by Karen Harper
“We will not tamper with things yet,” she whispered, ripping her mask strings from around her neck. Looking startled, Jenks nodded. With his strength giving her slack, she strode closer to the prone, unmoving body.
Tears blurred her vision. Two strange falls by those who had served her well, both strong, young men, Elizabeth grieved. What tragedy in the midst of her happy summer.
She bent over as Dr. Dee came running and knelt quickly. His observation cylinder still in his hand, he held the larger glass end of it under Luke’s nostrils. He studied the slight misting of the glass.
“Breathing but faintly,” he announced, looking up at her. “Keep the others back, if you please, Your Majesty.”
“Stand clear, all of you but Dr. Dee. Give them space and air,” the queen commanded until she saw her cousin Harry was among the gathering. “All but for Lord Hunsdon,” she added, and Harry fell to his knees beside his wife’s injured cousin. This close, Elizabeth thought Luke looked merely asleep.
“You had best send for your physicians, Your Majesty,” John Dee told her, not looking up this time, “for though I have studied the medicinal arts, they are not my forte. But I warn that this man must be lifted carefully. We must hold his head still, for he’s not moved any of his limbs, and I fear some sort of paralysis through a broken neck or back.”
“Will he be long unconscious?” Harry asked, his voice breaking. He pressed his hand to Luke’s shoulder as if to comfort him. “How can we be certain he has not just knocked himself out?”
Dr. Dee did not answer, but pulled up each eyelid and stared into the man’s pupils. “Perhaps no severe head injury, as his irises are not dilated,” he muttered. “Your Majesty, a tabletop or door would be best on which to move the man, not just jostling hands.”
“Jenks, fetch such as Dr. Dee requires and summon my doctors from the audience,” she ordered.
Elizabeth saw Robin was helping to hold the crowd at bay. Their gazes snagged as if she’d called his name. He nodded to her, but she looked back to Dr. Dee as he carefully unwrapped the broken rope from Luke’s right hand. His fingers had gone white, though color came slowly back to them now.
The thick, twisted hemp had nearly cut into his skin while his left hand, with which he should have held it too, looked barely bruised. Then, Elizabeth reasoned, he must have fallen from the scaffold with but one hand on the rope, not two as should have been. And that rope had not broken in rehearsal. It looked not frayed but cut clean. Had he let go of the rope with one hand to try to retain or regain his balance? That could have been the two jerks she felt.
As Dr. Dee oversaw Luke’s carefully designed exit to the palace where her physicians would tend to him, Elizabeth squinted up at the walkway where Luke had held the master rope.
Nothing she saw could have tripped him unless his unknown stumbling block had tumbled down too and then been quickly removed. The four boards were narrow, but the man had practiced on them. What had gone amiss that he had begun to lift her, then stopped, then fell evidently just as his rope broke—or was cut free?
Only then did Elizabeth recall she was still tied to the scenery. She began to tremble again, not this time at her deliverance or even her fierce concern for Luke’s recovery, but from the fact that—as had not happened during the performance—she sensed she was being watched with great hostility.
Frowning, she looked around, only to see familiar faces: Kat’s, Katherine Grey’s, both women still in their masks; Robin, of course; Harry, who had played a bit part; Felicia, cradling the lute Elizabeth had once given Geoffrey; and the huddle of servants who had been in the masque, Meg, Ned, Jenks.
She looked upward again, this time scanning not only the entire backside of scenery and the castle courtyard walls against which it was nestled, but the tall, dominating Round Tower beyond. Had it now been midnight rather than noontide with the sun streaming down, she could not have felt more frightened.
“Dr. Dee,” she called in a wavering voice to the obviously distressed man, “loose me now.”
The man’s skin looked ashen as he hastened to obey. “Your Majesty, I swear by all I hold dear I cannot fathom what could have gone wrong. Though Luke Morgan seemed surefooted, the man must have simply stumbled and perhaps cut himself free so he would not hang by his hand.”
Just, she thought, as Geoffrey must have suddenly been drunk or dizzy and had fallen or thrown himself off, after carefully preserving his lute. Ned and Meg had been certain her musician had met with foul play, and she was certain that life-loving, ambitious Luke Morgan would never have just stumbled. The man had instinctive aplomb and grace, nearly as much as Robin, though with none of the breeding nor training.
“Your Majesty,” Dr. Dee’s voice droned on, “neither was your getting suspended in mid-flight any part of my plan.”
“Not your plan, perhaps,” she muttered, more to herself than him.
As the hovering Jenks and Dr. Dee unhooked the wires and ropes from her shoulders and the back of her bodice, she felt she could breathe again. Her feet stood steadier on the ground. And for the first time in days, mayhap the entire summer, she knew she had business to which she must attend, however much she simply wanted to throw herself in Robin’s arms and be carried off to safety in the palace or that sturdy old Round Tower.
“Everyone stay well back from this scenery,” the queen commanded. “Do not so much as touch any of it. Lord Robert, clear out even the players of this masque, but tell them they may be summoned to give witness later. And find my little artist, Gil.” Yes, Elizabeth thought, Gil had started out life as a climber—indeed, as a thief who had helped his mother hook goods from other people’s lofty windows in London. Climbing and sketching were needed now.
“Doctor,” she added in a more muted voice, “please show me again exactly how the ropes were rigged back here and how that man—my counterbalance—could possibly have fallen.”
“Fallen,” Dr. Dee whispered, “at the precise moment that—”
“That I as well as Luke could have been harmed or killed,” she finished for him.
“HARRY, I WOULD SPEAK WITH YOU,” ELIZABETH TOLD HER cousin as he entered her withdrawing chamber where she sat alone an hour later.
“So I heard, Your Grace, and came forthwith.”
She had sent for her cousin from Luke’s bedside on the first floor of the palace. Her physicians had decided it was best the gravely injured man not be carried upstairs.
“First, how fares Luke?” she inquired, clasping her hands tightly in her silken lap.
“Unconscious and unchanged, though he may yet wake. Your doctors say it may not be permanent insensibility,” he went on, his voice wavering, “though he stands—lies—in danger of death.”
“Sit, Harry,” she said, her voice soft. He slumped in the big chair next to hers at the table where she had eaten next to nothing despite Kat’s coaxing. She saw Harry had crumpled his hat in his hand and his hose were stained from kneeling on the paving stones. Now, in darkest despair, Harry stared at those smudged knees.
“Have you sent word to Anne that her cousin has been injured?”
“Not yet,” he replied, head down. “I was hoping— praying—he would regain sensibility or movement, so I would have some hopeful news to tell her. She trusted me to care for him, you see, and …”
Elizabeth heaved such a sigh he stopped talking and looked up. “I know, I know,” she said. “He is a man full grown and yet you feel responsible for him. ’S blood, imagine what it is to feel that for an entire kingdom! It is more sometimes than one can bear.” He nodded but still did not seemed to be listening, his eyes unfocused, his expression distracted.
“Harry, I have decided we must probe this seeming accident, though it is not yet a murder like the tragedies we have delved. But perhaps it was attempted murder and tied somehow to Geoffrey Hammet’s demise—and to intent to harm me.”
“A conspiracy?” he whispered. “A plot?”
“I cannot believe Luke s
imply stumbled, can you?” He shook his head, then looked away. “I regret to cross-question you at this difficult time, but if foul play is afoot we must move swiftly before the trail to—to someone dangerous grows cold. Is there any reason you can give me that Luke could have fallen? When Geoffrey took his fatal tumble at Richmond, evidence suggested he had been drinking heavily, and Meg tells me he had suffered at least one dizzy spell.”
“Luke had not been drinking, not at midday, not with something like holding your flying wires in his charge. He yearned to please, you know, please you especially, Your Grace. Besides, I was with him most of the morning to know whereof I speak. I admit that at times he did drink, but not much—not as much …”
“Not as much as you?”
He sat up straight. “If I drink overmuch, it is always in privy chambers, Your Grace. Did Luke tell you such? I know he had told you other things—about Felicia. Why, you’d think he was your man, ordered to report to you with—”
“No, Luke did not say aught amiss about you, nor is he my man, as you put it. I have not stooped to using domestic spies—yet.” She hugged herself as a chill swept her. Though closeted with her trusted cousin, she yet felt the walls had evil ears and eyes. And she was still terribly shaken from her fall.
“Then Felicia Dove said something about my drinking?” Harry asked, startling her back to reality.
“No, cousin. You have a guilty conscience about your drinking, and, I hope, for naught else.”
“You don’t imply that I would want to harm Luke or, Your Gracious Majesty, ever harm you, no matter what rumors say?” he whispered, leaning toward her avidly, his bloodshot eyes wide.
“Harry, my various cousins or other kin scattered here and there may want my throne—Katherine Grey, indeed, not to mention Mary, Queen of Scots. Then too, my cousin Margaret Douglas and her Scottish husband, the Earl of Lennox, fancy that either she or their son, Lord Darnley, deserves my throne more than I. They hate me and are always intriguing, even if they do know enough to stay in their northern castle these days. But you—I know you have been true to me.”
“And will be,” he declared, rising only to fall upon his knees nearly on her skirt hems. “I have never said—as have Katherine Grey, Mary Stuart, or Margaret Douglas—that I had any claim on your throne. My sire was Will Carey, not your royal father, so, unlike them I have no links by blood to—”
“Get off the floor,” she said wearily, putting out a hand as if to pull him to his feet. “You leap too far afield. I believe you would never harm or wish me ill. But this—this mischance today must be examined since it is the second fall and the first was fatal. And because this time I was tied to the disaster too—literally. And I thought some were simply set on ruining my reputation because of my friendship with Robert.”
Harry rose stolidly. “You will assemble the Privy Plot counselors?” he asked, all too obviously avoiding her mention of Robert Dudley. “But I heard Cecil’s hied himself back to London.”
“Is that where he is?” she said, getting to her feet also. “Then best he stay because I am vexed by his rantings about the way I have conducted myself this summer, scoldings as if he were my brutish father!”
Her last words echoed in the room, though she had not meant to shout and certainly not that. If the walls could hear, they indeed got an earful that time. She reached out to pat her cousin’s shoulder.
“Return to Luke’s bedside, Harry, and send word if his condition changes. I will visit him myself this evening after I privily assemble those who are both my helpers and, in some cases, the first people I must question.”
“I was the first you questioned,” he corrected her. “But I swear that each time I ducked behind the scaffolding to make an exit or await my entrance for my paltry lines, I saw naught amiss. Others darted in and out too.”
“Yes, I included. If someone somehow tripped Luke up or cut that rope to harm me, we can narrow it down to far too many, but I must start somewhere. Actually, I do wish Cecil were here, as bitter as he’s been, or that I could call in Robin’s help. Without Cecil, I shall needs rely on Lord Robert Dudley’s advice even more,” she declared, talking more to herself than him, “but mayhap not in these privy investigations.”
Harry murmured something, bowed, and left the room, though she stood lost in agonizings again. Chi Ama Crede, Robert had written for Felicia to sing. She who loves trusts. Surely she could trust Robin, trust him with her very life.
“IT HAS BEEN FAR MORE THAN A YEAR,” ELIZABETH SAID to call the meeting to order, “since we have met thusly to solve a crime. At least,” she added, staring down Kat, Ned, Jenks, Meg, and Gil in turn, “since we all met officially rather than gathering in some fleabitten horse stall.”
Jenks and Ned, the queen noted, shifted uneasily. Kat dared not look her in the eye, but Meg shot back a sullen stare. Perhaps the girl was still fuming from their not being summoned to probe Geoffrey’s death. Then too, she still looked peaked. As for the queen’s little monkey of an artist, Gil Sharpe, the boy instantly produced the sketch she’d ordered when she looked his way.
Elizabeth studied it as Ned asked, “Are we still to be on first-name terms when we work together like this?”
Elizabeth frowned at the intricate sketch of Dr. Dee’s rope rigging and winch. “You may call me Bess and the others’ first names will do. Will and Harry are elsewhere, of course, and I would like to supplement our crew here with a few others to replace them, but—”
“Lord Robert?” Jenks asked. Ordinarily Elizabeth might have rounded on someone who assumed such, but Jenks was ever loyal to whomever he served, and she admired that.
“Yes, especially since William Cecil—Will—has flown the coop,” she muttered. “But for now, we stay with those of us who are adept at this, with Gil our only new addition, for he has helped us before. I have asked him to draw the wire and ropes for the masque, and Dr. Dee has made certain not only that this was the proper arrangement, but that the rigging, even after Luke Morgan fell, had not been tampered with. Someone or something must have tripped or shoved the man off the walkway, for nothing else went awry but a rather cleanly broken—or cut—master rope.”
Everyone began buzzing, talking at once. Names flew by, whispered, hissed.
“Quiet!” the queen ordered. “I know full well who could have been back there to place something on the walkway to distract Luke, to trip up or even push him. I have reckoned out that at the very time he fell, Kat and Harry stood behind me onstage and Lord Robert had just exited. But Katherine Grey had made an earlier exit, so was unaccounted for. I shall question her soon, I assure you. But meanwhile, that leaves the three of you and Felicia to give your explanations.”
“Are we here,” Ned said, leaning back and crossing his arms almost insolently over his chest, “to help you solve this crime or be questioned for it?”
“To help, of course, but sometimes that entails answering questions—as witnesses, not suspects. Now, let me take Will’s approach to things, though he is not with us.…”
Her voice trailed off. She was furious with Cecil for his protest and unauthorized departure, but she missed him too—at least she missed his rational approach in this upheaval of emotion, his loyalty to her in the past, though that had gone atumble to the winds somehow.
“You do intend to probe for motives?” Ned asked, making her realize she had been silent for a while, “As Will says, sui bono?”
“Precisely,” she said, recovering her control and turning to look at Jenks first, since Ned seemed suddenly so assertive. “Jenks, you had words with Luke about his being the one given the responsibility of working those ropes instead of yourself.”
“Yes, but I’d hardly climb up there and throw him down for that,” Jenks protested, and shook his head so hard that his thick hair, straight-cut across his wide forehead, bounced.
Throw him down? Elizabeth thought. She had not pictured that scenario, though few but Jenks could have bested Luke that way. Would Luke’s
strength imply the culprit must be a man? That turn of phrase, throw him down, did not mean, she reasoned, that Jenks was giving something away. That his strength and temperament would mean a physical struggle was the only way her seldom astute Jenks could imagine it.
“At the time he fell I was standing on the other side of the scenery,” Jenks continued, “though I’m not sure who saw me there. Besides, my argument with Luke doing your ropes was that I’m the one been keeping you safe for years. So if I’d knocked him down and you got hurt … I would die before I’d see you hurt, Your—Bess.”
“Thank you, Jenks. I owe you a great deal and have always trusted you,” she said, her voice nearly breaking. It was true. Why was she questioning this man? He and Kat had been closer than kin for years.
“Ned, just to clear the decks here,” she pursued, turning in the chair to face him, “you had naught against Luke Morgan, did you?”
“Nary a thing,” he declared, looking steadily at her. “It’s Jenks and Lord Robert jumped down his throat when Luke merely touched you the other day.”
Robin? Well, yes, and he had made a slightly earlier exit behind her, but it had been in the other direction, away from where Luke waited to hoist and swing her. But surely Robin would not get in Luke’s way on that scaffold, especially not if he thought she could be injured. And yet the other evening he’d told her of a dream he’d had where he rescued her when she fell from an apple tree in a garden and all the apples thudded down around them, crimson and shiny and juicy as her lips. But if he’d knocked Luke off his perch to give himself an opportunity to grandiosely save his queen, he’d done a wretched job of it.
Realizing she was blushing, she rose from the table and strode to the withdrawing room window. “Meg,” she said, “there is no bad blood between you and Luke Morgan?”
The queen turned back. Perhaps the girl should be put to bed. She did look a bit greenish about the gills.
“Hardly. I didn’t even know the man,” Meg said, sounding uncharacteristically snappish.
