Murder in the Queen's Garden

by Amanda Carmack

Nay, Kate thought, she could only miss her dear father very late at night, in the darkest hours when the rest of the palace finally slept, when she was working on new music for the queen’s revels. Then, in the silence as she bent over her mother’s lute, playing old songs her father had taught her when she was a child, could she miss him.

  The queen’s court at Whitehall was full to bursting for the holiday. There were groups from Sweden and Vienna, pressing the marital suits of their various princes and archdukes; as well as the Spanish under Senor de Quadra; and the French, insisting on friendship from the queen’s cousin Queen Mary of Scotland, the new Queen Consort of France. To make things even more complicated, a group of Scots Protestant lords had also arrived to ask the queen’s aid in their rebellion against Queen Mary’s mother and regent, Marie of Guise. It was enough to make every courtier’s head spin to decipher who was against whom.

  Sir Robert Dudley, the queen’s favorite and her Master of the Horse, had been named Lord of Misrule for the holiday, and under his direction everything was a blur of lavish merriment—and the Twelve Days had not yet even begun!

  Kate reached for two bent hoops and bound them into a sphere for the base of a kissing bough. She picked out the greenest, brightest loops of holly and ivy from the table, twining them around and tying them with a length of red satin ribbon.

  “Are you making a kissing bough, Kate?” Violet asked teasingly. She tied together her own twists of greenery into a large wreath for one of the great hall’s fireplace mantels. She looked most plump and content in her pregnancy, her blond curls bouncing and her eyes shining. “They say if you stand beneath it and close your eyes, you will have a vision of your future husband.”

  Kate laughed. “I think I would be too nervous to do such a thing. What if I saw a vision of an ancient, gouty knight with twenty children? We can’t all be as fortunate as you and your handsome Master Green.”

  Violet blushed, and laid her hand over the swell of her belly. “We are wondrously happy now, it’s true, but that only makes me want to see my friends equally well matched! Have you had no suitors since I was last at court?”

  “No one new at all. There is no more room at court for more ambitious young lords. And if there was, they would all be in love with the queen herself.”

  As Kate snipped off the end of a branch with her dagger, she thought about Queen Elizabeth in the past months, as they had moved from Windsor to Richmond to Whitehall. After the frivolity of the summer progress, the queen’s pale oval face had taken on a newly solemn expression, and she spent many more hours with her privy council poring over her stacks of documents. Yet there were still days at the hunt and nights dancing, still suitors and sonnets.

  And still Robert Dudley, richly arrayed and ready to pour lavish gifts at Elizabeth’s feet.

  “What of the delegations visiting now?” Violet said as she tied off an elaborate bow. “There are so many here. The French are so charming, so well dressed, and they say the Swedes are most generous with their gifts to anyone who will help them in their prince’s suit. Or the Scots! Some of them are quite handsome indeed. Very tall, such good dancers. You could marry one of them!”

  Kate laughed. Violet was right—some of the Scots lords visiting Elizabeth’s court, asking for aid against their Catholic regent, were rather exotic and dashing. But . . . “And be carried off to some drafty old castle beside an icy loch? I don’t think that would be enjoyable at all. They seem rather quarrelsome for my taste as well. If they aren’t fighting duels with Frenchmen, they’re glaring at the Spanish over the banquet table, or even arguing among themselves. I would prefer a more . . . harmonious household.”

  “Very well. No Scotsman, then,” Violet said with a giggle. “What of that actor who was at court last summer? I vow he was the most handsome man I have ever seen, except for my own husband, and he did seem to like you very much.”

  “Rob Cartman?” Kate frowned as she thought of Rob. He was indeed very handsome, with his golden hair and sky blue eyes, and full of laughter and poetry. But also full of secrets. “I haven’t seen him for many months.” Though she had received letters from him, telling her of how he and his theatrical troupe were faring as they toured the country under the patronage of the queen’s cousin Lord Hunsdon. She didn’t want to admit how her heart beat just a little faster whenever she saw his handwriting on a missive.

  Or how she wore his gift, a tiny jeweled pendant in the shape of a lute, beneath her gowns.

  “Oh, well. If you don’t fancy a cold Scottish castle, I daresay a traveling actor’s life wouldn’t be good, either. You should find someone who would keep you here at court.”

  “I told you, Vi—I don’t care to marry yet. I suppose I am like the queen in that way. And I am much too busy right now.”

  Violet pursed her lips. “I know, Kate. It is just as I said—I want all my friends to be as happy as I am. And I owe you so very much. If you had not saved my life at Nonsuch last summer, I would not even be here. Nor would this little one.” She laid her hand gently on the small swell of her belly, beneath the green velvet of her loose Spanish gown.

  Kate swallowed hard at the terrible memory of what had happened to them at the fairy-tale Nonsuch Palace, the fire—and the murderer—that had almost ended both their lives. She reached for a branch, trying to banish the dark thought beneath the brightness of Christmas. “Anyone would have done the very same as I did, Vi.”

  “I do not think that’s true. Few would have been as brave as you. So, if you will not let me matchmake, you must at least be godmother to my babe when he or she arrives. And, if it is a girl, she shall be Katherine.”

  “That I would be most honored to do,” Kate said with a smile, thinking of the gift she would get her future godchild—a child-sized lute.

  “Good! Now, you should put mistletoe into your bough. It is the most important element. Otherwise the magic won’t work.”

  Kate laughed, tucking a thick branch of glossy green mistletoe dotted with lacy white berries into the center of her circlet. Surely there was some kind of magic floating in the icy winter air. She felt lighter already with the holiday upon them. After she had spent months worrying over the queen’s safety, it seemed the perfect time to have a bit of fun.

  “‘Holly and ivy, box and bay,’” she whispered, “‘put in the house for Christmas Day . . .’”

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