Kate glanced down to the royal table, and was startled to see the queen looking up at the musicians’ gallery. Elizabeth caught her eyes and gestured to her to come down.
Whatever could the queen want in the midst of her banquet? “I shall return anon,” Kate quickly told the others. She carefully tucked the precious lute beneath her stool.
She heard them begin “Pastime with Good Company” as she hurried down the stairs to the banquet hall. It was a song written decades ago by the queen’s own father, an old tune that needed little guidance.
Kate made her way carefully down the narrow, winding stairs to the main gallery and along the corridor that led to the kitchens. Servants were rushing past, carrying platters of more delicacies, sweat trickling down their faces despite the winter’s night outside. The smells of beef in cinnamon sauce and stewed salmon mingled with the tang of woodsmoke from the cavernous fireplaces, and the rose and jasmine perfumes of the courtiers.
The noise, which was a low, indistinct roar from the musicians’ gallery, hit Kate like a wave of sheer sound when she stepped out into the hall. The night had begun decorously enough, with everyone seated in their proper places to watch the peacocks roasted and redressed in their own feathers and the pretty sugar subtleties paraded past. But now the wine and spiced ale, the merry music, had done their work, and everyone was in a great tumble of loud merriment.
Kate threaded her way past the tables, neatly sidestepping a pack of the queen’s greyhounds fighting over a leg of lamb, and made her way to Elizabeth’s dais.
The queen was whispering with Robert Dudley, leaning close to whisper in his ear. He laughed, and she tapped at his hand with her feathered fan.
“Ah, Kate, there you are,” Elizabeth called. “You have a good vantage from your gallery, I think. Have you seen your friend Lady Mary Everley?”
Was that why the queen had summoned her? Kate wondered as she dropped a quick curtsy and hurried toward the dais. Surely Elizabeth did have supernatural powers of observation, as some people claimed! Otherwise, how would she see one maid of honor was missing in such a throng?
“Nay, Your Majesty,” Kate said. “I have not seen her since the banquet began.”
“And she was late to the procession as well,” Elizabeth said with an impatient sigh. “I shall have to speak to her father. I feared she was not best pleased with her new position, and there are plenty of young ladies eager to have her place.”
Was Mary to be tossed out of court, then? Kate started to shake her head, afraid that would make Mary’s brother even more furious. Surely there had to be a good reason for her absence now.
“Nay, my queen, don’t be so hasty to judge the lady,” Robert Dudley said. “This is a night for revelry, not duty.”
He kissed her hand, making her laugh again. “Aye, for tomorrow is soon enough to deal with our troubles. Still, I would know where she is. Will you look for her, Kate, and quickly? We shall want more music for dancing soon.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Kate backed away from the dais, where Elizabeth and Dudley were whispering again. She glimpsed Sir William Cecil, the queen’s new chief secretary, frowning at their closeness, but she had no time to ponder the quarrels of the queen’s two highest courtiers. She had to look for Mary, and swiftly.
Mary was nowhere to be seen at any of the tables. Lady Catherine Grey said she had not set eyes on her all evening, though Kate was sure Catherine hadn’t turned her gaze from Edward Seymour the entire night and would have seen nothing else anyway. Mary’s brother and cousin were still not in their seats, and her father looked as if he would burst into a temper at any instant. She thought it best not to speak to him.
She remembered the strange man with the golden eyes who was with Mary at the Tower, and she wondered if they were together now. Mary had been so secretive of late; it would surely be just like her to slip away for a tryst while everyone was distracted by the feast. Perhaps she would soon reappear, laughing at her own secrets.
Yet Kate had a troubled feeling that would not be quieted.
She left the hall to peek in at the ladies’ lodgings, which were empty. As she came down the back stairs, she noticed a door ajar and pushed it open to let in a rush of cold, snowflake-dotted wind.
It looked out over a small garden, and just beyond was the great Abbey. Its dark walls were silent now after all the celebrations of the day just past, its windows blank and its spires almost skeletal against the starry sky. The silvery moon seemed to hang, ghostly, on one of the bell towers.
From the city beyond, Kate could hear the echoes of more revelry, shouts and laughter, songs. Wine would flow from the fountains all night, and the red-gold glare of bonfires flickered like banners in the black night.
Kate started to pull the door closed, but then she glimpsed a tiny dot of light where there should be none. It came from within the Abbey itself. She peered closer and saw that one of the side doors, almost hidden within the church’s elaborate stonework, stood open and that was where the light shone.
She quickly snatched up a blue cloak from a hook nearby, where it seemed the kitchen staff left their wraps, and swung it around herself before she launched into the chilly night.
She hurried through the garden and to the open doorway, her heart pounding. Pressing her palm to the cold stone, she peered into the church.
The light was not as near as she thought. It burned somewhere deeper within the deserted Abbey, and it flickered as if it would soon go out. Kate carefully stepped over the threshold, and the wind that tugged at her cloak instantly stilled. The soaring, silent stone seemed to close around her.
She stood still for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. The cathedral was like an ancient cave, the fan vaulting soaring over her head, the stone monuments of lords and ladies looming to either side. Their ghosts seemed to peer out at her, waiting to see what she would do.
The smell of candle smoke and incense lingered in the air like the spirits of those ancient knights. The memories of past glories, lost in the extinguished flames. Kate tiptoed past them.
“Mary?” she called softly. “Are you there?”
There was no answer. Only the distorted echo of her own voice.
But she saw the fluttering light of that candle coming from Henry VII’s chapel. She ran toward it, eager to be gone from that haunted place but unable to leave Mary behind if she was indeed there.
Henry and Elizabeth of York stared up at the vaulted ceiling, unperturbed by earthly doings, their relatives arrayed around them in stone repose. A lantern sat on a shallow stone step, guttering low, fluttering like a dying moth.
Kate leaned her trembling hand on a stone pillar and blinked hard in the dim light. All was still and silent, the peaceful rest of decades except for the freshly closed vault that held Queen Mary.
Then a small flutter, like that of a real ghost, made her gasp. Kate whirled around, her heart thundering, to see the tiniest movement of a scarlet velvet hem along the ground.
For an instant, she was tossed back to the horrible events at Hatfield House. Dead bodies and blood, complete stillness. Her head swam and she feared she would faint. She took a deep breath and curled her fingers tight around the cold strength of the pillar until she felt steady again.
She turned toward that tiny movement and saw a crumple of scarlet cloth, a spill of bright red hair that made her think of the queen’s, against the pale stone floor. As if in a dream, she dashed toward the heap of color and stumbled to her knees.
It was Mary Everley, but scarcely recognizable as the pretty, vivacious young lady who had befriended Kate and waited on the queen. Mary lay on the floor next to one of the stolid, pitiless pillars, facedown, her arms outflung and her hands curled into claws. Her nails were torn away at the tips. Dark red blood clotted the hair at her temple.
Kate felt a scream crawling up her throat, threatening to
strangle her, and she forced it back down. Screaming and panicking wouldn’t help Mary now. She quickly glanced around, half-fearful that the villain might still be lurking nearby. The church seemed empty, silent. Not even ghosts dared linger nearby.
She reached out to touch Mary’s wrist to see if a pulse yet beat there. Mary was quite still, her skin already turning cold. Kate tried frantically to remember when last she saw Mary at the banquet. Surely she couldn’t have been dead for long?
But the banquet had been such a whirl of faces and sound that Kate couldn’t remember when she first saw Mary was gone.
“I’m so sorry, Mary,” Kate whispered. She carefully laid Mary’s hand back down at her side. Where her head was turned to the side, Kate saw that Mary’s eyes were half-open, glazed and glassy as she stared sightlessly into the darkness of the chapel. Her lips were parted as if frozen in a startled cry. One sleeve was torn from its gold ribbon ties, but other than that, her clothes were unruffled.
There was only the wound at her temple, the red mat of blood staining her white skin and seeping into her loosened hair. And clutched in her hand was a silver button with a braided edge. Kate quickly slid it out of her grasp, to compare it with the one Nell had held. She choked back a sob as she did so.
Who would do such a thing to Mary? A young lady who, despite the fact that she seemed to hold secrets, was of such a friendly, sunny temperament? Kate felt a wave of mingled anger and sadness wash over her.
She slowly stood up, knowing she had to fetch help but reluctant to leave Mary alone in such a cold place.
“I will return,” she whispered, and spun around to run back the way she had come.
The loud laughter of the hall seemed twice as raucous as before when she dashed inside, and almost nauseatingly incongruous to the absolute silence and the coppery tang of blood she had just left. Kate swallowed down her feelings, knowing she had to stay calm now. Panic would have helped nothing when she found those bodies at Hatfield, and it wouldn’t help Mary now.
She instinctively looked toward the table where the Everleys sat. Mary’s father was still there, watching the celebrations with a pinched expression on his face that even the giggling lady at his side could not erase. But his son and nephew were gone.
“Mistress Haywood, what is amiss?” someone said behind her.
She whirled around to find Robert Dudley watching her. For once, he was alone, with none of his train of admirers behind him. His dark eyes were solemn, his mask of merriment dropped, and for an instant he looked older and harder than usual. Here was a man who had faced battle and imprisonment, the deaths of his father and brothers as traitors, and come out a court leader again.
Was he someone she could really trust? Kate had her doubts. But she did need his help now.
“The queen feared you had been gone too long and sent me to find you,” he said. There was careful gentleness in his voice, a touch of worry. No condescension toward a mere musician’s daughter. “You do look very pale.”
Kate realized then she had no choice but to trust Robert Dudley now. He had the queen’s trust, after all. Mary had to be seen to, and the queen’s Master of the Horse was best positioned to do that.
He could also help her find Henry Everley and Richard St. Long.
“I—I found Lady Mary, in the Abbey,” she said hoarsely. “I fear she is dead.”
Something flickered in his eyes, and his hand reached for her trembling arm. But he was too well versed in courtly concealment to show his surprise any further. “Dead? Are you sure, Mistress Haywood?”
Kate nodded. “I fear she appears to have been murdered. Lord Everley must be told, I think.”
Sir Robert nodded grimly. “The queen first. Can you come with me now? Do you feel strong enough?”
Surprised by his thoughtfulness, Kate nodded. “I am well enough.”
A footman in his scarlet and gold and livery was hurrying past with a heavy tray of goblets. Sir Robert snatched one and handed it to her. “Drink this quickly, it will steady you. You feel very cold.”
Kate gulped down the strong, sweet wine, and found that it did stop the trembling she’d scarcely felt in the shock of the moment. Over the silver rim of her cup, she saw Queen Elizabeth watching them, a worried frown on her white brow.
“You are right, Sir Robert,” Kate said. “The queen must be told.”
CHAPTER 12
“The dirty varlets! And at my very coronation, too. When they are found, I will rip them apart with my own hands. . . .” Queen Elizabeth’s shouted words were interrupted by a violent sneeze.
Kat Ashley ran forward to give Elizabeth a fresh handkerchief and plumped the bolsters piled high on the grand royal bed. The reddened nose of the day before had turned to a full-blown cold, and the queen was confined to her chamber with herbed possets and fur blankets. The celebratory joust was canceled, leaving the court to play cards and mill about the palace corridors in snowbound idleness.
Thus far no official word had been given of Lady Mary’s death, though surely rumors were circulating like the tides of the river under London Bridge. Kate knew a small, insular world like a royal court could never long hold secrets.
Lady Mary’s father had been told, and was supposedly confined to his chambers with his family, though Kate had not seen them since last night’s banquet. There was no sign of the man with the strange golden eyes. Sir Robert had summoned the Coroner of the Royal Household, who was responsible for any deaths within a twelve-mile radius of the queen, and they had seen to Lady Mary’s body.
Kate had spent a sleepless few hours in her bed, her thoughts spinning over and over the scene where she had found Mary. The blood, the torn fingernails that had tried to fight off her attacker, the red hair against the stone floor. The silver button in her hand. Surely poor Nell of the Cardinal’s Hat had looked much the same.
It seemed unlikely that the deaths of a court lady and a Winchester goose could be related. Yet some of the same men frequented both Whitehall and Southwark. Men like Henry Everley, mayhap?
She had been able to organize little of her jumbled thoughts, so she rose early and dressed to wait to be summoned, playing her lute softly to distract herself. She held the lute now, cradled in her hands like a protective talisman.
Elizabeth sneezed again, and impatiently waved away Mistress Ashley when the lady tried to press on her a bowl of broth.
“You were friends with Lady Mary, were you not, Kate?” Elizabeth said, her voice rough.
“We sometimes talked, Your Majesty. She was a most friendly lady, very welcoming to me when I came to London.”
“Too friendly, mayhap?” Elizabeth mused. “Did she have any romances? Any jealousies?”
Kate thought of the man who had embraced Mary on the Tower ramparts, but something held her back from talking about that yet. “Not that she ever spoke of. I don’t think she yet had any thoughts of marriage; she seemed most happy to be here at court.”
“To be away from the close quarters of her family in the country?” Elizabeth’s long, white fingers plucked at the velvet counterpane tucked around her. “I am sure her father would have arranged an advantageous match for her in time—the man has been constantly pleading poverty ever since he came to court.”
“Poverty, Your Majesty?” Kate asked in surprise. The Everleys seemed as lavishly attired and accompanied by retainers as anyone else at court.
“My sister was not always very generous to her Protestant, or formerly Protestant, subjects as she was to our Grey cousins,” Elizabeth said. “And Lord Everley’s son and heir does not seem the prudent, self-denying sort. Did Mary say nothing of them to you, Kate?”
“Very little.” Kate remembered Henry Everley shaking his sister’s arm, his face a mask of fury. “I think they may have had a disagreement, though.”
“A disagreement? How so?” Elizabeth said. Kate told her the l
ittle of what she had seen, and the queen frowned as she went on plucking at her blanket. “I must visit Lord Everley myself, as soon as I can rise from this blasted bed. Do you know the other Everleys at all?”
“Nay, Your Majesty. Lord Everley and his son take no interest in music. Master St. Long has been friendly enough.”
“Ah, yes—the cousin. I know little about him, I fear. Perhaps you could find the time to speak to him, then. Find out more about him.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Mary seldom spoke of him, except to say he came to live with them when he was young and his parents died.” Kate suddenly realized how very little she did know about Master St. Long, except that he was considered handsome by the court ladies. Where had his family lived before they died? Where was he educated?
“What of her other friends? She was often whispering and giggling with my cousin Lady Catherine Grey.”
“They did seem to enjoy each other’s company.” Kate had never been around them when they were together. The Greys tended to keep to themselves, except among those they considered their equals. And there were not many of those; Lady Frances was always very aware she was the niece of Henry VIII.
Elizabeth shook her head. “My cousin bears close watch, I think. She has some foolish friendships indeed. She is coming later to see me with her mother. I will see if she can recall anything of interest about Lady Mary’s secrets. Since you live among the other ladies, Kate, mayhap you can find out more. Gossip is a silly way to pass the hours, but there can be useful kernels plucked from idle words.”
“I will do my best, Your Majesty,” Kate said, softly but fiercely. “I want to help in any way I can to find out who did this wicked thing.”
Elizabeth studied her in silence for a long moment, her dark eyes narrowed. The only sound was the crackle of the flames leaping high in the grate, and the whispers of the other ladies gathered across the room, too far away to be understood. Kate curled her hands tighter around her lute to keep from fidgeting under that steady, all-seeing gaze.
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