But Anthony would not. And she had her own work to do. She had to cease to think about him.
She sat back on the narrow wooden bench and made sure her lute was still safe. Music was her only pursuit.
Violet turned and gave her another smile. “Have you had your horoscope done by Dr. Dee yet, Kate?”
Kate shook her head. “I have not yet had the time,” she said. She had seen Dr. John Dee’s bearded, black-robed figure hurrying around the court and his apprentice, Master Constable, dashing after him with his arms full of mysterious scrolls and books. Having one’s horoscope cast was considered essential by so many people at court in recent days. Dr. Dee had forecasted the queen’s coronation date, as well as where she should visit on this progress. Queen Elizabeth relied on his wisdom entirely.
But Kate was sure the hour of her own birth, which had been the hour of her mother’s death, could not augur well for the future. She had to learn how to make it for herself. It seemed best not to know her destiny.
“Oh, but you must!” Violet cried. “Everyone is doing it. Dr. Dee had no time to cast mine, so Master Constable did it. He said I was born under Saturn and am thus of melancholic disposition. I should marry within the year but never to someone born under Mars or great misfortune will ensue.”
Kate shook her head. She thought of Violet’s frequent laughter, her love of dance and song. It seemed Master Constable wasn’t learning much from his apprenticeship.
“I am surprised the learned Dr. Dee would even wish to return to Nonsuch,” Lady Anne said with a smirk. “Surely that would be a most bad omen for him.”
“What do you mean?” Violet cried.
“Have you not heard the tale?” Lady Anne said. Her eyes were shining with the pleasure of gossip. “I know not much about it, but my uncle was there when it happened. It was in old King Henry’s time, when he was married to poor Queen Catherine Howard.”
Catherine Howard had lost her head in the Tower when she was barely more than sixteen. Kate remembered that dark, cold night before the new queen’s coronation, when she’d knelt on the stone floor of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower with Queen Elizabeth, sure that unseen eyes watched their every movement as Elizabeth searched for Anne Boleyn’s resting place.
“Oh, do tell us!” Violet urged. Kate said nothing, but she was intrigued.
Lady Anne smiled. “’Twas on a summer progress just like this one. Nonsuch was the king’s then and not yet finished, but he was determined to bring his new queen there. Dr. Dee was an apprentice to a man called Dr. Macey, so they say, and King Henry wanted Macey’s advice that summer and summoned him to Nonsuch.”
Kate glanced ahead to where the queen was greeting more of her subjects, smiling and holding out her hand to them. The shimmering, brilliant radiance of the scene seemed so far away from when the old, mad king came this way with his frivolous, flirtatious young queen. Had King Henry required some dark magic from Dr. Macey that year? There had been such frightening tales of alchemy and spirits. . . .
“What happened?” Violet whispered. Her eyes were wide, as if she, too, feared to know of ungodly arts.
“A courtier named Lord Marchand accused Dr. Macey of—of treason!” Lady Anne hissed the last word. “He declared that Dr. Macey had predicted the king’s death, which is a burning offense. He also said things unseemly about the queen. Macey was thrown in jail, and his apprentice, Dr. Dee, was cast out of court when he tried to clear his master’s name.”
“Was he executed, then?” Kate said, appalled.
Lady Anne shook her head. “That is the strange twist of the tale, Mistress Haywood. This Lord Marchand vanished quite utterly as if he fled some evil. No such horoscope predicting the king’s death could ever be found, but poor Dr. Macey died of a lung fever anyway. Dr. Dee went abroad soon after that. And it all happened at Nonsuch. What can Dr. Dee be thinking to go back there now?”
“How terribly sad,” Violet sighed. “And Lord Marchand never reappeared at all?”
“Never,” Lady Anne said with obvious relish. “My uncle said some people declared a demon spirited him away at Dr. Macey’s conjuring.”
“A demon!” Violet shrieked.
“Don’t be silly,” Kate said. “How would a demon appear in the midst of a crowded court? Surely there would at least have been the smell of brimstone.” Kate laughed, but she couldn’t help shivering. The warmth of the summer sun couldn’t quite banish the old, dark memories of the past.
The procession jolted forward again, and Lady Anne and Violet talked of other, happier matters—the newest style of ruff from France, the new Spanish ambassador, who was newly betrothed to whom. Horoscopes and mysterious vanishings seemed forgotten, especially when they rolled over the crest of a hill and Nonsuch Palace came into view at last.
Even Kate was stunned by the sight of it, despite the paintings and etchings she had seen. She had heard many tales of Nonsuch, of course—King Henry had begun building it the year his precious son, Prince Edward, was born, intending it to surpass in luxury and grandeur any châteaus of the French king. It was to be the most lavish palace in Christendom. But he had never finished it, and Queen Mary had sold it to Lord Arundel.
It was dazzling, all golden stone and rosy brick in the sunlight, rising above the lush green parks and gardens like a fairy-story palace. Octagonal towers crowned with gilded onion-shaped cupolas rose at every corner and linked with crenelated walkways, and the walls were decorated with enormous colorful stucco reliefs of classical gods and goddesses.
It was beautiful, elegant, joyful. Hardly a place where treason and dark magic could ever triumph.
Hardly a place where anything as evil as murder could ever happen at all.
Murder at Westminster Abbey Page 26
