Murder at Westminster Abbey

by Amanda Carmack

  She laid the doublet aside and peered back into the chest. At the bottom was a much smaller box. This one was elaborately carved, in a pattern of roses and twining ivy leaves, and bound in iron bands. A lock held it closed.

  Kate frowned as she examined it. It was a stout lock, not one to easily force open with a bone hairpin.

  “I shall have to get one of Cecil’s men to show me how to open such things,” she muttered. She had seen them so easily and smoothly open locks and replace them again so none would know they had been touched. But it was too late for such training at the moment.

  Kate took out her dagger and used the hilt to pound as hard as she could at the lock. She winced at the loud metallic sound in the silence, but kept on until the lock fell away.

  The small box was half-empty. Kate hastily examined the contents. A letter, the red wax seal old and brittle, the ink faded. A miniature painting of a girl with pale red hair and a sweet, heart-shaped face. She looked like a younger, more fragile version of Celine, and was finely dressed in an ivory-colored, fur-trimmed gown and old-fashioned French hood. The style of the painting looked familiar, as if Kate had seen work by the artist before.

  Beneath the painting was a folded slip of parchment, and tucked inside was a sight that made her shiver. Four curls of hair, all different shades of red, tied with black ribbons. One was faded and pale, like the lady in the painting, and one was the light strawberry of Lady Mary. One was obviously dyed. Bess’s?

  Fearing she would be ill, Kate quickly tucked the hair and the portrait back in the box. At the bottom was a handful of silver buttons with a braided edge. She counted them. Fourteen, not enough for all the decoration she had once seen when Lord Henry wore the doublet. There was also a pearl earring, like the one all the court swains wore in imitation of Robert Dudley, and at last she saw the bracelet. It seemed Nan St. Long had luckily not sold it after all.

  It was rather heavy. Kate held it up to the light of her candle, and gasped at what she saw. It was a fine piece indeed, colored enamels beautifully worked and set in a frame of gold and pearls. Blue, green, and white depicted the crowned double rose, white in red, the badge of Henry VIII.

  Kate stared at it, hardly believing what she was seeing. Some bastards are not hidden away at all. My father doted on his son the Duke of Richmond, born of Katherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting Bessie Blount. He gifted him with estates and titles, a noble wife. But not all bastard children fare so well, she remembered the queen saying.

  Could Richard St. Long’s father be the king? She tried to remember the old king, but she had been a child when her father served Queen Catherine Parr. The king had seldom left his own room by then—he was too ill, too unwieldy, and the queen’s apartment was a world of ladies, lapdogs, embroidery, and books of philosophy and the new religion.

  The few times Kate glimpsed King Henry were at banquets, and she had been terrified of him. He seemed like a waxy-pale mountain swathed in satins and furs, his blue eyes hidden behind rolls of fat, a stench of decay and heavy perfume about him. Kate could hardly fathom that Princess Elizabeth could embrace him, that Queen Catherine could spend hours reading to him, so close to his side.

  Richard St. Long was a handsome man, with none of the old king about him that she could see.

  But then, everyone declared King Henry had been a fine specimen of manhood in his youth, the most glorious prince in Christendom.

  Bastard queen Elizabeth Tudor. Was that what all this horror could be about? Vengeance?

  The sudden sound of a door swinging closed down the corridor sharply reminded Kate where she was. She quickly replaced the bracelet with the buttons and the locks of hair in that chest, and gathered it up. She had to show it to the queen.

  Hardly daring even to breathe, Kate hurried out of the chamber and carefully closed the door behind her, hoping it would look undisturbed long enough for her to give the box to the queen. The corridor was blessedly empty, everyone still at the banquet. Once she reached the turn, she breathed a little easier.

  But she found her path suddenly blocked by Richard St. Long, who was coming up the stairs. For an instant, he looked as startled to see her as she was to see him. Then a slow smile spread over his handsome face, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

  Her dagger was lost in the room behind her.

  “Mistress Haywood,” he said. “How kind of you to call on me here. But I must point out that those are my possessions. I’m sure that a fine court lady like yourself would never be so ill-bred as to turn to thieving. Just give it back now, and we shall part friends. Aye?”

  Kate stared at him, studying his smile, the cold ice of his eyes. She had seen someone look exactly thus once before, at Hatfield House. Just before a murderer attacked her.

  Well, she refused to go quietly, not this time. Never again. Summoning up all her strength, Kate threw the box at his head. He ducked out of the way, but his startlement at her sudden movement gave her a precious instant to run.

  Richard recovered quickly. He lunged and grabbed the sleeve of her doublet just as she swung out the door. She knew that part of the palace was deserted, but she opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could.

  “Bloody witch!” Richard’s arm, hard as an iron band, wrapped around her waist and jerked her off her feet.

  Kate twisted around, cold panic rising up inside of her like a suffocating storm cloud. She could taste the metallic tang of it in her mouth, cutting off her breath.

  But she refused to give in to the fear. This man had killed before. She wouldn’t be his next victim. Visions flashed in her air-starved brain, of her father, the queen, Anthony, Rob. The half-finished musical score in her chamber.

  Nay, she would not die now!

  She screamed again past his fingers, and kicked back at Richard as hard as she could with her booted foot. He cursed and clamped his hand tighter over her mouth to silence her.

  Kate managed to work her jaw free enough to bite down on his palm, so hard she tore away a piece of his leather glove. She tasted the coppery sharpness of blood, and it made her even angrier.

  “Witch! No more of that,” Richard shouted. His arm tightened around her and he threw her to the floor. She twisted her leg free from the heavy weight of his body over hers and kicked him square in the chest.

  He reared back from her for an instant with a satisfying grunt of pain, but then he grabbed her again. He smiled down at her, his eyes glittering as if he was excited by her fear.

  “I said enough of that,” he whispered in a horribly cold voice. She tilted back her head just in time to see a gloved fist descending toward her.

  There was a thud, and a sharp, terrible pain. Kate screamed, and tumbled down into waiting darkness.

  CHAPTER 28

  Kate slowly came awake. She felt as if she struggled up from some black underground cave toward a distant, wavering spot of light. Her limbs ached. They didn’t want to move, to drag her forward one inch, yet she knew she had to struggle onward. She had to reach that one pinpoint of light, to not sink back into darkness.

  She pried her gritty eyes open, and that one movement made her head pound as if it would split open. At first she thought she really was in a cave, with sloping black walls all around her. She couldn’t see anything but that pinpoint of light, and didn’t feel anything but a painful jolting beneath her.

  She made herself breathe slowly, evenly, and she realized that light above her was a star. She looked up at the night sky, a heavy, dusty black, lightened by only one star peering out from behind the clouds. A cold wind swept over her face, catching at her hair, and she remembered.

  She’d been knocked unconscious by Richard St. Long, who had very likely killed Bess and Nell, and would go to any length to see the queen dead as well. Richard, who was possibly the bastard son of Henry VIII, had obviously inherited the old king’s madness and cruelty.

&n
bsp; But where was she now? More important, where was he, and what was he going to do with her?

  The hard surface under her back jolted again, sending a wave of pain over her body. A metallic-tasting fear crawled up her throat.

  She fiercely pushed that fear away before she could cry out with it. She would not give in to a murderer! She had to get back to Queen Elizabeth and tell her all she knew.

  Slowly, as she took in careful breaths, some of the pain faded. The air was icy cold, and smelled of fish and decay. She realized she was lying in the bottom of a boat, jolting down the river. She shifted carefully, hoping Richard or any ally he had would think her still unconscious while she deciphered the situation. Unless he had just abandoned her there . . .

  Her hands were tied behind her, resting in a puddle of cold water, but her feet were unbound. She could hear the slap of oars on the water, yet no voices. The rush of the water was too loud, the waves too choppy as they slapped against the boat, for her to hear anything else.

  It must be close to high tide, Kate realized in alarm. No one would be foolish enough to be on the river at such a time, especially not in winter when the tides could surge and foam and flood, dashing boats and bodies against the bridge. No one would ever rush the bridge—unless they were mad.

  Frantic, Kate found a splintered chunk of wood behind her and started sawing at the ropes that bound her hands.

  “Well, well. Awake now, Mistress Haywood?”

  Richard St. Long sounded as affably polite as if he greeted her at a court banquet. Somehow that was more frightening than any growling or shouting. Kate pushed away the fear as it tried to surge forward again, and wriggled her way to a sitting position. She felt the ropes at her wrists slacken, but kept holding them tight behind her back.

  Richard was rowing, fighting against the high, choppy waves with a grin on his face. Ice bumped against the sides of the boat, and Kate quickly studied her surroundings. There were no other vessels on the water, and she could see why. The lighted windows of the city were bouncing past at an alarming speed.

  “Take me back to the palace at once,” she demanded, in her best imitation of the queen at her most imperious.

  Richard just laughed. His eyes gleamed in the night, and he seemed not to feel the cold even though he wore only a linen shirt and no doublet or cloak.

  “I think not, Mistress Haywood,” he said with a smile. “Unlike my poor, love-struck cousin Mary, you have been clever enough to decipher my secret. I can’t let you go now.”

  “I know nothing at all about you, nor do I care to,” Kate said, struggling to stay calm. Somehow it felt like time had slowed to a crawl, even as the boat sped up. “You are the one who has given away the fact that you even have secrets tonight.”

  Richard shook his head. “You have been gossiping with my aunt Celine. I always knew my foolish mother told her more than she would admit. If only she had been more clever, she could have spent her life in comfort and riches, like Bessie Blount.”

  Bessie Blount—the mother of the king’s one acknowledged bastard, the Duke of Richmond. “Told her what?”

  “About my father, of course. Isn’t that why we are here? What my whole worthless life has been about?”

  Thoughts tumbled through Kate’s mind, memories of families and parents, enameled badges, flashes of anger quickly hidden. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Master St. Long. I was merely bringing a message from the queen to your uncle. . . .”

  Richard laughed, and pulled harder at the oars. They were moving even faster now, the boat tossing and swirling like a child’s toy on a pond, and Kate fell back hard against the wooden side.

  “You have been inquiring into matters that are none of a mere musician girl’s business for days now. If you were talking to my whore of an aunt, and saw my mother’s bracelet, then you should know who you are really meddling with. I’ve waited a long time for my rightful due. I won’t let you stop me now.”

  Kate thought of Mary, of all her romantic, foolish hopes, and felt so angry that someone like this could take away her due. Even if it was Lord Henry who had done the deed in the end, she was sure Richard had something to do with it, and especially with the deaths of Nell and Bess. Richard who sought revenge against the queen. Maybe if she could make him angry, too, he would confess. “I care not a whit who your godforsaken father is! You murdered women in cold blood, including your own cousin.”

  Richard’s smug smile faded, and a furious scowl covered his face in the instant before his careless mask dropped back into place again. “I never killed Mary. She was kind to me.”

  “Then why was your button in her hand, as well as Nell’s?”

  “Nell was a mistake,” he said grudgingly. “She tore it off before I could realize it. Then when I found Mary . . .”

  “Found her? Did you . . .”

  “I said I did not kill Mary! ’Twas Henry, that woodenheaded peacock. He was drunk and furious that night, kept raging about Mary and that Dennis man, about how she thought to dishonor the family by eloping. As if she could have brought any more dishonor onto the cursed name of Everley. I went to help her, and found her—there. With Henry standing over her, weeping. He thought I would help him get away.”

  “Wasn’t the earl kind to you, as Mary was?” Kate said. She scanned the passing riverbanks, searching for any escape route. She could swim a bit, but all she had ever tried was a placid lake in summer, not a wintry river at high tide. She had to keep Richard talking, keep him distracted. “Didn’t he take you in, educate you?”

  Richard laughed and shook his head. “Only because he thought my parentage would help his fortunes. He found it to be the opposite, just as my mother had. But by then he gave her his word, and he loved her as all men did. He made me his son’s watchdog, his whipping boy. I knew one day I would have my revenge. And I have.”

  “By killing two Southwark geese?”

  “To send a message to Elizabeth Tudor! Redheaded wenches dead all over her kingdom, she couldn’t help but notice,” Richard shouted. He sounded perilously close to losing what little patience he possessed. The boat swung wildly toward one side, but he managed to right it. “She is as much King Henry’s bastard as my sister and me, but she sits on her stolen throne while I live ignored and in poverty. My mother and sister are dead because the king cast us off like muck on his shoes. Why should she not pay for her father’s sins?”

  “If he was your father, then his sins are yours as well,” Kate argued, pressing down her fear and anger. The only way she could get out of this mess was to stay calm. “King Henry killed Queen Elizabeth’s mother even more surely than he killed yours. You should have gone to her, told her your tale. . . .”

  Richard’s face twisted into something unrecognizable, like a carved demon on St. Paul’s stone towers. “So she could cast me out of her court? I have seen how she treats her relations. The Greys, excluded from her favor. Lord Hunsdon, her brother by Mary Boleyn, denied his true rank. Mary, Queen of Scots, the true queen by legitimate birth—Elizabeth won’t even speak to her.”

  “Baron Hunsdon claims no other position but the queen’s cousin. In fact, he claims loudly he looks very like his father Master Carey,” Kate argued. “And he is given estates and titles, pensions. If you spoke to her . . .”

  “Enough!” Richard shouted. His eyes glowed in the darkness. “I have planned my revenge since I was a child. My mother told me about my father before she died. She told me her name was blackened with the king by his greedy children, Mary, Elizabeth, and Richmond, and she was sent away with nothing, after she worked so hard to gain his attention. Elizabeth herself is naught but a bastard, yet she thinks herself so high above everyone else.”

  The oars dipped into the water again, and one was caught by the swirling tide and broken in half. Kate gasped, but he just gave a wild laugh. “She didn’t look so haughty when she saw what I left h
er in her own garden.”

  They were moving even faster now, dizzyingly so. To her horror, Kate saw tall church spires fly past, which meant they were probably close to the bridge. She heard a roaring in her ears like a great waterfall, louder and louder, and she knew the fatal stone piers of the bridge were not far at all.

  The boat tilted beneath her, and she heard a crack. If they were caught in the frothing whirlpool under the bridge, they would surely break up. She had to do something quickly.

  “But Elizabeth is still queen!” she cried. “You may have frightened her in that moment, but you cannot defeat her. Her mother was a queen, and yours was—”

  Just as she had hoped in her desperate plan, Richard gave a roar of rage and lunged across the boat at her. She shook away the frayed ropes from her hands and threw herself to one side. Her elbow hit the wooden railing and sent a bolt of pain up her arm, but she ignored it. She had to get away from the madman and jump into the freezing water if she was to have any chance.

  “You should have died at Durham House,” Richard growled as he grabbed for her again. Luckily she was smaller than him, able to maneuver better in the small boat, and his rage made him clumsy.

  “So that was you who pushed me there,” she said, kicking him away. “Conspiring with the Spanish?”

  “If a woman must have the throne, why not Catherine Grey? She’s legitimate, not like the red-haired witch Elizabeth. She knows her place.”

  “And is also conveniently in love with your friend Edward Seymour?”

  “I’ve learned to make my way in this world as best I can, denied my birthright,” Richard grunted. He tripped over the oar that was left as he lunged for her again, and swept it up like a club. “If Elizabeth had died like she was supposed to . . .”

  Kate screamed when he swung the oar at her head. She rolled away from the shattered railing, and water rushed through the hole. Her skin went numb at its icy touch, but she made herself keep moving.

  “Kate!” she heard someone shout. For an instant she thought Richard had succeeded in hitting her over the head and she was imagining things. She twisted around to see the bridge looming before them.