Kate frowned. Violet had seemed rather concerned about her horoscope when they were on their way to Nonsuch, but now her biggest fear seemed to be that her brother had turned against his friend and would make her marry Master Longville. It was not implausible, though, that she would tell Green she was so worried about the stars, for Violet was of a romantical mind.
Yet something told Kate that was not all there was to the quarrel with Master Constable. Green would not quite look at her now, staring instead at the dirty straw on the floor or the small barred window overhead. His fingers tightened into a fist over and over on his knee.
“So you do wish to marry Violet?” Kate said.
“Of course I do!” Green cried. “I love her, and she loves me. I thought we were all but betrothed earlier.”
“Until Master Constable’s horoscope got in your way,” Cecil said dryly.
Green shook his head. “Nay, because her brother seems to think I am not good enough for her now.”
“Why is that?” Kate asked. “Does he think you would not treat his sister well?”
“Why would he think that?” Green said, his voice fierce. “I have long been friends with Roland. We shared tutors when we were boys. Our families knew each other, shared a faith even during the days of Queen Mary. My family is not wondrously wealthy, but we are most comfortable. And the position I have with Lord Hunsdon . . .” His face twisted, and he shook his head again. “Had, I suppose. My position could have raised both myself and my wife. Roland had no reason to suddenly turn away my suit.”
“Unless he decided he preferred Master Longville,” Kate murmured.
Green snorted. “Longville. That varlet. Why should Roland prefer him as a brother-in-law?”
“Because his horoscope aligns with Mistress Violet’s?” Cecil said.
Green shrugged, and his shoulders slumped again, as if a sudden wave of hopelessness washed over him. “The Longvilles’ fortune cannot be much greater than mine.”
Kate listened as Cecil asked Green where he had been for the last several hours and discovered Green had been on a walk alone in the forest of Nonsuch, thinking about Violet and their future. He didn’t think anyone had seen him, for they had all been watching the masque rehearsal or with the queen in her chamber. He could only protest his innocence again.
As Cecil turned to knock on the door for their gaoler to let them out, Green suddenly reached out and grasped Kate’s hand, much to her shock. She looked down at him, at his desperate eyes, and remembered too well what it was to feel such fear.
“Please, Mistress Haywood,” he whispered fiercely. “Tell Violet I vow I am innocent of this and that I love her most truly. That I will prove it and find a way for us to be together.”
Kate could only nod, for her throat was so tight she could not speak.
“Mistress Haywood, we must return to the queen,” Cecil said, and she went with him out of the small cell. The door closed and locked behind them, and as Cecil consulted with the gaoler, Kate studied the antechamber. The small table by the fire, with its official-looking ledgers, the tray of congealing food and puddled ale left from the gaoler’s supper. Beside it was a small pottery jug painted with blue flowers, one she realized she had seen before, or one very like it. At Master Macey’s cottage.
They left the prisoner in the charge of Cecil’s guards, and Cecil handed Kate up into his coach to return to Nonsuch just as another horseman arrived. She saw it was Lord Hunsdon, come to see his employee at last. The man’s face was reddened and angry above his beard, and he did no more than nod at Cecil before he stormed into the gaol.
Kate sat back on the velvet cushions as the carriage lurched into motion. It was a beautiful vehicle, luxurious with fine carpet and a gilded ceiling, glass windows looking out at the passing scenery. She had never ridden in a coach before, but she could not enjoy it, for her thoughts raced to keep up with the chain of events.
“Well, Mistress Haywood,” Cecil said. He leaned his head back on the velvet cushions of his coach, his face weary. He was not an old man in years, Kate knew, but worry and work had put gray in his dark beard and made him walk with a stick already. “Is he the murderer?”
Kate shook her head. “I am not sure he did it. Surely Violet Roland’s concerns about her horoscope would not have kept them apart.”
“But a romantical young man deep into his cups might not be thinking so rationally.”
Kate laughed, thinking of all the young men Cecil and his wife, Mildred, had fostered over the years, young lords who tore through life with swords waving. She had met plenty of them at court herself. “Nay. But men do quarrel all the time, especially young ones who are hotheaded and passionate. Green did not kill Constable that night at the banquet when he was angry. Surely once he had sobered he would not be so inclined to violence. He doesn’t seem the sort to plan such things methodically, and surely he would know that being clapped in gaol wouldn’t help his suit with Violet. I don’t think he did it.”
“But it would not be an easy thing to show he did not.”
Kate sighed. “I fear he must have been the only person at court alone just then.”
“And one of those who would have been strong enough to move the body and hoist it up into that moon.”
“Yet not the only one.” Kate thought of the men at the joust, wielding lances and swords. Such as Rob Cartman, the silver knight. Everyone at court was connected in some way, but sometimes the ties were hard to trace. “What know you of Lord Marchand, Sir William?”
Cecil looked surprised at the sudden change of topic. What had Lord Marchand to do with these events? Even Kate hardly knew where she went with such a question. “He is not an old man, but his health keeps him from court. He lives in Sussex. They do say he is a scholar of sorts, interested in philosophy. He often orders books from abroad, but no one can find any illegal works in his shipments. He is unmarried. He inherited the title from his great-uncle.”
“And this uncle was the one who served King Henry when he came here to Nonsuch?”
Cecil’s weary expression sharpened. “Ah—you think of that unfortunate business with poor Dr. Macey.”
“They say Lord Marchand accused Dr. Macey of some kind of treasonous activity,” Kate said. “And now Dr. Macey has been found, and another astrologer is dead.”
“You think they are connected? After all this time?”
Kate thought they surely had to be, but she could not think how. Not yet. “Not that I can see right now. What happened to old Lord Marchand?”
Cecil shrugged. “He died, though I know not how. He was lucky to escape that trouble over Catherine Howard. Marchand was friends with Culpeper, and we all know how he ended up.”
He fell silent, as did Kate, as the gravelly road passed beneath the coach’s wheels. She turned over all the people in her mind—Macey and Marchand and their heirs, Green, the Rolands, Longville, Catherine Grey and Lord Hertford, Dudley and Arundel. How did they all fit together?
The coach jolted to a halt before the doors of Nonsuch. The pretty house was quiet behind its courtyards and gardens, a strange occurrence after so many hours of frantic merriment. The queen had to be resting, or mayhap strolling somewhere with Robert Dudley.
“I am also inclined to think Master Green did not do this,” Cecil said suddenly. “He seems the sort who appears brash and fearless, but whose guilt would eat away at his heart until he collapsed and confessed all. I have seen such many times.”
Kate thought of Violet and all her tears, her certainty her swain could not be a murderer. “Then how do we find the real killer, Sir William? Before he strikes again at the queen’s court?”
Cecil gave a rueful laugh as he painfully climbed down from his fine, inconvenient coach. “Ah, Mistress Haywood. If one only knew where to start . . .”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“London,” Queen Elizabeth sai
d decisively as she strolled briskly down the corridor, leaving Kate and Cecil to scramble after her. She had been told everything they learned at the gaol, and she made her pronouncement. “That is where you must go, Kate, as soon as possible, to look into Master Green’s affairs there, and see if anything can be discovered about what happened to Dr. Macey here so long ago. Whatever can be found out. There is no one else I could send who would not attract too much attention. No one I can trust. But of course you cannot go alone. We will think on a possible escort for you. Perhaps your friend young Master Elias? He seems a most responsible sort . . .”
With that, she turned a corner and was gone, Cecil still holding out documents for her signature, even after their quarrel in her chamber. The queen was still the queen and would answer to none.
Kate had to learn from her example. Surrey seemed to hold only dead ends, like in the garden maze itself. Perhaps there would be more to discover in the crowded streets of London.
She whirled around on her heel and hurried toward her own chamber to begin packing and thinking of where to search first once she reached the city. She also had to find Violet, tell her of Master Green’s message, and try to comfort her. But she stopped when she glimpsed a black robe and black cap in the gallery ahead of her.
“Dr. Dee!” Kate called after the dark figure. “I wonder if I might ask you something.”
He turned and gave her a distracted smile. “Of course, Mistress Haywood. Is it concerning Dr. Macey? Or Master Constable? If there is anything more I can tell you that would help, I would be only too happy. I must go and write his poor parents soon.”
Kate thought of the papers Constable had sent to her before his death, the ones she knew she could never decipher on her own. “I confess I am not sure what exactly it is. I am exceedingly puzzled about something.”
Dr. Dee merely nodded and followed as she led him to her chamber. Luckily, Violet was not there and the room was quiet. Kate quickly found the two horoscopes in her chest and held them out to the astrologer.
“Are these what I think they are? Horoscopes?” she asked. “This one seems to bear my own birth date.”
Dr. Dee studied them closely, frowning, and Kate saw he was not so old as his bearing and clothes would mark him, though he still seemed fearsomely wise. His finger traced the spoke of the lines, the strange symbols. “If this is indeed yours, Mistress Haywood, you are a true winter sign—you care for others and feel responsible for them, possibly too much. You are proud, and very lonely perhaps. You long for family—see this sign here? But family can also be your downfall. You must be careful of them. They leave you a very mixed legacy. Intelligence, ambition, but also perhaps blindness to some matters that one should best beware of? Romance could prove most dangerous to such a one.”
Boleyn witches. The Boleyns were her family, were they not? And none had been more undone by their ambition than Boleyns. Yet she knew she could not worry about herself now, not when everyone else was in such danger. “But what of this one?” she asked, pointing to the age-lined document.
Dr. Dee’s frown deepened. “I fear whomever this horoscope was drawn for could not have ended well, or at a great age. They were much too concerned with gaining attention, with a merry time in the sunshine, as all Leos are, but that makes a person vulnerable. They forget to be cautious. Most alarming.”
“Is it—is it Queen Catherine Howard’s?” Kate whispered. It did sound like the young queen, who was said to have been one for dancing and laughter—and for flirtation.
Dr. Dee traced the tip of his finger over the line that looked a bit like a horseshoe. “I fear it might have been. This looks like Dr. Macey’s hand. If this is what he saw in that poor young queen’s future, I do not wonder he chose not to give it to her. I had some papers secured that Dr. Macey sent me once, yet I never looked at them. But where did you get it, Mistress Haywood?”
“Master Constable sent both of these to me, or so the messenger said. But I know not why. To warn me of something?”
“‘Boleyn Beware,’” Dr. Dee muttered, peering at the back of Kate’s chart.
“Why would Master Constable do such a thing?” she demanded, all her confusion making her as frustrated and angry as the queen in one of her rages. She forced herself to take a deep breath. Only a cool head could puzzle this out. “Why give them to me? We hardly knew each other, and what I did see of him did not incline me to trust him. Do you know what he could have been hiding, along with these strange papers?”
Dr. Dee slowly rubbed his hand over his face. He looked weary, just as Cecil did, with all the terrible events that had been wearing at all of their minds of late. “Perhaps he was in need of money. He must have stolen them from my locked chest. He said nothing to me, but his family are simple people. They do not have much in the way of fortune.”
“He must have been in great trouble with someone here at court,” she said. “Owing debts, or possibly someone did not care for their horoscope.” Just as Master Green had not cared for Violet Roland’s. But killing the bearer of bad news could not change one’s stars.
Or perhaps it was not a horoscope at all, but something else about Master Constable and his work. She closed her eyes and envisioned that room at the cottage, the bubbling cauldrons and open books, the shock on young Macey’s face at finding her there.
Alchemy was a dangerous thing to dabble in, to be sure. What if Constable had planned to double-cross Dr. Macey’s son? What if he had promised some powerful courtier far more than he could deliver? If he came from a simple family, it would be easy enough to fall into such trouble at court.
She opened her eyes and looked up at Dr. Dee. That was his work, as well, all that was happening in that strange, smoky room. She feared he, too, knew more than he would say.
“Master Constable’s family did not have much fortune, ’tis true,” he said. “I took him on as a pupil because I saw much promise in him, many gifts he needed to learn to control. But his parents were simple farmers. I am sure life at court might easily have dazzled such a boy, led him astray. Many spend more than they can afford on such a life.”
Kate nodded, thinking of fine clothes, bribes required to find information, wine and food and horses. But what need had someone like Constable of such things? Surely what happened at Lady Knollys’s chamber was orchestrated for someone’s benefit. “Do you know of anyone who might have bribed him in some way?”
Dr. Dee studied the floor, seemingly deep in thought. “He would not confide in me of such things, but I must say I sensed he was hiding something in recent days. He was quiet, distracted at his lessons. Perhaps in giving you these, he sought your help.”
“Do you think he was being blackmailed, then?”
“I could not say, Mistress Haywood. All I can suggest is we all must be cautious now. Especially if this horoscope is your own. You must be very careful indeed.”
Kate took a deep breath and nodded. Dr. Dee was a powerful man, obviously most adept at hiding his thoughts, but she was desperate to learn what was happening before someone else got hurt.
As the door closed behind Dr. Dee, Kate spun around to look out the window. The queen walked in the courtyard below, listening as Mary Sidney read from a volume of poetry. Perhaps once Queen Catherine Howard had walked in the same place, with her own ladies, before her world shattered. The same could not happen with this queen.
Kate knew Elizabeth was right. She was the only one who knew where to look for more answers now. But there was still one more place she needed to search while at Nonsuch.
She quickly hid the horoscopes in her chest with the old book and hurried out of her chamber. There was to be dancing that night, a banquet to distract everyone from the canceled masque and the terrible reasons for it, so she had to hurry.
She left by the kitchen door again, so as not to be seen by the queen’s ladies gathered in the courtyard. She made her way as quickly as
she could back to the village, almost running at times. She turned at the lane that led toward the cluster of shops and houses, marked by a pile of stones left from the demolished old town of Cuddington, and rushed toward the hidden cottage.
She stopped at the gate and tried to catch her breath. There was no smoke at the chimney, no greenish sweet smell in the air. The windows were tightly shuttered, as before, yet there hung about the place an air of stale neglect. If she hadn’t been there only days before, hadn’t seen the wonders hidden behind those ordinary plaster walls, she wouldn’t have given the place a second look.
But today she sensed something missing.
Kate shoved open the gate and ran up the overgrown walkway. Even as she pounded on the door, she feared no one would answer.
“Master Macey,” she called. “’Tis me, Mistress Haywood. From the queen. I must talk to you.”
There was only silence. She hurried around to the back, only to find the kitchen window she had slid through before firmly latched. She tilted back her head to look up at the tiled roof, the crooked chimney. No smoke there, either.
No alchemist would let their fire go out. She knew she had to find Master Macey, but where would he have gone? She thought of those pitchers, the blue flowers on the white pottery, and knew where to start.
* * *
Kate knocked on the door of the tiny cottage, hoping it was the right place, that this woman could indeed lead her to Master Macey. It was where the gaoler said the woman lived who brought him his meals, the woman who left flower-painted pottery behind—just like at Master Macey’s cottage. She couldn’t stop the persistent whisper in her mind that insisted he was in trouble, that whoever had killed Master Constable was surely after magical secrets and would come after Master Macey next.
Unless he was the one who killed Constable in the first place, which was of course a great possibility. And he would not take kindly to being found.
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