Elizabeth I - 05 - The Thorne Maze

by Karen Harper

  Mary choked back a sob and turned toward the window. Her shoulders heaved once before her hands gripped the sill as if she could control herself that way. Though Elizabeth could not see her ravaged face through that veil, she fancied she could—and the ravaged soul, too.

  Yet it could not be, the queen thought, that her dear friend was the one who wrapped the garters—where would a recluse get those garters?—around her throat and threatened her life to teach her how vulnerable and alone one could be. Or for revenge: Elizabeth had survived the pox with but a few marks while Mary caught a more virulent form while nursing her.

  “I shall visit you when I can at Penshurst,” Elizabeth promised, on the verge of tears herself. She wanted to hug Mary farewell but could not. “Meanwhile, God keep us both safe. Come, Kat. We all have much to do to leave this place.”

  Kat followed to the door, then hung back. “I hope you liked the new scarves, stockings, and garters I sent you, Mary, the riding gloves, too,” Elizabeth overheard before Kat closed the door.

  “What garters did you send Mary?” she demanded in the hall.

  “A whole array of them just to lift her spirits. But I fear they didn’t help one whit, for catastrophe still clings to her.”

  Kat went blithely down the hall while Elizabeth stood stunned. Those last portentous words described not only Mary but herself.

  An hour later, the queen paced back and forth, fanning herself in her withdrawing room while her court churned in chaos around her. She kept the windows closed with the plague so close, but she could still hear voices and noises. In her own state apartments and throughout the vast hive of the palace, courtiers and servants packed in a panic. When the queen traveled, her furnishings, hangings, plate, wardrobe, and closest servants traveled with her. Her Controller, her Cofferer, and the heads of her twenty household departments scurried to report to the Lord Chamberlain that they would be ready to depart at first light on the morrow.

  The queen would move in public procession to her manorhouse at Hatfield, farther from the great liquid highway of the Thames where the plague could spread at will. Because Hatfield House was dwarfed by Hampton Court, only fifty of her chosen retainers and thirty servants would go with her, though her guard would be doubled en route. Some courtiers were preparing to return to their country houses, or, if they were very necessary or ambitious, to find accommodations near their queen. Hatfield was thirty-eight miles away, a three-day trip, so couriers had been sent out to arrange for two nights’ royal accommodations.

  “It would not be three days if you’d agree to travel mounted with a band of my men, instead of in that jolting bucket of a state coach,” Robin had groused earlier. “We could make it in one long day as we could cover nearly eight miles an hour in this good weather, and you, my queen, are the most eminent of England’s horsewomen.”

  “You might as well go prate to Cecil—and then listen to his arguments against me,” she’d told him.

  “Cecil and I agree on this?” he’d asked, amazed.

  “He simply feels these are not the times to go in open progress among my people. But they are my people, and they must see their queen and know she is not made fearful by the Black Death, nor anything else any villain this side of hell can devise!”

  Word had spread that the queen was as bold as ever, even if she would be visiting her shires of Surrey, Buckingham, and Hertford earlier than she’d originally planned. If she surprised the good people of her realm in a premature visit, that was life—for lately, life had surprised her, too.

  The sudden move also played havoc with the murder investigation the local authorities had planned, but the queen could not ask her people to remain here to be questioned as the plague approached. Templar was already dead; others might soon be if they did not flee. Besides, she had the desperate feeling that Templar’s killer and her attacker would find her again—or even be traveling with her. She would be ready, no matter how upset Cecil was that an enemy along the route of her cavalcade could shoot a long bow or firearm at her. This murderer, she was certain, preferred more intimate encounters.

  “The people must see their queen—serene and in splendor, Cecil, and that is that!” she had shouted to end all discussion.

  Now she waited for her guards to announce various people she had sent for. “Ned Topside, Your Majesty,” Clifford called out from the door set ajar, and swept it open for Ned to enter.

  “Ned, I have not sent for you.”

  “But I needed to tell you—about Darnley,” he ended in a stage whisper as he rose from his bow. “And I told your guards you had sent for me.”

  “All right then, tell me quickly of Lord Darnley. Did you meet with success?”

  “For the first time in my six years of serving you, Your Grace—well, I told you it wouldn’t work.”

  “’S blood, nothing is working as it should!” She whacked her fan against the wall, so hard she broke its ivory ribs, then went over to slam the door herself.

  “Yet, Your Grace, though he didn’t fall into the snare we planned for him, I learned, I believe, all I need to know.”

  “Stop making contrary speeches, man. Spit it out!”

  “Though, thank the Lord, I didn’t have to prove it, Darnley definitely desires men, if any of that is of interest.”

  “Of interest, yes, but hardly news.”

  “And he seemed shocked to see that two bricks instead of one were missing from the arch in the grape arbor.”

  “Now that is useful—perhaps. That means either he is guilty of pulling out the first one, or that, since the arbor is his evident assignation spot, he merely noticed a difference. Anything else?”

  “He said his mother has caught him at his—ah, preferences before, but she needs him for her plans, so abides his behavior. And, oh yes, he admitted he has easily gotten out alone at night.”

  “So weapon and opportunity, even motive when it comes to attacking me, but why kill Templar? Ned, I believe you have managed more than you realized. Even when we think we are in a dead end, there is yet another turn to come.”

  “Your Majesty,” Clifford’s voice boomed out through the door, “you have summoned the Countess of Lennox, Margaret Stewart, and she awaits without.”

  “Go, then, Ned, with my thanks. I will need you, Meg, and Jenks to keep close to me on the way. Remember, but for the few on my Privy Plot Council, no one else knows that I too have been attacked—except for the one who did it.”

  Elizabeth threw her broken fan into the empty hearth and stiffened her backbone as her cousin Margaret swept into the room, arrayed in black brocade despite the heat of the day. As Ned ducked out behind her, she looked taken aback either by the stifling room or the queen’s expression. Now, as Margaret curtsied, then rose, the queen’s gaze skimmed her gown, looking for snags or tears.

  “Your Majesty,” Margaret began when the queen nodded her permission to speak, “I am eternally grateful you will allow the earl and Lord Darnley to go to Scotland to reclaim our lands, and what better time than now when you are reducing the size of your court for a country respite and haven from the plague.”

  “The earl may depart when he will, but Lord Darnley may go later. Even as I am loath to part with your company, cousin, I find it difficult to let our charming Lord Darnley depart. When his father is certain that the tenor of the times in Scotland is safe for your heir, he may join his sire.”

  “But just the other day, you had changed your mind to let them depart anytime. Why not our son now, too?”

  “Shall I change my mind again to let none of you go—or to return you to house arrest at Sheen, where I am sending poor Templar Sutton’s body to be buried since London is now off limits?”

  “I—no, of course not,” she faltered, obviously taken aback by the outburst. “Your wish is indeed my—our command,” she said, but her olive-hued complexion blanched white as almond paste.

  Elizabeth and Cecil had argued late last night over her keeping Darnley around too, but she had cit
ed two reasons, neither of which she would share with this snide harpy. Firstly, it was ever her practice to keep high-placed, hostile courtiers under her nose to better smell out their reeking, treasonous plans. Secondly, even before Ned’s report, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, had been on the list of her possible attackers, though she had several other candidates, too.

  “You must excuse me for I have important people to see,” the queen informed Margaret with a dismissive nod.

  She could tell the woman took her ambiguous comment with the intended barb. Margaret dropped a jerky curtsy and huffed her way to the door, nearly colliding with Mildred Cecil, who waited just outside to be announced. Ordinarily, the queen would have been appalled to see that Mildred barely moved aside for a woman of royal blood, but it perversely pleased her to see Margaret thrown off balance in more ways than one.

  “The countess believes I’m as mad as Tom O’Bedlam anyway,” Mildred said in feeble apology as she rose from her curtsy. “After all, she was at the baby’s christening where I—I shouted at you and should not have, Your Grace.”

  “But you were ill then, still recovering from childbirth, and are obviously better now. Sit with me here,” Elizabeth invited, indicating two chairs. She looked Mildred’s black skirts over too as she turned, sat, and arranged her gown, but saw no snags or tears. “You are not mad in the slightest, are you, Mildred, however sad or fretful sometimes?”

  “Only mad at myself for not meekly accepting whatever burdens our heavenly Lord would allow. After all, He gives us strength to bear up under—and fight back against—all our earthly trials.”

  Her voice was so keen-edged that Elizabeth paused before observing, “Your lord loves you very much, you know.”

  Mildred nodded stiffly; tears glazed her eyes. “I thank you, Your Majesty, that you are keeping me with your court to go to Hatfield, though, of course, my lord and I can move immediately into our nearby manorhouse at Theobalds to give someone else a chamber. My lord husband said that he would rent no one chambers at Theobalds to keep it as a retreat for you, and he wishes to show you the new property and his grand schemes for it.”

  “I certainly want to see Theobalds too, but will need Secretary Cecil with me at Hatfield until then. And you are welcome to stay also.”

  “But I—I hear you are keeping Bettina Sutton with you.”

  “I can hardly cast her off now, especially since we have heard that the plague is spreading in London as well as creeping up the Thames. And, frankly, Cecil says he wants to counsel her on financial affairs. As busy as he is, it is good of him.”

  “Oh, yes, very good.”

  “I sense you do not like Bettina.”

  “It’s only that she saw my outburst at the christening. No, Your Majesty, it is not only that,” she corrected herself, sitting up straighter and gripping her hands hard in her lap. “It is that I have gathered from some of the current law students my lord has sponsored, who have dined at our table, that Bettina Sutton is a bedswerving lightskirt, and has carried on as such under poor Templar’s nose!”

  The queen sat back in her chair. Now that, if it were fact, led to many new ramifications. And Mildred had never been the sort to gossip.

  “Current students?” the queen queried. “But Bettina would be much older than they are.”

  Mildred tried to stifle a sniff. “She’s trifled with current—and former, I’m afraid.”

  “Such as Christopher Hatton?” Elizabeth asked, recalling how Bettina had seemed so smitten by him. “Or Jamie Barstow?”

  “I don’t know for certain, though it would not be for her lack of setting snares, I take it.”

  “Mildred, did you try to talk to Templar about this and have words with him? Could Bettina have known you told him such, and perhaps feared … But I am getting ahead of myself.”

  “I only know what I overheard and believe to be true. Will you dismiss her from your presence now?”

  “Not until I know the facts. I do know a woman’s sullied reputation can be a fragile thing. But you have helped to open my eyes to new possibilities. I am glad to see you calm and much yourself again.”

  Mildred rose as the queen did. “Yet my lord always says that I am not myself, does he not, Your Grace?”

  “He worries for you. He is very proud of you and the children,” Elizabeth assured her as she nodded her leave to depart.

  “Some of the children,” Mildred muttered as she curtsied and hurried out the door.

  Jenks had to admit Meg Milligrew sat a horse well, especially for a girl who’d been reared in London. Her deceased husband had once been a bargeman and had taught Meg to row and swim, not ride. Jenks himself had made her a middling horsewoman, about the same time Ned taught her to read and say her words better and not slouch. So why did Meg have to choose Ned Topside over him when Ned hardly knew she was alive, not as a desirable woman anyway?

  Jenks rode up to Meg’s place in line on his way toward the vanguard of the growing array of riders and wagons which would follow the queen’s guard and coach. Her Majesty always felt better if he and Lord Dudley rode near her, especially when the Countess of Lennox and her son, Lord Darnley, were riding right behind.

  “Nice weather at least.” Jenks tried something safe with Meg.

  Still unmounted, she was struggling to balance two bulky, sweet-smelling burlap bags on her horse’s rump, so he reached over to help her.

  “It is that,” she agreed, “though any day’s a good one for fleeing the plague. You just keep a sharp eye out for varlets who might try to harm Her Grace.”

  “Folks already gathered at the palace gates waiting to cheer her on. She’ll be fine now we’re leaving that cursed maze behind, and Hatfield’s got nothing like.”

  “Not unless you count that knot garden I put in six years ago, the year she became queen.” Meg shook her head and frowned, but he figured it wasn’t at him this time. “I haven’t seen it since then, so unless the caretakers of the manor tended it, the pretty twists of shrub hedges will have gone to rack and ruin.”

  “Your touch will mend them fast.”

  She smiled up at him, right into his eyes in the slant of morning sun. “Jenks, I don’t want hard feelings between us.”

  “Not on my part, Mistress Milligrew. Come on then, I’ll give you a boost up,” he said, and quickly dismounted.

  She seized her reins, and he laced his hands to take her foot and hoist her into the saddle. She settled her skirts as he remounted.

  “Jenks,” she began, then bit off what else she’d say as the cries “Forward! Forward! Make way for the Queen’s Majesty!” sounded over the hubbub in the waiting line.

  “Tell me quick, though I’ll see you along the way,” he said.

  “I do care for you and always will.”

  “But not the right way?”

  “I can’t explain about Ned. God knows he doesn’t deserve my care and concern …”

  “He doesn’t and I do, but you still want Ned,” he said, his voice harsh when he’d meant to sound sweet. He’d been carrying around for days a pair of riding gloves he longed to give her as a courting gift and here she was getting ready to explain why she loved Ned.

  “The plague,” she whispered, leaning closer to him and reaching out to touch his hands gripping his reins, “and the threat of death to us, the queen’s being attacked too, all make me think about what’s important, and—”

  “What’s important now is getting this progress on the road,” he said and doffed his cap to her as he might to a fine lady. “Facing death from the plague or from loving someone you can never have—hell, I’m just sticking to serving the queen, because it’s all too much for me.”

  Cutting off what else she would say, he spurred his mount around those waiting to move and caught up with Robert Dudley directly behind the royal coach.

  The shortened royal entourage stretched nearly a mile instead of the usual four. One would have been deaf and blind to miss the grand procession, and people responded with
wild adoration of their queen.

  On earlier progresses, the queen would ride a white horse, but she’d left Fortune behind with her new foal. Elizabeth had been known to recline against cushions in an ornate litter carried by men or pulled by a team of white mules. But today, she waved from her open-sided coach, drawn by matched horses with their manes and tails dyed orange. Accepting numerous nosegays and even petitions, she waved and smiled until she thought her arm would drop off and her face would crack. At least no one had had the forewarning to be able to prepare the usual delaying speeches and pageants.

  When they passed a stretch of open fields with scattered shade trees, she finally stretched and stared straight up at the carved and plumed roof of the coach. The interior was richly upholstered in scarlet cloth, dripping gold and silver lace. Despite its splendor, even pillowed and padded, the damned thing rested on two hard axles and jolted her nearly to death.

  “Stop at once, Boonen!” she shouted to her coachman. “I need to stretch my legs before your driving these pitted roads turns me to mincemeat!”

  Robin appeared immediately to help her down. Already behind her, word of a respite had spread, for others dismounted or jumped from wagons to stretch or tend to privy needs. Elizabeth did not want to catch Margaret Stewart’s eye and have her come traipsing over to join her, but she noted she was huddled with her son.

  As the queen drank the proffered goblet of ale, men quickly erected her small, crimson-cloth pavilion. She paced back and forth, but when she finally glanced past Robin’s shoulder and saw Bettina Sutton on the road behind, she sent Jenks to fetch her. As the woman came closer, the queen noted that she looked quite sober and dry-eyed for the first time since Templar’s death.

  “You are not sending me back, Your Majesty? I’m afraid to go back to London right now,” she cried as she rose from her curtsy.

  “Why would you think that? Have I been anything but kind to you?” Immediately, the queen regretted her baiting tone. Mildred’s casting suspicion on Bettina had changed her attitude toward the new widow, and that was unfair, at least so far.