The Thorne Maze (29 page)

He almost fell into the water in relief.

“Mildred, I know I’ve been so busy, so distracted—”

“I knew when I wed you that you’d bedded Bettina and how disappointed you must have been in yourself. I believed then and now that rash, random transgression and your ill-conceived first marriage would make you work hard at our union.”

“Not hard enough. Forgive me.”

“I have finally decided to. But I must tell you, my—my behavior since Robert’s birth was not all my own doing, that is, I’ve suffered from some dread mental or spiritual disease over which I had no control. But I think I’m better now. Her Grace tells me that you love me, and I believe her. You spend enough time with the woman that she should know. I should not have left our guests to tell you all this now, but who knows what time you will be to bed tonight—and I wanted to lift from your heart the despair I’ve caused you.”

Tears blurred his vision. He had longed to do that very thing for her and failed, for she—and the queen—had somehow healed her. They rocked their boats as they reached for each other and kissed.

“I love you with both my heart and mind, my Mildred,” he whispered. “But you must return to our guests and quickly. I can’t tell you why, but please—”

“Oh, I see,” she said, looking calm and wise like the Mildred he used to know. “You’re not really here because you are vexed at the queen or want to be alone. She has sent you to catch whoever has been using her royal mazes for murder. Please, Will, have a care for your safety as well as hers.”

“Go now, and pray no one else is quite as clever as you,” Cecil whispered and helped her turn the prow of her boat outward. Their hands clasped before she bent to her oars.

Elizabeth overheard most of the exchange between the Cecils. She was relieved for them, but their untimely reconciliation could cause the murderer to bolt. After Mildred rowed away—the queen could see her silhouette as the boat flashed by the dead end in which she was hidden—she almost called to Cecil to be sure he knew she was in place. The silence stretched on and on, broken only by the persistent hoot of an owl and the occasional, distant sound of laughter from the manor grounds.

As water dripped off her chin, she thought of the female ghost who had supposedly drowned herself in this maze and now left barefooted prints and a trail of water in the house at night. Nonsense, she told herself. As her father had said, ghosts were merely someone’s guilty conscience, so no wonder England was full of them. But she began to tremble even more.

She stood still as a statue when as she heard the
swish, swish
of water again. So smooth was the passage of a boat slipping past she could not glimpse more than a dark form bent over the oars. But she could tell one thing: this person was stronger than Mildred, who had thrashed the water more. At least it could not be Kat; this must be a man. And so much for musings about a ghost. This rower was sinewy flesh and blood.

Elizabeth pressed her ear to the prickly leaves which grew so thick here Cecil’s lantern did not penetrate. If it hadn’t been for the wan moonlight, the darkness would be a wall of its own. The hedge grew lower here, too, so to reach him directly she would need to put her whole head underwater. Since she refused to risk that, she would instead go around the end of this cul-de-sac to get to him. Slowly, she edged in that direction.

“Who goes there?” Cecil cried out to the rower. “Unmask!”

Unmask? Elizabeth thought. Someone was trying to hide an identity until the moment of murder?

“I’m not masked, Secretary Cecil.” A man’s voice. “It’s just this bandage on my forehead flapped over my face—see? A whoreson wild horse bit me today.”

Darnley’s voice. She should have known it was Darnley from the first.

“Ah, Lord Darnley,” Cecil said, quite loudly, “it is you.” Elizabeth could hear his voice shaking as he too must realize Darnley was indeed their murderer. She drew her dagger, hoping Clifford was ready to rush in at the first cry of Cecil’s warning words,
You amaze me!
But Darnley must give himself away verbally or physically before they did surprise him.

“I apologize for interrupting your solitude, my lord,” Darnley said, “but I have a privy favor to ask and the court seems full of spies lately, spies hostile to me.”

“Then what do you have to say no one else dare hear?”

“I realize the queen has every right to change her mind—most women seem to, and she above all. But I petition you, my lord, as you have her ear which even outsiders suddenly brought to court have had more so than even I or my mother despite our shared royal blood with Her Grace … .”

“Outsiders like Templar and Bettina Sutton?” Cecil interrupted Darnley’s nervous rambling.

“Yes, if you must know. Privy tours and meetings, invitations to the widow to go to Hatfield when the household was much reduced even of nobles. But what I am imploring you, my lord, is that you reason with Her Majesty to allow me to join my father in Scotland.”

That was the first thing the blackguard had said which made Elizabeth waver on the certainty of his guilt. If he’d come to kill Cecil—to strike down another she obviously heeded and trusted more than she did her own Stewart kin—why waste time with petitions? Unless, that is, it was just to get Cecil to lower his guard.

Every muscle in the queen’s body tensed, and a pain cramped her left calf. Gritting her teeth, trying to listen, she lifted her leg and pulled her toes up with her hand not holding the dagger. Leaning against a barrel, she fiercely kneaded her muscle, even through the damned stiff boot.

“Lord Cecil, I swear to you, it will behoove you to have me in your debt, for I intend to rise high in Scotland, one way or the other, since it seems I never shall here.”

Since Darnley was talking as loudly as Cecil, he could surely not be a murderer who relied on stealth. But if the murderer wasn’t Darnley …

“‘One way or the other?’” Cecil repeated Darnley’s words. “Hell’s gates, that sounds more than opportunistic—quite ruthless to me, my lord.”

“You do realize, Cecil, it is to your and the queen’s advantage to have me in Edinburgh to keep a good eye on her cousin, the Scots queen, and on my honor, I will.”

Your honor?
Elizabeth nearly shouted. Still hobbled by the cramp, she moved slowly toward the opening of the dead end, straining to hear what else Darnley would say. So far he had not attacked Cecil in any way and had actually made sense, though she’d trust him about as much as she’d trust herself swimming the entire length of this cold, wretched maze.

She was not certain whether she felt thrilled or thwarted when Darnley thanked Cecil for any help he could give, and, with a cheery good night, began to row again.

Elizabeth moved back as he passed her and evidently rowed out of the maze. She resheathed her dagger in relief, though she felt like crying. This continued push and pull of deep, dark water might as well be a stream of her own fears. She had failed and had better wade out of here before she caught the ague or a cold. Though she supposed Mildred, at least, had cleared herself of suspicion, she wasn’t entirely sure about Darnley. He might yet be simply toying with them. The nightmare was not over but rolled on.

The queen waited for a few more agonizing minutes, then admitted to herself that the maze murderer had called her bluff and beaten her again. She must summon Cecil to pick her up and order Clifford to wade his way out. But as she opened her mouth, she heard again the distant creak of oars and felt the water roil.

Chapter the Eighteenth

THE THIRD TIME’S A CHARM, THE OLD SUPERSTITION danced through Elizabeth’s head while she waited to catch a glimpse of this boat as it went by. But the sounds and sway of water stopped.

She held her breath. Surely she had not imagined it, a ghost boat in the maze. She should have asked Cecil if the woman who drowned here had rowed herself out or waded in.

Then she heard a muffled cry, a thud, a splash, but not, thank God, from Cecil’s direction. She started out of her hiding place to see what had happened, but the plop and creak of oars began again. What could have been dropped in the moat? It had been a big splash that now rocked her and the maze walls.

A boat with a single hunched figure rowed swiftly past the opening of her hiding place, as if he or she knew to avoid each false and fruitless turn. Perhaps it was someone else, simply here for innocent reasons, like Mildred and Darnley. Elizabeth was certain she heard low voices coming from the maze goal, so Cecil must know the boatman. He could have summoned an additional guard to keep them doubly safe. Obviously, he knew the rower or he would have called out or at least spoken up as he did with Darnley.

Elizabeth strained to hear and cursed the fact she couldn’t catch a glimpse of them without leaving her lair, so she began to slowly make her way out of her cul-de-sac again. She gasped to see a floating body, facedown in the water, snagged in her path.

She nearly screamed for Cecil, but what if this too was part of a trap? Worse, what if this
was
Cecil, but she could hear him talking, couldn’t she? The set of the body’s broad shoulders, the head of hair were so familiar. No, thank God, it wasn’t Cecil.

Fearing this might be a ruse in which the floater would come to life to pull her under, she poked at the man’s shoulder. He didn’t budge. Fighting to steady herself in the constant current, she rolled him over and sensed, as well as saw, who it was.

Chris Hatton! Had Chris’s body been the splash she’d heard? Not Chris dead, too. The snare had been sprung and not by her and Cecil.

“You amaze me!” Elizabeth shouted their signal for help. When no one answered, she cried, “Cecil! Chris Hatton’s here, hurt or dead! Call Clifford!”

She breathed easier as she heard Cecil begin to row toward her. His prow, then the hulk of his boat entered her hiding place to push her back, holding the floating body, against the three-sided hedge walls.

“Cecil, someone’s tried to kill Chris. He’ll be heavy, but let’s get him in your boat. Who else rowed in?”

“Just like your dear, departed Sir Chris, Secretary Cecil is indisposed, so I’ve borrowed his lantern,” the man in the boat said and lifted it, nearly blinding her.

The distinct scent of gillyflowers floated to her. She knew that voice. Jamie? Jamie Barstow! But he could not have hurt his dear friend. Jamie had everything to win by befriending, not betraying her and Cecil, didn’t he?

“I’m so pleased you called out,” he went on, “because I was becoming bored with whispering to myself as if Cecil were simply chatting with someone. I needed to be sure he bled a bit more, shall we say, before I made my exit. And, lo, it is Her High and Mighty Majesty herself on guard.”

“I’ll summon my other guards—”

“If you mean Clifford, whom you’ve had watching me at Hatfield all week—and then at the back of this maze tonight—he’s incapacitated too, though I do regret hitting him over the head and hog-tying him. He’s a servant like myself, one not likely to ever be recognized or rewarded at court.”

Though she wanted to scream, she forced herself to deal calmly with this clever man. “Clifford was watching the Countess of Lennox and Lord Darnley,” she corrected, pleased her voice was steady, for she was trembling terribly.

“So, after all I’ve done, you didn’t think me worthy of a watchdog. But here you are watching me privily. Really,” he went on, his tone mocking, “we must stop meeting for trysts in mazes, my queen.”

“It was you who listened at Mary Sidney’s keyhole when I agreed to meet Robin Dudley, you who forged that first note and left the one nailed on my ascension oak.”

“I’ll leave another nailed to your coffin, something else from the Bible, I think, such as, ‘I have broken down all her hedges. I have brought her strongholds to ruin.’”

“You’ve misquoted that, but then the devil can cite Scripture for his own purpose.”

“I knew I would enjoy debating you in person as much as I have from a distance, High-and-Mighty.”

As they spoke, she wedged Chris’s shoulders between two barrels to keep his head above water, though he gave no sign of life. “Your assumption that we are alone is wrong,” she brazened, “and I’ll summon my other guards if you don’t let me pass.”

When Jamie snickered at her bravado, she knew for certain he meant to kill her. Otherwise, he would not risk being so scornful and insulting.

“You do realize,” he went on, “what I’ve netted myself in one fell swoop tonight?” To her rising terror, she noted his teeth gleamed white in lantern light. The murderous traitor was grinning.

“Finally, I’m rid of my lord and master,
Sir
Christopher Hatton,” he boasted when she did not deign to answer, “who but pretended to be my friend and has ever looked down on me as a servant.

“I’ve never seen him treat you that wa—”

“Despite the times I’ve protected and saved him with my wit—my soul—he reaped all the benefits.”

“You went to Gray’s Inn with him, then to court, and live far above your station.”

“But I was not allowed to stay at Gray’s long enough to be called to the bar, was I?” he ranted, suddenly losing control. “No, at your whim and for ‘Handsome Hatton’s’ face and form, I was pulled out of Gray’s, which could have been my salvation. I could have become a lawyer, not dependent on him as my father’s been at his father’s beck and call all these years. How do you think I felt to be reprimanded by Master Sutton for leaving Gray’s early, when I had no choice? Truth be told, Chris’s father agreed to send me to Gray’s as his son’s servant. If I hadn’t had to tutor the numbskull, who knows if I would have been allowed to so much as read a book or set forth an argument there!”

“I regret all that, for you have a sharp mind, however much perverted it has become of late. But you had no right to—”

“I have the right to hate Chris and you—and to find a way to bring you to justice. Isn’t it terribly tragic,” he plunged on, his voice mocking again, “that poor Handsome Hatton must have been fooling around in a boat after drinking too much wine tonight and hit his head on a barrel, then fell in and drowned? It was a long fall from his lofty station in life—though not so lofty and long a fall as for you. Everyone thinks you are inside the manor, but here you are, meeting Sir Christopher Hatton for an assignation just as you went out to your trysting spot with Robert Dudley in a maze. But tonight, you’ve sadly—perhaps when Chris tried to press himself upon you and Cecil intervened—you’ve all somehow drowned in the altercation.”