CHAPTER THREE

As Sauda helped Lady Frances Walsingham dress for dinner, the young girl sulked. "I think it’s unfair I have to go to an early dinner while you get to entertain the queen for her birthday tonight."

"I have been commanded to dance for the queen’s birthday masque or you know I would be spending the evening reading you your favorite book, Lady Frances."

"You are so skilled with many things, Sauda. Do you think you can teach me how to dance with blades?"

"You are a young lady of court and should not know such things. I don’t know how to embroider as well as you can. In addition, I don‘t dance with blades. I use fans."

"Pffft … Embroidery is so boring and don’t lie to me, I saw you dance with the blades the other day, out in the maze. I followed you." Frances confessed.

Sauda blanched. She thought someone had been watching her.

"Don’t let your father know you have seen me practice or it will be my hide, I’m sure." Sauda placed the matching lavender snood in place and pinned the pearl hair jewel to drape down the center part of Frances’ dark hair.

"Sauda, I adore you, I will never tell my father, besides ‘tis my fault for following you."

"Aye, you should never do that again, or I will have to be the one to go to your father. It’s dangerous for a young lady to be unescorted around this crowd of people, not to mention no one could see if something were to happen to you in the maze." Sauda touched the child’s pretty face.

"Now go. I must prepare for this evening. Your parents are waiting for you and I believe they will be setting off the fireworks at the end of your dinner."

After dinner, Queen Elizabeth encouraged the guests to gather out amongst the gardens for the fireworks. She and her ever escort Lord Robert Dudley; lovingly called ’the Gypsy’, watched the fireworks from the royal barge while it drifted down the Thames.

Once the fireworks were completed, they would return the children to their guardians whilst the adult royals would all go and change into their biblical frocks to finish out the Queen’s day of birth with a masque. Elizabeth had chosen to be the Virgin Mary and no one was allowed to be the same character as she. Queen Elizabeth was quite sure that the evening would be an affaire to remember.

Sauda watched the fireworks from her window. The rains of colors were beautiful and only added to the magical feel of the evening to come. She was dressed for her dance before the queen. Still, she would put Mistress Frances to bed first and wait in her room. Sir Walsingham would call her when it was her time to perform the ‘Dance of Fans.’

She wasn’t a novice of the dance, for she was skilled and had performed for royalty all over the world. In spite of her skills as a dancer and her lack of shyness, the thoughts of Lord Ethan Clare’s eyes on her while she moved about the floor, sent an anxious quiver of anticipation down her spine.

Sauda had glimpsed him a few times in the passing days without him knowing. She even overheard him asking about a ‘Moor’ woman a few times. The harder she tried to ignore the truth the more it persisted. She finally found a man that had piqued her interest mentally and physically, and it scared her to death.

I must discontinue these thoughts and push this man from my mind.

"Sauda! It was so beautiful!" Frances waltz into the room boiling with excitement and she gasped in delight when she saw how beautiful Sauda was in her costume.

"Oh," she clapped her hands in delight. "I wish I could see you dance tonight!"

"Maybe next time," Sauda smiled and laid the child’s sleeping gown across the bed. "Come, so I can prepare you for bed, little one."

"I saw Lord Ethan Clare out in the gardens and he asked me about you and your name but before I could answer the fireworks started. Oh … Oh, Sauda … Mother allowed me to ride with them on the queen’s barge and we watched from the Thames." She let Sauda to remove her gown.

Sauda was calm on the outside but her heart pattered when Frances had said Lord Clare’s name. For a moment, she envied Frances. How wonderful it would have been to stand with the handsome lord while watching the fireworks. Would he place those large hands on her hips and allow her to lean against his broad chest? Would he try to kiss her? Would she allow him too?

Sauda stilled. "What did you say?"

Frances sighed, "I said, you will meet the Clare family when we go to Clare Hall for the winter."

"I …I didn’t know we would be wintering with the Clare family. Your father didn’t mention it to me."

"I’m sure he will, after all, you are my guardian so you must come. I will insist and you know I usually get my way."

"Will your parents be joining us?" Sauda asked.

"Not right away, I’m sure. The queen needs Father for everything it seems," Frances sighed and for once Sauda saw her for the lonely little girl she was.

Sauda continued to help the young girl for bed listening to her constant chatter about the evening’s dinner menu, until she became distracted by her own thoughts somewhere between pheasant pie and blood pudding.

Sauda wondered how was she to dispense with her foolish attraction to the man if she was to live with him and his family for an entire winter.

Never had she felt so drawn to another person. The thought of actually caring for someone terrified her she couldn't afford this temptation.

Hampton Court became a Romanesque paradise as hundreds of candles illuminated the assembly rooms. Greenery and statues of mythological gods, goddesses, angels, and chubby cheeked cherubs decorated the event. The press of guests filled the accommodation and veranda to abundance, all clothed in elaborate biblical costumes. Wine flowed, creating the most festive of moods.

Ethan Clare and his friend Lucian Gilbert were standing side by side in conversation. Ethan was only half listening to Lucian complaining once again, about his gift for the queen not being as first-class as the fifteen bolts of colorful silks Ethan had returned with for her from his last journey.

He was wondering where his Moor woman was this night.

Oh my, I think of her as mine now and I must be going mad because I don’t even know her name. Will she arrive alone or at all? Could she at this moment be in a tryst with her lover? Worse, could she be the lover of the Sir Walsingham? As his thoughts ran dark, his spirits fell with each passing moment.

As if conjuring her face in his thoughts, some how summoned her, she appeared in the center of the room cleared for entertainment. She held her hands crossed in front of her. Ethan’s eyes could not take in enough of her.

Her costume of gossamer golden material had only enough folds to make out her dark skin beneath yet was showing nothing. A gold turban sprayed in jewels adorned her dark head. She had tied her mid length hair with a golden ribbon. She looked like an earthy golden goddess. The perfect Queen of Sheba to his King Solomon, they were matched as if it had been planned.

A hush fell over the room in expectation.

Sauda held out one naked foot with toes pointed and commence to jiggle her foot and the silence filled with the tinkling of bells.

The musicians joined in. It was her cue to take her first step. She sauntered toward the queen, her back straight and profile regal as her full hips swayed to the music. There were whispers all around the room in awe at the dark woman‘s wild beauty.

The music stopped and Sauda descended into a low curtsey, one knee touching the ground.

Once again, silence seemed to sweep through the room. Ethan didn’t notice, for his ears were ringing from the blood rushing from his heart to harden his cock. He flushed, wondering if the other men in the room were as aroused as he by the site of her cat-like like grace. The thoughts of it angered him.

Ethan enjoyed the generous view of a heavy dusky cleavage exposed from her current position. His mind raced to all the other possible positions he could place her in. He now thanked God for Lucian hounding him to move closer to the queen’s throne or he would have missed this unforgettable view of her.

When he thought he would moan his desire aloud, the vision of full breast vanished as the opening of a beautiful ornamental fan blocked his view. The flick of her wrist was so graceful and casual everyone was startled when the fan appeared as if by magic.

Sauda allowed the fan to cover the bottom of her face as she peeked coyly. She was supposed to look at the queen who was the person of honor. Still, she could feel his sexual magnetism as if he reached out and caressed her. Slowly and seductively, her gaze slid downward to his coddles. She smiled behind the fan because he actually blushed.

The mesmerized onlookers in the hall gasped and whispers spread once more as the soft bells started again, but she was hardly moving. They wondered how she was able to move the bells and be so still. The musicians started again and Sauda allowed herself to become one with the music.

Ethan was nearly undone as his steady gaze bore into her in silent expectations of her every movement. Something intense flared through his entrancement. It was amazing how quickly her ornamental fans opened and closed with her movements. It was as if her hands were empty than magically the fans appeared and disappeared.

Along with the rest of the guests, when she stopped in a stance with arms above her head and her magnificent breasts heaved from the physical exertion of her erotic dance, Ethan was speechless and winded.

Increasingly the hall erupted in cheers and applause. Queen Elizabeth came to her feet applauding. Sauda continued her stance and as she gracefully declined into a curtsy before the queen, it was then she saw it, a quick mirror image off the candlelight. A hand with a blade was coming out of the curtain behind the queen’s throne. Without thought, Sauda seized the queen as the blade cut though the air.

Thoughtlessly she sheltered the queen with her body. Sauda felt a sharp burning sensation coursing through her upper body. Her only concern was her duty to Queen Elizabeth’s safety.

The entire hall exploded into chaos as the queen’s guards surrounded the area. Ethan noticed one guard about to strike the Moor woman with the flat of his sword and heaved himself over her. The steel of the blade slammed flat against his back, knocking a gasp out of him. All he could think was the impact probably would have killed her she was smaller than he was.

"Move out of the way you fool," Lucian shoved the confused guardsman.

Lucian tugged a bruised Ethan away as Robert Dudley and Francis Walsingham gently separated Sauda’s arms from the queen. There was blood, but they couldn’t tell who was bleeding.

"Back away!" Dudley yelled as his hands desperately searched for injuries on Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth came to her senses and started slapping at Robert. "Stop handling me you idiot! I am your Queen! Do you dare touch me without my giving you permission?"

Walsingham came forward and would have found the scene comical as Dudley completely chastised fell to one knee in a graceful bow and allowed the queen to tumble back on her backside sputtering.

However, the graveness of what had happened sent him into action of ordering a clearance of the hall and the festivities planned for the rest of the month ended. He must remove the queen to a safer milieu, meaning he would have to impose on the only other person he trusted, Lord Ethan Clare.

"Are you mad?" Lucian was yelling at Ethan, who pushed him aside as he crawled back to the unconscious Moor. He wondered why she hadn’t stirred. He noticed blood coming from a gash in her upper left arm. An angry bump and bruise at her temple probably explained why she was lifeless.

Walsingham stood over Lord Ethan and a prostrate Sauda.

"How is she?"

"Alive." Ethan answered as he tore a piece of his robe and bound her bleeding arm thankful it was clearly a graze. It was the head injury and her not waking up that had him concern, for those could be problematic.

Sir Walsingham placed his hand on Ethan’s shoulder and removed it when the young man flinched in pain. "Could you see her to your room please? I shall be there shortly to discuss the favor I asked of you."

Walsingham had no idea that Lord Ethan wasn't going to let her out of his site now that he had found her.

"Sir Walsingham?" he called out.

"Aye, Lord Clare?" Walsingham returned from picking up the blood-covered blade on the floor where it had landed in the ruckus, hoping the dagger was a personal one and maybe a family signet would be on the handle.

"You think it was the head of the Knights of Darkness or one of his many henchmen."

"Hard to tell in this group, but I had assumed we about taken care of all of them. At least the ones we knew about. God only knows how many are involved in this ongoing plot against the nobles."

"Sir Francis, may I have her name?" Ethan asked unconsciously resting his chin on her head, a bemused smile on his lips as he stood with her cradled in his arms.

"Sauda Mauri."

"Sauda," Ethan repeated. "It fits her well."

Lucian watched with a narrow gaze as his friend carried the Blackamoor out of the hall.