The Queene’s Christmas (16 page)

“It’s taken Meg too long to get some of the prints, though I realize she can’t admit what she’s doing. And worst of all, I’m worried about Ned. I cant bear the idea he’s involved somehow, not Ned, a Privy Plot Council member, no less.”

Her yeomen guards knocked on the door; Jenks was admitted, out of breath. “You sent for me, Your Majesty?”

“I did,” she said as he straightened from his bow. “I’m afraid we must backtrack to find our villain. I’m sorry to send you out in this deep snow, Jenks, but I want you to ride back to Greenwich to question my steward and gamekeepers there. It’s possible they saw someone poaching or hunting or some signs of the fox kill can be found.”

Turning his cap in his big hands, Jenks nodded; despite her frenzy, she was touched he was ever willing to serve her. “With the new snow,” he said, “finding tracks or blood will be hard, but maybe the men saw something. I can ask around more about where the lad that brought the box of stones could live. I’ll ride the river, since the Earl of Leicester has ordered the blacksmiths to put studded shoes on the horses. But first, I want to tell you Meg’s gone.”

“Gone? Missing?”

“Not that kind of gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Don’t exactly know, spur of the minute, I guess.” He pulled a piece of folded paper from his leather jerkin and extended it to her. “She left me this in our secret place we pass notes—private notes—out by the stables, so guess she went toward the city.”

She didn’t ask what it said, but opened it. “It’s just the sketch Lord Cecil made of the boot print,” she said until Jenks pointed to the back of it. Written small, around the edges, in a hasty scrawl were the words
E. of S.’s foot fit. He went out, I’ve gone after. M
.

The queen sighed and handed Cecil the note. “If Sussex’s foot fit,” he said, “it’s not much, but it’s a place to start. Yet I can’t believe it of him.”

“I can’t believe it of anyone we suspect,” she admitted, crossing her arms as she felt a sudden chill. “But then again, to what place is the Earl of Sussex heading in the snow this cold morning when he should be staying in with his wife and anticipating the festivities this evening? Jenks, do you know if Meg got all the other prints yet?”

“She was going to report to you this morning, but guess I’d best tell, then. Lord Darnley’s boot print was narrow and too long, so’s it’s probably not him stepped in Hodge’s seasonings.”

“All right. Darnley’s rather slight to be hoisting Hodge up into a noose anyway, though I still trust Darnley as far as I can throw him. Say on.”

“Chief cook’s feet are far too big, so he didn’t step in the stuff by accident, sending us on a wild goose chase. That reminds me, the Earl of Leicester stepped in Meg’s powder, too, and smeared out the first one she’d done of Sussex 'fore she could study it, and was she vexed at him!”

“I can imagine,” Elizabeth said. “The man does have a way of tramping on the best-laid plans. But she obviously managed to redo Sussex’s print?”

“She’s clever, my Meg. She used the fresh snow to get prints from Vicar Bane when he left this morning, same for that new actor Ned doesn’t like.”

“But how did she know Sussex’s boot print fit, as her note says?

“He too went out somewhere’s, I’d guess, since she followed him but managed to write this note on the way and stuff it in our spot—out by the stables, like I said.”

“Yes, heading for the city. But you must hie yourself to Greenwich, my man.”

“We're still clutching at straws in this,” Cecil said wearily after Jenks left to fetch his horse and get more bundled up to face the weather. “Flower dust is frail, and snow prints melt.”

“It’s more than what we’ve had. My lord, let’s go down to see the river and watch Jenks set out I’m feeling cooped up in here. Besides, I want to see how a stud-shoe horse does on the river ice. I may be a fine horsewoman, but this may be something different When I ride out to see the Frost Fair, I’ll not have my horse go down to its knees, nor,” she added, emphasizing each word, “but for praying for divine help, shall I go to my knees in this chaos of Christmas!”

Meg had to hustle to keep the Earl of Sussex in sight. He was on foot and alone, not even a servant or guard with him. If he’d been ahorse, she’d have lost him sure, for banked snowdrifts on one side of the narrow streets made for rough going. Some well-trod spots were slippery, and each breath of cold air bit deep inside her. At least the city seemed not as crowded as usual, since many folks had gone down to walk on the frozen Thames.

If she’d known Sussex would take off like this, she would have donned a better cloak than this thin one. She had no gloves and only the stout shoes she wore about the palace instead of the fine Spanish leather boots the queen had given her last New Year’s Eve. Now Meg’s stockings were wet, and her toes tingled.

But Sussex’s foot fit Cecil’s sketch so well she just had to take this chance. It was not at all like him to be leaving the comfort of the court, not after all he said he’d suffered in the chill bogs of Ire-land, which had given him the ague. Unlike some courtiers, he doted on his lady wife, so Meg didn’t think he was stepping out for a tryst. The proud, stern Earl of Sussex was in love with his family name and honor and possessive of his closeness to the queen.

Down the Strand, past her parents’ old apothecary shop she’d finally sold after she was widowed, through Temple Bar, Meg kept the tall, thin earl in view. As she crossed the slippery humped bridge over the frozen River Fleet and trudged through Ludgate, St. Paul’s Cathedral loomed straight ahead, and she wondered if he was going there. After all, many people did for many reasons.

Although religious services were held on a regular basis in the choir before the high altar, the vast outer nave of St. Paul’s had become a marketplace. So much traffic moved past the many trading stalls set up around the cathedral’s tombs and font that the covered nave had become known as St. Paul’s Walk, an extension of nearby Cheapside Market. Lawyers received clients there, and horse fairs were held, though probably not at Yule. “See you at St. Paul’s” was a common cry. But why was the Earl of Sussex, who had servants to do his bidding, evidently headed there?

As she neared the cathedral, looking up, Meg again felt awed by the magnificence of this sentinel of the city, though, after the fire, the roof had been rebuilt without the spire. The massive morning shadow of this largest building in all England swallowed Sussex and then her, and that chilled her even more.

Yes, Sussex was indeed heading into the precincts of the cathedral. She hurried past St. Paul’s Cross, where speakers of any ilk were permitted to give sermons of their choice, as long as they did not slander church or queen. Cloaked with snow, it stood alone in the cold. The Bishop of London’s house was a stone’s throw away, and she wondered if Sussex had come to see Bishop Grindal. But Vicar Bane was always around the palace, so the earl could simply have done business with him.

Sussex, slowing his strides, passed the bishop’s house and went directly in the great west door of the cathedral. So as not to lose him in the crowds, pressing her hand to the stitch in her side, Meg hurried even faster.

The queen and Cecil donned warm cloaks and hats and went down the privy staircase to face the buffeting winter wind on the frozen river. “It feels good,” the queen insisted as her cloak flapped like raven’s wings. “Cecil, I’ve been praying to God for a clue to save Christmas.”

“A clue like a star in the sky hanging over the culprit, or angels singing to point the way to his next outrage?”

“I am still not in the mood for jesting. Tonight, as Lord of Misrule overseeing a raucous mumming, Leicester will do enough of that.”

Squinting into the wind, she looked upriver to the charred ruins of the boathouse. It would be rebuilt when the weather turned warmer, but she knew she should soon order the clearing of the debris and ashes. Her eyes watered and her cheeks stung, but it was a bracing cold. Out on the ice the wind had swept clear of snow, men were cobbling together crude booths for the Frost Fair. Children and adults alike were sliding and falling and laughing on the solid white river as if they had not a care in the world.

“There he is, my lord,” she said, pointing to Jenks as he rode out onto the ice and headed east “The horse looks a bit nervous, but they're managing.”

“And with you as our queen, so shall we all,” he said.

As they turned to go back in, she glanced after Jenks again, half wishing she could stay outside on some adventure and not be closed in with her thoughts and fears, waiting for the other shoe—or boot print—to fall. Her gaze caught the rough stone foundation of the palace, rising from the frozen riverbanks just before the brick facade began, now all etched with driven snow. Had God indeed answered her prayer?

“Cecil, look, there,” she said, pointing again.

“He’s almost disappeared into the growing crowd on the ice”

“No, look at the very foundations of the palace. Down that way, toward where the boathouse stood—that rough hole in the lower wall that’s pockmarked and has caught the snow. I want to look closer at it, for I swear it wasn’t there before.”

They crunched through the carpet of snow toward the spot On the corner of the foundation, almost directly under the royal apartments, someone had hewn out pieces of gray stone—twelve of them.

Meg had been right about no horse fair today, but, despite the lure of the frozen Thames for the first time in years, many Londoners were in the nave of St. Paul’s. Hawkers screeched to buyers, selling everything from books to plateware to expensive sugar, which was imported on Venetian galleys when they could navigate the river. She heard cries for roasted pig’s trotters, gingerbread, even lemon suckets. Like the queen, Meg loved those, but she hadn’t brought a farthing with her and could snitch all she wanted off the queen’s trays anyway.

She watched Sussex make his way toward a vendor of pewter and silver goods. “Oh, no,” she whispered to herself in the echoing hubbub under the vast roof.

Her spirits fell. She’d braved the cold and got her hopes up she was onto something in this search for a murderer, and this powerful peer of the realm had merely come to buy a gift for his lady wife or even the queen? Though the wind didn’t blow through here, she shuddered. Now she’d have to head back all the way to the palace to tell Her Grace she’d come up with nothing but a numb nose and toes.

She stayed to the side of the nave, keeping one of the elaborate tombs between her and Sussex. Yes, he was looking at what appeared to be a fine pair of silver filigreed flagons with a raised design. She bet those cost a pretty penny. On a crude plank cup-board behind the vendor were displayed tankards and ewers, pitchers, flagons, and rows of plates all flaunting designs in relief. She sighed. Though she and Jenks would share a room in the servants’ wing of the queen’s palaces over the Corning years, would she ever own something as fine as those?

She gasped. Standing at the side of the cupboard as if waiting for Sussex stood that new actor, Giles Chatam. And if he was here, could Ned, who’d been told to keep on his tail, be far behind?

Ned almost shouted for joy. Now he could report to the queen that Sussex, who hated Leicester, was here whispering to Giles when, if his business had been on the up-and-up, he could simply have spoken to him in the palace. Ned’s mind raced through all the possibilities: He could suggest to Her Grace that, although Sussex would not dirty his own hands to disgrace Leicester or ruin the festivities over which the peacock presided as Lord of Misrule, he could have hired Giles to murder Hodge and ruin Christmas. And Giles could have wanted to get rid of his old rival Hodge, so Sussex could have told him about making him look like the peacock…

But no, Ned realized, he’d never convince the brilliant queen that those men had by chance found each other early enough to connive to kill Hodge. Still, anything to muddy the water to take her and Cecil’s scrutiny off himself.

Then, to his surprise, he saw Meg Milligrew, peeking around the corner of one of the tall, ornate tombs, looking the part of a skulking grave robber. Had he taught her nothing about trying to blend in with the surrounding cast of characters? She looked flushed, disheveled, and windblown, but it was somehow beguiling.

Ned scanned the crowd around her and then the booth where Sussex was paying coin for something he’d bought, which had now been placed in a velvet drawstring bag. The pewterer had taken off his cap to reveal such a bright red head that he looked more Irish than English. Carefully, being sure Giles didn’t spot him, though the young man was craning his neck to look up at the lofty ceiling like some rustic cowherd who’d never seen a big building, Ned worked his way over to Meg and came around the tomb behind her.

“If you came to meet a lover,” he said low, “I hope it’s me.”

“Oh, Ned!” she said, spinning toward him. “You scared me near to death, even though I was looking for you. When I saw Giles here waiting for Sussex, I thought you might be near.”

“If there wasn’t a connection between the two of them before Hodge was killed, there is now. I think we can make some hay with that”

“But can we get close enough to overhear what they say?”

“In this noise? Best just keep an eye on them. Look,” he said as he took her elbow and propelled her around the next tomb with its stone figure of a knight staring eternally upward, “Sussex is not one whit surprised to see him and is giving him a slip of paper.”