Murder at Whitehall (9 page)

Rob burst into surprised laughter. “Take them to the Cardinal's Hat and ply them with some of Celine's strong wine and painted girls?”

“Perhaps not, though I think Celine would welcome you! Perhaps just a game of cards and some good English rum for the holidays?”

Rob's astonishment faded into an admiring smile. He took her hand and raised it to his lips for a courtly kiss as she laughed.

“My fair Kate,” he said, “I would happily do your bidding in everything. But this is one errand I can undertake with particular enthusiasm.”

Kate took his arm again as they continued their walk back toward the palace. Night was coming on quickly now. “I thought you might say that. . . .”

*   *   *

Rob watched the upper windows of the long wing of the palace after Kate left him. Sometimes a face would appear behind the small panes of glass, wavy and pale, as indistinct as a ghost. None of them was the face he waited for—none was Kate. Yet still he watched, the icy wind whipping around him, catching at his cloak. He felt very alone, yet also as if he could soar up beyond the spires of the city.

He had almost hoped the months away from Kate, months when he worked for Lord Hunsdon writing plays and performing music, trying to build a new career in the world, would blunt the edges of his feelings for her. He knew he was not as good as she deserved; his life had been too mottled for that, his past always too ready to catch up with him. She deserved security,
a calm place in the world. He knew that if he was a truly noble person, the kind of person that he portrayed in plays, he would not write to her any longer. Wouldn't seek her out.

Yet even as he knew that, some force drove him to write those letters to her, to think of her as he worked into the night writing scenes. She inspired those writings, with her shining green eyes, her ready smile. Her kind heart, and fierce loyalty. Kate was all the things that seemed good in the world, things he had seldom seen before, and selfishly he wanted more of them in his life. Wanted to be worthy of her.

In their time apart, he had come to half fear that giving her the lute pendant had been a step too far in her mind. Did she wear it? Did she think of him when it caught the light, and if so did she think well of him or only remember his faults? That she had asked him for his help now made him dare to hope. She worked for the queen herself, and would surely not trust him with something of such importance if she did not think him worthy?

Rob turned away from the bright windows of the palace and made his way across the darkened, snow-dusted garden. He now had a chance to show Kate that he had changed. He could not disappoint her—or himself.

“W
hat then doth make the element so bright? The heavens are come down upon earth to live!”

A dozen of the queen's strongest men carried the Yule log into the great hall. They had indeed found a great one, as long and thick as one of the gilded ceiling beams, Kate thought as she led some of the ladies in the song. Greenery and garlands tied up with red ribbons adorned the great oak log, which would be lowered into the largest of the stone fireplaces, where it would burn until Twelfth Night.

Kate laughed as she watched the log paraded around the hall, its bright streamers waving merrily. Across the room, she glimpsed her father with Master Finsley and the Parks, and her heart warmed to see his laughter.

It had been a most nostalgic Christmas thus far, with her father nearby and memories of the old queen brought forward, both good and bad. It made her remember more of the holiday when
she
was a child, the music, the sweetmeats she had filched from the grown-ups' tables, the rustle of fine silks, and the smell of greenery.

“Who has the embers from last year to set the light?”
Rob called out. As one of the queen's pages stepped forward with a torch to set the log alight, another servant handed Rob his staff of bells for his new office. As everyone laughed, he paraded around the hall, shaking them in a merry tune. “As the queen has made me her Lord of Misrule for the night, I command those of you whom the queen calls on to tell your favorite Christmas memory.”

Queen Elizabeth settled herself on her cushioned chair by the blazing fire. The spangles embroidered on her gold brocade gown sparkled, and her ladies in their white and silver spread around her like flowers. Mistress Ashley tucked one more pillow behind the royal back before taking her own seat. “And who shall go first, O high Lord of Misrule?”

“Why, Your Grace herself, of course,” Rob said with an elaborate bow.

“Oh, aye, lovey,” Mistress Ashley urged. “Tell us of your favorite Yule.”

Elizabeth stared at the Yule log for a long moment, its flames reflected in her dark eyes. She seemed very far away. “I remember the year I was summoned to court, at Hampton Court, by my father, King Henry, and his new queen Catherine Parr. I had met the queen at their wedding the summer before, and she was most beautiful and kind, but her splendor at Christmas was astounding to me, as I had lived so quietly in the country during my childhood. She wore a gown of white, trimmed with sable and red ribbons, and rubies in her lovely auburn hair. She kissed me most graciously, and danced with me that night. I sat with her in the queen's
gallery at church as well, and she taught me to learn from the Scriptures for myself. I did learn much from her that Christmas, and in all the Christmases after.” The queen blinked, as if she were dragging herself back from those years past with her stepmother, and she laughed.

“What of you, Robin?” she called to Robert Dudley. She waved at him where he stood by the fire, as sparkling as she was in a doublet of gold and green. “What is your Yule memory, pray tell us?”

Dudley came to kneel by the queen's chair, his hand over his heart in elaborate obeisance. Kate noticed Cecil and Bishop de Quadra exchange rolled eyes. Robert Dudley told an amusing story of a boyhood snowball fight with his many brothers that soon went awry, and had everyone laughing.

Next, the queen called on Kat Ashley, who told of days when the queen was a toddling child and would try to sing the old Yule songs even though she mistook some of the words, and thus made her kingly father roar with laughter. Bishop de Quadra related a Spanish custom of “El Tio,” a hollowed-out log filled with sweets that the children would knock about until it broke and spilled out its treasures.

“Fetch a log immediately!” the queen called. “Anything that involves sweetmeats would be most happily included in my own celebrations. And what of you, Monsieur de Castelnau? What are Christmases like in France?”

Monsieur de Castelnau, elegant and smiling as always in his black and red satins, stepped forward with
a bow. “We enjoy a traditional spiced claret punch where I grew up, Your Grace, to the north of Paris. And there are many merry songs, and dancing. When your cousin, our Queen Marie, first came to the French court when she was a child, she declared that there was a tradition in
her
homeland where she must make one of her ladies-in-waiting queen for the day. She declared Mademoiselle Beaton would be queen, and dressed her up in her own royal gown, and served her with her own tiny hand. She quite won the hearts of all the French court that day.”

“Of course she did,” Elizabeth muttered. “Thank you, monsieur, for such a glimpse of our most gracious cousin—and for this glimpse of the Yule customs of other lands. But what of you, cousin Catherine? Perhaps you would care to share a memory.”

Lady Catherine Grey, who sat on the other side of the room with Lady Jane and a pack of their ever-present lapdogs, looked startled to be so called upon. “I—my childhood Christmases were most ordinary. My parents enjoyed the hunt during the day, and at night we would dine on their prizes, and play games. I have always enjoyed the dancing. . . .”

“I would wager your sister did not like that part of the holiday so very much,” Elizabeth said sharply.

Lady Catherine's eyes widened, and the room turned hushed. “N-nay,” Lady Catherine stammered. “Jane did like to read to us from the Scriptures, though, and talked much of the birth of Our Lord. She was greatly learned. But she would sing, too.”

“Hmm,” the queen murmured. “Well, I do like a
Yule dance. Shall we have a candle branle, everyone? My Lord of Misrule, will you lead us?”

*   *   *

It was quite late when Queen Elizabeth called her ladies around her to help her retire. The sky outside was the deepest, most impenetrable shade of purple, almost black, and flickering bonfires dotted the icy river's banks. The queen laughed as she swept along the halls, making everyone else laugh, too, her merriment infectious.

“We should have more dancing before we sleep!” Elizabeth cried as she twirled through her privy chamber. She spun around in a circle, her golden brocade skirts as vivid and alive as those distant fires. “Kate, where is your lute?”

“It is in your bedchamber, Your Grace, where I left it earlier,” Kate answered.

“We must have music, and more light, and . . .” Elizabeth pushed open her chamber door, and suddenly froze. Her ladies stumbled around her, their laughter fading into confused murmurs. Kate tried to peer past them, but couldn't see beyond the doorway. The queen was changeable of mood, of course, but not usually quite so quickly. Kate was sure something was very amiss.

“Leave me now,” Elizabeth snapped. “I would retire in peace, with only a quiet song to soothe me.”

“Lovey, what is wrong?” Mistress Ashley cried in bewilderment. Elizabeth caught her Mistress of the
Robe's arm and pulled her into the chamber behind her.

Kate just had an instant to slip inside, acting on instinct, before the door slammed shut. From the room behind her, she could hear the rustle of skirts and whispers from the confused ladies, but the sounds quickly grew fainter, as they melted away to find their own beds. The queen's ladies were accustomed to such changes in mood.

But Kate knew there was usually a very good reason behind Elizabeth's temper, and her glance quickly scanned the bedchamber. A fire crackled in the fireplace, keeping away the cold that seeped past the window. The ladies' cushions and workboxes were still scattered about, and Kate's own lute sat in its stand by the queen's desk. The bedcovers were turned down, the sheets glowing white in the shadows. The queen's velvet-and-sable robe waited on a chair, warming near the fire.

Then Kate saw it. A square of parchment pinned to the black and gold bed curtains, a pale splash in the darkness.

With a hoarse cry, the queen snatched it down and threw it across the floor, where it fluttered to rest beside one of the fine carpets. Kate knelt down to study it.

It was a drawing, somewhat crude lines from a charcoal pencil but clear enough to decipher. Against the cross-hatching of a background, a girl stood with her arms raised, a look of excitement and alarm on her pointed-chin face. And alarmed she could well be, for
a much larger, bulkier, bearded man dressed in an embroidered doublet was slicing her skirt to ribbons with a dagger.

Nearby lurked another lady, swollen with pregnancy beneath her robe, looking on with an expression of fear and—and was it something like resignation?

Beneath it were a few lines of doggerel:
Old Tom is his Name, A bird of Venus, and a Cock of the Game, Who once being in Love with pretty Lady Beth, Did crack her Nut, and thou mayst pick the Kernel.
 . . .

Kate glanced up at the queen, who stood in the middle of the chamber, as still as one of the marble statues in the winter garden below. She had gone perfectly white, except for two feverish patches of red on her cheeks, and her hands were held out like those of the girl in the drawing. Mistress Ashley plucked at the queen's golden sleeve, a look of horror on her lined features.

“What does it mean, Your Grace?” Kate asked quietly.

Elizabeth suddenly swooped down with a cry and snatched up the paper from Kate's hand. “It is naught but a ridiculous event that happened when I was a girl, when I lived at Chelsea with my stepmother, Queen Catherine,” Elizabeth said, her voice quiet but so taut it sounded like a bowstring about to snap. “Her husband, Sir Thomas Seymour, was a man who knew not the limits of flirtatious behavior. He often tried to come into my bedchamber before I was dressed, until I learned to rise before the dawn. That day he found me
fully dressed in the garden—and cut my gown off me, while my stepmother tried to stop him.”

“Lovey . . .,” Mistress Ashley said, her voice wavering.

“You remember—I am quite sure, Kat.” Elizabeth spun toward Mistress Ashley, suddenly fierce and furious. Mistress Ashley stumbled back a step. “You were there that day, as I recall. You saw what happened, and did nothing to stop it.”

“What could I have done?” Mistress Ashley mumbled, her face gone ashen. “I was a mere servant, he the master of the house, a charming gentleman. The Dowager Queen was there, I thought nothing improper could happen. . . .”

“You
thought
,” Elizabeth whispered. Her face was very pale, except for bright red spots of fury in her cheeks. “I was just a girl. If my own mother had been there, she would not have stood it for an instant! If my mother had seen . . .”

The queen's long fingers closed around the paper, crumpling it with a sharp crackle. “But I will not worry about something that happened long ago. The question is—who knows about it now? And how could they have gotten in here, in my very bedchamber, to leave this?”

“The guards were in the privy chamber, and they said nothing about anyone being in here,” Kate said, thinking quickly about the different ways into the royal bedchamber. They were not many.

“Surely, lovey, you can't think—” Mistress Ashley cried, only to bite her lip.

“Go, Kat, and fetch Cecil,” Elizabeth snapped. “And, Kate, bring me the guards who are meant to listen to this room at all times. I want to know what they saw at every minute tonight.”

Mistress Ashley rushed away, and Kate rose to rush on her own errand. But her attention was caught by the window, the only window in the chamber. It stood ajar, only the merest sliver, but enough to let in a whisper of chilly wind off the river.

Kate hurried over to study the iron frame of the clear, precious panes of glass. There were scratches around the latch, and when she pushed it open to peer outside she saw a patch of dark earth cleared of snow in the garden below.

Perhaps someone adept, and not too large, could climb up from the garden terraces.

Someone like an actor? She thought of Rob, so neatly managing the Christmas Yule log scene tonight, his players twirling around in their acrobatic tricks.

“What do you see, Kate?” Elizabeth came to peer over Kate's shoulder at the night beyond her window. She frowned, but her dark eyes shone with her usual razor-sharp attention, not with the haze of remembered scenes.

“None could come in through the front door,” Kate said. She studied the wide ledge just outside the window, which was covered with only the lightest layer of snow, whereas the other windows were covered with small drifts.

Elizabeth swept her fingertips over the powdery
drift on the ledge, her eyes very far away. “I shall send some of Cecil's men to examine it.”

Kate nodded. She thought of a young girl, cowering behind her bed-curtains, afraid her stepfather would come bursting in at any moment. Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour were both long gone. “Who would wish to remind you of such a painful thing in the past, Your Grace?”

The queen's mouth hardened into a flat red line. “Who could know what happened that day? There were rumors then, just as there always have been of me, but who would care now? They are dead. I am the queen.” She stared down at the crumpled paper in her hand, but she didn't seem to see it. She was gone again, into the past. The past that was always there, just beyond their fingertips. “I confess the past has haunted me of late, Kate. At night, when I try to sleep, I see people who are long gone now, remember mistakes that I made when I was too young to know how to guard myself. Those mistakes should be dead and buried with them, but they are not. Why is that?”

Kate remembered her father saying much the same thing, that the past had seemed so close to him lately. She thought of Queen Catherine's music in his shaking hand. The pregnant woman looking on with horror in that terrible drawing. “The past is still a part of us, Your Grace. For good or ill, it makes us who we are now. Surely the past has only strengthened you.”

The bedchamber door opened, and Cecil appeared, with Mistress Ashley scurrying behind him. He wore
his dark brown fur-edged bed robe, his nightcap still on his head, and his eyes were bright with worry.