Murder at Whitehall (7 page)

“As we have missed you,” Mistress Park said. She and her husband followed as Kate led them into the warmth and noise of the palace. “We would never have
expected such a very gracious welcome to court, by the queen herself! I am most overcome.”

Her husband patted her arm with a fond smile. “We have certainly lived very quietly in retirement these last few years, Kate, at a cottage our patron Lord Melville gave us. It is a comfortable life, but not a grand one, and only ourselves to make music for. I know Hester has missed some of the glitter and fashion.”

“I don't miss it so very much—not certain parts of it, anyway,” Mistress Park protested. She turned her head to watch as the Duchess of Stratfield hurried past in a pearl-embroidered scarlet gown, followed by her pet monkey in a matching jacket. “But I admit I have missed the clothes. How very wide skirts have become of late! And tell me, Kate, do all ladies keep monkeys?”

Kate found that the chamber where Senor Gomez had played his vihuela was now empty, and she hurried to find cushioned stools and chairs for her father and his friends. “What of you, Master Finsley? Have you missed court life?”

Gerald Finsley gave her a smile, and in it she could see a glimpse of his sister, who had been her godmother. A sweetness, combined with courtly wariness. His eyes were bracketed with deep lines, as if he had spent much time outdoors of late, and she wondered where he had been since leaving Queen Catherine's employ. “I like my quiet life, Kate, but I have missed the company certainly. There is a certain satisfaction to knowing one is part of something so important, is there not? I am sure you have found it so. I did during our days with Queen Catherine. She was a great lady
indeed, and commanded the loyalty of even the lowliest of her servants. There was a nursemaid who insisted on staying with her since her days as Lady Latimer, I remember. I am sure the new queen commands just such loyalty.”

Kate nodded warily. “I enjoy serving the queen. She is what is important here.”

“Of course,” Gerald said with another smile. “She has certainly always thought it thus—even when she was merely the Lady Elizabeth. Things change so quickly at court, do they not?”

“I prefer the country now,” Mistress Park said, not entirely convincingly. “A person always knows where they stand there.”

“And sometimes they must stand far too long,” Matthew said with a low groan. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, and Kate took his arm with a start of guilt.

“Let me show you to your chamber, Father,” Kate said. “The queen made sure you have a nice, warm spot with a large fire.”

“That was most kind of Her Grace. I well know how space is more precious than gold at court this time of year,” Matthew said. He leaned on her arm and let her help him make his way along the corridor. It had grown quieter, as everyone went to change into their finery for supper and dancing. The light from the windows had turned to slate gray, ice creeping to coat the glass. “You are certainly doing well here, my Kate.”

Kate laughed. “Thanks to you. The queen enjoys Haywood music.”

“Nay, not on my account. You have built a life here for yourself, my dearest. I am so very proud of you, and your mother would be as well. You have come to resemble her so much.”

Kate swallowed hard at the sudden press of tears in her throat. She was glad that they had reached the chamber Elizabeth said she was setting aside for Matthew, glad of the distraction of settling him in, as a page led the Parks and Master Finsley to their lodgings nearby. Thoughts of her mother, especially at Christmas, made her feel too wistful. She pulled a cushioned cross-backed chair close to the fireplace, and made sure her father's lute case and the boxes of his music were away from the chilly windows. “Would she truly?”

“Of course.” Matthew sighed as she stretched his swollen legs to the fire. “You do have so much of Eleanor in you. She was of such a sweet nature, willing to do anything for those she loved. But there was a core of steel in her, as well.”

Kate thought of the things her friend the elderly Lady Gertrude Howard, had told her, finally the truth about her Boleyn heritage. She'd spoken of Eleanor's musical talents, her beautiful dark eyes and lustrous dark hair—Boleyn hair. But of the Boleyn temper, Eleanor had none. Kate feared sometimes she had more of her aunt Anne Boleyn's vinegar in her than her own mother's sweetness.

She sat down on the stool next to her father's chair. “Do you think of her very much, Father?”

“All the time. Especially at this time of year. How
she loved Christmas! The dancing, the laughter. Long evenings singing and telling stories by the fire. This season has me thinking much of days past.”

“And seeing your old friends again?”

“Aye. Tis good to see Gerald and the Parks again, and talk of life in Queen Catherine's household. Those were heady days indeed.”

“The queen has been speaking much of Queen Catherine lately, as well.”

“Has she?”

“Indeed. She says Queen Catherine also loved Christmas, that it was the first time she could recall being part of a true family.”

“It is truly the season for families—of all sorts.” Matthew frowned into the fire. “I do sometimes regret I did not marry again and give you siblings. Mistress Park used to try to play matchmaker for me with her lady friends at court, and for Gerald. I think she might want to try it again, even now that we are old and gray and set in our lonely ways.”

“Father, no!” Kate cried. He had never said such a thing to her, of wanting more children. “I could never have been happier than I have with our little family—unless we still had my mother, of course. But if
you
have been lonely . . .”

“Never! You made me so happy, and I've had my music, and memories of Eleanor. But I have been alone for a long while, my dearest, and seen much. That doesn't come entirely without regret.”

Kate thought of their life, of moving from palace to
palace, years of sparkle and royal palaces, but also years of uncertainty and danger. “What are your regrets, Father?”

Matthew gave her a small smile and patted her hand. “Would you hand me that small box there, Kate?”

She hurried to fetch the small chest that sat with her father's trunk and lute case. It was surprisingly light, but inlaid with fine mother-of-pearl work and set with a lock.

“I have long wanted to show this to you,” he said as he unlocked it. It was filled with papers, and as he sorted through them, Kate saw that most of them were musical notes. “And now that I am growing older, I know I must do it now.”

“What is it, Father?” Kate said, curious. “A secret?”

“Aye, it seems so. But not mine.”

Kate was most puzzled. Aside from the truth of her mother's parentage, she thought her father had never kept anything from her. “I do not understand.”

Matthew took out a scroll in leather wrappings, much like the one Gerald Finsley had carried from the barge, and unfurled it to hand it to Kate. It was also a musical score, the ink faded and the parchment slightly yellowed, and as she glanced over it she saw the lyrics were from one of Queen Catherine Parr's own published writings,
The Lamentation of a Sinner
. The music seemed to be slow and stately, as such solemn and contemplative words deserved.

“Did you write this, Father?” Kate asked, but she could see it was not his handwriting.

“I did not. Queen Catherine gave it into my safekeeping on a terrible night, long ago when you were just a child, and she never took it back. I have kept it safe since then, as she asked me to.” He quickly told her a strange, nightmarish tale, of a queen in danger of her life from her own husband, of powerful men arrayed against her, and only her wits to defend her. Of a piece of music pressed into Matthew's hands, on a long, dark night, that only slowly faded into day.

“Oh, my Kate,” Matthew said wearily, rubbing his hand over his bearded jaw as he stared into the fire. “I am glad those days are over. Queen Catherine was a grand lady, and I am proud to have served her. But I do grow tired now. I am relieved to give this into your hands. Look at it, see what you think.”

But what did it
mean
? Kate studied the music closer, but she could decipher nothing in those faded notes. She could almost fancy she smelled a whiff of Queen Catherine's rosewater perfume on the paper, but surely that could not be, it was so old. But in the curls and lines of the music she fancied she could see the mark of the late queen and see the lady sitting up into the deepest night, scribbling her song in haste by candlelight as she tried to save her life and those of her family and allies. Kate thought of her studies of Plato's musical codes, and longed to compare the ideas to this newer piece of work.

She glanced up and saw that her father had dozed off by his fire. She quickly tucked the music back into its hiding place, and wrapped a blanket over his legs. There would be time for more questions, more
remembrances of the past, later. The queen had bade them to supper.

*   *   *

The small room just beyond the queen's bedchamber, where Elizabeth took many of her meals in private when there was no grand banquet to attend, was laid out with platters of venison and sliced beef complemented by honeyed vegetables and dressed salads, steaming at the far end of the table along with pitchers of spiced wine. To Kate's surprise, that was where she was led by Mistress Ashley when the queen summoned her for supper before the night's revelry began. The table, covered with a fine white damask cloth embroidered with Tudor roses and six places, was yet empty.

“Are you quite sure this is where Her Grace wants me, Mistress Ashley?” she asked.

Mistress Ashley gave a puzzled frown, as if she actually wasn't quite sure, but she nodded. “The queen asked if you would have a small meal with her before playing for the dancing. Your father and his friends have been summoned as well.”

Kate nodded, stunned by this show of favor.

“Well, I have much work to do, and have not the time to be standing around here,” Mistress Ashley said briskly.

“I will wait for the queen, then. Thank you, Mistress Ashley,” Kate answered with a little curtsy.

As the Mistress of the Robes hurried away, Kate suddenly found herself somewhere she had seldom been before—alone in one of the queen's private chambers. She scarcely knew what to do.

She turned in a slow circle, taking in the small space. It was shaped in an octagon, with one window along one of the sides, intimate but lavish in its appointments, as all the queen's rooms were. Instead of rushes, a carpet lay over the floor; silver oil holders in the corner scented the air with lavender; and portraits of the queen's parents and Queen Catherine Parr watched from the shadowed walls.

Kate had been in there before, of course—the queen liked music even when she dined alone. But now the perfect silence was striking. Royal palaces were always anything
but
silent. There were always people crowded around, gossiping, laughing, whispering, always dogs barking, servants hurrying past on errands. It was often only very late at night, alone in her own small chamber, that Kate could quiet her mind enough to work on her own music.

The quiet in the queen's private dining chamber, when no one else was there to rattle the serving platters and wine goblets, to whisper with the queen, was astonishing. Sound seemed swallowed up by the rich green velvet hangings and the carved paneling.

Or perhaps not
entirely
swallowed up. As Kate contemplated filching one tiny candied grape from a platter on the table, she heard a sudden flurry of murmurs, indistinct voices that seemed to come from the very air itself.

Startled, she jumped back from the table, clasping her hands behind her back. She quickly realized that it was
not
one of Whitehall's many ghosts warning her from stealing the grape, but real voices.

She peered out the window, yet in the dying daylight she could see no one in the frozen garden below. The sound seemed to be coming from the other side of one of the walls. But which one?

Curious, Kate made her way slowly around the chamber, studying the panels of the octagonal walls. At last she found one that seemed to stand out a fraction of an inch, and she slid her fingers through the tiny crack to pry it open. Beyond the open space was a winding, narrow staircase, one she realized must lead down to the kitchens. A quick, hidden way for meals to be delivered to the queen. There was even a white-draped table on the landing where the queen's ladies could fetch the platters that the kitchen servants left there, so they could properly serve her.

Yet it did not seem to be scullery maids and cooks who were whispering somewhere down there in the stair's hidden coils. The men's voices were deep and rich, distinctly aristocratic. She couldn't hear all their words, but some were echoed by the whitewashed twists in the staircase walls.

“. . . are caught?” one man hissed.

“We will not be,” the other man said contemptuously. His voice sounded familiar, though not the sneer in it. “Meg and her friend are most—accommodating, once their work is done. We will not be even an instant late for the queen's dancing later.”

Kate listened closely, trying to remember where she had heard him before. She was startled to realize it was Lord Hertford, his voice shorn of the sweetness and laughter he used to address Lady Catherine Grey.

“And if the beauteous Lady Catherine finds out?” his friend said.

“She would not care a whit,” Lord Hertford said with a laugh. “Cat knows very well how the world works. Male needs have naught to do with—shall we say—higher considerations.”

Kate had the distinct feeling that if Lady Catherine knew her “Ned” was off in tawdry pursuit of kitchen maids, she certainly
would
care. Her Tudor temper would surely fly then, if her romantic, poetical thoughts were tarnished. It made Kate rather glad she herself would remain in a single state, as she served the queen.