The Poyson Garden (21 page)

Her head jerked up. He could see she struggled for control. "But--but, then, I resemble Sarah, too, my lord. Ned told you why I really took Meg on--because she can counterfeit my presence should I need a decoy--or the other way around, like today?"

He nodded. "A clever chess move, Your Grace, but perhaps on your girl's part too. Ned says she has a mysterious past and just arrived at your aunt's and keeps conveniently discovering helpful things so you come to rely on her. Lord Carey told me he was to question the girl again at Wivenhoe before she disappeared. But my point is,

you must be careful, very careful, because someone you cannot trust could have been planted close to you."

He fingered the meager dried herbs she had laid in Meg's basket, before emphasizing, "Planted by someone who does not wish you well."

She dropped--or threw, he was not sure--her basket on the ground. "But it is Bea Pope I believe has been planted, and by my sister. Meg has helped me again and again, even as she did my aunt."

"Your Grace, I am going to admit something to illustrate my point. I pray you will not be out of sorts over this. Cora Crenshaw, the cook at Hatfield--"

"You accuse Cora too?"

"Only of being my eyes and ears there to be certain you were safe and to keep a good watch in the kitchens that no one does--did--to your food and drink what happened to your aunt's. I still pay Cora Crenshaw to keep a watch over you, for such like reasons."

"Ah," she said only, assessing him anew with those sharp eyes. "For such like reasons--sui bono, master lawyer." Her expression made him want to fidget or back away, but he did neither. Still, he swallowed hard enough to bob his Adam's apple as she went on, "Then, my lord, I shall keep an eye on Meg and others I tend to trust because they serve me well--yet without them, I am so wretchedly alone."

Her voice broke on that; he knew she included him in her mistrust now. Still, he dared to plunge on. "And I believe the others who have been assembled to help you years ago"--here he glanced at her man in the distance--"should be scrutinized closer too. Even once-loyal folk can be pushed or priced."

"Jenks?" she demanded. "And Kat Ashley, of course? Dear Kat?" she taunted sarcastically, hitting his shoulder with a balled fist so hard he had to step back. "What about Ned Topside, the wily actor? And the list must include you, of course, who has stood by as my adviser I trust enough to meet out here."

She began to pace and gesture wildly, just as they said old King Henry did when he was vexed-- before he got too fat and his leg too full of gangrene to move. Cecil swallowed hard again.

"I regret, Your Grace," he said, feeling he was in the docket at his own treason

trial, "that I stand here like a harbinger from hell to croak bad news, but in your tenuous position, especially now so close to the throne as Queen Mary weakens, you can trust no one. The time is too ripe, the odds too high."

"Lecture me then, master lawyer, and quickly," she ordered, flinging out an arm as she paced past him again. "Build your case against Jenks--who can dissemble nothing and would die for me-- and Kat, who is like a mother to me. And against you, of course. Say on."

"Jenks came as a mere lad to you, I believe, from the household of the Lord Thomas Seymour, who was nearly your destruction."

Her skirts swung as she halted before him. Her porcelain complexion blanched, then flushed. Cecil had long suspected she had actually loved the seductive, traitorous Seymour.

"My Lord Seymour is long dead," she said, her voice harsh with barely leashed passion. "What in heaven's name could Jenks have to do with all that now? You refer, I warrant, to the fact some men fanatically loyal to Tom Seymour thought I deserted him and let him go to the block? Well, he deserted me first, and I had to save myself. There was no help for it. So Jenks is innocent, master lawyer, of whatever dire, convoluted motives you ascribe to him. You have no case against the lad. And Kat? What crazed thing will you say about my loyal Kat? Well?"

"When your enemies had Kat Ashley in the Tower during the Seymour situation, they merely threatened to torture her--merely showed her the instruments--and she confessed everything about her being a go-between for Tom Seymour and you."

Her nostrils flared. He was walking on eggshells now, he knew it. But she had to be made more cautious, protected. He had long advised her just to sit tight, hold on, and her destiny would come to her. In this treacherous poison plot that reached, perhaps, clear to the palace, he knew she had chosen to act, but it was deadly dangerous. He wanted to scare her inffbeing more defensive, not going on the offensive.

She stood, hands on her hips, staring at him down her long nose. Her voice came at him dart-tipped, but entirely under control now. "And you fault her for that? I do not. The Tower is the most fearsome place on earth, my lord. I can

testify to that."

"But I am only saying, Katherine Ashley gave you up quickly to Queen Mary's men and hurt you as a result. What else did she promise them, under duress, to be so quickly freed and released back to you then?"

"Hardly to report to the queen what I do in secret--and never to let someone poison me years later. She's had a hundred, nay, a thousand chances to betray or dispatch me and has done nothing but protect and coddle me. If Kat's guilty, my lord, it is of worrying overmuch and scolding--treating me as if I still toddled about in leading strings. And Ned Topside? He only saved Harry's life."

"Oh, I give you that he came along on that road and appeared to save Harry's life, but what if he did that to ingratiate himself with Harry and the Boleyns--then you? Or mayhap he expected to find--or deliver--a corpse to your aunt and then have access to her. He either did not know it was you at Wivenhoe or learned too late to get to you--or to make a second attempt on Harry's life. Then, when he would have found a way to get to you again, you actually summoned him. He in turn tries to throw doubt on the others, like Meg--"

"You are demented. Ned has been alone with me twice and done naught but help me when he could have handed me over to the enemy or done me in."

"But your earlier letter gave me the impression you feared that this She was enjoying tormenting you--playing with you cat and mouse--until the time she prefers to strike. So she might have told her informant or liaison to string you along--to bring you to her. I will find out more information about the Irish ties, but until I do you must not continue to trust your people so wholeheartedly and under no circumstances go to Leeds."

"Master Cecil, I shall do now--and ever--what I must do."

He merely made a stiff half bow, though he wanted to shout and pound tree trunks at her obstinacy. "I am glad to hear you can vouch for all your privy plot council, Your Grace, for that is clever and careful, as you must be. Marry, you must!"

"And you, clever Cecil? Should I not trust you either?" she goaded, pointing her finger nearly in his face. "I believe I asked you to give me

evidence against yourself too."

"Very well, Your Grace. I am vaunting ambitious--I plead guilty to that--ambitious for myself, my house, but most of all for the rightful queen I want to serve. This is why I came to Ightham, why I bide my time with my family and farm in the countryside--to wait to serve you."

His pulse pounded. He could barely catch his breath; he knew his usually well-modulated voice rose and quavered. Before he knew he would say more, he blurted, "And I will not have some vengeful poisoner attack you at the last minute and snatch my dreams away."

Tears stung his eyes, blurring his vision. He was aghast he had lost control. But, with her, perhaps it was that moment that saved him and strengthened their unspoken bond.

"Then we are agreed," she declared, "for She will not snatch my dreams either!"

Though afoot in the dank woods in stained, common clothes, she had never looked more a queen to him.

Chapter The Fifteenth

"I must get to Leeds Castle," Elizabeth told Kat when she returned from her covert meeting with Cecil. "It's a risk, but one that must be taken, and soon."

Kat's forehead clenched and her lips pursed hard, but she said naught as she helped Elizabeth divest herself of Meg's garments.

"Cecil says that Leeds's owner, Sir Anthony St. Leger," Elizabeth went on, "has tight Catholic and Irish ties. Like Hever, Leeds was a place my mother loved, for my father once brought her there in great triumph. The poisoner revels in defiling places dear to the Boleyns. And since I overheard at Hever that She is intent on destruction there, St. Leger might be housing her at his castle. She must have gone to Leeds!"

"Gone to sit there like a spider, just waiting for you to get snared in her web," Kat muttered, as she gathered up the garments.

"But nothing risked, nothing gained, even if that risk must be in secret--even if I must appear to be doing nothing. The poisoner must be stopped for

good."

Despite her brave words, she felt her resolve waver. But she could not hide or hunker down here or even back at Hatfield like some scared rabbit--a rabbit She could probably poison if she put her mind to it. This plan was perilous, considering only Ned and Jenks would be with her, but that could have advantages too. She must depend on the few faithful people she had gathered about her. Suddenly, she hated Cecil: He had made her feel more beleaguered and alone than ever by throwing suspicion on her staff, even Kat. Elizabeth studied the older woman through her eyelashes and slitted lids, then decided to trust her.

"New, more-bold tactics will throw them off guard at Leeds, my Kat," she rushed on as if she were trying to convince herself. "I will not enter the enemy camp at night this time. I'm going to have Ned write a short play, and he, Jenks, and I shall invade Leeds in broad daylight, yet disguised, a small company of players to perform for them. Well, do not gape at me like that. All players' companies have girlish-looking lads for the women's parts."

"Your success garbed as Meg has gone to your head!" Kat declared as she bent over to fan out Elizabeth's petticoats for her to step into. "And now you'll be a woman grown, playing a lad, playing a lass? Who would believe it?"

"Exactly." She put her hand on Kat's back and stepped into her garments. "They will never suspect. But I'll still let Ned talk our way in so I can keep in the background."

"You?" Kat grunted, lacing her petticoats. "You, in the background?"

"I did so when I visited my aunt."

"Only till you took to digging up the dead and scrapping with a wench who killed herself. Lovey, you've had to do too much thinking and agonizing over this, and it's addling your wits. Queen Mary's keeping you in rural exile these years has hardly kept you in the background. I've heard," she whispered with a wink, "that true English courtiers are just waiting for the final downturn of her health to flock to your side."

"You've heard such from whom?"

She looked guilty, the cat with the cream on her whiskers. "Why, Cecil, of course," she blustered. "You think you are the only one can corner

him for privy talk?"

Elizabeth put her hands to her forehead to massage away hovering head pain. Her closest people were all protective but sometimes seemed to conspire. They had chinks in their armor, but if she trusted no one as Cecil said, how could she survive?

Dear Lord in heaven, she prayed, keep me safe and sane. I am going mad with fear and doubt.

"I admit it, Kat," she said softly. "I feel beset on every side, swarmed and stung." She didn't know why she had put it that way, swarmed and stung. A fearsome memory flew at her, but she shoved it back. "But I am going --somehow--to survive by stopping this poison plot, no matter what others want or will for me. It is my will that matters--mine!" she cried, thudding a fist to her breastbone.

Kat had moved forward, arms outstretched, as if she would embrace her, but at that imperious tone she jerked to a halt. She looked uncertain whether to curtsy or cry. For one moment they stared at each other like strangers.

"Help me finish dressing," Elizabeth ordered, her voice a cold command. "I must find Ned. Meanwhile, you will fetch Meg here to wait for me. And tell her, I do not want to see Sam from the stables hanging on her petticoats."

"What? Sam, the groom? I don't believe it."

"Nor do I." Elizabeth's voice came muffled from under her bodice as Kat pulled it down over her head, then began to lace it the rest of the way up the back. "I don't know when she found the time."

"Nay, 'tisn't a question of time. Meg doesn't give a fig for anyone but Ned. Pity, since it's cow-eyed Jenks been hanging on her every word, so that's a pretty pickle you've got to solve--"

Elizabeth pulled away and spun to face her.

"I am going to solve nothing that petty but will command them all to stop it, just stop it," she cried, pacing and gesturing with both hands. "Ned cares naught for Meg but to teach her to ape my speech and bearing, and Jenks--Jenks cares only for horses and me. This is a time for logic, not wild emotions, especially personal ones!"

Kat gave her that all too familiar squinty stare, as if to ask who was the pot calling the kettle black. Elizabeth knew her moods swung and her temper seethed, but she could not rein them in. But she alone had a sound excuse. No one understood her, and she might as well just face down that poisoner alone. Yanking her snood from Kat's hands, she fastened it in her hair herself as she stormed from the room.

Elizabeth had calmed herself by the time she found Ned in Lord Cornish's library downstairs. She followed his voice along the hallway, for he was declaiming a speech her grandfather, King Henry VII, supposedly gave at

Bosworth Field when he seized England for the Tudors to end the War of the Roses. The monologue was from a drama called Triumph at Bosworth, which he had done sections from the other night for the Cornishes as well as Sir Thomas and the overly impressed, applauding Bea. Now he evidently did not even hear Elizabeth when she opened the door, stepped in, and quietly closed it behind her.