The Poyson Garden (25 page)

They writhed and buzzed on her hands, on each long finger people so admired. She dropped her book. But not one stung her as they moved and hummed and swarmed. And then Elizabeth heard salvation--her sister's distant voice.

"Desma! Desma Ormonde. Where are you?" Her tormentor laughed and touched Elizabeth's shoulder.

"Here, Your Grace. Coming!"

If she left, would the bees go too? If someone came along and screamed or started swatting at them, what would happen? And if Princess Mary saw what her girl had done, would she punish or praise her?

She got her answer then. Though she dared not open her eyes to see, she heard her sister's

voice closer--a quick laugh, an

"Oh!" as she must have seen Elizabeth standing there beset. Would she go for help? Had she known of this before?

"I shall not have their venom in you now, Boleyn," the girl said, her voice low and menacing and very close. "After all, you are already full of poison, that you are."

Instantly, as she turned away, the bees left, every one of them, whirling after the queen bee on Desma Ormonde's glove. Elizabeth heard the girl's fading footfalls on the gravel path, on the grass--and another's too. Mary had seen and simply laughed and gone.

Elizabeth stood in the garden, leaning against the prickly hedge, quivering, before her legs gave out and she collapsed to her knees. She covered her face with her trembling hands. Her skin crawled, solid gooseflesh. Had that indeed just happened, something so bizarre and dreadful?

At least the bees had gone away. She wanted it to all go away. And if she never confronted her sister--never told Kat or the queen what that bastard Irish girl had done--she could keep it buried deep, deep down, just like the bitter loss of her mother and her father's hatred when he had called her, more than once, you Boleyn bastard!

"Your Grace. Your Grace, what happened? Are you ill?"

It was not Kat's young face bending over her but one with lines, wreathed in silvered hair. And someone else there, her younger self stepped from the mists of memory. No, it was Meg, Meg Milligrew.

Elizabeth saw she was on her knees in the back gardens at Ightham Mote near Lady Cornish's hives, which buzzed, muted now, like her thoughts. Her letter from Cecil lay on the ground. There were no Tudor hedges, no bright green banners, no Whitehall Palace--and no bees coating her like a second skin. She shuddered so hard, her body jerked.

"I--I know who She is," she whispered to them. "The poisoner. And why--partly why--She wants me dead." They helped her rise. Her face felt wet in the crisp air. Surely she had not been crying. But she was dazed enough to swipe at her wet cheeks.

"The letter from Cecil gave her name?" Meg asked, as she retrieved it and the two of them led her back to the bench and sat her down.

"No, but I remember. She wears the veil not only because she used to keep bees and now wants secrecy. Cecil says she's disfigured from the pox. She used to be beautiful, but she's scarred for life."

"And blames you?" Kat asked, looking as puzzled as Meg.

"Not for that, but she hates me. Her name is Desma Ormonde, or Butler, or whatever she calls herself now. Do you recall her, Kat? And," she added, though she nearly choked on the words, "she used to--mayhap yet does--serve my sister."

Chapter The Seventeenth

That night the sky was sable with no moon or stars, as dark as their quest. Yet Elizabeth held to her belief they must go now.

"Where is that girl?" she asked Kat, then turned to stare at Ned. They were to gather in her bedchamber, but no Meg. "I'll have her head if she's got tangled up with Sam."

"Ned might not want to say so," Kat put in, lifting her eyebrows, "but she's probably dawdling wherever he sat or stood last, or mooning over his every word."

"That aside," Ned added hastily, "she fears sleeping in the bed where you found that dead fox."

"I can't fault her for that," Elizabeth admitted, shaking her head. "We're all on edge, but we must set personal thoughts, even fears, aside for now. Surely Meg is just delayed. When she arrives, Kat, put her to bed with her--with my--headache, and keep a watch lest Thomas Pope comes knocking on the door."

Kat nodded stoically and pressed Elizabeth's hands hard in hers. Elizabeth longed to hug her farewell, but her emotions were jagged enough. She tugged away and sent Ned first down the back servants' stairs, then, in her boy's garb, quickly followed. They tiptoed out the side door and rowed across the moat.

Although Jenks was not in sight, The Queen's Country Players waited with the extra horses he had hired from Edenbridge so none would be

missing them from the stables here. Elizabeth greeted each player when Ned introduced her. The two men swept into graceful, courtly bows they had no doubt done in numerous plays. The boys just gawked until Ned gave them a quick cuff to make them follow suit. Elizabeth had worried about taking the lads into Leeds, but their presence would help to mask hers.

But still no Jenks. "They can't have gone off somewhere together," Elizabeth muttered. She began to pace, mouthing rich oaths she had learned in earshot of her father years ago. Ned smacked his gloves repeatedly across one palm, while the others hovered.

"Your Grace," Ned said finally, "I suppose Jenks could have gone back to have words with the stable man Sam, since they are both--well, fond of Meg. You see, she's been using him-- Sam, I mean--to make me jealous, so--"

"You always," his Uncle Wat put in with a snicker, "did draw the ladies like flies to honey."

"Enough." Elizabeth shuddered at the mere mention of honey and rounded on them as if they were to blame. "I want Jenks here now. This is not like him, damn his eyes!"

They heard running feet from the fringe of the forest. Ned drew his sword and Elizabeth the dagger from her belt. She was glad to see both Wat and Rand were quick with weapons too. Ned stepped in front of her. When Wat jerked a thumb toward the lads, they darted behind a tree trunk.

Jenks ran into view, his sword drawn too. "She's gone!"

"Shh!" Elizabeth hissed. "Meg? Gone where?"

"Don't know. It's all my fault. I told her, when she got garbed like you, to just come out to say a quick farewell--for good luck, you know. So she said she would afore our dangerous duty, as she put it. Didn't see her, but found her herb basket out there a ways," he said and thrust it at them. "Even playing you, Your Grace, she had that basket."

"That is hers indeed," Elizabeth whispered. "I've used it. And she would not just abandon it."

"I looked everywhere," Jenks went on, his voice breaking. "Even lit a rush taper. Found tracks of horses and one or more woman's footprints. I--I don't want to think it, but

she may have been taken."

"Taken by whom?" Wat asked, but everyone ignored him.

Elizabeth bounced her clasped hands against her lips for a moment. "Show us the prints. Is it far?"

"Just back in the forest a bit. I can relight the rush with my flint box."

"The rest of you, wait here," Elizabeth ordered, keeping her dagger out.

It was dark as pitch, but their eyes became accustomed to it as they moved farther away from the wan lights of the manor house. Jenks led her and Ned to the general location, though he had to find the very spot by where he'd discarded the rush light. Elizabeth gritted her teeth for the interminable time it took him to relight it. The three of them bent down to look closer as the wavering flame threw pockmarks and shadows on the muddy forest floor where it was not obscured by wet leaves.

"See," Jenks said, pointing. "At least two horses, that much I can tell. This boot print's mine from when I was here afore. But this one's a man's and not mine, and those two are narrower."

"And different sizes," Ned observed. "Hold that rush closer. Aye, definitely two women. I'd say this one is Meg's. She still walks a bit pigeon-toed, though I've blazed away at her about it."

"I'll wager you have," Jenks muttered. "Like with horseflesh, folks just mistreat others, so why she cares one whit for y--"

"Silence!" Elizabeth commanded. "This other print, long and narrow--it would match those slippers I saw in Bushey Cot. I remember thinking that the poisoner's foot must be even bigger, yet thinner than mine. See?" She straightened, put a hand on Ned's shoulder, and dangled one booted foot over the print.

"Someone's got her, all right," Jenks said, "and we got to get her back. Bet if we looked about more, we'd find signs of"--his voice broke--"a fox poisoned near here."

"But," Ned said, "I see no signs of a struggle here, or even hesitation."

"Nor," Elizabeth added reluctantly as both men stood, "that she might have been drugged-- no drag or stagger marks--and therefore forced to go. And yet," she said, looking into their faces lit by flickering flame, "I maintain she is to be

trusted. My aunt believed her, and I too."

"But we cannot rule out," Ned persisted as Jenks stomped out the rush light and they started back toward the others, "that she went willingly with the woman who hit me over the head at Bushey Cot. I've been thinking that Meg might have been like Nettie at Wivenhoe, or the one who visited the veiled woman at Bushey Cot, another herb girl in thrall to Desma Ormonde, alias She and the Lady of the White Peacock."

"You and your fancy speeches," Jenks muttered, shoving Ned's shoulder. "More like she's innocent and they mean to poison her!" His fists up, Jenks spun to a half crouch, but Elizabeth slapped his arm and he backed off. When Ned still rounded on Jenks, she yanked Ned's elbow to swing him around to face her. They stared close at each other, nose to nose.

"I will not have us fighting each other. And we cannot rule out," Elizabeth insisted, "that Desma Ormonde mayhap took Meg to spite me.

Or, God help her, since she was out here in my clothing, carrying herself like me, mayhap practicing my speech, then--"

"Hell's gates," Ned whispered, "they think they've taken you!"

"Then I would fear for her even more. But we will know when we find her, and find her we must. Now."

Jenks ran ahead and was madly untying horses' reins from tree limbs when she and Ned rejoined the others. Jenks swung the two lads onto the same horse, then linked his hands to give Elizabeth a boost up.

"You truly care for her," she said quietly, looking down at his upturned face.

"Can't help it," he whispered, his face so solemn. "Lately--forgive me, Your

Grace, Meg reminds me of a great lady I always look up to, one I'd die for. But I'm your liege man, no matter what befalls."

"Well said, better than Ned Topside ever spoke," she murmured and reached down to squeeze his shoulder before raising her voice. As the others scrambled for their saddles, she announced, "Jenks will lead the way, but you are all in my charge, and I in your debt."

They picked their way through the forest before bursting out onto the road at a steady clip, plunging even

deeper into the dark heart of Kent.

"Lock her in the room at the top of the Maiden's Tower, but keep her bound and gagged tight too," Desma ordered Colum

McKitrick. She smacked their prisoner, sprawled over his broad shoulder, on the rump to show her utter contempt. In protest, the captive grunted and squirmed. Soon it would all be perfectly, completely over, Desma thought smugly--justice accomplished, execution carried out.

She felt flushed and warm, however chill the air. Though it was a good two hours after dawn, the stiff breeze swept across the lake to lift her veil so high she had to hold it down under her chin. She saw Colum try to peer beneath it. She glared at him; he could not see but must have sensed it.

"Aye, your high and mighty Irish majesty," he teased and started away. "I'll truss Elizabeth of England like a pig in the top chamber of the Maiden's Tower, that I will."

"I had no notion we'd return with such booty," she called after him with a delighted laugh to make him stop and turn back around with a tenuous smile. "We'll celebrate tonight, but now I'm exhausted. So I will take care of her later, that I promise you. She has seen my poisons work, haven't you, Boleyn bitch?" she demanded, walking to them to yank at the flowing red hair. "Let her be stewing on what's to come for a while," she concluded with another laugh.

Desma watched Colum grin and cart the woman off as if she were a bail of hay--or her precious rye steeping in its poisons in the bins of the Maiden's Tower, which St. Leger had told her she could use before he'd gone to London. The castle staff obeyed her well enough, better than Colum and his men, whom she had sent for from home.

In her chamber in the main castle, Desma sent her plump, blond herb girl, Nan, downstairs to fetch bread, ale, and her own--her good--honey. Famished after that long ride, that she was, but she didn't want the household servants in her room with all the herbs and fungus stored and mixed here. Nor did she want Nan underfoot any more than she had wanted poor Nettie or the others, but she needed them at times.

She slumped in a chair to rest; she must not get in bed or she would sleep till doomsday when she must be wary of unwanted visitors--pursuers. And her belly was about to cave in, no denying it.

She rose, removed her veil, and washed her hands thoroughly, always wary lest some of the poisons from the pellets would cling and taint her own food. As she rinsed and dried her face, her stomach rumbled in strange harmony with her albino peacock's screech outside. Where was that simpleton Nan with her breakfast? A quarter hour must be gone.

She replaced her veil and stepped into the corridor. Perhaps Colum had joined his men at breakfast, for she heard the distant rumble of deep voices from downstairs. She would box Nan's ears if she found her dawdling about with those ruffians again. But then she heard another sound.

Muffled, but nearby. A man's murmur, that it was. A giggle?