Murder at Whitehall (18 page)

New Year's Eve

I
t was cold but still on the river so early in the morning, little wind stirring at the waves. But the sky was a flat slate gray, paler gray clouds lowering over the spires, bridges, and smoking chimneys of London. Kate eyed them suspiciously, willing the snow not to fall until her errand was finished. She shivered and pulled the edges of her fur-edged cloak closer, wiggling her numb toes in her boots.

It wasn't just the cold that made her nervous, though. It was being in a boat on the Thames. Usually she tried to use the vessels only for short journeys across the river, or when she had to provide music for the queen's barges. Longer voyages like this one reminded her too much of that terrible night after the queen's coronation, when she was kidnapped by a villain and almost drowned in the cold waves at high tide.

Now, the waves lapping against the wooden edge of the boat, the shriek of gulls overhead competing with the tolling of church bells, brought the fear of those moments close to her.

Especially since there was someone who seemed to seek harm to the queen all over again.

Rob seemed to sense her apprehension, for he slid closer to her on the narrow plank seat and gave her a wide, charming smile. She had encountered him as she tried to slip out of the palace, and he insisted on going with her. Though at first she protested, instinctively secretive about the queen's business, now she was glad of his warm presence beside her.

“I have been thinking of your strange music, Kate,” he said, as lightly as if he remarked on the weather.

Kate nodded, letting her ideas about the music distract her even more from her memories. “Have you deciphered it?”

“Not as of yet, I confess. I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my lodgings. . . .”

“You remembered it all for hours?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Of course. An actor must remember things as soon as he sees it. You surely do the same.”

Kate considered that. “I suppose I do, though I must play a song two or three times before I recall it perfectly.”

“Well, you were quite right about that particular piece—it is like no form of music I could find, even in a book I have of Arabic forms. It must be a coded message, and one with a great many numbers. Dates, mayhap, of something meant to occur?”

Kate was fascinated. Along with lock picking, Cecil's man had shown her a bit about deciphering some simpler codes. It
was
very much like fitting musical
notes together. “Something that has already happened?”

“I could not say yet. Does it have something to do with our journey to Chelsea today?”

“I'm not sure. I do not know exactly what I'm looking for there, or how it will fit with the music at all. But I think there might be a clue there to the doll that was left for the queen at Greenwich.” And the other notes as well.

They passed under a narrow footbridge, and the flying contents of a slop bucket barely missed their boat. Rob drew her closer, and she was glad of his warmth against the chilly day.

“How so?” he asked.

“The tiremaker who probably made the little crown has done much work in the past for the royal court, and his records seem to indicate this particular piece was made for Queen Catherine Parr for a christening gift. But I know not for who it was made, or where it has been these ten years. Was it merely the nearest thing a villain had to a royal queen—or does it have some significance in itself?”

“Why Chelsea?”

“It was something my father's friend Mistress Park said, when she was reminiscing about her time in Queen Catherine's household. She said Queen Catherine was a great lady, and all her servants were most devoted to her—and that she always took care of them, even when they could no longer work. Since I cannot go all the way to Sudeley, where Queen Catherine died, I thought I would see if there were any pensioners left
at Chelsea who remember the Dowager Queen. Queen Elizabeth still owns the house, and when I told her my idea, she gave me a letter today telling the servants that they are safe to speak freely to me. And perhaps I can find the tiremaker while I am there, though his maid did not know where he has gone.”

“Do
you
remember when you lived at Chelsea, Kate?”

Kate studied the scenery sliding past as she tried to remember her childhood. The thick press of buildings had grown thinner, giving way to the water steps and fine gates of great houses. The sweet-sick smell of the river had turned to fresh greenery.
Did
she remember when she lived in one of those very houses, and her father worked for Queen Catherine in those brief days before she married Thomas Seymour? Or did she just imagine the gardens, the elegant rooms, the high flutter of feminine laughter and rustle of silk skirts?

“I am not sure. I was so small then, and I seldom saw Queen Catherine or Princess Elizabeth myself. I was only allowed to the great hall for a look at grand parties, and there were few of those. Queen Catherine preferred her studies, and a quiet, discreet life, which is how she married again with so few privy to it,” Kate said. “I was mostly looked after by Allison Finsley, who was Master Gerald's sister, while my father worked. She was very kind. Queen Catherine, too, was very nice to me whenever she saw me. She was beautiful, and always dressed so elegantly, and smelled of roses. She would ask about my musical studies. . . .”

Kate frowned as an old memory of Queen Catherine flashed through her mind, a heart-shaped pale face with a sharp nose, a sweet smile. Surely she had just seen such a face, not in the haze of childhood memory but sometime recently? The image of Queen Catherine, dead for ten years, was suddenly so clear.

Of course. The girl at the Rose and Crown.

“Who was she?” Kate whispered.

“Who was who?”

She turned to Rob, and found he watched her with avid curiosity. “I am not sure yet.”

She had no time to say more, for the boat was bumping into the foot of the water steps at Chelsea. Rob leaped out, and reached back to help her.

They made their way through the large gardens, which rolled in elegant fields and flower beds down to the river. It had been winter when she and her father arrived there soon after King Henry's death in 1547, when Queen Catherine moved to her dower house with Princess Elizabeth.

The house, just as elegant as the gardens, all graceful redbrick walls and pale stone trim, appeared to be shuttered, but Kate glimpsed silvery smoke rising from some of the chimneys, and she and Rob made their way to a door tucked to one side.

Her knock was answered by a tall, thin older gentleman in fine but plain dark clothes. He eyed them suspiciously.

“Aye?” he said suspiciously.

“I am Mistress Haywood, and this is Master
Cartman,” Kate said, in the firm, confident voice she had learned at court. Few wanted to think a mere female musician could have any authority at all, but Kate had found that pretending as if she did often went a long way. “We have come on an errand from Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall.”

She handed him the queen's note, and his glower was wiped away. “Certainly, certainly! Anything we can do to assist Her Grace. Please, mistress, come in from the cold and tell me what we can do for the queen. I am Master Stanley, steward here.”

Rob took her arm, and they exchanged a wary glance. But Kate was glad of the cheerful fire in the small sitting room Master Stanley led them into, and the cushioned stool he offered. The room was a pretty one, with painted cloths holding back the drafts and enameled candlesticks lining the carved mantel. It made her think again of her childhood, of the way every room near Queen Catherine Parr seemed graceful and comfortable.

She seated herself on the stool, and Rob stood behind her. “Queen Elizabeth wishes to find some of the loyal servants of her stepmother and make certain they are looked after,” Kate told Master Stanley. “Are there many still living here?”

“Very few, Mistress Haywood,” Master Stanley answered. “When Queen Catherine left for Sudeley, she took most with her and provided pensions for those too elderly to move. There is a gardener, and the
queen's old Strewing Herb Mistress. And there is Mistress Bouchard.”

“Mistress Bouchard?”

“She was a nursemaid in the household of the Dowager Queen, who came here to live in one of the cottages after the queen died.”

“A nursemaid?” Kate thought of the little crown, the christening gift. “For Queen Catherine's daughter who died?”

“Aye, poor little mite. Would you care to speak to Mistress Bouchard? She cannot always remember things now, but she loves to talk about the Dowager Queen.”

Kate nodded, though she found herself rather reluctant to leave the warm fire to chase yet more things she didn't understand. But perhaps a former nursemaid would know about the christening gift. She and Rob followed Master Stanley back out the door and across the garden to a cluster of cottages. One was very small, a cozy, plastered one-room dwelling that in summer would surely be covered in climbing roses.

Master Stanley knocked loudly and called out, “Mistress Bouchard? Queen Elizabeth has sent these people to speak with you!”

“What?” a querulous voice called.

Master Stanley let them in, and Kate and Rob walked through the doorway to find an old woman swathed in shawls beside the fire, staring up at them curiously.

Mistress Bouchard was obviously quite elderly, with her heavily lined, apple-cheeked face, and the
snow-white curls escaping from beneath her embroidered cap, but her faded blue eyes were bright with curiosity as she peered up at her new guests.

“Who did you say you were?” Mistress Bouchard asked.

“I told you, Mistress Bouchard—they are from the queen,” Master Stanley said loudly.

She waved her twisted hands, encased in knitted mitts, at him. “Surely they can speak for themselves, Master Stanley? You should return to your business at the house.”

Master Stanley departed with a huff, and Mistress Bouchard sat back with a satisfied smile. “Now we can talk. Come closer, both of you. It is seldom I have new guests, especially handsome young men.” She gave Rob a twinkling smile, and gestured for him to sit beside her. “Which queen are you from? It seems there are so many these days.”

“We are from Queen Elizabeth,” Rob said. “She is in residence at Whitehall now.”

“Is she?” Mistress Bouchard said. “Well, I hope she has learned a touch of prudence in her age. When she was a girl . . .”

“You remember her when she was a girl?” Kate said, thinking of the notes Queen Elizabeth had received, the distance in her eyes when she spoke of Tom Seymour, the man of much charm and little sense.

Mistress Bouchard turned her sharp gaze from Rob to Kate. “Aye, for a time. I once looked after Queen Catherine's stepdaughter—her first stepdaughter, Meg
Latimer. Now
there
was a good girl, quiet and biddable. God always takes the good ones young, bless her. When Queen Catherine was at last expecting her own child, she sent for me again. I did not expect such a to-do as I found when I arrived, not in the household of a godly lady like Queen Catherine.”

“What did you find?” Kate asked.

Mistress Bouchard's eyes narrowed. “Now, what did you say Queen Elizabeth wants with me? I am just an old lady, sitting by my fire. I know nothing now.”

Kate and Rob exchanged a long glance, and Kate gave him a little nod. He leaned closer to Mistress Bouchard with a serious expression on his handsome face.

“Her Grace has many enemies, we fear, and they would even use things that happened in the far past to harm her—or harm England itself,” he said quietly. “The Queen of Scotland, for one . . .”

“Oh, nay, we would never want a French lady ruling here,” Mistress Bouchard said decisively. “But I am not sure I can be of help. I remember few of the household then, and I only stayed after Queen Catherine died until the Duchess of Suffolk came to take the poor baby away. . . .” Mistress Bouchard's eyes widened.

“You remember something, mistress?” Rob said.

“Mayhap, mayhap,” the old lady muttered. “Bring me that box over there, young man, and we will see.”

Rob fetched the box she indicated from a small table beneath the window. It was a pretty item of chased silver, inlaid with the initials
CPtQ
—Catherine Parr the
Queen, as Kate remembered the Dowager Queen always signed herself. Mistress Bouchard took it carefully between her shaky hands.

“Queen Catherine gave this to me for safekeeping,” she said. “And once she was gone—I knew that scoundrel of a husband couldn't be trusted with anything the queen held dear.” She raised the lid, and Kate peered into the velvet-lined recesses.

She drew back with a gasp when eyes blinked back at her. Then she had to laugh, for it was not a person there, but a doll. Small but perfectly formed of wax, with a tiny, heart-shaped face framed by dark red hair and dressed in a blue satin gown in the style of Kate's childhood, with a low, square neckline and draped sleeves trimmed with fine sable.

“When the queen ordered this made, it had a small crown. To match the gown, you see.” Mistress Bouchard gently touched a fingertip to the fur trim of the little garment. “But it vanished long ago.”

“The tiremaker's records said it was part of a christening gift,” Kate said. “Could the doll have been the gift? Do you know who it was meant for, Mistress Bouchard? Could it be meant to represent Queen Elizabeth?”

Mistress Bouchard frowned. “Nay, not that minx. I think Queen Catherine ordered it for the christening of her own babe, once she knew she was with child after so long. She prayed for a princess of her own. Or, preferably, a prince.”

Kate tried to remember all she had seen at the tiremaker's shop, all Queen Elizabeth had told her about
Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. “Yet the crown was made in 1546, surely long before Queen Catherine was pregnant in 1548.”