The Hooded Hawke: An Elizabeth I Mystery (Elizabeth I Mysteries)

by Karen Harper

  “You—you mean that young man who played in the pageant?”

  “Do not waste my time stammering about or playing innocent. Yes, the very same Jamie Clewiston to whom you pass notes, the man you met yesterday morning for a—well, a romance rather than a tragedy, at least so far,” she added, and gestured with a fig.

  Mary looked stunned, then sick. She pressed her hands to her stomach. Elizabeth ate the rest of the fig.

  “You—do you mean to tell my husband?”

  “Not if you and I can come to an agreement.”

  “That I never see Jamie again? I—we—”

  Mary’s eyes filled with tears. She began breathing so hard that the queen thought she might become hysterical, but, to her credit, she did not.

  “I mean not to judge your situation or your heart, Lady Southampton, though, God knows, I detest unfaithful men, for the results are always bad, even bloody.”

  “But—”

  “Listen carefully to me. I will keep your secret in exchange for a secret from you. I want to know what the Duke of Norfolk and your husband have been plotting. I realize you may not know much and may be a bystander in their plans, but you must give me something in return.”

  She hated herself for that. Granted, she could say she was helping to save a marriage, but she was also stooping to blackmail, which she detested in others. That hardly mattered right now. She had to protect herself, her power, her position. If these people were plotting, she must show them no mercy.

  “But—if I tell you something, Your Majesty, it could mean more than the destruction of my marriage.”

  “I will settle for anything you know about Norfolk. As the premier noble in the land, he could, I realize, coerce your husband to stray from what is legal and divinely ordained. Norfolk is a much older man, a determined and convincing man, while your Henry is younger and impressionable. Well, of course,” she said with an exaggerated shrug, “the choice is yours. If your lord learns of your covert activities and tosses you out, it will allow you to run off to the forest with your Actaeon instead of having to play mistress in this big place and your London home much nearer my seat of power.”

  “I can tell you one thing, Your Majesty—if it would be enough. I wager it would be, for it would be some sort of proof that Norfolk is in league with Mary of Scots—that he is yet hoping to wed himself to her against your wishes.”

  Elizabeth realized she’d misjudged this pretty young woman. She had not dissolved in tears but had seen that the best way to deal with this was indeed to deal and not fold.

  “Say on,” she said, trying to sound calm when her own heartbeat accelerated even more. If Mary had some sort of proof that Norfolk was secretly planning to wed the Queen of Scots, that was grounds for treason charges, for her cousin’s clear purpose was then to seize the English throne for himself and his new wife. Elizabeth was certain Cecil could soon prove that.

  “The Queen of Scots sent the duke a love token,” Mary said. “It’s a silk pillow for his bed, all embroidered with a scene and with words.” She darted a look back at Rosie, embroidering, hardly looking up as if she had not heard a thing.

  “What scene and words?”

  “It’s of a green vine in the shape of a scripted E, but one cut off at the top with a knife—like its head was chopped.”

  “Beheaded?” the queen said, her voice rising. She fought to keep from throwing her hands around her neck as she always did when she heard that dreadful word. Her father had ordered her mother beheaded; Tom Seymour, a man she had once thought she loved who had betrayed her, had gone to the block for sedition against her brother when he was king. Her cousin Jane Grey had been beheaded for claiming the throne when it by rights belonged to Elizabeth’s sister Mary Tudor. Elizabeth, too, had come close to going to the block when her sister had her imprisoned in the Tower and wanted her life for a rebellious plot in which she was innocent.

  “I suppose it could mean beheaded,” the woman interrupted her silent agonizing. “The pillow’s a pretty pale green, the vine and background both. He showed it to my husband, and I saw it.”

  Not a Tudor green, Elizabeth thought, for that hue was bold and dark, but a paler, more pallid green, like a faded tint. Was the color of it at all symbolic?

  “And the words on it?” she asked.

  “The pillow says—in her own fine stitches, I warrant—My Norfolk, and it’s signed, Your assured Mary.”

  “Assured Mary?” Elizabeth repeated. “Assured of what? My throne? My death after their revolt?”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure it couldn’t mean anything of the kind, Your Maj—”

  “Do you know if there was anything secreted in that pillow?”

  “I know not. I believe it was just a stuffed pillow for his bed.”

  “For his bed. Yes, that would fit the seductress. Anything she can do to string others along …”

  “Please, Your Majesty, I beg you,” Mary said, clasping her hands together as if in prayer, “please do not give my secret away, and I will mend my actions, I swear it. Norfolk and my husband talk much in private. My lord does not tell me of it, and I know better than to ask, but I just happened to see that pillow when Norfolk was boasting of its import to him.”

  “Yes, I believe that, the villain. Mary of Southampton, I believe you, and I offer you a bargain. I hold my silence on who told me about the pillow, and you hold your silence that you told me. Do I have your word on that?”

  “You won’t harm my husband?”

  “Only if he harms himself first by deceit or insurrection. And do not of a sudden preach to him of loyalty to me, or he will know you are in league with me somehow. My court is departing on the morrow, and we shall leave things as they are—with both of us a bit sadder and wiser.”

  “Yes. Yes—I can’t tell you how it’s been here. My parents said I would grow to love him, and I tried. When children came, they said, I would change my mind, but there are none so far, and I can’t abide bedding with—”

  Elizabeth waved her hand to halt her confessions, then stood and reached out to clasp the woman’s shoulder as she, too, rose. “The world of men is difficult to navigate, but you will only make things worse by being wed to one in the law and in God’s eyes and to another in your heart, Mary.”

  The woman blinked back tears and bit her lower lip, but the queen could hear her unspoken question as if she had shouted it: But how can you know this, unwed and untouched?

  The queen waited until the door closed quietly behind the woman, then turned to Rosie. “Do you think you could stitch me such a pillow, my friend?”

  “It would not be quite like Norfolk’s, of course, Your Grace, and the color of the silk might be a bit off, but men aren’t judges of such, and it could be enough to startle the duke.”

  “And instead of a knife cutting off the top of an E-shaped vine, make an arrow slicing through one that is twined in the shape of an M—with an arrow stuck in it all aflame.”

  Chapter the Fourteenth

  The queen had begun to worry about Drake, but he appeared the next morning as she walked between the house and the wilderness gardens. She told her ladies to continue their morning constitutional and went over by the fountain to greet him.

  He bowed; she gestured him closer to the splashing water so their conversation wouldn’t carry to her courtiers who strolled the grounds or chatted in groups around them.

  “Your Majesty, I am relieved to see you are well, but I never doubted it.”

  “I walked home like a laborer from the fields, Captain, and I’m sore to the bone,” she said with a tight smile. Indicating he should sit beside her, she perched on the lip of the fountain where the wind did not blow the spray. “As I suspected, your man holding the horses had also fled his post. Have you buried your sailor, Smythe?”

  “He would be touched that you recalled his name, Your Grace. Yes, we buried him in a graveyard in town, though he was a seafarer at heart and would probably have preferred a sea burial. I don’t k
now whether it was the arrow or the fall that killed him, but it’s the third murder in this wretched business. Now it is not only your subjects’ blood but my man’s that cries out for justice.”

  “Yes, we now share that, too, and I swear their losses shall be paid for in full.”

  “I believe you,” he said with a decisive nod, “and join you in that vow. Besides, I will avenge my ship being so attacked. Your Grace, word is all over town that the Judith has partly burned. I lightened it and hired two barges to tow us off the muddy shore and back to the wharf. Though my men have been told not to say how the ship burned, that has become known, too, and local folk are certain the Hooded Hawk was behind it all.”

  She hit her fist on her knee. “It infuriates me to think we’re no closer to proving it is not a myth that threatens us both and stalks this entire royal progress!”

  “And now my ship is maimed, though not destroyed. It will have to stay moored at the wharf until the mainmast can be rebuilt and another sail brought in.”

  “Must you remain with the ship, then?” she asked, turning more toward him and almost losing her balance on the smooth lip of fountain. He put out his hand to steady her elbow, then took it away again. “Drake, we are heading north at dawn on the morrow. I understand if you must stay with your damaged vessel, but I had hoped you could come along. I intend to send for John Hawkins, and I would like you with me when I question him.”

  “I forgot to tell you that I had four men search the woods before dark last night, and they found naught but a mishmash of footprints near a brook—maybe the shooter’s, maybe not, maybe one man, maybe two. But yes, Your Grace, Haverhill can care for the vessel and crew until a new mast and canvas can be bought, so I can continue with you. I will find the men who have done all this!”

  “That is settled, then. But your two sailors we suspect have not turned up at all?”

  “No, and I’m half expecting I’ll find them with my cousin.”

  “Which reminds me, my cousin may have been behind this latest attack instead of yours after all. It’s highly possible Norfolk learned my herb mistress was, shall we say, sitting in for me, and I have pried out of our hostess, Lady Southampton, one particular piece of evidence that suggests Norfolk is indeed in league with Queen Mary of Scots. I am putting a plan in place to be certain of this before I move against him, since he is not only my kin but the greatest noble in the land. Of all the things this realm needs right now, stability is key—if I can manage it.”

  She blinked back sudden, foolish tears that it had come to this. She hated not only the fact that people in the same family could distrust and detest each other but that, as in her past, it could lead to the imprisonment or execution of a family member. Her father’s brutal elimination of her mother, her own sister’s attempts to get rid of her—she never wanted to face such horror, but here she was, confronting her cousins Norfolk and the Scottish queen.

  She stood, for the breeze had shifted the fountain mist their way, making droplets dance in the sun in a shimmering rainbow. “Drake, I do not command you to come with me. It will be a three-day trip to Lord Sandys’s home on the northern Hampshire border. If you wish to go back to Plymouth to see your wife or must stay with your vessel, I understand and will yield to your wishes.”

  Will yield to your wishes echoed in her brain. Perhaps she should not have said it that way. She gripped her fan so hard she felt its ivory ribs bend; despite the danger to them both, she didn’t want him to go. Remembering her interview with Lady Mary this morning, she understood even more the allure of that which could never be, and not just because Drake was married. Elizabeth of England was ever, only and always, wed to her people and her kingdom.

  “I have said I will go north with you. I must see this through—who is attacking us and why—and face down my cousin, as, I warrant, you must soon reckon with yours.”

  “Very well, then, though maybe it’s best we do not travel so close together in the entourage. Cecil nearly had a paroxysm when he heard about the fire arrows, and I’ve vowed to him I’ll not only wear the armor you have loaned me but keep my curtains closed with guards around me, unless we are in the midst of my people along the way. And Captain, come to my suite at dark tonight, for the Privy Plot Council will assemble for a final meeting before we set out.”

  Come to my suite at dark tonight—why did she always second-guess the way she talked to this man? Best she send him back to his ship and his home port, but she needed him … needed him.

  Just as he bowed to take his leave, another gust of wind doused them both in spray. Despite their somber interview, he chuckled and she smiled back.

  “Not quite sea spray,” he said, “but, despite the fact disaster later struck, it reminds me of yesterday—one of the best times of my life.”

  As if she were a foolish maiden—or perhaps that silly, young mistress of this house when she saw her Actaeon—the queen’s heart fluttered like a flag.

  At the meeting of the Privy Plot Council that night, the queen faced a full contingent of her aides. “We are assuming,” she began, “that the fact fire arrows were shot at Drake’s ship, whether our foe knew I was aboard or not, could also implicate the skilled crossbowman whom Ambassador de Spes had imported. It’s a Spanish trick—the Spaniards shot fire arrows and even used fire ships against our fleet in the New World.”

  “In a battle in which both Drake and Hawkins fought,” Cecil added. “That means we have three main possible villains so far. First, Ambassador de Spes’s skilled crossbowman, who may also shoot a longbow for all we know. Word is that King Philip himself selected and sent that man to our shores, and hardly, with his archery skills, simply as a spy. Second, Drake’s two missing men, who could be in the employ of John Hawkins.”

  “Yes, and last, I hate to say it,” the queen put in, “it could be a hireling of Norfolk or of the northern rebel lords with whom he is in league—or Queen Mary herself.”

  “A hireling?” Keenan echoed. “That sounds as if the Duke of Norfolk just snatched someone off the street, when the shooter himself must be skilled—clever, too.”

  “True,” Elizabeth agreed. “The point is, we must not only find and stop the bowman but be able to link him to his master or masters—or to his royal mistress.”

  “Here we are,” Meg said, “deep in the heart of Hampshire and possibly dealing with evils which reach to the rulers of two hostile nations. It does muddle the mind.”

  “I’m afraid,” Elizabeth admitted, “it’s come to exactly that in this little cat-and-mouse game someone is playing with me—and us. Someone wants to cause mental agony as well as physical fear.”

  Jenks, who had seemed to be hardly listening, asked, “Can flaming arrows be shot from a crossbow?”

  “With great dexterity and deftness,” Drake said, “and the attacking archer has that in spades. More likely the fire arrows came from a crossbow—one which may have scorch or char marks on it now, if we ever find the weapon, let alone its shooter.”

  “If it was a longbow which shot the fire arrows, it might be one of those taken from Hern the Hunter,” Elizabeth said. “Despite all this drivel about the Hooded Hawk being resurrected in these parts, it’s no more the Hooded Hawk than the man in the moon. I repeat, I think our enemy is playing with us, mocking us.”

  Meg, wide-eyed, leaned forward. “Are we completely discounting that it could be some sort of ghost? Your Grace, you admit that several ghosts stalk Hampton Court and a few other places, so why not the forests of Hampshire like they say?”

  “Because,” Elizabeth said, smacking her palms flat on the tabletop, making them all jump, “I’ll not be affrighted by the supernatural, even in this shire, which seems to have one foot yet in the pagan world with its burial mounds and tales of Woden’s wrath. Yes, I’ll take precautions, but I will not cower. When my people gather to see their queen, they will see her. Thank the good Lord, our next host, after we spend two nights in village inns en route to his home, is Baron William Sand
ys, a man to be trusted, and I hear the forests are not so thick there. Now, enough for this night. We start out early on the morrow. Meg and Drake, you especially are to keep your heads down. All of you must be alert to keep your eyes open the rest of the way, so I bid you a good night’s rest now.”

  Though she was relieved to put Southampton’s manor and hunt park behind her, the queen hated the next day’s ride. Much of it was through thick forests, so, unless crowds of curious or cheering people clustered along the way, she stayed shut in her curtained coach with Drake’s armor on. She was still sore and felt stifled, hot, and beaten, even with Rosie’s company as she stitched madly in the dim space on her version of the pale green pillow.

  “I had to cut up a good summer gown for this satin,” she said.

  “And I shall see it is replaced with a lovely one, once we get through this endless journey and this dreadful mess!”

  “I’m afraid all this bouncing quite ruins my usual even, tiny stitches, too.”

  “I would wager your sewing in a jolting coach is far superior to the Scots queen’s any day. We shall see when we somehow get our hands on that pillow.”

  “Why did you not tell everyone in the privy meeting last night about that—and that your rival queen sent it to Norfolk, Your Grace?”

  “I told Cecil, but—I’m not sure why I didn’t share it with everyone. I will when we have your pillow completed. Perhaps we shall ask if they think I should simply confront Norfolk and force him to trade pillows with me as a dire warning to him—a last warning, I believe. But I am considering pilfering his pillow so I can get a good look at it, then decide what I must do. Lady Mary admitted she but glimpsed it, so there may be more to it, something else embroidered on it or something secreted inside. I guess, my Rosie, either I couldn’t admit, even to my friends, that I am thinking of turning sneak thief—or I still can’t bear to admit, even to myself, that I am probably going to be compelled to take harsh measures against both Norfolk and Mary Stuart.”