The Poyson Garden (22 page)

She hated to interrupt a man so intense, so possessed, but as soon as he went down on one knee to pluck the crown Richard II had lost in a thornbush, she loudly cleared her throat.

"Forget Bosworth," she ordered. "We're going to Leeds."

"Now? Tonight?" He rose but nettled her by going on with his playacting to pretend to place the rescued crown on his brow with a flourish. When she smacked his elbow, his distant gaze focused on her at last.

"No, but soon," she said, starting to pace again. She could feel ideas and passions boiling in her, rattling the lid of her composure again. "We must get into Leeds to capture and question the poisoner-- if She's there. As soon as you can, pen me a brief play our little company of you, me, and Jenks can offer to give for Lord St. Leger there-- something, I'm afraid, that must be pro-Catholic and pro-Queen Mary. Of dire necessity, we shall be walking into a bed of vipers, anti-Boleyn Irish who may be tied yet in loyalty to Catherine of Aragon or even the Butlers, whom the Boleyns insulted twice--"

"Whoa!" he interrupted, mimicking pulling back on the reins. "You've left me in your

dust. What of all that is to be in the script? And you'll play what part? Mayhap you had best write it."

"You write it; I shall amend it," she ordered, coming to a stop so fast her skirts belled out around her. She pointed her finger at him as her voice rose. "And I will brook no scenes where actors go behind their mistress's back to consult with lawyers, nor ones where a princess's staff carry on secret romantic triangles, if you catch my drift, Edward Thompson, alias Ned Topside, alias King Henry the Seventh and whatever other parts you choose to assume."

"Now, that was quite a speech," he dared, grandly sweeping both arms outward.

She spun away, went out, and slammed the door. But he had the mettle to open it and hie himself after her down the long hall.

"Do you want someone serving you who cannot think on his own?" he demanded, keeping up with her brisk pace. "Do you want a mere puppet show and not a play, Your Grace?"

"Keep your voice down and your damned cocky spirits too."

She darted a sideways glance at him. He looked abashed.

"I shall, truly," he vowed and hung his head. She stopped to face him, going one step up on the staircase so she could look down at him. She could predict the impudent rejoinder he longed to give: You have not kept your voice down. But he was wily enough to bite back those words for some far gentler.

"I did not mean to displease Your Grace." "Of course I do not want merely to pull puppet strings--not exactly."

"So you once made me believe. I was to play a sort of fool, you promised, but never truly be one."

"Granted."

"Then grant me one moment more and do not scold, I pray you, even if my upbraiding is richly deserved." He kept his voice lowered and touched her elbow beseechingly to steer her back into the library and close the door behind them.

She folded her arms across her bodice. "Say on, Ned."

"I know you have not approved of how--how amusing the Lady Beatrice Pope finds me. I admit I have cultivated that."

"Bea Pope? I was not even referring to Bea Pope!" Elizabeth felt jolted again. But, of course, she had other things on her mind--important things--so she must have overlooked such little affaires de coeur in her people.

"You will not tell me," she choked out, "that you have become Bea Pope's paramour."

"By hell's gates, no. Never. I adore but one woman, yet from afar, however much we argue, one above my star, whom I will serve forever if she will allow it, I swear it."

His words rhymed like pure poetry. His warm voice roughened so convincingly, and his eyes were as green as wet emeralds. She nodded to encourage him to go on.

"I must tell you, Your Grace, that the Lady Beatrice has confided to me that she must needs see her sister in Maidstone again soon."

"Ah. When?"

"That is the sticking point, what made me suspect her all the more as the poisoner's informant here in your household, one of them at least. The lady is not certain what day she will leave--when she is summoned, as she put it, but she is packing now. And Maidstone is on the very road and close to Leeds."

"Indeed it is. Well done, Ned. Let me know the moment she leaves. If I had a man to spare, I would have her followed. And, whatever you do, keep our plans for this play and the stage we intend for it a secret from everyone right now."

"To Leeds and soon," he said and pantomimed lifting a goblet to drink a health. He threw back his head as if to quaff it.

"Your new-won Bosworth crown just tipped off your head, sire," she said as she went out and closed the door.

The window in the bedchamber and withdrawing room Lord St. Leger had given her surveyed the six-acre lake that surrounded Leeds Castle. Today the water looked as bog-dark as the sky from a storm sweeping in from the Channel. She stopped her preparations to lean her forehead against the cool glass, catching her unveiled reflection for one moment in its makeshift mirror.

She could hear Colum McKitrick and his henchmen's cries echoing from the inner courtyard as they battered each other with their staves to control the

leather stoolball. In Gaelic they shouted, making her yearn for her childhood days at Carrick-on-Sur. Ordinarily, she wouldn't care a whit if the lackbrains killed each other, especially after they had made such a ruin of executing Lord Carey, but she still needed them for Elizabeth of England's coming judgment day. Colum--and now he'd probably be a filthy, bruised, sweat-soaked mess--was to escort her to Ightham Forest this afternoon, rain or not.

She sighed, glancing at herself in the wan mirror the panes of glass made. She loved to look at her countenance in window reflections but usually at night. Since it was not a true looking glass, the pits and marks from the pox, the ruination of her beauty, never showed. That made her think of times past again, but she must think only of now.

Still gloved, she returned to kneading the sticky paste of aconite, hellebore, and banewort-tainted honey in a wooden trencher. These pellets must be stronger than those that had felled the rabbits at Hatfield, for the prey was much bigger this time. And red-haired, she thought, and laughed aloud. With the help of her informer who lived so close to the princess, it would bring great joy to leave the corpse lying right in the bitch Boleyn's own bed.

Elizabeth came back into her chamber so quietly that Meg, staring out the window at the graying sky, one shoulder slumped against the frame, did not hear her. Kat had gone out somewhere, so they were alone. The princess frowned at the girl's back, wondering if she were longing for Ned or tended darker thoughts. But no, though Cecil could be trusted to send her another swift letter as he had promised, he had no right to judge poor Meg.

"A penny," Elizabeth said quietly.

Meg turned so fast her curtsy went atilt. "For my thoughts? I warrant they're not worth even that much to you, Your Grace."

"They are worth a great deal." Elizabeth sat on the bench by the low-burning hearth and patted the cushion next to hers. Looking suddenly wary, Meg came over and sat.

"I suppose," Meg said, using her crisp London enunciation Ned was so pleased with lately, "you mean my knowledge of the herbs. I wish my

own thoughts were worth something to me too. I mean, the past I can't recall."

Elizabeth turned to face her squarely. She knew such worries weighed on Meg's mind, but she hadn't expected her to bring it up herself right now.

"That's partly what I wish to speak about," she explained, leaning forward. The girl nodded, wide-eyed, looking totally trusting. Surely such sincerity could not be a sham.

"Do you think, Meg, that if you were asked specific questions, not necessarily about herbs, it might help you to recall your life before you were kicked by the horse and taken in at my Aunt Mary's? For example, has another name ever struck you as sounding familiar, or are you sure you have recalled your real one? And concerning places you've lived--though Ned says you didn't sound as if you came from there at first--have you ever been to London?"

The girl shook her head, then shrugged. "If Ned says no, I guess not. He's so awfully clever. We've agreed now if I work hard on imitating the way you talk, he'll do parts for me in return. He can do voices that sound Italian"--she began to tick off on her fingers--"Froggie--French, I mean-- Spaniard, Irish, and Scots, so witty."

"Spanish and Irish too? He's not done those for me. But let's see about names then. Turn your back just as you did when I first came in. Close your eyes and let me say some names to see if any of them ... well, strike you." She hadn't meant to proceed this way, but she felt guilty setting this up with the girl staring at her so eagerly.

"If'n--I mean, if--you say so, Your Grace." Dutifully, she turned away, her backbone stiff, her shoulders straight.

"Penelope," Elizabeth began, pausing after the name. "Anne, Katherine or Kate. Gwendolyn, Cynthia, Eleanor or Nell. Jane, Philadelphia. Diana. Frances, Sarah. How does Sarah sound?"

"I like it--Sarah."

"Think carefully. Have you ever heard of Sarah Scottwood or Sarah Scutea?"

Meg spun around, her face hopeful. "Scutea's a funny name. And is that two Sarahs or one? I think I knew some

Scottwoods once, but I'm not sure. Why are you looking at me like that, Your Grace? Is this a trick? Is that name Scutea Spanish, then?"

Elizabeth sighed and flopped her hands in her lap. "I'll tell you straight, Meg. My Lord Cecil says a girl your age with a similar description was reared by an apothecary in London. A girl by the name of Sarah Scottwood, who used to be Sarah Scutea and disappeared about the time her father died last year and hasn't been seen since."

"God save us! And he--you--think she--that woman is me?"

"Do you think it could be?"

Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back to mat her pale lashes in clumps. "And what's the rest of it, then, Your Grace?" she asked. "Is she one of them loyal to Queen Mary you mentioned--ones with Spanish ties? And if her sire was an apothecary, you think I know the poisons, that I harmed your aunt and now--"

"No, Meg, I am saying no such thing." "I keep trying to win Ned over, but he's against me, isn't he? Talk about poisoners. Ned tries to poison your good opinion of me, and I'm just trying to please everyone--you, Ned, Lord Cecil too."

"Meg, I do not think you are a poisoner, and Ned has not said such either."

She dashed a tear away and asked, "And Master Cecil?"

Elizabeth heaved a sigh of exasperation and exhaustion. "Cecil advised me to be certain everyone near me was to be trusted. Stop crying this instant. If you are going to act my counterpart-- even in London someday perhaps--you must learn to control your damned tears." Elizabeth ended with a sniff herself.

'So blood, all this was getting to her. Even if Queen Mary died, she'd be a ranting, raving bedlamite by then, not to mention that she couldn't sleep or eat well anymore. Her long-tended and hard-won control of her temper had gone to hell in a handcart. She always wavered, forgiving Ned when she meant to rebuke him roundly, believing this girl when she could be someone from the very bosom of the enemy camp. Thank God, Kat and Jenks were beyond suspicion--surely they were.

Meg stopped crying. She sniffled and started

to wipe her nose on her sleeve before Elizabeth handed her a handkerchief. She nodded and honked at first, once, before she began to mimic the short puffs Elizabeth made. Elizabeth could not help it; her heart went out to the girl.

"May I say something else, Your Grace?" "Of course."

"When you said that Sarah Scottwood, I liked the sound of it. But I don't think I ever even saw a big city, and I'd be scared to death to so much as set foot in London, though I'd go there with you if you want."

"Thank you, Meg."

"But what I want to say is that--even if I was this Sarah with all she might have done, I recall none of it, so it isn't the real me now, not Meg Milligrew. If I ever was this Sarah, she's gone, just like she's dead, because I am loyal to you now, Your Grace. I believe that, but can you please believe it too?"

"Truly. And if we do ever learn that you were once someone else, we shall just rely on this Meg to see it through, the Meg my aunt knew and loved and trusted. And I too."

Elizabeth pressed her hands over Meg's fists, which clenched the handkerchief on her knee. Though amazingly she didn't show it, the girl was trembling so hard, her fear vibrated clear up Elizabeth's arms to make them tingle.

Ned was slumped over, writing the play for the princess, when Lord Cornish's man opened the library door without knocking. Ned stayed his scratching quill.

"Visitors at the gate for you, Master Topside."

"For me? No one in these parts knows me." "A ragtag group of players. One says he's kin to you--Wat Thompson."

Ned banged his fist down so hard that ink slopped and blotting sand flew. "At the front gate?" he demanded before recalling there was but one gate in this moated manor.

He knew now he'd made a massive mistake to so grandiosely announce to his uncle that he was going to serve the princess. They'd obviously tracked him through hearing where she lodged. Who knew what mischief they intended? No doubt they were down on their luck and wanted to perform for a hefty fee or expected him to dole

out what coin Her Grace had entrusted to him. And after Uncle Wat and Grand Rand--the sodomites--had failed to use his prodigious talents and had treated him instead like ... like one of the lads.

"I'll walk out to see them straightaway," he said. But he took his time, going to his room far back in the warren of small servants' chambers to wash his face and don a fur-lined cape and his only plumed hat. His feet dragged until he emerged from the inner court. Then he strode directly out toward them, under the arched gate, across the drawbridge, and over the moat where they waited, all four of them, hats in hands before Wat's horse and the cart and mule, laden with scenery and costumes that looked to be a jumbled mess. No one could ever pack their goods like he could.