“Even if Mary is ill, she is still queen,” Kate said. “The burnings still go on.”
“More every day,” Anthony said gravely. “The latest was five people in Ipswich, including two women.”
Kate shuddered at the images his words painted in her mind. If evidence of heresy was found at Hatfield, Elizabeth wouldn’t burn—she would face the ax, like her mother and her cousin Jane Grey. But her servants could go to the stake. Servants such as Kate, her father, Penelope Bassett, even the poor mute kitchen boy.
Nay! She would not let that happen. England had one hope for the future, and that was Elizabeth. And a raging bully like Braceton could not be allowed to bring that down.
The problem was that Braceton was a powerful bully, and Kate a mere young musician. But she had her life and the life of those she loved to fight for.
“Can you find out more about what happened at Bacon’s house?” she asked Anthony.
A wry smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You think you can discover what this Lord Braceton is about?”
“I can try. Somehow I have the feeling he is up to more than merely searching for heretical books or letters about any planned uprisings. I can’t do anything against him unless I know what is really going on.”
“I will help you however I can, of course. I’ll always help you, Kate. I hope you know that,” he said softly. Then, to her shock, he took her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss.
Unlike his salute in the shop, this was no mere mock courtly gesture, but a gentle, lingering touch of his mouth on her skin. Kate stared at his dark head bent over her hand, astonished, amazed . . .
Delighted? She hardly had time to try to decipher her jumbled feelings when a shout split the cold air.
“Fornicators!” The stark, explosive word sent birds from the trees in a burst of wings and squawks.
Anthony dropped her hand and spun around, his body protectively blocking Kate’s. She went up on tiptoe to peer past his shoulder, her stomach in knots.
The figure that greeted her sight was surely like something out of that vanished Last Judgment painting. Tall, thin to the point of being skeletal, with pale waxy-white skin stretched taut over sharp bones and burning water blue eyes, all draped in dusty old black robes. The specter pointed one long, shaking finger at them.
“Fornicators!” the phantom shouted again, a voice shockingly loud and booming for such an ethereal figure. “How dare you defile God’s house in such a way?”
“Master Payne, I assure you we were doing no such thing in, er, God’s house,” Anthony said calmly. He held his hands up in a peaceable gesture, but he still sheltered Kate with his body. “We were merely walking through the churchyard.”
Kate recognized the man then. It was no ghost, though in truth it might as well have been. For it was Master Payne, who had been the Protestant minister of the church under King Edward. He had been turned out unceremoniously when Mary became queen.
Master Payne had been of a distinctly Puritan bent and, it was said, had preached extreme, almost Lutheran ways in his sermons, railing against ornament and merriment of all sorts, tossing Catholic prayer books and vestments onto bonfires. It was said most of the townspeople were relieved to not listen to him from the pulpit any longer.
Not that Master Payne was completely silenced. When he had been tossed out of the parsonage, he refused to go live quietly with his family in the next county or to flee abroad as so many other ardent Protestants did, including Elizabeth’s own Carey-Boleyn cousins. Instead he found an old sheepherder’s hut in the woods and took up residence there, as hermits did in centuries past.
He sometimes emerged from the woods to stagger around the village, exhorting people to mend their sinful ways, to embrace martyrdom and defy the demon Papist queen. How he had not been seized and burned long ago was a wonder. Most people merely thought him quite unhinged and rather harmless, easily batted away. Kate herself had only glimpsed him once or twice, darting around the empty church that had been his domain.
But was he really so very harmless? She couldn’t think so now, as she stared at him, her mouth dry with startlement.
He was so very large, the arm revealed under his fallen-back sleeve surprisingly muscled. And his eyes were glowing with an inner, furious fire she’d only seen on Queen Mary’s most Catholic ministers, who came periodically to harangue Elizabeth.
Just like Lord Braceton.
“I have been watching you—all of you!” Master Payne shouted with a sweep of his torn sleeve. “You come to this place to do your foul deeds. England has become a sinful place, and we shall all be destroyed by it. All except the righteous, who have a duty to fight back. I see everything.”
“Everything, Master Payne?” Kate said, finding her voice again. Master Payne did indeed have a way of lurking around, unseen by everyone because they did not want to see him. Didn’t want to acknowledge madness in their midst, as they tried to keep their heads down quietly and survive. Perhaps he had seen who attacked Braceton.
Perhaps he had even done it himself, “fought back” against the Papists. Surely attacking the queen’s man was an act of madness.
Kate eased around Anthony, still afraid as Master Payne turned his wild stare on her. But she was calm, knowing they were still within shouting distance of the street, and remembering her promise to Elizabeth that she would find out all she could. Master Payne, for all his shouting of fire and sin, might be able to shed a tiny bit of light on the confusing tangle of Braceton.
“Did you happen to see anything last night, Master Payne?” she asked quietly.
“Kate . . .” Anthony said. He moved to take her arm, to push her behind him again, but she held him off.
“I see many things,” Payne said. “God has given me the gift of seeing into men’s hearts, and most of them are black with sin. But they shall be punished in the fullness of time.”
“Indeed, sinners shall be punished,” Kate said, as if what he preached was the most logical thing in the world. “God has chosen you as His instrument, has He not? He knows you are a faithful servant.”
Payne’s gaze shifted, as if a flicker of uncertainty passed over him. “I am His faithful servant. I will do anything to bring God’s favor back to this land.”
Anything—even kill? “Then we must all be grateful to you, Master Payne, for your great work and sacrifice,” she said. “Were you out doing God’s work last night?”
“I do His work in every moment. It leads me to see shameful things. I could tell you much, young lady, but I will not sully you with further knowledge of such sins. You should not go out at night. Evil lurks on these very roads. But one day soon the evil will be purged. I will see it done.”
Kate swallowed hard and nodded. She wanted to shout with impatience, as Princess Elizabeth sometimes did, to grab Master Payne by his meager hair and demand he tell her what he’d seen or done on the road last night. But, aside from the fact that he was much taller than she and could swat her off in an instant, she knew that was no way to find out what she wanted.
“You have seen more Catholics come into the neighborhood of late,” she said.
“Kate, we should go,” Anthony whispered to her. She nodded, her gaze never leaving Payne, whose skeletal face hardened.
“They are polluting the very air,” he said. “But one has paid. The others will soon.”
“What do you mean?” Kate demanded. Payne gave her a smug smile, but before he could answer, a shout came from the churchyard gate, a man passing by trying to shoo Payne away as if he were an errant pig broken loose among the tombstones.
Payne whirled around and fled at the noise, vanishing behind the church in a flurry of black robes.
“God’s blood,” Kate whispered, using Elizabeth’s favorite curse. Surely she’d been close to finding out something! Payne seemed mad, but there had to be a kind of truth in his words.
“You shouldn’t speak to him at all, Kate,” Anthony said as they walked out of the
churchyard. He held the gate open for her, making sure no one still lurked on the walkway. “There is no knowing what a madman like that will do when provoked.”
“Everyone says he is quite harmless,” she murmured, turning over Payne’s few words in her mind as she searched for a kernel of a clue.
“As long as he stays in the woods, perhaps. But we have all seen the lengths people in the grip of religious fervor will go to,” Anthony said quietly, solemnly. “These are dangerous days for everyone. We must walk very carefully.”
“Somebody refused to ‘walk carefully’ last night, and it has put us all in danger,” Kate said. “But you are very right about religion—it can be such a force for good, but it can also make people unhinged. Payne is surely as fanatical a Protestant as Braceton is a Catholic. Do you think then it was Payne who tried to kill the man?”
“Payne?” Anthony said, his voice full of surprised consideration. “Perhaps so. He surely wouldn’t consider murdering a queen’s man, a Catholic, to be a sin. In his mind he would be ridding the land of one more dirty, sinning fornicator.”
Kate laughed at the word “fornicator,” shouted at them so furiously by Payne in the churchyard. And so ridiculous—Anthony had never so much as kissed her cheek. “He would consider it his duty as God’s instrument. And he is strong enough, though it doesn’t take enormous strength to wield a bow like that.”
“But he also wouldn’t scruple to admit it. The man cares naught for what happens to him.”
“Nay. I think he would welcome the stake. I just need to get him to talk longer, to admit it if he is the culprit. Perhaps there is some link between Master Payne and Lord Braceton? Mayhap Braceton is responsible for the deaths of some of Payne’s reformist friends. Or maybe . . .”
“Kate.” Anthony suddenly took her hand, swinging her around to face him. “You must not speak to him again. It would be too dangerous.”
She felt a sudden flash of warm anger flare through her at his stern words. She was not his wife—she was no man’s wife, and no one’s to command except her father’s. And he never tried to command her, which had given her a sense of her own mind. What right had Anthony to tell her she “must not” do something—especially when Payne seemed her only hope to find out what had happened on that dark road?
But then she saw the concern in his eyes, his beautiful green eyes, as he looked down at her, and her anger softened. She didn’t want to analyze why his concern, his protectiveness, moved her. Not now. Braceton’s attack was a thorny enough problem. How much more complex would a heart’s hidden desire be?
“I know you speak as my friend, Anthony,” she said as they walked on, side by side but not touching. She still remembered that shout of “Fornicators!” and wanted to attract no more gossip to Hatfield. “And I thank you for it. But I must help Princess Elizabeth if I can; she has been so kind to my father and me. And I am quite sure Master Payne knows something that would exonerate her of this attack.”
“Something that has already gotten one man killed,” Anthony muttered.
Kate swallowed hard. “I know that very well, and I shall always be careful. But as you said, these are dark days. We must all be prepared to defend what we believe in or all shall be lost.”
And she believed Elizabeth was the future. A future that was so near it seemed to shimmer just on the horizon—but it was not there yet. It could still all be snatched away.
“Then promise me one thing—as my friend,” he said.
“What is that?”
“That if you insist on finding Payne again, you will let me go with you.”
“I can’t let you put yourself in danger, not now when you are so close to going to London!”
“Then I will just follow you in secret. I won’t let you put yourself in harm’s way if I can help, Kate.”
She smiled at his words, and nodded. “Then I would be most grateful, truly, both for your sword-arm and your lawyer’s mind. I think it will take every ounce of both to wring a coherent answer from Master Payne.”
Anthony gave a wry laugh. “You have more than a touch of the lawyer’s mind yourself, Kate. You could certainly outstubborn any jury.”
“I shall take that as a compliment,” she said happily.
“And so you should, for I meant it as one,” Anthony said as they reached the edge of the village.
The road back to Hatfield stretched before them, the trees crowding thickly on either side as their leaves drifted down. “There is no one quite like you, Kate.” He squeezed her hand as they parted and gave her a dazzling smile.
At his words, Kate’s steps felt strangely lighter as she turned toward home. A faint ray of sunlight broke through the slate-colored clouds, casting shifting panels of pale yellow light on the muddy ground. Kate paused to let some of its watery, elusive warmth touch her skin. She would be shut up behind cold walls again soon enough, with Braceton and his men restricting everyone’s movements at Hatfield. Surely, for a few minutes, there was no need to hurry. She had so much to think about.
She sat down on a fallen log, tucking the folds of Elizabeth’s red cloak around her as she remembered the events of the day. The whole village seemed determined to go on as normal, despite Braceton and the death of his manservant. Except for the usual fears they always lived under in these dark days, there appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary in the cobbled lanes and busy shops.
That was odd. News and gossip were usually vital to everyone in such a small place. Why were they minding their own business now?
Surely someone knew far more than they were telling. The truth had to be close by. And despite the fact that Kate knew very well indeed that she should follow their example, keep her head down and say nothing, she couldn’t. Something inside of her, some spark of eager and dangerous curiosity that had been with her since she was a little girl, wouldn’t let her. All that had happened since Braceton burst into Hatfield was swirling around in her mind and wouldn’t be cast out.
They were all going to hell for their popish ways, she remembered Master Payne shouting, and when she closed her eyes she saw again his wild expression, the bony, trembling finger pointing at her. Mad he very well could be, just as everyone said. But mad people could sometimes see things others could not. And, even though Payne himself had been spared prison and the stake, surely many of his reformist friends had not. Maybe one of them was connected to Braceton. Maybe Payne thought God urged him to find revenge.
Before Kate could change her mind, she turned around and headed back the way she had come. But she didn’t return to the village. They were too closemouthed there at the moment. She went the opposite direction at the turn of the lane and headed into the cold shadows of the woods.
As the light was blotted out above her head, she shivered and pulled the warm cloak closer around her. She never liked venturing into the woods alone. There was a strange feeling along its pathways, the eerie sense that something was always watching from under the cover of trees and underbrush. That feeling was even stronger now that murder had been done nearby.
Kate pushed away the fear. She had to find out all she could; there was no time to cower when so much was at stake. Holding the hem of her skirt above the damp ground, she hurried in the direction of where she knew Master Payne had been living since his church was taken from him. It was said that he wasn’t there often, that he preferred to wander about shouting of sin and doom—which Kate could certainly attest to. Yet maybe she could find something there that would tell her if Master Payne knew more about what had happened to Braceton and his servant.
She found the old hut in a small clearing in the woods. It didn’t look as if anyone could possibly live there; the walls were tilted so precariously and the thatched roof sagged. No smoke came from the crumbling chimney. Kate crouched behind a tree and carefully examined the scene, listening closely for any hint of sound. She heard only the whistle of the wind in the bare branches.
She tiptoed closer and knocked on the splintered
door. “Master Payne?” she called, pushing down the nervousness inside her. “Are you there? I mean you no harm; I only wish to talk to you for a moment. To talk about—about salvation.”
There was no answer. Kate tested the door latch and it turned under her hand. The door swung slowly open.
A terrible stench rolled out over her as she peered over the threshold, and she choked on it. But she forced herself to move forward against the smell and the darkness of the tiny space.
If Master Payne was hiding something, he had few enough places for it, Kate thought as her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she could see just how cramped, damp, and dusty it all was. A thin pallet was rolled up in a corner, and the fly-speckled remains of a meal sat on a rough-hewn table. The floor was hard-packed dirt, no room for a trapdoor. The only possible hiding place was a single old box in the corner.
Kate glanced back over her shoulder to the gray light of day beyond the door. Everything was silent and still out there, but surely it wouldn’t be for long. Even if Master Payne had gone off to harangue someone else, fired up by thoughts of sin and fornication, he would have to come home sometime. To hide from Braceton and his men, who would surely find him soon enough. And Kate had to be back at Hatfield before dark if she didn’t want to get into trouble herself.
She hurried over to pry open the lid of the box and peek inside. Another rolling wave of stink hit her in the face, and she pressed her sleeve to her nose. Through watery eyes, she saw the smell came from a pile of rusty old black clothes, a plain white surplice turned yellow from age. She quickly shoved the garments out of the way, and at the bottom of the box she found old books and papers.
Kate reached for the first one and turned it over in her hands. Tyndale’s English Bible, the leather cover stained. Kate gasped when she saw it, for this was the very first on Queen Mary’s list of forbidden books. A book that would get a person imprisoned, fined, even killed if he were caught with it. And Master Payne was hiding it almost in plain sight.
Except that no one dared come near him in his seeming madness. But how far would a madman go to protect such dangerous things?
Murder at Hatfield House: An Elizabethan Mystery Page 5