The Queene's Cure (35 page)

Meg had already washed the stench of Bridewell off at Lord Hunsdon's house at Blackfriars, though neither Lord nor Lady Hunsdon was there. And, another blessing. Waiting for her after one of Lady Hunsdon's servants helped her bathe was a gown of the queen's to put on. Granted, it was a plain dark blue one Meg recognized as one of Her Majesty's old riding habits, but a royal gown nonetheless. And to think she'd once been in
trouble for wearing the queen's attire without permission. She also wore what looked to be a pair of the queen's scuffed riding boots and a cape and hood to ward off the river wind.

“I feel like the whole earth is still rocking,” Meg admitted when they helped her out on the landing.

“
As if
the earth
were
still rocking,” Ned quietly corrected her grammar, just as he used to, but she didn't mind a bit now.

“I said you should eat something,” Jenks scolded, “and not just drink all that wine back at Lord Hunsdon's.”

“I was thirsty. But it's going to take me days to get that place—and Dr. John Caius—out of my gut, not to mention the pasty slop they serve in there. I swear, I'd rather eat apothecary plaster!”

She saw Ned and Jenks exchange surreptitious glances. Her steps faltered. This surely wasn't some elaborate ruse to entice her to let down her guard and then accuse her again? She'd finally figured out that Dr. Caius had been trying to make her admit she'd fashioned an effigy of the queen from apothecary plaster and wax and stuffed it with herbs.

“Not that way,” Jenks said, steering her around the Base Court instead of into it. “Her Grace doesn't want anyone to know you're back, at least not till much later. She has plans for you.”

S
BLOOD,” THE QUEEN CURSED WHEN SHE SAW MEG
, “how dare John Caius and his cronies put my apothecary in my prison! I shall tell the man I've sent courtiers and commons to buy herbs from your shop, and he shall pay for that and more. I see you've suffered greatly, Meg Milligrew. But for your lack of pox marks, you look nearly as bad as I do, so that will serve quite well.”

After her curtsy, Meg was so overwhelmed she stood as mute as Gil would have. Those purchases from Lady Cecil's servants and from well-heeled minor courtiers— the queen had sent them?

“I—I long only to serve you, Your Majesty,” she managed to choke out. “And ever did.”

Her eager eyes drank in her queen at close range. Elizabeth wore a veil attached to a brimmed hat, and Meg feared she must be dreadfully scarred, but none of that mattered. Pinned on the queen's gown over her heart was a pretty mermaid pin Meg had never seen. Mayhap a gift from Robin Dudley, for that's where the queen used to flaunt her most precious pins. Meg could not stem the flood of tears that began to spill down her cheeks. The queen produced a scented handkerchief from up her sleeve and held it out.

“We shall cry for our losses later,” Elizabeth told her, taking her hand, “for we have much to do. I have not even time for you to fetch me some pox doctor Cecil said you mentioned,” the queen went on as she pulled Meg
over to sit her at her right hand—usually Cecil's seat—at a long table.

“Your Grace,” Meg blurted, “that miraculous emollient has been confiscated by Dr. Caius when he and his men searched—indeed, looted—my shop. And I fear he may hold prisoner the man who made the emollient too.”

“Then we shall find him, find both of them,” Elizabeth declared, gesturing to the others who came into the room to sit. “Mistress Meg,” Lord Cecil said solemnly in greeting as he took the chair next to her. Kat hugged her from behind. Jenks and Ned sat on either side of Lord Hunsdon, both grinning. Gooseflesh gilded Meg's skin. She was back among Her Grace's covert Privy Plot Council.

“You must tell us all you know, Meg, all that has passed, especially concerning your struggles with Dr. Caius,” Elizabeth instructed her. “You see, more are missing than that doctor friend of yours and his medicine, namely Gil Sharpe and Nick Cotter.”

Meg nodded. “My husband too.” She almost blurted out the few things she knew about her stolen daughter, but she wanted to tell of that more privily, then beg the queen for help.

“What is the name of the doctor we must seek, the one who stands also accused by Caius?” the queen inquired.

“Dr. Marcus Clerewell, Your Grace. Of Norwich, practicing on Cheapside but living in Gutter Lane, so Nick said.”

“Bett told me the same,” the queen admitted, making Meg recall that Her Majesty often knew more than she let on. Her hidden eyes seemed to burn into each of them in turn through her veil. “My friends, I am beginning to discern a pattern in this web, and I intend to find and squash the deadly spiders spinning it.”

A
FTER THE MEETING, THE QUEEN ROSE SWIFTLY, NODDED
to her Privy Plot Council, and fled to her bedchamber. Despite the happy reunion just now and the plans she had laid out, she feared she was going to lose control and command of things again. Her stomach roiled as horrid possibilities racked her. When she heard Kat's footsteps behind her, she went into her privy closet and closed the door.

Their meeting had covered much ground, yet she had not shared her conclusions with her friends. Though she had held her own flesh and blood at bay so far, her kin lusted for her throne. She had gainsayed and offended the two leaders of her Royal College of Physicians. And she had balked at permitting human bodies for their dissection. How widespread was the hatred of her? How many of those she suspected could be linked in this hellish plot?

Ripping off her hat and veil, she bent over to be sick in her washbowl. The retching stopped but her thoughts would not.

Her enemies had maimed and murdered to attempt to kill her courage and resolve. Someone, somehow, had almost assassinated her with the pox. Though they had not yet seized her throne, they had usurped God's very control of disease and death. So wasn't dissecting the dead bodies of persons they abducted and killed—even Nick or her dear Gil—only the next logical, horrible step?

T
HROUGH HER VEIL, ELIZABETH TUDOR FROWNED AT
the blank stone facade of Bridewell Prison as they passed by. As bidden, the oarsmen of a plain, working barge put in at the Blackfriars landing just across the Fleet. She could not wait to get her hands on the master-mind—or perhaps minds—behind the pox plot. And, however tired and off balance she still felt, she would never do that recovering and cowering in a rural palace.

Her entourage included four men she considered her bodyguards, each armed to the teeth: Jenks, Ned, her yeoman Clifford, and her cousin Harry. Harry had more men here at Blackfriars they could use. So that no one watching would realize she was a lady of import and influence, she had brought only one female companion, Harry's wife, Anne. The Carey home at Blackfriars would be their covert base of investigation in London.

Cecil and Kat had been left at Hampton Court. Cecil would see to the nation's business while Kat buffered everyone from Meg Milligrew. For the first time in two
years, Meg was portraying the queen of England, albeit from behind a veil, claiming she needed more bed rest for the time being. The queen had vowed to help Meg Milligrew discover where Ben Wilton had sent her poor child. Meanwhile, the barge had just dropped Bett and another guard off at the public landing near Whitehall so that she could return to the ransacked apothecary shop in case Gil, Nick, or even Ben returned.

Dr. Burcote, richly rewarded with a fine leather satchel and much coin, had remained behind to tend Mary Sidney. Elizabeth did not want him where the Royal College physicians could sanction him. She was tempted to simply have them arrested, but she'd promised herself she would not set back the English medical arts by gutting the leadership of her London College— unless it came to that.

“Now,” Elizabeth said, even as they stood on the windy barge-landing, “do not fret for me, for I will be fine here with the Hunsdon household men for extra guards. Each of you must hire a barge at the public landing, be about your given tasks, and report back to me here as soon as possible.”

Murmured assents and nods. Good, the queen thought, for she was leaving no stone unturned, even backtracking to the earlier clues.

“Anne, I pray you,” she told her friend, “do a better job of cross-questioning the workers in the Royal
Wardrobe than poor Kat did. Go now. We have immediate and important work to do!”

T
HE QUEEN PACED THE DINING CHAMBER OF THE
Hunsdons' house at Blackfriars, listening avidly to each report. She had ordered them all to sit but her, a breech of protocol, but she wanted them to realize only their tasks of discovery mattered now.

“So, Anne, the new guard was also able to describe the man who came to lease my gown,” Elizabeth asked excitedly.

“He's not so new, Your Grace, but one who alternated with the guard who fled with the lace girl,” Anne explained. “But yes, he glimpsed the man with the very gown that turned up on that poxed effigy in your coach. 'Twas a sketchy description, but something to go on, I reckon. The man who leased the gown had a grand, feathered hat. Oh, and as Kat had ascertained afore, he spoke very well, mayhap with some foreign phrases.”

“Dr. Caius, with his incessant Latin,” Harry put in smugly.

“I think not,” Elizabeth corrected. “That hat makes him sound like that Dr. Clerewell Bett and Meg told us of. If so, hat or not, I wager he's the man with the girl who knelt in the aisle at the Abbey.

“Ned and Jenks?” she prompted. “Your findings?”

“Nick was seen trying to track down Dr. Clerewell,”
Ned reported, “just as Bett said. We talked to an old woman at the place the doctor let for a time on Gutter Lane, a vile flea-trap. Under my clever cross-questioning, she admitted Nick was there, but says she told him she had no idea where Dr. Clerewell had gone, nor did she know where Nick went after he left her place.”

“It must be that same old woman who put me off,” Anne declared indignantly. “You know, when I tried to take some coins to that sick girl after the Queen's Evil ceremony. An old beldam said Clerewell had never lived there!”