The Twylight Tower (9 page)

“DEAR HARRY, I AM GLAD TO SEE YOU!” ELIZABETH TOLD
her Boleyn cousin Henry Carey, now Baron Hunsdon, as he bowed before her in her withdrawing room. Harry had been gone just over a week and, in truth, she’d hardly noticed, even if he was the captain of her personal guards, the Gentlemen Pensioners. Robert had been away only one day and night, and she missed him like the very devil.

“How did you find your lady wife and the children, my lord?”

“Good news, Your Grace, as Anne is with child so soon again.”

He looked as proud as he did pleasant, the queen thought. The thirty-four-year-old son of her mother’s sister was a bluff, forthright man, but one who also appreciated fine things in life. Harry was russet haired, but with that and his prominent nose, the family resemblance stopped. He was stocky, broad faced with wide-set eyes, blunt fingers, and a deliberate, stiff walk. But he was stalwart in tournaments and would serve well in war, God forbid, she thought.

“Harry, I share your joy and will be honored to stand godmother to the babe. And how did you find your lands at Hunsdon?” She rose, indicating they should stroll toward the gallery. It was then she noted another man, a stranger to her, in the shadows across the room, mayhap waiting for Harry. She shivered as if someone were spying on her again, or as superstitious folk used to say, someone had walked on her grave.

“And who have you brought to court this time, my lord?” she inquired, for Harry was always mentoring young men of talent. This one would have done for one of her guards or porters with his height and clean, good looks were he not already attired in the new buff-and-brown Hunsdon colors.

“Your Grace,” Harry said, “may I present my new man, Anne’s second cousin, Luke Morgan.”

She offered her beringed hand for the young man to kiss, which he did quite smoothly for one new-come to court. “He is more than a body servant and less than a bodyguard, I take it, Harry? Come along then, Luke,” she added, savoring the familiar blush she could bring to a man’s cheek with sudden attention or displeasure—except for Robin, who thought he ruled her, the wretch.

Her ladies quickly fell in behind them. Elizabeth had been trying to give her courtiers more of her time since Robert was away. At least Harry’s arrival cheered her. They shared a love of music and drama, and bestowing lands and titles on him was her way of elevating her once-slandered mother’s family in everyone’s eyes and diverting attention from the gifts and preferments she showered on Robert. Because she’d named Robin Master of the Queen’s Horse, she’d named Harry Master of the Queen’s Hawks.

“Oh, I nearly forgot, I have a surprise for you,” she said, turning to her entourage. “Mary,” she said to Robin’s sister, “will you fetch Franklin Dove? Baron Hunsdon will like to hear him.”

“And who, pray tell, is Franklin Dove?” Harry asked as they descended the steps to walk outside in the shade of the covered passages.

“Geoffrey Hammet fell to his death last week,” she explained, her voice catching. “I recall he was another young man you had taken under your wing once. Someone surprising came along to replace him, and I had to
carpe diem.
And don’t you be trying to lure this one away with promises of patronage or more than I pay him, my lord.”

“Then, Your Grace, you in turn will not try to filch Luke from under my aegis. Besides, no one could lure anyone from you, nor can a mere youth tempt me to try to displeasure Your Gracious Majesty. But—Geoffrey fell to his death, you say?”

As she explained the details of Geoffrey’s demise, she noted Harry’s deepening frown. Unlike many at court, her cousin’s emotions were writ plain on his countenance. She was expecting him to question her or ask what he could do to help probe the death, for he had served her twice thusly before. But as they sat in the shaded courtyard by the fountain and Franklin perched on its stone lip, playing, and Luke stood in the shadows as if he were guarding them all, Elizabeth would have wagered Harry forgot all about Geoffrey Hammet.

“Remarkable!” he said, looking astounded and awestruck at Franklin’s performance. “Exquisite! Such alacrity and delicacy of fingering, but such robustness in interpretation too. The seething passion held within, I cannot fathom. Your Majesty, as tragic
as is Geoffrey’s loss, this lad stands far above him. But fifteen years of age, you say?” he asked, squinting at the boy.

“And I also said you’ll not pirate him.”

“Ah, no, but I shall sue for just one favor.”

“Which is, my lord?”

He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “I can tell you are determined to put Geoffrey’s loss behind you, Your Grace, so will you not allow me to go up on the parapet where he played for you and portray what could have happened? You could meanwhile sit in your window and watch for what we both might discern. You have done such before in like matters.”

“I fear, cousin,” she whispered, “you have been talking to the others of my Privy Plot Council, Kat perhaps, Meg or Ned.”

“No, but will this not set all minds at rest if they are uneasy? And you, no doubt, are far too busy with the kingdom’s business to pursue such investigations anymore. Just allow me to borrow Franklin to play the part of Geoffrey, though I swear to you on my life, I’ll not let him fall.”

“Aha,” she said, rising, “my Master of the Queen’s Hawks wants to seize my Dove after all. But, yes, Harry, I think that is a worthy idea. We’ll do that tonight to put all suspicions of suicide or murder to rest once and for all. For,” she added, staring at him pointedly, “I believe Geoffrey’s demise was naught but sad mischance.”

“SHOULD THE LAD SING AS WELL AS PLAY, YOUR GRACE?”
Harry’s voice boomed across to her that evening.

Sitting in her darkened bedchamber window, Elizabeth shook her head and rolled her eyes. She had sent everyone but Kat from the room to keep this secret, and Harry was shouting from the tower. Did he not know other windows opened onto this courtyard?

“ ’S blood,” she hissed across the short distance to him, “melody, my lord, just melody. Something sweet and soothing merging to a tune more dissonant, I cannot recall exactly what.”

Franklin’s lute knew what she wanted, even if Harry did not. But Elizabeth could tell that Harry had Franklin sitting too far over, no doubt not even above the fatal spot in the courtyard. The wind was picking up again, playing its haunting music, blending with the night. Then, devil take him too, her lute lad began to play that tune about fickle friends again.

“I’m going out there myself,” the queen told Kat.

“But your ladies and guards will all know if you go out—”

“Out the back stairs. Come if you will,” she added, snatching and lighting a fat beeswax candle before Kat could lay her cloak about her.

Going out the small back door and down a short hallway, Elizabeth climbed the curving stairs inside the tower’s thick stone skin. At least Harry had left torches at regular intervals, for, as on the night of Geoffrey’s death, no lights lit the parapet. Not waiting for Kat, whom she could hear laboring on the stairs behind her, Elizabeth banged the wooden door open
against the wall as she joined the others. Her candle sputtered out, but she could see better here.

“Ah,” she said, looking up into the vast heavens, “the stars are out.”

Luke Morgan, standing closest, swept her a bow. “It takes the dark to make some things clear,” he said, like some sage philosopher. She thrust her candle at him and pushed past on the narrow walkway toward Harry and Franklin.

“Sit at least two more niches that way,” she ordered her lutenist, pointing. “Harry, where you stand was, so I hear, the place the lute was leaned on this low wall.”

“These natural seats are so deep here,” Franklin put in, doing as she bid, “and have such a solid backrest, I cannot fathom anyone just toppling over from lost balance.”

“He had been drinking heavily,” the queen countered, though she realized he’d had little time to do so between playing for the dancing and starting his music up here. Had she just been so angry with him for falling and for smelling of strong drink that she’d blamed him unfairly for his own death? Or had she not wanted anything dire to interrupt her fine summer with Robert and resented Geoffrey for that?

“At least, Your Grace,” Harry’s voice broke into her agonizing, “Geoffrey carefully preserved that lute you gave him, honoring mayhap both his music and you before he—he must have fallen or leaped, as you say.”

“It could have been thus,” she put in as she pictured it all. “He had recklessly mixed his sack and my malmsey and knew he would puke. Wanting to
protect the lute, he put it carefully down a bit away from him,” she explained, pacing and mimicking motions, “then leaned over the edge to throw up—and simply toppled.”

“Whatever we can deduce, one thing is sure,” Harry said when she stood gazing overlong into the night. “Though it was no doubt as black as this, you must be the only eyewitness. How much time elapsed between the moment he ceased to play and when you heard Ned Topside shout from below? How much could you really see?”

Harry was cleverly playing on her guilty conscience, but it was hardly her fault that the man died, she thought, growing more frustrated and furious each moment Harry kept meddling. In each of the other two murders she had solved, she owed a debt to the deceased or was at risk herself. But she could not—would not—go willy-nilly about her realm solving the deaths, however dubious, of anyone she knew, liked, or admired.

“I cannot say!” she protested, smacking her hands on her skirts. “The timing of the sounds were a blur, and as for seeing—take a look yourself. I hardly had some magnifying scope like Dr. Dee’s, and it can’t pierce the darkness either,” she added sarcastically. She turned away from their stares. If only Geoffrey had worn Dee’s flying harness and soared safely to the ground, her little band would not keep looking for high-flying solutions.

“Harry, I cannot be sure about the timing between
sounds,” she admitted, her voice more controlled. “I may have heard a thud and muted shout
as
he went over, but I cannot be certain
when
he stopped playing because I could have heard the wind in these vanes.”

Frozen like statues, they all listened to the eerie hum above their heads. Then Franklin began to strum a melody that blended perfectly with the vanes.

Wrapping her arms around herself in a sudden chill, the queen said, “Yes, you see? That’s why I cannot be certain of things.”

“Your Majesty,” Franklin put in with a thump of his thumb on the hollow lute, “could this have been the thud you heard? Mayhap Geoffrey added a finger beat accompaniment to what he played.”

“I just don’t know! But I heard no clear voice before Ned’s below, no one calling out in surprise or fear. Without other proofs, I cannot but judge that poor Geoffrey fell either by accident or by intent.”

Franklin stopped playing and asked, “Majesty, where is that fine lute you gave him?”

“Safe, and I shall let you try it out tomorrow, my Dove,” she said, and started wearily away. Kat, who had waited near the steps, fell in behind her, then Harry and Franklin, but Luke stepped close to hold the door for her.

“A word about your lutenist,” Luke whispered.

“Geoffrey?”

“That one,” he said, nodding surreptitiously at Franklin.

“One moment,” she told the others, and let only Kat
into the tower with them. “Well?” she asked the avid man when she faced him in flickering torchlight at the top of the turret.

“I was in the jakes when the lad was, and I fear he’s misled Your Gracious Majesty,” he said in a rush.

He did not waver under her withering frown. The jakes? What could the palace’s public latrine have to do with this? “Say on, man,” she ordered.

“He is much older than fifteen years and, Your Majesty, I am certain Franklin Dove is a eunuch.”

She gasped. “A castrato? That would make sense, for he seemed older to me too, and that high voice … I need no lutenist—no one—who misleads his queen. Still, I understand his reluctance to be gawked at. We English do not favor such barbarian practices like the Italians and French do, at least not but in our gelded horses. Luke Morgan, I shall remember your honesty to your queen. Have you told Lord Hunsdon this?”

“I was going to tell him so that he might broach it with you, but when I saw the opportunity to warn you …”

“Warn me? This will suit me well, for no one will blink an eye if the queen keeps such a lutenist close in her bedchamber. I’ve had enough of music coming through windows.”

She nodded at Kat to open the door behind them again. Harry looked a thundercloud and Franklin white-faced with fear. Could he have realized what Luke just told her?

“I made the mistake of looking over the edge of the parapet, Majesty,” the lad explained. “I never knew I had a fear of heights before, but I feel sick enough to puke, and dizzy too.”

“Then let your heights be only with your art,” the queen declared, thinking that same malady could have suddenly afflicted Geoffrey. But if Geoffrey had been queasy on heights, would he not have protested playing on the parapet long ago?