More servants hurried around the room with platters of the finest of the queen’s Yule dishes, roasted deer and capon, meat pies and stews, fish dishes that were doubly precious with the river so cold, as well as the queen’s beloved sweets. The last dish brought in was an elaborate subtlety made to look like Whitehall itself, the almond paste formed into bricks and bridges, blue candied sheets for windows.
Kate laughed along with everyone else as jesters from Rob’s company of players tumbled and gamboled between the long tables. It was another lavish Christmas display for the queen, with everyone happily flushed with the fine wine that was a gift from the French ambassador, with flirtation and the reckless joy of the holiday. All set up to show that nothing was amiss in Elizabeth’s glittering world.
But surely everyone knew all was not well. Underneath all the noisy merriment there was a sword’s edge of dark tension, desperation, always hovering just beneath the jeweled surface. Sir Robert Dudley’s guards, garbed in his livery, clustered around the queen along with her own servants. She would come to no harm that night. But there was always that shining, sharp blade under everything at court, waiting for those who were not wary to fall down onto it and destroy themselves.
* * *
He was going to be so angry.
Mary pulled the hood of her cloak closer around her face and hurried down the torchlit street. The passing crowds jostled her, and she drew away with a surprised hiss. There were people everywhere; rushing past, laughing together on the corners, leaning out of windows to call down to one another. In the flickering light, they barely looked like people at all, but more like figures in a nightmare.
She had only wanted to be free of that stuffy little room for a while, to breathe some fresh air, see people other than the harried landlady. She’d waited her whole life to see London! Read about it, its grand mansions and vast bridges, the fashions and shops. And once she was there all she saw was the innyard from her small window.
So, what happened when she gathered her courage and crept out the kitchen door just to go for a little stroll? She got lost.
“Fool, fool,” she muttered. Why had she once thought this was such a fine idea? She would surely be lost in this endless maze of stone and wood forever, or if she did find her way back to the inn, he would find out what she had done and would be very angry.
He had been furious that she had even ventured out of her chamber the day the people from the royal court came to the inn’s great room, with their furs and their ice skates. This was far more serious.
Mary bit back a sob as she remembered that day, how intriguing it had been. Surely that dark-haired lady in the red cloak would never make such a mess out of just going for a walk! She had looked so calm, so confident. Surely she knew just how to move around London.
“Cor, look what’s wandered our way! A soft little partridge,” a man’s slurred voice called. He stumbled out of the shadows, a shambling, terrifying giant, and his great paw snatched at the edge of her cloak.
Panic flooded over her, flames against the cold night. “Leave me alone!” Mary cried. She tried to run, but her fine-soled boots slid on the cobbles, and he managed to grab a handful of her hood.
He reeled her in so close she could smell the stale reek of old onions and beer on his hot breath. Mercifully, he was too ale-shot to hold on to her, and she managed to jerk away.
“Don’t be that way, you trull!” he shouted.
“Leave her alone,” one of his friends said with a laugh. “There are plenty more Winchester geese to be had.”
Mary kept running, dodging around corners, sliding on patches of frost, not seeing at all where she was going. At last, she tumbled out of the entrance to a narrow alleyway and found herself facing the river.
A pain stabbed at her side, and she had to stop to catch her breath. She studied the dark expanse of water in front of her, the boats bearing their passengers sliding past, the moonlight shimmering on the waves. Surely if she just followed the riverbank, she could find the innyard again. But which direction?
She glanced to her right, and was startled to see the long expanse of smooth stone wall that marked the edge of the queen’s palace at Whitehall.
Fascinated, Mary studied the steps that led from the river to a carved gate, now closed. High above, soft golden light spilled from the windows of a gallery, drawing her closer. She thought she could hear the faint strains of music, some lively dance, and laughter. She imagined the scene that surely waited just beyond those walls. The bright silken gowns and flashing jewels, the handsome young men twirling their ladies around in a volta.
That was the London she had read about in her books, the London she had once imagined she would be a part of herself. Surely just behind those windows there was no loneliness, no uncertainty. She drifted closer, unnoticed in her dark cloak, and dared to lay her hand on one of the cold stones.
A burst of laughter, the splashing sound of a boat drawing up to the water steps, startled her, and she fell back a step. She pressed herself deeper into the shadows, and watched as two men leaped out of the boat to help their ladies disembark.
Mary stared at them, so fascinated that she forgot her fear. They looked like a dream, all velvet and furs and elegance, like princes and their fair princesses in poems.
One of the ladies clung to her swain’s slashed-satin sleeve, laughing up at him as he stared down at her with wonder in his eyes, as if he could not believe the glory of what had landed beside him. It made Mary’s sadness prick even sharper. She would surely never have that.
The lady caught sight of Mary lurking there, and her eyes widened. Mary tried to draw back, to run away again, but the lady hurried toward her. She was small, slender as a forest fairy, and just as quick. She held her hand, gloved in pale embroidered kid, out to Mary.
“Please,” the lady called. “Do I not know you? Where have I seen you before?”
“I—I did not mean to . . . ,” Mary stammered.
“I know! It was the Rose and Crown. Are you lost?”
Mary shook her head, frozen.
“Ned,” the lady said. “Won’t you escort her back to the inn? It is obvious she is lost and frightened, the poor thing.”
The man, no doubt Ned, tall and broad-shouldered, with dark curls under his velvet cap, held on to the lady’s arm. “What if she came here to find us?” he whispered, though Mary could hear him. “To tell someone we were there together that day?”
“Don’t be silly! Lots of people were there that day.”
But Mary had seen the look on Ned’s face, dark and suspicious, and it reawakened her fear. She spun around and fled again, even as the lady called after her. She ran and ran, past buildings and carts, until at last she recognized the yard of the Rose and Crown, with the landlady, Mistress Fawlkes, lounging in the doorway to gossip with the brewer. “Here! Where have you been, mistress?” she shouted as Mary dashed past her.
She didn’t stop until she was in her own chamber. She slammed the bar into place on the door, and dove under the bedclothes still fully clothed. It hardly mattered what anyone, even he, would do to her now. She was safe.
And she would never go out alone in the city again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
New Year’s Eve
It was cold but still on the river so early in the morning, little wind stirring at the waves. But the sky was a flat slate gray, paler gray clouds lowering over the spires, bridges, and smoking chimneys of London. Kate eyed them suspiciously, willing the snow not to fall until her errand was finished. She shivered and pulled the edges of her fur-edged cloak closer, wiggling her numb toes in her boots.
It wasn’t just the cold that made her nervous, though. It was being in a boat on the Thames. Usually she tried to use the vessels only for short journeys across the river, or when she had to provide music for the queen’s barges. Longer voyages like this one reminded her
too much of that terrible night after the queen’s coronation, when she was kidnapped by a villain and almost drowned in the cold waves at high tide.
Now, the waves lapping against the wooden edge of the boat, the shriek of gulls overhead competing with the tolling of church bells, brought the fear of those moments close to her.
Especially since there was someone who seemed to seek harm to the queen all over again.
Rob seemed to sense her apprehension, for he slid closer to her on the narrow plank seat and gave her a wide, charming smile. She had encountered him as she tried to slip out of the palace, and he insisted on going with her. Though at first she protested, instinctively secretive about the queen’s business, now she was glad of his warm presence beside her.
“I have been thinking of your strange music, Kate,” he said, as lightly as if he remarked on the weather.
Kate nodded, letting her ideas about the music distract her even more from her memories. “Have you deciphered it?”
“Not as of yet, I confess. I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my lodgings. . . .”
“You remembered it all for hours?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Of course. An actor must remember things as soon as he sees it. You surely do the same.”
Kate considered that. “I suppose I do, though I must play a song two or three times before I recall it perfectly.”
“Well, you were quite right about that particular piece—it is like no form of music I could find, even in a book I have of Arabic forms. It must be a coded message, and one with a great many numbers. Dates, mayhap, of something meant to occur?”
Kate was fascinated. Along with lock picking, Cecil’s man had shown her a bit about deciphering some simpler codes. It was very much like fitting musical notes together. “Something that has already happened?”
“I could not say yet. Does it have something to do with our journey to Chelsea today?”
“I’m not sure. I do not know exactly what I’m looking for there, or how it will fit with the music at all. But I think there might be a clue there to the doll that was left for the queen at Greenwich.” And the other notes as well.
They passed under a narrow footbridge, and the flying contents of a slop bucket barely missed their boat. Rob drew her closer, and she was glad of his warmth against the chilly day.
“How so?” he asked.
“The tiremaker who probably made the little crown has done much work in the past for the royal court, and his records seem to indicate this particular piece was made for Queen Catherine Parr for a christening gift. But I know not for who it was made, or where it has been these ten years. Was it merely the nearest thing a villain had to a royal queen—or does it have some significance in itself?”
“Why Chelsea?”
“It was something my father’s friend Mistress Park said, when she was reminiscing about her time in Queen Catherine’s household. She said Queen Catherine was a great lady, and all her servants were most devoted to her—and that she always took care of them, even when they could no longer work. Since I cannot go all the way to Sudeley, where Queen Catherine died, I thought I would see if there were any pensioners left at Chelsea who remember the Dowager Queen. Queen Elizabeth still owns the house, and when I told her my idea, she gave me a letter today telling the servants that they are safe to speak freely to me. And perhaps I can find the tiremaker while I am there, though his maid did not know where he has gone.”
“Do you remember when you lived at Chelsea, Kate?”
Kate studied the scenery sliding past as she tried to remember her childhood. The thick press of buildings had grown thinner, giving way to the water steps and fine gates of great houses. The sweet-sick smell of the river had turned to fresh greenery. Did she remember when she lived in one of those very houses, and her father worked for Queen Catherine in those brief days before she married Thomas Seymour? Or did she just imagine the gardens, the elegant rooms, the high flutter of feminine laughter and rustle of silk skirts?
“I am not sure. I was so small then, and I seldom saw Queen Catherine or Princess Elizabeth myself. I was only allowed to the great hall for a look at grand parties, and there were few of those. Queen Catherine preferred her studies, and a quiet, discreet life, which is how she married again with so few privy to it,” Kate said. “I was mostly looked after by Allison Finsley, who was Master Gerald’s sister, while my father worked. She was very kind. Queen Catherine, too, was very nice to me whenever she saw me. She was beautiful, and always dressed so elegantly, and smelled of roses. She would ask about my musical studies. . . .”
Kate frowned as an old memory of Queen Catherine flashed through her mind, a heart-shaped pale face with a sharp nose, a sweet smile. Surely she had just seen such a face, not in the haze of childhood memory but sometime recently? The image of Queen Catherine, dead for ten years, was suddenly so clear.
Of course. The girl at the Rose and Crown.
“Who was she?” Kate whispered.
“Who was who?”
She turned to Rob, and found he watched her with avid curiosity. “I am not sure yet.”
She had no time to say more, for the boat was bumping into the foot of the water steps at Chelsea. Rob leaped out, and reached back to help her.
They made their way through the large gardens, which rolled in elegant fields and flower beds down to the river. It had been winter when she and her father arrived there soon after King Henry’s death in 1547, when Queen Catherine moved to her dower house with Princess Elizabeth.
The house, just as elegant as the gardens, all graceful redbrick walls and pale stone trim, appeared to be shuttered, but Kate glimpsed silvery smoke rising from some of the chimneys, and she and Rob made their way to a door tucked to one side.
Her knock was answered by a tall, thin older gentleman in fine but plain dark clothes. He eyed them suspiciously.
“Aye?” he said suspiciously.
“I am Mistress Haywood, and this is Master Cartman,” Kate said, in the firm, confident voice she had learned at court. Few wanted to think a mere female musician could have any authority at all, but Kate had found that pretending as if she did often went a long way. “We have come on an errand from Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall.”
She handed him the queen’s note, and his glower was wiped away. “Certainly, certainly! Anything we can do to assist Her Grace. Please, mistress, come in from the cold and tell me what we can do for the queen. I am Master Stanley, steward here.”
Rob took her arm, and they exchanged a wary glance. But Kate was glad of the cheerful fire in the small sitting room Master Stanley led them into, and the cushioned stool he offered. The room was a pretty one, with painted cloths holding back the drafts and enameled candlesticks lining the carved mantel. It made her think again of her childhood, of the way every room near Queen Catherine Parr seemed graceful and comfortable.
She seated herself on the stool, and Rob stood behind her. “Queen Elizabeth wishes to find some of the loyal servants of her stepmother and make certain they are looked after,” Kate told Master Stanley. “Are there many still living here?”
“Very few, Mistress Haywood,” Master Stanley answered. “When Queen Catherine left for Sudeley, she took most with her and provided pensions for those too elderly to move. There is a gardener, and the queen’s old Strewing Herb Mistress. And there is Mistress Bouchard.”
“Mistress Bouchard?”
“She was a nursemaid in the household of the Dowager Queen, who came here to live in one of the cottages after the queen died.”
“A nursemaid?” Kate thought of the little crown, the christening gift. “For Queen Catherine’s daughter who died?”
“Aye, poor little mite. Would you care to speak to Mistress Bouchard? She cannot always remember things now, but she loves to talk about the Dowager Queen.”
Kate nodded, though she foun
d herself rather reluctant to leave the warm fire to chase yet more things she didn’t understand. But perhaps a former nursemaid would know about the christening gift. She and Rob followed Master Stanley back out the door and across the garden to a cluster of cottages. One was very small, a cozy, plastered one-room dwelling that in summer would surely be covered in climbing roses.
Master Stanley knocked loudly and called out, “Mistress Bouchard? Queen Elizabeth has sent these people to speak with you!”
“What?” a querulous voice called.
Master Stanley let them in, and Kate and Rob walked through the doorway to find an old woman swathed in shawls beside the fire, staring up at them curiously.
Mistress Bouchard was obviously quite elderly, with her heavily lined, apple-cheeked face, and the snow-white curls escaping from beneath her embroidered cap, but her faded blue eyes were bright with curiosity as she peered up at her new guests.
“Who did you say you were?” Mistress Bouchard asked.
“I told you, Mistress Bouchard—they are from the queen,” Master Stanley said loudly.
She waved her twisted hands, encased in knitted mitts, at him. “Surely they can speak for themselves, Master Stanley? You should return to your business at the house.”
Master Stanley departed with a huff, and Mistress Bouchard sat back with a satisfied smile. “Now we can talk. Come closer, both of you. It is seldom I have new guests, especially handsome young men.” She gave Rob a twinkling smile, and gestured for him to sit beside her. “Which queen are you from? It seems there are so many these days.”
“We are from Queen Elizabeth,” Rob said. “She is in residence at Whitehall now.”
“Is she?” Mistress Bouchard said. “Well, I hope she has learned a touch of prudence in her age. When she was a girl . . .”
“You remember her when she was a girl?” Kate said, thinking of the notes Queen Elizabeth had received, the distance in her eyes when she spoke of Tom Seymour, the man of much charm and little sense.
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