The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy

by Alexandra Walsh

  The night had held so many surprises. The first had been the ring; the second was the revelation of the other heirs; then there was the casket of letters and the surprising confessions. Elizabeth could see it clearly in her memories. Was it nearly 30 years since they had fled into the darkness?

  Time, she thought, has woven its web around us. Elizabeth had been a child, only nine years old, when Catherine had been removed from the palace. Another step-mother taken from her, another mother-figure expunged by her father.

  I made a promise to myself that night as we rode through the darkness, thought Elizabeth, I promised that one day I would protect them all. I am Queen. It is my job to ensure the safety of my subjects, it is my job to protect my heirs.

  A small smile played around her lips; when they were younger, they had used other names. Secret names. The codenames Artemis and Apollo had come with adulthood. If they had indeed been compromised, then their aliases may also have been deciphered. Perhaps it was time to return to childhood, to allow her ladies to know this other name for her sister. The other name she once used. Clearing her throat and watching as Katherine placed her pen on the paper, ready to write, she began to dictate, confident that even if this note was intercepted, no one would know who had written it or where it was going:

  My Dear Daisy, I write now as Lily, all other names forgotten, it is time for you to move to safety. You must prepare yourself for transportation to Tixall Castle…

  PART THREE: November, 2018

  Chapter One

  Perdita padded along the corridor, a bottle of red wine in one hand, two glasses in the other, looking for her sister. Since the wedding, Piper had been using the algorithm she was writing to search for the missing ruby ring as an excuse to avoid everyone, including Perdita, working until late into the night and falling into bed as soon as she arrived back in the apartment. Perdita had decided enough was enough. She knew Piper had heard from Jeremy but once again she was bottling things up and Perdita was desperate to try and help her sister.

  “Knock, knock!” she called as she entered the library.

  Both twins loved this room, and even though it was smaller than their own library at Marquess House, it was well stocked and much quirkier. It was situated in the old dungeons but was far from gloomy and with a reinforced glass ceiling covering half of it to let in the mountain light, with the occasional transparent brick in the wall doing the same, it was a unique space. When she had first seen it, Perdita had wondered whether so much light would damage the rare books but Deborah had assured her that anything of value was stored well away from the sun’s harsh rays.

  Piper was in the far corner of the room, near the electric stove.

  “Apparently, a real fire in a library is against insurance regulations,” Kit had said when Perdita had lamented over the fake flames. She had had the grace to laugh.

  Piper was so engrossed that she ignored Perdita’s first call.

  “Pipes?” said Perdita, approaching her sister but still Piper did not look up. Perdita put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and Piper nearly leapt out of her seat.

  “Oh my god, you shocked me!” she said, pulling out her earphones.

  “Sorry, I hadn’t realised you were plugged in,” laughed Perdita. “What are you working on?”

  “The algorithm still!” yawned Piper, stretching. “Oh, wine! What time is it?”

  “Not late, 7.30, but we have a Mackensie-free evening ahead of us and I thought a glass of wine in our favourite room would be a good place to start. Deborah has even given us her permission, as long as we promise not to spill it over anything.”

  Piper grinned. “How wonderful,” she said. “Let me save this, then I’m all yours.”

  While Perdita busied herself with the corkscrew, Piper turned back to her monitor and began saving the many pages she had scattered across the screen.

  “How’s the algorithm going?”

  “Good, finally. It’s taken a while because I’ve had to keep tinkering with it, eliminating certain search criteria and adding others. You wouldn’t believe how huge the two databases are, Perds. Granny’s collection of documents is vast but the Jerusalem archive is staggering. I think if we’re going to find anything, it’ll be in there.” Piper paused and sipped her wine. “It’s made me realise something though, Perds.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Mackensies really are a force to be reckoned with.”

  “In what way?”

  “The documents are all marked, so it’s clear which collection they belong to, ours or theirs, and the Jerusalem logo pops up far more frequently than the Marquess House initials. Their database contains some incredibly rare documents from all around the world, not to mention a vast art catalogue, too. Did you know they owned a Picasso which is on permanent loan to the Reina Sofia in Madrid?”

  “No,” said Perdita, “but then to be honest, Pipes, I’ve had enough difficulty getting my head around our new wealth and all that goes with it, I haven’t had time to contemplate anything else. I suppose it’s obvious, though — you don’t own a 12th century castle without having a lot of money, not to mention a house in London and other properties around the world.”

  “So, why do they work for us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do they run Marquess House for us? Why do they go out of their way to make our lives easier when they have more than enough to do with their own holdings?”

  Perdita was about to respond that she had no idea when something Kit had said floated into her mind. “When Kit told me about MI1 and Mum’s murder, the afternoon by the lake, he said the Mackensie family had always been the lord chamberlains to the women at Marquess House — that they were there to make our lives easier.”

  “But why?”

  This time Perdita did shrug. “I’ve no idea, which makes me wonder about what Kit said to me on the night of the first party running up to the wedding.”

  “Which part?”

  “The Suki Merriweather bit — how she wanted a rich husband. Kit must be loaded in his own right. She clearly fancies him and if she’s after wealth, surely Kit would be a perfect choice.”

  “Maybe as the younger son, he isn’t?” suggested Piper.

  “Possibly.”

  “Would it bother you if she made a play for him?”

  It was the first time Piper had broached the subject since Perdita had told her about Kit’s unexpected revelation. Perdita took a glug of wine. “Honestly?” she asked and Piper nodded, although the teasing look was gone from her eyes. “Yes.”

  Piper allowed herself a small smile. “What’s stopping you, then?”

  Perdita put down her glass, suddenly restless — her intention had been to discuss Piper’s love life, not her own. Although, now Piper had posed the question, she was secretly relieved to be able to discuss her feelings for Kit. She stood up, prowling up and down in front of the fire.

  “I didn’t tell you everything I discovered that night,” she said at last.

  “Do you mean there was more than the Suki Merriweather revelation?”

  “Yes. I found out what really happened between Kit and Lydia, and why.” The story was told within minutes and by the end, Piper’s eyes were wide with surprise.

  “Do you believe them?”

  “Yes, I think I do,” said Perdita. “The trouble is, I’m not sure how I feel about Kit. I like him a lot,” she admitted, “but after what happened with Warren, I feel quite battered emotionally. I wouldn’t want to start something with Kit, then have it fall apart.”

  Piper got up from her chair and crossed the space between them in a moment, giving Perdita a huge hug. “Want to talk about something else?”

  Perdita hugged Piper back. “Definitely, but if I change my mind about Kit, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good.” Piper topped up their glasses then said, “How are the letters going?”

  Sipping her wine, Perdita pulled a face. “The archive is fascinating but
there are so many letters and we’re nowhere near finishing transcribing them yet,” she said. “In their raw state, they’re not always coherent. Izabel and the Marquess House team have put them into chronological order but sometimes we only have an outward-going letter with no reply, so the questions within the letter remain unanswered. The same applies with letters received — sometimes they refer to things that haven’t been mentioned before in any of the letters in our collection. There were obviously even more women involved in this writing circle than those we have correspondence for.”

  “What are the letters about?”

  “A vast range of subjects. This afternoon, I finished reading a small collection between two women who sign themselves Lily and Daisy, which are probably codenames, and who were part of Elizabeth I’s court. One was very ill — in fact, she was dying and wanted to be released from her pain — while the other, who’s a relative, was devastated at the thought of being left alone. I think they were sisters but it’s hard to tell.”

  “How interesting,” mused Piper. “There are stories within the story. I thought it would be tedious court letters about the cost of servants with the odd coded message thrown in.”

  “The difficulty we have at the moment are the codenames they use for each other and for certain places,” continued Perdita. “Although we have a number from a core group of women, until we can start cross-referencing these coded names with historical events and try to evaluate who might be whom, it doesn’t make much sense. There’s something else, too — the letters also share the most peculiar syntax, something which Granny Mary has suggested in her notes could be another aspect of the code.”

  “Wouldn’t any irregularities be because of the writing style back then?”

  “At first, I thought so, but after a while I realised it wasn’t that. There are words and phrases that they use to describe things which feel odd, disjointed, and so I would have to agree with Granny that it’s a form of code. You know, rather than me referring to you as my twin sister, I might use a euphemism like my Gemini or mirror image and it feels like that, as though they’re deliberately disguising their real meaning with a series of riddles. The trouble is with any form of code, unless you have a cipher, they’re difficult to break.”

  “If it’s only word puzzles, though, we might stand a chance.”

  “True,” said Perdita. Piper turned back to her keyboard. “Pipes, before we get on to the algorithm, do you mind if I ask you something?” Piper’s shoulders tensed but she nodded. “Have you heard anything from Jeremy?”

  Piper’s sigh was resigned. “Yes,” she said, spinning her chair around to face Perdita again. “I had an email today. He’s left his job and decided to clear his head by going travelling with Kirstin. It seems she works on short-term contracts and her next job is at a tea plantation in India. Jeremy has decided to use our savings and take a year off to go with her because, in his words, he might as well spend it as I certainly won’t need the money anymore.”

  Perdita was horrified. “Oh, Pipes, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “How can he have changed so much? This isn’t the Jeremy we grew up with!”

  “You’d be surprised, Perds — over the past few years he’s become very materialistic and much harsher. I told Alistair about it this afternoon and he suspects Jeremy may file for divorce soon to try to claim some of my inheritance. Next week, he’s going to put a team of London solicitors who specialise in big divorce cases on alert in case we need to move quickly.”

  “And is that what you want, too? A divorce?”

  “Yes. Our marriage hadn’t been great for a while and then Jeremy became obsessed with making money and it was a side to him I’d never seen and didn’t like. He started being very controlling and argumentative. Then Kirstin popped up. OK, I know she deliberately targeted him, like Warren did with you and Rory, but it didn’t take much to dislodge him, did it? I can understand why you’re wary about getting involved again,” said Piper. “Love is difficult enough to get right without interference from shadowy government departments.”

  “Put like that, you might have a point,” smiled Perdita, although her mind flickered towards Kit and she checked her phone to see if he had sent a message. When there was nothing, she pushed these thoughts aside and turned back to her sister. “Tell me about the algorithm.”

  “Thanks Perds,” said Piper. “Work is so much easier than messy emotions. Now, if I’ve got it right this time, which I think I have, it should work its way through the Jerusalem and Marquess House archives and match key words, you know, like a search engine but tailored to our needs. I’ve had a few trial runs and the first one was far too broad because it threw out 200,000 hits or something stupid, so I’ve been refining it to ensure the search is unique to our ring. Shape, size, the Latin quotation, and with luck, it’ll show us if there is anything even vaguely similar.”

  “That sounds incredible, shall we give it a try?”

  “We might as well, then if it doesn’t work, I can tinker with it some more.”

  Piper wheeled her office chair back up to the desk and Perdita joined her. After a few moments of keying in passwords, Piper turned to her twin and grinned. “Here goes nothing.” She clicked the mouse and they waited, barely breathing, then the screen displayed two hits.

  “The first is dated August 1736, to the papers of an Elinor Bicton and the second February 1877, the diaries of Ada Winchester. Both in the Jerusalem collection. Pipes, you’re a genius!”

  Perdita was so excited she could not stand still. Piper’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she accessed the digital archive, searching for the two entries so they could read them in their entirety.

  “Ada Winchester’s diaries are in the section that needs Deborah’s ID to access.”

  “What? No!”

  “It’s because it’s older and hasn’t been requested for over ten years,” explained Piper. “Let me try the other one first, then I’ll find the code, Deborah gave it to me when she knew I was searching deep into the archives.”

  Perdita felt a wave of relief — to have been so close but to have been forced to wait would have been like torture.

  “August 1736, the papers of Elinor Bicton, ruby ring with an engraving in the interior cavity, gold band and sapphire detail,” read Perdita, more to herself than to Piper, as her sister typed in the details.

  “I’ve found them,” said Piper, her voice trembling with excitement.

  Perdita leaned forward and after reading the document said, “It certainly matches the description. Listen to what she’s written on page five: ‘Today my father’s present revealed its secret. If the tiny sapphire clip is moved, the body of the ring opens to reveal a Latin inscription, Semper Sorores, which I believe means Sisters Always. Within the base of the ring is another secret. If touched carefully, it opens to reveal a picture of a lady. She is very pretty; her hair is auburn and her eyes are blue. At her throat is the tiniest and most exquisite of necklaces, a silver locket, I think, and it is set with a real diamond. I suspect my father does not know the diamond is there or he would never have given me anything so valuable. The interior will remain my secret’. This one has a miniature inside it,” said Perdita in surprise. “I wonder if ours has, too, and I didn’t see the mechanism when I was examining it.”

  “Where’s the ring?”

  “In the vault where Alistair keeps all the valuables, so we’ll have to wait until… Damn. Kit said his parents might not be back until tomorrow evening.”

  “Do you think the portrait is supposed to be Catherine Howard?” asked Piper.

  “Almost certainly,” replied Perdita. “It even references her wearing the locket with its diamond.” She scanned through the document again, then asked, “Can you do another search on Elinor Bicton? We’ll need to discover all we can about her to try and work out how she got the ring, what happened to it next and whether she has any connections with Ada Winchester. ”

  Piper turned back to the screen and began typing. Per
dita pulled her chair up next to Piper’s as she tried as many variations of the name as possible but was frustrated at every turn. “Nothing, nothing,” she murmured, then suddenly, “Oh, a copy of her will.”

  “Really? Can we access it?”

  “Yes.”

  Pulling it up on the screen and enlarging it, the twins stared at the handwritten document. Perdita picked up Piper’s notebook and began transcribing it, voicing her thoughts as they worked their way through it.

  “Elinor Bicton was the daughter of Lazarus Bicton and she died in March 1789. With no children of her own, she left the ring to her goddaughter, Marianne Jefferson, the daughter of her best friend, Emma.”

  As Perdita wrote, Piper tapped a series of commands into the computer and nudged her sister.

  “Look, an obituary of Lazarus Bicton, Elinor’s father.”

  “Pipes, you’re brilliant,” Perdita exclaimed, before reading the short piece. “He was a well-respected, middle-ranking jeweller, no big aristocratic customers but plenty of wealthy captains of industry. I bet that’s how he came across the ring, then he gave it to Elinor, who bequeathed it to Marianne Jefferson.”

  Using the secure IP address within the computer’s library system Perdita and Piper sifted through marriage, birth and census records, tracing Marianne’s family for the next hundred years and discovered she had had three children, the youngest a girl called Laura who had been born in 1790. Laura then married and gave birth to a daughter, Evangeline Barratt. When Piper tapped in this new name, she discovered a newspaper cutting from July 1864, naming her as having helped to organise an exhibition of Tudor jewellery, including her own family heirloom, a ruby ring.