The Poyson Garden (3 page)

It could not be. This eardrop with a letter from a woman long dead. The forbidden past resurrected from its tomb. And a summons she was desperate to keep but one that could mean the utter end of her.

Chapter The Second

Elizabeth clasped the pearl eardrop in her fist as she read the letter:

To My Dearest Niece Elizabeth,

I know we have had no dealings these long years since the fall of the Boleyns, and that has grieved me sore. But it was, indeed, the best for you and the only way for me to survive. How many times I have longed to write you from my voluntary exile or, since I lost my beloved husband last year, to steal to you. But I know, especially now with Mary queen, that would be impossible, and I vowed once to your father I would remain silent to my grave if he would but let me live my own life away "from the heat of the sun," as he said.

But, my beloved Elizabeth, I must break that promise now. I believe you were informed that I died here at Wivenhoe several years after your mother's death. That was a falsehood I willingly upheld to protect you and my children from my first marriage, Henry and Catherine Carey. Even now they must live abroad in exile from Bloody Mary's England. I assure you they are your loyal future subjects and friends who pray daily for your rightful succession, as I do.

"What is that letter?" Kat's voice interrupted Elizabeth's concentration. Kat tried to peer over her shoulder, but she shrugged her off and turned slightly away. "Lovey, what? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"I have," she whispered, not looking up. "Now, let me read."

"Not if that is from another dangerous rogue or whoreson traitor like Wyatt."

"Leave me be, I said."

People have claimed cruel and wretched things of your mother, my poor sister, but she loved you. She fought and died for your rightful place, so never forget that. And I, as a mother, dying now, must fight for the safety and future of my children.

Therefore, I long to see you to explain further certain things in person. God be pleased, at my manor house at Wivenhoe, west of Colchester, Henry is healing from an attack on his person. We are not so distant from you at Hatfield, dearest niece, but so far these long years apart. Henry insists there is something he must tell you. Beware for your own safety, for he believes, even after all these times and trials, that the Boleyns of your generation, your royal self included--perhaps especially--are in grave danger.

If you will, come not by the Marks Tey forest road, but cross the River Colne near the village. Say you are Lady Penelope Cornish of Ightham Mote in Kent come to visit. She and I have corresponded for years, but my people do not know her face.

Loyally, with respect and love,

Mary Boleyn, Lady Stafford

The coffer lid banged down; Elizabeth jumped. "What is it, then," Kat demanded from across the room, "if not some silly or solemn plot?"

"In a way, my own plot a-hatching," she declared, pressing the letter to her breasts. She lay it slowly upon the carved oak mantelpiece as if on an altar. Frowning, she freed her long hair from her flat velvet cap and snood. She let Kat drape her tresses over the front of her shoulders to begin unlacing her bodice in back. She felt frozen with fear--when in doubt, do nothing, Cecil had said--but she thought only of sweeping to action. She would have to make ready as fast as possible.

"Not a tryst then, is it?" Kat asked, her voice even sharper. "Not after that disaster with Tom Seymour, I warrant."

"I told you not to speak of that again." Elizabeth gripped the mantel, then slowly loosed it to turn toward Kat. "This hardly bodes a tryst for love--romantic love. But I must get away, and I know I can trust you to help me with this ruse."

"Get away? Ruse?" Kat sputtered.

Hands on ample hips, she gasped for air like a beached fish. "What talk is that?" she whispered. "I would go back to that purgatory of the Tower with you, die for you, but I'll not let you go off God knows where. And how would you escape from this velvet prison the queen's got you in?"

Elizabeth spun her back to Kat for her to finish the unlacing. Reluctantly, the skilled hands crept back to their task. "In answer to your query, I'm afraid, my Kat, I feel one of my wretched head pains coming on." She hurriedly untied her own petticoats, wriggled out of them, then jerked her damp shift over her head.

Naked but flushed, she waved away the linen towel Kat had to dry her. She wrapped herself in her favorite old green velvet robe and thrust her feet in woolen mules. She retrieved the letter, kissed it, and pressed it to her forehead as if she could emblazon the words in her brain.

How dare the Tudors keep her from her mother's people? It was the worst sort of treason, fragmenting a royal family. Trembling, she unfolded and read the letter again, then thrust it into the flames, where it flared to silver ash and floated up the chimney.

"You're not acting one whit like a sick head pain coming on," Kat groused, grunting as she bent over to gather the garments. "But at least, once I tell everyone, you will have to stay here. The last time you lay abed two nights and the day between with no one allowed in footfall but me. And with the drapes all pulled tight and the bed-curtains closed and no noise or visitors, not even wanting food ..."

"Exactly," Elizabeth declared and watched Kat slowly catch her intent. "And after my getting caught in the storm, even the Pope and Bea will take our bait whole."

"Our bait?" Kat echoed, dropping the garments by the door for the laundress to fetch. "You'll tell me where you're off to or I'll not lift one finger," she insisted, coming back toward the

hearth, wagging that finger at Elizabeth as if she were her girlhood tutor again.

With the hand not holding the eardrop, Elizabeth seized Kat's finger in her fist and bent close to her round, florid face. "Go find Jenks, because he'll have to get us the horses. Tell him four sturdy ones so we can spell the beasts, and not from the stables here, for they'd be missed. For him and me--not you. And take some coins to give him."

Kat pulled her finger back, then grasped Elizabeth by her slender shoulders. "Your Kat Ashley will do naught of the sort, on my mother's soul, Your Grace, till--"

"No, on my mother's soul, I will do this, and you will help me. And now," she added, shrugging off Kat's hands and lifting her chin to stare down her nose at the shorter woman.

Kat collapsed to a long, low curtsy. It always shocked them when the gulf of privilege and power gaped between them.

"Kat, rise," she said, helping her up. "Heed me and never speak of this to a living soul but me. This letter came from my aunt, Mary Boleyn, from what sounds like her deathbed."

"But she's already dead. Has been these long years so--"

"Shh! That is what they told me, my lord father and my sister, years ago. But they both hated the Boleyns then--and no doubt me, for my bad Boleyn blood, as Mary once put it. I must see my aunt, and they'd never let me, not even if I begged."

Her usually bell-clear voice snagged. "Now, listen to me, Kat. Jenks and I will leave tonight and have but one swift day there before coming back. And tell him I need some boy's garb-- and if there are fleas or mites in it, I'll have his head."

At her choice of words they both stared wide-eyed at each other. Kat's lip pushed out in a trembling pout; the sting of unshed tears made Elizabeth blink.

"You're sure 'tis safe," Kat whispered, "and cannot be a trap?"

"I have had enough of both to smell them out. Besides, see, she sent the other of the pair of my mother's earrings, the ones they said she wore when the king had her arrested, before everything ... went so wrong."

"Aye, went so wrong," Kat echoed as she stared down into Elizabeth's trembling palm.

"Rein in here and hold the horses," Elizabeth called to Jenks. She looked only slightly less a lad than he. They stopped abreast of an apple orchard, with the distant village of Wivenhoe barely in sight through predawn mist. "I'm going to don my gown."

"Here?" he gasped, frowning and craning his neck to scan the area. "Thought you packed that gown for when we got there, Your Gra--I mean, milady. How you going to do it without at least a tiring-girl out here?"

Jenks looked entirely rattled, as if battle drums or bagpipes had beat in his ears all night instead of horse's hooves. Before he could dismount to help her down, Elizabeth swung her leg over her mount's broad haunch and slid to the ground. She dug the rumpled gown out of her saddle pack, grateful that the mud puddles, which had splattered them the first twenty miles, had not dirtied it too.

"I can't carry off being a lad once we get there," she told him, "even if the folk at Wivenhoe don't know me. I'll put the gown on here, and you can lace it."

Ignoring the fact that he looked as if she'd ordered him to dance barefoot on hot coals, she stepped behind a cluster of trees and yanked off her jerkin, shirt, and breeks. The gown was not a good one, though she'd have loved to go in fine fettle to see her aunt and cousin after all these years. And she'd brought no petticoats, so it was going to hang as if she were some rustic milkmaid.

"'So blood!" she cursed in the voluminous folds as her cap came off and a hairpin snagged something. She yanked harder and could breathe again. She shook the gown's warmth about her legs. The weight of the cloth would have to smooth the wrinkles, that and the patches of fog out here. She pulled the pins from her snarled hair and flung it back loose over her shoulders. Since she'd forgotten a proper hat, the hood on her cloak would have to do.

"Here, lace me," she told the now dismounted Jenks as she held up her skirts and strode to him. She shoved the boy's garb in her saddle pack, then spun away and lifted her hair so he could get at the back laces. "Pretend you're cinching saddle straps or some such," she prodded when he didn't move.

She could tell her bold lad's hands were shaking

at the task, when little scared him. Still, her mind raced ahead, then back to Hatfield, where she had sneaked out at night like some love-struck swain gone courting. But so much more than a lovers' assignation was at stake. She offered up a swift prayer that her Kat could hold off the Popes and that all would go well here.

"Done, but don't know if it's right, your-- milady, I mean."

"Lady Penelope Cornish of Ightham

Mote in Kent, and don't forget it. Come on now, boost me up and don't be chatting overmuch with Lady Stafford's sta2oys or scullery maids."

"I know," he said as they urged their tired horses to a trot again. "But Mistress Ashley made me swear I'd go in first to see if'n it's a trap."

Her first sight of the modest manor house awed Elizabeth more than the vast grandeur of a castle or opulent palace ever had. She stared, wondering if it had been enough for Mary Boleyn to live here with a commoner she loved, one she had chosen herself though it angered her king and family. As if in answer to her unspoken question, pale dawn gilded the gables in pure gold. Autumn frost pearled the gray thatched roof. Silver smoke curled from brick chimneys, and the mullioned windows blinked like brilliant gems. Yes, this place and life had been their riches, and she ached with deep envy for something she would never know.

Her stomach began to knot itself like a noose. She settled deeper into her dirty brown traveling cloak and hood and stayed back as Jenks rode into the center courtyard, pulling the two extra horses behind him. She heard him call out, "What, ho!" then other voices. Squinting up at the diamond-shaped windowpanes for a welcoming face, she shifted in her saddle. She knew she would be sore from riding astride, but it was worth the pain, the risk--at least she prayed so.

Jenks appeared on foot and windmilled his arm. "The Lady Stafford left orders for the Lady Cornish to go direct in to see her," he called as she rode forward. A man and woman, stout and simply dressed, stared up at her in the cobbled central courtyard, curiosity easy to read on their open faces, so different from those at

court or even Hatfield.

Jenks helped her down. "Welcome, my

Lady Cornish," the man said, as the woman managed a half curtsy so awkward

Elizabeth instantly knew how it had been for her aunt these years of willing exile. Queen Anne Boleyn's sister Mary had never brought ceremony here and had been much the better for it.

The two servants introduced themselves as Piers and Glenda, the household steward and his wife. As she entered, Elizabeth saw that the great hall lay dim and silent but for the low crackle of fire on the hearth. Jenks walked a step behind her, rotating his flat cap in one hand, his other still resting warily on the hilt of his sword.

Along the upstairs gallery that overlooked this large room, a chamber door banged open. From above a flicker of firelight threw a long shadow of a figure on the high-beamed ceiling. A woman clothed in a white shift or night rail with long silver hair ran forward to clutch the banister and lean toward them, wavering like a specter who would take flight.

"Is it you?" the woman cried. "Bless God, is it you?"

Glenda started up the stairs. "My lady, you're not to be up. I'll skin that girl Meg for leaving you alone and ailing. This here's the Lady Cornish, come like you hoped she would--"

But Elizabeth was quicker than Glenda up the stairs, around the turn of the landing. Her skirts dragged, but she lifted them and almost sprinted. Unladylike, unroyal to run, but she had never dared to dream of this reunion.

Mary Boleyn's face was gaunt and haunted, white skin stretched over fine bones, eyes once deep blue, now washed almost colorless by tears and pain. Mary pressed one hand to her belly and breathed through her mouth. How could it be that this once blond beauty could look so faded and frail--and old? Elizabeth had always pictured her young, laughing like those muted memories of her own mother, but Mary Boleyn must be in her middle fifties now.

Yet Elizabeth saw in a closer glance that her inner spirit flamed. Mary held up a trembling hand to halt her woman's approach and said, "My friend, Lady Cornish, will help me back to my bed. Please fetch her a hearty breakfast--now." She looked as if she would be