Murder at the Queen's Masquerade

by Amanda Carmack

  The Elizabethan Mystery Series

  Murder in the Queen’s Garden

  Murder at Westminster Abbey

  Murder at Hatfield House

  Murder at the Queen’s Masquerade

  Amanda Carmack

  InterMix Books, New York

  AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC

  375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014

  MURDER AT THE QUEEN’S MASQUERADE

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Amanda Carmack.

  Excerpt from Murder at Whitehall copyright © 2015 by Amanda Carmack.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19659-9

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix eBook edition / October 2015

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Penguin Random House is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.

  In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;

  however, the story, the experiences, and the words

  are the author’s alone.

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  Contents

  The Elizabethan Mystery Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from Murder at Whitehall

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Windsor Castle

  September 1559

  Treason was not as easy as they said it would be.

  Will jumped as thunder roared over the ancient stones of Windsor Castle. The queen and her court were watching a play in the great hall below the corridor where Will tiptoed, and the blast of their laughter seemed to say they cared naught for any storm. They would be occupied by the actors and their antics for hours yet, which should make it the perfect time to carry out a secret errand.

  Will had worked toward this moment for such a long time. He had struggled his way up from stable lad, to guarding the royal kitchens, to playing foot soldier in jousts for fine gentlemen, until at last he was trusted enough to guard the royal chambers. Everything was finally in place. The small thefts and whispered secrets he had given to courtiers for extra coin would be nothing next to this new errand. His employer would pay him well indeed.

  All he had to do was retrieve the papers , and he would be paid what he was promised. He couldn’t afford to be frightened off by a bit of thunder.

  Will stiffened his shoulders to bolster his courage, thought of all the things he could finally buy now—maybe he could even persuade Marjorie to marry him, as long as she never found out how he could buy them a new home. He made his way up the winding stairs, the heavy gold key weighing down his pouch.

  “Hey, Will! Is that who goes there?”

  God’s teeth! Will wanted to shout at the sudden sound of a voice, but he made himself smile and turn, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. As if he had a perfect reason to be in the queen’s own tower.

  It was Ned, who along with his brother Wat was often set to guard the royal privy chamber. With the queen watching the play, they had been sent away for a treat of ale in the kitchens—or so Will had thought. He had arranged it himself.

  Will glimpsed Ned coming down the winding staircase, about to pass him, and he gave him a reassuring smile. “’Tis I indeed, Ned. No need to worry. I was sent on an errand by one of the queen’s ladies, and have just finished. All is quiet down there.”

  Ned grinned. He was a brawny lad, just like his brother, and usually quiet, which was why they so often kept watch over the queen’s noisy privy chamber. None would want to brawl with men such as that to break them apart. But he did get rather talkative when he drank.

  Luckily, he was also easily led. “Aye, right you are. Come and have an ale with us.”

  “I will, in only a few moments. I have to visit the jakes first.”

  “Right you are! See you then.”

  Will exhaled as Ned finally galloped off down the stairs, and he was alone again. Time grew very short now. His errand had to be done before the play ended, and now before Ned missed him in the kitchens.

  What if Ned remembered seeing him on the stairs? “No matter,” Will muttered to himself as he made his way quietly toward his goal. He was owed for all his hard work. He would be long gone before the papers were missed, and it would serve that haughty Queen Elizabeth right to lose them. They did say she wasn’t even old King Henry’s child, and Will had no reason to slave away for her for the rest of his life.

  The queen’s rooms were silent, just as he had hoped. One old lady-in-waiting slept by the fire in her bedchamber, but she didn’t even stir as Will crept to the door of the treasure room, half hidden behind a tapestry at the back of the bedchamber. No one went there, except the queen and her trusted Mistress of the Robes, that bossy Mistress Ashley. No one—except the person who had given Will the key he used now, who wanted those papers enough to pay good coin to have them stolen.

  He pushed open the heavy door, and quickly lit the candle stub he carried in his pouch. There were no windows in that small, circular room, just locked chests and cases piled everywhere. For just a moment he was tempted to do more than his errand. There had to be several fortunes hidden behind those drawers, all the jewels the bastard queen hung about herself. All the secrets she wouldn’t want known. But nay, he knew that would take too much time to steal so much, and would arouse a hue and cry much faster. No one would miss the papers until he was long gone—if he was lucky.

  The same person who had given him the key had told him exactly which box held the papers. He counted the cases across the wall until he found the right one, and knelt down beside it. His palms had begun to sweat, and he impatiently wiped them on his breeches.

  There was a loud noise from overhead, a metallic scraping, and for an instant he thought it was his heart, that it would burst with fear. As soon as he realized his heart did not beat that way, he heard another sound, a skittering, another scraping. Could it be one of the royal ghosts of Windsor, come to frighten him away?

  He thought heard a voice, a laugh, but the circle of his candlelight did not go very far and he couldn’t see anyone in the darkness of the room. It felt as if the chamber had shrunk, as if the walls were closing in on him.

  “Who is there?” he called. “Show yourself!”

  He heard that laugh again, louder, mocking him. It did not sound human, but like a devil. He spun around, his candle sputtering wildly. He glanced up—just in time to see an alabaster vase come hurtling off a high shelf toward his head.

&n
bsp; He screamed—and then everything in the treasure room went black.

  Chapter One

  October

  The storm was rolling closer.

  Kate Haywood shook back the fur-lined hood of her cloak and peered up doubtfully at the sky. When they set out early that morning from her father’s cottage, turning toward Queen Elizabeth’s court at Windsor, it had been chilly but clear, with a tinge of promising sunlight on the horizon. Now even that was gone. The sky was slate gray, and a cold wind swept over the hills and caught at her skirts.

  But there was no rain yet. Hopefully they would reach the castle before they were drenched. Kate raised her gloved hand to shield her eyes from the gray glare of the lowering sky to scan the horizon, but she couldn’t yet see the gates and towers of the castle.

  Her friend Rob Cartman drew in his horse beside her. His troupe of actors, who performed under the patronage of the queen’s cousin Lord Hunsdon, were to join him soon at Windsor. They had been summoned by his lordship to amuse his royal kinswoman, but Rob had come ahead to escort Kate to court. It had been a fine few days at her father’s home, with the three of them playing music in the evenings and gossiping of the court—and morning walks for Kate and Rob for a few stolen moments alone. As friends, of course. That was all they could be.

  Those moments would come to an end once they were with the queen again. There were few private corners at court, and no moments that were not dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. She would also have to forget the newly arrived letter she now carried in her cloak pocket, a message from her friend Anthony Elias, who was trying to set up his own work as an attorney in London. He said little about what happened when they last parted, only that he missed her and treasured her letters about court life. Would they meet again one day? Kate wondered—and hoped.

  Rob smiled at her from beneath the broad brim of his blue velvet hat. Even in the gray gloom of the day, his golden hair and blue eyes glowed with a summery warmth and laughter that always drew Kate to him. “Wishing you were back by your father’s cozy fireside, Kate?”

  She laughed, and thought wistfully of that very fireside, which they had left only that morning. Her father was growing older, and she feared his eyesight was fading and his gout worsening, but his home and company were as warm as they had ever been, a cozy clutter of books and musical manuscripts. Even her fine cloak and new boots didn’t seem to keep out the chill of the day. There was a strange foreboding on the breeze. “I fear my feet shall never be warm again! But I could never ignore the queen’s summons. Her message sounded most urgent, which is not like her.”

  A frown flickered across Rob’s face, a shadow on the sun. “They say Sir Robert Dudley has left court for a time. That he and the queen had a quarrel, and her temper has become more uncertain because of it.”

  Kate swallowed hard, and shook her head. Rob was quite right. It wasn’t only the weather that darkened at Queen Elizabeth’s court now, if she and Sir Robert had quarreled again. After the royal summer progress, where Kate was kept busy playing music for the queen’s picnics, banquets, and dances, Kate had been given leave to visit her father for a few weeks. She did love the life of the court—the color and company, the spectacle, and the chance to help the queen in whatever way she could, for Elizabeth was surely the great hope of England’s future.

  Yet Kate often missed her father, who had retired from his own courtly musical career, and was happy for their time together in his quiet cottage and small, pretty garden. They spent the days talking of Kate’s beautiful mother, who had died when Kate was born; of music, old and new; of the gossip from courtiers and foreign courts. They were together too seldom.

  She had not told her father quite everything about her life in the queen’s palaces, though. She didn’t want to worry him by telling him she sometimes did secret work for the queen, that Elizabeth’s chief secretary, William Cecil, was teaching her code breaking and even a bit of swordplay, in the event that—heaven forbid—the queen would need Kate’s protection someday.

  Nor had she told her father about her feelings for Rob, which were blooming deep inside her heart, though she had seen the speculative glint in his fading eyes when Rob arrived to escort her back to court. She was not ready to explain it all even to herself yet, let alone her father or the queen. She had not told them of Anthony’s letters, either, or the necklace that had been Rob’s gift.

  She had been very glad indeed to see Rob, but the letter he brought her from the queen was worrisome. Kate had hoped to stay with her father until closer to Christmas. All had seemed quiet enough when she left Elizabeth—or as quiet as the royal life could ever be. After the merriment and constant movement of the summer progress, Elizabeth had been settling down for more peaceful months of work with Cecil and the rest of the privy council.

  But the queen’s quarrels reached even to Matthew Haywood’s peaceful fireside. The queen would be in a temper indeed, if she had argued again with Sir Robert, her favorite courtier and rumored lover. And Dudley’s enemies would be circling.

  Kate was quite sure that Sir Robert’s woeful tale was one of the reasons she was being summoned back to court now, yet she didn’t know what she could do to help. She knew that Cecil hated Dudley, that the two men were bitter rivals for influence over the queen, but Kate rather liked the man. He was ambitious, but so was everyone else at court, and Kate could see that he truly cared about Queen Elizabeth.

  “Perhaps the queen needs us to distract her with our music,” she said to Rob.

  He shrugged, and his frown turned to a smile. Rob’s moods were always quickly changeable. “That is our job, is it not? To distract?”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, and waved at his apprentice actor, Thomas Tintagel, who had met them at the last village to ride on to Windsor. Kate smiled at Thomas as he drew his horse to her other side, but the poor lad looked as glum as he had all day. He was handsome, as most actors were, with curling brown hair and melting dark eyes, but he also had the melancholy nature of many actors, entertaining them with sad songs and long sighs over the ride.

  Kate feared he took the role of romantical swain rather too seriously, for the poetry he had insisted on reciting had all been of lost loves and vanished homes.

  Rob had teased Thomas about being “lovesick” and told Kate that Thomas had a sweetheart he was missing, but Thomas would not say exactly who the girl was, or if she had turned down his suit. Thomas would just sigh, and look toward the horizon. Rob said when Thomas was allowed on a brief visit to court for an audition a few weeks ago, the time seemed to cheer the lad up. Maybe this time would be the same. Perhaps his sweetheart was at court.

  “An apprentice cannot afford to marry,” she heard Thomas whisper every so often.

  Kate did love a sadly romantic tale as much as any musician, but she wondered if her limits for hopeless love in one journey were coming to an end. Between Rob and Anthony, and the queen quarreling with Robert Dudley, she thought she just might have had enough of the drama that came with love.

  “We shall be there soon, eh, Tom?” Rob said. “Another fine taste of court life for you.”

  Thomas sighed deeply. “How will it be different now? She told me the last time we could not see each other again. It will be the same now.”

  Kate bit her lip to hold back a giggle. Thomas was a sweet lad, truly, and she knew his complaint of not being able to afford to marry was a sad and true one, but the cold wind was making her impatient and teasing. “Well, I for one will welcome a warm fireside soon. That will be different.”

  “We should try to stay ahead of the rain,” Rob said. “Race you to Windsor, Kate!”

  He took off over the rolling slopes of the hills, and Kate laughed as she urged her horse to follow. She had always been rather uncertain about horses; they seemed unpredictable and dangerous, and once she was in their saddles, the ground was always horrifyingly far away. Yet on the royal progr
esses, she found out riding was much more comfortable than being bounced bruisingly around in a cart, and had taken lessons from the queen’s grooms.

  She wouldn’t be chasing off on the queen’s hunts anytime soon, or besting Rob in a race, but she was rather proud of her advancement.

  She and Rob galloped onto the lane that led to Windsor’s gatehouse, Thomas chasing behind them with yelped protests. The wind rushed faster around them, like cold, skeletal fingers snatching at her cloak, but Kate was sure they could outrun it now. The autumnal trees grew thinner as the lane widened.

  Her laughter faded as they came to the crest of a hill and found themselves staring down at Windsor. After pretty, summer-bright palaces like Richmond and Nonsuch, Windsor loomed like a dark, ominous sentinel against the gray clouds. The thick walls and tall towers seemed to stare back at her, immovable, unbreechable, peering out from behind thick walls. Only the plume of silvery smoke from the chimneys, and a small flare of golden candlelight in one of the high tower windows, broke the gloom.

  Yet even that small light gave her hope. She already missed her father, and his cozy sitting room, but she had missed Queen Elizabeth, too, and now she was near to court again. What would she find behind those silent walls?

  As they rode closer, a sentry emerged from the gatehouse, his halberd held at the ready. “Who goes there?”

  “Rob Cartman for Lord Hunsdon, and Mistress Haywood, the queen’s own musician,” Rob answered. The sentry quickly let them pass, and they passed through the arched gate into a large, cobbled courtyard. The great gallery of the palace stretched to one side, the chapel on the other, and everything was eerily quiet. A groom rushed out to take their horses.

  Kate hurried up a flight of stone steps and through the great, carved doors into a narrow corridor. It was barely warmer inside than out in the courtyard, a chilly draft sweeping along the flagstone floor, and she noticed again the strange quiet. Court was never quiet.