by Karen Harper
“Your Grace, what shall we do now?” Clifford’s question shattered her agonizing.
“Let’s surround the place as best we can,” she whispered as they clustered together; “then one of you go up. There must be footholds on the tree, though I have no doubt now he is very adept with ropes, so he’s probably pulled them up after himself.”
“I’ll go up,” Jenks said. “I’m built a bit more for it than Clifford.”
“But I don’t want him to surprise you twenty feet above the ground,” she argued, more with herself than Jenks. “You must be careful, for I won’t have you hurt!”
Gil’s cut leg was crudely bandaged, but it hurt terribly, more than any other pain he’d ever felt—except having to leave Dorothea. And his heart pained him now, losing so much with Cecil, perhaps the queen.
He stirred stiffly and opened his eyes. It was morning. He lifted his head. The rhythmic thrust-pull, thrust-pull of the two rowers’ oars had rocked him to sleep for hours. The queen’s Richmond Palace was just coming into view, so Mortlake wasn’t far.
“You’wake, boy?” Lem, the boatman, asked. “I think you got a fever. Here’s beer if your whistle’s dry.”
“I’m grateful,” Gil managed as he accepted a proffered tankard and took a swig.
“From Mortlake, you say? I know the place, not far now. Who’s your family there?”
“Dees,” he said. At least, if he blacked out again, maybe this Lem would deliver him to their door.
“The magician?” Lem said, his voice awed. One of the rowers turned around and stared, though he didn’t miss his next pull.
“Just a wise man. Yes, Dees, Dr. Dee.”
He guessed he did have a fever, but he wasn’t out of his head. He handed the tankard back before slumping back down on the deck in utter exhaustion. Though he tried to picture his dear Dorothea, all he saw in his jumbled dreams was that drowned Italian, holding a magic mirror spewing fire and death.
“I’d like to go up there with Jenks,” Elizabeth muttered under her breath as she, Rosie, and Clifford watched him climb. He had found no footholds on the trunk of the massive oak which supported the small, ramshackle house in the tree, but had climbed a nearby chestnut with more limbs, trying at least to see into the makeshift structure.
He looked down, shaking his head and shrugging, for Elizabeth had told him not to call out, so they could surprise and capture a still sleeping Dench Barlow. Either he could not get a glimpse inside the little place or could tell no one was there. The queen was thoroughly frustrated and lifted both hands, palms up, to convey her uncertainty about how to proceed.
“I don’t see how he gets up and down with no footholds and no ropes visible,” Clifford said. “I fear you’re right that he must pull them all in behind him, so I’d say he’s up there.”
“And watching us, perhaps,” Rosie added.
“Cheam must have a thatcher or tiler who owns a long ladder,” Elizabeth said. “Clifford, if you think you could manage bringing it back on a single horse, ride to borrow or rent one while the three of us stay here. And bring back some ropes.”
“But with Jenks up there and me away, it’s not safe for the two of you,” he protested.
“This must be done. Nothing worth a risk is really safe, my man. Go!”
As Clifford rode away, Elizabeth gestured to the puzzled Jenks to stay put but hidden. Rosie tied the three remaining horses a slight ways off, and they settled in to wait. The forest smelled rich and dank, for the sun popped in and out, flashing shards of light, then shadows all around. Tired of standing, her neck sore from looking up, Elizabeth sat on the large trunk of a fallen oak. The wait dragged on; how long had passed she was not sure. She almost dozed, until a shrill voice resounded from above.
“Am I to be honored you’ve come calling, eh? I know she didn’t send you!”
Elizabeth jumped to her feet and looked up. Jenks was so shocked he barely kept from falling off his perch. No one was visible at first, but then she saw an angry face peer over the edge of the wooden planks high above.
“Good day to you!” the queen called, though her heart was pounding and her voice shook. “Dench Barlow, I presume? I’ve come from Giles Chatam with some coin for you and a request. Could you not come down?”
“You think I don’t know who you are, eh? After watching all of you for the last few weeks ere you betook yourselves away.”
“Who do you say I am?” she demanded.
“Spawn of the king who murdered my prince!”
He did know who she was, and was not only not impressed, but sounded dangerous, maybe demented. But would someone who helped to burn people alive not be so? Beeson had said he was not well in the head.
“I have deep regrets about the Moorings and your childhood friend Percy,” she called up to him. “I wish I could make it right.”
“Liar!” he screamed, so loud his high-pitched voice seemed to echo off the tree trunks. “You wish to get the land back from Arundel! All you Tudors lust for land and pretty things and power. You wish to have your likeness painted so all can see the grandeur of the Tudors! You want to enslave those of us who are left, and we will not let you!”
She fought to keep calm. “But who is ‘we’? Who is the lady you don’t believe sent me?”
“The lovely and the lethal,” he said with a sharp laugh. “One of the few who have been kind, always kind to him, of course.”
“Kind to whom? Is she a lovely lady from Mortlake who is kind to Giles?” she threw out wildly, hoping for a response. “I only want to talk—”
“Liar! You mean to trap me!” he screeched. “I see your man in the next tree, eh, I do!” he cried, pointing to the spot where Jenks tried to hide himself. “And that one there with traps and snares!”
She turned to see Clifford returning with a ladder balanced on one shoulder and ropes coiled about the other. When he saw or heard them, he spurred his horse faster, though she tried to motion him away.
“You plan to catch me and torture me to tell!” Dench accused, “but that will never be. I will never betray the one who will be the death of you, too, even of your people and places! And it’s already too late, so be prepared to suffer. I hear you thought I was a ghost, and I shall haunt you from my death to yours!”
“Please, just calm yourself and come down so th—,” the queen began, then gasped with the others when Dench stood to his full height at the edge of his lofty home. He unhooked a rope from somewhere, leaped into air, and swung directly down and at them—at her.
Rosie screamed, Jenks shouted, and Clifford dropped the ladder and leaped from his mount, but they were all too late.
Chapter the Fifteenth
THE ROPE WAS NOT LONG ENOUGH TO BRING DENCH TO the ground. To everyone’s horror, pumping his little legs to give himself more speed, he swung with great velocity up in a huge arc, then back toward his tree, where he intentionally rammed himself headfirst into the trunk.
Rosie screamed. Stunned, they stood stock-still at the sickening sound of Dench’s cracking skull rising above the rustle and twitter of the forest. He fell straight to the ground and lay motionless while his rope bounced, then swayed above him.
Elizabeth ran to him, hoping she could save him, have one last moment to ask him who were the “we” and “lady” he had referred to. But the moment she saw his bloodied head and grotesque sprawl, she knew that he was gone. He had taken so much with him, including the truth of whom he’d been working with.
Gil felt hot, then cold. He wasn’t sure where he was, but the woman who washed his face was not his mother and not Katherine Dee, nor one of the queen’s servants, either.
“Where am I?” he asked, but his voice came out a mere whisper.
“At the boatman’s home, poor lad,” the plump woman said, and lifted a tankard of something to his lips. Beer. Cool beer, or else he was burning up. But he had to get to the queen.
“Bit of a storm come up last night,” she went on cheerily. “They put in at
our landin’ rather than takin’ you the rest of the way.”
“Got to go—Mortlake,” he said, then went back to gulping the beer she held to his mouth.
“Just a mile away. We can send one of the boys to tell your mother. You rest now.”
But the moment the kindly woman left the small room, Gil rolled to his side, swung his good leg over the bed, and lifted the other one down with both hands. He saw he had a new bandage on his ankle, though blood had seeped through that, too.
When he tried to stand, the entire room seemed to tilt and sway. But he could surely walk one mile. He’d just ask which way to Mortlake, to Dr. Dee’s, then step carefully on his cut leg, which burned now like the very pit of hell.
Already panting from his exertion, he stopped only to guzzle the rest of the beer. Wishing he had coins to leave for the kindness he’d been shown—and for the lighterman’s knocking that Italian assassin in the river—Gil made a vow. He’d see these people were rewarded if the queen took him back.
He started out the door into the wan afternoon sun, dragging his bad leg and hopes behind.
With the possibility of questioning the “running boy” gone, the queen acted quickly. She sent Clifford back to Cheam with Dench’s corpse and money for Beeson. Clifford was to thank the old man for his help and to see that Dench was buried, perhaps, she suggested, in Percy Mooring’s tomb. Jenks, meanwhile, was to accompany her and Rosie to the Dees’ house, then track down the acting troupe in local villages and bring Giles to her. Elizabeth and Rosie would question Katherine Dee and perhaps Dame Dee, to see what the old woman had observed of the death of Cuddington and birth of Nonsuch.
But after Jenks had ridden off in search of Giles, the queen and Rosie discovered that Katherine wasn’t home. John Dee himself greeted and escorted them into the solar while Elizabeth explained about Percy Mooring and his dwarf Dench.
“So, the puzzle begins to fit together, yet the very corner pieces are still missing,” he said, stroking his beard. When their serving girl came in with a tray of goblets, he added, “Ah, yes, Sarah with wine. But to see you suddenly here like this, Your Majesty, nearly unattended and thusly attired …”
“I could not leave these fire murders alone. No one is safe until the perpetrator is caught.”
“You recall the Roman emperor Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, Your Majesty.”
She shuddered involuntarily. The mere idea of her capital city going up in flames made her sick. “Semantics and stories aside,” she said, “I must speak with your wife the moment she returns.”
“But you do not think she has aught to do wi—”
“Of course not, but I thought she might have observed Giles Chatam. Since we have witnesses who say Dench worked for him in one way, we might assume—”
“Ah, indeed. Might assume that this demented Dench worked for Giles to set the fires, too. But why?”
“One possibility is that when Giles and his players came to Nonsuch just after the second fire, he said he thought they could calm the court.”
“As in that old adage ‘Music can soothe the savage breast,’ which so many erroneously believe is ‘soothe the savage beast.’ Only this time Giles must have hoped you would believe that comedies and romances soothe the distraught court—and queen.”
“Exactly,” she said, admiring his perceptive nature again, yet wondering if it hadn’t occurred to him and Katherine that a fire would also make their queen need Dr. Dee more. After all, it was exactly how she had reacted, both to Giles and the Dees—keeping them closer and bestowing benefits.
“But surely,” Dr. Dee said, “my Katherine cannot help you with information about this Giles Chatam fellow.”
“Has she ever mentioned him?”
“Only that she thought he was quite wonderful at the May Day festivities. I was so busy with the Maypole mirror that day—Ah, I think I hear her.”
Elizabeth stood and put down her goblet of untouched wine. “Let me greet her,” she said, holding up a hand to halt his rush, “and explain my need for her help.”
He nodded, but the queen could tell that he was worried. Perhaps he had put together the puzzle he had mentioned and found his dear Katherine was very possibly a missing piece.
Elizabeth left the solar and walked toward the young woman in the front hallway. When Katherine saw her, she gasped and dropped her basket of strawberries. They were so ripe that everywhere they bounced, including against the hems of both their skirts, they made crimson stains.
“Is my husband quite well?” Katherine cried. “I’m just startled to see you suddenly back here, Your Majesty, dressed so plainly.”
Elizabeth recalled that Katherine had dropped meat pastries at her feet the first day they met. She didn’t seem clumsy otherwise, so was such agitation the outward sign of a guilty heart?
“Come with me into the garden,” the queen said, and surprised Katherine even more by indicating she should precede her.
In the kitchen, Dame Dee was asleep, her mouth agape, her head cocked against her high-backed chair. In the walled garden, Katherine spun to face Elizabeth, the empty basket clutched in her hands before she threw it down.
“Whatever brings you back here so soon, Your Majesty?” she asked before Elizabeth could speak again. “And dressed—well, in disguise, I take it?”
“I am trying to learn all I can about the itinerant actor Giles Chatam, and thought you could help me.”
“Giles Chatam?” Katherine cried, not cloaking her surprise. “You think he has some part in this—this fire problem?”
“I don’t know yet and wish to accuse no one without proof. Katherine, as I have no patience for circling around what I need to know, tell me plain your relationship to Giles Chatam.”
Katherine gasped again, a quick little intake of breath. “Why, I’ve seen him, of course, and thought he was quite wonderful and told him so.”
“You’ve been observed in intimate conversation with him.”
“What? By whom? It’s a foul lie!”
“One of my own servants observed you in most earnest, privy conversation with him nearly on your front doorstep the day of the Mortlake fair.”
“Your Majesty, I swear your servant is mistaken.”
“And I have it on good authority that you were listening to his romantic whisperings the night of the festival. How did you respond to his claim that he could make you hotter than your husband’s fire mirror that night?”
The young woman looked truly aghast. Her palm over her mouth, she collapsed on the bench where the two of them had sat before.
“Katherine,” the queen said, sitting and leaning closer, “this is all deadly serious. Have you been lying?”
Her hand still over her mouth, like a child, she nodded wildly.
“Who first came up with the idea of the fires, you or Giles?”
“No—not that,” Katherine whispered, now gripping both hands between her breasts. “I did not speak privily with him, nor did he speak such fiery words to me. I lied only about losing and finding my husband’s Venetian magnifying mirror. Oh, forgive me, Your Majesty, but I wanted you to need my advice, and to invite him to court more—myself, too—and perhaps pay him more. That is how I lied—only that. I wanted to make you think he might be in danger because someone stole his mirror, so you would want to protect him more … .” Tears soaked her thick lashes and splattered on her flushed cheeks each time she blinked. “I hid the mirror, then pretended to find it. Oh, now I’ve ruined everything!”
“You claim you had no improper, intimate relationship with the actor Giles Chatam?”
“I swear it!” the young woman whispered, looking straight into the queen’s eyes.
Elizabeth’s voice rose in frustration. “Do you deny you ever so much as met him at your front door and stood whispering to him on most intimate terms during the May Day festival?”
“I not only deny it, but defy anyone who says different!”
“Your Majesty,” Dr. Dee call
ed from the inside the house, “your young artist Gil Sharpe has just arrived, and he’s been hurt!” Dee stepped to the door. “We’re tending him. I know you wanted privacy, but I thought you should know.”
The queen and Katherine ran into the kitchen, where Dame Dee had been roused. Though she was still seated, she dabbed with a wet cloth at Gil’s infected-looking ankle. His leg was extended on a bench on which he sat, with his back propped against the hearth near Dame Dee’s chair. He looked flushed, filthy, sweaty, and bedraggled.
“Gil,” Elizabeth cried, leaning over him, “what happened? What are you doing here?” She squeezed his shoulder and bent closer as he groggily opened his eyes.
“I didn’t do it, Your Grace. I escaped but didn’t do it. My lord Cecil says I did, but I didn’t.”
“His cut’s infected,” Dame Dee said, her voice raspy. “’Tis the fever talking.”
They heard a horse outside, coming fast. Dr. Dee ran out, then back in. “It’s your man with Giles Chatam,” he announced.
“Dr. Dee and Rosie,” the queen threw over her shoulder as she hurried out, “I trust you will remain here to help Katherine treat Gil.” Surely, she thought, Katherine Dee could not escape, even if she was guilty—but the thing was, Elizabeth was coming to believe that she was not.
She wondered if Jenks would have Giles tied, but the handsome actor sat easily, gracefully, behind him on the same horse. “Look, Your Grace,” Jenks called out. “Met him with his fellows on the road just outside of town.”
Giles lifted a leg up and over and slid off as Jenks dismounted. “Your Majesty,” Giles said with another of his exquisite bows, “I am amazed to see you looking so countrified, but the effect is entirely charming. I hear you have need of our troupe again?”
