The Queene’s Christmas (7 page)

“Ah, she is a lovely girl,” he added lamely.

“Lovely in her heart, that is what I value,” Elizabeth said as she moved toward the door to her privy rooms. “Those of us who were children of great loves—even if that love was lost,” she added quietly, “are ones who care deeply for others, my lord. Perhaps I shall have Rosie tell her parents’ story again during this Yuletide, for I refuse to let jealousies and hatreds so much as creep in at court right now. We shall have only camaraderie for Christmas, that is my decree.”

But her words rang hollow in her head. She feared murder had been committed in the precincts of her palace. Whether or not it was aimed at the “peacock” Leicester, the attack on the queen’s privy dresser could threaten her court or even her crown.

For the Christmas Eve banquet that would begin the Twelve Days of Christmas, the front half of the Great Hall was cheek by jowl with the most powerful nobles of the land. Larded in among them at the elaborately set trestle tables were ambassadors, envoys, church legates, and senior servants. For minor courtiers and, behind them, other household servants, the rear of the vast hall held similar tables, though not quite as sumptuously appointed.

At the front of the hall, at the dais table with the queen, sat those of most noble rank: Margaret Stewart and Lord Darnley; Leicester; Sussex and his wife, Frances; the queen’s Boleyn cousin, bluff, red-haired Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon, whom Elizabeth called Harry, and his wife, Anne; and, as a special honor, Sir William Cecil and his lady, Mildred. Bur anyone in the hall who believed such seating paired her off with Leicester was much mistaken.

At the queen’s behest, the musicians in their lofty gallery were momentarily silenced, the hall was hushed, and Cecil stood to read the announcement they had decided on:

H
ER
G
RACIOUS
M
AJESTY DECLARES THAT THIS
T
WELVE
D
AYS OF
C
HRISTMAS SHALL BE CARRIED ON AS PLANNED WITH SEVERAL EXCEPTIONS
. D
UE TO THE MOST UNFORTUNATE DEMISE TODAY OF ROYAL SERVANT
H
ODGE
T
HATCHER
, D
RESSER OF THE
Q
UEEN’S
P
RIVY
K
ITCHEN, THE COURT WILL HONOR HIS MEMORY IN THESE WAYS:
T
O WIT, THERE WILL BE NO PEACOCK SERVED THIS YEAR; SPECIAL PRAYERS WILL BE OFFERED FOR HIS DEPARTED SOUL AT CHURCH SERVICE TOMORROW; AND THE BRINGING IN OF THE
Y
ULE LOG TO THE CENTRAL HEARTH IN THIS HALL WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL AFTER THAT TIME OF REMEMBRANCE
. A
LSO, FESTIVITIES UNDER THE AEGIS OF THE
L
ORD OF
M
ISRULE, THIS YEAR THE
E
ARL OF
L
EICESTER, ASSISTED BY THE QUEEN’s PRINCIPAL PLAYER AND
M
ASTER OF
R
EVELS
, N
ED
T
OPSIDE, WILL BE POSTPONED UNTIL THE DAY AFTER
C
HRISTMAS, THOUGH
L
EICESTER WILL THEN NOT RULE BUT MISRULE FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS
Y
ULETIDE SEASON
.

Murmurings and whispers assailed the queen’s ears. At the Lord Chamberlain’s nod, lutes, shawms, gitterns, drums, and pipes began to play again from the musicians’ second-story gallery.

“I believe this is a fair blend of mourning and yet letting life—and Christmas—go on,” Elizabeth said to Cecil, raising her voice to be heard. “I suppose they’re vexed about waiting for the Yule log, but everyone gets so giddy over that I couldn’t countenance it, even if Hodge’s body will be held for burial until after Twelfth Day.”

Hodge’s death hardly seemed to stem the eating and drinking, she noted, though the queen’s own stomach had not settled since she had seen the corpse hanging as if it were another piece of Yuletide holly to be cast off after the revels. She merely picked at her favorite dishes and settled instead for the sweet fruit suckets she loved. Her mind wandered from the conversation, even from Robin’s, whom she had more or less forgiven once again for meddling where he was not bidden.

“I believe I will take some hippocras instead of straight wine,” she told her servers, “just to help with digesting all this. The food was fabulous, of course, even prepared and delivered under duress.” She saw their eyes light with pleasure as bright as their new livery before they hurried away.

Elizabeth’s gaze caught Cecil’s. He had not missed that she had hardly tasted the array of dishes. When the hippocras was proffered to her, she downed it, then excused herself early, though she told her Lord Chamberlain to announce merely that she was tired and all could stay at their places. She only hoped, despite the exhaustion of this day, that her master cook, Roger Stout, would have something to tell her about Hodge Thatcher’s motives for possible suicide. She was no doubt clutching at straws, but if she received only one gift for the holidays, she prayed it could be that no murderer stalked her court.

Cecil also excused himself early and joined the queen just as Roger Stout was escorted into her otherwise empty presence chamber. “Will you write down pertinent facts, my lord?” she whispered to Cecil as Stout stopped before the table where his two betters were seated.

He appeared to be both flushed with excitement and drained by exhaustion; she noted well that the new livery she had given him today looked pleasing on him, but for a fresh splotch on the left shoulder.

“Clifford,” she addressed her trusted yeoman guard as he was about to leave the room, “draw up a chair for Master Stout, as he has had a doubly trying day.”

“You are most thoughtful, Your Majesty,” Stout said as he rose from his bow, “and I am most grateful.” When both she and Cecil praised the meal, he told them, “If the many dishes were garnished well, thanks be to George Brooks, Master Hodge’s ‘prentice of long standing. With your gracious permission, I’ll elevate him to the position of dresser
pro tem
‘til you name another.”

“That will be fine, Master Stout,” the queen assured him as he sat in the chair Clifford brought from the back of the room. When Clifford went out, the muted sounds of laughter and music floated to them from below.

“And now,” she went on, “will you tell us anything you know that might indicate—despite the bizarre garnishing of Hodge’s body—that the poor man might have possibly done away with himself?”

“ ‘Tis mostly from knowing his state of mind, Your Majesty.”

“Say on.”

“Hodge Thatcher comes from a long line of thatchers, I mean, those who thatch roofs, you see. Not unusual for a name to come from a long-tended family occupation. The thing is, Your Majesty, his father expected him to take over the trade, especially when the old man, his sire, slid off a roof—out by Wimbledon, it was—and broke his back. Can’t move from his waist down, the old man.”

“So Master Hodge felt guilty over disappointing his father?” she summarized. Glancing over Stout’s head she could see a portrait of her own father hanging on the wainscotted wall; she had paid it little heed for months, but it suddenly seemed to be staring at her. When she first came to the throne, she used to be ever aware of it Sometimes the eyes even seemed to follow her around the room. Though her royal sire had more than once declared a woman could never sit on England’s throne, she was certain her father would be proud of her—wouldn’t he?

“Aye, guess that would be part of it,” Stout said, pulling her back to the present “But, you see, ‘twas Hodge’s dream to be a cook and in London, and when he worked his way up in the Tudor kitchens, he never would go home. His mother missed him sore, their only child, I guess. She died last year, and after that his sire would never take the coins Hodge tried to send, a most bitter, unforgiving man, he was, e'en afore his tumble from the roof. But then he got turned out of his home, and right afore holiday time, but a week or so ago, it were.”

“And all this weighed heavily on Hodge’s mind,” she said. “He told you so?”

“Not only that,” he said, nodding vigorously, “but I was thinking about that stack of gold leaf. Secretary Cecil here had me talk to the guards at the larder, where we keep the leafing for special displays under lock and key. Seems Hodge told them he needed the entire amount of it on hand to do not only the peacock’s beak but legs and feet, too, special for the queen’s Christmas, he told them.”

“But I saw the bird’s body was roasted with the legs under it and not leafed as usual,” the queen observed.

“So did I, Your Grace,” Cecil put in, “not that Hodge could not have stretched the legs out after it was roasted and leafed them over then. But still that stack of leaf was far too much for what he needed.”

Hardly able to contain her excitement, Elizabeth stood and started to pace. Both men jumped to their feet so as not to sit in her presence. “Are you thinking, Master Stout,” she asked, “that Hodge might have been intending to take or send at least some of that gold leaf to his father so that he might keep his home, or be well tended by someone? Perhaps he contacted his father or heard from him and—even partially paralyzed and homeless—the stubborn man would not accept charity from his son, not even at Christmastide. Hodge rued letting his people down and killed himself? Do I jump too far afield?”

“My thinking exactly, Your Majesty,” Stout said, “ ‘specially ‘cause of this.”

He felt in the inside of his new livery doublet first on one side, then the other, until he produced a grease-spattered scrap of paper he carefully unfolded. When he held it out, Cecil reached across the table to take it from him and offer it to the queen.

“Open and read it, my lord,” she said as her thoughts raced.

It was possible that Hodge had been despondent over his family problems, she surmised, gripping her hands together. Perhaps when he decided to kill himself, on the spur of the moment, he decked himself out to show whoever found him that he had lived proudly in his place as royal dresser and garnisher, however much his father criticized his chosen trade. And perhaps he had left behind a suicide note.

“I am having this writ by the sexton of the church,”
Cecil read, squinting at the folded paper and tilting it toward the bank of beeswax candles on the table.
“Money cannot replace nor buy the time you did not spend with us, come to us, and help me in the proud trade of your for fathers. You made your fancy bed with cooking for the family that ruined the true church. You chose their table finery and all that, so lie in it, that bed you made. You cared not a fig for us, and naught can make up for that now your mother’s gone and I be like this, not even half a man and that without a home.”

“So cruel, for all of them, and at Christmas,” the queen whispered, stopping her pacing so fast her skirts swayed. She felt a sudden chill and clasped her elbows in her hands. Hodge’s family had hated hers, but Hodge had chosen loyalty to the Tudors. Though this was not the suicide note she had been expecting, sadly, self-slaying seemed entirely possible now.

“The note’s not signed,” Cecil said with a catch in his voice.

“I warrant it did not have to be,” she said. “The way it is worded could have sent him off the edge of despair. To lie in that bed, which his father cursed, perhaps Hodge defiantly became that peacock, which was fine looking, though it was dead.”

“Aye, he was always proud of how he dressed the peacocks, swans, boar’s heads, too,” Master Stout said. “But maybe how gay and glad we all were in the kitchens that day made him think how wretched he was, so he climbed up on that stool, brought the chain pulley down a bit, and did the dreadful deed right then.”

The three of them stood silent until the queen thanked Master Stout. He bowed and left the room, saying no more.

“You’re no doubt much relieved,” Cecil said from the other end of the table.

“I am. My stomachache is even better. It all fits. Perhaps now I will not call the late meeting of my Privy Plot Council, and we can all get back to normal after the prayers for the poor man’s soul tomorrow. He won’t be buried in hallowed ground now, but I will have Stout send a message to that unforgiving father of his. What? Why are you looking at me that way, my lord?”

“I am tempted to tell you all is well, but you have not yet heard some other things I have learned from your commanding me to observe the coroner’s work and the scene of the death.”

Her hopes plummeted; her stomach cramped again, despite that hippocras she’d drunk after dinner.

“When I appointed you my chief advisor, Cecil, I charged you to always give me true counsel, whatever the risk or cost”

“Then you’d best call that meeting, Your Majesty. More than that booted print in the cumin under Hodge’s body suggests that foul play was indeed afoot.”

Chapter the Fourth

Maids of Honor

Make pastry enough for a double-crust pie. Preheat brick oven by burning wood or coals inside, then raking them out. Roll out pastry and cut in rounds, then fit in small bun or tartlet tins. Prick pastry with fork tines. Bring to near boil ½ pint fresh cow’s milk with 4 level tablespoons of white breadcrumbs (2-day-old bread is best). Remove from heat and leave for a few minutes. Into that mixture beat 8 teaspoons butter, cut in cubes. Beat in 2 tablespoons sugar, grated rind of 1 lemon, and ¾ cup ground blanched almonds. Although the mixture has some texture, be sure it is not lumpy. Beat in 3 good hen’s eggs. Half fill the pastry shells and bake for 15 minutes or until pastry has pulled away from side of tins and filling is golden brown. Car fully lift pastry from tins and cool before eating
.