Elizabeth I - 05 - The Thorne Maze

by Karen Harper

  “It would be a great honor for my son and our family to continue to serve you into the next generation, Your Majesty.” Mildred forced a tight smile; her posture was almost as stiff. “But I have noted that you favor fine-looking folk about you, and my dear Robert may never be that.”

  “I favor above all else those who are loyal to me. Besides, have you not noted that when someone lacks certain physical attributes, he or she oft makes up for that by being especially clever or talented?”

  “And vice versa, I warrant,” Mildred said. “Such as Chris Hatton or Bettina Sutton—pretty people but perhaps not so clever or talented.”

  “You saw Bettina as someone who was physically attractive but not clever or talented?” Elizabeth had been looking for a path into this necessary conversation, so this might work well.

  “I regret to speak ill of the dead, Your Majesty, but Bettina was clever or talented at things I do not consider strengths. I realize she was much more comely and winsome than me, but her wit—and her moral underpinnings—left much to be desired. And yet,” she went on more quietly, almost as if she were speaking only to herself now, “she was desired.”

  “I assume you are referring again to her seducing Templar’s students, rumors you heard from those to whom you extended your hospitality?”

  “Yes,” Mildred said only, looking a bit alarmed, as if she realized she’d talked herself into a corner.

  “And yet, I never took you for one who would judge others on hearsay, as the lawyers put it. I took you for one who follows Him who said, ‘Judge not,’ for one who knows and can quote the Bible well,” she added, thinking of the note tacked on the oak. “Therefore, I believe you must know more of Bettina’s behavior than what you have overheard in mere gossip to dislike her so.”

  “When I visited Gray’s Inn years ago, I myself saw her inappropriate and overly familiar behavior with someone other than Templar, that is all,” Mildred blurted.

  “And was that someone other than Templar the man who was to soon become your husband?”

  The woman rocked back in her chair as if she’d been struck. “I—how c-could you—know—to ask that?” she stammered.

  “Perhaps Bettina told me.”

  “She didn’t see me, though the Gray’s Inn watchman could have told her. I know my lord didn’t see me either … . Oh, now I’ve told you,” she muttered as tears filled her eyes.

  “He himself confessed to me his one-time sin with Bettina, and how he rued it. I merely guessed just now that you had somehow learned of his grievous fault. To have seen him thusly must have been a shock. And yet you wed him a fortnight later when he had hurt and disappointed you.”

  “I loved and wanted him, Your Majesty.”

  “You speak in the past tense. Do you not love and want him now? I believe he’s been loyal to your union since and loves you deeply. But it seems knowing this about him all these years—as well as fretting about his first wife and her son—has been festering inside you. And with the birth of little Robert, such a delicate child when you longed for one robust, the infection has burst out into your behavior.”

  “Does my lord know all this—and put you up to this?”

  “No one ‘puts me up to’ anything!”

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty, I didn’t mean to cast aspersions, not on you, that is.”

  “He’s a man, Mildred. Addressing Parliament or the stubborn Scots in treaty-making or counseling his queen, he is brilliant. I am ever amazed at the scope of his knowledge and advice. But have you yet seen a husband who can come off so well at close range with his wife?”

  Mildred almost smiled. “Though you are unwed, you know men well, Your Majesty. And I find you, not men, a continual wonder.”

  “But you must solve something for me,” Elizabeth said, deciding to press her advantage. “Did you resent Bettina, or perhaps even Templar, enough that you wanted to harm them?”

  Panic lit her eyes and froze her features. “You don’t mean—could I kill them?” she gasped. Her hands fluttered to her throat, a move so unlike Mildred that it was not lost on Elizabeth. She could yet feel those garters choking life from her.

  “That wasn’t what I asked,” the queen countered.

  “No, Your Majesty. If I ever did want to harm Bettina, it would be not to punish but to keep her from telling anyone how my well-respected husband betrayed his mentor and me once.

  “Then you never so much as thought of harming the Suttons?”

  “Never, though I’ve come dreadfully close to doing damage to my husband more than once,” she admitted. The queen could tell she was not jesting. Something strange and almost frightening flickered in Mildred Cecil’s hazel eyes, then faded. Elizabeth knew she would have to warn Cecil, tell him that his instinct to remove Mildred from her family was sound. And she must warn him to be even more watchful for himself.

  Still stunned, Jenks realized he’d been resurrected from the dead. Though pain racked him, he stood on firm soil, grateful to be surrounded by mere gravestones instead of plague corpses. He had no idea what were his odds of getting the pestilence now, but he was probably a walking dead man.

  “You all right then?” the fellow who’d put a ladder down to him asked as he backed away. “You look a fright. You got a home to go to, or they got the plague there, too?”

  Jenks didn’t answer but moved slowly away. He was certain most of his ribs were cracked because each breath pained him. One ankle must be sprained, and his back felt wrenched. He’d give anything for his horse—and for Meg’s healing touch.

  He shuffled through the graveyard, dragging his bad foot, forcing himself on. He recognized where he was, Bowe Church on broad Cheapside, a street nearly deserted now.

  He leaned against a building, wanting to suck in great gasps of air, but even that hurt him. Besides, it could be heavy with the miasma of pestilence. He had to get back to Hatfield. Or at least, before he was stricken by the plague as well as weakened further by his injuries, he’d get close enough to shout to the queen what he’d learned about Chris Hatton’s needing a good watch. He supposed he’d somehow have to get the word to her about Lord Cecil and Bettina too, though he dreaded that. But in this shape, he’d never make it clear back to his horse in the stables outside Moorgate.

  Then he realized he was much closer to the queen’s London residence, the now empty Whitehall Palace, than to his horse. And a few mounts would be there. Robert Dudley always left behind the horses which were hobbled or needed tending.

  He pictured Meg’s healing hands again, longed to feel her palm on his hot forehead, the way she leaned against his bed when she’d nursed a fever out of him last year. To help the queen and see Meg again, he had to make it back, or he’d die trying.

  “I want a dramatic line of buildings against the sky,” Cecil told the queen the next morning after breakfast as, ignoring the wet grass, they walked the grounds. “Once one rides in the great gate from the main road, the view must be arresting.”

  The rain had stopped, and this day was breaking clear and cool for late July. “Tall pavilions, cupolas, a pinnacled belfry,” he went on as they moved away from the manor toward the maze, trailing two guards.

  “And a forest of chimney stacks venting from mantled hearths in nearly every room,” she added, as she caught his excitement. She could see it all in her mind’s eye. When she was out on summer progress in years to come—when there were no lurking murderers or plagues to ruin sweet summer days—her long entourage would come winding up a fine gravel lane to visit this lovely place. “And what colors on the exterior?” she asked.

  “A rose brick facade trimmed with white stone,” he said instantly. “Blue slate-hung turrets with gilded weather vanes, like the ones that sing in the wind at Richmond Palace. And fresco-painted open loggias.”

  “A touch of Italy, but the architecture and art must be of the England we will build together, my Cecil. And don’t think I won’t have an idea or two for Theobalds, if you will allow a modest opinio
n.”

  “I would not have it any other way, for your taste and style are greatly valued. It is one reason I am pleased to have you here, Your Grace.”

  “And another is that on this site we will catch our criminal,” she declared with a single sharp clap of her hands. “We must snare him or her in this curious water maze the previous owner built,” she went on as they neared the water meadow in which it sat like a great, green sculpture. She picked up her skirts to avoid the puddles and increasingly spongy ground.

  “Someone else may have designed it, but I shall reshape and expand it,” Cecil said, hurrying to keep up with her long strides.

  “Where are the boats to navigate it?” she asked impatiently, even as he indicated which direction to take next.

  “Over here, Your Grace, this way.”

  The water maze was a quarter mile from the manor, screened from it by a small orchard of heavily laden apple trees. Even from this distance, it looked more intriguing than any labyrinth she had ever seen. Its thorny maze was tall and thick and seemed to grow directly from the shallow lake in the center of the meadow. Fed by the same sturdy stream as was the moat, the little lake, now swelled with rain, reflected the blue morning sky like a mirror.

  “Here, Your Grace,” Cecil said, pointing at a line-up of six small, short rowboats roped to posts.

  The queen saw each craft could seat two, but only one person could row. “The paths of the maze have grown so wide that two boats can barely go abreast,” he explained as she climbed into one without waiting for a hand in. She pulled her skirts tight to give him room to get in and row. “That width is also needful,” he added, clambering in behind her, “should a single boat need to pass another or turn out of a dead end.”

  “I fully intend to turn out of the dead end this diabolical maze ghost thinks he has trapped us in.”

  “Maze ghost?” he said with a tight smile as he cast off their rope and fitted the oars into the locks. “Because he seems to appear and disappear at will? That’s not so hard in a maze, I warrant.”

  “But even when my people surrounded the one at Hampton Court or searched within or looked for exits—nothing. And Bettina’s body being deposited so brazenly like that in the knot garden, as if her murderer had been invisible … And speaking of ghosts, my lord, I forgot to ask you the story of the one you say haunts the manor here. I heard no moans nor rattling of chains last night, and I’m afraid I was awake for a good deal of it with my mind churning.”

  “You’re worried about Jenks.”

  “Indeed, among other things such as attacks on my subjects—and myself.”

  “And you’re deeply fretful about Kat.”

  “Kat, yes,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “Your Mildred too, for, as I told you, I feel she teeters on the cusp of violence she almost cannot control. Not to mention I’ve been vexed that Chris and Jamie and that damned Darnley could be involved. And my cousin Mary of Scots is likely to take a husband to make my head spin if I don’t get Robin Dudley or Darnley to her, when I can’t stomach sending her either of them,” she groused, smacking her hands hard on her skirts.

  “Then you still intend to tempt Queen Mary to wed that sadistic milksop by dangling him in front of her while pushing your supposed favorite for her—Dudley? Talk about mazes …”

  “Yes, mazes. I intend that we assemble here at Theobalds all those we suspect as our murderer and lay a snare.”

  “You mean to include Mildred and Kat?”

  “I will not and cannot suspect them of such dire deeds, but yes, they will be here, too. We shall explain the gathering as an opportunity for those traveling with me to Hatfield to see and enjoy Theobalds and to glimpse the grandeur you will build here. We will have to house them in pavilions, make it a festive occasion where we eat outside, weather willing.”

  “Of course, we can house the Countess of Lennox inside and let the men and most servants stay outside.”

  “I regret to allow even this much gaiety in plague times,” she admitted as he rowed them through the mouth of the maze, “but it must be done.” She noted her two guards had climbed in separate boats, but stayed far back as she had asked.

  “Cecil, I believe our murderer—that God-forsaken strangler, brick basher, and poisoner, if that’s how Bettina died—will be unable to resist the challenge of this maze.”

  “Surely not with you in it as bait, Your Grace!”

  “With you, I think, my lord.”

  He stopped rowing, going momentarily still as a statue, his eyes wide. The prow of their little boat bumped a barrel; they nearly grazed the prickled leaf walls.

  “Better me than you, Your Grace,” he said, recovering his aplomb and pushing them away from the hedges with an oar. “And I have a feeling, the ‘ghost’ will not risk everything unless there is a grand prize.”

  “We must not spring our trap until our guests have had a chance to see and study the grounds and the maze. We must allow them to walk and row to their heart’s content. Perhaps, by keen observation, how much time each person spends doing so will tip us off early concerning whom to watch later.”

  “Then you do intend to have certain people followed or guarded?”

  “Only if it is possible without showing our hand. Our ghost must feel confident in this strange maze, and I warrant the idea of drowning his or her next victim will be an enticement, too.”

  “Drowning? And by the next victim, you mean me.”

  “We shall safeguard you at all costs. But variety is the spice of life—or death—that’s what our murderer believes,” she argued. “Perhaps there is no motive beyond the mere challenge of it, but I believe something deep and dreadful must be driving the ghost, and we have not yet found the key.”

  “No wonder you lie awake at night. You have it all reasoned out.”

  “I wish I did. But are you willing to be our bait, if we can think of a way to set it all up?”

  “Let the blackguard come on!”

  “Then we shall move ahead. I had intended to cross-question Jamie Hatton and Darnley again, perhaps Chris too at Hatfield, but I believe we shall just summon them here tomorrow. So you must send someone posthaste for pavilions from St. Alban’s, those I recall from their summer fair.”

  “You believe it’s Darnley, do you not, Your Grace?” he asked suddenly, almost hopefully.

  “He’s at the top of the list,” she admitted as they rowed around another bend. The hedges were indeed thorny, and she gathered her skirts to keep them from being snagged. She peered down into the water to note the weighted barrels from which the thick bushes grew. They were spaced about three feet apart and filled with stone ballast above the soil. The swell of rainwater had raised the surface level to lap at the tops of the barrels. But with a swish of oar, water would splash in and rock the hedges as if they were an upside-down reflection of the disturbed water. By the height of the barrels here, she judged the depth to be about four feet, near that of the pond at Hatfield where she and Meg had ventured out. But she’d tell Cecil that part later.

  “These hedge paths wind ever tighter with several false turns,” Cecil said as he rowed farther in. “There is no goal per se, but only a wider opening in the very heart of it.”

  “This must be an eerie place at night.”

  “At night? Surely, you are not thinking—”

  “Lit by a single lantern from your boat in the goal, waiting for our prey, who believes you are his prey. Our ghost will hardly come out here in sunlight or a blaze of torches. Which reminds me, my lord, you keep shifting the subject and have not yet answered my question about the ghost of the manor. Tell me all you know of him.”

  “Of her.”

  “Indeed? A woman ghost? I shall not take that as an omen.”

  “A unique ghost, the former owner told me. It—or she— drips water on the floor and leaves her bare footsteps and the marks of her sopping petticoat hems dragged through it.”

  “A female ghost bold enough to swim is one aft
er my own heart,” Elizabeth boasted, though gooseflesh prickled her arms.

  “It’s said,” Cecil admitted, grudgingly, she could tell, “that it’s the ghost of a woman who drowned in this very maze.”

  Chapter the Sixteenth

  THE PAIN WAS NEARLY UNBEARABLE. EACH JOLT OF THE horse’s hooves on the road ripped through Jenks, but he fought blessed oblivion. He had to stay awake to guide the horse. He had to get to Hatfield, but not too close, call to someone to fetch help, to tell Her Grace from a distance what he’d learned in London … before he died … because he was sure he would, from pain if not plague. He tried to picture Elizabeth Tudor and Meg Milligrew standing together at his grave, looking so alike, both mourning his loss.

  He’d managed to walk to Whitehall Palace; his appearance had shocked the two grooms left behind to care for the injured horses. At first light, he’d taken a mount which was healing from deep cuts, a young stallion he recalled Lord Darnley had abused at Hampton Court, which must have been sent to Whitehall. Its limp had long healed, and he’d ridden it as hard as he’d dared today.

  Now he turned the nervous horse off the road as he approached Hatfield. He cut through the fringe of forest until he could see the house. Though he slowed the big beast to a walk, he flushed both deer and woodcock. Hanging on its neck, he prayed he didn’t faint and fall off or a hunt party might discover only his bones someday. He could barely hold on to this horse or his own pain one moment more … .

  He woke on the ground with the horse standing nearby, cropping grass. The slant of the sun showed it was early afternoon. The trees above him spun and whirled. And then he heard what he knew could save him, if he wasn’t just dreaming again.

  “Don’t you rogues bring those sheep anywhere near my knot garden. If they eat these yew hedges, they’ll be dead in a trice! Keep them on the larger lawn, or I’ll run them off myself!”