver of the grey waves beyond.

      That sea could take her to London, she thought, and she would fix whatever there had hurt her family. She would tell the Queen all about it herself. And maybe, just maybe, she would see that handsome boy again...

      ‘Alys! You will catch the ague out here,’ she heard her father shout.

      She glanced back to see him striding down the garden path, no cloak or hat against the cold wind,