The Thorne Maze (12 page)

“No doubt the cause is accidental death, Your Gracious Majesty,” Withers said, wringing his cap in his hands, “for I hear the departed was frail and of an age. And to be walking out at night alone in a maze—well. But if the coroner suspects foul play, I shall serve any needed writs and carry out immediate arrests.”

“I should hope immediate, Master Withers,” Elizabeth replied, “though we discovered no one near the body, and no one has rushed forward to be arrested. Say on, my lord Dudley.”

“And the coroner,” Robin announced, “is Richard Malvern … .”

The queen recognized the name as a local family of good gentry stock, so she surmised his progenitors must have held the post, too. Malvern had piercing, dark eyes set in skin white as a toad’s belly. His raven hair was cut as if a bowl had been placed over his head, like the friars of old, but with no tonsure. His clothes looked costly, exceedingly so, but perhaps he’d scrambled into his best attire when he’d heard the corpse was at court.

“By your leave, Your Most Gracious Majesty,” Malvern said with another bow, “no matter what Bailiff Withers says, we’ll need a justice of the peace if we must bind an accused felon over for trial. Ergo, I have taken it upon myself to summon one.”

She noted that Withers shot Malvern what could only be called a withering look. Had these men not heard her that no felons had been found? Jenks must have informed Robin that foul play was suspected, and Robin must have told these men. Since the Crown received a portion of a murderer’s property, did they think she insisted on a murder? ’S blood, murder it must be, but let them look into it officially while she probed it her own way.

“I charge you, Coroner Malvern,” the queen commanded, “to discern exactly what happened here, pure mischance or foul play, then to report to Lord Dudley, who will report to me.”

“And finally, Your Majesty,” Robin said, gesturing the last stranger forward, “may I present Constable Vernon Wright.”

The big man who had bounced the bushes looked more the part of one who abetted rather than apprehended brawlers or drunks, let alone murderers. He reminded the queen of a chipped earthenware jug: brawny with no apparent neck, a scarred visage, broken nose, and protruding ears. And these were the men who administered queen’s justice in the surrounding parish to her people? Worse, when she was just about to urge them again to their necessary duties, another official was escorted in by yeomen guards.

“Justice of the Peace Henry Featherstone, at your royal service,” the newcomer murmured so quietly she could barely hear him.

“Speak up, man,” Robin said, so he repeated himself, including his bow.

The justices were nominally appointed by the monarch, though in actuality by the Lord Chancellor, so the queen seldom had to traffic with them. It was the justices who called witnesses if needed and examined the accused, then committed them to gaol or released them on bail until trial. She sensed none of that would happen here, even if the coroner did declare this a homicide. And not just because these men seemed rustics, for queen’s justice of necessity must rely on such men in parishes and shires.

It was rather that the queen finally admitted to herself that she too might not identify and halt the culprit. She was up against a demon, who hated those who were brilliant, admired, and scrupulous, like Templar. Surely the same someone who, for those reasons and others she must divine, hated her.

“I expect each man to do his duty,” she concluded abruptly. Feeling suddenly closed in, she pushed through the crowd and maze to the darkness outside.

Though Elizabeth was distressed and exhausted, she felt she must look in on Bettina before retiring. Chris Hatton had followed her out of the maze with her yeoman Clifford, whom she’d ordered to keep close to her person when she left her apartments, so she walked toward the east wing with Chris at her side and Clifford behind.

“How did Mistress Sutton take her husband’s loss, Your Grace?” Chris asked. “She’s very—well, Italian.”

“Only her mother was Italian, but yes, of course, she was emotional. It was heart-rending. I sent Rosie and Jamie to sit with her until I come.”

“Jamie? He’ll not lend the sort of comfort she needs. He’s a watcher, Your Grace, an analyzer of all things. He keeps somehow aloof from the heat of daily passions.”

“From the heat of daily passions?” she reiterated, meaning to argue, before she realized Cecil—and Mildred, for that matter—were somewhat like that. “Perhaps that is no longer true of Jamie since he seems intent on courting Rosie Radcliffe, though she’s the sensible sort, too. But the kind of man you describe makes a good lawyer and leader, does he not? And, evidently, he strives to be a good friend.”

“Granted, Jamie is a sturdy friend for all seasons to me. As for the law, Jamie sometimes quotes the Lord’s word about how it can be useless—the law, not the Lord’s word.”

“Which biblical quote on lawyers dare say that? The Lord’s word and English justice are perfectly aligned, at least while I sit the throne to which He has brought me.”

“I’m trying to recall the one I meant.” That made the queen recall that Cecil had once said Chris Hatton could win over a jury on his countenance and charm, but no cleverness for legal argument. No matter, for it was loyalty she valued at court, though she did wonder at times how he got even as far as he did at Oxford and Gray’s Inn with demanding sticklers like Templar for teachers.

“Ah,” Chris said at last, “I think it goes something like, ‘Avoid strivings about the law for they are unprofitable and useless.’”

“That only means the strivings are useless, not the law. In other words, a cold-blooded lawyer is better than a hot-tempered one. Hell’s teeth, I could have told you that. It’s probably true of monarchs, too,” she muttered to herself, “and ones with quick tempers should heed such.”

“But as for a friend, Your Majesty,” he said, evidently trying to backtrack, “Jamie is a good one, and I know he’d like to be your friend.”

“Tell me, Chris, what is your last memory of Templar Sutton? If you saw him earlier today, what did he say?” Meg had told her that she’d overheard Templar scolding him, and she wondered if he’d admit it or explain.

“The same plainsong he ever sang me,” Chris said, hanging his head. “That I needed to yet study, to read more to elevate what I know and can converse on.”

“Ah,” she said, relieved he had spoken the truth, if not in Templar’s very words Meg had reported.

She was prepared to let the subject lapse when Chris added, “It doesn’t help that Templar rebuked Jamie, too, if for a different reason.”

“Which was?”

“Jamie was a fine student but left school early, granted to come to court with me, but Master Sutton didn’t like that, for he said more was expected of Jamie than of me. Yet he told Jamie he was as disappointed in both of us, that we should finish law school at Gray’s and not just serve a queen in pleasantries at court.”

Elizabeth nearly jolted to a halt, then walked on. So Templar blamed her for reeling such young men into her court when they should be about more serious business. Evidently Templar Sutton thought her frivolous and would have liked to scold her, too. And if the man played not just law teacher but judge and jury against his monarch, who else did he censure to their faces or behind their backs? Templar Sutton must have enemies, for surely not everyone he criticized admired him as she herself and his students had. Somehow, she must discover who Templar’s enemies were—and so, perhaps, find her own.

“Let’s go in this door,” she told Chris, though it was Clifford who leaped ahead to open it for them. “The Suttons’ new chambers are somewhere in this hall.”

“I’ve been trying to bear up but just can’t face it, Your Majesty,” Chris blurted, hesitating at the threshold door. She turned around to face him. “Poor Master Sutton and Bettina too!” He heaved a sigh as he finally stepped in. The scent on his breath—gillyflowers? Or was he one of those many courtiers her chief cook had said begged or bartered for breath cloves?

Forgoing to question him about anything else now, Elizabeth walked to the only open door in the hall, one which spilled light out onto the wooden floor. She assumed it was the Suttons’ room, but she was mistaken. By wan lantern light, Mildred Cecil sat studying a parchment diagram of some sort just inside the door.

“Oh, Your Grace,” she cried, hastily rising to her feet while the parchment rolled noisily closed. “I had the door open for my lord’s return—he is all right?”

“He is yet about my business,” the queen told her from the doorway. “I fear he will be late, and I am sorry if you are lonely, but there was a good—a bad—cause.”

“He told me of Master Sutton’s sad demise.”

“I have come to see the widow. Your lord moved her chambers into this hall today.”

Mildred’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened before she recovered. “It’s all right,” Elizabeth explained. “The murder took place out in the maze, not in this hall near you, Mildred, so put your mind at ease.”

“I—I shall, thank you, Your Majesty. I shall put my mind at ease.”

Through the door set ajar, Jenks finally spotted Meg bent over a seething kettle in a small brick garden shed she used for drying herbs. Since the queen had left the maze, Lord Dudley had sent Jenks back to the stables to oversee tending the parish officials’ horses, but he was taking the long way around by the outbuildings.

“Meg, you all right?”

She jumped and gasped. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! Now I’ve burned my knuckle, making this tonic.”

“I didn’t sneak up. Called your name right out.”

He stepped into the cluttered place, lit by a single lantern. Hanging bunches of drying herbs bumped his head and swayed. “I see you know those slip knots, too, like what was used on the garters round the queen’s neck,” he observed, noting how neatly she’d tied each bunch.

“Meaning what? I’ll not have accusations I’d ever harm her, not with what all I been through.”

“What we’ve all been through. I missed you desperate bad the years you were in exile for—displeasing her.”

“Jenks, has she sent for me?” she asked, fanning the air with her hand to cool her burn.

“It’s me wanted to see you.”

“You’re seeing me.”

“I warrant I am,” he agreed, and looked her over with a guilty grin. Sure, Meg Milligrew resembled Her Majesty in coloring, size, even in the face, but she was ever her own woman. “Even in the middle of all kinds of things going on,” he tried to explain, “I always want to see you.”

Her head came up a bit, and her eyes widened. “It’s kind of you to wonder if I’m all right. It’s just that Lord Cecil mentioned earlier today he’d like something to lift his wife’s spirits.”

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked and stepped closer.

“Hardly,” she dipped out, then looked sorry she’d said that. “I’m using a few drops of this expensive oil of spiknard to relieve Mildred Cecil’s downheartedness,” she explained, turning away and pointing. She sounded nervous. Jenks shuffled nearer to her and her array of jars and paper packets. “I’m boiling it with borage for courage,” she went on, talking faster and faster. “Apothecaries say, it ‘purgeth melancholy.’”

“Then I could use a swig myself,” he said, his voice slow and soft in contrast to hers. His chest almost touched her back, and he could feel the heat from her as well as her kettle.

“Hm,” she said and giggled. “Just don’t get it mixed up with the yew juice in this other jug.”

“Yew? From those patch-piece bushes in the maze set among the hornbeam? What about yew?”

“And you’re supposed to be tending the queen’s horses?” she said, her tone teasing as he lightly placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned closer, pretending to peer past her. “Any farmer or forester,” she went on, “knows that even a big animal eating yew can be dead quick as quick from a mere mouthful of yew shrub.”

“You’re brewing up poison?” he demanded, turning her to face him.

“Not exactly. Just like with foxglove and some other herbs, a little is good physic, but too much can kill you. And yew, in the right, spare doses can help with gout, bilious problems, and infections. If I tell you a secret, can you keep it?”

“’Course I can. You don’t mean Her Grace has some sort of infection from that attack on her?”

“Jenks, I swear, you need someone to take care of you,” she said, shaking her head and shifting slightly away. “Jamie Barstow has a urinary infection and doesn’t want anyone to know. Manly pride, and I guess you know about that.”

“Me? Barstow’s sweet on Lady Rosie, that’s who he doesn’t want to know, I warrant. But if a man truly cares for a woman, there comes a time when he lets down his guard. You know, tells her true how he feels.”

He carefully took her hurt hand, lifting it to see if there was a burn mark. He couldn’t see a thing in this light. But he felt the burning for her, in his heart and in his loins.

“Meg, you been widowed nigh on two years, and I know your union wasn’t happy—”

“Like being trapped in hell, it was.”

“But have you ever thought of marrying again, I mean someone who served the queen, someone who understood and admired you to …”

“What about the queen?” a deep, distinctive voice came from the door behind Jenks.

Ned. Damn his eyes, Nedl

Meg pulled her hand back as if it was burned for sure. Her expression, which had been wary, lit like a Yuletide candle.

Jenks’s hopes fell. He’d practiced aloud what he’d say, recited it to a bunch of horses all afternoon, and now Ned Topside—Meg too—had ruined things again.

“Ned, come in,” Meg said. “We were just chatting about this and that.”

Jenks pushed past Ned and stormed out the door, banging it so hard the whole shed shook.

Clifford located the Suttons’ chamber, knocked on the door, opened it, and announced the queen and Lord Hatton to those within. Bettina had wilted over a table, sitting between Rosie Radcliffe and Jamie Barstow.

Rosie and Jamie jumped to their feet to curtsy and bow, and Bettina, looking dazed, slowly stood and managed a half-curtsy. Elizabeth sat in the chair Jamie vacated, made Bettina sit again, and turned to comfort her.