Murder at Hatfield House (6 page)

“Shall we walk for a while?” Anthony said. “Or are you needed back at Hatfield?”

Kate thought of the chaos of Lord Braceton and his men sweeping through the house, of shouts and breaking glass, scurrying maids. The fear and hiding. She needed to breathe, to clear her mind before she plunged back into that.

“I can stay for a while,” she said.

Villagers still hurried by on errands, stopping to greet her and Anthony. To be somewhat alone, they walked to the church and turned through the rickety, rusty gate to stroll amid the jumble of stones.

“So you have a visitor at Hatfield?” Anthony said once they were alone. The only sound nearby was the rustle of the wind through the old towering, twisting trees, pushing the leaves in a thick fall to the ground.

Kate leaned against the cold, rough stone of an old crypt. “How do you know of that?”

Anthony shrugged, his plain black doublet rippling over his lean shoulders. “This is a small place where not much actually happens but much is always rumored. Word spreads quickly. And Master Hardy heard an emissary of the queen was coming, which is why he left to consult with some of his colleagues on how best to deal with such people.”

Kate sighed. “His name is Lord Braceton, and he does come from the queen,” she said. “He arrived last night. He says he was attacked on the road by an unseen assailant, his servant killed by an arrow. He is utterly furious.”

“Does he say what his business is from the queen?”

“The usual when such people arrive. He is investigating word of treason and heresy in the princess’s household, and he must search and question us all. But he seems even angrier, more determined, than those who have come before.”

Anthony nodded, frowning. “Word of the murder did reach us here.”

So the village had heard of the servant’s death, yet they expressed no curiosity to her about how it had happened, asked her no questions, told her nothing of what they knew. It was so strange, and infuriating, coming from a place she knew loved to gossip. What could it all mean? What did they know? She was determined to find out. “Have you heard anything else?” Kate asked. “Is it known who did it?”

“If anyone does know, they aren’t saying,” Anthony said. “But Hatfield isn’t Braceton’s first destination in the neighborhood.”

“What do you mean? Where else has he been?”

“You know Sir Nicholas Bacon? At Gorhambury House?”

“Aye, Sir Nicholas is the brother-in-law of the princess’s surveyor, Master Cecil. He sometimes comes to supper at Hatfield, but we haven’t seen him in a while. Braceton was at his house?” The man had said nothing of any other destinations.

“Investigating reports of heresy, of course. Bacon and his family were great supporters of Lady Jane Grey, and now they are closely associated with Princess Elizabeth.”

“They’ve been questioned before and nothing was found,” Kate said, puzzled. “And they’ve lived such quiet lives since then. What would make the queen suspect them again now?”

Anthony leaned closer, his palm braced to the stone crypt next to her as he whispered in her ear. “Rumor from London says Queen Mary is not at all well since King Philip left her to go back to war in France. They say she is in such pain and has such terrible swellings that she cannot even walk. That she merely stays in her chamber weeping and praying, begging God to heal her and give her a child so Elizabeth will not sit on the throne.”

“But twice she thought she was with child and twice she was wrong,” Kate murmured. She remembered those long, tense, hot days when the queen had gone into confinement and Elizabeth waited to hear if a new Catholic prince had supplanted her, taken away what little power she had . . . if they were all doomed. But it all came to naught and Elizabeth went on as before, the heir—but not declared as such.

That was when the burnings increased.

“No one now believes the queen will ever have a child, not even her husband,” Anthony said. “That is why he has gone, washed his hands of this whole English mess.”

“A mess he himself helped create!” Kate said, angry at the haughty prince who had tried to bring Spanish ways to England. Yet even she knew it was not truly King Philip’s fault. He’d prevailed on his wife to have Elizabeth released from the Tower and sent back to her own house, even if it was only because he wanted Elizabeth wed to his Savoyard kinsman and England thus tied closer to Spain. It was the queen who had hated Elizabeth and all she stood for ever since she was born.

It was the queen who, ill or not, had the power to destroy them all. And Braceton, her devoted officer and bully-man, had been sweeping through the houses of Elizabeth’s allies. But why the Bacons, why now? And why go to Gorhambury before Hatfield? Where else had he been?

Kate had the feeling she needed to find these answers before she could discover who had killed Braceton’s servant and thus exonerate the princess and her household. Perhaps whoever had killed the man had done it in a misguided effort to help Princess Elizabeth. Or perhaps it was all a ruse to cast even more suspicion on her.

“Even if Mary is ill, she is still queen,” Kate said. “The burnings still go on.”

“More every day,” Anthony said gravely. “The latest was five people in Ipswich, including two women.”

Kate shuddered at the images his words painted in her mind. If evidence of heresy
was
found at Hatfield, Elizabeth wouldn’t burn—she would face the ax, like her mother and her cousin Jane Grey. But her servants could go to the stake. Servants such as Kate, her father, Penelope Bassett, even the poor mute kitchen boy.

Nay!
She would not let that happen. England had one hope for the future, and that was Elizabeth. And a raging bully like Braceton could not be allowed to bring that down.

The problem was that Braceton was a
powerful
bully, and Kate a mere young musician. But she had her life and the life of those she loved to fight for.

“Can you find out more about what happened at Bacon’s house?” she asked Anthony.

A wry smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You think you can discover what this Lord Braceton is about?”

“I can try. Somehow I have the feeling he is up to more than merely searching for heretical books or letters about any planned uprisings. I can’t do anything against him unless I know what is really going on.”

“I will help you however I can, of course. I’ll always help you, Kate. I hope you know that,” he said softly. Then, to her shock, he took her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss.

Unlike his salute in the shop, this was no mere mock courtly gesture, but a gentle, lingering touch of his mouth on her skin. Kate stared at his dark head bent over her hand, astonished, amazed . . .

Delighted? She hardly had time to try to decipher her jumbled feelings when a shout split the cold air.

“Fornicators!” The stark, explosive word sent birds from the trees in a burst of wings and squawks.

Anthony dropped her hand and spun around, his body protectively blocking Kate’s. She went up on tiptoe to peer past his shoulder, her stomach in knots.

The figure that greeted her sight was surely like something out of that vanished Last Judgment painting. Tall, thin to the point of being skeletal, with pale waxy-white skin stretched taut over sharp bones and burning water blue eyes, all draped in dusty old black robes. The specter pointed one long, shaking finger at them.

“Fornicators!” the phantom shouted again, a voice shockingly loud and booming for such an ethereal figure. “How dare you defile God’s house in such a way?”

“Master Payne, I assure you we were doing no such thing in, er, God’s house,” Anthony said calmly. He held his hands up in a peaceable gesture, but he still sheltered Kate with his body. “We were merely walking through the churchyard.”

Kate recognized the man then. It was no ghost, though in truth it might as well have been. For it was Master Payne, who had been the Protestant minister of the church under King Edward. He had been turned out unceremoniously when Mary became queen.

Master Payne had been of a distinctly Puritan bent and, it was said, had preached extreme, almost Lutheran ways in his sermons, railing against ornament and merriment of all sorts, tossing Catholic prayer books and vestments onto bonfires. It was said most of the townspeople were relieved to not listen to him from the pulpit any longer.

Not that Master Payne was completely silenced. When he had been tossed out of the parsonage, he refused to go live quietly with his family in the next county or to flee abroad as so many other ardent Protestants did, including Elizabeth’s own Carey-Boleyn cousins. Instead he found an old sheepherder’s hut in the woods and took up residence there, as hermits did in centuries past.

He sometimes emerged from the woods to stagger around the village, exhorting people to mend their sinful ways, to embrace martyrdom and defy the demon Papist queen. How he had not been seized and burned long ago was a wonder. Most people merely thought him quite unhinged and rather harmless, easily batted away. Kate herself had only glimpsed him once or twice, darting around the empty church that had been his domain.

But was he really so very harmless? She couldn’t think so now, as she stared at him, her mouth dry with startlement.

He was so very large, the arm revealed under his fallen-back sleeve surprisingly muscled. And his eyes were glowing with an inner, furious fire she’d only seen on Queen Mary’s most Catholic ministers, who came periodically to harangue Elizabeth.

Just like Lord Braceton.

“I have been watching you—all of you!” Master Payne shouted with a sweep of his torn sleeve. “You come to this place to do your foul deeds. England has become a sinful place, and we shall all be destroyed by it. All except the righteous, who have a duty to fight back. I see everything.”

“Everything, Master Payne?” Kate said, finding her voice again. Master Payne did indeed have a way of lurking around, unseen by everyone because they did not want to see him. Didn’t want to acknowledge madness in their midst, as they tried to keep their heads down quietly and survive. Perhaps he had seen who attacked Braceton.

Perhaps he had even done it himself, “fought back” against the Papists. Surely attacking the queen’s man was an act of madness.

Kate eased around Anthony, still afraid as Master Payne turned his wild stare on her. But she was calm, knowing they were still within shouting distance of the street, and remembering her promise to Elizabeth that she would find out all she could. Master Payne, for all his shouting of fire and sin, might be able to shed a tiny bit of light on the confusing tangle of Braceton.

“Did you happen to see anything last night, Master Payne?” she asked quietly.

“Kate . . .” Anthony said. He moved to take her arm, to push her behind him again, but she held him off.

“I see many things,” Payne said. “God has given me the gift of seeing into men’s hearts, and most of them are black with sin. But they shall be punished in the fullness of time.”

“Indeed, sinners shall be punished,” Kate said, as if what he preached was the most logical thing in the world. “God has chosen you as His instrument, has He not? He knows you are a faithful servant.”

Payne’s gaze shifted, as if a flicker of uncertainty passed over him. “I am His faithful servant. I will do anything to bring God’s favor back to this land.”

Anything—even kill?
“Then we must all be grateful to you, Master Payne, for your great work and sacrifice,” she said. “Were you out doing God’s work last night?”

“I do His work in every moment. It leads me to see shameful things. I could tell you much, young lady, but I will not sully you with further knowledge of such sins. You should not go out at night. Evil lurks on these very roads. But one day soon the evil will be purged. I will see it done.”

Kate swallowed hard and nodded. She wanted to shout with impatience, as Princess Elizabeth sometimes did, to grab Master Payne by his meager hair and demand he tell her what he’d seen or done on the road last night. But, aside from the fact that he was much taller than she and could swat her off in an instant, she knew that was no way to find out what she wanted.

“You have seen more Catholics come into the neighborhood of late,” she said.

“Kate, we should go,” Anthony whispered to her. She nodded, her gaze never leaving Payne, whose skeletal face hardened.

“They are polluting the very air,” he said. “But one has paid. The others will soon.”

“What do you mean?” Kate demanded. Payne gave her a smug smile, but before he could answer, a shout came from the churchyard gate, a man passing by trying to shoo Payne away as if he were an errant pig broken loose among the tombstones.

Payne whirled around and fled at the noise, vanishing behind the church in a flurry of black robes.

“God’s blood,” Kate whispered, using Elizabeth’s favorite curse. Surely she’d been close to finding out something! Payne seemed mad, but there had to be a kind of truth in his words.

“You shouldn’t speak to him at all, Kate,” Anthony said as they walked out of the churchyard. He held the gate open for her, making sure no one still lurked on the walkway. “There is no knowing what a madman like that will do when provoked.”

“Everyone says he is quite harmless,” she murmured, turning over Payne’s few words in her mind as she searched for a kernel of a clue.

“As long as he stays in the woods, perhaps. But we have all seen the lengths people in the grip of religious fervor will go to,” Anthony said quietly, solemnly. “These are dangerous days for everyone. We must walk very carefully.”

“Somebody refused to ‘walk carefully’ last night, and it has put us all in danger,” Kate said. “But you are very right about religion—it can be such a force for good, but it can also make people unhinged. Payne is surely as fanatical a Protestant as Braceton is a Catholic. Do you think then it was Payne who tried to kill the man?”

“Payne?” Anthony said, his voice full of surprised consideration. “Perhaps so. He surely wouldn’t consider murdering a queen’s man, a Catholic, to be a sin. In his mind he would be ridding the land of one more dirty, sinning fornicator.”