The Thorne Maze (27 page)

“So you are going to cancel the gathering here?”

“No. Setting the snare in your water maze is the best thing to do, though not without risk. We could try watching Chris and Jamie’s food from garden to kitchen to their mouths, but that would be tedious and overly obvious—and it’s just one more theory.”

“At least I don’t fear poisoning here at Theobalds. Mildred always oversees …” he said before his voice trailed off.

“And Kat still insists she taste my food first as she has for years. When I eat alone, she occasionally seasons it the way she knows I like, too. Cecil, I believe I am about to go mad,” she declared, jumping up again. She covered her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Whoever is tormenting me is winning if he—or she—always has me looking over my shoulder. And, despite the fact it
appears
this may clear Chris and Jamie, I’m still not sure we have one damned, solid due to place someone above the others on our list of possible culprits. It may be simply my prejudices for or against individuals that makes me suspect someone more.”

Her voice broke, and she turned to look out the window so he would not see the tears in her eyes.

“Your Grace, when I was sore afraid as a boy, my father used to say, ‘For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.’”

“A sound mind—that’s a good one lately. Yet I prefer that Bible quote to the threatening one nailed on my ascension oak.”

“You have the power to solve this, Your Grace.”

“Sometimes ’might does not make right.’ As for love, Cecil, I can only pray that the person behind all this is not someone I—or you—dearly love and would loathe to lose.”

At high noon the next day, the courtiers and servants the queen had left behind at Hatfield came in procession to Theobalds, even as Cecil’s meager staff hastily pounded the final tent poles in the ground. To lull their prey into relaxing his or her guard, the queen had sent for more than gaily striped pavilions. Two trumpeters greeted the party, and imported ale and food were laid outdoors upon a board table covered with a bright green cloth.

“My lord,” Elizabeth greeted Chris as he dismounted, “you look much improved.”

“No longer under the weather, as the rain has cleared at last,” he jested. “That soothing peppermint concoction your herb mistress said you recommended did me an immediate service, Your Grace,” he went on, going down on one knee in the grass and kissing her beringed hand. “My stomach’s better and my breath sweeter, even without cloves, which Mistress Milligrew noted could be souring my system, too. Jamie’s also better,” he added, turning to smile at his friend, who dismounted right behind him.

“In short, Your Gracious Majesty,” Jamie said with a laugh and went down on his knee too, as if he and his friend were a matched set of andirons, “I will not be darting off into the bushes.”

Though the queen had been prepared to force a good mood, she laughed from the heart, seeing the two of them at her feet like fond swains come courting. She noted too how Rosie, blushing just to be near Jamie again, looked relieved at his return to robust health.

“Your Majesty,” Jamie went on, “should the kingdom’s treasuries ever shrink, you will not need to have Secretary Cecil petition stingy Parliament, but merely decree that anyone who is ill must pay the royal treasury for your clever herb girl’s services.”

Others standing close, including Darnley and his mother Margaret, chortled as if Jamie had made the wildest joke. Yet Elizabeth was grateful to him and Chris for elevating the mood from plague and murder. Earlier this morning, the queen had received the report from the Hatfield bailiff assuring her that Bettina had been properly buried. The authorities had also ruled that “suspicious but unnamed causes” had brought about Bettina Sutton’s “sudden and unfortunate death, for no signs of assault or disease were discovered upon said body.”

In short, the queen thought, there had been and would be no help from the authorities at Hampton Court and Hatfield—but that which she and Cecil would fabricate soon to set their plan in motion.

To her surprise, Robin belatedly joined Chris and Jamie’s jest, kneeling and kissing her hand, then Lord Darnley, though she’d have liked to kicked him back on his bum. Her cousin Margaret remained while the men finally rose to their feet and, with the others, traipsed after Cecil and Mildred as they began to give a tour of the house and immediate grounds.

Elizabeth overheard Cecil tell everyone as planned, “After all of you partake of some dinner, I shall show you the fantastical water maze. Six rowboats will take any of you through it at any time. It’s a challenge, I tell you that. And it’s my solace and thinking spot, and the most privy place I have here or anywhere. As for tonight, Her Majesty’s principal player, Ned Topside, has adapted some sage or lighthearted speeches … .”

“Some of those sage speeches by her Gracious Majesty, I hope,” Margaret said at her elbow.

Though Elizabeth saw her Tudor cousin was drinking sugared malmsey, it obviously was not sweet enough to mellow her usual bitter tone, even when she might be trying to be pleasant.

“I trust the ride over did not tire you, Margaret,” the queen said as the countess dipped her a curtsy.

“Now that the rain has stopped, it is lovely to be out. Hatfield, all cheek-by-jowl with courtiers and servants, is rather cramped quarters compared to what I’m used to. Not to mention that ubiquitous guard Clifford in the hall,” she added portentously. “Yet I see this manor is an even smaller retreat. Does the size of your realm seem to be shrinking lately?” she said and chuckled.

The queen smiled stiffly at that subtle jab. She had noted that Clifford rode in directly behind the Stewarts. She hated to do it, but she would have to call off his vigil of watchdogging Margaret and Darnley to free them up to do their worst tonight.

“I thought,” Margaret went on with a sweeping gesture toward the array of tents and tables, “that you had eschewed all pleasantries during plague time and with the unfortunate deaths of the Suttons. If I were you—”

“You are not me, and will never be, Margaret. Yet perhaps you still harbor hopes that the Tudor blood in your son’s veins will make him someone’s choice to sit a throne.”

Margaret looked appalled, as if she’d never considered such a thought. “Indeed, I hope for nothing of the kind, Your Majesty, however much I see my son’s many virtues, as does any good mother—such as Lady Cecil here.”

Elizabeth spun, amazed to see how close Mildred had approached unheard behind her. But it was noisy now, as some milled about the grounds and servants climbed out of the cumbersome carts of baggage and goods which had brought up the rear of the procession.

“I believe, countess,” Mildred said, her voice cold as steel as she bobbed her betters a curtsy, “you refer to my stepson, Tom, as my son Robert is still in leading strings, and hardly glowing with virtues yet, as is your son and heir.”

And then, over the women’s shoulders, Elizabeth saw what she’d been waiting for. Still far back, separate from the other carts, Meg Milligrew drove one heaped with straw.

Jenks, the queen thought. It must hold poor Jenks. She was so anxious to know how he was and to hear of his journey into London she would have liked to sprint to greet him. Granted he had disobeyed her orders to avoid that city, but he had done it for his queen and at great risk to his own person.

But sadly, she must carefully keep her distance from him. Paying scant attention to her companions, though she occasionally took part in their stilted conversation, Elizabeth noted an exhausted-looking horse tied to the back of Meg’s cart. Her long-honed eye for horse flesh made her certain it was the same one that Lord Darnley had abused back at Hampton Court.

“I trust Lady Cecil will show you to your quarters in the manor, just down the hall from mine,” Elizabeth told Margaret. “I hope your dear, devoted son won’t mind sleeping out under the stars.”

“It looks to be an awfully small manorhouse,” Margaret whined, taking up that tack again. “But yes, please show me to my rooms, Lady Cecil.”

“Room,” the queen corrected pointedly, vexed at Margaret and Darnley, however much she’d steeled herself not to let on. “I have three, and you have one. I will see you later this afternoon, dear cousin.”

With Ned and Clifford trailing a good ways behind her, the queen slipped around the manorhouse and down the path toward the small dairy barn where Meg had pulled off the road. The ramshackle garden sheds stood beyond.

But when the queen turned away from the barn and headed deeper into the forest, she heard Ned’s low whistle, so distinct from the sharp ones Jenks often used to call his mounts. She turned back and saw Darnley had followed her out here—and that, he, too, was surprised to see that he was being followed. He was obviously startled as Ned and Clifford came quickly up behind him. Surely he had not intended to make an assault on her person here.

“What is it, my lord?” the queen called to Darnley who, now discovered, came a bit closer, then swept her a graceful bow.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I thought my mother had come out here—with you. I saw you speaking.”

“She went into the house. Come, walk with me, as I was just about to circle around to the lane,” she said, drawing him away from Meg and Jenks, though she figured if word leaked out that Jenks was here and had been to London, no one would go near him anyway. In so many ways, she felt she was sitting on a barrel full of fireworks.

Though she turned back to be certain her guards were still walking behind, the queen kept up the pretense of being calm, chatting to Darnley to allay any suspicions he might have about being suspect. She asked him about the weather and their journey from Hatfield and requested he play some lute music later, though not after supper, so he could be at leisure as night fell.

Returning on the lane, they passed Meg’s cart with the horse still tied behind it. Elizabeth realized then why Meg must have brought the poor beast. For some reason, Jenks could have ridden from London on it, and Meg had probably promised him she would try to heal it, too. That would be just like Jenks and Meg.

“Look,” Darnley interrupted her thoughts with a snicker. “Some jolthead’s put the cart before the horse, an ill-kept one at that.”

He meant it as a jest, but it was the last straw with this man she did not trust and could not abide. Darnley and her cousin Margaret were no doubt behind all that had happened ill since she’d refused to let them go off to Scotland to foment their Papist plots. But as she spun to give the wretch what-for, he made the mistake of smacking the poor horse on the rump.

The animal snorted and jerked his reins free of the cart’s back rail. Elizabeth thought the stallion recognized Darnley and would run. But it charged, nipping him—head and shoulder—and bumping him so hard Darnley went to his knees and covered his head with both arms. Though his shoulder padding and hat had taken the worst of the attack, when Darnley yelped and scrambled to his feet, the queen saw his forehead was bleeding.

“Damned, mangy beast!” he cried and whipped out his sword as if he’d run the horse through.

“No drawn weapons in the queen’s presence!” Elizabeth commanded. “Stand away from me!”

Clifford and Ned exploded at him to wrench his sword away. Glaring at the horse and her servants, Darnley brushed himself off. When he realized he was bleeding, he dabbed his forehead with a narrow silk and gauze scarf he produced from his doublet.

For drawing a sword near her person, the queen could have banished him from court or even imprisoned him, but he must be kept free to fall into her trap tonight. Now, even more, she could believe it was he who tried to strangle her, who struck poor Templar from behind with a brick, then cleverly poisoned Bettina, perhaps even Chris and Jamie.

“I recognize that maggot-eaten beast,” Darnley clipped out, not daring to retrieve his sword, which no one proffered him. “The damned horse is one which I tangled with at Hampton Court.”

“He recognized you, too, my lord,” Elizabeth declared, boldly seizing the animal’s reins and patting his neck to steady herself as much as to quiet him. “Be grateful he didn’t take his hoofs to you as you took your whip to him. Never forget that those harmed, lowest to highest in the land, may rightfully strike back!”

He dared to glare at her, hatred naked on his face before he masked his feelings again. And then she realized that the scarf with which he blotted the blood from his forehead was identical to the garters she’d been choked with. Since Kat had given those out in droves, it didn’t prove he was the strangler, but he’d certainly kept them in remembrance of something when she hadn’t seen their like about for days.

More disdainful than dismayed, with a stiff bow, the blackguard strode away without his sword. He would probably assure his mother that, as soon as they rid themselves of the English queen, either they or Mary, Queen of Scots would be next in line to sit on the English throne. If Elizabeth were betting on who was the murderer in her mazes, she’d pick her own kin, the Scots-loving Stewarts, hands down. And she’d even wager, especially after this incident, she herself was, once again, the next intended victim.

Chapter the Seventeenth

AS THE LATE SUMMER’S DUSK SETTLED OVER THEOBALDS, their plan began to unfold.

Torches flamed from metal stanchions. Food and drink flowed freely. Under a nearly full moon, guests mingled and walked the grounds, hearing numerous lectures from the proud host about how such and such a vista would look when they returned in several years. With planks laid on sawhorses, Ned built his trestle platform just outside the moat. Elizabeth and Cecil had also set the stage for the murderer—night, a crowd, a maze.

“Someday we will be able to house all of you in great comfort;” the queen overheard Mildred assure her guests more than once. She was their only suspect who had not visited the water maze today, though she could know it well from her time here before the others arrived. With growing trepidation, Elizabeth had seen that even Kat had seemed fascinated by a rowboat tour of the watery twists and turns.