Violet shrugged. “When we were younger, he was so lighthearted. He would always include me in his games, would tease me, make me laugh—which he still does, of course. But now he seems so serious, so worried and preoccupied all the time. Our family always lived a quiet life when Mary was queen, as so many did who followed the ‘new faith.’ I realize now I liked it that way. I used to dream of court, of banquets and dancing, but in reality life at home was finer. But not my brother. He has so many ideas to raise us in the world.”
Kate thought of Lady Bess Martin’s tidbit of gossip, that Master Roland was in some debt. Life at court was vastly expensive. Even with a position with Lord Arundel, one of the wealthiest men in England, it would be an easy thing for an ambitious young man with a sister as maid of honor to the queen to overset his finances.
But what sort of debt was it? And to whom?
“How would marrying you to Master Longville do that?” Kate asked. She tried to recall all that she knew about the man, but it was not much. He came from a deeply Protestant family, one that had once been loyal to Queen Anne Boleyn. They had gone abroad when Mary was queen, as Lord Hunsdon, Lady Knollys, and the other Boleyn families had.
“He has many manors, one of which is near to my parents’ home. They would like to adjoin the estates, I think,” Violet said. “And he is of the Protestant faith, just as my parents are. My brother also likes that. He is devout, no matter what appearances may say.”
Violet gestured toward Master Longville and the duchess. “My parents were once friends of the Seymours, and I think my brother would like to renew that connection. He believes that Lady Catherine Grey may one day be the queen’s heir, and perhaps Lord Hertford her consort. Though that is a secret, of course,” Violet said carelessly, as if talking of such dangerous matters was as nothing. She looked angry, distant, so different from the sweet, merry friend Kate had come to care for.
“But you do not agree with him,” Kate said. “You do not like Master Longville?”
“Oh, Kate!” Violet gasped. She pressed her trembling hands to her face, and Kate reached out to touch her shoulders, concerned at such strange behavior. “It is just—I like someone else so very much. Too much.”
Kate shook her head, afraid for Violet. “Master Green?”
Violet nodded, gasping as if she would try to keep down the tears. Hide her feelings, as a courtier should. “Aye. He is so wonderful, and I think—I hope—he also cares for me. I can think of no one else when he is near.”
Kate’s concern grew. It was true Master Green was handsome and charming, but he had also become embroiled in that fight with Master Constable. And so many ladies seemed to enjoy his company. “Has he declared himself to you? To your brother? And has your brother rejected Master Green’s suit in favor of Master Longville? But he and Master Green seem like such good friends.” That would surely explain Violet’s strange behavior today, if her brother had suddenly become so changeable.
Violet shook her head. “He hasn’t, yet I fear if he did my brother would just send him away. I think they have quarreled. It’s as if working for Lord Arundel has put a plan in his mind, and he won’t be turned from it. Somehow Master Longville is part of that plan, and I don’t know why.” Her voice rose on a wail, and Kate tightened her grasp on Violet’s arm, trying to calm her. “What has happened to my family, Kate? Why can I not be happy as others are in their marriages?”
Kate pulled her friend into her arms and murmured quiet, soothing words into her ear. Over Violet’s shoulder, she stared at the merry game on the hillside, the spinning giddiness of the silks and satins. Lady Catherine Grey stood near Lord Hertford, the two of them laughing, their hands nearly touching as if they forgot where they were. Then skidding away when they remembered. If others gossiped about Lady Catherine being the queen’s heir and Hertford being her intended, did they know?
The queen reached out and curled her long white fingers into a velvet sleeve that belonged to Sir Robert Dudley. Sir Robert laughed down at her, so dark and piratical, so handsome. The perfect counterpart to her gold-and-white beauty.
She drew him closer, tracing her fingertips over his face in soft, gentle caresses. The arch of his nose, his lips, his close-cropped beard. She snatched off the blindfold to stare up into his eyes. For an instant, it was as if they were the only two people there.
Why can I not be happy as others are?
For an instant, Kate felt an unfamiliar longing in her own heart, the longing to feel thus and have someone look at her in that way. Yet look at what happened when love vanished, as it always did in one way or another. Queen Anne Boleyn was killed when her husband tired of her, as was Queen Catherine Howard, not long after her golden days here at this very palace. Kate’s own mother had died, leaving her father heartbroken. Work was all there really was. All that could be relied upon.
She closed her eyes, thinking of Anthony and how he had helped her break in to the cottage. Of Rob Cartman and the ambition that was always burning in his eyes.
Violet was right. Why could they not all be happy, as normal people should? But serving a queen was not normal at all.
“I am sure all is not so bleak as that, Vi,” Kate said. “Have you spoken to your brother, told him what you have told me? Surely Master Green would be just as good a match as Master Longville. He and your brother could patch up their friendship. If he knew your feelings . . .”
Violet shook her head again, but Kate could see a faint hope slowly kindling in her eyes. “Yes! Yes, I will speak to him, and surely he must listen. He shouted at me last time I tried to make him see that I must be happy, but he is my brother. A brother should consider his sister’s happiness. Aye. I will speak to him right now . . .”
* * *
But the next time Kate saw Violet, she found her facedown on her bed, sobbing and kicking her velvet shoes into the counterpane. Her brother was not, after all, so concerned with her happiness, and insisted she would marry whom he said. Violet would not be comforted, no matter what Kate or Lady Anne said.
Perhaps she had been mercifully saved from families after all, Kate thought with a wry laugh. She had left a distraught Violet with Lady Anne Godwin, who would surely be a good one for hatching a plan for the next volley against Master Roland’s plans for his sister, and gone out for a short walk. Her head was spinning, and she desperately needed to clear it if she was to be of any more help to Violet.
Aye, she thought, families could surely be a curse instead of a blessing. When she was younger, she had longed for siblings, for aunts, uncles, cousins. It was only her father and herself. Now her mind was full of Violet and her quarrel with her brother, of Lady Knollys and all her children, of the tribe of Boleyns. Where did duty to family end and duty to oneself begin?
The raucous games on the hillside had settled into a more sedate picnic under the shade of several bright green spreading trees. The ladies looked like flowers on the grass, their skirts spread around them, with their gallant suitors offering tidbits and wine. The queen held out a morsel for Robert Dudley, laughing as he took it from her fingers with his lips.
Master Longville sat on a stone bench with the Duchess of Somerset, still deep in conversation with her. What did they have to talk about so seriously?
Did Master Longville truly love Violet? Kate wondered. Or was there another reason he was so intent on the match? She thought of what Master Roland had said about the value of old connections, and she knew she needed to find out more about what he meant.
Kate turned a corner on the gravel pathway and found herself facing the green hedge walls of the maze. She froze for an instant, transfixed by the memory of what had happened the last time she was there. Screams, bones. The mud. Red cloth. Had she missed anything that day, any clue she should have paid more attention to?
Dared she go in now? She knew she should look closer, but still it made her shiver.
“Mistr
ess Haywood!” someone called, and she was glad of the excuse not to step into those leafy shadows just yet. She turned to see a maidservant hurrying toward her. “I was asked to give this to you, mistress, as soon as possible.”
Kate took the rolled and sealed scroll the girl held out. It looked much too formal to be a quick message. Had the queen sent it? “Who gave it to you?”
“Master Constable, mistress, Dr. Dee’s man. He said you should have it urgently.”
Master Constable? What could he possibly have to tell her? “Thank you,” she murmured absently, her thoughts racing. The girl hurried away, leaving Kate alone again, staring down at the scroll in her hand as if it were a serpent that would come to life and bite her.
She glanced back, just barely able to glimpse the queen’s picnic. The laughter and bright colors, the flirtations—they all seemed a million miles away.
She plunged into the maze, suddenly sure she needed to be alone to read the message. The dark-green walls closed in around her, cool and lush, smelling of the fresh, damp earth. It seemed to be a place that could hold so many secrets, so many whispers from the past. It could hold hers, too, if she would let it. The deeper she went, the more it seemed to surround her.
So deep was she in her own thoughts that it took her a moment to realize she was not entirely alone in the maze. She heard footsteps, steady, deliberate, crunching on the fine gravel, somewhere beyond the hedge wall.
That was not unexpected, of course. The maze was part of the garden, open to everyone on that fine day. But something deep inside of her seemed to seize, as if in warning. A sense that something was not right. When she’d had those feelings before, she had ended up almost drowning.
She shoved the documents quickly into the pouch at her belt. She hurried her steps until she was nearly running around the next corner.
No one was there on that new path, but the footsteps were even louder behind her, getting closer and closer, and she couldn’t tell from which direction they came. She ran on, her skirts tangling around her legs, hobbling her. She reached a dead end, nothing in front of her but a thicket of green branches, unbreachable. She had to turn back; it was the only way.
But before she could spin around, she heard a sudden strange whooshing noise, like a hundred wings descending. Someone shoved her hard from behind, and she tumbled down onto the muddy ground. A heavy weight landed on the back of her head, and as a red-hot rush of pain hit her, everything went blurry.
Kate struggled to keep from falling down into darkness, to keep from giving in to the blinding explosion in her head. She shoved herself up from the ground with her torn palms and twisted around. All she could see through the haze was the swirl of a black cloak, vanishing around the corner of the maze. She screamed as loud as she could—and then everything went black.
* * *
“Oh, Kate! You poor, poor girl. Are you still in pain? Do you need another bolster? Here, let me get you more wine . . .”
Kate had to laugh at Violet’s fussing, her fluttering around their small chamber to fetch blankets and mix up possets. It felt good to know someone cared, that someone was there to help her when she needed it. Ever since her screams in the maze summoned running guards who had carried her to her chamber, she had barely been alone for a moment. She’d had to send everyone away for a few moments, claiming she needed to use the chamber pot, just to have time to hide the paper Constable had given her. Thank the stars no one had tried to change her clothes before she did that.
The queen sent her own physician, as well as spiced wine and sweetmeats. Mistress Ashley insisted on making her own recipe for a strong, healing posset, and Violet and Lady Anne never left her bedside. Lord Arundel kept sending messengers to make sure the masque would be able to go forward. And Anthony, who was barred from the room by the ladies, sent bouquets of white roses.
Violet and Anne kept up a steady chatter, but neither of them talked of their romantic woes now. Violet seemed determined to forget the disquieting scene from earlier, to deny that she might indeed have to forget Master Green and marry Master Longville. And Anne didn’t speak of Master Roland at all. Kate began to think she had imagined the two of them talking together so intently near Dr. Dee’s cottage. Perhaps it had been merely a casual encounter between acquaintances.
But she knew very well she had not imagined what happened in the maze. Every time she shifted against the pillows, she felt the ache of bruises, remembered the raw fear of those strong hands shoving at her back. She saw again the black cloak swirling away, like the giant ravens at the Tower.
She shuddered. It was too much like when she had tumbled down the stairs at the Spanish embassy last winter, the raw panic, the cold flash of certainty she was going to die.
And yet—surely the fact that someone had gone to all the trouble to chase her through the maze, to frighten her, meant she was close to discovering something. But what? How could whatever happened to Dr. Macey so long ago threaten anyone now?
As Violet tucked a blanket closer around her, Kate shut her eyes tightly and went over what she had learned lately, little as it seemed.
None of it seemed to fit together, like a poor hand of cards at primero. She couldn’t slot all the disparate suits into place, and it made her want to scream with frustration. She needed to get out of that bed and talk to more people!
She curled her fists tight into the velvet counterpane, crushing the fine fabric, to keep from shouting out one of the queen’s favorite oaths. Lady Anne glanced up from her embroidery and frowned.
“Are you in pain, Kate?” she asked. “Shall we find another of Mistress Ashley’s possets?”
Kate shook her head. That was the last thing she needed. Kat Ashley’s herbal possets, which she distributed most enthusiastically whenever anyone was ill, were much too potent. They made Kate feel fuzzy and dazed, when she most needed to think clearly.
“I am well enough,” Kate said. “Perhaps I should just rest for a while.”
“I could read to you,” Violet said. “Some of those new poems from Florence! They are so very romantic . . .”
She suddenly pouted, as if she remembered how romance was going so sour in her life just then. But she smiled, determined and bright, a mask like everyone wore at court.
“Perhaps we should leave Kate alone to sleep for a time,” Lady Anne said, setting aside her sewing and rising from her stool. “Come, Vi, we will walk in the garden for a time.”
Violet looked most uncertain. “But what if Kate should be seized with illness again, and be too dizzy to call for help?”
“I will be very well,” Kate hastened to say. She would be glad of an hour alone with her thoughts. “There are servants walking past in the corridor all the time; someone would be sure to hear if I called out.”
Lady Anne at last persuaded Violet to leave for a while, and Kate was finally alone. She carefully eased herself out of bed and went to open the window, longing for a breath of fresh air. One of Mistress Ashley’s nursing dictates was that a fire must burn at all times, the windows firmly closed against any noxious breezes. It was most stifling on a warm summer’s day.
Kate glimpsed the queen walking in the garden, her crimson gown and bright hair a splash of brilliant color against the green hedges and gray stone path. Only two ladies followed her, Mary Sidney and Lady Bess Martin, and next to her was not Robert Dudley, but the somber brown-clad figure of William Cecil. He spoke closely in the queen’s ear, and she scowled but did not answer.
It must be a most solemn discussion of state matters, then, Kate decided. The real world hardly ever intruded on the dream of Nonsuch.
Kate could hear nothing from so far away. She left the window to fetch a shawl to wrap over her chemise and tidied away the ewers of wine and half-empty goblets. She went to tuck Lady Anne’s abandoned sewing back into her workbox, and as she did so she noticed the half-formed monogram worked on the sno
wy linen. Entwined A and R.
Anne . . . Roland? Was that what she meant to stitch there?
Kate could not solve all her friends’ romantic dilemmas, she thought as she replaced the embroidery where she had found it. She could hardly make sense of her own. But she was learning, ever learning, there at court.
She returned to her bed and felt around beneath the bolster until she found what she had hidden there—the scroll Master Constable had sent her. There had been no moment alone to look at it, and she was aching with curiosity to know what it might be.
She brushed off some of the dried mud and broke the seal to unroll it. She found it was not one page but two, a smaller wrapped inside a larger. The vellum was newer, whiter, on the larger one, the ink dark and fresh. She found to her chagrin that she could read neither of them.
Yet she did recognize what they were. She had seen such things among the queen’s papers and in Lady Knollys’s chamber. There were twelve equal sections, divided into a wheeled chart, each section covered in tiny writing, strange symbols like lines and circles and squiggles. They were horoscope charts. She carefully studied them, even though she knew she would need to find a guide to decipher them.
The older one had a date at the top, July 1523, the Year of the Bleeding Moon. The signature at the bottom was TR Macey, with the year 1541. The year Catherine Howard came to Nonsuch with the king.
The year Macey had vanished. Perhaps this was one of the last horoscopes he had ever drawn up. But for whom? For the queen herself, as Master Macey said his father was meant to do? She carefully studied the signs again, and something about them made her feel cold. Maybe he had never even given it to the subject? Why did Master Constable have it now? And why would he give it to her?
Kate set it aside to study the newer document. There was a date at the top. January 11, 1540. She gasped in surprise. That was her birthday. The day her mother died.
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