A smoking dinner was waiting them, of whitebait with red pepper, and a yellow juice so sour that Nick’s mouth drew up in a knot; but it was very good.  There were besides, silver dishes full of sugared red currants, and heaps of comfits and sweetmeats, which Master Gyles would not allow them even to touch, and saffron cakes with raisins in them, and spiced hot cordial out of tiny silver cups.  Bareheaded pages clad in silk and silver lace waited upon them as if they were fledgling kings; but the boys were too hungry to care for that or to try to put on airs, and waded into the meat and drink as if they had been starved for a fortnight.

But when they were done Nick saw that the table off which they had eaten was inlaid with pearl and silver filigree, and that the table-cloth was of silk with woven metal-work and gems set in it worth more than a thousand crowns.  He was very glad he had eaten first, for such wonderful service would have taken away his appetite.

And truly a wonderful palace was the Queen’s Plaisance, as Greenwich House was called.  Elizabeth was born in it, and so loved it most of all.  There she pleased oftenest to receive and grant audiences to envoys from foreign courts.  And there, on that account, as was always her proud, jealous way, she made a blinding show of glory and of wealth, of science, art, and power, that England, to the eyes which saw her there, might stand in second place to no dominion in the world, however rich or great.

It was a very house of gold.

Over the door where the lads marched in was the Queen’s device, a golden rose, with a motto set below in letters of gold, “Dieu et mon droit”; and upon the walls were blazoned coats of noble arms on branching golden trees, of purest metal and finest silk, costly beyond compare.  The royal presence-chamber shone with tapestries of gold, of silver, and of oriental silks, of as many shifting colors as the birds of paradise, and wrought in exquisite design, The throne was set with diamonds, with rubies, garnets, and sapphires, glittering like a pastry-crust of stars, and garnished with gold-lace work, pearls, and ornament; and under the velvet canopy which hung above the throne was embroidered in seed-pearls, “Vivat Regina Elizabetha!” There was no door without a gorgeous usher, no room without a page, no corridor without a guard, no post without a man of noble birth to fill it.

On the walls of the great gallery were masterly paintings of great folk, globes showing all the stars fast in the sky, and drawings of the world and all its parts, so real that one could see the savages in the New World hanging to the under side by their feet, like flies upon the ceiling.  How they stuck was more than Nick could make out; and where they landed if they chanced to slip and fall troubled him a deal, until in the sheer multiplication of wonders he could not wonder any more.

When they came to rehearse in the afternoon the stage was hung with stiff, rich silks that had come in costly cedar chests from the looms of old Cathay; and the curtain behind which the players came and went was broidered with gold thread in flowers and birds like meteors for splendor.  The gallery, too, where the musicians sat, was draped with silk and damask.