The Poyson Garden (4 page)

ill, but she only dry-heaved once, pressing her palm to her mouth. She leaned for strength with one hand on the banister. Glenda turned and plodded back down the stairs, mumbling.

"Dear aunt," Elizabeth whispered, "let me help you." She put one arm around the woman and her other under her elbow. How skeletal she was under the linen night rail.

"I will be fine now," she insisted through lips thinned with pain. "Everything will be fine now." They shuffled into the bedchamber, and Elizabeth closed the door behind them. Though she leaned her aunt against the bed, the moment she let go to reach for the mounting stool, Mary Boleyn slid back to her knees on the woolen rug.

"Not the strength to curtsy anymore, can't manage it," she murmured as Elizabeth knelt beside her, then lifted her again. "Besides, there has been no one else for years, no one who truly deserved my curtsy after he killed my --our--family."

"Don't talk now," Elizabeth insisted. "No one here must curtsy to anyone. Save your strength so we may talk."

Suddenly, huge tears began to pour down the woman's wan face. Elizabeth, trained by duty not to cry but when alone, held her aunt to her, blinking back tears.

"Oh, my dearest," Mary Boleyn said in a rush, as if Elizabeth would disappear if she were silent, "you have your mother's slimness, her dark, snapping eyes, and long, elegant hands too. His red-gold coloring, of course, but not his ruddy face. A porcelain complexion, just like hers," she went on, leaning back to study Elizabeth. "You are Boleyn as much as Tudor, and you must never forget it, no matter what threatens."

As she spoke, the door swept open. A russet-haired man with broad shoulders filled it, stepped in, then closed it quickly. "Mother, Glenda says you got up and almost fell, so I'm glad Meg's finally back out of her own sickbed to help--" he began before his eyes focused on Elizabeth.

He squinted at her before his frown relaxed in surprise, as if he hadn't known Mary had sent for her or had not fathomed she would come. Because he wore a white shirt, it was only when he stepped slowly closer that she realized his right arm

and upper chest were bound in bandages and he wore a sling.

"Princess Elizabeth," Mary said, her weak voice gaining power in obvious pride, "may I present your cousin and devoted subject, Henry Carey." She leaned against the bed, clinging to the heavy carved post so that Elizabeth did not have to hold her up. "His sister, my Catherine, is still in Switzerland with Henry's wife and their children. But Henry came home to see me before ... before--"

"Before I could miss her more than I already did," he finished gallantly. He was broad-faced, with wide-set eyes and a prominent nose much like her own, Elizabeth thought, a handsome man with a trimmed auburn beard, though he looked older than his thirty-some years. She could not place him as the lad she had met fleetingly years before. He was of middling stature, but his manly bearing made him seem tall. Indeed, she did resemble him, even more than she had her half brother. She liked him instantly.

"Cousin Henry," she said, extending her hand, "it gives me great joy and comfort to meet you, even --and especially--in these tenuous circumstances and times."

"Your servant and liege man always, Your Grace," he whispered. He went down on one knee before her. Inclining his head, he lifted the hem of her soiled cloak and kissed it, then the backs of her fingers before, still kneeling, he raised his face. She clasped his shoulders lightly to raise him, and they exchanged proper kisses on each cheek. She saw the outer corners of his eyes crinkled and his hopeful expression turned up a bit on one side of his broad mouth. Tremulously, she smiled into his eyes, brown ones shadowed by lurking sadness or grief.

Together, they helped Mary Boleyn back into her big bed, for she seemed to have instantly fallen asleep right where she leaned. Henry indicated they should walk out. They huddled in the hall by the bedchamber door, he now suddenly silent, she looking to him for further explanation.

"My eyes," he said, when she stared a bit overlong, "are glad of your sweet face. When I see you here so strong and sure, I know we can face and solve this murder plot together."

"Murder plot?" she gasped. "Whose murder? You mean the attack your mother mentioned was attempted

murder? Tell me."

"I will," he vowed, lifting a finger to his lips. "Let's go outside where none may overhear."

But it was her own inner voice now screaming the question in her ear that terrified her most: This is my murdered mother's family, and now are they--we --in grave danger of murder once again?

Chapter The Third

"Tell me everything," Elizabeth demanded as they walked downstairs.

"But you've obviously just arrived and should rest and eat," Henry insisted.

"I can do naught until you tell me."

She wanted to show him how much she respected him and didn't mean to take over. Still, she could not help but blurt, "But we must fetch someone to sit with your mother. Who is this Meg you and Glenda spoke of?"

"Meg Milligrew, her favorite girl, just the kitchen herbalist, really," he explained as he escorted her through the hall toward the back of the house. "The chit is down with greensickness and can't even seem to dose herself back to health right now. The thing is, forgive me, Your Grace, but she somewhat resembles you, and that's who I thought you were at first glance."

"Resembles me?" Elizabeth asked, stopping so suddenly he almost bumped into her. Her tone and glance were more withering than curious.

"I mean in hair color, height, and form," he added quickly. "She hardly has your fine features, bearing, or presence. No grace like yours, cousin. She's a bumbling sort, but Mother quite favors her. I'll just stop in here." He indicated a door that had to be, by the smells and sounds emanating from it, the kitchen. "I'll have Glenda send someone up to Mother. When she exerts herself, she sleeps for hours. I've been sitting with her when I wasn't weak with blood loss myself."

Elizabeth followed him a little ways down the dim hall. She was surprised to realize she still wore her cloak, though her hood had long fallen down her back. "And tell Glenda," she added, "to give my breakfast to my man out with the horses. Ask her, I mean, will you?"

He inclined his head in a hint of bow as

Glenda came out with a tray. While

Henry explained, the woman's narrow eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them. She nodded with a sniff, muttered a curse against poor Meg, and bellowed for Piers to come take the "fine lady's tray" to the stables.

No, Elizabeth thought again, they didn't stand on ceremony here. Ordinarily it might have amused her, but she felt only foreboding as a male servant appeared to swirl Henry's cloak over his shoulders and give him his cap before they went outside.

A bench against a brick wall in a patch of sun overlooked the kitchen herb garden. It was laid out in neat rows surrounding a cleverly knotted central pattern that the early frost had not yet blighted in this wind-sheltered place. Beyond lay the kitchen door and a window with its view partially obscured by hanging, drying clumps of herbs.

"Please, sit, Your Grace, and I shall tell you all."

"Will you not call me Elizabeth when we are alone together?" They sat, of necessity, close on the narrow bench. "Or you know," she went on, her voice almost wi/l, "here I almost feel I should be just plain Bess and be quite at home, except for what you have to tell me."

He nodded and flushed--unless it was the crisp breeze that curled around the corner that suddenly burnished his cheeks. "Of course. And you must call me Harry as my friends do. Elizabeth, I did not mean for Mother to summon you here, but I am heartened she did." She saw he was more distraught than he had let on at first. He kept shifting his position, and his deep voice faltered. "I was afraid to put this--this dangerous disorder--to you in writing. The attack on my man and me in the forest not far from here was no accident--when I thought I had come home covertly to see my mother before she--she ..."

"But are you certain she is dying?" she asked, leaning slightly toward him. "Can we not bring in some skilled apothecary or physician?"

He hung his head, staring at his hands gripped on his knees. "She's had all the local ones. The thing is, she's given up the will to live since my stepfather died last winter. She's been wasting away with worsening signs like watering eyes, nausea, stomach pains, and general weakness.

Though I am glad you came, I fear that now that she's seen me and you at long last ..."

"That she will have naught else to live for?" He looked up sharply. "You read my mind. But to this other dreadful business. My man and friend Will Benton was killed riding next to me not a quarter hour before we would have arrived here."

"Killed? Then, that is the murder. I am sorry, cousin, for him and you," she said, covering his hands with one of hers. "Thank the Lord you will mend, but I am sorely grieved for his loss."

"He was ever your loyal subject. He attached himself to my faded star, but it was you he longed to see in power." He slumped slightly. She held his hand tighter. "In a way it's my fault he's dead," he went on, his voice shaky. "He was hardly the target of such a quick and painful death, but I, his sponsor--his better --a Boleyn. Three arrows felled him, one driven clear into his gut. Pardon my rough tongue, Your Grace--Elizabeth."

"Never apologize for the truth," she insisted, standing and beginning to pace before turning back to him when he jumped to his feet. "You must tell me all of it, Harry. Are you certain you were the target? Can you describe your attackers?"

"It is such a black whirl in my brain now. I never saw but only heard them, at least three, I think. I fear they were watching and waiting for me. Somehow I had been spied on-- they knew I would come to see my mother and when. And pox on it, but I might have fought back but their first volley missed when my horse reared, and I was thrown and fell on my own damned sword." He hung his head again like a whipped boy. "And was saved," he added quietly, "by a ragtag group of players to whom I owe my life."

"You are certain it was not they who assailed you? Some country troupes are bands of thieves. They could attack, then hope for reward by miming a bold rescue. Or could it not have been local rogues just lying in wait for any hapless traveler? Times are terribly hard for the common folk, too, under Mary's taxes for her

Spanish husband's foreign wars."

He shook his head so hard his cap went askew. "No, I am certain the assassins were driven off by the player called Ned Topside. I believe him. He says he did not see them either, only heard their terrible shout from afar.

He's yet my guest, staying at the

Rose and Thorn in the village, and I've asked them to do some pretty speeches to cheer Mother tonight. But Elizabeth," he went on, stepping closer, "I know it is a plot because I, too, heard the blackguards--at least one of them--shout that threatening battle cry when they had to leave their murderous work undone."

His eyes, now wide as coins, looked beyond her as if he saw it all again.

"Their battle cry?" she prompted.

He flinched as if he'd been struck, then spit it out between trembling lips. "Down with all the bloody Boleyns," he whispered, "even the royal one."

Elizabeth ate and washed but refused to lie down, though she had a real headache working on her, as if an unseen tormentor screwed a tourniquet tighter about her forehead. She supposed it served her right for lying to her people at Hatfield. At least this head pain wasn't that crippling. Her stomach and balance seemed sound enough for now.

She sat with her sleeping aunt awhile, then walked the walled gardens of the manor house with Harry again, trying to catch up on years apart and yet make some plans to counter this current danger.

"Where did you bury him, your man Will?" she asked when she saw the churchyard with its mounded humps of turf and a few tilted gravestones just through an iron-gated door at the back of the grounds. A charnel house where old bones were eventually stored stood against the far wall of the graveyard. Over all loomed a stalwart stone church, one Harry had said lacked a minister since King Henry rooted out Catholicism from the kingdom.

At first he only gestured in a general direction, but when she continued to peer through the bars, he took a big, rusted key from a chink in the wall and unlocked the gate. It creaked open. They walked through, just to the edge of the yard where several fresh graves lay bare of grass.

"Will lies in this one," he said, pointing to a rectangle at their feet with a crude wooden cross stuck in the somewhat sunken ground. He sighed. "Sadly far from his home in Sussex. I have written to his mother, though she can't read.

I had him buried quickly. I couldn't bear the way he looked. The arrows made black spots around the wounds, sores the likes of which I've never seen."

"Spots? Small ones, like with the pox?" "No, black blisters dreadful to see, yet nothing like buboes of the plague," he added hastily, as if to comfort her.

But a shudder racked her. She had risked everything to come here and found only dying, death, and danger. And yet she could and would not draw back like some craven coward.

"Do you still have the arrows that struck him?" she asked. "Mayhap there is something to identify the attackers or the maker, a particular fletching pattern or marking on the shaft or even the point. My father always used to make his fletchers set his feathers just so when he shot at the buttes or hunted."

"But for the one arrowhead I had to leave in him, I wrapped the bloody, sticky things and put them in a box with my own shorter arrows from boyhood visits here. My stepfather taught me to shoot," he said with a glance at the little church where, no doubt, the grave of Mary Boleyn's beloved lord lay out of the elements that battered these of lesser rank. "The box is in the gardener's shed we just passed," Harry added and escorted her back into the manor grounds. The gate scraped closed behind him; he relocked it and restowed the key.