Murder at Hatfield House (11 page)

“Not so hard, girl!” the cook groaned. “You will be the death of me.”

Kate wasn’t at all sure she could really get any gossip out of such a frazzled group. But then again, it always seemed a little sympathy could do wonders.

“Excuse me, mistress,” she said. “I am terribly sorry to disturb you when it’s time to retire, but the Princess Elizabeth begs for a posset to help her sleep.”

The cook groaned, not opening her eyes. “Oh, she does, does she? It’s not enough that we put together a grand feast on only two days’ notice! That we must find cinnamon and almond milk where there is none to be had in the shops. My old bones are weary unto death!”

Kate wondered if this cook was related to old Cora at Hatfield. “I am terribly sorry,” she said again, most contritely. “I can make it myself, if you will direct me to the herb pantry. It does help the princess to sleep.”

“Well, if it is for the princess . . .” the cook grumbled. She pushed the scullery maid away and lumbered to her feet. “But I don’t want any stranger rummaging in my pantry, disarranging everything. Hand me my clogs there, girl, and I will make it. But only for her. Not for any of those wretched Spaniards running about. So much to-ing and fro-ing here of late.”

“That must be a tremendous amount of work for you,” Kate said as she followed the cook into the small herb pantry. Bunches of fragrant greenery hung from the rafters over stone-topped tables, filling the air with their sweet scent. Bottles of fragrant oils were brewing on a ledge and baskets of fresh flowers sat on the floor. “But the princess did enjoy the meal so very much. She said she had never tasted such a prune tart before.”

A reluctant smile broke across the cook’s face. She plucked down some peppermint leaves and a sprig of lavender and dropped them into a mortar and pestle to grind them together. “Ah, well, I’m glad she liked it then. Appreciates good English cooking and hard work, I’m sure.”

“Indeed she does,” Kate said. “Has there been more work than usual here at Brocket Hall of late? We haven’t been as quiet at Hatfield as we’re accustomed to, either.”

The cook shook her head, scowling again. “Usually when my lord is at court, it’s only Lady Clinton to serve, and she gives us much notice if guests are coming. Lately it seems strangers are always thundering up the drive, demanding refreshments.”

“Are they sent from Lord Clinton?”

The cook shrugged. She poured in a measure of sweet red wine and a splash of milk, stirring them vigorously with the herbs. “Who knows where they come from. Luckily they soon go galloping off again. But they are up to no good—that I can tell you.”

“Are they not?” Kate asked in a shocked voice, hoping to encourage more confidences. “Why, mistress, is there something awry in the neighborhood? Some danger we should all be aware of?”

The cook peered at her with narrowed eyes. “You serve the princess, do you not? You are her lady?”

“Aye, I do serve her. As my parents did before me.”

“And you were at the dinner with the Spaniard tonight.”

“I was. But I heard nothing of any danger there. The count merely presented King Philip’s compliments to his sister-in-law.”

“Compliments!” the cook snorted. “Of course he would say naught of anything else. But my sister works at Gorhambury House. You know it?”

“Sir Nicholas Bacon’s house,” Kate said.

“That’s the one. And a good, generous master he is, if a bit eccentric, what with all those books and stargazing and whatnots.”

Kate nodded. Sir Nicholas was well-known for his studies of astronomy and astrology. “He is a good friend to the princess.”

“Then you know how he came by his house.”

“In the Dissolution of the Monasteries,” Kate said. As so many noblemen’s dwellings were these days, Bacon’s home had once been a religious house.

“Aye.” The cook studied Kate closely for a long, silent moment, as if she tried to gauge her trustworthiness just by looking. Finally, the old lady nodded. “My sister tells me Sir Nicholas had a visitor from the queen, a most unpleasant sort who tore the house nearly asunder. He claimed he was looking for heretical tracts and books.”

“Lord Braceton,” Kate said. “I fear he is at Hatfield now.”

“Then you must tell the princess to have a great care in all her doings with him!”

“Princess Elizabeth knows nothing of heresy about her person.”

“Perhaps not. But my sister at Gorhambury heard a most interesting bit of news about Lord Braceton from her friend at a house he visited in Kent in the summer.”

Ah. Now she was getting somewhere. Elizabeth was quite right when she said the servants of great houses always knew what was really happening there. Kate nodded and leaned forward confidentially. “Indeed?”

“Indeed.” The cook glanced around uncertainly. “I should not gossip, of a certes, not in these days. But we do all love the princess here, and she should know.”

“I will tell only her. If she is in danger . . .”

“She is always in danger, is she not? And her friends with her. But Lord Braceton’s errand involves property.”

“Property?”

“Aye,” the cook whispered. “My lord Clinton is on the queen’s council, and word there has it that the queen seeks to return her own properties that were once seized from the church under her father. And she will urge her ministers to do the same.”

Kate felt her jaw sag with astonishment. She had heard vague talk that Queen Mary sought to assist England’s return to Rome by restoring the monasteries, but Kate had put little stock in it. None of her men, Catholic or not, would want to give up their own estates. But if the queen could order it . . .

Utter chaos would surely ensue. There was scarcely a noble family in the country who had not been enriched by the seizure and distribution of church property so long ago.

“Does Braceton survey the properties to be returned?” Kate asked, confused.

The cook shook her head. “He is surely as greedy as anyone else. But I have heard tell that if anyone can be proved to be a heretic, their property is forfeit to the Crown and the queen can return it to the Church or gift it to a Catholic subject. If they can seize them fast enough, perhaps they should not even have to be returned to the Church.”

Kate nodded as the picture became a little clearer. The more Protestant estates that could be seized now, while Queen Mary was still alive, the better. Perhaps this meant that a nobleman in danger of losing his land or the relative of someone Braceton had already robbed was the link to the death of Braceton’s servant on the road. So far the council had blocked Mary’s efforts to requisition the estates of exiles like Elizabeth’s Carey cousins, but what of proved heretics here at home? And the cook was right. If the estate could be seized now, while Mary was alive, and then claimed by a Catholic family, it would not have to be returned to the Church when Mary was gone.

“Who wants Bacon’s house?” she mused aloud. “Braceton himself?”

The cook shrugged again. “How would I know? I am no gossip for certes. But we have seen a great deal of that Spaniard lately.”

“Count de Feria?”

“Aye, he’s the one.” The cook gave Kate a long, shrewd glance. “And who is he to marry?”

“Jane Dormer,” Kate said, disbelieving. She knew little of Mistress Dormer beyond her rumored beauty and kindness, and she did come from an old, ardently Catholic family. But Jane Dormer was one of the queen’s favorite ladies and didn’t lack for fortune. “She seeks to seize Protestant lands? But what use will she have of them when she is married to a Spanish count?”

“That I could not say, mistress. But if the queen is indeed not for the world much longer”—the cook hastily crossed herself, for predicting the monarch’s death could be called treason—“Mistress Dormer and her Spaniard would have no more recourse here. But there are dozens besides her who would happily conspire to grab what’s not theirs.”

“That is all too true,” Kate murmured. The lands had been the Church’s, then the king’s, now his noblemen’s. They could easily change hands yet again. But did Braceton want them for himself? Or was he in the pay of someone else? How did bullying Elizabeth and her household help him with that?

Kate feared she was more confused than ever. But she was determined to see it all clear—no matter what she had to do.

CHAPTER 8

“G
od’s teeth, but you will never get the scene right! You lackwits!” The shouted words split the campfire-scented night air, and were punctuated by the sound of a boot kicking a cart wheel and a muffled curse of pain.

Rob Cartman glanced up from the script he was reading by firelight in the wooded clearing. He saw his uncle Edward Cartman, leader of the troupe of players known as Lord Ambrose’s Men, go limping past from around the edge of the cart. The two young apprentices he was no doubt shouting at went fleeing into the night.

Edward’s lean, lined face was so brilliantly red with fury that Rob had to laugh.

The sound of merriment made his uncle spin around toward him. He made as if to grab Rob by the throat, before he suddenly seemed to remember his nephew had outgrown him long ago. Instead, Edward tugged his scarlet doublet into place with a great show of wounded dignity.

“And what do you laugh at, varlet?” Edward demanded. “You, who are meant to be getting on with your work, not lazing about.”

Rob held up the sheaf of papers, smudged with crossed-out words. “I am learning the lines for the new play, Uncle. At least I am not wasting time shouting at the apprentices—again.”

“Those bacon-brains! They are good for nothing at all except drinking and wenching in taverns!” Edward shouted. There was a furious rustling in the night-dark trees, as if the hapless boys were trying to run even farther. “If their apprenticeship contracts were not already signed . . .”

“And if we did not need someone to play the fair Lady Rosamund and her maidservant . . .”

Edward gave Rob a speculative glance, and Rob laughed. “Nay, Uncle, not I. In case you had not noticed, my beard came in a long time ago. My fair maiden days are behind me.”

“Alas, aye. You were always a pretty maid indeed in your apprentice days,” Edward said, scowling. “At least now all the ladies in the audience sigh over you as the ardent young lover.”

“And pay good coin to see our plays over and over,” Rob reminded him. Wenching was surely good for something, even if it was just receipts.

“There is that. If we’re ever paid the coin for this . . .” Edward sat down heavily on the nearest props trunk and rubbed his hand wearily over his bearded face. “We would be doing well enough indeed. But I fear we won’t see a farthing of it if we land in the Tower.”

Rob sat up straight and studied his uncle with sudden concern. Edward had always been a temperamental man, filled with worries and complaints. It came with being an actor and leading a troupe of equally temperamental players in the very changeable fortunes of the theater world. Rob had seen it ever since he was a child, when his parents died of the sweating sickness and his uncle took him in and trained him in the actor’s trade.

But of late there had been something more to his uncle’s unpredictable temper. Ever since their sponsor Lord Ambrose left for France and tasked them with this tour of Hertfordshire, with all new plays to learn and country houses in which to perform them. They had been to the houses of Sir William Cecil and his brother-in-law Sir Nicholas Bacon lately, surely not two of the queen’s favorite subjects. Edward’s manners had been even rougher than usual, his temper shorter. He was even stricter about how lines were said, the blocking around the stage.

And in the last house where they performed, Edward had disappeared after the play and not reappeared for hours. Usually he was always watching what the men were doing.

“What is it about these plays that could fetch us into the Tower, Uncle?” he asked quietly. “If any of these new lines are treasonous in some way . . .” The Master of the Revels had been doubly strict since the queen returned the English Church to Rome. Plays were gone over not the once they were before, but thrice or more.

“There is no treason there, Rob,” Edward snapped. “But we must follow Lord Ambrose’s instructions before we can return to London.”

Rob was even more confused. “Have we not done that? We are learning the new plays as quickly as we can. They will be better at the next house. At Gorhambury . . .”

“Gorhambury!” Edward spat. “Aye, we did poorly enough there, that gloomy pile. At our next stop all must go perfectly, just as instructed. Do you understand me, Robert?”

“Nay!” Rob shouted in complete bafflement. “Where is this next stop? What must we do there? What will
you
do there—disappear as you did at Gorhambury?”

Edward’s face went white even in the firelight. He opened his mouth as if he would shout an answer, but then he just shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. “Never you mind that now. Just learn those lines and make sure those cursed apprentices learn theirs, too. We move out at first light. Pray God the rains don’t start again to slow us down.”

Rob watched his uncle stride away into the darkness, none of his questions answered. There had been something most odd about this tour from the beginning—and it grew more curious all the time.

*

“So the queen’s loyal subjects are engaged in snatching lands, are they?” Elizabeth said as they rode down the lane from Brocket to Hatfield early the morning after their strange dinner.

“It would appear that something of the sort is indeed happening, Your Grace,” Kate answered. She hadn’t ridden for some time until this sudden trip, and was struggling to keep her mare from dashing off the road into the woods. But she had to tell the princess all she’d heard from the cook while they had a quiet moment. Penelope rode behind them, and the men-at-arms were ahead to make sure the road was clear.

Elizabeth laughed. “Of course they are. It is ever thus when an old regime is fading—everyone looks to themselves and their future. I saw it with my father and my brother both. But obviously Braceton had no success at Gorhambury, whatever he seeks there. How can he think he’ll find it at Hatfield? We can have no secrets left after all this time.”