by Karen Harper
Chapter the Third
A WOMAN’S VOICE BROUGHT HER BACK FROM OBLIVION.
“Did you fall? Are you hurt? Oh, it can’t be you!”
Not Kat or Rosie. Was it that ghost again, talking this time? Would she just pass by? Elizabeth sucked fresh, cool air into her mouth, her throat, her lungs.
Her eyes flew open. She was dizzy, and the moon above the woman’s head seemed to be two moons snagged in the tops of hedge walls. Stars dipped and doubled and danced.
It took her a moment to realize who and where she was and even longer to know who knelt over her. Bettina Sutton, still costumed and bewigged, her mask hanging from its ribbons around her neck.
Then everything came flooding back.
Weakly, Elizabeth reached for Bettina’s wrist. “Sh!” she managed, then got a gasping, coughing fit.
“I—I can’t believe it’s you, Your Majesty,” Bettina cried when the queen quieted. “What happened? Look, two garters knotted around your neck, and it’s all scratched! Should I fetch your guards and doctors?”
Elizabeth managed to shake her head. It hurt. She hurt all over. Bettina helped her to sit up.
“I want to stand,” Elizabeth rasped, but when she did, her legs went wobbly, and she steadied herself by leaning on the shorter woman. “Walk me away from here—out there.”
Sheer determination took Elizabeth to the big oak where she leaned panting against its solid trunk. “Why—are you—out here?” she managed. She could tell Bettina dared not ask her the same.
“It’s all been so wonderful, our visit here, and Templar was tired,” the woman stammered, obviously nervous about touching the queen’s person but about loosing her, too. She held her arms out, as if she’d catch her if she fell. “I just wanted to soak it all in before I slept, and of course, I knew this area from your taking us around. Oh, Your Majesty, what happened?”
“Did you see anyone else afoot?” the queen countered. “Someone running, even someone distant when you came upon me?”
“No one, I swear it.”
“Then what happened to me is that I was walking alone and tripped. But I don’t want anyone to know I was—clumsy. I shall reward you on the morrow for lending me assistance and telling no one of this.”
Even in the darkness under the big tree, Elizabeth noted well how the woman’s eyes flew again to her throat, then to her face. Bettina nodded shakily. “Even one as poised and graceful as yourself, Your Majesty, who knows the turns of that dark maze, could trip. Yes, I understand. I must learn to be more wary myself walking out alone.”
“You are certain you saw no one else, even at a distance?”
“Guards on the palace doors, of course. Forms in the windows. But no one out here—but you.”
That might mean her attacker had fled into the maze instead of out, the queen reasoned. And the entry was the only exit. “Then go to the guard on the door and say the queen has need of Stephen Jenks, Meg Milligrew, and Ned Topside here at once. The men are to bring torches. Then return to me until they arrive,” she ordered and weakly gestured her away.
“Jenks and Meg and Ned,” Elizabeth heard Bettina whisper to herself in rote as she hurried away. “Jenks, Meg, and Ned.”
From this distance, the queen watched the entry to the maze to be certain no one emerged while Bettina did as she was bid. The world slowly stopped spinning, but the queen’s neck began to sting. Tenderly, she fingered the two wide silk and gauze garters still around her throat.
They felt like the ones all the women wore for the masque, the slippery ones she wore even now. She’d not disturb them further. Any knots or snagged hairs were all necessary proofs she and her people must explore after they searched each turn of the maze for who could be hiding there. Strange, though, that she fancied she smelled the same faint gillyflower aroma on the garters as she’d noted in the corridor outside Mary Sidney’s room. Had she smelled that in the maze when she was attacked too? Elizabeth of England shuddered once and began to shake.
“Does this marigold cream soothe the sting, Your Grace?” Meg asked as she laved the ligature and scratch marks on the queen’s neck in the royal bedchamber later. “You’ve got two welts coming, too, I must put beebalm on.”
“Just give me another swig of that horehound tonic, and find me a neck ruff to wear. An older, high, soft one. No starchwort in it.”
“That will start a new craze.”
“I’m the one who’s crazed,” Elizabeth said, jumping up again to look out the oriel window with its casement set ajar. The torches Jenks and Ned held aloft—she’d seen drawn swords in their other hands when they began—moved methodically through the paths of the maze. But they must be nearly at the goal and had evidently discovered no intruder yet.
Despite her impatience, Elizabeth was grateful for some time to recover her breath and her wits. Rosie was sleeping in Kat’s chamber, and her other ladies had been sent to their beds. She had ordered the guards doubled on the privy entrance to these rooms, and her yeomen, as ever, guarded the halls. Yet the brutal attack on her person had damaged her composure and courage.
“What keeps Lord Dudley when I sent for him posthaste?” the queen demanded, more of herself than Meg. “He should think he’s died and gone to heaven being summoned to my bedchamber this time of night.”
She had fretted at first that someone might have struck Robin down, too, but she knew better. Like Jenks, the man could handle himself with a sword or fists, let alone that glib, honeyed tongue of his. She did not believe for one moment he was the one who had hurt her, for he had all to gain through her and naught without her. Indeed, the man’s rampant ambition made him want to wed her and rise high, so how dare he not keep their tryst and come early.
“’S blood, he has a lot to answer for,” the queen ranted on when Meg said not one word about Robin, whom she used to adore but now couldn’t abide. “I vow, trouble follows that man everywhere!”
“Then it is not good he follows you everywhere,” Meg blurted. She clapped a hand to her forehead. “You mean Lord Robert was to meet you out there at the maze? Alone? But—”
“I swear, bottom to top, this court and kingdom would go to hell in a handbasket without me,” Elizabeth muttered, leaning again into the deep-set window to watch her men. “My guard Stackpole claims a linkboy he didn’t know brought him a note from me not to guard the hall outside Mary Sidney’s room earlier today, where I had just told him to stand watch.” The queen began to pace, flinging gestures. “He can’t find the note, of course, but says it was wretchedly scribbled, as if that would be my hand. Then Robin deceives or deserts his queen.”
“I thought he’s supposed to be in the stables, Your Grace. You just sent your guard to fetch him there.”
“And where is Cecil,” she demanded, ignoring Meg, “for he’s been sent for too, though I don’t favor facing him at first with my throat looking like this, so hie yourself over here with that ruff!”
“You need Kat or Rosie for this,” Meg protested as she bent to look through the coffer containing gloves and hats.
“Kat’s not to know, as I don’t need her more upset. We can’t have someone out of control privy to this. Now give me that ruff!” she cried and snatched it from Meg’s hands the moment she turned one up.
Bending her knees to dart a look in the mirror, Elizabeth straightened the unironed ruff. She had removed her soiled and grass-stained costume and quickly donned a dark blue gown. Her own hair still looked a mess from the wig and the rough handling. But, for now, this would have to do.
When a crisp knock resounded on the door, she nodded for Meg to open it. Robin filled its frame and the room with his very presence. She locked her knees and stared him down.
“Your Grace,” Robin began, looking both flushed and out of breath as he hurried in, “I was beside myself when you didn’t come.”
“I?” she countered icily as he went down on one knee with his head bowed. “It is you who did not arrive as you arranged.”
His head snapped up. “I was early and never left and in the very place you commanded,” he insisted.
“I cannot believe your sister was confused when she told you.”
“She said the maze, but then this,” he insisted and produced a folded piece of paper from the neck of his doublet.
The queen snatched it and read: Robin, I shall come to the stables instead. To see the foal but more to see you.
It was someone who knew about the foal and their plans, she thought, panicked. Someone who knew far too much.
“This isn’t signed, Robin.”
He rose, his handsome face puzzled and wary. “I didn’t expect it would be in case someone else came across it, my queen.”
“Someone else came across it, indeed,” she clipped out, sinking back in her chair and nervously fingering her ruff to be sure it was in place. “That’s because someone else sent it. It’s not my writing.”
“Do you think after all your letters I yet treasure I do not know that? But I believed it could have been dashed off in the heat of the moment or even written by Kat or your herb girl here. Or that you disguised your hand, my clever queen. But—you mean you were at the maze?”
“Yes, your clever queen was at the maze,” she muttered, glaring down at the note, though it hurt her neck to so much as flex it like this. “My lord, I shall summon you in the morning, but leave me now and this note, too.”
“You know I would never keep you waiting. You know I adore and—”
He halted in mid-plea, evidently when he glimpsed her expression. Robin had never been a member of her secret Privy Plot Council. Though she had longed to trust him fully, she feared she never could. Now, at least his exit was both smooth and swift.
“Meg,” she ordered when the guard outside closed the door behind him, “send someone to find what’s keeping Secretary Cecil and go fetch the men from the maze posthaste. ’S blood, they must be done by now. But first, tell me what scent you think is on this forged note,” she commanded and extended it arm’s-length to Meg.
Meg sniffed once, again, then nodded. “Now that’s a coincidence. Here you asked me about gillyflowers earlier today, and that’s it for sure.”
Jenks and Ned had thrust their torches into each corner, node, and turn of the old maze. After they met at the goal with its stone bench and sundial, they began to work their way back out by different paths. So as not to call even more attention to themselves, they had doused their torches. Ned, who loved to tell tales and play parts, had already told Jenks that, if courtiers saw them from the windows, their story would be that they were looking for a jeweled pin the queen had dropped earlier in the day.
That riled Jenks. Ned was always trying to take over, always talking his way in and out of things, when Jenks wasn’t so good with words. And Jenks knew they were headed out empty-handed. Whoever had attacked Her Grace had had plenty of time to hightail it.
Jenks was nearly back to the entrance, where they had found the queen’s mask and wig, when he heard someone shuffling into the maze just across the last hedge wall. The culprit returning to the scene of the crime? Coming to remove clues, or to scuff out the footprints they would search for at dawn’s first light? It wasn’t Ned, who was a ways behind him. Edward Thompson, alias Ned Topside, the flap-mouthed wagtail, might be surefooted on a stage, but protecting the queen was Jenks’s bailiwick.
His sword at the ready, his muscles tensed, knees bent, Jenks waited until the form cleared the entrance, then lunged. He hauled the person—a shapely woman, who squealed—into his arms and—
“Meg?”
“Jenks! Devil take it, you scared the daylights out of me. I thought I would be strangled, too. Loose me this instant!”
He did, reluctantly, then tried to take advantage of the situation as he’d seen Lord Robert do more than once with Her Grace.
“Sorry, Meg. You know I long to protect you. You should’ve called out.”
“And drawn a murderer to me if he’s still out here? You’d best watch grabbing women or Her Grace will toss you in the Tower.”
“She would not. She trusts me. But are you all right then?”
He sheathed his sword and grasped her shoulders with both hands, then moved one hand to lift her chin, also as he’d seen Lord Robert do. “I wouldn’t ever scare or hurt you apurpose,” he whispered. His mouth was close to hers, but he felt his tongue and lips swollen with the words he wanted to say. She smelled wonderful as ever, of summer gardens and the sweet hay they fed the horses. “Besides protecting Her Grace,” he whispered, “I always want you to be safe, too, Meg.”
Her eyes widened. When she lifted her chin even more as if to see him better in the moonlight, he leaned down to kiss her. He had yearned to for as long as he’d known her, and not just because he adored the queen and Meg resembled her so. And now that Meg was widowed …
It galled him sore to hear Ned coming. Meg stepped back from Jenks as if she’d been burned.
“Ho, now, you two,” Meg said, turning toward Ned. “She sent me to fetch you both straightaway and said to rope off the maze before you leave. Then hie yourselves to a privy plot meeting. Ned, are you all right then?”
“Of course, I am,” the freebooter told her and dared to smack her bum right through her skirts as he passed. Jenks could have brained him for that. And for the fact that however rough or rude Ned Topside treated Meg, her eyes still followed him. A fig on it, Jenks would give anything to let her see Ned Topside for the skirt-chasing bed-swerver he really was. Though caring for the queen would always be his first, best cause, he’d have to move fast to make sure Meg was his at any cost.
“I regret keeping you up so late or turning you out of your beds,” Elizabeth began as she opened the meeting in the withdrawing room of her state apartments.
It had been a long time since she and her loyal band of Privy Plot Council members had been forced to solve a crime. And never had Elizabeth of England ordered an investigation begun because of a direct attack—an attempted murder—by hostile hands laid upon her royal person. She had advised Cecil, Ned, and Jenks of the crisis, and shown them her neck abrasions. Cecil looked as if he had something to say already, but she gave him no opening.
“Our numbers are woefully short without Kat and my cousin, Baron Hunsdon, present but, as you know, he is keeping a watch on our Scottish border this summer. I miss the services and dear presence of my artist, Gil Sharpe, but pray he will profit himself and our court later by his time studying his craft in Italy. If need be, as our investigation progresses, I may bring in others I can trust.
“But, I admit,” she plunged on, gripping her hands on the table, “the fewer our numbers, the better for secrecy now. I do not want this attack noised about. And who knows,” she added, her voice breaking, “what Kat would blurt out if she were privy to this now, so this group must needs probe this diabolical deed.”
At last she took a breath and glanced around the table. Cecil had looked grim since she’d shown the marks on her neck. She also had a purplish bruise coming on her forehead—fortunately one her hair could hide—and scratches on her right cheek from being thrust into the maze hedges, not to mention grass stains she’d displayed on her mask and the gown. She’d have to exchange those with another identical masque costume by tomorrow or Kat would know for certain that something dire had befallen her mistress. Her beloved First Lady of the Bedchamber still fussed with her gowns, though Rosie Radcliffe now bore the burden of Kat’s duties as Mistress of the Robes and kept an eye on her jewel cases, too.
Ned and Jenks leaned forward avidly. Meg looked flushed with excitement. Yet everyone seemed to hold back, waiting for whatever William Cecil would say.
“First of all,” he began, “forgive me, Your Grace, but I cannot fathom you walked out alone.”
“I admit it was to see Lord Robert Dudley privily after his time away. Just a walk in the moonlight.”
“Which went sore awry.”
“I’ll not have chiding or lectur
es, Cecil. You are not my parent, nor some prelate or preacher.”
“But I am ever your loyal servant and, you have said, your friend. Be that as it may, Meg mentioned,” Cecil continued, “that Lord Dudley had a note changing the assignation—”
“Merely a meeting,” the queen interrupted.
“A meeting,” Cecil amended. “And you have that note?”
She drew it from her lap and handed it to him across the narrow table.
“Perhaps from a woman with that heavy scent on it,” Meg put in, wrinkling her nose and fanning her face even from where she sat. “Gillyflowers. Your Grace, is that why you asked me earlier today about gillyflowers—no, you didn’t have the note then.”
“Hell’s teeth, what about gillyflowers?” Cecil asked, sniffing at the scrap of folded parchment, then sneezing into his sleeve.
She was not, Elizabeth thought, going to tell them the foolishness about Catherine Howard’s ghost and prayed that had not been some sort of harbinger of doom. The scent drifting up from the kitchen herb gardens was probably not gillyflowers at all, since Meg said none were there.
“Well,” Meg said, “no one wears that scent much anymore, though I’ve been using that kind of dried petals in some of Kat’s tonics with valerian and chamomile. It lends a spicy taste, and she always liked the smell of them.”
“Leave poor Kat out of this,” Elizabeth ordered.
“Probably not a woman who overpowered you anyway,” Jenks put in, hunching over the table. “Not to take you down and choke you like that. However slender your form, Your Grace, you are strong.”
“Jenks,” Ned said, his voice condescending, “the would-be murder weapon was two gauzy garter ribbons, the ones women wore tonight. It could well have been a woman, a strong one who had the advantage of surprise over Her Grace.”
Meg spun to face him. “What do you know about the garters Her Grace’s ladies were wearing?”
“Your Majesty,” Ned protested, gesturing grandly, “I oversaw the entire masque and knew what the women wore, that’s all, so …”
