Elizabeth I - 05 - The Thorne Maze

by Karen Harper

  “You have been so gracious I cannot fathom the depth of your care,” Bettina gushed and blinked back tears as Elizabeth indicated she might join her in the small pavilion. They sat on low, folding camp chairs on a Turkey carpet spread over the grassy fringe between the road and the fields.

  “You’ve been riding with Chris Hatton and Jamie Barstow today,” Elizabeth said. “Since you’ve known them for quite a while, I thought they might be of some comfort and you could talk of old times. Because Templar kept close relationships with his students, I’m sure you had some intimacy with them, too.”

  For one moment, Bettina blinked at Elizabeth like an owL “Oh, yes, I knew them all.”

  The queen merely raised her eyebrows, hoping Bettina would feel the need to elaborate.

  “One can’t help but feel sorry for young men away from home,” Bettina went on, shifting slightly so her wooden chair creaked. Each time she sighed, her breasts heaved. “At our dinner table, Templar questioned and bullied his pupils to become better orators or to learn to discern truth through their disputations. Of course, I was hostess for those events.”

  “Discern truth through their disputations,” the queen repeated. “I also recall Templar liked to retire early to bed to read, you said, though he later mentioned it was to plan questions for his pupils—as he did the evening of the masque. So the way you described it was close to the truth, yet slightly askew.”

  Bettina had looked merely uneasy, but at that salvo, her bewilderment seemed to shift to bravado. “Yes, as Templar said, he retired early the evening I found you nearly dead, Your Majesty.”

  The queen fixed Bettina with a steady stare and let silence hang in the air between them again.

  “Templar cared deeply for his work and his students, yes,” Bettina said, her voice almost breathless.

  “And did you care for them deeply, too?”

  “Of course, I did. But—you mean Christopher, do you not?”

  The queen threw the rest of her ale out the tent opening and tossed her goblet on the carpet. “Tell me about your relationship with him then.”

  “There is naught to tell, Your Majesty. He was charming and handsome, and I delighted in his company, that is all. What red-blooded woman would not respond with warmth to that particular young blood, as they call the Gray’s Inn students. You no doubt noticed I was happy to see him here again. I am proud that he is doing well in your eyes, that is all. I warrant the fact I favored him among my husband’s students was not one whit different from the way he was—and is—treated by any woman, however highborn, with two eyes in her head, Your Grace.”

  Elizabeth almost slapped her, but she was forced to admire the woman. She might look like a coquette, but she could probably sway a judge or jury like any good lawyer. The queen decided to switch tactics.

  “Of course your skills as hostess would be a great help to your husband and solace to yourself,” she said, forcing herself to sound pleasant. “And I can only imagine that living with someone as brilliant and demanding as Templar was not easy for you.”

  “No, Your Gracious Majesty, it was not, when all I wanted was to be as loved and cherished as were his precious law and his books.”

  A flood of new tears. At least Bettina had not denied her mingled feelings toward her husband or her attraction to Chris Hatton. Despite wanting to harden her heart against this young woman, Elizabeth understood being lonely—the swirling desire to be coddled and cherished when important men seemed ever busy with other things.

  “But, Your Majesty,” Bettina plunged on, evidently not knowing when she was winning, “if you think I had aught to do with harming Templar, I swear to you by all that is holy that I did not, could not! And I don’t know what you’re implying about my relationships with my husband’s students, but I feel much maligned. Ask Chris and Jamie if you don’t believe me—send someone to Gray’s Inn to ask anyone!”

  “Impossible now with the plague there, as you know. But I assure you I will speak to Chris and Jamie. Then tell me why you put Mildred, Lady Cecil’s name on the list with all those men.

  “Just the other day she argued with Templar and tried to turn him against me, and now she’s turned you against me too, has she not?”

  “Turn Templar or me against you how?”

  “The question is why, Your Majesty. Mayhap she thought I was always part of the camaraderie between Templar and his students, including her own husband. Templar and her lord remained close over the years, and Templar preferred him to visit us instead of the other way round, and Lord Cecil always loved coming back to Gray’s. That day Templar became godfather to the Cecils’ new child was an exception to the rule. Since Lord Cecil was busy at court and then spent time with us, perhaps Lady Cecil became jealous of or hostile toward me, especially if she is of unstable temperament of late.”

  “So, you are surmising that Lady Cecil was jealous of you for merely being part of—a close witness to—Templar’s and her husband’s friendship, for helping indirectly to keep Cecil away from her, so to speak?”

  “Your Majesty, from what Templar told me, she was of a jealous nature, not so much of me but of another woman—a dead woman,” Bettina declared with the look of one who had just thrown her trump card.

  “What? Of whom?”

  “Of Lord Cecil’s first wife, the mother of his heir Tom. I take it she haunts Lady Cecil like a ghost.”

  “Like a gh—jealous of a woman long dead? Explain,” Elizabeth demanded, leaning forward.

  “I don’t know more than that, I swear it, but something has driven Lady Cecil to distraction. Maybe she saw me slip out the night of the masque and thought she was strangling me—until she saw it was you and, of course, stopped. Then the day she argued with Templar, mayhap she saw he was walking alone, trying to find who attacked you, and decided she must stop him at any cost.”

  Elizabeth gaped at her. All that was completely outrageous, and yet it made as much sense as some of the other paths she’d been down.

  “Bettina, say nothing of this to anyone. Mildred Cecil absolutely cannot be guilty of such atrocious deeds.”

  The rest of the journey, Elizabeth of England smiled and waved, but she was shaken by much more than the jolting, rocking coach.

  Chapter the Tenth

  WITHIN A MILE OF THEIR DESTINATION, WHEN THE forest road turned achingly familiar, Elizabeth halted her entourage. “Bring me a horse, Robin,” she commanded. “I want to ride into Hatfield as I used to. There is no one here anymore to impress in this damned coach.”

  After he had brought up her horse and checked the sidesaddle straps, he helped her mount. Suddenly, her guards rode closer to surround her—the nervous Cecil must have put them up to that—but she motioned for them to move back.

  “Jenks only with me, just as in those difficult days,” she announced and motioned for her stalwart guard. “Everyone else may follow,” she called over her shoulder and spurred her horse.

  Just as in those difficult days. Her own words echoed in her head in rhythm with her horse’s hoofbeats. Did she not think the times were troubled now? But she ripped off her hat and let her tresses bounce her hairpins free. It was her first visit to dear, old Hatfield since she had learned here she would be queen. Now, if only for one mile or one moment, she would ride free from fear and whatever dangers and destruction threatened.

  “Remember when we rode so fast ‘The Pope’ could not keep up with us?” Elizabeth called to Jenks as he kept his horse nearly abreast hers. Her sister Queen Mary Tudor had named Thomas Pope her guardian but in truth he’d been her gaoler.

  “Aye, Your Grace! And how you outfoxed him more than once to get us away from those Catholic household spies.”

  The queen looked back to see Robin riding a short distance behind with Chris and Jamie in his dusty wake. The moment of exuberance and defiance ended; Elizabeth reined in to a trot as her burdens leaned hard upon her heart again. And she had a murderer to find, perhaps one who was part of the royal retinue str
ung out behind.

  The central single tower and two stories of the russet brick building burst into view through the protective arms of old oaks. Three roe deer on the lawn bolted for the cover of surrounding forest. She was evidently heard or seen by humankind too, for the skeletal staff which had been sent ahead emerged from the arched entry and lined up to greet her.

  She saw immediately why the deer had been on the lawn. It had not been cut—sheep used to graze on it—nor had the shrubs been kept in trim. The intricate knot garden Meg had labored over the last autumn she, as Princess Elizabeth, had lived here in forced exile had run riot to weedy tangles. So, she thought, by coming a bit early she had caught the simpletons who were to keep the place up.

  The queen dismounted with Jenks’s help and briefly greeted the waiting staff as Robin caught up to her. On the journey, she’d given much thought to what she must do next to try to find the maze murderer before she was buried in courtiers and cares again.

  “Robin,” she said, tossing him her reins as Chris and Jamie dismounted, “please see to these horses. Sir Christopher, Jamie, Jenks, come with me while I tour this old place, once my shelter and now, I pray, so again.”

  Robin looked utterly dismayed, but she swept in the front door. Memories assailed her again, but she kept going, past the wide, worn oaken staircase she’d traversed a thousand times, down the corridor to the vaulted and beamed great hall where she had held her first council meeting after she had learned her sister was dead. Her booted footsteps echoing, she strode the entire length of the long, narrow room to the dais, and sat in the chair at the end of the raised table.

  The three men trying to keep up with her halted, uncertain whether to sit or stand. Chris looked around jerkily as if he expected someone to leap at them from the afternoon shadows which hovered here despite the high windows.

  “Jenks,” she said, “guard the door and see that no one enters until I say so. Sir Christopher, sit here,” she added pointing to the chair on her immediate right, “and Jamie, on my left.”

  Jenks did as he was told without question, though both her legally-trained courtiers looked as if they’d like to argue or at least cross-question her. Both chairs scraped as they pulled them out, sat, and scooted them in.

  “Have we unwittingly vexed Your Grace?” Chris asked, sitting ramrod straight. Were they guileless or guilty, she wondered, watching how they seemed to avoid looking at each other.

  “Not at all. I merely wanted to tell you about this room, since neither of you—unlike Jenks, Lord Cecil, and my dear Kat Ashley—were in my service when I last was here, before I went to London to be crowned queen.”

  Chris heaved a sigh of relief; Jamie still sat like a deer scenting the hunter, but then, however alluring Chris looked, it was Jamie who had the brains. If it ever came to keeping just one or the other of them about, she’d be hard-pressed to pick, for they each had their strengths and uses. But if one of them was a murderer, what, in God’s name, could be a motive?

  “This chamber,” she went on, not looking around but at one of them and then the other, “is where my parents used to entertain in their happy days, before everything went so wrong and my mother was tried and executed. Imagine, even someone who had climbed so high in the monarch’s favor could tumble from that lofty position.”

  Chris still looked raptly interested in her mock history lesson; Jamie took her point and started to fidget.

  “This is also the room where, in my initial council meeting, I first felt my father’s power which had been weakly held by my poor, ill brother and had been abused by my sister Mary. It is a room in which I feel I must do right by myself and my people, especially to help those who have been harmed and to punish those who do not deserve my good trust.”

  She looked into Chris’s green eyes; he nodded and a tight smile lifted the corners of his mouth. She turned to stare Jamie down. He looked intently concerned; his gaze did not flicker or waver.

  “Though we have been forced to flee the site of your dear mentor Master Sutton’s murder,” she continued, “I shall not let it go, and will speak to anyone who knew him to ferret out the identity of the murderer. That includes especially those who knew him well and spoke with him mere hours before his sad demise. He had promised me he would ‘tell me tales out of school’ about those he had mentored and that includes both of you.”

  “Secretary Cecil too,” Chris put in, “though afore our time.”

  “Let me worry about Cecil,” she clipped out. “Now, Chris, you have told me how Master Sutton berated you for not using your skills and for following a frivolous path to come to my court, so Jamie, I would hear the Templar tales as they impacted you.”

  “First of all, I’d debate the assumption that coming to court is a frivolous path,” Jamie said, shifting forward in his seat. She noted again how agitated he was acting, despite his calm voice. “Of course,” he went on, gesturing, “I concede there are indeed entertaining benefits to courtly life, but from the source of such power as you wield, Your Majesty, there flows national duty, pride, and power—hardly frivolous things in life.”

  “Well said. But I believe Templar also berated you about your choices and decisions, Jamie.”

  “He did.”

  “And? Say on, man.”

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty. It is just that I feel I’m testifying at the bar now, and any lawyer worth his salt tells witnesses to answer simply only what was asked and not expand.”

  “’S blood and bones, I’m your queen, not some lawyer!”

  “But you do sit in the lofty station of judge and jury, Your Majesty. Master Sutton said I had risen far for nearly a self-made man. You see, Sir Christopher’s father, who has wealth and position, had sent me, in effect, his servant’s son, with him to Cambridge and Gray’s, so I had the runoff of some benefits.”

  “So far, so good. Go on,” the queen prompted.

  “Indeed, Master Sutton felt Chris should not have left Gray’s early, but he was adamant it was foolish for me to do so. He felt that, if I fell out of favor with Chris or with you, I’d be out on my hind end, I believe he put it, with no calling to earn my bread, whereas he believed that Chris was cut out for court life and, though a second son and not his father’s heir, could make his way here. Master Sutton claimed I could not stomach the stratifications and niceties of court life and, quite frankly, would be bored to death.”

  “Bored—to death. And have you been?” the queen queried, even as Jamie shifted in his chair again.

  “Never, Your Gracious Majesty. Not at your court where great decisions are made and wit wins many a battle and—”

  “Wit, yes, you’ve got that, doesn’t he, Chris?”

  “I can’t ever thank Jamie enough for how he’s served me through thick and thin, been my valet at times, if need be, my groomsman—and my tutor when Cambridge and Gray’s were overwhelming.”

  She glanced from one man to the other, wondering if she’d been wrong to question them together. She had wanted to see how they played off each other, and if there could be some conspiracy of silence between them. She did not believe so, but she had one more card to play.

  “I also need to know,” she said abruptly, “whether your relationships with Bettina Sutton were entirely proper.”

  That appeared to jolt them both. Damn, Elizabeth thought, it must be true that the little half-blooded Italian had betrayed her husband. And if so, would she in passion strike him down to preserve her secret licentious practices?

  “Chris may answer first,” she said, holding up a hand to stop his keeper Jamie from coming to his rescue with some well-honed excuse or diversion.

  “I know you are strict with your ladies’ reputations, Your Grace,” Chris began, gripping the edge of the table. “And, of course, your own.”

  “What does that have to do with the price of pigs at market? I’m asking about a woman who is not one of my ladies, one you have both known for years. Did either of you ever play your teacher and mentor f
alse with his wife?”

  “She—she tried,” Chris said, frowning. “I know that sounds pompous and craven, but I’m used to it—women’s attentions, I mean—and swear I don’t take advantage of that. No, she tried to entice me once. Remember that, Jamie, that autumn night our first year at Gray’s, after Master Sutton retired to bed, but I said no and she backed off and never so much as hinted at such again, I swear it.”

  “You must have been terribly convincing,” Elizabeth said in mocking tones, then realized it all sounded completely plausible. As far as she’d seen, Chris Hatton had been the very picture of male virtue at her court, and had seemed to be swayed only by her favors and no one else’s.

  “Perhaps I was the one who was convincing, Your Majesty,” Jamie said as he slid to the edge of his chair. “I warned Mistress Sutton to keep away from Chris, however much the Adonis he looked. I’ve protected him before like that, not that he’s been a saint on his own—God’s truth, neither of us are that. And she never approached me, not a poor pleb. fil. there at Gray’s on charity. And that lowly status, of course, is also why I’ve hesitated to beg your leave to truly tell Lady Rosie how I feel about her. May I have your permission to speak of this at some later time, Your Majesty?”

  Elizabeth’s mind was in whirls. She had not realized this young man was so clever and skilled at persuasion and influence. Because he seemed to stand in Chris’s shadow, he had somehow faded from her notice. James Barstow, a plebeian’s son or not, should be working for Cecil—or her. He could be trained to be an envoy or an ambassador’s aide someday, even a spy.

  “Speak of your intentions for Lady Rosie now,” she commanded.

  “I know Rosie Radcliffe could make a hundred better matches than I, Your Majesty, but I throw myself at your feet, imploring that you will not ask me to forsake the firm relationship the two of us are building. And I swear by Almighty God that no one could respect or admire her more or love her better.”