by Karen Harper
’S blood, Elizabeth thought, Robin should take wooing lessons from this man. No wonder her sensible, spinster Rosie had been swept off her feet by Jamie Barstow, despite his lack of station and income, both of which everyone knew the queen herself could amend if she so desired. And she was starting to want to, despite the fact Jamie kept shifting in his chair as if it were a hot seat.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he blurted, “but it’s been a long ride since our last stop, and I need to excuse myself for one moment.”
“Of course.”
His usually steady gait was nearly a sprint to the door.
“Speaking of telling tales out of school,” Chris said, leaning forward confidentially, though no one but the two of them were now in the vast room, “the thing is, he’s suffering from a problem in physick. Can’t hold his water, but he’s taking tonic for it.”
In that moment, Elizabeth could not decide whether to laugh or cry. At least it explained why Jamie had acted as if he were on pins and needles. But now there was another complication, for she was certain, when Chris leaned so near, she could smell gillyflowers on his breath.
“I smell a sweet scent,” she said.
“It’s either all the flowers gone to riot outside, I’ll bet, or the cloves I chew.”
“Does Jamie chew cloves, too?”
“Doesn’t like them but fetches them for me. He told me once cloves were too expensive for someone of his station to chew and spit as I do.”
It amazed the queen that her convoluted interrogation had come round to this trivia. She couldn’t fathom that these two friends were guilty of anything dire, but she refused to let her heart rule her head again, not after what she’d been through with Robin. It was only fair that she authenticate her young courtiers’ stories. Rosie’s future hung in the balance as did her own safety. The problem was that the queen could hardly trust Bettina or even Mildred’s gossip with so much at stake. And the witnesses she needed to substantiate Chris and Jamie’s stories were probably battling the Black Death back in London.
Later, the afternoon they arrived at Hatfield House, Elizabeth summoned Cecil and took a proprietary stroll around the immediate grounds with him. He assumed, no doubt, she needed to discuss the Mary, Queen of Scots marriage problem again, but she had in mind his own marriage dilemma.
“You are certain Mildred’s headache will go away if she simply rests?” she asked him. “I can send Meg to her with some soothing tonic or even summon a doctor if that’s needed.”
“No, she said a nap will restore her. Besides, it looks to me as if Meg has her own task for the day.”
Despite the warmth of the sun, Meg Milligrew had waded into the midst of the unruly knot garden and, with long-bladed, rusted clippers, was madly hacking at leggy rose bushes. Her skirt snagged by thorns, knee-deep in hedges that should be close-cropped and shaped, she did not see them standing nearby.
The varied interlacing sections of woody shrubs had been set out, trained, and trimmed in the shape of a great, intricate knot. Within its whorls and turns could be placed colored gravel, herbs, or flowers—in this case, apothecary roses. Such ornate designs had originated in France, but the English had elevated knot gardening to an art with the varied hues and textures of boxwood, yew, rosemary, and other woody herbs.
“Meg,” Elizabeth called to her, “you must fetch someone to help you.”
“Oh, Your Grace, Lord Cecil,” she said, arching her back and shading her eyes. “I can’t abide that it’s run riot. I’ll have it looking like a fine embroidery knot again and not some wilderness. Nothing can bloom aright in a mess like this,” she added, throwing up her hands so fast the gap-jawed clippers went sailing into the green tangle and she had to search to retrieve them.
“Of course you’ll get it back to rights,” the queen encouraged her, “but don’t overtire yourself And remember to take the Countess of Lennox those strewing herbs for her chambers.” Elizabeth and Cecil walked on toward the cooler shade of the huge oaks.
“Meg is not the one you have watching Darnley and his mother, is she?” Cecil asked.
“In part, for I would not expect Margaret to trust my herb mistress. I have also put my guard Clifford in the hall by their rooms to keep a good eye on her and Darnley, especially Darnley.”
They stopped, as if by mutual consent, under the oaks which lined the lawn. “The six years I’ve reigned have flown by,” Elizabeth admitted. She reached out to touch the very tree under which she’d been standing when Cecil and Robin had ridden from London with a party of men to bring her the coronation ring from her dead sister’s finger.
At that memory, the queen shivered despite the heat. Someday the gold and onyx ring—she glanced at it on her hand—would go to someone else … when she too was dead and buried in Westminster Abbey, but not yet, pray God, not for many years. Not unless the one who attacked her tried again, even here in this secluded haven in the heart of her England.
“I said, Your Grace,” Cecil was evidently repeating to snatch her back from her woolgathering, “speaking of setting traps, I wish we could actually lay one to entice Darnley, or whoever is our quarry, to come to us—but not with you as bait. The last time we tried that, you almost lost your life.”
“But I didn’t, and we caught a killer. My lord Cecil,” she added, strolling deeper into the forest, “I was wondering if you’d considered buying Bettina’s books, those from Templar’s private library back at Gray’s Inn, that is. I suggested to her that you might be interested.”
“Indeed I am, both to honor him and help her. I shall speak to her about it.”
“Fine. But because Bettina is under a cloud of suspicion too, I asked Chris Hatton and Jamie Barstow to describe their relationships with her. They have admitted that she was not adverse to being overly intimate with some of her husband’s students, even ones younger than she. And your Mildred said the same had been bandied about your dinner table when you hosted Templar’s students from time to time.”
He frowned, looking off into the distance. “And you’re wondering why I didn’t tell you?”
“I realize you are not one to credit rumors or besmear a reputation without proof.”
“Your Grace, when you appointed me your principal secretary here at Hatfield, you challenged me always to give you truthful counsel, and I have done that. So I must admit that I believe there is a basis for such rumors about Bettina.”
She stopped walking and swung slowly to face him. That had been carefully couched lawyer talk indeed. “Then, yes, my lord, why did you not tell me?”
“I cannot fathom she would have aught to do with murder. True, Templar was not the best husband for a woman of her youth, temperament, and needs. But she would never strike him down with a brick from behind in some cold-blooded, calculated murder, not Bettina!”
“You speak passionately in her defense.”
“She is a passionate woman, to her shame, I warrant, at times, but, I repeat,” he said, seeming to stumble for words now, “not a murderess, Your Grace, and never one who would try to strangle her queen.”
“I must tell you too that Mildred seems to resent Bettina so that I believe your wife is almost jealous of her. Perhaps, Bettina tells me, it is because you used to visit the Suttons often when Mildred herself had not seen enough of you because of the demands of queen and kingdom. Cecil,” she said and gripped his forearm, “forgive me, my friend, for asking this, but in these tenuous times, I must. Tell me straight you have never betrayed your marriage vows.”
His brown eyes widened under his high, furrowed brow. The corners of his mouth tightened, and for one moment she believed he would refuse to answer or confess the impossible.
“No, Your Grace, I have never betrayed my marriage vows.”
“Thank God, for I needed not those sort of complications in this—or to think ill of you, my bedrock advisor and ever my friend. I charge you to be certain Mildred knows that truth, for she evidently had harsh words with Templar the day h
e died. The reason I have not shared Bettina’s list of possible culprits with you is that I am discounting one name on it—and if I do that—all the other names on the list are suspect, too.”
“One name. What name?”
“Mildred’s, my lord. It is obvious to me that, though the two women have seldom met, they dislike each other, and that can’t be helped. I’m afraid it is rather like me and Mary of Scots,” she said with a forced little laugh.
Cecil was not laughing, for tears matted his lashes before he blinked them away. Elizabeth had meant to corner him on Mildred’s possible resentment of his first wife and of his heir by her, but the queen could not bear to see her Cecil cry.
When William Cecil hurried back to be with his wife, the queen tarried again at the knot garden. Though it was nearly dusk, Meg’s bodice was soaked through with sweat.
“Since when have you decided not to heed my orders?” Elizabeth asked her. “It is high time to leave off that task.”
“Aye, Your Grace, I’m quitting for now. I’m going to take a plunge in the pond beyond the trees to cool off, too, or the Countess of Lennox will smell me coming, strewing herbs or not.”
The thought of immersing one’s self in the spring-fed pond sounded both alluring and daring to Elizabeth. Meg Milligrew was the only woman she knew who could swim. Surely the bathing tub the queen’s father had installed at Whitehall Palace would be a far cry from drifting free in a rush of living water.
“I believe I’ll go with you, though hardly to swim,” she told Meg as her herb mistress held up her skirts and made great giant’s strides to escape the knot garden. Meg bent to hide the clippers in the thick foliage before they walked on. “Perhaps to dabble my toes and let the fish nibble them.”
Suddenly, Elizabeth felt lighthearted at the mere thought of bathing outdoors. No doubt because Meg resembled her—and was used upon rare occasions to stand in for the queen when she was endangered—she sometimes also mentally put herself in Meg’s place, wondering what it would be like to go shopping on the London streets, or to go unguarded about one’s business, to run an apothecary shop, or even to swim.
“But I was going to strip down to my shift and then where will your guards be?” Meg asked.
“I shall be your guard, and you’ll be mine,” Elizabeth declared with a laugh but then sobered. “No, since I was attacked, I’ll not risk that even here where I feel quite safe. We’ll stop by the stables and have Jenks come along and stay well back.”
The queen studied Meg’s face as she mentioned Jenks’s name. Though looking much overheated already, the young woman blushed.
“If we’re going by the stables, I suppose we could pick up Lord Robin to watch out for someone who might sneak a peek at us, too,” Meg teased and could not stifle a giggle.
Once the queen might have boxed a servant’s ears for such impertinence, but she only laughed again. Hallowed Hatfield seemed a haven, and she’d fear naught here.
Chapter the Eleventh
“SO, MEG, ARE YOU AND JENKS GETTING ON WELL?” the queen inquired in a soft voice. “I’ve seen some friction between you, and I can’t afford that with my servants—or my Privy Plot Council members. Yet I was beginning to believe he would follow you anywhere instead of me.”
“His first love and loyalty, and mine, will always be to you, Your Grace. But lately he’s been more than protective. He’s been attentive and painfully intent. I suppose I’ve been a bit hard on him of late.”
“Ah,” Elizabeth said only, as they saw the pond through the trees, but she was thinking poor Jenks. She had sent him to fetch Kat, and she and Meg had the older woman in tow, whereas Jenks trailed a good ways behind as ordered. The queen turned back to gesture to him to stay where he was unless they called him. Robin had not been at the stables to double their guard, but that was just as well, she thought, perversely amused that the trials of queen and herb girl could be at all similar when it came to men who were passionate yet problematic.
“I shall dabble my feet while you swim,” Elizabeth said.
“I too,” Kat spoke at last, though she’d seemed to be enjoying the walk. “I always used to test the water in your bath when you were young, lovey, to be sure it would not burn you.”
Kat and the queen followed circumspectly while Meg scrambled toward the end of the small, oval pond where bramble bushes hid the grassy bank. “Shall I help you with your shoes and stockings then, Your Grace?” Kat asked.
“Do you think I am some ninnyhammer who’s forgotten how to undress herself? Ah, Kat, do you recall how we used to make do with old-fashioned, darned garments and few enough of those last time we were here at Hatfield?”
“Of course, I recall. I always vowed that should you become queen,” Kat said, plopping down beside her on the bank, “you would have the most beautiful gowns—and someday you shall.”
Meg was so used to that sort of past-and-present scrambling that she didn’t even look up as she stripped to her shift and waded in while Kat and the queen pulled off shoes and stockings. “Oh, it feels delightful,” Meg said and flopped belly down in the pond to paddle like a dog. Elizabeth was transfixed with envy.
“Quite unnatural and unladylike,” Kat muttered, swishing her bare feet in the water, “but you do make it look like fun, Meg.”
“I’ve a good nerve to get in, too,” the queen declared, smacking her hands on her full skirts, “but these petticoats would pull me under.”
“You’d have to take them off, that’s for certain,” Meg said, not even sounding out of breath. “Watch this, Your Grace.”
To their amazement, Meg sucked in a big mouth of air, pinched her nose, and disappeared under the rippling surface. Kat and Elizabeth held their breaths too until Meg burst upward again in a fountain of bubbles. To Kat’s obvious dismay, Elizabeth stood and began to strip off layers of petticoats from under her gown.
“You don’t mean it,” Kat cried. “I’ll not allow it.”
“I’ll stay near the bank, and I don’t take orders from you as I did once, dear Kat. I must try it. No one will know, and I may never get such a chance again. Just look how easily Meg goes under and pops back up.”
“Everyone will say you fell in when they see you,” Kat protested. “Your father will blame me.”
“He’s given me permission,” Elizabeth declared.
Meg stood awed in the pond as the queen, clad in bodice, sleeves, and now drooping outer skirts, sat again on the bank and carefully edged into the water. “Like a big washtub,” she said, “but ooh, it’s slippery underfoot.”
“Just moss and mud,” Meg said, coming closer to help. “Here, dip down a bit like this.” She bent her knees and blew bubbles when the water covered her mouth, then put her nose in too and snorted like a horse.
Despite her fears, Elizabeth laughed and followed suit. Doing something so curious and bold bucked her up. After all, the queen set standards. No one could tell her she could not do a simple thing one of her servants could, even if it were an outrageous practice. Imagine, swimming like a dog or fish!
Her air-filled skirts buoyed her up at first, but soon went sodden, like heavy plaster around her legs. The weight of them pulled her down the moment she lifted her feet from the slanted bottom of the pond. She tipped sideways and lost her bearings. As she sputtered and coughed, Meg helped haul her up and steady her.
“Had enough, Your Grace?” Meg asked. “Best get out now.”
“Not until I’ve mastered it.”
“But I’ve been at this for years.”
“You both climb out of there right now!” Kat ordered.
But Elizabeth gasped in a great breath, held it, and plunged under, nearly sitting on the pond bottom. The shock of being completely encased in the press of cool, heavy water stunned her. Currents of her own making tugged at her hair and swayed her heavy skirts. But she held her breath, then blew out tickling bubbles that raced up her forehead. She felt defiant and free until she recalled how she could not get her breath w
hen the garters were around her neck, stopping her air, strangling her in the maze.
She choked and snorted out, then in. Water slammed up her nose and made her head sting. She tried to find her feet again, to rise above the surface, but she slipped in the grasp of her skirts.
Get air. Stop the strangler. Her hands clawed wildly in the dark maze of heavy water.
Her head popped up, slicked with her sopping hair. Hacking, she gasped in breath after breath as Meg helped her to right herself.
“We’d best not tell anyone you did this on purpose!” Meg said.
“I’m not taking the blame from your father or his sneaking, snippy, young Queen Catherine Howard!” Kat insisted.
“Hush both of you—and go to the house together—to fetch me dry clothes,” Elizabeth gasped, sitting exhausted and angry on the bank. “Meg, you send Lady Rosie out with the dry things so Kat doesn’t need to come back. And send Jenks to wait here with me. I daresay he’s seen me in worse straits.”
Both women hurried to obey. Jenks came running, his eyes wide when he saw her.
“No, I did not fall in,” she told him, “and if you laugh at me, I shall ship you off forthwith to Scotland. I just had to try it.”
“Sounds like me with Meg, Your Grace,” he said, not daring to so much as smile. “I’d try anything to please her, but it all goes wrong.”
“You offer her that power over you, and she’s afraid of it, that’s all. Command is not an easy thing to wield over others, but the most sobering, awesome responsibility, especially when one cares for the well-being of the other,” she counseled, wringing water from her skirts and hair.
“I can’t come up to her standards—that’s more like it,” he muttered.
“’S blood and bones, Jenks, you are a good, brave, and deserving man. I just wish I had someone as loyal as you who would ride into hell—or at least plague London—for me. I need some answers from Gray’s Inn about Jamie Barstow and Sir Christopher’s reputations, not to mention Bettina Sutton’s. But that dread disease sits in Londontown like a big, bloated poisonous spider, so that’s the end of that, just like this is the end of my swimming.”