Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, your input means a lot. By way of disclaimer, I'd like to state that I own none of these characters, events, and certainly not the TV show.

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Chapter Ten: Unexpected Arrivals.

Queen Anne had roughly one minute to massage the ache in her neck before her Chamberlain reappeared with a delegation of Scots in tow. She did what she could, before resuming her Queenly poise. Back straight, chin up, arms casually draped over the rests, and an easy smile on her face. She had to look as if she was born to do this, and not making it up as she went along. How many times had she sat at Henry's side and watched him do this? She couldn't even begin to guess at the number. But he made it all look so effortless. His easy charm, his character and life force projected to the rafters of the Presence Chamber. He oozed a masculinity that no man dared to challenge. Something that Anne rather lacked. But then, Henry was born to do this. He never had to make it up as he went along.

She crossed her legs from left to right as the pins and needles started to creep up on her again, and yawned expansively. She had not slept properly since Louis of Bohemia had arrived. Because then came the Scots, and there was still a delegation from Luxembourg to come. Being caught up in a whirlwind was all right, so long as you were at the tranquil centre. But Anne had left that place of safety a long time ago.

Right on time, after one minute exactly, the doors to the Presence Chamber swung wide open to reveal four men all doubled over in deep bows. All Anne could see were the tops of their heads.

"Enter."

Her command was curt and simple. No address yet, but an acknowledgement of their existence within her Chambers. The four men all crept forwards, shuffling uneasily as she had not yet granted them permission to rise and look at her.

"You may speak and state your purpose," Anne said, looking down on the men from the dais.

"Your Majesty, we have come on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots," one of the men answered. Anne thought it was the one on the far left. "We seek peace between our two nations."

Gardiner should be here, Anne thought to herself. She sighed in irritation, and bid the men to rise. The man on the far left introduced himself as Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. This man was formerly married to King Henry's sister, Margaret Queen of Scots. Anne smiled upon realising the common link between them. Margaret had been one of the few to support her marriage to King Henry.

"You are welcome to England, and to my Court," Anne said and extended a hand for him to kiss. He did so, with a smile now that the ice had thawed between them. "Please be seated, and present your colleagues."

To Anne's pleasant surprise, the meeting passed off cordially. She never expected the Scots to admit responsibility for the looting that had occurred, and nor did they. But, they were open to signing a new trade treaty, and did not dismiss the idea of a marriage between Prince Arthur and their Queen.

"Of course my husband, King Henry, absolutely must be here before I can go ahead with any marriage, but I will certainly bring him around to the idea of it if you will do the same with Mary's regency Council," Anne had explained. "And the looting absolutely must cease forthwith. The border between England and Scotland will remain unchanged. You will not get Berwick. But you will get our protection, our trade, and our eternal love and friendship."

"What if Scotland wants more? English love and friendship won't keep raiders from our coasts at bay? Nor will it feed our people," Douglas replied.

Anne thought for a moment, weighing him up carefully.

"You understand that if my husband were here, we would not be having this conversation, don't you?" she asked. "Because there would be no talking at all. You would be defending your borders against the English Royal Army. The King of England is a warrior, and you would face almost certain defeat against us."

It was not a threat, and she did not mean it to be so. All the same, it was the truth, and the Scots were in no position to fighting wars. The delegation made no reply, or attempt at justification for their act of aggression. Anne let the silence spiral, before once again offering an olive branch.

"Please, stay with us over Christmas and New Year. We have visitors and all sorts of celebrations planned, and you will be more than welcome to join us," she explained. "It will be the perfect opportunity for us all to become friends, and build new relations between England and Scotland."

That did it. All four of the men beamed brightly, but it was Douglas who spoke for them all.

"We would be honoured, Your Majesty," he replied. "I trust also that we will get to meet the Prince? After all, I must see the boy before I can propose him as a bridegroom for our Queen."

"His Highness the Prince of Wales will be playing a role in all pageants and masques," Anne said. "I am sure you will be as taken with him as all who meet him are." So, she thought to herself, they are interested.

On that optimistic note, the meeting concluded and the Scots delegation were showed to their lodgings within the Palace. The Court was now the busiest that Anne had seen it in her life. Bohemia, Luxembourg, and now Scotland were all being represented on top of the Empire, and the Irish nobility that usually turned up. She wondered now, as she often did, if she had perhaps bitten off more than she could chew.

Alone again, she could relax a little. She leaned back, and let her head rest against the high backed seat she was in. She stretched out her legs and closed her eyes. Almost instantly she could feel herself drifting off into a gentle doze. Anne knew she couldn't, but the knowledge that she still had more work to do made the prospect of sleep even more enticing. To hell with it, she thought to herself as her breathing deepened and her gentle snores began to filter around the Chamber.

"Your Majesty!"

The urgency and pitch of the woman's voice jolted Anne physically from the sleep she had slipped into. She grunted and sat bolt upright as though an invisible hand had slapped her.

"Lady Katherine, what is it?"

Please let it be important, Anne thought to herself, because if it is a missing shoe that has Katherine Howard back in this state, she will die for it. Katherine looked at Anne, her wide eyes ablaze with panic, and out of breath. Her face was flushed red, too, as though she'd run the length of the Palace.

"Your Majesty, Edmund of Luxembourg has arrived," said Katherine, her voice even more panicked, as though the speaking of it had made the emergency all the more real.

"What!" Anne cried as she leapt to her feet. "They are not due for another two days!"

Mary stood at the heart of a group of her Ladies who'd all crowded into the Great Hall to rehearse their part of the Masque that was planned for Christmas Day. Lady Mary herself was to play the role of Helen of Troy, and one of her suitors would be playing Prince Paris, of that she was certain (although she would not know for sure until the masks were removed on the day, of course). The other, she assumed, would be Theseus, who had to abduct her and hide her away in a special castle that had been built in the palace especially for the occasion. The rescuing "army" would be the rest of the Court, who had to "storm" the castle with their dance, where she would be "rescued" by Prince Paris.

They all stood, draped in half made costumes, seemingly random ribbons and silks, lengths of satin and sarcanet, damask and even cloth of gold for Mary. Over-long skirts pooled at their feet and covered the little dogs who followed them everywhere. On more than one occasion Lady Mary had to stoop and rescue her own spaniel from suffocation among the folds of a heavy velvet cloak. The clamour and chaos filled the vast hall as the woman practised their dances more than their lines of speech, while at the same time, drapers tried to fix the costumes. Those who were standing still chattered incessantly about who was likely to be playing who. Although she said nothing, Mary prayed that Louis of Bohemia would be playing the role of Prince Paris. In a break with tradition, it would be he who rescued Helen from the evil clutches of Theseus. But, as with all masques, almost everyone at Court would have a role, but no one would know who played whom. You had to guess, and that was an essential part of the game.

Trying to bring some order to the pandemonium was William Cornish. He stood on the sidelines, reading aloud from the scripts that he had invested many sleepless nights in. Red faced from exertion, and struggling to make himself over the clamour, he paced the outskirts of the hubbub, and raised his voice a little higher.

"Please, Ladies, this is important," the hapless man bellowed. One or two of the girls politely stopped what they were doing to look at him. Mary still had her head in the clouds. "Once Helen of Troy is secreted away into the Palace, it will be Paris's job to find her. The dancers, meaning all of you, will storm the castle, but only Paris must find Helen, meaning of course, Her Highness the Lady Mary. We must do this properly!"

His imploring fell mostly on deaf ears. He huffed again, and remembered all the other masques he'd arranged in his career. The ladies were always excitable, but this was at fever pitch. Then, to compound matters further, the doors to the Great Hall burst open and shouting voices could be heard clearly adding to the noise that already made his job as director impossible. His patience snapped. He rounded on the imposter.

"Do you mind, my actresses are at an essential stage of preparation-"

But, he stopped himself mid flow as he found himself face to face with Queen Anne, surrounded by her retinue of Ladies.

"Your Majesty," he burst out apologetically. "Forgive me, I did not see you there. But really, we are at a critical moment in the preparations for the masque you ordered-"

Anne's eyes narrowed as she fixed him with a steely look.

"Yes, yes, I am certain it is make or break time, but I must get Lady Mary as a matter of urgency," she replied.

"Your Grace, is any thing wrong?" Mary had heard the commotion and come running over, still wrapped in her half-made costume. The pins were falling out, and the fabrics hanging loose from her arms, rendering it completely shapeless.

"Lady Mary, do not panic, but Edmund of Luxembourg has arrived two days earlier than expected," Anne explained as she turned her back on an increasingly mutinous William Cornish.

"Oh! Good heavens!" Mary cried as she almost fainted with shock. Susan Clarencieux reacted quickly as she moved to catch her. "Quickly, my gown. We must be there to greet him properly!"

"How long do we have, Your Majesty?" Susan asked, the only one making an effort to keep calm.

"An hour, no more!" Anne said with a sad shake of her head. She turned to Katherine Howard who was among her ladies. "Work your magic, Lady Katherine."

"But, what about my rehearsals!" Cornish was scandalised now. "We'll never be ready," he groaned as they all hurried from the room as if it were on fire. All Mary could do was cast an apologetic look from over her shoulder as she jogged in Queen Anne's wake back to the Royal apartments.

Edmund of Luxembourg sat in the carriage silent and motionless, and let himself be jolted this way and that as they rolled over the English countryside. Sandwiched between his two elder brothers, he could not even see out of the window properly to get an impression of this new country he had found himself if.

He was the youngest of his families three boys, the smallest, the thinnest, and the least athletic. He attracted the least attention, but whenever he went out among his father's people, it was he who the whores threw themselves at, much to his horror.

"Its' because you're the prettiest," his eldest brother, Philip, would snort. "And the runtiest. They like a challenge, and they want to turn you into a proper man."

So, proper men sleep with whores and tease their younger brothers. Edmund's heart would sink whenever he thought about the criteria of manliness that he singularly failed to meet. When he was first told of his trip to England to meet the famous Princess Mary, his hopes had soared for the first time in his life. A chink of light had appeared, and freedom from his brothers' and father was at last within his grasp. But then his father informed him that both Philip and Otto would be accompanying him, his hopes were crushed and burned like a moth that got too close to the flame.

Now, he was faced with the prospect of the festive season spent being ritually humiliated in front of Mary, who's beauty, learning, and piety was openly talked of in Europe. His brothers would make the wittiest remarks, win the most jousts, and Mary would be rushing down the aisle with one of them. Probably Philip, he thought glumly to himself. She would probably be so smitten with Philip that he and she would elope, and he, Edmund, would be remembered only for coming to England and causing a terrible scandal that caused their two great nations to go to war against each other. He almost wept.

"That must be the Tower, Otto."

Philip's voice (still using German) intruded on Edmund's thoughts, and even though he had not been addressed, he turned to look out of the small window. A large grey edifice rose above them, and made Edmund shudder.

"You scared, Ed?" Otto spoke now, looking down at his brother. "You are such a maid!"

"Is the Queen ready for us?" Edmund asked, changing the subject and dropping his head to hide the flush in his face. "We are too early."

"Oh stop worrying!" snapped Philip as he landed a thump on Edmund's upper arm. "You'll make yourself sick again, like you were all over that boat, and then where will be? Eh?"

Otto let out a bark of laughter, and Edmund groaned inwardly. It had been his first boat trip, and he'd vomited from start to finish. He knew that his brothers' would take every opportunity to remind him of his journey.

"Never mind, Ed. On the way back I'll hold your hair back for you," Otto said as he threw an arm around Edmund's shoulders and gave him a squeeze.

"You are all heart," Edmund sighed.

Somewhere deep under all that bluster, he knew his brothers' loved him. They just had a funny way of showing it. They didn't seem to realise how their teasing affected Edmund, and Edmund would never relent and tell them. He had to look stronger then them in at least one respect. But, when Windsor Castle finally rolled into view, he sighed deeply with relief. Finally, he would be able to get out of Philip and Otto's pockets.

"Would you look at that," said Philip, continuing his commentary of the sights of London. "These English sure know how to build their Castles and Cathedrals."

"That reminds me, have either of you bothered to learn any English?" Otto asked. He looked at each brother in turn, and saw the blank looks on their faces. "Well, looks like I am translating as usual."

It wasn't that Edmund didn't want to learn. But one by-product of being the youngest was that not too much money was wasted on his education. They half expected him to simply vanish into a monastery, but even that option had been taken from him by the movement for Reform. Since leaving his homeland, he had practised what little he had picked up from English merchants on the road. He knew how to ask what weight a yarn is, what breed of sheep it came from, and he knew how to ask for directions to the nearest market. What he didn't know was, was how far any of that would get him with a Princess.

Finally, they came to a halt and the door of their carriage was swung open by a footman in red Tudor livery. The red and white Tudor rose was emblazoned on the front of his tunic. A symbol of England united and free. They looked past them to see the English Royal family already lined up, looking flushed in the face and breathless. They had no idea of who was who, though.

"Step this way please, Gentlemen," the footman said. "This is Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and he will present you to our Queen, and the royal children now."

Thomas Cranmer, a tall and authoritative man appeared dressed in full ceremonial robes as Archbishop of Canterbury. To their intense relief, he addressed them in perfect German, a place that the Archbishop had undertaken many embassies to. He led them over to where Queen Anne, Princess Elizabeth, Princes William and Arthur, and Lady Mary were lined up before their expansive retinues.

Edmund watched as an older woman with dark, enticing eyes stepped forwards. Her black hair was streaked with silver grey, but her eyes glittered darkly and drew him in. This must be the midnight crow that the Ambassadors all spoke of. He could see what they meant, but he meant no insult to her.

He bowed deeply as Cranmer introduced him to the Queen of England. He kissed her hand, as was proper, and managed to falteringly greet her in English.

"Your Majesty," he said, blushing to the roots of his hair. "My brothers and I thank you for your gracious invites to your Castle."

"You are very welcome to England, my lord," Anne replied as she let him take her arm, and started walking over to where the children were lined up. "I must apologise for your poor reception today, we had not expected you for another day or two."

Edmund caught little of what was being said, but he could guess it was to do with their unexpected arrival. He wanted desperately to apologise, but he did not know how to. He tried, instead, to convey it in his expression. One of acute embarrassment. Anne merely gave him an understanding smile.

"May I introduce you to my eldest son, His Highness the Prince of Wales, Arthur, duke of Chester and earl of Richmond," Anne said as she gestured with her free arm to a splendidly attired young boy of about eleven years. His auburn hair was exactly as Edmund imagined King Henry's to be.

"This," Anne continued. "Is my youngest son, Prince William, duke of York, and earl of Cambridge."

This boy was dark like his mother. Dark hair that curled, and darker eyes that drew the attention. He bowed like his brother had, and greeted Edmund in well practised German. Something which shamed his English efforts even further.

"This is my daughter, Princess Elizabeth," Anne gestured to a tall girl, who was older than the two boys. She had been left until now because despite their ages, the boys ranked above her. She was slender, and also had her mother's dark eyes. But her hair was red. Flame red, and fell in great waves down her back. Her skin was white, and she held herself with poise and dignity that would shame the greatest Queens in Europe. To Edmund's amazement, Elizabeth not only greeted him in German, but asked after his health, his family, and his journey in German.

Where he came from, such outward displays of education in women were practically punished. But Queen Anne, he saw, was beaming from ear to ear. She was encouraging it! He could feel himself falling in love with England, and English people, and most of all, English mannerisms.

"Finally," Anne said as she moved him a step further down the line to where another woman, veiled, stood last in line. "This is Lady Mary Tudor. Please, lift the veil and greet her."

He failed to understand, but Anne motioned what to do, and he finally understood. He trembled as he lifted the fine muslin veil to reveal a girl with porcelain skin. Her face was cast downwards, but when he tilted her chin up, he could see she had bright, sparkling sapphire eyes. Her hair was dark, her veil held in place by a priceless bejewelled diadem. She curtseyed deeply.

"Your Grace," she greeted him, and a small smile played on her rosebud lips.

Her beauty knocked the breath out of his lungs. He flushed even deeper than before and his mind whirled in a panic. His poor English completely deserted him, but for the desperation of saying something, anything to fill the terrible silence, he tripped over his words.

"Sheep," he spluttered the first English word that popped into his head. "Markets." He added lamely.

Anne frowned quizzically, and Lady Mary had to stifle laughter that was welling up and threatening to burst out of her. Something heavy knocked him aside, and Otto appeared suddenly at his side.

"Your highness forgive my brother," he explained giving Edmund a playful dig in the ribs. "What he is trying to say is, he is overwhelmed and delighted to finally be in your presence. We all thank you for your great generosity and warm welcome."

Mary smiled graciously and let both men kiss her hand. She could sense Edmund cringing after making such a fool of himself. His blue eyes were sad, his face downcast. He was the most handsome boy she'd ever seen. But for his half-witted behaviour!

Once they were all inside, the Luxembourg retinue were escorted to their chambers. The three foreign nations had arrived. The Court was full to the rafters, and it was the day before Christmas. As Lady Mary watched the hapless Edmund getting a German ribbing from his brothers all down the gallery, she couldn't help but feel that the fun was about to begin.