Murder at the Queen's Masquerade

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Murder at the Queen's Masquerade Page 2

by Amanda Carmack


  A rush of running footsteps echoed on the bare walls, and a woman emerged from another shadowed doorway. Kate was most relieved to see it was her friend Lady Violet Green, her pale blond hair and pearl-edged cap gleaming in the gloomy light.

  “Oh, Kate, thank the stars you are here!” Violet cried, hurrying over to give Kate a quick hug. She grasped Kate’s hand and pulled her along the corridor. “The queen has set me to watch for you. She wants to see you as soon as you have arrived.”

  Kate cast a bemused glance back over her shoulder to Rob, whom they were swiftly leaving behind. He gave her an encouraging smile, and waved her on.

  “I am very glad to see you as well, Vi, but I am still in my travel cloak,” Kate protested. “I cannot see the queen like this! Surely it can’t be so very urgent.” She suddenly remembered other times she had been summoned so insistently to the queen’s presence—and there had always been someone dead or missing. She shivered, and it had naught to do with the chilly corridor. “Or is it? What has happened? Is the queen ill?”

  Violet turned back to Kate, her eyes huge under the peaked edge of her cap. Kate noticed that Violet did not wear her usual gowns of pinks and pale greens and silvers, but a plain dark blue.

  “Has something happened to baby Catherine? Or your husband?” Kate whispered.

  A faint smile finally flashed over Violet’s face, and she was her usual lighthearted friend. “Nay, not at all! My daughter, your namesake, is very well indeed. She crawls everywhere now, and I vow she has at least ten words. My lord is also well, though he has left court in the company of Sir Robert Dudley for a short time. I left Catherine at our house in the country so that I can be with the queen while he is gone. I believe he has gone to visit Lady Dudley at Compton Verney. They say she is ill.”

  Master Green was in the service of Dudley again? Kate could only guess what that meant now. The last time Sir Robert took Master Green with him, he had been gone from Violet and the baby for many weeks. “Oh, Vi. I am sorry.”

  Violet’s smile became strained. “’Tis no matter. I am sure this latest quarrel between the queen and Sir Robert will be cleared away quickly, as usual, and they will return to court. In the meantime, it has been most solemn here. We wear our plainest clothes, as you can see.”

  If there was one thing court had not been since Elizabeth became queen, it was solemn. After a lifetime of insecurity and danger, Queen Elizabeth liked to make merry. Yet Kate could feel the dark clouds closing in around the stone walls of the castle. “We shall have to change that, then.”

  “It will be better now that you’re here.” Violet’s voice lowered to a whisper. “The worst part is, my husband left his mother here to keep me company in his absence! Or that is how he said it, anyway. I do not believe for a moment it was his idea. She hates not being at court where she can hear all the gossip firsthand.”

  “Nay!” Kate cried. She remembered all Violet’s stories of her mother-in-law, of the way Lady Green thought nothing was run as well in the Green households as they were when she was the chatelaine, and she did not hesitate to say so to everyone. She terrified sweet Violet.

  Violet nodded grimly. “Aye. I have tried to stay out of her way, but things are so quiet here now that it is becoming too difficult. She does not like the way the nurse takes care of Catherine, or how I dress, or of how her widow’s portion is paid. I can do nothing right. At least here she spends more time with her friend Lady Lennox. And her horrid new pet monkey. I swear she sets him to bite me on purpose.” She gave a determined smile. “But now things will be better! Come, I will take you to my chamber so you can change your gown. I was given my own room, far from Lady Green’s, and the queen has said you can share it with me. Then Her Grace insists she must see you right away . . .”

  Chapter Two

  After changing out of her cloak and tidying her hair, Kate followed Violet up the narrow, winding staircase that led up into one of Windsor’s towers to the queen’s bedchamber.

  Kate was struck by the silence as they made their way upward. The queen’s palaces were seldom quiet at all. The corridors and chambers were always crowded with courtiers and petitioners, whispering and laughing together, playing cards, dancing, tossing boules in the garden, the constant rise and fall of voices punctuated by the strains of lutes and the barking of the ladies’ lapdogs. But Windsor today was so quiet that the silence nearly echoed off the chilly stone walls. The shadows were only lightened by the gray daylight peeking through the narrow windows, and their footsteps clattered on the stairs with inordinate loudness. Even the public great hall had an eerie feel to it. The crowd they passed, normally so loud, stood silent, dark-clad, watching everything with wide, fearful eyes. The balance of power at court had shifted again with Dudley’s departure, and it was obvious no one knew what to do now.

  The scene was no more cheerful in the queen’s chamber. Kate quickly scanned her surroundings as she followed Violet through the door, and she couldn’t help thinking that it could be a Vision of Woe in one of Rob’s plays. All the queen’s ladies attended her as usual, but their gowns of black, dark blue, and gray seemed to spread an inky stain over the brightly woven tapestries draped over the walls, and the red and gold velvet hangings of the royal bed. The queen must be feeling glum indeed about Sir Robert being gone.

  A fire crackled in the grate, and the ladies sat near its warmth on their cushions and low footstools, reading and sewing, their dogs frolicking around them.

  Not all the ladies were there, though. The queen’s cousin, Lady Margaret Lennox, sat on a straight-backed chair on the other side of the fireplace. Lady Margaret was the daughter of Henry VIII’s sister, Queen Margaret of Scotland, and had been King Henry’s favorite niece, despite being sent to the Tower as a young lady when she tried to marry a Howard without permission. She was forgiven, and married to the Earl of Lennox, and had even been given precedence over Elizabeth at Queen Mary’s court. Now she was whispered of as a possible heir to Queen Elizabeth, but everyone knew she was not favored by the queen.

  Lady Margaret, too, wore black, a rich satin trimmed with jet and pearl embroidery, but that was her usual raiment. Black velvets and silks, glossy dark furs, pearl-edged white caps. Even when the other ladies made merry, she seldom joined in, considering herself far above such things. Today, Lady Margaret whispered with the lady who sat next to her, and Kate saw that her companion was Violet’s demanding mother-in-law, Lady Green.

  They were an interesting pair, Kate thought. Where Lady Margaret was tall and imposing, her fading Tudor red hair piled high, Lady Green was tiny and thin as a sparrow, her gray curls the same color as her gown and veil. At her feet scampered a pet monkey, dressed in an embroidered doublet trimmed with the same gray silk as Lady Green’s gown but shimmering with gold embroidery. It chattered and tugged at her fur-edged hem, and she clucked at it indulgently.

  As Lady Green lifted the animal onto her knee, her gaze fell on her daughter-in-law, and her expression changed. She frowned, and her brows lowered.

  Kate remembered what Violet said about life with Lady Green—nothing was right in her eyes. But she had no time to even squeeze Violet’s hand in reassurance, for she heard the queen call out, “Kate Haywood! There you are at last. You took your time in answering our summons.”

  Startled, Kate spun around to see the queen seated on a cushioned embrasure in the one large window looking down at the garden. Queen Elizabeth wore black velvet that made her blend into the gray stone, her bright hair and the white gossamer veil of her cap the only flash of light. An open book lay on her lap, but her fingers tapped on its pages restlessly. Kat Ashley, her Mistress of the Robes, stood beside her.

  Kate quickly curtsied, and Elizabeth waved her forward. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I set out as soon as the weather seemed clear.”

  Elizabeth gave a brusque nod. “Kat,” she said, “fetch me some wine, and have one of the maids play to us on the v
irginals. It is too quiet in here, and the hours pass too slowly.”

  Mistress Ashley was obviously reluctant to leave the queen’s side, but she nodded and hurried away with a worried frown. A page soon brought in a tray of silver goblets, and the strains of the virginals spread across the silent chamber, lightening the heavy darkness a bit and covering Elizabeth’s soft words as she gestured to Kate to sit down beside her.

  “You have heard that Sir Robert has left us for a time,” Elizabeth said. Her long, white fingers adorned with pearls and rubies still tapped restlessly at her book.

  Kate nodded, careful to keep a polite smile on her lips. She had well learned the importance of never revealing her true thoughts, or her true errands for the queen. “Indeed, Your Grace. I was told he has gone to see to his wife.”

  “Aye. For a time.” The queen glanced out the window, her eyes very dark in the paleness of her face. “I trust he will return very soon. I need friends I can trust around me.”

  Sir Robert—trustworthy? Kate was not so very certain of that. “I am sure of it.”

  Elizabeth gave a brusque nod. “How fares your father, Kate? I trust this chilly weather has not made him feel ill again?”

  “He is quite well, Your Grace. The syrup you sent him has worked wonders. He sends you some new madrigals he composed.”

  “Then you must play them for me, as soon as may be! I fear you will soon wish yourself back at Matthew’s peaceful fireside, Kate, for it is gloomy days here at court,” the queen said with a flash of angry frankness. “I only wish my dearest cousin did not insist on being with us at this moment.”

  “Do you mean Lady Lennox, Your Grace?” Kate glanced at Margaret Lennox, and found that the countess in turn was studying them. Lady Lennox smiled and nodded, but her eyes narrowed coldly. Lady Green whispered something in her ear, and she nodded.

  “Aye, Lady Lennox. She and her friend Lady Green are always here now, whispering just like that. She is your friend Lady Violet’s mother-in-law, I think?”

  Kate saw Violet standing behind Lady Green’s chair, trying to keep the monkey from quarreling with one of the lapdogs. Lady Green snapped something at her, and Violet blushed. “So she is.”

  “Your poor friend,” Queen Elizabeth said. “At least a mother-in-law is one plague I do not have.” She suddenly leaped to her feet, her black velvet skirts rustling. The room went perfectly silent again, the song abruptly ended. Even Lady Green’s monkey went still. “I declare I have had enough of this silence! It is bad enough that it must rain outside—we shall have no more dark clouds in here. Not in my own castle.”

  “Are you declaring a holiday, then, cousin?” Lady Lennox asked.

  “I am—for one night,” Elizabeth said. “My chief musician has returned to my court, so I say she shall organize a masked ball to celebrate the autumn harvest. It shall be tomorrow night.”

  An excited wave of laughter swept over the crowd of ladies, so solemn only a moment before. Lady Lennox and Lady Green exchanged a wordless look, their brows raised.

  “Tomorrow, Your Grace?” Kate said. She felt herself becoming excited at the challenge, and thoughts of music and new dances ran though her mind. But there was also something in the queen’s dark eyes, some frantic glitter, she couldn’t quite decipher.

  “Aye. I know you can do it, Kate. And were you not accompanied here by that handsome player Master Cartman, who garners such praise from my cousin Lord Hunsdon?”

  “I was, Your Grace, and one of his apprentices came with us.”

  “Then they shall assist you. And Lady Violet will help with the costumes. I am sure there is fabric and old gowns aplenty in the corners of this gloomy place. We can use the great hall.”

  All the ladies-in-waiting and the young maids of honor were jumping up with excitement now, and the queen’s pale cheeks were flaming bright pink.

  “Come with me, all of you, and bring candles,” Elizabeth called. With her usual changeable mood, she spun around and rushed toward a steep spiral staircase in the corner of her chamber, half hidden behind the elaborate curtains of the bed. Her ladies scrambled to follow in a flurry of dark skirts and laughter, catching up any candlestick or candelabra they could find.

  Violet caught Kate’s hand and whispered, “What is Her Grace planning?”

  “I have no idea,” Kate answered. She noticed that Lady Lennox and Lady Green were the only ones who didn’t jump up from their seats to follow.

  But Kate had no more time to watch them, nor did she want to be brought low by their disapproving frowns any more than the other ladies did. They were swept along by the shimmering quicksilver of the queen, and the gloom was dispelled for the moment.

  Queen Elizabeth threw open a stout, iron-bound door at the top of the stairs, and led them into a small room. It was a strange space, with no windows, and a low ceiling covered in gilded, carved panels. Lining the curved walls were stacks of coffers and chests. The light of the candles shimmered as everyone crowded around, like a cave of wonders.

  “What is this place, Your Grace?” one of the maids asked breathlessly.

  “My wardrobe room, of course,” the queen answered. She danced around the chamber, throwing open chest after chest to reveal drawers lined with velvet compartments, trunks filled with bolts of cloth, gesturing to her ladies to come closer. She was obviously in one of the recklessly generous moods that sometimes overcame her, and Kate felt a tiny, cold touch of disquiet in the midst of the laughter.

  Elizabeth tossed an armful of scarlet satin to the lady nearest her. “Mistress Ashley is usually the only one with a key to this room, but I declare it open right now for our masquerade chamber. We shall turn ourselves into creatures of myth! What think you of all this?”

  Her ladies whirled around the small chamber in an improvised dance, sighing over the contents of the precious chests, the lengths of fine satins and the furs.

  Kate glanced toward the door where Violet waited, and saw her friend’s laughter cut off as Lady Green grabbed her arm and whispered something in her ear. Violet slid away, not looking at her mother-in-law. Kate instinctively started to go to her friend, but Elizabeth tossed her an armful of bright blue brocade.

  “We shall make great merriment, if only for one night, and forget this rain!” the queen cried. She laughed along with her ladies, yet Kate could see that the queen’s laughter was too bright, her cheeks blazing with streaks of flame red. It felt as if they were dancing on a cannon that would explode the stone walls of Windsor at any moment.

  Elizabeth spun around in a blur of black skirts, and whirled to a sudden, staggering halt in front of one of the tall, narrow jewel cases. She reached out to slide open a drawer, and the contents laid out on red velvet linings flashed and sparkled like lightning in the gray sky. Elizabeth went very still.

  The queen glanced back at her ladies with a strange half smile on her lips. “What think you all of these?”

  The women all gathered around her, like a flock of dark-plumed birds. It was rare indeed that the queen gave her attendants a glimpse of her jewels in such a way. Usually Mistress Ashley, as Mistress of the Robes, chose the queen’s necklaces and earrings for the day and presented them, perhaps letting one of the younger ladies fasten them around the royal neck or atop Elizabeth’s red-gold coiffure. Even thus carefully parceled out, they were dazzling. Rubies and diamonds and creamy pearls in drawer after drawer, they were near otherworldly.

  Elizabeth lifted out one heavy strand of pearls, perfect shimmering white circles as large as thrush’s eggs. “Mayhap I shall go as a mermaid, all draped in pearls and that blue brocade. What think you ladies of that?”

  As they all giggled and exclaimed over the beauty of such an idea, Kate carefully watched the queen’s face. Elizabeth seemed very far away, as if she didn’t actually see the jewels in her hand. She reached for something else, a piece set by itself on a plump black cus
hion.

  It was a single pearl, enormous and teardrop-shaped, glowing like the moon on the end of a thin gold chain.

  “This was my mother’s,” Elizabeth said quietly. “One of her favorite jewels. I was told that when I was an infant, she would lay me at her feet on a scarlet pillow and hold this pearl above my eyes, and would laugh when I tried to catch it. Perhaps I shall wear it in my hair for the dancing . . .”

  “Nay!” someone cried. The room fell into startled silence, and Elizabeth turned with a scowl to see who had spoken thus.

  It was Lady Margaret Lennox. She looked as shocked as everyone else to have blurted out such a thing, even though Lady Margaret was certainly not a lady known for holding her tongue. Lady Margaret was a Tudor, after all, and would not hide dissatisfaction. But she also knew how to be political, and play her hand smoothly to stay afloat at a stormy court. She had made her way through four monarchs, and an involuntary lodging at the Tower, to land safely where she was now.

  Everyone knew, though, that her place at court was once again precarious, especially without the queen’s favor.

  Lady Margaret quickly pasted a bland smile on her lips, and drew herself up to her full height. “I do believe, Your Grace, that my own mother, Queen Margaret, brought the pearl with her when she came from Scotland.”

  All the silent ladies glanced from Lady Margaret to the queen, as if they watched a tennis match. They all seemed to hear what was not said with those words—that Queen Anne had taken a pearl that was not hers.

  “Did she indeed?” Elizabeth studied the gem thoughtfully. “’Twas most generous of her, then, to gift it to her brother, my father, King Henry.”

  She gently placed the pearl back in its place, and pushed the drawer closed with a snap. The room, so merry only a moment before, slid back into gloom. “Come, ladies, we have much work to do! We have lingered here long enough.”

  The queen whirled around and swept out of the darkened chamber, and her ladies scurried to follow, whispering among themselves. Lady Green took Lady Margaret’s arm, and they followed the rest in silence.

 

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