The papers were dated December 1541 and concerned the testimony of several associates of none other than Thomas Culpeper, the doomed lover of Queen Catherine Howard. And one of those men was Lord Marchand.
Surely if he was known to be a friend to Culpeper, they had been associated on the visit to Nonsuch, when the queen’s friends would surely have made merry. Would Marchand have killed to protect his friend? Accused an astrologer of treason to conceal his own?
Fortunately for Marchand, it seemed it was found by the court that he had no culpability in the matter of the queen’s treason, and he was released to go on to live for a little longer. There seemed to be nothing else heard of him until that will.
Anthony rubbed his hand over his jaw. If this was a royal matter, even one decades old, Kate needed to be warned. Immediately.
“Anthony,” Tom said, his tone most serious for once. “Why exactly are you looking into all of this? I know the Culpeper matter ended long ago, but still . . .”
But still—meddling in the doings of monarchs was a most perilous business.
“It is for a friend,” he said shortly.
Tom nodded. “I hope you will warn him, then.”
Anthony frowned. He would warn her—but he also knew she would not listen. Not if someone else was in danger and she could help. “Thank you for your help, Tom. You can hide this again.”
He left the darkness of the court building for the fading day and hurried toward the Hardy house, his thoughts in a shadowed blur. He knew only that he had to find Kate, to talk to her about what he had found.
“Oh, nay, Master Elias,” the maidservant said as she took his cap. “Mistress Haywood has not yet returned . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kate stared up at the house Rosie had directed her to. This had to be it. It seemed quite unremarkable in every way. A quiet street of artisan families going about their business, paying no heed to anyone else. Kate knocked at the door loudly, three times, but there was no answer.
Yet this was where Celine’s friend said Timothy Macey lived, where all the women went to have their horoscopes drawn up when they had saved their pennies, and where they went to have a gossip with the new Mistress Macey. Surely this was the same place his mother spoke of, where he kept his small family when he was not trying to finish his father’s lost work?
No smoke rose from the chimney, and all the doors and lower windows were tightly closed and shuttered. Yet an upper window hung partially open, and a cry suddenly rang out from beyond its swaying frame. Kate knew the house was not so deserted after all.
A cold panic rushed through her as she pounded again on the door. “Let me in!” she cried. “I’ve come to help you.” But there was no answer. She remembered the open kitchen door at the cottage and ran around to the back of the row of houses.
The door did indeed stand open, but it didn’t appear to be from any servant’s neglect. The latch was broken off, the wood panels scarred. Mud was tracked over the threshold.
Kate heard another cry from inside, and she ran into the narrow hall. Once in the shadowed house, she followed the sounds of voices—a woman’s high-pitched plea, a baby’s sob—up the stairs to an open loft above the warren of kitchens and sitting rooms.
The space was large, low ceilinged, dark. Kate smelled that familiar sweet, greenish, smoky odor, the same as that of the cottage, and there was the same clutter of books and glass vials everywhere. The rest of the scene was chaos.
Glass lay shattered on the floor, crystalline and shining in the faint light from the open window. Documents were scattered everywhere.
At the far end of the room, huddled by the empty fireplace, a woman clutched a baby to her shoulder. She was young, with long, loose dark hair and a simple white-and-yellow gown, and her face might have been pretty if it wasn’t streaked with tears and contorted with fear.
A figure in a dark cloak, much too heavy for the warm day, blocked the woman in by the hearth. His back was to Kate, and the hood drawn up so she couldn’t see his face. What she could see, all too well, was the gleam of a dagger in a gloved hand.
She remembered being shoved down into the mud of the Nonsuch maze, the swirl of a dark cloak like raven’s wings. It seemed she had stumbled onto her attacker again, but this time he had a true weapon.
Luckily, so did Kate. She quickly grasped the hilt of her own blade where it was strapped above her wrist, behind the cuff of her doublet, and she drew it down into her palm. She’d been neglecting her lessons with Cecil’s men of late and couldn’t wield a blade with much skill yet, but its steely heft still felt reassuring.
“Nay, please,” the young mother begged. “I know not what you speak of. I can’t even read, so I don’t know what my husband’s books are.”
The blade waved wildly in front of her face, making the baby howl. The cloaked figure looked tense, coiled as if to leap on them, and Kate knew she had to act.
“Leave them alone!” Kate shouted. There was no time now to be afraid. She had to be like the queen when Elizabeth faced her enemies. Cool, calm, unmovable.
The mother shrieked again, and the cloaked figure spun around. The hood fell back, and Kate almost gasped aloud in shock. It was not a man at all. It was Lady Anne Godwin who stared back at her, Lady Anne who threatened the woman and her child. She looked little like the stylish, coolly smiling lady who shared lodgings with Kate and Violet, but Kate saw to her shock that it was indeed she.
Anne’s face was white, strained, her hair straggling over her brow, completely unlike the court lady Kate knew her as.
“Kate!” she shouted, her voice shaking as hard as the dagger. “What are you doing here? This has naught to do with you!”
Kate’s blood raced with fear for Mistress Macey and her child, fear for herself, but she knew she couldn’t let it affect her now, couldn’t let it show on her face. “But it does. You made it so when you attacked me in the maze.”
Lady Anne shook her head. “I would not have hurt you. I was only told to warn you—”
“Told?” Kate said, her thoughts racing. “Told by whom? What is really happening here? What do you look for?”
Anne’s mouth opened as if she would answer, but then the baby let out another sharp howl, and Anne swung around again, her blade waving. “Too many questions!”
“Please, Anne, let me help you,” Kate said, trying to hold herself calm amid all the confusion and fear. Only by wrapping herself in ice could she discover what was happening. What part Anne played in Constable’s death—and how to stop her now. “I know this cannot be your own doing. Who sent you here? For what purpose? Surely this woman and her child can pose no threat to you, or to anyone.”
The baby wailed, and the mother clutched him even tighter, desperately. Anne shook her head, looking dangerously confused.
“I must find it, don’t you see?” Anne cried, half-angry, half-pleading. The dagger steadied in her hand, still pointing menacingly at the woman. Kate wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her own blade.
“It’s our last chance to be together,” Anne continued. “We’ve longed for this so long, worked so hard for it. I will have it now.”
“We?” Kate thought of Anne and Master Roland in the garden together, standing so close, talking so intently. She remembered seeing Anne hurrying on some secret errand as she left Nonsuch. Of course. How could she have thought it was some man alone? Anne did this for her lover. For Master Roland. “’Tis Master Roland, aye? You wish to marry him, yet he has debts.”
Anne smiled, suddenly glowing with a terrible happiness. “We plighted our troth to each other last year, in secret. Not even Violet knows yet. We thought surely once Elizabeth became queen, he would be able to find a place for himself at court, build his family’s fortunes again quickly, and we could marry.”
“He has the place with Lord Arundel,” Kate said, thinking quick
ly. “Surely he could openly declare himself now? Why all these dramatics? All this—death.”
Anne frantically shook her head. “It is not his fault! He has enemies, people who plot against him. ’Tis they who keep us apart now. I only seek to help him now, to help us.”
Kate thought of the way Constable was found, tucked into the painted moon. Anne was a tall woman, but not strong enough for such a feat. “Why did Roland hate Constable so much that he killed him? Why did you help him?”
The raw shock that flickered over Anne’s face told Kate she was right. Lady Anne Godwin had not killed Master Constable. But why had Roland done it? How was Constable Roland’s “enemy”?
“N-no!” Anne cried as she struggled to cover her shock. “I killed Master Constable. He took Thomas’s coin and then failed to keep his solemn promise. I had to be rid of him.”
“What did Roland pay Constable to do?” Kate demanded. She longed to scream with impatience.
“Lord Arundel was going to promote one of his assistants to be his private secretary, once he was married to the queen. The place should by right be Thomas’s; he has worked so hard for it. But Lord Arundel had begun to think Her Majesty had no idea of marrying at all.”
Kate thought of Lord Arundel’s desperation to have that masquerade. “So you and Master Roland decided to—assist matters along?”
Fear and naked need lined Anne’s face, usually so calm, so sardonically smiling. “We meant no harm. I swear it! I knew Master Constable was meant to conduct a séance at Lady Knollys’s, and that she often counsels her cousin the queen. Thomas said he had heard Master Constable had gaming debts he, too, needed to pay. Thomas offered him a very generous sum merely to suggest that Boleyn spirits urged Queen Elizabeth to wed Lord Arundel, for the safety of her kingdom. It was a very goodly amount, more than Thomas could afford, but he was sure Lord Arundel would be very grateful once the scheme came off.”
“But it did not happen that way,” Kate murmured. Not that way at all. She shivered to remember Constable’s howl, his empty eyes, as he collapsed to the floor.
Lady Anne’s pleading expression hardened. “Master Constable deceived us. He had to pay for that.”
“So you killed him and let Master Green, your friend’s suitor, take the blame?”
Anne’s face collapsed in fear again. She was no actor; she surely could have used many lessons from Rob Cartman’s troupe in concealing her real thoughts. “Violet is better off without him. Master Longville is a finer match for her, and he would pay a handsome sum to Thomas and demand no dowry. Besides, he is so besotted with her.”
Another peg slid into place as the whole twisted structure took shape in Kate’s mind. The way Roland suddenly favored Longville, despite his sister’s pleading. Mistress Macey sobbed in the background, but Kate could not think of her or the child yet. She had to focus, to decipher how to get them all out of there safely. “So Green takes the blame for your murder of Constable, Longville pays to marry Violet, and Lord Arundel falls down in gratitude to Roland. Only he did not. Is that why you’re here now? Threatening this poor woman and her child?”
The mother, who had sunk to her knees on the hearth, sobbed over the screaming babe’s head. Kate tried to signal to her, to tell her not to worry, to tell her to flee while Anne’s desperate attention was turned away, but Mistress Macey was beyond seeing.
“Constable offered Thomas a book in exchange for the missing money,” Anne said with a sudden, strange smile. “A book with Dr. Macey’s lost alchemy. With such a thing, we would have been richer than Lord Arundel himself! But Constable lied about that, too, the dirty cochon.”
“And he sent you to find it? He sent his betrothed, a woman, because he was too frightened to do it himself?”
Anne gave a furious cry. “I came of my own design, so we can be together at last! But this harlot vows she knows not where it, or her husband, could be.” She waved the dagger in her hand again, an erratic pattern that came dangerously close to Kate’s face.
Kate ducked back, raising her hands carefully to placate Anne. She felt the weight of her own dagger hidden underneath her sleeve and hoped she would not have to use it. “So what happened next? Master Roland helped you dispose of Constable in the masquerade moon?” Kate said quickly.
Her sudden question did what it was meant to do—distract Anne. She stepped back, looking puzzled.
“You would never be strong enough to do it yourself,” Kate said. “He killed Constable himself, didn’t he?”
“Nay!” Anne screamed. “He would never. It—it was me, I told you . . .”
Mistress Macey suddenly lunged forward. It all happened in an instant. Holding tight to her flailing child with one arm, she wrapped the other around Anne’s legs and tried to pull her to the floor. They all were tangled in the voluminous folds of Anne’s cloak, and Kate couldn’t see what was really happening. She could only hear the ring of terrified screams.
She pressed herself back to the wall, trying to shake her dagger free. But she was trembling, and it fell to the floor with a clatter. She glanced up just in time to see Anne grab the baby out of Mistress Macey’s arms. She knew she had to act.
She threw herself into the fray and shoved Anne hard to the floor, grabbing up the child as her former friend fell. She half tossed the child to Mistress Macey, praying she would catch him, as Anne screamed. Kate summoned up every ounce of strength she possessed and tried to hold Anne down until Mistress Macey could flee, but Anne in her fury was stronger. She lashed out with her blade and caught Kate’s leg just below the knee. Shocked and in pain, Kate lost her grip on the woman, and Anne pinned Kate to the ground.
For one instant, Kate saw Anne’s horrified face hovering above her, before Anne wheeled around and ran.
Kate tried to run after her, to catch her, but a burning pain seared up her leg. She fell heavily back to the floor, struggling against the black haze that threatened to engulf her mind. She could not faint, not now!
Mistress Macey’s tear-streaked face suddenly appeared above her, pale and frantic.
“We must go after her,” Kate gasped. “Shout for the watchmen . . .”
“But you’re hurt,” the woman cried. “You saved my baby!”
“Nay, we must catch her! Go, now.”
Mistress Macey left then, but only to push the window open even further and lean out to shout at someone below.
Kate feared Lady Anne was already long gone, vanishing into the anonymous crowds of London. Running back to Nonsuch to warn her murderous lover. Whom would he go after next in his desperate schemes? Whom would he have to silence?
And Kate was helpless, the pain in her leg threatening to swallow her.
Mistress Macey deposited the child on a cot by the door and ran back to help Kate up. Kate knew she could not let the pain and fear have her, not now.
“Let me help you,” Mistress Macey said. With the threat to her child gone, she seemed much calmer, more deliberate in her movements. It made Kate feel calmer, too. “I may not know how to read my husband’s books, but I have learned something of healing from him. We must wrap your leg to stop the bleeding.”
Kate looked down at her leg. The wound had torn her hose, and horribly warm, sticky red blood stained her skin. She gritted her teeth to steel herself. “Where is your husband, Mistress Macey? He has vanished from Surrey. His mother thought he would come here.”
Mistress Macey shook her head, her face grim. She methodically gathered up herbs from the scattered mess on the floor, tore a sheet into strips. “We have not seen him, I fear. It was quite a plain day here until she appeared. Now— Oh, I do fear for him!” Her voice broke on a sob.
Kate feared for him as well. That fear was worse than the pain in her leg. “When did you last see him, Mistress Macey?” she asked, forcing herself to keep talking, to focus on the vital matter at hand and not on the burning ache.
Mistress Macey carefully applied her herbal poultice and wrapped the linen strips over it, tightening it as Kate grimaced. “It has been some weeks. I begged him not to go back there, or at least to take us with him, but he would not. He said he had to finish his work, his father’s work, and he never would if we were there to distract him.” She frowned but did not look up from her work. “Mayhap he thinks me too foolish.”
“Then why would he marry you?”
Mistress Macey shook her head. “I know not sometimes. Perhaps because I listen to his work. It is fascinating. There,” she said as she tied off the end of the bandage. It was tight, but the ache was less. The herbs were doing their numbing work. “You should stay off this leg for a time, or I fear the bleeding may start again.”
But Kate felt the urgency to be on the move again. “I must be back to Nonsuch as quickly as possible. Lady Anne will be far ahead of me to warn her lover—and who knows what he will do next?”
“Will he hurt my husband, do you think?” Mistress Macey said, her own panic returning. “If Timothy can be found . . .”
“I should go now.” Kate tried to push herself to her feet, but pain shot through her leg again, a fiery sword cutting into the blessed numbness of the bandage.
Mistress Macey held her arm. “Then I will go with you,” she said firmly.
“Your child . . .”
“He can come, too. I can look after you both, and I know I can help you find my husband. I cannot stay here anymore.”
Kate nodded, even as she feared for this woman and her child. She knew she could not do this alone, and Mistress Macey was right—she would feel better if she was doing something to find her husband. “Very well. I know someone else who can help us, too. If you will send a message to Master Hardy the lawyer’s house . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“So Lord Marchand was Master Longville’s cousin?” Kate asked Anthony as they jolted along the road back to Nonsuch, slower than they had come. Much slower than she would like. As each precious moment slipped away, the odds of finding Lady Anne and Master Roland became slimmer and slimmer.
Murder in the Queen's Garden Page 22
