The Fatal Fashione: An Elizabeth I Mystery (Elizabeth I Mysteries)

by Karen Harper

  “Halt!” Elizabeth cried as they neared the north gate to the bridge. She raised herself in her saddle to scan the shifting swells of people and animals. “We’ll make no headway en masse without harming someone,” she called to her party. “Bates, take two guards and ride the bridge, looking for the four of them—or two hooded girls. Call out to those in the shops lest this is quite harmless and they’ve simply sneaked out to go shopping, but Sally should never have allowed that.”

  As soon as the three riders were gone, she turned to Clifford and Rosie. “You two, come with me. We will take the barge to the other side of the bridge and look for them to exit there. The rest of the men are to stay here to watch for two girls who might emerge from this end. If we do not find them that way, before the drawbridges are closed for the night, we will do a shop-to-shop and house-to-house search of the entire span.”

  The three of them rode along the riverbank to the Old Swan Stairs where the barge awaited; they stared at the nearby bridge while the crew loaded their horses. The queen shaded her eyes into the sinking sun. Things had been going so poorly of late in this quest for the killer, she could only pray this would not be some dreadful dead end.

  Badger and Celia shoved the girls out of the shop, into its small back room. A single window, set ajar, overlooked the river. Gloves, uncut leather, and fur pieces were stacked on shelves and thrown on a small worktable with cutting tools, maybe Celia’s. With the roar of the water under the arches, they had to shout to be heard.

  “Badger, I demand you take us to the church forthwith!” Marie insisted, trying to sound as commanding as her mother always did. She cursed the tears stinging her eyes. “I don’t want to be late for my aunt’s burial.”

  It was when Celia hooted a laugh right in her face that Marie knew she’d made a terrible mistake trusting these people. She had actually thought there might be a back walkway the shop owners used to avoid the bridge traffic, but that was a lie. Was everything else Badger had said untrue? Maybe he was so angry at her mother that he intended to hold her for ransom. Everyone knew her father was as rich as King Midas. Perhaps the queen would pay a pretty penny for Sally, too.

  “You must let us go at once or I shall tell the queen herself,” Sally put in, stepping closer so their shoulders bumped. It touched Marie that the younger, smaller girl was yet trying to protect her, when this was all her fault.

  “That poxed face of yours may scare some,” Celia said, yanking Sally’s hood back, then pulling her hair, “but not us. You don’t want to be pitched in the water, girl, you just leave off,’cause our bus’ness is with Mistress Marie here.”

  Panicked, Marie darted for the door. Everything happened so fast. Celia seized the struggling, shrieking Sally and stuffed a glove in her mouth. Badger grabbed Marie with hard hands and dragged her into a corner of the small room. All she saw there was a wooden closestool. He shoved it aside with his foot, revealing a square drop hole in the wooden floor, which looked straight down to the river, raging through the bridge arches below.

  To her horror, Badger pulled her hands behind her back, threw her to her knees, and thrust her head and shoulders down through the horrid hole, then drew her back up a bit so he could shout in her ear.

  “You’ll tell me what you know now, what else you’ve blabbed to your mother and the queen about the day the starcher was killed! I want to know now or you just might slip through this hole, and that’ll be the end of you.”

  “We’ll just say she fell right through,” Celia yelled on her other side. “Poor girl, slipped, just trying to use the jakes.”

  Marie gaped at the white foam below. It seemed to reach for her, fill her open eyes and mouth as she drifted in it, sinking, screaming silently. Aunt Hannah’s face in death … She imagined her mother’s face dead from childbed fever … No. No, the queen had said that was not her fault.

  “What if she don’t talk?” Celia asked. “The stocking man will have our heads like those out there on pikes.”

  “Shut your trap! She’s going to talk, right, Marie? Who did you see at your Aunt Hannah’s that day she drowned?”

  “No one—I heard them, struggling,” she cried.

  “Louder!” he demanded. “Heard who struggling?”

  “I was on the stairs. I started up to see her, but heard it—a man with her. Then when it … was quiet … I came up to see if she was all right.”

  “And saw what? Saw who?”

  “No—no one was there. She was floating … dead.”

  Marie felt she was floating, pulled under as the thick, sticky memories roared forth to drown her. Trying to swim upward, through the starch, she remembered now: She hurried back downstairs after she saw Hannah floating. On the stairs, she fell and rolled, hitting her head, but she got up and rushed into the field to stare up at the window. Through it, she saw someone lift her aunt Hannah’s body from the starch tub. She should have tried to pull her out, but she’d been a coward and fled. Through the window, she saw someone dressed like Badger, short like Badger—but if she said that, he would drop her through this hole. Maybe he meant to do it no matter what.

  “What else did you see?” he shouted, shaking her like a cloth doll.

  “N-n-nothing. The sun shone off the windows in my eyes. Everything was gone then, from my head, after I fell. That’s all I recall, I swear it!”

  “We’ve got to hurry with the rest of this,” Celia said. “The glove maker will be back soon. That’s enough to tell the stocking market man.”

  “Just the stocking man, remember?” Badger hissed at her.

  “What’s the difference? These two won’t be round to tell!”

  Who are they talking about? Marie wondered, panicked as she stared down at the white chaos pounding against the pillars. The glover sold stockings, too?

  “I still say she’s worth a fortune alive, no matter what he said about final revenge,” Badger argued. He eased up slightly on her neck. She turned to see that Celia had bound Sally with a roll of ribbon—and that her friend had managed to cut nearly through her bonds with a pair of scissors she had somehow got a hand on.

  “I remember something else,” Marie added, hoping Badger and Celia didn’t look Sally’s way. “Let me sit up. I can’t breathe.”

  Badger loosed her slightly, though he didn’t let go of her. She knew she would only have one chance to pull off this trick, and if she failed, she and Sally were gone for good.

  Marie shrieked in Badger’s ear. Sally, free now, gave a shout and rushed Celia, knocking her sprawling facedown on the floor, swinging the big scissors at her like a knife. As Badger startled, then tried to get up, he loosed Marie. Instead of fleeing, she yanked him back and shoved. He ended up with his posterior from shoulder blades to the backs of his knees stuck in the drop hole, struggling not to fall through all the way.

  Marie tried to help Sally, but the girl seemed a much better brawler. Celia’s wrist was bleeding, but she grabbed Sally. The scissors went flying. The woman backhanded Sally, slamming her into the wall. Furious, Marie pounded Celia’s back, but she knew it would do no good to scream for help unless the glover returned. The outside noise was still deafening.

  Somehow Sally righted herself and scrambled for the scissors on the floor just as Badger got himself out of the drop hole.

  “There’s a big club out in the shop,” Celia screamed at him, holding her bleeding wrist. “Fetch it to use on them. We have to hurry—”

  The moment Badger ran out to get the club, Marie slammed the door behind him and shot the bolt. At least it would take him a moment to break the door down, if he dared, since Celia had said the glover would be back soon. Now, at least, it was two against one.

  Sally had the scissors again, and Marie grabbed another glove-cutting tool. They swung them in large arcs to back Celia toward the open hole in the floor, but she cleverly skirted it. Still, she tripped over the closestool that Badger had shoved aside and crashed backwards into the wall, then sat hard on the floor.

&nb
sp; “Grab her!” Sally shrieked as they heard the first bang on the door. “Push her halfway down and let her hang there. He’s going to get back in, and then we’re cooked.”

  Together, as Badger battered at the door, the two girls grabbed handfuls of Celia’s hair, then shoved and pushed her head down into the hole to her waist, though her hips and wide skirts stopped her fall. Her arms had also gone through, but she spread her legs in the riot of skirts and petticoats to try to hold herself there.

  “These tools won’t be enough against him,” Sally cried as she stood with Marie, staring at the splintering door. “Not with that big club. He must have drowned your aunt and now wants to drown us.” She ran to the single window overlooking the river. “There are boats out on the water, and there’s a ledge outside. Someone will see us out there and help.”

  “Over that water—I can’t,” Marie said as Badger cracked the wood of the door, then bashed at it again with his club.

  “We have to. Now! Come on!”

  After a grueling interrogation, Meg was left, bound to a chair, in the upper room where she’d first been questioned. If she hadn’t known she was innocent of the murders of Hannah von Hoven and Pamela Browne, she would think by now that she was indeed guilty.

  The chief constable was a haranguer and a tormentor, skilled at instilling terror. Yet she had no doubt he’d carry out his threats. Ears nailed to the stocks next time, he said, if she didn’t admit her crimes. Then the third time he questioned her, if she didn’t confess, ears cut off and forehead branded. He’d had his man show her the hot branding iron and singe her hair with it. Then, he vowed, when it was too late for the queen to gainsay or disprove all she’d confessed, he’d see she had a public execution by burning at the stake.

  Despite her horror, exhausted, Meg floated into a halfsleep. She recalled that Ned had fondled and kissed her ears and called them seashells. He’d brushed his lips so tenderly against her “fair brow.” Ned had loved her complexion. And he’d said that he had burned to lie with her abed and love her forever.

  She heard his luring voice even now. “I’ll ask you to wed again later, when death is not our business but life—together.” But now, still, death was her business, and the death just might be her own. Yet how close she had been to being Ned’s, in body as well as in heart, after longing for him all these years. How close but now so far …

  She dozed but was wakened by voices—distant, stern, especially one man’s. Was she still dreaming? Those were not Ned’s cultured, ringing tones but a rougher voice, though one of authority and purpose.

  Her hopes soared until one of Whitcomb’s louts rushed in and stuffed a rag in her mouth that made her gag so violently she almost couldn’t hear that new voice. But yes, she could catch words if she held her breath and concentrated hard on not choking.

  “Queen’s demands … where … Milligrew …”

  Yes! Yes, the queen had sent someone to rescue her from this place, wherever it was. After gasping for air and nearly dry-heaving, she held her breath again. Whitcomb’s voice, strident, strong.

  “ … for questioning … mountain of evidence … until someone else confesses … bound over soon enough … my sworn duty …”

  Meg prayed the queen’s man would not leave her here. Had he come alone? Hadn’t guards been sent, too?

  It seemed so silent now. A door closed distantly, thudding an echo in this room, in her heart. She strained to hear more voices, even horses. But nothing now. Nothing.

  The oarsmen had to row hard to fight the current as the queen’s barge headed across the river to the Southwark side. This close to the bridge, a gap-toothed maw sucking in the river, it wouldn’t take much to be swept closer and battered against the wooden starlings that protected the pillars. Elizabeth shuddered as she recalled nearly being capsized here when she tried to solve a woman’s murder seven years ago. Meg had rescued her in a rowboat; now Meg’s daughter’s life might be at stake. How things seemed to come full circle, she thought, as she prayed that both Meg and Sally might be safe.

  “Your Grace, look!” Lady Rosie cried, pointing just past the center of the bridge. “Outside that window on a ledge. Two women are outside that window over the rapids!”

  Elizabeth squinted into the sinking sun, then shaded her eyes with both raised hands. Prayer so quickly answered? Goose bumps gilded her skin.

  “I think it’s them!” the queen cried, first to herself and then to her chief oarsman. The two were either small women or children, though neither had a cape or hood—no, the smaller girl was waving her brown one like a banner.

  The queen pointed and screamed louder, “It’s them, the girls! Row the barge closer in case they fall! Row for that arch just beyond the center!”

  Her men didn’t have to tell her it was dangerous, but they bent to their oars. The royal barge was too big to shoot through the arches, but it would take a bashing if they went sideways to block the rush of river. The queen saw that other river craft had spotted the girls, too, but dared not sail or row close.

  She stood, bracing herself against a post that held up the plain awning, as the flow and tilt of water rocked the barge. Hoping the girls would see her, the queen waved broadly. They had gone out on either side of a window onto a narrow wooden ledge; each was clinging to a faded blue shutter.

  Yes, she was certain they saw the barge, saw her. Thank God!

  In waving her cloak, Sally nearly toppled and had to let it go. Like a brown autumn leaf, it sailed to the foaming water and was instantly sucked down. The shutter she clung to swung away from the outer wall, with her hanging on, feet flailing while the roar of the rapids drowned her screams.

  Chapter the Sixteenth

  HORRIFIED, ELIZABETH WATCHED SALLY HANG ON for her life.

  “Closer!” she urged her oarsmen on the barge. “Put us under her.”

  At least the girls were on the lower level of the bridge’s buildings, for some rose to three stories—but, even if Sally hit the awning, the fall was too far, and if she missed and went into the river … She prayed the shutter would hold Sally’s weight, that she could get her feet back on the ledge.

  “Marie, don’t reach for her!” Elizabeth shouted up as the Gresham girl tried to lean over to help. But she was certain they could not hear her.

  Clifford and Rosie ran to the queen when they saw they would hit the bridge. With a huge bump and crash, the barge banged once, then again, into the wooden starlings. The impact of the water pinned them, shoving them sideways, sweeping over the bow, soaking them with spray and waves while the oarsmen fought to control the craft. Rocked as if they rode a leaping, bucking horse, Elizabeth tried to steady herself by linking arms with them.

  “Shout to them not to jump!” Elizabeth ordered Clifford. “Someone will come, and if Sally slips we are under her.”

  “Don’t jump!” he bellowed, leaning back to face upward and cupping his free hand around his mouth. “Someone will come! Sally, we are here if you fall!”

  We are here if you fall. Elizabeth’s thought echoed his frenzied words. Hannah had been killed in water; Pamela, too. Now Sally and Marie might drown, the fault of England’s reputedly wise queen, who had not protected them soon enough or well enough.

  Fury and anger stoked her strength. At any cost, she had to save them.

  The room was growing dim as daylight ebbed outside. Still gagged, the rag now soaked with saliva and tears, Meg heard another new voice in the room next to hers. Her spirits fell: This was not Ned, either. It was probably a man delivering something to Whitcomb. Despite the harsh tone and unlearned speech, though, the new voice reminded her of Ned’s. Straining to hear, she sat up instead of slumping against her bonds.

  “Eh, then, we be sent by the local constable from St. Martin’s fields, one Gideon Banks,” the new voice said. “Got more news of the murder of the second woman for you.”

  They must be in the room just outside this chamber. Was it Ned? She’d often enough heard him adopt different voices in
his acting, but he usually took the lofty roles of kings or generals, not some rough commoner.

  “Say on,” Whitcomb ordered. “I’ve got the culprit here but can use more evidence to break her.”

  “Oh, break her, eh? I always’mired—Geoff here done, too—how a bold fellow like yourself can keep the peace through power.”

  “You got her’prisoned here,” another new voice put in, “’spite o’ her workin’ for the queen?”

  Holy heaven, Meg thought. Geoff sounded like Jenks. Ned had brought Jenks! If only she could cry out to them.

  “How in hell,” Whitcomb said, “did you get so beat up, man?”

  “The queen’s men,” Ned said. “They came to the local constable, looking for her herb’list. We wouldn’t say where she was being held—didn’t rightly know then.”

  Meg’s heart went out to him, for Whitcomb’s bullies had hit that handsome face hard. At least the chief constable had not been there when his men dragged Ned off, so he didn’t know what he looked like one way or the other.

  “Speaking of hell,” Ned went on, “there’s gonna be that to pay if’n you don’t hand that herb’list back,’cause the queen depends on her mightily.”

  “That so? Mightily? Good!”

  Meg could picture Whitcomb gloating. Ned was taking the wrong tack here, because the chief constable loved to be reminded he was hurting the queen by hurting Meg.

  “This be a real fancy place, this Skinners’ Guildhall,” Ned said, blessedly changing the subject.

  So that’s where she was! Nigel Whitcomb used to be head of the guild of skinners; he evidently still had access to it.

  “Good place to skin a guilty cat, I’d say,” Whitcomb said, and guffawed. Ned and Jenks laughed right along with him, but then Meg heard a door open and a fourth man’s voice.