Murder in the Queen's Garden

by Amanda Carmack

  Kate thought of the unguarded kitchen at Nonsuch. She nodded, and they made their way carefully from behind the tree and around the low stone wall that surrounded the cottage. Beyond the roughly mortared border, the garden tangled and coiled over the gray rocks, a wild tumble of vines and white flowers. Yet, in the shadow of the house, Kate glimpsed a more orderly patch of what looked like herbs. Angelica, basil, rue, some strange, tall purple flowers.

  She remembered the sweetish, greenish smell that seemed to cling to Dr. Dee and wondered if the herbs were part of whatever work went on here.

  Anthony took her hand to help her over a low ditch running beneath the wall, and she was glad of his steady clasp. He didn’t let her go as they found their way to the long, low kitchen extending from the back of the house. The door was securely latched, but after testing a few of the windows, they found one left open. Only a slightly careless cook, then.

  The window was halfway up the wall, slightly above Kate’s head, a narrow casement, but she was sure she could slip through. Despite all the grand food at the queen’s banquets, she was usually too busy with her music to partake of much.

  She tucked up the hem of her skirt. “Can you lift me up there?”

  He gave the window a doubtful look. “Are you quite certain?”

  “Of course. I can surely fit . . .” She eyed his broad, strong shoulders in the fine green wool of his doublet. “Though I fear you could not. I can make sure no one is around inside, and go open the door for you. I wouldn’t be alone long.”

  He still looked doubtful. Finally, he gave a reluctant nod and held out his hands for her to rest her booted foot on them. He lifted her easily, and she had the fleeting, whimsical thought that hours with law ledgers had made him no less strong than a lean acrobat like Rob Cartman. She caught at the window ledge and pulled herself up and through.

  She landed somewhat carefully and quietly, barely managing not to tumble into an ungraceful heap on the floor. She found herself in a kitchen that was blessedly deserted. The large fire was banked, so that wasn’t the source of the smoke that could be seen outside. The faint smell of roasted meat hung in the air.

  Kate held her breath for a moment, listening carefully. There was none of the usual bustle of a household; she could hear only a faint clanging sound from somewhere.

  She leaned out of the window and waved to Anthony that she was safe. He nodded tersely and turned to make his way back to the front door.

  Kate crept up the narrow stairs that led from the kitchen to the main part of the cottage. It was a rambling old place, with narrow corridors of uneven wooden floors, low ceilings, and many little rooms opening off the halls. The rooms were empty and sparsely furnished, the plastered walls bare of tapestries or painted cloths. She tried to tiptoe as the floor creaked beneath her, and she listened cautiously at every corner.

  She encountered no one, no servants, not even a dog or cat. That faint metallic clanging noise still sounded somewhere overhead, but no voices or footsteps. She made it to the door without being confronted, but also without finding anything of interest at all.

  What if Dr. Dee and Sir Robert Dudley had only used the cottage as a meeting place on that one occasion, and left nothing at all behind to help her decipher what was happening? She felt a pang of disappointment at the thought.

  She released the bar at the door and let Anthony slip inside. At his raised brow, she shook her head and gestured toward the ceiling, where she heard that strange noise.

  He nodded and took her hand again. They made their way through another series of narrow hallways until they found a winding staircase with another corridor stretching away at the top. It was quiet behind every closed door there, too, except for one. As Kate and Anthony got closer, the clanging noise became louder and louder.

  Kate gave her free wrist a little shake, glad of the weight of the dagger strapped there. She had learned never to be without a weapon in the mucky lanes of Southwark last winter—thanks to the lessons in swordplay from William Cecil’s man.

  She pressed her ear to the wooden door and listened carefully. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she felt half-afraid, half-excited. Was that how soldiers felt before battle began, when things were still quiet, uncertain?

  Even through her exhilaration and fear, she noticed that the door was made of new, thick, polished wood, unlike everything else in the old house.

  She could hear no voices, only the crackle of a fire and that steady metallic clink. She cautiously tested the door handle, and to her surprise it turned under her touch.

  She felt Anthony close at her back, his hand on her arm as she peeked past the open crack of the door. There was no person there, but what she saw made her gasp, and his hand tightened as if he would pull her away. That sharp greenish smell she had noticed before stuck thick in her throat. It reminded her of Dr. Dee and the garden.

  She pushed the door open and slipped inside. She had never seen anything like it before. It was not a large room, and the tightly closed shutters, which let in only cracks of daylight, made it feel even smaller. Every bit of space was filled.

  The walls sloped gently up toward a slanted beamed ceiling, and shelves of books and rows of trunks fastened with strong padlocks lined each side of the room. Long tables held more stacks of books and ledgers, quills and inkpots, compasses, rulers. There were large, valuable globes in brass stands, and more strange metal instruments she could not recognize. On one table lay a spread of prosaic platters of half-eaten bread and cheese, a goblet of wine, and a pottery pitcher painted with blue flowers. A roaring fire in the large grate lit the entire scene.

  All manner of glass vessels were arrayed before the fire, filled with liquids that bubbled and popped and shimmered. A large press stood to the side of the grate, and a pale greenish trickle slid into a bowl below it. The press was creating the strange clanking noise.

  Alchemy? Was that what was happening here? She had read about such things; everyone had. Alchemy was the dream of every kingdom. Yet she had never seen it before.

  Kate took a cautious breath. The smoke that emanated from the fireplace was an odd violet-gray color, and the smell Kate noticed, that cold, sharp metallic tinge, was stronger. It stung in her nose and throat.

  “An alchemical lab,” Anthony murmured. She glanced up at him and saw her own astonishment reflected in his green eyes.

  “No wonder they keep it away from the court,” she said. Despite the fact that Dr. Dee’s horoscopes were so very fashionable, that Robert Dudley and his powerful friends favored the mathematician and studied astronomy and such themselves, there were those at court of a more staunchly religious mind who would never approve. Who would say the queen was not a true Protestant for encouraging such practices.

  Boleyn witches.

  Kate shivered despite the blasting heat from the fire. She turned away from the sight of all the strange, bubbling containers and scanned the books on the table. Volumes in Greek, Latin, German, all languages she knew not.

  At the end of the table, its pages lying open and flat, she glimpsed something different. A ledger handwritten on stiff vellum, slightly yellowed with age.

  There were circles and triangles, overlaid with strange letters that made no words she recognized. It seemed to be the same handwriting as that in the book hidden at the bottom of her clothes chest. She quickly scanned the letters and symbols, trying to commit them to memory so she could compare them later.

  Something else caught her attention. A large, square stone set in a gold frame, weighing down a pile of close-written loose pages. It was deepest black, yet shimmering with faint, sparkling flecks, like the ring that had been taken from Dr. Macey’s skeletal finger.

  Kate’s stomach clenched at the sight. What was that stone? She had never seen one like it before now, and here were two of them. Was it like that shew stone Master Constable had used for the séance—only even mor
e powerful?

  She felt compelled to reach for it, as if in a dream.

  Suddenly, Anthony grabbed her arm. She gasped, feeling as if she had been indeed dragged abruptly from a deep sleep. She was shocked and afraid that she had lost control, even for an instant.

  “Someone is coming,” he whispered hoarsely in her ear.

  Kate listened carefully, and indeed there was a heavy thudding sound of footsteps on the stairs outside. She felt even worse for not paying attention now, when it was so vital.

  The footfalls were coming closer. She glanced around the room frantically. The shuttered windows were too small to go through, and too high up from the ground anyway. There were no concealing cloths on the tables.

  But there was a large cupboard in the corner.

  She grabbed Anthony’s hand and dragged him behind her. There was no time to look for other concealment, no time even to think. She yanked open the cupboard doors, and luckily there were only more books piled there, and none of the luridly colored liquids or eerie black stones. She pushed the volumes aside and crowded in, drawing Anthony with her.

  They pulled the doors closed behind them just in time. Whoever it was came into the room, and Kate heard the footsteps pause as the person seemed to look around. Kate dared not even breathe. Her lungs ached. She and Anthony were packed in close in the stuffy darkness, and she leaned against him, glad she was not alone.

  She glimpsed a tiny beam of light coming through a knothole in the wood, flecks of dust sparkling as they floated past. Holding her breath, she leaned closer and peered through the ragged hole.

  The room was distorted through the opening, narrowed to just one tiny slice of the book-laden table. A shadow fell across it.

  Kate twisted her head around and pressed her eye closer. She glimpsed a man—tall, very thin, clad in a plain russet doublet, his back to them as he sorted through the piles of documents. He had pale reddish hair, overly long, straggling from beneath his cap.

  She had a sudden, disturbing memory of the grayish red hair still clinging to Dr. Macey’s skull, and she shivered.

  His hand turned over a paper, and she gave a quickly stifled gasp. On his finger was a black stone ring, just like Dr. Macey’s. Like the large one on the table.

  Anthony’s hand tightened on hers, and she bit her lip to keep silent. The man didn’t seem to find what he sought among the papers, and he suddenly pounded his fist down on the table, making Kate jump.

  “Blast it, Mother,” he muttered. “I’ve told you not to clean in here.”

  Kate couldn’t help but gasp at his sudden angry words. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Suddenly, he whirled around and jerked open the cabinet door. Kate fell back into Anthony with a cry, and he protectively pushed her behind him.

  “Who are you?” the man shouted. His face, thin and pale, dotted with freckles, flamed orange-red to match his hair. “What are you doing here? If you think to find my secrets . . .”

  Kate felt Anthony’s shoulders tense, as if he would pounce on the man, and she knew a brawl would gain them nothing. She laid her hand on his arm, holding him still.

  “We have come seeking no secrets,” Kate said calmly, soothingly. “In fact, I believe it is you we have come to seek—Master Macey.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The man fell back a step, his mouth open in astonishment. “How do you know my name? Who are you? How did you get in here?”

  “One question at a time, please.” Kate eased herself past Anthony and out of the cupboard. Her legs ached after being shut in there, and she would have stumbled and fallen if Anthony hadn’t caught her. “I was not sure you were Master Macey until you yourself confirmed it, but Dr. Dee said his old teacher Dr. Macey’s son lived nearby. It would make sense you wished to continue your father’s work.”

  Master Macey snatched a curved blade from the table and brandished it wildly in her direction. It appeared he possessed no instruction in swordsmanship, as all the noblemen at court did, but that blade looked wickedly sharp. Kate held her hands up.

  “I vow I mean no harm,” she said. “I merely want to talk to you. I am Kate Haywood, musician to Queen Elizabeth, and this is my friend Anthony Elias, a lawyer from London. I fear I was among those who found Dr. Macey in the maze at Nonsuch.”

  The blade lowered a bit, and the man’s eyes widened. “You found my father?”

  Kate nodded. She would have taken a step forward, but Anthony held tight to her arm. “I am sorry. I had no idea Dr. Macey had a son living near Nonsuch, until Dr. Dee told me.”

  He scowled, but the blade lowered even further. Kate hoped that was a good sign. “You spoke to Dr. Dee?”

  She nodded. “He told me you were here to continue the important work your father began so long ago.” That was not strictly true, of course, but surely it was easy for anyone to see that was what was going on here. The bubbling cauldrons, the glass vials, the strange books—what else could all this be? And it seemed to be such important work that even Robert Dudley was a part of it, mayhap its sponsor.

  “You came from the court, from Dr. Dee, then?” Master Macey demanded.

  Kate nodded again. “I haven’t been able to forget your father. I—I just wanted to know more about him, to meet you.”

  Master Macey frowned suspiciously. “Why hide in the cupboard, then?”

  Before Kate could answer, Anthony’s hand tightened on her arm, and he said, “You had no servant to attend to your door. After what happened to your father, we were afraid something was amiss.”

  Anthony’s tone was so firm, so confident and assured, that Master Macey nodded and lowered the blade even more. “I only have a cook here, and she does not come every day. My mother cleans, but not in here—not usually, anyway. We cannot be too careful.”

  “So I see.” Kate took a slow step toward one of the tables, studying the two glass ewers resting in brass stands. One held a garnet-colored liquid, one pale green, and a slender tube ran between them. Master Macey watched her closely, but he made no move to stop her. “Was this your father’s work, then? Alchemy?”

  “Sorcery is against the law, you know,” Anthony said.

  Master Macey whirled around on him, his face reddening again. “My father was no sorcerer, and everything he did was in full knowledge of King Henry! It was the king who gave him the coin for his equipment. He had studied in Prague and in Amsterdam and knew all the newest theories. He was sure he was very close to success, if only he could find that one last key. The king had all faith in him. If he had not vanished—had not died . . .”

  Master Macey’s voice caught as if on a sob, and Kate gave him a gentle smile. “What happened when Lord Marchand accused your father of treason? Was it because of this work? What did King Henry say then?”

  Master Macey shook his head fiercely, his face so red she almost feared he would faint. “Lord Marchand took back his foul accusation and left court! I know not why he said what he did—I was only a child then—but it must have been some personal reason. My father would never have betrayed the king. He could never have finished his studies without royal funds.”

  Kate thought of what she knew thus far of Lord Marchand, which was not much beyond the fact that he had dangerous friends such as Thomas Culpeper, and she decided she had to let the topic rest for now. “And your father perished soon after. Mayhap that is another reason why you are here, instead of taking your work far away? To find out what happened to him? I know Dr. Dee would very much like to discover the truth, and he is your master now, is he not?”

  “I told you, I was a mere child then,” Master Macey said between gritted teeth. “Whatever quarrels my father had were not important. My only task is to finish what he began here.”

  Kate studied the documents in front of her, the strange symbols like those in the book she now hid. She knew she should give it over to Master Ma
cey, or to Dr. Dee, but she could not. Not yet, not until she knew more. “Dr. Dee said if an alchemist is not spiritually pure, he can never find success in any experiment. That inner harmony is the only way to find the ultimate harmony of the universe.”

  Master Macey gave a cautious nod. “That is true. It’s one of the first things any student of the celestial arts must learn.”

  Kate glanced back at Anthony, who stood nearby with his arms crossed over his chest. Like any good lawyer, he kept his expression unreadable. “Could your father have been doing other—work?” she asked. “Perhaps something for the king? Something that would prevent the complete purity of these experiments?”

  Master Macey’s fist tightened on the hilt of the knife. “I told you—my father was no dark sorcerer! He would have had no congress with demons, for any purpose.”

  “Nay,” Kate said quickly. “Not demons. Dr. Dee would surely never have learned from anyone such as that. But something more earthly, perhaps. King Henry’s court held many dangers.”

  Master Macey looked slightly mollified. He nodded. “I could not say. I told you, I was only a small child then, and my mother could read very little herself. But she did say . . .” He paused, looking away hesitantly.

  “She did say what?” Kate urged. “Please, Master Macey. Any small bit of information could help us find out what happened to your father—and stop it from happening to anyone else.”

  Master Macey’s jaw tightened. “My mother said my father had been given a most important commission, one that was meant to be complete by the time King Henry arrived at Nonsuch. He was to draw up the horoscope of Queen Catherine Howard, so the king could present it to her at a grand banquet.”

  The horoscope of a doomed queen? It sounded like a most dangerous proposition indeed, just as Dr. Dee had said. “And then what happened?”

  “He never finished it, or perhaps never even began it. Such a horoscope was never found among his things. My mother did fear it led to my father’s disappearance, especially after what happened to the poor queen. My mother is a simple soul and thought it was dark spirits. She now refuses to speak of it.”