Murder at Westminster Abbey

by Amanda Carmack

  Perhaps in one of those places she could learn more about poor Nell, as well as about Mary. She had to step very carefully, and never let her mask slip. She shivered, feeling scared and exhilarated all at the same time.

  But first, she had to visit Mary herself.

  CHAPTER 13

  “This way, Mistress Haywood,” Robert Dudley called over his shoulder as he led Kate down a narrow lane toward the small chapel that waited for them at the end of Catte Alley.

  Kate had been most surprised when Sir Robert himself offered to take her to see Mary. After all, he was the queen’s Master of the Horse, her favorite courtier, and surely had a great many claims on his time. She’d fully expected never to even see him in person when she delivered the queen’s message, but only to find one of his servants to direct her. Yet Sir Robert had left behind his retinue to help her himself.

  Kate studied him carefully as she hurried behind him through the ancient, winding streets around Westminster. He was very handsome, there was no doubt about it, tall and lean, dark as a pirate, but adroit at concealing his thoughts and emotions. Surely imprisonment and war would do that to a man. What would ambition do now?

  Could he have known Lady Mary better than was believed? Was that why he took such concern about this terrible event now? Sir Robert was married, of course, to a sickly lady who never came to court, and much of his time was spent in attendance on the queen. But he was charming to almost everyone who did not arouse his short temper, with a quick smile to hide his granite-hard shrewdness.

  Certainly ladies enjoyed his company, and he didn’t seem the sort to deny himself his pleasures, now that all the dangers he had lived through were past and he had Queen Elizabeth’s favor.

  Kate held the heavy hem of her cloak above the mud of the lane and rushed after him. Sir Robert’s long, powerful legs could make time far more hastily than she could.

  “You are most kind to assist me so, Sir Robert,” she said. “I am sure you have many duties.”

  He smiled down at her, but it was not the dazzling, deflecting grin he wore most of the time. It seemed strangely sad to Kate, crooked, not quite meeting his wary-looking dark eyes.

  “None more important than helping the queen, Mistress Haywood,” he said. “She has told me of your bravery at Hatfield last year, when I regret I was not there to protect her myself. We all owe you much gratitude.”

  “Not at all, Sir Robert,” Kate said, surprised he had heard of any of that. Or that he would remember. “Like you, I wish only to serve the queen. We have all waited so long to see this day. To have it thus marred . . .”

  “It was a wicked deed,” he said tightly.

  Kate gathered up her courage and asked, “Did you mayhap know Lady Mary or her family, Sir Robert?”

  If he suspected her intentions in asking, he gave no indication. She could read only weary sadness on his sun-lined face as he shook his head. “Not well. I was once friends of a sort with her brother, Lord Henry Everley, when we were boys. We were both fostered for a time with one of the branches of the Seymour family.”

  Ah yes, the tangled web of kinship, friendship, and loyalties among the Protestant nobility. How often had they had shifted in those days, the Greys, the Seymours, the Dudleys. Where did that loyalty stand now? Where did Sir Robert’s lie?

  “But you are not friends now?” Kate asked cautiously.

  “Our paths diverged after those boyhood days, Mistress Haywood. I fought in France for King Philip, to secure my release from the Tower, and Henry Everley lived quietly at Everley Court, near the Seymours, from what I remember. There was talk that the Everleys meant to go abroad, as many Protestant families did then, but they stayed in the end.”

  “Do you remember Lady Mary from that time? Or the Everleys’ cousin Richard St. Long?”

  “Lady Mary I do remember a little. She was a pretty girl, but she seldom came near us.” Sir Robert frowned as if he was trying to remember. “Master St. Long I do not much recall. Perhaps he was a poor relation taken in by the Everleys and then fostered elsewhere. I never knew him until they arrived at court for Christmas and Henry Everley sought to renew our acquaintance.”

  “And has he asked you to look into the matter of his sister’s death now?”

  “Nay, I have not seen Henry or his father today. I am concerned about this matter, Mistress Haywood, because—” Sir Robert suddenly halted, almost making Kate bump into him. “Tell me, have you noticed Lady Mary’s resemblance to Eliz—to the queen?”

  Kate swallowed hard and nodded. “It would be hard to miss, I fear. Do you suspect someone was trying to kill the queen and mistook Lady Mary for her?”

  Sir Robert rubbed his hand over his bearded jaw. “’Tis far-fetched, I know. Anyone with sense would surely know Queen Elizabeth would never leave her own coronation banquet to go wandering alone in the Abbey.”

  “But not everyone is in their right wits. If someone with an angry grudge saw a slender young woman with red hair and a fine velvet gown by herself. And there in the darkness . . .” But what if Mary had been mistaken for the queen? Or if the killer knew very well who it was, mayhap he thought to send the queen a message by killing a lady close to her, one who resembled her.

  Sir Robert’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. “You have thought about this, Mistress Haywood.”

  Kate nodded. For a moment she wondered if she should tell him about red-haired Nell from Southwark, but she decided to keep that to herself for now. She had promised Rob Cartman she would protect him if she could. She had told the queen of it already, and had to be careful of others.

  Everyone at court had so many secrets, so many complex plans and ambitions they kept hidden. She couldn’t afford to trust too easily any longer.

  “Of course I have thought about it,” she said. “Lady Mary was my friend, and finding her thus so horribly haunts me. I want to help if I can, and so must think of everything.”

  Sir Robert nodded, and turned to continue on their way. The few people out and about on such a cold day, and on such a back lane, dreary after the queen’s wine-soaked celebrations, instinctively made room for him.

  “I am sure it will turn out to be the usual sad sort of tale,” he said. “A lovers’ quarrel, or a family disagreement that grew out of control.”

  “Hopefully we can find the truth very soon,” Kate said. She remembered the man with the strange eyes at the Tower. She had to discover who he was. And she had to find out if Sir Robert knew anything about the Everleys’ past he was withholding.

  As they stepped into the dim, stuffy warmth of the small church, a short, rotund man in dark robes with a horn tablet attached to his belt hurried toward them.

  “Master Simpson,” Sir Robert whispered to Kate. “Clerk to the coroner.”

  “The jury has gone, Sir Robert,” Master Simpson said, in a hasty, breathy, nervous little voice. He put Kate in mind of a mouse. “They have returned a verdict of foul murder by persons unknown, unlikely to be discovered so long after the fact. The coroner has departed.”

  Sir Robert gave a brusque nod, and the clerk scurried away.

  “Everything is concluded so quickly?” Kate asked, startled.

  Sir Robert laughed wryly. “The coroner is not a man to linger at his task. Not when there is not a clear culprit. He is only paid from the estates of convicted murderers.”

  Kate was appalled to know Mary’s murderer could get away so quickly, simply because whoever the villain was had the good sense not to stay standing over her body with blood on his hands for the coroner to see. “Of course the man will never be found if he is not sought! Were there any witnesses found, perhaps on the street outside the church? Was anyone even asked?”

  “Everyone was at the banquet, and could have heard nothing,” Sir Robert said, his voice full of resigned sadness. Surely he of all people knew about selective knowledge.

>   “Not even Henry Everley? Where is he now?”

  “With his father, sequestered in their mourning. Perhaps we should visit to condole with them this evening, Mistress Haywood.”

  Kate suddenly realized that Sir Robert Dudley could be of help in places where she could not. He could get people to talk to him where they would not to her. But, on the other hand, people would unconsciously reveal things to a young musician they would be too on their guards to say to the queen’s favorite. Most interesting. “That would be the polite thing to do.”

  Sir Robert nodded, and his expression turned solemn when a priest in his black-and-white robes stepped out of a doorway and bowed to them. The tonsure he wore under Queen Mary’s reign was growing out. “All is in readiness within, Sir Robert.”

  “Are you sure you wish to do this, Mistress Haywood?” Sir Robert asked her quietly. “To see a friend thus . . .”

  Kate nodded. They said Robert Dudley had watched from his Tower cell window as his brother’s beheaded body was carted past from Tower Hill. This could be no worse than that. “I have seen death before, Sir Robert. I must see her now. I will not faint.”

  He took her arm and led her into the church. It was an old space, austere and dark, with a short aisle leading to an altar made plain by the return of the reformed religion. The queen had stated she would make no changes yet, but some had anticipated her wishes. A makeshift bier was set up in front of the communion table, holding up a plain wooden coffin surrounded by candles.

  “I will leave you for the moment,” Sir Robert said.

  Kate barely sensed him move away as she hurried down the aisle of the empty church. She knew she had to be done with this unpleasant task, and quickly.

  The figure that rested in the coffin was Lady Mary, and yet not. Something that had struck Kate deeply after the events at Hatfield was how swiftly life departed a body, leaving nothing but empty blankness behind. But that emptiness could not cancel the claims of friendship or justice.

  Lady Mary wore her fine gown from the coronation feast, restored to a semblance of order, and the edges of her winding-sheet were drawn away so Kate could see her. Most of her red hair was covered beneath a white cap, and without its bright frame her face was stark white and slack. Death had softened the features that once held a certain sharp delicacy, like the queen’s. Her skin was pale, like the melted wax of a candle. Coins held her eyes closed.

  Kate took a deep, steadying breath, inhaling the scent of dust and old incense, of perfumed strewing herbs and the first sickly-sweet hint of decay, to force herself to closely examine the body for any clues. The only wound she could see was the hollow, bruised area on Mary’s temple, now cleaned of blood, and an older bruise just below her cheekbone.

  Kate studied the hands crossed on Mary’s chest. They, too, were waxy white, the tips turning blue, and she saw the nails were still ragged where Mary had tried to fight for her life. Kate remembered the button caught there, like with Nell. They were empty now, and Mary’s rings were gone.

  In fact, Kate saw, she wore no jewelry at all. But someone had been there and tried to adorn her, for a wilting posy of greenery was tucked into one hand. Rosemary for remembrance, laurel for triumph. And something pink and sweet for love.

  “I will find who did this, Mary,” Kate whispered. “I promise.”

  The deep silence of the chapel was suddenly broken by the echo of running footsteps on the stone floor. Startled, Kate leaped away from the coffin and glanced around the hushed space.

  Surely it could not be Sir Robert or the priest; they would have called out to her first. And she’d been so sure she was alone.

  “Who is there?” she called. Her only answer was more running footsteps, vanishing down a side aisle.

  Kate ran after them. “Wait!” she shouted, but the steps only ran faster.

  She stumbled into a tiny chapel that opened to the back of the church just in time to see a man, tall, broad-shouldered, clad all in simple black, pull open a door to the street outside. He looked back at her over his shoulder, and she glimpsed the glow of catlike golden eyes under the brim of his plain cap.

  “Walter!” someone shouted from the street. “Over here!”

  The man slipped through the door, letting it slam behind him.

  Her heart pounding, Kate ran after him. The door was heavy, but she yanked it open and rushed outside.

  For an instant, the glare of the gray-yellow sunlight after the darkened church dazzled her and she couldn’t see anything. She blinked hard, jostled by the passing crowd, for this lane was busier than the way they arrived.

  The black-clad man was at the end of the street, vanishing around a corner. Kate followed, pushing her way past people and stray dogs, but it seemed the man was part cat in truth, for he had completely disappeared.

  “Walter!” she cried, but no one answered. She almost cursed in frustration. He had been so close and he had slipped right away from her!

  “Mistress Haywood! What is amiss?”

  Sir Robert Dudley ran to her side, his hand curled tightly around the hilt of his sword. He studied the crowd around them suspiciously, and once again everyone moved around him to make way.

  Kate wondered fleetingly what it would feel like to have such power. But she also now realized that being inconspicuous, fitting into the background, was what allowed her to observe everyone when they thought they weren’t being watched.

  Not that she had been inconspicuous enough to keep from driving away the mysterious Walter. She cursed at herself for calling out before she could think.

  “I saw someone in the chapel,” she said. “I thought once I had seen him talking to Lady Mary before, but he fled when I called to him.”

  “A man?” Sir Robert said. His frown deepened. “Do you know his name?”

  Kate shook her head. “I think it might be Walter, but I haven’t seen him at court. He was tall, dressed all in black. Good-quality garments, but not rich.” She had had many chances to observe fashion in recent days.

  “There are many Walters in England, Mistress Haywood, but I cannot think of one associated with the Everleys. ’Tis most suspicious he fled, I vow. You would know him if you saw him again?”

  Kate thought of his eyes, the almost unearthly glow of them. “Perhaps.”

  “We should go, then.” He took her arm with his free hand to lead her away, keeping the other on his sword. “It grows late.”

  As she followed Sir Robert back past the church, she wondered if Walter wore silver buttons on his plain black doublet.

  CHAPTER 14

  One of the first people Kate saw on returning to the palace was Richard St. Long. It was nearly time for the court to sup, and he was striding across the almost empty courtyard. A footman led away a horse, as if Master St. Long had just returned from a ride. His dark gold-streaked hair was rumpled, and his boots were muddy. He wore the same black and tawny doublet from the coronation procession, and Kate was again struck by the way it didn’t seem to fit quite right over his strong shoulders. As if he could not afford to be bothered to get the careful tailoring Henry Everley’s garments exhibited.

  He was scowling down at the cobblestones, as if deeply distracted, but when Kate called out to him, he glanced up and smiled.

  “Mistress Haywood,” he said. He came to a halt and quickly ran his hand through his hair, as if to bring some semblance of order to the locks. “How do you fare today?”

  “I fear I have had better days, Master St. Long,” she answered. “I have just been to see Lady Mary before she is to be buried.”

  His eyes widened, as if he was startled she would do such a thing. She saw that they were quite lovely eyes, pale blue, fringed with dark lashes. “That was most kind of you. You were a good friend to my cousin, I think, Mistress Haywood.”

  “She was kind to me, when I first came here to court and knew so few p
eople,” Kate said. She watched Richard carefully as she spoke, but he only looked politely concerned and perhaps a bit tired, though solicitous of her. He seemed the sort of man she had seen often in her service to Elizabeth, the kind of man who considered women to be weak and delicate. Being the country miss, unsure in the sophisticated ways of a royal court, seemed as fine a guise as any.

  “Lady Mary often advised me,” she continued. “It is hard to know who to turn to for true friendship.”

  Richard nodded and smiled patiently. He leaned closer, as if to protect her from the cold wind swirling around the courtyard. He smelled of horse and French cologne. “Mary was a kindhearted lady. She was most warm and welcoming to me when I first came to live at Everley Court, when most would have taken no notice of a bedraggled poor relation.”

  So he was the “poor relation,” was he? Kate had suspected as much from his clothes, and the swaggering, overly merry demeanor that often meant a gentleman was making up for something. She remembered Sir Robert saying he did not remember Master St. Long from his foster days with Henry Everley.

  Yet Richard’s horse and clothes were fine enough, despite the ill-fitting quality of his doublet, and he wore expensive cologne. He also went carousing in Bankside with men like Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. He seemed to be making his way in the world well enough now.

  “So you did not always live with the Everleys?” she asked innocently.

  His expression did not waver. “Nay. I was orphaned young, and my mother’s brother, Lord Everley, was all the family I had left. I was sent to live with him, while my sister went to a foster family in the country somewhere.”

  “Will your sister come to court now?”

  “Nay.” His smile at last flickered for a moment, and he glanced away. “She has since died, I fear. I must make my own way in the world.”

  “I am sorry,” Kate said. “I never had any siblings at all, for my mother died when I was born. ’Tis just my father and me.”