The Poyson Garden (19 page)

"I agree, Ned," she went on, "the poisoner must not mean she would actually set a fire. I believe, however, she could place poison in a well near Leeds. Meg, can you recall any sort of deadly herbs that have a name with fire in it? Or anything to do with St. Anthony?"

"Nothing with fire, not herbs, 'least--at least, best I can recall," she said, sitting up straighter, as she always did these days when Elizabeth or Ned spoke to her. "Still, with saints' names, there's St.-Benedict-thistle, St.-John's-wort, and St.-Joseph's-wort --that last one's same as sweet basil." She ticked them off on her fingers, which looked much cleaner these days. "And something with St. Mary I can't remember. But nary a one's poison."

"One more question, then we're off to our beds," Elizabeth said, before she saw that Jenks meant to contribute something. At least now she had his attention.

"Yes, Jenks."

"I thought we'd be heading for Leeds Castle, after what you said, Your Grace."

"We are, but not quite yet. We shall find out more and lay plans. It is slightly farther from here than Hever, so the risk increases. Mayhap they would expect us at night this time, so I am having second thoughts about that. Besides, a lake is more of a challenge than a mere moat." She glared at Ned as he dramatically rolled his eyes, but Jenks did not change expression. "Also," she went on, "we shall have to have a more clever entr@ee than setting a fire. ..."

Her voice faded and she frowned before plunging

on. "Besides, the master poisoner evidently tried to tell Lord Waldegrave I sent the intruders to Hever. They may try to verify my presence here. Worse, I saw someone staring at us from the staircase window in this house when we headed for Hever--a woman, I am sure. Meg or Kat, did you watch us ride out?"

They both shook their heads solemnly, almost warily, as if waiting for some explosion from her.

"Then it could have been Blanche or Lady Cornish or even a servant," she mused, staring down at the broken wax of the royal seal of Queen Mary of England.

"Or the Buzzard herself--Bea Pope," Kat intoned what Elizabeth dreaded to admit.

Elizabeth looked up, meeting the eyes of each in turn. "Exactly. She's always watching me, but now especially we must continue to watch her. Should I hazard a guess, I would say she is tied to the poisoner somehow, and she does make occasional visits to her sister in Maidstone in Kent--or so she says."

"And if she's in the thick of it, his lordship could be too," Jenks said.

"Yes, but--"

A sharp rapping rattled her chamber door. Elizabeth shot straight out of her chair as Thomas Pope's voice resounded, "A word with the Lady Elizabeth. A messenger came for her, and this late too."

"Get down," she whispered to her people, gesturing. "Hide."

"Coming," Kat called while the others scrambled to roll under the bed or dart behind curtains.

were his words a ruse? Elizabeth wondered. Had they made too much noise? Or had the Popes looked for one of her people and found them missing, and two nights in a row? Her heart thudded, for messages in the night were rare and fearful. Or could the rumors be true? Could the queen's cancer have claimed her?

Kat had the good sense to pull her robe over her gown and muss her hair. Elizabeth did the same and poked her head around Kat's wide shoulder as she opened the door. Kat had smoothly slid the bolt out so he would not hear that the door had been locked. Elizabeth set her feet solidly and lifted her chin. No way

Thomas Pope was getting into this room even with the door open.

"I thought I heard voices inside," he began, trying to dart a look past the two of them. He was in his night-robe, so perhaps he'd even been to bed. But Elizabeth knew instantly her sister lived. He was his usual brusque, meddling self, and he'd not dare that--not if Queen Mary had died. Unless, Elizabeth thought and her stomach cartwheeled, he believed Mary's half sister would never live to claim the throne.

"I can't sleep," she told him before Kat could reply. "Can't even breathe well with this swollen nose, my lord, and Kat keeps me good company talking of happier days. The message then?"

"Hmph. From your lawyer who oversees your estates clear from Stamford--William Cecil."

Her heart leapt, but she kept her voice even. "Is he well?"

"I warrant so, my lady. His man brought word that he will be here in the flesh to report on the state of your estates--rent rolls or some such-- by midday tomorrow, and he hopes you might receive him. Always good to see a fellow exile, is it not?" he dared to add with a mocking grin that did not reach his eyes.

Elizabeth held her tongue but set down in her memory another mark against Sir Thomas Pope. Yet she was so relieved--thrilled--she would see Cecil that she even smiled at Pope before Kat firmly closed the door in his face and silently reshot the bolt.

"We're having a toast to the first good news I've heard in weeks," Elizabeth whispered to her little band as they emerged from hiding. She whirled once as if she were pirouetting in a pavane, her hands clasped together. "Kat, my favorite canary wine for all, but everyone must whisper till we're sure the queen's second-most favorite Pope is not lurking about in the halls. To Cecil coming to give us sound advice," she said quietly, lifting her goblet. She touched its rim to the one that the others, smiling, passed from hand to hand.

It hurt her nose every time she smiled, but it was worth it.

Elizabeth Tudor dressed formally in her

second-best gown of blue brocade with embroidered underskirt and narrow neck ruff to greet Cecil and his two companions in the courtyard at midday next. She so seldom had visitors and wanted to let the loyal Cecil know she honored him. Besides, she had to do something to make up for a fat nose and black eye, which Meg's paste and Blanche Parry's oyster powder could barely conceal.

She knew the moment Cecil bowed low over her hand before he greeted the Popes that he would be the man for her as principal secretary when--if-- she went to court as queen. His expression did not alter even when he saw her bruised countenance. She had learned many a wily political move on her own, but it was Cecil's counsel she trusted over that of anyone else, even through the blackest times of the Seymour scandal and the Wyatt mess. And now.

She knew he was concerned for her safety and that was really why he had come. She fully understood the rent rolls and the way he handled her business for her. So, not a half hour later, after he had refreshed himself and changed garments, she had Blanche, Lady Cornish, and Kat buffer the two of them. Standing before the big oriel window in the solar, she and Cecil turned their backs on the Popes as she pointed out the gardens while they quickly, briefly talked.

Without moving his head, his voice kept low, and his lips hardly moving, he asked, "Your face, Your Grace. That brazen bully Pope has not taken to striking our next queen?"

"This is the least of my problems. I ran into an obstacle--or two--at Hever."

"Hever? More news of poisoners there?"

"I must talk to you. My women will keep off the watchdogs after we dine. There is much to tell."

"Lord Carey was right to suggest I come. We shall make much of my meager report of your estates."

At dinner she went to school again, watching William Cecil. She reveled in the way he replied to each of Thomas Pope's inquiries but told him nothing, though she knew--Pope probably did too--that the lawyer had many friends and kept close ties with London doings. Cecil claimed that clear up in rustic Stamford he had heard naught but prices for wool and his young son Robert learning to talk, and he certainly hoped the queen's health was good. They

drank to it.

And then, just when Elizabeth was about to make her move to get him alone, Cecil said, "I do hope Lady Cornish would not mind if you gave me a brief tour of her gardens, Your Grace. Late as it is in the season, I see the brick walls have sheltered a few of the last roses. Rather as they always did at Hampton Court, all those red and white roses, do you recall, my lord?" he asked Pope. But they were out of the room and down the hall with their servants sweeping cloaks around them and their entourage falling in behind before Sir Thomas could reply or Bea could so much as send for her cloak.

"Admirably done," Elizabeth told him with a smile. "I know you usually eschew such long speeches--about gardens and roses, at least."

"Right now we must both eschew any sort of talk but of this plot that threatens you."

"First, how does the queen, in truth, my lord? I cannot believe what I am told here."

"She fades and is delirious at times. Her belly tumor and pain grow. She has named you successor but refuses to send you the onyx coronation ring from off her finger until--until she can at least accept that she will die."

"We must all accept that we will die, Cecil."

"Aye, but I'll not have talk of it for you. Not at age twenty-five, on the cusp of your destiny. No damned poison plot shall sully or stop you, when so many of us rely on you to save this chaos Bloody Mary's made of England." His voice was more dark and bitter than she had ever heard it, but he shook his head as if to cast off his melancholy. "Now, tell me straight what you know."

They walked the grounds, pretending to admire an occasional late, leggy bloom. She saw Cecil become more and more disturbed--though he managed yet to look pleasantly bored--as she hurriedly told him what she had learned about the poison plot, and how. Farther back from the house, they walked Lady Cornish's knot garden, and Elizabeth pointed out its intricate patterns of box edges entwining designs of colored gravel and plants the frost had blasted while she talked of much else. They stopped but one moment to peer at the brass sundial, then moved on.

"I cannot believe my ears," he said, his voice as quiet and contained as hers. "Not only the risk, but that you would--and could--take it upon your person to ride out like some freebooter to Bushey and then Hever."

"I had to know. To stop it before it is too late. And somehow I must get to Leeds too."

"Too damned dangerous. When I wrote you of Waldegrave's Spanish ties, I did not fathom he was her spy there. I smell conspiracy."

"It was because it all began to add up that I had to act. I know you used to tell me "When in doubt, do nothing," my lord, but--"

"Hang what I used to tell you. You are on the threshold of ruling this realm, Your Grace, and they are desperate to stop you at the last."

"But who? Sui bono, as you say? Who is this woman, and why does she bear such deadly hatred for the Boleyns and those loyal to them? And I can hardly run to my sister for help. Last time I so much as hinted at poison in her presence, she exploded and accused me--and my mother ..."

"I can imagine."

"And then, my lord, I know it's treason," she went on, her voice ever more passionate, "but what if Her Majesty herself stands behind this woman?"

She saw him shudder. He quickly pulled his cloak up tighter around his neck and beard, but he did not respond to that.

"Dear princess, the other reason I came was to warn you that Leeds, too, has dangerous foreign ties, as Catholic and convoluted as they come."

"The Spanish again, of course."

"The Irish. Sir Anthony St. Leger, Leeds's owner, is English, but he served your father as lord deputy of Ireland. King Henry gave him Leeds as a boon payment--a reward for his services."

"My father? And the Irish? Now there are two wild cards on the table when I have not yet discerned the rules of the game."

"But Anthony St. Leger was underhanded," he went on with his explanation.

"St. Anthony--that is part of his name?" she questioned, remembering the clue of St. Anthony's fire.

"What?"

"Nothing--not now. Say on."

"St. Leger somehow played both sides. Aye, he convinced the rebellious Irish to accept the occupant of the English throne as the Irish monarch. But he set himself up well in the process, double-dealing with the Tudors, becoming a true ally to the Irish, it was said--"

"Ah, finally we can join your conversation," Thomas Pope called out, as he and his lady determinedly plunged through Elizabeth's women, bouncing wide skirts and furred cloaks out of their way. "What is said, my Lord Cecil?"

"I was just musing aloud, Sir Thomas, about beehives like the fine-looking wicker ones Lady Cornish has in the corner," he said, pointing. "They are run just like the court, with a queen and busy, buzzing servants. But those servants need remember not only to honor the queen but the one who could be queen someday."

Thomas Pope stopped dead in his tracks and sputtered. Cecil stared him down. Elizabeth drew herself up short. Not only did she want to throttle Pope for interrupting them, but she had been so intent on Cecil's words she had not noted they had come this close to the hives. However cleverly Cecil had set the Pope back on his heel, she was piqued that he had so much as brought up bees and queens.

For the rest of an interminable quarter hour, Thomas Pope and his Lady Beatrice walked between her and Cecil. But Elizabeth knew when she bid her guest a good evening, he would not depart until he had told her the rest of what he'd come to say.

Chapter The Fourteenth

"Lemon juice, milk, and antimony,"

Cecil whispered to Elizabeth the next morning. He swirled the pale, green-hued ink in a small bottle he'd produced, literally, from up his sleeve.

The two of them sat side by side at a wide table in the solar, supposedly to review her rent rolls from Hatfield and Woodstock, two estates her father had left her, both of which had served as her rural prisons in her sister's reign. Sir Thomas and Bea sat in the room; she and Cecil made certain they could see them. Bea was embroidering, while Kat, Lady Blanche, and Lord and Lady Cornish cast

hazard dice at a small corner table and Sir Thomas watched them--all of them.