Conspiracy (15 page)

Ellie and I headed over to the little encampment by the lake to try and find John.

It was quite deserted, except for a pageboy, who was supposedly on watch to prevent any courtiers from thieving, but was in fact fast asleep, Curled up by a fire.

I woke him up. “Do you know where John Hull is?” I asked, and he pointed at one of the outermost tents.

Ellie and I went over to it and cautiously peeped in through the flap. It was quite light in the tiny tent,
for the moon was full, and I immediately saw that John was not within. The tent was rather smelly. Shirts and socks were lying in a terrible muddle.

Just as I turned away, a livery doublet caught my eye. It was poking out from beneath John's straw mattress, and in the moonlight that flooded the tent it looked as though it was in Sir William Cecil's colours.

I stared at it, my heart thundering. I could think of no reason at all why one of the Earl of Leicester's men would have a livery from Sir William Cecil.

Unless he wanted to take drugged ale to a firework master, and pretend it came from Cecil!

In a daze, I pulled out the doublet and the jerkin that was with it. Ellie and I stared at them—there was no mistake.

Something hard and heavy seemed to be bundled up in the livery. I unwrapped it, and found it was a chisel. I remembered that John had been politely looking after me in the maze—and then he had disappeared, just before the tail had fallen off the lion statue. And John had come in and found Ellie and me in the Banqueting House. Had
he
been in there previously, pushing glass into the softer part of the subtlety?

I wrapped the chisel up again and pushed the livery put of sight once more. Ellie and I came out of the tent and just looked at each other.

“Cor,” said Ellie at last. “What do you want to do, Grace?”

But I still couldn't believe it. Could John have caused
all
those mysterious accidents? He had been near me when I mounted up to go on the hunt. But then he'd disappeared for a while.

I gulped. Perhaps that was why he had been paying court to me in the way he had—to give him an excuse for getting close to the Queen through me.

But why? Why on earth would he want to do such things? He was one of the Earl of Leicester's henchmen: why would he want to discredit his lord? It didn't make any sense. It couldn't be John because he didn't have any reason to cause false accidents.

Well, if it wasn't John, that livery was still evidence and I wanted it. “Can we take that doublet and jerkin up to the castle with us?” I asked Ellie.

Ellie frowned. “It's a bit obvious carrying Cecil's livery around … I know, I'll get a laundry bag to put it in and I'll carry it. Nobody will ask questions then.”

So I stayed by the tent while Ellie ran over to the
laundrywomen's encampment, halfway round the lake.

I was just sitting in the shadow of the tent, twiddling my thumbs, when I heard people coming. It was some of the Swedish attendants, laughing and joking together as they walked between the tents. Then I saw John heading towards me, too. My heart pounded—what if he was coming to his tent? I froze, frantically wondering what to say if he saw me. It was going to be so embarrassing!

But he went straight into his tent, picked up a bottle, and left—passing about three feet from me. Thank the Lord, he didn't see me. I think my leafy dryad costume and mask must have made me look enough like a bush that he didn't notice I was there.

He passed the attendants—they were talking uproariously in Swedish and sounded quite drunk. One of them must have said something funny, because all the others laughed. And, to my surprise, John laughed, too!

I stared at him. He was looking at the attendants. And I realized that he was laughing at the same joke they were—which meant that he understood Swedish!

It was like ice-water down my back. For a while I
was so numb with shock I couldn't move. I just sat there, thinking, John understands Swedish. He sounds English, but he knows how to speak Swedish! And that means that he
could
be working for Prince Sven. It could have been John that collected Sir William Cecil's livery from the Wardrobe, and then wore it to deliver the drugged ale to Rosa's father. And it could have been John who disguised himself as a merman and scared Rosa away from the fireworks—and all to discredit the Earl of Leicester, for the sake of Prince Sven. It seemed incredible.

Moments later, I heard a rustle, and Ellie came out of the shadows holding her laundry bag. “What's wrong?” she asked at once.

I told her what I had just seen and heard and she whistled softly.

“I can't believe it,” I said, with a very peculiar mixture of feelings in my stomach.

“It would make sense, though, wouldn't it?” said Ellie at last.

“Yes,” I agreed miserably. “Yes, it would.” Because if John were really working for Prince Sven, I realized, he would have reason to discredit the Earl of Leicester. If the Earl, famous for being the Queen's favourite, fell out of favour with Her
Majesty, then Prince Sven would have a far better chance of persuading the Queen to marry him!

I knew I would have to speak to the Queen as soon as I could, but first Ellie and I sneaked into the tent, took the jerkin and doublet and stuffed them into the bag Ellie had brought. Then Ellie carried it over her shoulder, muttering about how heavy it was.

We walked back to the castle in silence, while I desperately tried to think of another explanation for our discoveries. And then I remembered something else and stopped in my tracks: the day after the mysterious merman had caused a dreadful firework accident which injured little Gypsy Pete—John Hull had had a burn on his hand. He'd told me about it at the Banqueting House. He said he'd been burned by a poker while he was mulling ale for the Earl of Leicester—but mulled ale is something you drink in winter, when it's cold, not in blazing August!

Ellie was staring at me questioningly, but I shook my head and carried on to the courtyard. There were a few gentlemen there, taking the air. But then a new dance started, a Volta, and they all rushed inside.

Ellie and I crept up to one of the windows and climbed on a bench to see what was happening. There was the Queen of the May, still enthroned,
chatting animatedly with Prince Sven, while Lady Helena translated with a highly amused expression on her face.

And there was the Queen herself, still dancing with the Earl of Leicester. The expression on his face made my heart melt, really it did, and I'm not a silly romantical creature like Lady Sarah. The Queen was dancing enthusiastically, her eyes behind her mask snapping and. flashing in delight. But the Earl had no mask. He was holding up her hand as she did the footwork and his face simply looked happy—tender and happy. It made my eyes water and my nose itch, because it reminded me of the way my father had looked at my mother when he came home for the last time from the French War.

I coughed and wiped my nose on my sleeye. I can't think why I was so soft—except that I was thoroughly upset and not at all pleased to have solved the mystery. Even though I thought he must have been using me, I still didn't want to get John into trouble. Traitors have a terrible death—they're hanged, drawn, and quartered. And causing false accidents— probably so that the Queen would lose patience with the Earl of Leicester and look kindly on Prince Sven—well, it had to be traitorous, didn't it?

Prince Sven was looking a fool now, and he didn't
even know it, for there he was, busily courting one of the Queen's Maids of Honour, while the Queen whirled and stamped with his rival not three feet away.

The dance finished and the trumpets sounded. Sarah stood up on her dais, said a few words which I couldn't hear—for her voice is so light—and flung aside her mask.

Everyone gasped and laughed. Prince Sven's face was a picture of fury and thwarted hope. I saw his hand go to his sword hilt, before he stopped himself.

Sarah curtsied to the company and laughed prettily, then walked very gracefully down to where the Queen stood and kneeled to her, flinging out her arms to present the true Queen of Beauty.

The Queen took off her own mask and there was another gasp. Everybody went to one knee, including the Earl of Leicester. I could hear her words clearly, as she declared in ringing tones, “My thanks to all who played this pretty jest upon you, and my thanks to all of you for being taken in by it!” She smiled in quite a spiteful way at Prince Sven, as she went on, “Oft-times our true selves are best known by trickery, when one who claims to love cannot tell the difference, and another knows at once the true from the false.” At this, she smiled down at the Earl
of Leicester, who was gazing admiringly at her. Finally she said waspishly to the Prince, “Alas, Your Grace, had you been more discerning of eye, who knows what might have happened?”

The Prince listened to the translation—given by Eric, his secretary, who was at his side by then. Eric was looking even more miserable than usual, and the Prince's face was a mask of fury. “A pretty trick, Your Majesty,” he said through Eric. “A child's play for a summer's masque. My gentlemen and I vili now return to our tents.”

And off they all went, which was extremely rude, since they should have waited for the Queen and her ladies to leave first.

Ellie and I ran as fast as we could to the main keep of the castle and up the stairs to the Maids of Honour, our chamber. I leaped into bed and Ellie hid the bag of livery underneath and then bustled about the room tidying up.

Now the girls have come clattering up the stairs, still talking and laughing, and Lady Sarah is looking flushed and happy after her triumph as Queen of the May. In a moment I will go and seek an audience with the Queen.

I am back in the Maids of Honour, our chamber, and worried about John and what will happen to him when the Queen's Guard catch him.

The Queen was not pleased by my news, but she was relieved that we at last seem to be nearing the truth. She called the Earl of Leicester in, since John was one of his henchmen.

I told the Queen and the Earl everything I had worked out. I had brought Ellie with me as a witness—and she had the stolen livery. Ellie showed the livery to Her Majesty.

“Please, Your Majesty,” I got out, my words stumbling over one another. “Please don't be too hard on John. I don't think he meant to kill anyone. …”

“He's young and very foolish,” said the Queen. “I take no revenge on servants if I can. But it may be unavoidable. My lord Earl?”

“We shall have to see,” said the Earl, looking angry indeed. “But I will take revenge no further if he has been acting for Prince Sven, and if he now truthfully turns Queen's Evidence and tells us all the Prince intended.”

The Earl talked to three of the Gentlemen of the Guard, who immediately headed for the encampment of the Earl's attendants by the lakeside.

I didn't want to see John arrested or questioned, so I left the livery where it was and kneeled to the Queen. “May I go to my bed now, Your Majesty?” I asked sadly. “I had rather not humiliate him by being here when you—”

“Of course,” said the Queen gently. “And be not too sad about John, for he did most certainly take advantage of your kind nature. Nor did you stint your duty to tell us when you knew it was him.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, and went out of her chamber with Ellie, and back into the Maids' chamber, where they were leaping about the beds in their smocks having a pillow fight and shrieking.

And I'm afraid I don't want to join in, even though the pillows are flying, and so are the cushions, and one of the lapdogs is barking now….

I'm writing this because I can't go to sleep, and I have no pillow, and the air is fall of feathers, which make me sneeze.

In the end I joined in the pillow fight, because someone knocked my book sideways and made a great long blot on it, so I had to take revenge on them. And in fact I forgot all about John because as I swept wildly with my pillow, I caught it on a carving on the bed and the pillow ripped—and then the room was fall of a snowstorm of feathers, at which the lapdogs started leaping about and barking and trying to catch the feathers and sneezing.

“What, in the name of God, is all this racket?” roared a voice, and we all stopped and turned to stare, then dropped to our knees because it was the Queen in her dressing gown looking extremely annoyed.

“Urn … very sorry, Your Majesty …,” faltered Mary Shelton.

“Sorry …,” we all muttered shamefacedly.

“Some of us are trying to sleep!” exclaimed the Queen. “I will write to your parents and send every one of you home in disgrace, if I do not this instant have peace so I may rest. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” we chorused.

As she turned to go, she caught my eye and gave a little jerk of her head. “Grace, you may go and fetch me a cup of wine to settle my stomach,” she said.