Murder in the Queen's Garden

by Amanda Carmack

  “Meddling in the affairs of kings can indeed be a dangerous folly,” Kate murmured. She thought of the queen, of all the enemies around her.

  “And of angels and spirits, if one does not yet understand their ways,” Master Macey said, his tone dark, sad.

  Kate glanced up at him, surprised at the tears that suddenly shimmered in his eyes. “Do you speak of Master Constable? Does he not understand the ways of the universe?”

  Master Macey gave her a grim nod. “I heard what happened when he went to the queen’s cousin. Dr. Dee has often warned him away from such doings. To foretell the fortunes of monarchs is indeed treason.”

  Kate well remembered what had happened in Lady Knollys’s room, and she thought Master Constable had probably not meant what he said then. Dr. Dee said his apprentice had not yet learned to harness his spiritual powers, whatever they might be. And he had obviously not harnessed his courtly skills, either. “And perhaps, too, his soul is not pure enough to balance the humors of the heavens?”

  “Master Constable should have a care,” Master Macey said. “I hope he has learned that now. Dr. Dee insists that both he and Master Constable work with me. Dr. Dee is a connection to my father, and I could not do without him. But Master Constable . . . Well, I allow him so I can work with Dr. Dee.”

  “And all you wish to do is finish your father’s work,” Kate said. Was that not what they all did? She with her music, Master Macey with his experiments—the queen and her father’s unsteady throne.

  Master Macey looked away, his eyes bleak. “It is all I have of him, mistress.”

  Kate thought of her mother, of the lute with Eleanor Haywood’s initials carved into its wood. She nodded. “I will leave you to this work, then, Master Macey. But please know the queen herself has asked me to look into these matters. I wish only to see things made right.”

  “Only the heavens themselves can do that.” Master Macey gave her an abrupt nod and turned away to reach for another book. It was obvious he had said all he meant to.

  Kate knew there was nothing left there for her to discover—yet. She took one last glance at the strange room, taking in the bubbling vials, the clouds of steam. Surely the key to understanding Dr. Macey’s writings was there somewhere, but it was not yet in her grasp.

  She left the house—by the front door this time—with Anthony close beside her.

  “Did you find what you sought there, Kate?” he asked as they turned down the lane. The country breeze felt warm and clean after the smoke of the cottage.

  “Not yet,” she said. “But soon, I hope. I think there is someplace else I must look . . .”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I told you—these matters are very delicate. They take time. The spirits have their own methods . . .” Master Constable felt the cold, prickling trickle of sweat inch its way down the back of his neck. He feared it showed on his brow as well, and if there was one thing he’d learned in Dr. Dee’s employ, and among people such as this, it was to never show fear or doubt. Even here, in the presumed sanctuary of their alchemical laboratory.

  And especially to this person. Constable had already taken the coin. Already spent it. At first it had seemed so very easy. Dr. Dee seemed the deepest fool for not doing such simple tasks himself. But now Constable saw there was naught easy about it.

  Everything had gone horribly wrong, and he could see no way to make it right. Whatever he did, one powerful force or another would be angered.

  How had he dug himself into such a morass? Why had he ever come to court at all?

  But he knew too well why. Greed, ambition. The burning need for something beyond his parents’ country hovel. And a certain lady’s blue eyes. Eyes that never even saw him. Not when she looked only at that silver-tongued varlet, Green.

  Fear burned through his veins like quicksilver. Constable buried his face in his hands, unable to look at the person across the table from him. The person who had seemed a savior at first, the answer to all his troubles. Now he saw that this person opened a world of troubles beyond any other he had ever known.

  A pile of books went flying from the table with one swipe of a gloved fist. They clattered to the floor, crashed against the wall, delicate leather spines cracking. Constable shrank down lower on the bench, sure his own spine would be next.

  “The spirits be damned! I made no bargain with them. ’Twas you who took my money, you who knew your task. It was a simple one, and you bungled it.” The person leaned over the table, and behind Constable’s tightly closed eyes it seemed a devil loomed there, a dark, winged shadow that blotted out the sky. “I do not deal kindly with swindlers; nor does my master.”

  Constable cringed. Indeed he had heard tales of what happened to lower sorts who meddled in matters too high for them. Look what happened to Dr. Macey—bones in the mud of the garden.

  Had he been as stupid as Constable?

  “I—I shall make it right,” he said, trying to sound confident, placating. Not a pleading, powerless little mouse. “What happened in Lady Knollys’s chamber was beyond my control. But the queen does not leave Nonsuch for several days. There is time . . .”

  “There is no time.” The fist pounded down on the table again. “You will do what you were paid to do. Now.”

  “I— Perhaps I can pay you in something else. Something far more valuable!”

  The menacing figure paused, and Constable felt a wild hope rise in him. “More valuable?”

  “Aye—a . . .” Constable thought quickly, his thoughts racing as they never had before. “A book! A recipe for the secrets of alchemy, written by Dr. Macey himself long ago. No one else knows of its existence.”

  And nor would he, if he had not found it in its secret hole within these very walls. No one needed to know he had quickly lost it, though. He would surely find it again. He had to find it again.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed silently, desperately.

  “Perhaps we could renegotiate,” his tormentor said. “But only after I see the book. Bring it to me. Soon.”

  Constable opened his eyes just in time to see a swirl of dark cloak, the door slamming behind his tormentor. Constable was alone again, yet it seemed as if creatures swirled above his head, pointing, laughing. Just as those demon boys always had at the village school.

  He buried his face in his hands again, panic squeezing through him like an ice-cold vise. When Dr. Dee had taken him on as a pupil, when he found himself at the queen’s own court, he was sure those days were gone. That he would return home rich and powerful, a beautiful lady at his side, and they would all be sorry.

  But he was the one who was a fool. He had gone too far, and now he would pay for it, just as Dr. Macey had. Unless he could act quickly—yet he did not even know where to start.

  His frantic gaze fell on Dr. Dee’s precious shew stone, resting on its brass stand, all calm, clear opalescence. Not at all like it had been that night he secretly borrowed it.

  It was true, what he had said. What happened that night at Lady Knollys’s had been beyond his control. He didn’t know what had happened, no matter how many times he went over it, in the dark of sleepless nights. He was set on his task, the simple action he had to take in exchange for the payment. And then . . .

  Then everything went black in his mind. He had no control of his body, his words. Dr. Dee had warned him many times of such things, of the incomprehensible forces that lurked all around, waiting, watching for any chance to enter the mortal world once again. They sensed any vulnerability.

  That night descended into chaos, and he had lost his chance. The chance to get his paid message to the queen, through the cousin she trusted. How would he find another chance? The Boleyns would surely never speak to him again. . . .

  A sudden thought came to him like the pinprick light of a star through a dark night. Lady Knollys and Lord Hunsdon were surely not the only ones Qu
een Elizabeth trusted. There had to be someone else who would listen.

  He frantically tried to remember who had been there on that terrible night, who had watched what happened. The faces were all a blur.

  But he remembered the musician girl, who had been staring down at him with large, dark eyes as he came back into himself. Amid all those screams and cries, she was the one still point. Her eyes—surely he had seen them before, or ones very like them. But where?

  Constable shook his head. It mattered not. What mattered was that the girl often played for the queen, was often in the royal company. Perhaps she could be persuaded to murmur a word or two for him? To help him redeem himself, and earn that coin?

  He frowned, remembering how she had seen him that day he so foolishly tried to creep into the queen’s bedchamber. Desperation had made him think he could find something there to help him in his task, or a place to leave something that would persuade the queen. He should have known it would be too well guarded, even when the queen was gone, but he had felt compelled to try anyway.

  Mayhap the musician girl had forgotten? He tried hard to remember, to picture her that day. Had she been distracted with her own tasks? He could barely recall. Surely it would be worth it to try to talk to her.

  He would try anything now, anything to make it right. And then he would never meddle in such matters again.

  He thought of Dr. Macey’s raw bones, dumped in the mud, and he shuddered. Perhaps he would even give up his studies and go home to learn to farm. But he knew, even in the clammy grip of terror, that he was not yet that desperate.

  He still had time to fix things.

  The door suddenly opened, and he bolted upright in fear. Surely his tormentor could not yet have returned! No one could expect him to have acted so quickly . . .

  Yet it was Dr. Dee who stood there. Dr. Dee, who had gone to work in their hidden laboratory before the sun even appeared. Constable’s master looked tired, gray faced beneath his black skullcap, his beard tangled.

  He closed the door quietly behind him, watching Constable closely. Dr. Dee always did seem to see far too much. It was one reason why Constable had worked so hard to become Dr. Dee’s apprentice. He wanted to know his secrets.

  But he did not want to share his own.

  Constable slowly sat back down, struggling to push down his fear, to seem normal. As normal as he could on any such day, anyway, with Dr. Macey’s body lying somewhere below them and the rehearsal for a lavish royal masquerade going on as if naught had happened.

  “How do your studies progress?” Dr. Dee asked calmly. He went and poured himself a goblet of ale from the tray a maidservant had left that morning. He cast a cool glance at the books scattered so violently on the floor. “Not well?”

  “I— Forgive me, Dr. Dee,” Constable stammered. He hastily knelt down to gather up the volumes. “A mishap only. My studies progress well enough. How did you fare with your work this morning?”

  Dr. Dee shrugged. “It is slow still, I confess. Timothy Macey is sure we shall soon see a change, but we need Dr. Macey’s notebook. Without it . . .” His gaze, so dark and inscrutable, sharpened on Constable. “Are you sure you have not yet come across it? It may not be apparent what it is at first glance, you know.”

  Constable felt his face turn hot at the memory of that book, with its indecipherable symbols and brittle old pages. The one he had so foolishly taken with him to Lady Knollys’s, and which had then vanished. Another matter he had to take care of before it spiraled beyond his control entirely.

  If it had not already.

  “Not—not as of yet, Dr. Dee,” he said. “I am sure one of the maids merely put it in the wrong place among all these volumes. We have so many books, and when we travel . . .”

  Books maidservants so often refused to touch, even to dust, for fear of what they contained. So few people would ever be capable of deciphering Dr. Macey’s work. Constable himself was only just beginning to learn. It was one of the things that had led him into such trouble.

  Dr. Dee nodded. “Keep looking, then, as I shall. We must find it, soon.”

  “Of course.” Constable ducked his head as he gathered the fallen books. He had to solve all of this, and very soon. The musician girl was a desperate hope, but surely a hope nonetheless. He had to find a way to talk to her. And there was only one thing he was good at . . .

  * * *

  The stupid hedgepig! Why was everyone at the queen’s court so simpleminded? Were they not supposed to be quick, ambitious, witty? Yet they bungled everything, at every moment. Even supposed magicians were hopeless.

  The cloaked figure paused at the top of the hill, near the fantasy of a banquet hall that had been built to please a seemingly unpleaseable queen. The small window of the tower where that imbecile Constable lodged could just be glimpsed. That was the biggest disappointment of all. It had seemed so easy—pay the man off to do a simple task.

  But it had all gone so wrong, and Master Constable had brought unwanted attention down on all their heads. It would make the task all the harder now. And yet, just perhaps, it could make the reward all the sweeter.

  “Father was right,” the figure whispered. If one wanted something done, one had to do it alone. The whole family could be ruined now.

  Or one could turn the mistakes of others to a rare advantage. Was that not what everyone at court did anyway? Boleyns, Seymours, Dudleys, Greys. The world was always turning, one family up, one down.

  When would it be their family’s turn?

  Soon. Very soon indeed. And if that bungler Constable, or anyone else, got in the way, they would be very sorry.

  * * *

  What was Master Constable doing?

  Kate caught a glimpse of the strange man as she made her way down the corridor toward the stairs leading to her chamber. He was scurrying along, looking to neither the right nor the left. He didn’t even seem to notice when he nearly bumped into a group of peacock-plumed courtiers who shouted after him. He dashed around a corner, his black robes flying out behind him.

  Kate hurried after him, trying to keep him in her sights. Robert Dudley had said the man bore watching, and she had to agree with him. First he had been loitering around the queen’s rooms, and now this. It could be entirely innocent, of course. She herself was often distracted when working on a new piece of music; perhaps he had some experiment that preoccupied him. But could it really be so distracting all the time?

  The man seemed oddly—haunted.

  She turned the corner just in time to see him dash through a doorway. She followed, but by the time she got there he had vanished. It was a crowded room, with nothing odd about it that she could see. Why would he go this way? She frowned as she studied the gathered courtiers, nodding at those she knew, such as Master Green. He, too, seemed distracted.

  Kate frowned. Ever since they had come to Nonsuch, everything seemed so odd! She couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Kate! There you are. Violet and I have been looking for you everywhere.”

  Kate glanced back to see Lady Anne Godwin hurrying toward her. Anne smiled, but even that looked strained to Kate’s now suspicious eyes. Anne took her arm and led her back toward the doorway.

  “We are meant to play primero this afternoon, remember?” Anne said with a laugh. “Where are you running off to so quickly? Has the queen sent you on another errand?”

  “Nay, I—Anne, did you happen to see Master Constable when you came in?”

  Anne gave her a puzzled glance. “Dr. Dee’s pupil? The fishy-looking pale one? Nay, not at all. But I daresay I wouldn’t notice him if I had. Whyever would you be looking for him?”

  Kate looked again at all the faces around them. Everyone watching everyone else. “No reason at all. He just seems rather—suspicious, I think.”

  Anne laughed. “Him? I don’t know why you would worry about him at all. Now, c
ome, the cards await . . .”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “My brother would like me to marry Master Longville, you know. He has quite changed his mind about him,” Violet said as she and Kate strolled through the garden. Her tone was casual, light, as if she commented on the fine blue sky overhead.

  But when Kate glanced at her, startled by the sudden words, she saw that Violet’s pretty face looked pale and tight, her eyes just a bit too wide, too shimmery. She held a yellow rose between her fingers, and she had twisted the stem into a knot.

  Kate looked toward Master Longville, where he walked ahead on the gravel pathway with the Duchess of Somerset and her daughter Lady Jane. The duchess’s walking stick made emphatic taps on the stones. Longville seemed to be in earnest conversation with her, his somber dark doublet blending in with her usual black gown and veil. He was good-looking enough, surely, with his sandy brown hair and earnest eyes, and he did seem to like Violet very much. He was always near her, it seemed, and had been since before the court left on the summer progress.

  And yet there was something about him that made Kate feel a twinge of disquiet she could not quite decipher. Romance and marriage were far beyond her knowledge.

  “I am quite sure your brother wishes only for your happiness,” Kate said carefully.

  Violet gave a harsh laugh that contrasted too roughly with the merriment emanating from the grassy hillside nearby, where the queen and some of her courtiers played at blindman’s buff. Queen Elizabeth, shining all in white and silver, her loose hair bound back with the silk blindfold, twirled in a circle, laughing, reaching out to catch at the people swirling around her.

  “My brother is fond of me, I daresay,” Violet said. “But since he has come to serve Lord Arundel, it seems he has changed.”

  Families were another thing Kate knew little about. She and her father had always been their own small family, never needing to speak much to know what the other was thinking. “Changed in what way?”