Elizabeth I - 05 - The Thorne Maze

by Karen Harper

  The queen: “His head must have hit the foot of the sundial, see? But the question is, on his own or with help?”

  “At least he wasn’t strangled.”

  “That is one thing we must find out.”

  “You have sealed the entrance again.”

  “Yes, but what good did that do us last time? Lady Rosie was there, but I needed to send her with Jamie Hatton and poor Bettina. I am beginning to believe our murderer comes through the maze like some sort of specter. And here, poor Templar told me that evil spirits avoid mazes because they can’t turn the corners … .”

  The queen’s usually clear voice snagged before going on. “I am sorry, my lord, that I ask you to do this when your dear mentor and friend lies here, lost to life, but I want you to quickly examine his body for other marks or possibly wounds—especially strangulation ligatures—while Meg and I search for hidden exits in the maze hedges. With rampant torchlight on the sides and rear, we will be able to discern if there is any sort of opening where a possible attacker escaped without coming out the entrance.”

  “Yes, I see. For decency’s sake—and Templar was a thoroughly decent man—I will search him for signs of foul play and tell you what I find.”

  “Obviously, Bettina and you will have disturbed the way he was found, but we shall simply explain to the officials I’ve summoned that Templar’s body was moved when we turned him over and his widow grieved. And, Cecil, keep an eye out for a bit of dark cloth on his person, which Kat said she saw him find in the maze today. Our murderer might have torn his or her garment the night I was attacked,” she added with a huge sigh, “and Templar took it upon himself to help me even more than I had asked. Come on, Meg. All that torchlight outside makes it easy to see through the leaves and limbs, and at least doubles the moonlight in here.”

  Mildred backtracked quickly, amazed yet somehow not surprised that Elizabeth Tudor herself would spearhead such an investigation. It made her admire the queen all the more, yet fear her, too. Next, that brilliant woman would be probing one’s very tortured thoughts. Mildred ducked under the rope at the mouth of the maze and lifted her skirts to hurry away across the dewy grass.

  Her finger snagged in the tear on her black gown. For appearance’ sake—safety’s sake now, too—she’d best don another skirt and cut this one up for scraps.

  One thing was certain, the queen reasoned, trying to control her full skirts as she moved through the maze. If the murderer had entered or exited through a thin spot in these back hedges, it could hardly be a woman, at least not unless she was disguised as a lad. She and Meg had discovered two thin-leafed places, though she also surmised that an intruder must bear scratches, too. Now that could be a clue, but she could hardly order everyone to disrobe so she could examine their skin for scratches. Or could such be visible on someone’s hands, face, or neck?

  “Will we point these bare spots out to the officials as well as look at them better ourselves tomorrow?” Meg asked.

  “I intend to let them examine Master Sutton’s demise on their own and see what they determine about whether his death was accidental—and discover how good these crown-appointed men are at their tasks. Perhaps they will turn up something we have not, but whatever they decide, I am undeterred about secretly tracing my attacker—and, I warrant—tying it somehow to Templar Sutton’s death.”

  “If someone slipped out this way, he’d have ended up in the grape arbors or could have hidden in the stand of trees along the river bank,” Meg observed.

  “Ah, the grape arbors or those trees—someone who was familiar with the area, or who thought it could hide his dark deeds,” she whispered, recalling Lord Darnley’s illicit assignation there. She had not shared her real plans for Darnley with anyone but Cecil and didn’t intend to. But, if the ruttish coxcomb—who was thin as a rail—had tried to murder his monarch, she’d have a decision to make. She intended to send Mary Stuart a weakling to wed, not someone who strangled queens. The Queen of England would not do that, even to her nemesis, the Queen of Scots.

  “Let’s go back and see what Lord Cecil has discovered,” Elizabeth said, and led the way back toward the goal. “My lord,” she called to him across one width of hedge, “is he decent now?”

  “Enter,” Cecil clipped out, as if he were summoning an undersecretary, but she knew how deeply this had distressed him. “Nothing is decent about this,” he muttered when the two women came around the turn to find him slumped on the bench by the body. He had managed to balance the single torch they’d left him on the top of the sundial to give himself good light.

  “No, don’t rise,” Elizabeth commanded, staying him with a firm hand on his shoulder. She was surprised to feel him trembling. “Did you—look him over thoroughly, my lord?”

  Cecil nodded forlornly. “I found no dark scrap of cloth,” he said so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. She gestured for Meg to leave them, and she instantly obeyed. “I am sorry to ask all this of you, my lord,” she told him. She sat down on the end of the bench, so he would not feel compelled again to rise. “I know he was dear to you.”

  “I was steady until you asked—asked me that way, ‘Did you look him over thoroughly …’ I was just thinking, the very first day I met him twenty-three years ago at Gray’s Inn, after we had talked for a while, he looked me over thoroughly and questioned me at length. He told me I had great potential, but he would never stand for me doing things half cocked Though I was a strong student, I’d admitted I’d left Cambridge when I was close to taking my degree. Master Sutton also said that day,” he added and swiped his nose with a sleeve like a lad, “that I must never make slipshod, rash decisions that would errantly affect my life and my career.”

  “Meaning, like leaving Cambridge too early.”

  “Also meaning that I had defied my father, who had been supporting me, by passionately, rashly wedding an innkeeper’s daughter. ‘Be circumspect in all you do, and let not passion be your rule,’ Templar said that day, and I’ve never—that is, tried never to forget it.”

  “Surely, you have made him proud these last years, my Cecil. You have not been rash or done things in an errant or slipshod manner, I can testify to that. You and the others like Chris and Jamie are the sons he never had, just as Bettina said when—”

  “I’m only human!” he cried, lunging off the bench and turning away, evidently to wipe his eyes and nose, again with his sleeve instead of his handkerchief. “Like you, Your Grace,” he added more quietly, “the man had a way of looking right through one and knowing everything. I never meant to let him down … .”

  “Of course you didn’t. But, the thing I would know before the parish officials rightfully take this out of our hands—at least I know they will claim Templar’s body—is what you found when you examined him.”

  “No marks around his neck at least,” he said with a sniff.

  “Thank God for that. What then? Why are you looking at me like that? You don’t believe it could just be an accident?”

  He shook his head hard. “Granted, a fall into the stone pedestal could have stunned him—I pray God it did. Because on the back of his head, the nape of his neck, he was struck either a second time—or at first.”

  He stooped to point at the back of Templar’s head. Cecil had turned him face down again, but arranged him with cap and cloak covering his neck, much as they’d found him.

  “Struck back there by what?” the queen asked, bending over him, too. “You mean he was pushed or slammed against the bench first, then thrown onto the pedestal?”

  “There is not a spot of blood on the bench. I would postulate he was struck on the back of the head by a blow from a brick which sent him into the pedestal. The imprint in his scalp—his very skull—has a definite shape with the mark of a corner.”

  “The bench has squared corners,” she argued.

  “But this crumbled material was stuck in his blood at the back—not the front—of his white hair.”

  Even as they heard the voice
s of men coming closer in the maze, Cecil pulled something from his padded doublet. In the light of their single torch, he opened and extended to her his clean handkerchief Bits of bloodied, rose-hued brick lay in it. The queen gasped, rewrapped the cloth, and thrust the handkerchief quickly up her sleeve as Robert Dudley led a group of men into the very heart of the maze.

  Chapter the Seventh

  THE MEN’S LANTERNS AND TORCHES LIT THE MAZE SO brightly that the queen and Cecil had to squint at first. Robin had Chris Hatton at his side, which amazed her, since Robin didn’t like the younger man. Frowning, Chris bit his lip and shook his head when he saw his teacher’s body sprawled beneath the bench.

  Jenks and two yeomen guards brought up the rear of the party, but before them paraded three parish officials. Elizabeth was immediately annoyed that, crowding in, they did not give a care to the area in case there had been clues, even though she knew her people had tramped about, too.

  Snatching off their caps, the visitors made matters worse as they all bowed. Packed like fish in a barrel of brine, they bumped into each other, sending the largest man of the three into the hedge wall, bouncing the bushes. Robin’s knees accidently brushed the queen’s skirts when he rose from his bow.

  “Your Most Gracious Majesty,” he began when she nodded to give him leave to speak, “may I present to you the parish bailiff, Jonah Withers. Bailiff Withers, the Queen’s Majesty has personally summoned you as the deceased was an important teacher of law in her kingdom.”

  Bailiff Withers was of middling height and weight, with hair red as autumn pippins. As he bowed again, Elizabeth noted he’d been rousted out of bed, for his hair stood on end like a cock’s comb, and he had sleep wrinkles on one side of his face.

  “No doubt the cause is accidental death, Your Gracious Majesty,” Withers said, wringing his cap in his hands, “for I hear the departed was frail and of an age. And to be walking out at night alone in a maze—well. But if the coroner suspects foul play, I shall serve any needed writs and carry out immediate arrests.”

  “I should hope immediate, Master Withers,” Elizabeth replied, “though we discovered no one near the body, and no one has rushed forward to be arrested. Say on, my lord Dudley.”

  “And the coroner,” Robin announced, “is Richard Malvern … .”

  The queen recognized the name as a local family of good gentry stock, so she surmised his progenitors must have held the post, too. Malvern had piercing, dark eyes set in skin white as a toad’s belly. His raven hair was cut as if a bowl had been placed over his head, like the friars of old, but with no tonsure. His clothes looked costly, exceedingly so, but perhaps he’d scrambled into his best attire when he’d heard the corpse was at court.

  “By your leave, Your Most Gracious Majesty,” Malvern said with another bow, “no matter what Bailiff Withers says, we’ll need a justice of the peace if we must bind an accused felon over for trial. Ergo, I have taken it upon myself to summon one.”

  She noted that Withers shot Malvern what could only be called a withering look. Had these men not heard her that no felons had been found? Jenks must have informed Robin that foul play was suspected, and Robin must have told these men. Since the Crown received a portion of a murderer’s property, did they think she insisted on a murder? ’S blood, murder it must be, but let them look into it officially while she probed it her own way.

  “I charge you, Coroner Malvern,” the queen commanded, “to discern exactly what happened here, pure mischance or foul play, then to report to Lord Dudley, who will report to me.”

  “And finally, Your Majesty,” Robin said, gesturing the last stranger forward, “may I present Constable Vernon Wright.”

  The big man who had bounced the bushes looked more the part of one who abetted rather than apprehended brawlers or drunks, let alone murderers. He reminded the queen of a chipped earthenware jug: brawny with no apparent neck, a scarred visage, broken nose, and protruding ears. And these were the men who administered queen’s justice in the surrounding parish to her people? Worse, when she was just about to urge them again to their necessary duties, another official was escorted in by yeomen guards.

  “Justice of the Peace Henry Featherstone, at your royal service,” the newcomer murmured so quietly she could barely hear him.

  “Speak up, man,” Robin said, so he repeated himself, including his bow.

  The justices were nominally appointed by the monarch, though in actuality by the Lord Chancellor, so the queen seldom had to traffic with them. It was the justices who called witnesses if needed and examined the accused, then committed them to gaol or released them on bail until trial. She sensed none of that would happen here, even if the coroner did declare this a homicide. And not just because these men seemed rustics, for queen’s justice of necessity must rely on such men in parishes and shires.

  It was rather that the queen finally admitted to herself that she too might not identify and halt the culprit. She was up against a demon, who hated those who were brilliant, admired, and scrupulous, like Templar. Surely the same someone who, for those reasons and others she must divine, hated her.

  “I expect each man to do his duty,” she concluded abruptly. Feeling suddenly closed in, she pushed through the crowd and maze to the darkness outside.

  Though Elizabeth was distressed and exhausted, she felt she must look in on Bettina before retiring. Chris Hatton had followed her out of the maze with her yeoman Clifford, whom she’d ordered to keep close to her person when she left her apartments, so she walked toward the east wing with Chris at her side and Clifford behind.

  “How did Mistress Sutton take her husband’s loss, Your Grace?” Chris asked. “She’s very—well, Italian.”

  “Only her mother was Italian, but yes, of course, she was emotional. It was heart-rending. I sent Rosie and Jamie to sit with her until I come.”

  “Jamie? He’ll not lend the sort of comfort she needs. He’s a watcher, Your Grace, an analyzer of all things. He keeps somehow aloof from the heat of daily passions.”

  “From the heat of daily passions?” she reiterated, meaning to argue, before she realized Cecil—and Mildred, for that matter—were somewhat like that. “Perhaps that is no longer true of Jamie since he seems intent on courting Rosie Radcliffe, though she’s the sensible sort, too. But the kind of man you describe makes a good lawyer and leader, does he not? And, evidently, he strives to be a good friend.”

  “Granted, Jamie is a sturdy friend for all seasons to me. As for the law, Jamie sometimes quotes the Lord’s word about how it can be useless—the law, not the Lord’s word.”

  “Which biblical quote on lawyers dare say that? The Lord’s word and English justice are perfectly aligned, at least while I sit the throne to which He has brought me.”

  “I’m trying to recall the one I meant.” That made the queen recall that Cecil had once said Chris Hatton could win over a jury on his countenance and charm, but no cleverness for legal argument. No matter, for it was loyalty she valued at court, though she did wonder at times how he got even as far as he did at Oxford and Gray’s Inn with demanding sticklers like Templar for teachers.

  “Ah,” Chris said at last, “I think it goes something like, ‘Avoid strivings about the law for they are unprofitable and useless.’”

  “That only means the strivings are useless, not the law. In other words, a cold-blooded lawyer is better than a hot-tempered one. Hell’s teeth, I could have told you that. It’s probably true of monarchs, too,” she muttered to herself, “and ones with quick tempers should heed such.”

  “But as for a friend, Your Majesty,” he said, evidently trying to backtrack, “Jamie is a good one, and I know he’d like to be your friend.”

  “Tell me, Chris, what is your last memory of Templar Sutton? If you saw him earlier today, what did he say?” Meg had told her that she’d overheard Templar scolding him, and she wondered if he’d admit it or explain.

  “The same plainsong he ever sang me,” Chris said, hanging his head.
“That I needed to yet study, to read more to elevate what I know and can converse on.”

  “Ah,” she said, relieved he had spoken the truth, if not in Templar’s very words Meg had reported.

  She was prepared to let the subject lapse when Chris added, “It doesn’t help that Templar rebuked Jamie, too, if for a different reason.”

  “Which was?”

  “Jamie was a fine student but left school early, granted to come to court with me, but Master Sutton didn’t like that, for he said more was expected of Jamie than of me. Yet he told Jamie he was as disappointed in both of us, that we should finish law school at Gray’s and not just serve a queen in pleasantries at court.”

  Elizabeth nearly jolted to a halt, then walked on. So Templar blamed her for reeling such young men into her court when they should be about more serious business. Evidently Templar Sutton thought her frivolous and would have liked to scold her, too. And if the man played not just law teacher but judge and jury against his monarch, who else did he censure to their faces or behind their backs? Templar Sutton must have enemies, for surely not everyone he criticized admired him as she herself and his students had. Somehow, she must discover who Templar’s enemies were—and so, perhaps, find her own.

  “Let’s go in this door,” she told Chris, though it was Clifford who leaped ahead to open it for them. “The Suttons’ new chambers are somewhere in this hall.”

  “I’ve been trying to bear up but just can’t face it, Your Majesty,” Chris blurted, hesitating at the threshold door. She turned around to face him. “Poor Master Sutton and Bettina too!” He heaved a sigh as he finally stepped in. The scent on his breath—gillyflowers? Or was he one of those many courtiers her chief cook had said begged or bartered for breath cloves?

  Forgoing to question him about anything else now, Elizabeth walked to the only open door in the hall, one which spilled light out onto the wooden floor. She assumed it was the Suttons’ room, but she was mistaken. By wan lantern light, Mildred Cecil sat studying a parchment diagram of some sort just inside the door.