The Thorne Maze (17 page)

“Robin,” she said, tossing him her reins as Chris and Jamie dismounted, “please see to these horses. Sir Christopher, Jamie, Jenks, come with me while I tour this old place, once my shelter and now, I pray, so again.”

Robin looked utterly dismayed, but she swept in the front door. Memories assailed her again, but she kept going, past the wide, worn oaken staircase she’d traversed a thousand times, down the corridor to the vaulted and beamed great hall where she had held her first council meeting after she had learned her sister was dead. Her booted footsteps echoing, she strode the entire length of the long, narrow room to the dais, and sat in the chair at the end of the raised table.

The three men trying to keep up with her halted, uncertain whether to sit or stand. Chris looked around jerkily as if he expected someone to leap at them from the afternoon shadows which hovered here despite the high windows.

“Jenks,” she said, “guard the door and see that no one enters until I say so. Sir Christopher, sit here,” she added pointing to the chair on her immediate right, “and Jamie, on my left.”

Jenks did as he was told without question, though both her legally-trained courtiers looked as if they’d like to argue or at least cross-question her. Both chairs scraped as they pulled them out, sat, and scooted them in.

“Have we unwittingly vexed Your Grace?” Chris asked, sitting ramrod straight. Were they guileless or guilty, she wondered, watching how they seemed to avoid looking at each other.

“Not at all. I merely wanted to tell you about this room, since neither of you—unlike Jenks, Lord Cecil, and my dear Kat Ashley—were in my service when I last was here, before I went to London to be crowned queen.”

Chris heaved a sigh of relief; Jamie still sat like a deer scenting the hunter, but then, however alluring Chris looked, it was Jamie who had the brains. If it ever came to keeping just one or the other of them about, she’d be hard-pressed to pick, for they each had their strengths and uses. But if one of them was a murderer, what, in God’s name, could be a motive?

“This chamber,” she went on, not looking around but at one of them and then the other, “is where my parents used to entertain in their happy days, before everything went so wrong and my mother was tried and executed. Imagine, even someone who had climbed so high in the monarch’s favor could tumble from that lofty position.”

Chris still looked raptly interested in her mock history lesson; Jamie took her point and started to fidget.

“This is also the room where, in my initial council meeting, I first felt my father’s power which had been weakly held by my poor, ill brother and had been abused by my sister Mary. It is a room in which I feel I must do right by myself and my people, especially to help those who have been harmed and to punish those who do not deserve my good trust.”

She looked into Chris’s green eyes; he nodded and a tight smile lifted the corners of his mouth. She turned to stare Jamie down. He looked intently concerned; his gaze did not flicker or waver.

“Though we have been forced to flee the site of your dear mentor Master Sutton’s murder,” she continued, “I shall not let it go, and will speak to anyone who knew him to ferret out the identity of the murderer. That includes especially those who knew him well and spoke with him mere hours before his sad demise. He had promised me he would ‘tell me tales out of school’ about those he had mentored and that includes both of you.”

“Secretary Cecil too,” Chris put in, “though afore our time.”

“Let me worry about Cecil,” she clipped out. “Now, Chris, you have told me how Master Sutton berated you for not using your skills and for following a frivolous path to come to my court, so Jamie, I would hear the Templar tales as they impacted you.”

“First of all, I’d debate the assumption that coming to court is a frivolous path,” Jamie said, shifting forward in his seat. She noted again how agitated he was acting, despite his calm voice. “Of course,” he went on, gesturing, “I concede there are indeed entertaining benefits to courtly life, but from the source of such power as you wield, Your Majesty, there flows national duty, pride, and power—hardly frivolous things in life.”

“Well said. But I believe Templar also berated you about your choices and decisions, Jamie.”

“He did.”

“And? Say on, man.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. It is just that I feel I’m testifying at the bar now, and any lawyer worth his salt tells witnesses to answer simply only what was asked and not expand.”

“’S blood and bones, I’m your queen, not some lawyer!”

“But you do sit in the lofty station of judge and jury, Your Majesty. Master Sutton said I had risen far for nearly a self-made man. You see, Sir Christopher’s father, who has wealth and position, had sent me, in effect, his servant’s son, with him to Cambridge and Gray’s, so I had the runoff of some benefits.”

“So far, so good. Go on,” the queen prompted.

“Indeed, Master Sutton felt Chris should not have left Gray’s early, but he was adamant it was foolish for me to do so. He felt that, if I fell out of favor with Chris or with you, I’d be out on my hind end, I believe he put it, with no calling to earn my bread, whereas he believed that Chris was cut out for court life and, though a second son and not his father’s heir, could make his way here. Master Sutton claimed I could not stomach the stratifications and niceties of court life and, quite frankly, would be bored to death.”

“Bored—to death. And have you been?” the queen queried, even as Jamie shifted in his chair again.

“Never, Your Gracious Majesty. Not at your court where great decisions are made and wit wins many a battle and—”

“Wit, yes, you’ve got that, doesn’t he, Chris?”

“I can’t ever thank Jamie enough for how he’s served me through thick and thin, been my valet at times, if need be, my groomsman—and my tutor when Cambridge and Gray’s were overwhelming.”

She glanced from one man to the other, wondering if she’d been wrong to question them together. She had wanted to see how they played off each other, and if there could be some conspiracy of silence between them. She did not believe so, but she had one more card to play.

“I also need to know,” she said abruptly, “whether your relationships with Bettina Sutton were entirely proper.”

That appeared to jolt them both. Damn, Elizabeth thought, it must be true that the little half-blooded Italian had betrayed her husband. And if so, would she in passion strike him down to preserve her secret licentious practices?

“Chris may answer first,” she said, holding up a hand to stop his keeper Jamie from coming to his rescue with some well-honed excuse or diversion.

“I know you are strict with your ladies’ reputations, Your Grace,” Chris began, gripping the edge of the table. “And, of course, your own.”

“What does that have to do with the price of pigs at market? I’m asking about a woman who is not one of my ladies, one you have both known for years. Did either of you ever play your teacher and mentor false with his wife?”

“She—she tried,” Chris said, frowning. “I know that sounds pompous and craven, but I’m used to it—women’s attentions, I mean—and swear I don’t take advantage of that. No, she tried to entice me once. Remember that, Jamie, that autumn night our first year at Gray’s, after Master Sutton retired to bed, but I said no and she backed off and never so much as hinted at such again, I swear it.”

“You must have been terribly convincing,” Elizabeth said in mocking tones, then realized it all sounded completely plausible. As far as she’d seen, Chris Hatton had been the very picture of male virtue at her court, and had seemed to be swayed only by her favors and no one else’s.

“Perhaps I was the one who was convincing, Your Majesty,” Jamie said as he slid to the edge of his chair. “I warned Mistress Sutton to keep away from Chris, however much the Adonis he looked. I’ve protected him before like that, not that he’s been a saint on his own—God’s truth, neither of us are that. And she never approached me, not a poor
pleb. fil.
there at Gray’s on charity. And that lowly status, of course, is also why I’ve hesitated to beg your leave to truly tell Lady Rosie how I feel about her. May I have your permission to speak of this at some later time, Your Majesty?”

Elizabeth’s mind was in whirls. She had not realized this young man was so clever and skilled at persuasion and influence. Because he seemed to stand in Chris’s shadow, he had somehow faded from her notice. James Barstow, a plebeian’s son or not, should be working for Cecil—or her. He could be trained to be an envoy or an ambassador’s aide someday, even a spy.

“Speak of your intentions for Lady Rosie now,” she commanded.

“I know Rosie Radcliffe could make a hundred better matches than I, Your Majesty, but I throw myself at your feet, imploring that you will not ask me to forsake the firm relationship the two of us are building. And I swear by Almighty God that no one could respect or admire her more or love her better.”

’S blood, Elizabeth thought, Robin should take wooing lessons from this man. No wonder her sensible, spinster Rosie had been swept off her feet by Jamie Barstow, despite his lack of station and income, both of which everyone knew the queen herself could amend if she so desired. And she was starting to want to, despite the fact Jamie kept shifting in his chair as if it were a hot seat.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he blurted, “but it’s been a long ride since our last stop, and I need to excuse myself for one moment.”

“Of course.”

His usually steady gait was nearly a sprint to the door.

“Speaking of telling tales out of school,” Chris said, leaning forward confidentially, though no one but the two of them were now in the vast room, “the thing is, he’s suffering from a problem in physick. Can’t hold his water, but he’s taking tonic for it.”

In that moment, Elizabeth could not decide whether to laugh or cry. At least it explained why Jamie had acted as if he were on pins and needles. But now there was another complication, for she was certain, when Chris leaned so near, she could smell gillyflowers on his breath.

“I smell a sweet scent,” she said.

“It’s either all the flowers gone to riot outside, I’ll bet, or the cloves I chew.”

“Does Jamie chew cloves, too?”

“Doesn’t like them but fetches them for me. He told me once cloves were too expensive for someone of his station to chew and spit as I do.”

It amazed the queen that her convoluted interrogation had come round to this trivia. She couldn’t fathom that these two friends were guilty of anything dire, but she refused to let her heart rule her head again, not after what she’d been through with Robin. It was only fair that she authenticate her young courtiers’ stories. Rosie’s future hung in the balance as did her own safety. The problem was that the queen could hardly trust Bettina or even Mildred’s gossip with so much at stake. And the witnesses she needed to substantiate Chris and Jamie’s stories were probably battling the Black Death back in London.

Later, the afternoon they arrived at Hatfield House, Elizabeth summoned Cecil and took a proprietary stroll around the immediate grounds with him. He assumed, no doubt, she needed to discuss the Mary, Queen of Scots marriage problem again, but she had in mind his own marriage dilemma.

“You are certain Mildred’s headache will go away if she simply rests?” she asked him. “I can send Meg to her with some soothing tonic or even summon a doctor if that’s needed.”

“No, she said a nap will restore her. Besides, it looks to me as if Meg has her own task for the day.”

Despite the warmth of the sun, Meg Milligrew had waded into the midst of the unruly knot garden and, with long-bladed, rusted clippers, was madly hacking at leggy rose bushes. Her skirt snagged by thorns, knee-deep in hedges that should be close-cropped and shaped, she did not see them standing nearby.

The varied interlacing sections of woody shrubs had been set out, trained, and trimmed in the shape of a great, intricate knot. Within its whorls and turns could be placed colored gravel, herbs, or flowers—in this case, apothecary roses. Such ornate designs had originated in France, but the English had elevated knot gardening to an art with the varied hues and textures of boxwood, yew, rosemary, and other woody herbs.

“Meg,” Elizabeth called to her, “you must fetch someone to help you.”

“Oh, Your Grace, Lord Cecil,” she said, arching her back and shading her eyes. “I can’t abide that it’s run riot. I’ll have it looking like a fine embroidery knot again and not some wilderness. Nothing can bloom aright in a mess like this,” she added, throwing up her hands so fast the gap-jawed clippers went sailing into the green tangle and she had to search to retrieve them.

“Of course you’ll get it back to rights,” the queen encouraged her, “but don’t overtire yourself And remember to take the Countess of Lennox those strewing herbs for her chambers.” Elizabeth and Cecil walked on toward the cooler shade of the huge oaks.

“Meg is not the one you have watching Darnley and his mother, is she?” Cecil asked.

“In part, for I would not expect Margaret to trust my herb mistress. I have also put my guard Clifford in the hall by their rooms to keep a good eye on her and Darnley, especially Darnley.”

They stopped, as if by mutual consent, under the oaks which lined the lawn. “The six years I’ve reigned have flown by,” Elizabeth admitted. She reached out to touch the very tree under which she’d been standing when Cecil and Robin had ridden from London with a party of men to bring her the coronation ring from her dead sister’s finger.

At that memory, the queen shivered despite the heat. Someday the gold and onyx ring—she glanced at it on her hand—would go to someone else … when she too was dead and buried in Westminster Abbey, but not yet, pray God, not for many years. Not unless the one who attacked her tried again, even here in this secluded haven in the heart of her England.

“I said, Your Grace,” Cecil was evidently repeating to snatch her back from her woolgathering, “speaking of setting traps, I wish we could actually lay one to entice Darnley, or whoever is our quarry, to come to us—but not with you as bait. The last time we tried that, you almost lost your life.”