“You may tell your master that I already feel myself married.” Elizabeth spun around and held up her hand to show the coronation ring on her finger. “To my country. It is indeed a heavy task, but ’tis mine alone, and I must take care of my people as a mother would her children. England has shown she does not care for a foreign husband with no time for her. Surely King Philip remembers that.”
Feria’s jaw tightened, but he had been too long at court to show any other hint of emotion. “Spain surely has much more to offer England than vice versa, Your Majesty. An empire that stretches across the globe, in fact. Alliances with the oldest kingdoms in Christendom. If you would but consider . . .”
Elizabeth sat back down and nodded. “Parliament meets next month. I can do nothing without their consent. I will consider King Philip’s words most carefully.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I am sure God will turn your heart as He sees fit.” Feria bowed again. “My master is a strong man, and could protect you from many dangers. Even ones on your own doorstep, mayhap? Family matters, even. The king is your family too, as you know.”
Family matters? Kate studied the queen’s face, and was sure Elizabeth was wondering the same thing. Did Feria refer to the body on the doorstep, or to someone like Lady Catherine? Family matters indeed.
Elizabeth’s fingers clenched in the fabric of her skirts. “I will keep such in mind, Count. Now I must beg my leave of you.”
“If we could speak further soon . . .”
“I shall send for you.”
Feria clearly saw he would get no further that day. He bowed and backed gracefully from the chamber.
Once the door closed behind him, Elizabeth leaped to her feet and sent her chair toppling over with a fierce sweep of her hand. Cushions went flying, and Mistress Sidney’s dog yelped. Kate’s fingers faltered on the lute strings and the song went silent.
“God’s blood, but I hate the Spanish!” Elizabeth shouted. “Like spiders hiding in the grass, hissing with my own relations.” She kicked out at a cushion and gave a strange laugh. “If only Feria knew I am meeting with the French ambassador later. Monsieur Castelnau is most eager to negotiate after Calais, which my sister so foolishly lost. Wouldn’t that set Philip awry?”
“Your Majesty, you are overset,” Mary Sidney said in her low, soothing voice. She gave a gentle smile, and for a moment her large, dark eyes looked like those of her brother Robert Dudley. “You should rest. Let me send for some sweetmeats. Maybe those fruit suckets you like?”
Elizabeth shook her head fiercely, but some of the hectic red color leached from her cheeks. She sat back down on her chair. “Nay, I am well enough, sweet Mary. Now that the Spanish infestation is cleared of my rooms. I want to hear where you went today, Kate. You have found Henry Everley?”
“Nay, not yet, but I think I am close,” Kate said. She quickly told the queen of her adventures through Bankside, and finding Rob Cartman in the festering gaol cell with the thief. She had no certainty that the frightened man’s “ghost” was Lord Henry, but the fact that the Lucases were hiding something in their attic seemed most suspicious. She needed to see for herself what was there before she could tell the queen more.
Elizabeth frowned thoughtfully, tapping her fingers again on her skirt. “So that handsome young actor is in gaol, is he? We must have him out again as soon as possible. He has done us more than one good turn of late. And I suppose you were planning on going to search the Lucas shop yourself?”
Kate had in fact been planning to do just that. If Lord Henry was there, he would have some of the answers she had been seeking for so long. “I did think—”
“You cannot go by yourself,” Elizabeth interrupted sharply. “It would be too dangerous.”
“But there shouldn’t be panic spread in a respectable street, as it would if an army marched in,” Kate said. “Henry Everley must be made to go quietly.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “You are right, of course. My people need peace now, security. The celebrations must not be marred. Very well. I trust you to go, Kate, but you will wait until Robert Dudley returns. He can go with you and see to this troublesome matter.” The queen smiled, and it was nothing like the cat-with-the-cream smirk she had given Feria. It was soft, gentle. “There is none I would trust more to keep the peace of my realm than Sir Robert.”
Kate nodded. “Aye, Your Majesty. I will wait for Sir Robert.”
The queen slumped back as if suddenly weary. She rubbed her fingertips over her brow. “Now I think I might be in need of some wine before I must face the French ambassador on top of all else. Kate, Mary, will you join me?”
Elizabeth rose in a graceful sway of her glittering skirts and hurried to the corner where the clerk had been inventorying gifts. She reached for one of the silver-gilded bottles of Malmsey wine and twisted off the wax seal.
It all happened in an instant. Kate suddenly realized the wine was still closed, not yet tasted, and she opened her mouth to call out to the queen when something warm and furry and terrible brushed her ankle and she shrieked like Lady Helen had.
Startled, Elizabeth whirled around and the bottle fell from her hands to crash on the floor in a cacophony of splintered glass.
Elizabeth lunged back as some of the wine splashed on her skirts. Mistress Sidney screamed and jumped to her feet. Her dog barked merrily and ran around in a circle at all the sudden excitement. The noise seemed to flush out more of the mice that had set the ladies aflutter earlier, and that made the dog even more giddy. It chased one of the mangy bits of gray fur onto the sticky puddle, where the mouse fell and rolled as if drunk on the fine wine.
“Oh, bad dog!” Mary Sidney cried. She snatched up the dog and cradled it against her violet satin bodice. “Now you’ll need a bath.”
“What a waste of good wine,” Elizabeth muttered. She held up her hem to examine her green shoes, scowling at the stain on one toe.
But Kate stared in growing horror at the mouse that drank the wine. It staggered a step, let out an unearthly yelp—and fell over dead. All in a moment.
“Your Majesty!” she shouted. “Come away from there right now. Take your shoes off.”
Elizabeth looked up with a scowl. “Kate! Who are you to say . . .”
Kate didn’t know where her boldness was coming from—she just knew she had to move. With one hand she grabbed the queen’s thin, silk-covered arm and pulled her away, and with the other she pointed at the dead mouse.
Elizabeth gasped in understanding. She tore off her shoes and examined her stockings and skin for any stain of wine. Poisoned wine.
It seemed that “Elizabeth Tudor, bastard queen” was indeed next.
CHAPTER 25
Twilight was gathering over the spires and chimneys of London as Kate made her way with Robert Dudley through the streets.
The crowd of retainers who usually followed him were nowhere to be seen. There were only two guards following them at a discreet distance, somberly dressed in plain russet doublets, the iron hilts of swords and daggers glowing with quiet but lethal strength at their belts.
Sir Robert was different here than he was at court. At the queen’s palace, he was all laughing charm, all sparkling dark eyes, richly dressed gallantry. Now he scanned the street with a close, hardened gaze, a small frown creased between his black brows. The people on the walkway, hurrying on their own errands and quarrels, instinctively dodged out of his path.
Kate remembered that he had been a soldier, that he had fought in France with King Philip in order to save himself and his family after his father and brother were executed. The Dudleys had been hardened courtiers since the days of King Henry VII; they had played the dangerous games of crowns to the highest of heights and the lowest of lows. His father had been declared a traitor for raising Queen Jane Grey to the throne in Queen Mary’s place.
Yet Robert Dudley had survived. He had
to be a man with a soul of steel to do that. A soul that matched the queen’s own. As Kate looked at him now, in his somber black wool and leather doublet, his black hair disarrayed by the wind, she could see why Queen Elizabeth would risk gossip to be near such a man.
But he somewhat frightened Kate. He was most unpredictable—like the man they hunted now.
She shivered as she studied the street past Sir Robert’s shoulder. It was a very cold night, the wind icy as it swept around the buildings and caught at cloaks and hoods, but the sky was clear. Tiny diamond-like stars flickered on against the dark blue velvet sky, just as torches flared to life outside the houses. Shop windows were being closed for the night, and everyone seemed in a hurry to reach their own firesides.
It was a most respectable street, only a few lanes over from Master Lucas’s shop, but still Kate had the prickling feeling of being watched. She shivered again.
Sir Robert’s frown transformed into a smile as he looked down at her. “Cold, Mistress Haywood? We will soon be there. Then this foul business can be done.”
“If the man in the gaol was telling the truth and Lord Henry is indeed at the goldsmith’s shop.”
“Did he seem to be lying? What would be in it for him?”
Kate thought about how the man had looked. Worse for drink, certainly, and most willing to trade secrets to get more. But there had been no shifting of his gaze, no fidgeting. None of the usual signs of lying.
And he had not been a smooth-voiced courtier who had learned to hide all his true feelings like Robert Dudley.
“I don’t think he was lying,” she said. “The Lucases are hiding something.”
“Then we will find Lord Henry, make him tell us how he did these murders, and be done with it.” Sir Robert led her across the street toward Master Lucas’s shop. Their window was already closed, the building dark except for a shimmer of candlelight in one window.
Sir Robert swept a grim glance over it. “The queen must be kept safe at all costs.”
“Of course.” Kate completely agreed with that. No one wanted the dark days of Queen Mary to return, or the civil war that would surely erupt amid the many claimants to the queen’s throne.
Yet something nagged at her from the back of her mind, something that told her Lord Henry was not the whole story to these foul deeds. Perhaps he had killed his sister in a fit of rage. And Lady Mary did have red hair, like Nell and Bess. Like the queen.
But Nell and Bess seemed planned, calculated. Lady Mary seemed different. Chaotic.
If anyone could get answers from Lord Henry, it was surely Robert Dudley. Kate only feared that Sir Robert might lack the subtlety needed to discover if Lord Henry was capable of planning all of the murders, planning this cat-and-mouse game with the queen.
Then again, she thought as she watched Sir Robert bang on the Lucases’ door with a grimly determined look on his dark face, he was surely a man of infinite subtlety. He had to be, to have survived so long.
He had to pound on the door several times before there was finally the thunk of a bar being pulled back. The door opened a crack.
It was Master Lucas himself. He wore no leather work apron now, but other than that, he looked much as he had when Kate visited the shop before. His sparse gray hair stood on end, and his shirt was rumpled despite its fine linen fabric. His eyes were startled and red-rimmed as he took in the people on his doorstep, the stone-faced Robert Dudley and his two burly guards, with Kate lurking behind.
“You are Master Lucas the goldsmith?” Sir Robert demanded.
“I—yes, I am Master Lucas,” he stammered, his fingers white where they curled around the edge of the door. Kate could tell he longed to slam and bolt it again, but he didn’t dare with such an obviously powerful person.
“I am Sir Robert Dudley,” he said, his tone perfectly flat and expressionless.
Master Lucas’s face flushed and his mouth fell open. He snapped it closed and quickly bowed very low. “Your lordship, I am honored by your visit to my humble shop. But I fear we are closed for business at the moment. If you would care to—”
“I am here on an errand for Queen Elizabeth.” Sir Robert reached out and shoved the door open. Master Lucas fell back a step, his creased face turning stark white as Sir Robert and his men marched into the empty shop. “We have heard you are harboring a man who is gone from the queen’s court without license.”
Master Lucas made a visible effort to draw himself up, to remain calm, but Kate could see his hands trembling.
“There is no one here, my lord, only my wife and servants,” Lucas cried. “If some foul villain has broken in and hidden himself . . .”
“If that is indeed what happened, then you should be grateful if we flush him out,” Sir Robert said brusquely. He gestured to his men to search the shop while Master Lucas twisted his hands in his sleeves and bleated desperate protests.
Kate stood back and carefully studied the room. A torch placed hastily in a wall sconce was the only light, and the corners behind the counters were in shadow. From behind a closed door could be heard the sound of hurrying footsteps, as if the servants Master Lucas mentioned were in a rush to find their beds. The faint, metallic, smoky smell of metalwork still hung in the air.
As Sir Robert’s men searched behind the counters and poked their swords through bundles and packing crates, Master Lucas scurried after them. Kate noticed a tray set on a nearby table. It was a display of rings, finely wrought silver set with amethysts and amber. They looked familiar in their delicate style, and she frowned as she tried to remember where she saw something like that.
An image flashed through her mind. Mistress Celine, the plump, red-haired landlady at the Cardinal’s Hat. She had worn just such a ring, a silver band of flowers with an amethyst stone. Yet another link to Master Lucas’s wares.
But who had given the ring to Celine? Lord Henry? The bawd didn’t seem his style.
Kate felt the strange prickling sensation at the nape of her neck that always seemed to mean someone was watching her. She spun around to see a narrow staircase against the back wall. The steep steps led up into darkness, but there was a glimpse of a pale face, a twitch of skirts. A patter of footsteps on the floor above sounded like the mice at the queen’s palace.
And Kate remembered all too well what had happened to them.
She caught Sir Robert’s attention and gestured toward the stairs. He nodded, which she took to mean she should explore them further, and she quietly slipped out of the shop. Master Lucas didn’t even seem to notice, he was so busy entreating the guards not to break any of his wares.
Kate ran up the stairs, following the retreating footsteps. At the landing she glimpsed a sitting room one way, a comfortable, firelit space with an embroidery frame and open workbox that looked hastily abandoned. It was empty. The other way lay more stairs, which was where the steps were vanishing.
Kate followed, moving quickly in her boy’s clothes. At the top of the stairs, under the sloping eaves of the house, the lady who had so cheerfully gossiped with customers on Kate’s last visit was carefully opening a door.
“Mistress Lucas, I assume?” Kate called.
Mistress Lucas gasped as if in shock, even though Kate had not tried to be particularly stealthy in running up the stairs. Mistress Lucas whirled around, letting the door slam behind her.
“I am sure your husband could use some assistance in the shop,” Kate said quietly. “It’s not every day Sir Robert Dudley comes calling, I would think.”
Mistress Lucas had surely been a pretty woman in her youth, blond and pink, probably often laughing if the faint lines around her eyes were any indication. She had been very merry with the customers on the day Kate and Rob came to the shop. She was not laughing now. She opened and closed her mouth as if she couldn’t decipher what to say. Her hands twisted in her skirts.
“Or perhaps you alr
eady have company that urgently requires your attention now? In that very room?” Kate said.
Mistress Lucas snapped her mouth closed. “I don’t know who you are, young man, but our shop is closed. It was rude enough for Sir Robert to come here so late, but for him to send his servants into our private quarters is—is . . .”
The lady’s moment of attempted bravado collapsed, and her chin quivered.
“I am not a servant,” Kate said. “And Sir Robert is here on the queen’s own business. If you are hiding something, you had best reveal it now.”
“I’m not!” Mistress Lucas cried. “I am the queen’s loyal subject, I would never—oh, what have I done?”
The door suddenly opened behind her, and the soft click of the latch made her shriek. Her hands flew up to cover her face as she sobbed.
Much as Kate had suspected, Henry Everley stood there, backed by lamplight from his hiding-hole.
He looked far from the fashionably dressed court gallant, the brash young man who tossed coin around so carelessly and just as carelessly bullied his sister. His reddish gold hair was grimy, tousled, his beard untrimmed, and his eyes were sunk in purple shadows. He wore no doublet, and his shirt was dusty and wrinkled. He looked as if he had been run to ground by the devil himself.
But his voice was gentler than she had ever heard from him as he said, “All is well, Mistress Lucas. You needn’t hide me any longer. I can’t stay in your garret forever.”
“But, Lord Henry . . . ,” Mistress Lucas sobbed.
Henry shook his head. He frowned as he peered closer at Kate, and she remembered the way he roughly shook Mary’s arm. She glanced behind her down the darkened stairs. Sir Robert wasn’t there, but she could hear his voice floating up from the shop as he argued with Master Lucas.
“I know you,” Lord Henry said. His voice hardened, his face turning cold and blank. He took a step toward Kate, and she moved back. “You are no boy.”
Kate stiffened, steeling her bravery in order to face him. “Nay. I was Lady Mary’s friend.”
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