The Twylight Tower (20 page)

Yet even before the girl came with a lantern, a glimmer of morning light reflected in the silhouette of a damp footprint going up, clearly a small foot, not a guard’s boot. But someone must know the guard was at the door below. And that someone had been here recently.

“Toward the roof,” the queen whispered. “I don’t like this. Katherine Grey on the roof?”

“You’re certain it was her, Your Grace?” Meg asked, hovering so close she stepped on the edge of Elizabeth’s robe. “So if she’s on the roof and sneaking into your apartments, you think she could have pushed Geoffrey off at Richmond?”

Pulling her hems free, the queen shook her head, but she knew the girl could be right. Mayhap Katherine Grey was behind all this, for she’d have the motive to terrify the queen at the least and to have her
murdered at most. But committing violent deeds on her own did not seem like the sly, snide Katherine.

Nor could Elizabeth believe that of Felicia Dove, though the girl was adept at a medley of sexes and stories as well as songs. Mayhap Felicia was working for Katherine, though Elizabeth couldn’t fathom that this Grey girl, unlike her bright sister, Lady Jane, had enough brains to mastermind a plot. Maybe the wily de Quadra had his hand in this. She must again send Robin to him to try to learn more.

But then her two other distant, though close-as-kin enemies, Mary Stuart and Margaret Douglas, were Catholic up to their ears. They could be behind a long-distance conspiracy. Why must it always be that those most dangerous were blood related? Even her archenemy King Philip of Spain, her brother-in-law, had dared propose marriage after her sister died, and he’d like nothing better than to possess her entire country, not her body or heart.

“But,” Meg’s voice interrupted Elizabeth’s agonized thoughts, “this door’s always locked from inside.”

“Kat’s the one who secures it, and who knows if she did last night?” She spun back two steps up. “Come with me, but fetch us a guard first.”

When Meg had summoned the guard from his post below, Elizabeth took the light from Meg and let him precede her up the twist of stairs. She could feel the breeze now and see wan daylight from above.

“Door’s blown open up here to the roof, Your Majesty,” the guard called down. “I checked it several
times last night. Best let me look out first if you’re set on this.”

Yes, she was set on this, on all of it now, Elizabeth fumed as she waited impatiently for his all-clear call or a shout he’d spotted someone. The queen tapped her slippered foot. “ ’S blood,” she whispered more to herself than to Meg, “it wasn’t many years ago my father had the Earl of Devonshire arrested and executed on the charge of merely being an aspirant to the throne that was not his by right. I may have to return to such measures!”

Wide-eyed, her face white as whey, Meg nodded.

“No one here ’bouts,” the guard called down.

“Let’s go back to Kat then,” Meg wheedled. “I brought comfrey knitbone tea and a wreath of pennyroyal for her head, since she says she’s been dizzy of late and—”

“Fine, but I want to look out up here,” Elizabeth interrupted, and shoved the door wider behind the guard.

The view was breathtaking with the roll of land and town to the sparkling ribbon of river and the deep blue-green of forests beyond. Surveying the span of flat roof that stretched to small turrets overlooking the courtyards below, the queen gazed at the top of the massive Round Tower. Standing sentinel on its mound, it was the last sanctuary if the enemy encroached or invaded. And Robert had asked—pleaded—that she should meet him there.

She stood as if entranced until her hair blew in her
eyes and Meg said, “Shouldn’t we go back down now, Your Grace?”

Elizabeth spun to look her full in the face. “I meant to tell you that I am glad to see you out of your sickbed, Meg Milligrew.”

“I still would rather not get up, but Kat has done so much for me.…”

“As have I. Therefore, you will bring sweet strewing herbs and accompany my entourage today but a short way by barge to Eton, to Luke Morgan’s funeral and burial.”

“By barge?” Meg cried, looking truly anguished. “If it’s by barge with all that rocking, I just know I’d lose my insides again, Your Grace, so if I could just beg off, I pray you.”

“You’re angry Geoffrey had no formal burial,” Elizabeth accused, “but remember, Luke is related to Lady Hunsdon, so that elevates him as kin to—”

“Oh, not that, Your Grace, but I really think I’d be like to puke if I set one foot on your barge today, so if I could but be excused this once …”

Elizabeth merely nodded and turned away. She had no time for such trivia, however much she cared for the girl. Yes, she must see Robin privily, and the assignation might as well be in the Round Tower tonight. But right now, she must prepare herself to face down Felicia Dove.

WHITEHALL PALACE, THE QUEEN’S MAIN LONDON RESIDENCE
, stood a vast skeleton stripped of its interior
grandeur when she was away. Draperies and tapestries were taken down to be stored, and the few upholstered pieces covered. Plateware and table utensils, whether pewter, gold, or silver, were put under lock and key or taken with her. Her favorite books, pets, and pieces of art made the journey too. Even the royal bed and particular pieces of furniture were carted along on royal progress.

The crowds disappeared: No courtiers clung to the walls awaiting favors, no clerks and secretaries scurried, no flapping-eared servants hovered, no ambassadors came calling. It was blessedly quiet and, usually, William Cecil loved it. But today, he felt he was preparing a corpse for burial, perhaps his own.

Yet he had kept two clerks busy all morning, doing his bidding. He had weeded out old papers from his desk, finished up on business matters hanging fire, and completed correspondence he might never pick up again. He was quite certain he’d depart Her Grace’s service now, but would neither leave a mess, nor his privy matters, for the new man. Especially in case Her Majesty had completely taken leave of her senses and intended to name Robert Dudley as her chief adviser.

Cecil finally let his clerks go down to the nearly empty kitchens to see what food they could flush out for a little repast. Alone, he paced the wainscotted anteroom to the royal apartments where he had always worked within reach of the brilliant queen’s questions and demands. It seemed dusty, dim, tomblike now, this entire sprawling palace and capital city of her realm.

He startled as he heard a noise, perhaps shuffling footsteps and the creak of a floorboard. It was not the sound of his young clerks coming back.

He peeked out into the corridor and came face-to-face with Bishop de Quadra and one of his men, whose name he could not recall. A pox on it, soon it wouldn’t matter one whit if he knew who was attached to whom in international circles, Cecil thought. But to de Quadra, slippery enemy though he was, he thrust out his hand.

“My Lord Cecil, I heard you were here,” the Spaniard said, smiling and taking his hand before quickly releasing it.

“Heard from whom, bishop?”

De Quadra smiled and wagged a finger. “Not cleaning up and moving out, I hope,” he parried. “If she lets you go, she is doomed indeed.”

“Doomed?” Cecil repeated as the two of them went into the anteroom while the bishop’s man waited in the corridor. They sat in chairs facing each other before the empty hearth. “I mislike that term or implication. Doomed, how?”

“Santa Maria,
come on, man,” de Quadra challenged, sitting forward and shifting his legs under his black bishop’s cassock. “The queen may have been known for some clever fence-sitting at times, but there’s naught clever about precipice sitting. And if she throws herself off into Robert Dudley’s arms, that will mean damnation, not salvation. Europe, not to mention her own kingdom, is atwitter with scurrilous stories of her lust and looming ruination.”

Cecil wanted to tell him he was insane, to order him out, even to strike him, but he knew full well the man was right. When one was royal and the realm rode on a pair of shoulders, however slender, appearances were often reality. Cecil heaved a huge sigh, then said wearily, “I have heard such but pray you overstate your case.”

“All of France and beyond will soon know of that elaborate masque that mocked her royal cousin Mary Stuart,” de Quadra pursued.
“With
Robert Dudley as her fellow Olympian god.”

“I know, I know, but I certainly hope you will have no part in spreading such news. After all, masques and satire are
de rigueur
,” Cecil muttered, “and perhaps the queen and courtiers learned their lesson, since there was a fatal accident.”

Having tossed out that bait and hook, he watched de Quadra closely to see if he too had someone feeding him fresh information from Windsor. Without batting an eye the man said, “Accidents do happen. As for fatal, the queen should realize she can lose much more with someone pulling her strings—and I do mean Dudley, not that poor man who was hurt. But he died, you say?”

Cecil sensed that de Quadra was not one whit surprised by the revelation of Luke Morgan’s death, so he didn’t even answer that. It almost made him wonder if the ambassador had more than one spy in Elizabeth’s court. King Henry VIII’s crafty chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, had always said it was wise to have a second informant watching the key informant,
so Cecil had taken that advice, especially because Felicia Dove seemed so flighty, but then musicians and artists often were.

Suddenly Cecil tired of this game he himself had played for so long. Just today Felicia Dove had sent him lines from the doctored-up script Ned Topside had supposedly written, but which certainly bore the queen’s stamp too. He wondered again who the bishop had feeding him information so quickly and efficiently, but the Spaniards always did pay well.

“I take it you’re not going back to Windsor unless she commands you?” the bishop asked, obviously pleased to change the subject.

“Mayhap not even then. I’d like to simply retire, but if the Tudor temper rears its head, I could be cooling my heels in prison. If so, bishop, I hope you will visit me from time to time to tell me what’s going—”

A woman’s shrill voice brought them both to their feet. An argument between a man and a woman followed. Cecil hurried out into the corridor with de Quadra clinging like a burr.

An unkempt woman with one child in her arms and one tugging at her skirts was berating the bishop’s man. He was gesturing wildly and jabbering at her in Spanish with the occasional English interjection of “No queen. Queen go ’way. Queen gone. You go too.”

Despite the fact those words were not meant for Cecil, they fed his worst fears. What if, indeed, Elizabeth’s stubborn nature and passion for the sports of love she had inherited from her father, along with her vast power, brought her down?

“What is the issue here?” Cecil demanded in a loud enough voice that both the girl and the Spaniard stopped shouting at each other.

“Your lordship,” she cried, peering around the frustrated man until he stepped aside, “Polly Hammet, that’s me, widow of the queen’s late lutenist, one Geoffrey Hammet. I know the queen’s not here, but I want someone to tell her how grateful I am, yes, right grateful.”

“For?” Cecil prompted, walking toward the agitated blonde. At least she had been blond once, maybe pretty too, though she looked only weary and worn now. The toddler, a girl, cowered behind her mother’s stained skirts at his approach.

“Grateful for the coins she sent, a course, for Geoffrey’s services rendered,” Polly Hammet spoke up. “A note said so in her own hand—her own hand. The minister, he read it to me. God preserve Her Grace, she saved us from this hard winter coming on, so I been praying she can save herself.”

“Save herself?” de Quadra interrupted.

“You know, what all folk been talking ’bout,” Polly said, shifting the baby to her other arm. “Either damned if she does or doesn’t, the minister said.”

“If she does or doesn’t what?” de Quadra put in, though Cecil glared at him for his meddling.

“You know,” Polly said, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “If she makes Robert Dudley put ’way his poor lady wife or just has someone dispatch her ’fore she weds him.”

“I rest my case,” de Quadra said.

“WHAT’S THE BOY DOING HERE?” FELICIA ASKED AS SHE
faced the queen in her privy chamber. The musician kept rubbing her hands together, the queen noted, perhaps feeling naked without a lute in them for once. She had requested that Felicia leave it by the door. Elizabeth sat in a chair, Gil perched on a table, and Felicia stood facing them both.

“Gil is my artist, and he’s very good at faces,” Elizabeth said to play her first card. Mary Sidney had reported that Katherine Grey was not in bed, but had arisen and was washing her face and hands. So, Elizabeth had reasoned, that proved neither that she was guilty or innocent of sneaking into and defacing the queen’s chamber. Meanwhile, Elizabeth stared harder at Felicia. It was high time to force the lutenist to tell all she knew.

“But why my face?” the girl asked. “I’m just a musician—a servant.”

“Then, as a servant, you’d best answer the questions I put to you straightaway.”