The Queene's Cure

by Karen Harper

“A customer of herbs,” she replied crisply. She recalled Her Majesty telling her once that Lord Cecil had counseled her, before she was queen, never to embellish an answer, only to give the interrogator the minimum of what was asked. Meg was quite pleased her voice was strong. Caius's head snapped up at her simple reply, which gave her the idea. Not only would she not cower before him, but she would use the tone and diction Ned Topside had taught her, court talk for when she used to emulate the queen herself.

  “Then why did you send your man Cotter to fetch him at night, last night?” he plunged on.

  “I had just returned from Hampton Court where I learned the queen, whom I used to serve, was very ill. Since I knew Dr. Clerewell had dealt with pox patients, I thought—”

  “Been to court after being expelled from there, have you, and trying to get close to the queen again, sub rosa?”

  Meg wanted to blurt out that the queen had sent for her, but she still wasn't certain why and didn't trust this vile man not to read something dreadful into it. Besides, she didn't know what sub rosa meant. So, fighting for calm, she returned to his earlier question.

  “Dr. Clerewell had told me he was adept at treating pox patients. He had bought herbs from me for such purpose. I had hopes he would be able to volunteer his services to Her Maj—”

  Caius's bony fist banged the table. “Maxima Regina has educated, royal doctors, has the Royal College of Physicians, including me, at her beck and call and you— you presume to decide who will treat her? I'm sure you would have liked to treat her too, and for a handsome reward! Don't put on your I-once-worked-for-the-queen airs with me, Mistress Apothecary. Don't you try to lecture me!”

  “I was merely answering your question, doctor,” she retorted in such ringing tones his dark eyes bulged.

  “The papers, sirrah. Come on, come on!” Caius ordered the man behind her. His lackey leaped forward with two letters, which she recognized as hers and Clerewell's. She knew now she should never have saved them, but she had been so proud. How she had reveled in the fact Clerewell admired her for once working with the queen.

  “I shall now quote that Norwich, unlicensed doctor—”

  “He never told me he did not have a license. He is a brilliant man who understands his patients' sufferings because of his own.”

  “Do not interrupt me, mistress!” he shouted, holding one letter up before his eyes to catch more window light. “I am quoting here directly,” Caius went on with a sniff. “This Dr. Clerewell writes that you and he ‘have forged a partnership for particular causes.’ Through ‘your former days in service to our queen and your skill with herbal healings,’ he claims he ‘may accomplish his aim.’ And what might that aim be, mistress? Your husband, when questioned, admitted that Dr. Clerewell paid you hand-somely—very handsomely—id est, for mere herbs.”

  “No doubt you should have Dr. Clerewell speak for himself, as you have evidently let my husband do so, doctor.”

  “Has Clerewell sworn you to silence in some secret pact?” “He asked me to be discreet about some things, and I would honor that.”

  “Aha,” he said, leaning back in his chair and looking entirely pleased for some reason she could not fathom. “Then to your reply to him,” he said, switching letters. “You insist on ‘privy correspondence’ and say you are ‘pleased to keep his secret while putting on trial the V.M.E.’ What secret, precisely, mistress? And those three letters are your code for …”

  “Again, you must ask him.”

  “You refuse to answer. Write that down, man. And note, too, that the letter continues in like vein as the accused advises Dr. Clerewell on how to ‘have a quick mo-ment's access to her’—id est, to Her Majesty—hoping ‘she is caught off guard.’ And then the most damning words: ‘I shall be there watching—and praying for—vic-torious results.’ ”

  “What are you implying?” Meg demanded, gripping her hands so tightly before her that her fingers went numb. “The doctor asked me how he could get a scrofula patient touched by the queen when you did not include her in your set list.”

  “Ah—accusing me again. You are bitter and subversive against the grant of power to the Royal College of Physicians to control London's apothecaries, are you not? But I repeat, woman, what exactly does your code V.M.E. mean? You might as well admit it, for I have ferreted out your secrets.”

  “My secrets? Many an apothecary has hinted to a customer what old healing herbs may work for a cure as I did to Gil Sharpe. And many have sold something they did not have permission for. But I did not sell that ointment in the alabaster box! I will pay a fine then, but—”

  “A fine?” he bellowed, his voice mocking. “Mistress Sarah Wilton, alias Meg Milligrew, there are no fines for treason, but only torments, trial, and death. Though the queen's license gives the Royal College permission to jail apothecaries who subvert our power and grants us leave to incarcerate you in any prison but the Tower, you have been brought to Bridewell.”

  Meg shook her head to clear it. Had he said treason? But that meant against the queen. Either he was mad or she was. She tried to follow all he had said. Bridewell was a political prison. Then he must have said treason indeed.

  “I cannot fathom what you mean,” she insisted, sounding deflated and frightened. “All of your words and accusations are as obscure as your fancy Latin phrases.”

  “All right then. Inter nos, mistress, let me clarify. I believe you and this missing Dr. Clerewell are in league to harm the queen. You arranged for Her Majesty to be frightened, perhaps even warned, by presenting her with a poxed effigy outside our physicians' hall, hoping to cast blame on us. You had Dr. Clerewell place a leeched body in her privy fountain …” His dreadful words rolled on while she just stared agape at him.

  “Then in the sacred ceremony at Westminster,” he went on, “which was under the Royal Physicians' watch and care, you planned to—”

  “To what?” she cried, grasping where his accusations might be going. “You are insane!”

  “Am I? All my evidence and your confessions lead me to believe that you and your cohort Clerewell meant to assassinate the queen in the Abbey, then make a quick escape through the ensuing chaos and the crowd.”

  “No!” she gasped, staggering back. “No—I—”

  “Yes, and I shall formally accuse you of such treason. But then, I surmise you changed your mind, perhaps because there were so many of us doctors standing by. So you connived to go to Hampton Court, hoping to get near her there. But that brings me back to this letter which incriminates you with your ‘praying for victorious results,’ as you put it. And your code of V.M.E.? I warrant that stands for the ‘Victorious Murder of Elizabeth,’ does it not?”

  Meg wanted to deny it, but she was as mute as Gil. The walls wavered. She fought to keep her balance, for she must not appear guilty. Yet the ceiling spun, and the floor leaped up to meet her.

  THE FOURTEENTH

  Take cucumbers, camphor, blanched almonds and the

  juice of four lemons … This not only helps fiery faces,

  but also takes away spots, sunburn, and all other

  deformities of the face.

  WILLIAM TURNER

  The Herball

  THE MOMENT THE GUARDS THREW NICK COTTER OUT of Bridewell Prison, he headed toward home. He'd been questioned hard by Dr. Caius about Meg's doings, mostly things he didn't know and couldn't believe. But Nick had finally admitted that Meg had tried a fancy face cream on Bett, so Bett wouldn't be tortured for answers, as the doctor threatened. The man had barely mentioned how Meg had told Gil to chew lily valley root, which Nick figured was all she'd really done illegal. The questions about treason had to be rubbish.

  But the ones about Meg's feelings toward the queen scared him. Did Sarah Wilton, alias Meg Milligrew, want revenge? Did he ever hear her talk about dosing the queen if she took sick? And then so many lamebrained questions about things like was Meg good at wax and plaster.

  “Of course she's good at wax pills and healing plasters!
” Nick had finally thundered at Dr. Caius. “I even helped stir up a big bowl of plaster not long ago, lots of it!”

  Now, striding toward home and Bett, Nick nearly jumped out of his skin when a tall figure suddenly appeared at his side. But it was Gil, like he'd just stepped out of the wind.

  The lad inclined his head, and they hied themselves into an alley.

  Been home, seen Bett, Gil signaled to him. She was let go too. Had to go in from roof. Someone watching the street, maybe for me.

  “Well, they let me out proper, so I'm going home,” Nick said.

  Gil shook his head. Bett says you go find Dr. Clerewell, and I go tell Cecil, Ned, or Jenks.

  That short speech took Gil a long time, as Nick had never learned the signals for people's names. Gil had to mimic Clerewell's big hat, Cecil's beard and his importance, Ned's giving a grand speech, and Jenks's using a sword until Nick picked up on exactly who he meant.

  “No more word on the queen's health?” Nick asked.

  Gil shook his head and hit his heart with his fist. That was clear enough, at least. Nick clasped the boy's shoulder, then set out for the Cheapside doctor's shop where he and Gil had gone for help once before.

  MEG RETURNED TO CONSCIOUSNESS, FLAT ON THE stone floor of the interrogation room. No one else was there.

  She tenderly fingered the bump on her forehead and moved her limbs. Bruised, shaky, she did not try to sit up. If they thought she was still unconscious, maybe it would give her a little reprieve from the terrible things Dr. Caius had been saying. She still heard his voice echoing deep inside her.

  No, that was his voice. Maybe in the hall. She closed her eyes and concentrated on what he was saying. He was obviously conferring with someone, but that per-son's voice did not seem to carry. Or was Caius dictating to his secretary again?

  “… enough evidence to have her summarily hanged …”

  Whatever did summarily mean? Meg wondered. But she sat bolt upright at the import of his other words.

  “With the queen at least indisposed and the court in upheaval, they won't even know until it's over. Maxima Regina ordered us to hasten to our business, so this will show her … Make a dramatic example of an apothecary, but for a high crime, not mere misdemeanor. How I have longed to get even with the queen for dismissing me—me—from royal service as she did, yet I need her goodwill. And disposing of a would-be assassin who played on the queen's worst fears which she learned as an intimate at court before being dismissed …”

  The words rolled over Meg, but she could grab so few of them. Concentrate—she must concentrate. She rose groggily to her feet and pressed her ear to the door. But the sound was not filtering in there. She moved again into the center of the room, then realized his voice was coming along the floor, from under the heavy wooden door.

  She lay back down, this time on her belly, pressing her ear to the ground just the way Jenks had taught her to listen for the beat of distant horses' hooves.

  “… to keep her in the queen's prison, I had thought I'd have to use the abandonment of her daughter against her, charging murder …”

  Daughter? Whose daughter? The queen had no daughter.

  “… but the child is not dead, just given away and …”

  Curse it. She'd missed something. Whose daughter?

  “… but won't have to now with the two letters she and Blackwell—ah, I mean Clerewell—exchanged. Nasty business when a child gets involved anyway, especially a poxed six-year-old who's best left where she is out on the heath.”

  His voice came closer, clearer. “I'd best go look in on her again, but I think I have plenty here to get her on the execution list. Imagine that—the queen, if she lives, will lose her former herb girl, who yet adores her. After Maxima Regina,” he went on, his voice dripping sarcasm, “dismissed me from a post that should have been mine yet, after she refuses to give me the corpses we need … Ha,” he shouted an exultant laugh, “now I shall give her a corpse, one she knows well this time.”

  Daughter. Six years old. Poxed. Out on the heath?

  Caius returned to find his prisoner standing by the window, breathing hard.

  “I heard what you said,” she accused. Her head was throbbing, spinning.

  “You hit your head and must have been delusional so—”

  “No! Did you mean I have a six-year-old daughter? You see, there are years—things I can't recall.”

  “Now that's convenient. I rather think—”

  “Where is she?” Meg screamed.

  “—you are very dangerous,” he got out before Meg launched herself at him, fingers curved like claws. He was so surprised he went off balance, slamming into the wall, tipping to hands and knees on the floor while Meg tried to scramble for the open door.

  But his secretary and a guard filled it to stop her flight.

  ELIZABETH'S STRENGTH CAME BACK SLOWLY, SOMETIMES in waves, but then ebbed. They still kept the room dim. Mostly just Dr. Burcote and some of her ladies were in attendance, especially Anne Carey, Harry's wife. Elizabeth had been told Kat was exhausted and Mary needed her sleep. God bless them for tending her for…

  “How long was I—not myself?” she asked Dr. Burcote as he bent near to time her wrist pulse.

  “Today is Saturday, October the seventeenth, Your Majesty.”

  She tried to recall when she first fell ill. On the fifth. Twelve days ago! Twelve days her kingdom had gone on without her. A dozen days she had not pursued whoever had tried to frighten her and—mayhap—to kill her with the pox. She had so much to do.

  “Send for Lord Cecil,” she ordered Burcote, snatching her wrist back. “But do not go far. And do not let my royal court doctors nor those from the Royal Physicians College bully you,” she added as he nodded and obeyed.

  She felt better already. God had spared her life. And Dr. Burcote had assured her she had relatively few and shallow pox marks. Her mind was working. She was giving orders, making plans.

  Cecil joined her immediately, or had she drifted off to sleep again?

  “I believe we have our beloved queen back with us,” he told her as he took the hand she offered. Tears shimmered in his eyes.

  “My lord, I know you and Dr. Burcote tell me true. How many marks on my face? They won't give me a mirror. Count them.”

  He leaned closer. “Two high on your forehead, Your Grace, two along your chin, a few scattered on your cheeks, but Burcote says you are healing.…”

  “I have them on my arms and legs, but I am praying they will heal shallow, all of them.”

  “Praise God your life was spared. Your beauty always came from your strong spirit and marvelous mind, as well as from your face and form.”

  “Spoken like a fond suitor, as well as a wily lawyer and my principal secretary, my dear Cecil. But—the God of my salvation forgive me—I cannot bear to be marked and scarred.”

  “We had your old herb girl here for a while waiting to see you before I took her back to London. She mentioned something special to cover pox marks, something about a doctor …I cannot recall, but I can fetch her for you again.”

  “But first, I want to find the person who did this to me. Cecil, I swear, my being smitten with the pox was part of a hateful plot. The effigy of a poxed queen, the leeched body of the wig-maker's granddaughter in the fountain—now this. I have been thinking there were certain incidents which might have caused this.”

  He looked amazed. “Such as?” he asked gently as if she were delirious again.

  “Margaret Stewart's special gift of bloody-hued powder from Mary, Queen of Scots, of course! It made everyone sneeze. God only—and Mary and Margaret— knows what was in it.”

  How dare he smile. “Do not coddle me, my lord!” she told him.

  “I am simply overjoyed that your brilliant powers of deduction are back already, Your Majesty. As ever, you are astute, for through the man watching Matthew Stewart, I have intercepted and had copied—the original has been sent on—a letter Margaret wrote to Queen Mary in Ed
inburgh.”

  “It says the powder was poisoned, or carried pox or—”

  “No, but it clearly suggests that, should the Scots queen wish to wed Lord Darnley, so that their heir might bind the Tudors and the Stewarts, and should you— sadly—die of the pox …”

  “The treasonous bitch—both of them!” Elizabeth exploded, smacking her fists onto her mattress to bounce the bed.

  Dr. Burcote poked his head through the other side of the tapestried hangings. “Please, Your Majesty, Lord Secretary, she must not become so excited that—”

  “I'm fine, doctor,” she said with a dismissive gesture. “Cecil, be certain that neither the Stewarts nor their son leave these grounds. And send for Meg Milligrew again. Meanwhile, I still want Caius and Pascal watched day and night. Well, what is it?” she demanded when Cecil shook his head.

  “Pascal was here for days, insisting he treat you,” he explained. “But he disappeared in a fit when he heard we'd brought in Dr. Burcote, and in the confusion of your crisis, we lost him. Nor have we heard from our man with him. The same with Caius, only he never appeared here, nor did the man watching him report to us.”

  “It's them, perhaps in league with the Stewarts and the Scots queen,” Elizabeth vowed. Yet she knew full well that, besides Pascal's patient's coughing to fleck her with spittle, the young girl who had kneeled in the aisle had done so too.

  Anger and energy coursed through her. She slid her feet to the side of the bed while Dr. Burcote appeared again, holding up his hands as if to stop her.

  “Cecil, send for Kat and Mary Sidney,” Elizabeth ordered. “I long to see and thank them—and I will need their help to get dressed. What is it now, damn the two of you. Stop shooting each other glances as if you are my mute artist and I some silly fool!”

  “Your Grace,” Cecil said, grasping her hands, both of them, though she had not indicated he might do so, “Mary Sidney is ill of the pox too.”

  “Mary? Beautiful Mary? And caught it from me—or from whoever did this to me?”