by Karen Harper
For now, she tried to keep their conversation lighthearted. Yet the fact that Kat was ailing and the plague seemed to be spreading in her capital had kept her from allowing much frivolity lately. Even the masque she had commanded for tonight was from a sober Bible parable and not a raucous classical fable.
“I shall judge, Master Sutton,” the queen declared, “whether your fine reputation as protector and teacher of England’s common law has given you the talent to discern puzzles such as this, when one finds oneself in the midst of the maze instead of merely observing it from afar or advising others—or playing with a child’s wooden toy.”
Templar chuckled as he found himself again in a dead end and waited for the others to back out behind him. Elizabeth heard Bettina giggle. Though overmuch lightness in a woman oft annoyed the queen, she had seen that Bettina cheered her husband, and even, at times, seemed to counsel him circumspectly, as he evidently had trouble hearing. Taking her cue from that, the queen—whose ringing tones could make a bell seem mute—spoke loudly to him.
“One thing I’ll tell you of maze mythology, Your Majesty,” Templar told her as they began on another path, one she recognized as also wrong, though she’d not correct him yet. “In the pagan past they used to believe that evil spirits were unable to turn corners, hence, one was always safe within a maze.”
“I shall remember that, Master Sutton.”
“Though these corners seem as slanted as sharp, so that shouldn’t help here,” Jamie said, only to have Chris elbow him to silence.
“I thought you were going to tell Her Majesty the story of Fair Rosamund in her Bower, hiding from the queen,” Bettina prompted her husband.
“Ah, yes, poor Rosamund,” the queen said, piqued the woman dared think she did not know that tale. “When she discovered her royal husband’s affaire de coeur, King Henry II’s queen finally found her way into the maze His Majesty had made to shelter his mistress and forced the poor woman to drink poison.
“Bettina portrayed Fair Rosamund in a small tragedy we staged at the Inn, Your Majesty,” Jamie piped up again.
“A woman on the stage?” Elizabeth inquired, though the idea rather pleased her. If females could be part of private masques, why not the more public stage?
“I bound up my breasts and everyone thought I was a lad,” she explained.
“Well, perhaps not everyone,” Chris teased and, this time, elbowed Jamie.
“She’s quite skilled at playing parts,” Templar put in.
“Though I admit my complexion is the olive hue of my mother and not that of a fair-faced woman like Rosamund,” Bettina said with a fetching little shrug. “If I ever played in that masque again, I should take the part of the evil poisoner, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.” Both hands flew to Bettina’s mouth. “I mean, I am not worthy to play a queen, Your Majesty, but she was a French queen, and could, therefore, never shine as bright as you, pardon if I have spoken amiss.”
“Not amiss, but it reminds me that a friend who was to be in our masque this evening is indisposed, and I believe you might do the part justice. It is no speaking role, and all ten women portraying the wise and foolish virgins will be costumed, wigged, and masked to look the same.”
“Oh, the greatest honor,” Bettina said, pressing her clasped hands to her breasts.
“Play-acting indeed to portray a virgin—after years of marriage to our mentor,” Jamie put in with an impish grin.
The queen smartly smacked his arm with her folded fan. “One more comment about virgins, and I shall banish you where you can no longer make eyes at my Lady Rosie, for I have observed she has caught your eye. But I wager you a good gold crown—a coin, I mean, not a royal one,” she added tartly, “that you’ll not breech Rosie Radcliffe’s well-defended bastions, Jamie Barstow!”
More laughter but from Templar, who might not have heard. He was already headed around the next turn, and on the wrong path again. But then the queen herself had been lost more times in here over the years than her pride would allow her to admit.
“‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meett him!’” echoed to the vast hammerbeam roof of the great hall at Hampton Court. The audience stirred as Chris Hatton, playing the bridegroom, strode toward the ten virgins waiting with their silver lamps.
The masque of the five wise and five foolish virgins seemed to please everyone, Cecil thought. As one of the few unmasked—those ornate, false countenances never suited him—he settled back to watch not only the parable performed but observe those watching it. The cast had commandeered the dining dais for a stage. In addition to the chamber’s usual array of fine tapestries, Her Majesty had evidently ordered four more brought in from Greenwich Palace. Those illustrated the parable in which the Lord Jesus advised his followers to always be prepared for his return. A more intimate stage had been created by draping the Greenwich tapestries on poles around the dais.
“‘Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps,’” the narrator’s voice boomed out again.
In flowing white and silver robes and wearing full-length brocade masks, their tresses hidden by flaxen wigs, the women went through their paces. Five of them had planned for the arrival of the groom—women after his own heart, Cecil thought—and the five frivolous ones had used up all their oil and were left out of the wedding feast.
The queen, Cecil noted, was in her element, leading the wise virgins, of course, while the foolish five fumbled about, then cried and screamed when they realized their sad fate. Though all ten women were gowned, wigged, and masked alike, he could always pick out bold Bess Tudor, however much he heard whispering about him that some others could not recognize Her Majesty. Many of the maids were graceful and slender and of similar height, but he saw the way Elizabeth subtly steered the others through their parts. Her wily cousin Margaret must be in that mix, though damned if he was sure which one she was. He thought he could spot Rosie Radcliffe and Bettina, though.
Templar had told him that his wife had been pulled in at the last moment. She was acquitting herself well, and, no doubt, having the time of her life. It was that volatile Italian streak in her, Cecil thought, for she loved to be watched and wanted. He shifted in his chair so hard it creaked, and Mildred, through the slitted eyeholes of her mask, glanced askance at him. In the audience, Templar—the mask Bettina had insisted he wear kept slipping—looked proud enough of his little wife to burst, poor man.
Cecil wasn’t surprised that the queen’s latest favorite, Chris Hatton, was playing the bridegroom who symbolized Christ himself. Since Hatton was on display, Cecil assumed Jamie Barstow was behind the scenes somewhere. He’d heart Robert Dudley was back at court but didn’t see him.
“‘Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us.’” But be answered and said, ‘Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day not the hour …’”
Even the queen’s closest servants were enjoying themselves, that was clear to see, since they weren’t masked. Her Majesty’s so-called fool and principal player, Ned Topside, a clever, formerly itinerant actor, had obviously masterminded the staging, which the queen kept subtly changing. Ned stood slightly to the side as he read the narrative for the miming players, his fine voice showing him as much to advantage as his face and form, which were his real stock in trade. Like her father, Elizabeth had always favored surrounding herself with fine-looking people.
Off to the side stood Kat Ashley, who seemed to be not only delighting in the drama, but following it, too. With her was Meg Milligrew, the queen’s Strewing Herb Mistress of the Privy Chamber, who also served as the royal herbalist. Though the queen employed court doctors, she and Kat disliked their bleedings and leeches. Lately, Elizabeth had relied more on Meg’s garden and apothecary tonics and elixirs to treat Kat’s dementia.
Cecil had noted the results were dubious, yet he had asked Meg last month if she had anything in her bag of tricks for his wife’s strange state of mind. She’d g
iven him a sweet-smelling powdered mix to sprinkle in a glass of malmsey before Mildred slept, but more than once, his wife had insisted he was trying to drug her. Favoring the scent, she’d used the powder for fragrant potpourri instead.
But another reason the clever queen kept Meg Milligrew near her person was that Meg greatly resembled her—or at least could be made to. Their coloring, height, and weight, not to mention some facial features, were much the same. Years ago Her Majesty had ordered Ned Topside to tutor Meg in royal deportment and speech. More than once, switches or substitutions of herbalist for monarch had saved their necks. But, thank God, Cecil mused, there had been no need for such of late, and he prayed it would remain thus.
Lastly, Mildred looked and acted pleased tonight, so that pleased Cecil most of all. Perhaps, he thought, the change of place or rest from the children’s noise was the only tonic she needed. Hell’s gates, who could understand the mind of a woman, especially ones as brilliant as those he loved most, his wife and his queen?
Her Majesty heaved a huge sigh when the masque ended. Usually performing in or watching such amusements put Elizabeth in her element. Yet her stomach had knotted like a noose, not like these damned silk and gauze garters which kept loosening her hose. She needed to slip out to meet Robin as she had promised, but she didn’t want to let on, even—especially—to those close to her.
Though Cecil and Robin worked together well enough these days, tension between them always lurked just beneath the surface. Kat had heard her promise Mary that she would meet Robin, but she’d probably forgotten already. And she hardly needed her servants whispering that Robin was back in her arms let alone in her good graces. Disguised though Elizabeth was, people knew her when they heard her voice, and it might take some ado to sneak out.
Poking her head behind an arras, with a flick of her wrist, she summoned her hovering guard Stephen Jenks and edged toward the fringe of the crowd. Jenks had served her well, even in the years she had lived in dangerous exile from court life.
Though his wit was for horses, he was skilled with a sword and was ever loyal. However many gentleman pensioners and yeomen guards she had about her person when she ventured out, Jenks was her best buffer against all physical danger. He was nominally part of Robin’s staff to select and train the three-hundred-some horses from her royal stables, but Jenks was at her beck and call whenever he was needed. And he was needed now to ascertain that Robin’s reason for not attending the masque was the truth.
Jenks rushed to her side. She’d told her people that, unless she unmasked, they were not to show obeisance or address her by name or title this evening, and she was heartened to see Jenks remembered. He stopped so swiftly that his sword clanked in its scabbard and the fringe of hair over his earnest blue eyes bobbed.
“Do you know if my Araby mare has foaled yet?” she asked. “And if she’s being tended properly and by whom?”
“Didn’t Lord Dudley tell you then? The new foal’s a white stallion, a hellion to break someday, he said, as he oversaw the foaling. Probably means to surprise you himself, though don’t see hide nor hair of him here tonight, masks or no.”
Then Robin had told her true, she thought, much relieved. He might be adept at twisting or turning the facts, but not Jenks. Perhaps Robin even planned to take her to the stables to see the new foal by torchlight. That thought rather pleased her.
“That is all for now,” she told Jenks. “Except, send Meg to me and be sure Lady Ashley doesn’t wander off.”
He disappeared behind the scenery while the queen surveyed the room. The lawyers—Templar, Chris, Jamie, and Cecil—huddled together over some issue, though everyone but Cecil was still masked. She surmised that Mildred and Bettina were in the crowd, but she wasn’t sure. The queen had commanded that the women remain masked and continue to mime their parts, supposedly to drive home the parable’s point of being prepared for disaster.
Actually, Elizabeth knew it would be easier for her not to be missed if all stayed costumed and covered. If she dismissed everyone and headed for her rooms, she’d have her ladies in her wake and that would never do. If only her servants, who had been with her through thick and thin, knew who she was for certain, that suited her right now.
“You know what, Your Gr—milady?” Meg whispered, still cradling the basket of fragrant strewing herbs with which she’d decorated the dais earlier. “I actually approached Lady Rosie by mistake just now, since I thought that’s who Jenks had pointed out was you.”
“I intend to go alone to see Mary Sidney,” Elizabeth said without ado, “to show her the costume. But I don’t want everyone to know I’m gone or where.”
It galled her to lie to her faithful servant, especially since the queen of England was slinking off like some milkmaid to see a man when she should simply have commanded Robin to attend her. It was sheer tomfoolery, yet the fact no one could gainsay her even if they knew excited her—as did meeting him at night in the maze.
“Then I’d best keep a sharp eye on Kat,” Meg murmured.
“I won’t be long, but either you or Lady Rosie need to be with her. And don’t try that new herbal cure on her until I get back—or if she’s weary and goes to bed, we’ll test it another night.”
“The betony,” Meg said with a nod. “I’m praying it will halt her nocturnal visions—her plain, old nightmares.”
“I meant to ask, have you planted gillyflowers in the kitchen herb gardens?”
“Did you tell me to put some there, and I forgot?”
“I simply said, did you plant them there?”
“Nary a one there ’cause the brewers were filching them to flavor their beer,” she whispered as if they were discussing some capital crime. “But I need them for strewing herbs and potpourri. This year, all the gillyflowers are in the riverside gardens. I planted fewer than usual since their perfumes are a whit old-fashioned. But next year I can put them in the kitchen gardens, if you wish.”
“Never mind. Be off with you then.”
Elizabeth headed for the door, moving into the shadows. Looking back over her shoulder twice, as if she were some stealthy cutpurse, she went out into the hall nearest the maze. A guard stood just inside the door. She nodded silently to him. He could think she was any lady stepping out for a breath of air or a tryst. When he opened the door for her, she darted into the darkness, feeling wildly, if momentarily, free.
“Next time, Robin, you shall come to me,” she muttered to herself in rhythm with her strides on, then off, the gravel path. “Never again,” she rehearsed her opening words, trying several voices—annoyance, teasing, then raw command. “Never again!”
She was pleased that, once she was outside, the blowing night did not seem as black as it had at first. A full moon enhanced the wan light from palace windows. She used the moonshade of a huge oak to lift her white and silver robes to tie her damned garters tighter. No good having her stockings trip her up.
Remaining masked lest someone see her, she took a moment to survey the walkways and gardens in their eerie light. This, indeed, would have been a better setting for poor Catherine Howard’s ghost. The scene, usually so familiar, seemed an alien landscape now. Shivering, she hugged herself and moved toward the maze.
She wished she’d brought Jenks or Meg, for she could trust them to keep their mouths shut about a tryst with Robin. And yet she’d wanted to come alone. This was the place where Kat had told her that her own parents used to meet by moonlight, before everything went so bad between them.
When she saw Robin was not yet here, she whispered, “I will kill him!” In her topsy-turvy relationship with the man, she was the one with the power, yet he seemed in control. Tonight, he’d best not keep her waiting, especially when he was the one who had arranged this, though she had named the place.
Again she felt her garters slip and tried to pull them up by hoisting the layers of petticoats she wore. Silk to hold up silk was foolhardy, and she’d tell whoever made them that they would never sew such for her a
gain.
When she heard the hedge rustle, she loosed her huge hems. Her head jerked around. Her mask went askew, and she bent to readjust it to see out the eyeholes, leaning forward as if she would spring to a run. Yet she stood her ground in the gaping maw of the maze. If the blackguard was playing games as usual, if he thought to jump out and frighten her, she would show him she was not afraid.
She peeked into the maze, then shuffled in without making a turn. Though she’d sensed someone near, just as in the palace corridor this morning, she saw nothing. Surely, in the breeze, she only fancied she heard someone breathing. Robin used to say she made him breathe heavily, yet this was shallow, almost silent.
“Damn the man!” she muttered.
As she turned to leave, someone pressed against the back of her skirts. Thinking Robin would dare to embrace her from behind, she gasped in anticipation through the slitted mouth of the mask.
She saw—or felt—two dark hands fly before her face. Holding something? A necklace, a gift from him? Something around her throat but so tight—too tight.
Elizabeth gagged and gulped for breath. She tried to elbow the person, but hit only empty air … breathed black, empty air. Her attacker yanked her into the maze and tripped her. She was shoved facedown in the grass in the first dead end, a knee pressed in her back. Not Robin, not like this.
Her mask bumped away, her wig snagged in the hedges. She sucked for air but only tasted grass. Nothing in her throat, her bursting lungs. She tried to kick, but her skirts trapped her legs. Tried to talk, to order him—someone—to stop.
She clawed at her throat to get her fingers between her neck and the ligature which cut her, suffocated her, making all the lights go out and choking—her life—away.