The Thorne Maze (21 page)

“I can’t fathom her getting in the flat-fronted gowns everyone wears. She’s built so unstylish, but I think men like it better, no matter what women think. Oh, pardon, Your Grace.”

“I think with Bettina they liked it better, and she took advantage of that,” the queen said with a sigh as Meg relaced Bettina’s bodice. No use putting a new one on her, though they had sent Cecil to get a skirt of Mildred’s to cover poor Bettina so they could hand her over to the local coroner. The queen could hardly take one from Meg, and her own garments and most courtiers’ clothes were too richly woven for Bettina’s burial.

“So,” the queen said, helping cover the corpse with the sheet again, “what could she die from if there is not a foreign wound or mark on her?”

“Poison’s all I can think of,” Meg admitted, “and she did have that goblet.”

The queen shuddered as her gaze snagged Meg’s wide stare. In the year Elizabeth became queen they’d faced a poison threat here at Hatfield. That murderer was long dead, yet the mere memory haunted the queen.

“If it was poison,” Elizabeth whispered, “that could mean we are indeed looking for a murderer of random advantage, one who changes weapons at will, using whatever person just happens to be in his or her path to murder for the mad thrill of it. But I think not. There is method to these attacks, especially to use some sort of maze. What frightens me is that we have someone who perversely plans—
and
enjoys the thrill of the kill, because of some deeply harbored hatred—perhaps hatred of me.”

“Any way we reason it out, the maze murderer’s outfoxing us so far.”

Unfortunately, Meg was absolutely right.

He was no numbskull, no matter what people thought, Jenks told himself. So, though he had now followed Her Grace’s orders to ride clear to Moorgate to try to find Bettina on the main road from Hatfield to the capital, he was not going through the plague city. Thank God, the Inns of Court were on the northern edge of London, and Gray’s the farthest out with fields and hills beyond, so he could go in that way and avoid the worst. Traveling afoot, he’d be in and out quick and safe with nary a brush with the Black Death.

He walked westward through fields and down deserted lanes with the sinking sun in his eyes. He’d have to put up at Gray’s for one night and head out at dawn after talking to whomever could tell him about Bettina, Chris Hatton, and Jamie Barstow. Nothing complicated in that, he tried to buck himself up. All would be well.

From this view on slightly elevated ground, it was hard to believe the city suffered. Yet he could see that the usually heavy traffic on the distant Thames was near nothing. As he looked down Chancery Lane toward Holborn, he paused, one hand on his sword. So few were in the streets. London lay before him like a ghost town.

Still, he hustled down the lane toward Gray’s, blessing his lucky stars again that he need not go into the city proper. But nothing looked proper about London today. The few folk who scurried by glanced back over their shoulders as if someone were stalking them.

More than once he almost turned to flee, though folks had said the pestilence this year was not as bad as last. That was not saying much, since over twenty thousand deaths had been recorded in London last summer. And anyone who caught the death had a less than half chance of pulling through.

He told himself he would not fear, for he was on a crusade for the queen. Besides, if he took sick, suffered, and died, maybe Meg Milligrew would finally realize how much he should have meant to her. But he had things to do for the one woman who did appreciate him.

Of course, he’d have to find a way to report what he learned here without actually approaching the queen until a proper period passed so he knew he wasn’t carrying the pestilence. Good thing Her Grace insisted everyone on her Privy Plot Council must know how to read and write. That bastard Ned had taught him when the queen commanded it, one of his few kind deeds ever. So Jenks would only go so far toward Hatfield and send a note in with his horse. Once that smart stallion got close enough to the royal stables, he’d find his way. With a tight smile, Jenks pictured how heartbroken the queen—and maybe Meg—would be when his mount came back without him.

“Now,” the queen said as she assembled her already decimated Privy Plot Council, this time also without Jenks, “we must investigate Bettina’s demise without panicking anyone about a murderer loose in our midst.”

“That will be a good trick, as I’m starting to feel panicked,” Ned said. “I can’t believe Jenks hasn’t hightailed it back here yet when he didn’t find Bettina.”

“I’m sure he has a good reason,” Meg piped up.

“Lord Dudley has sent a man after him,” the queen explained, “but he has not returned yet either. By the way, I am considering bringing Lady Rosie Radcliffe into our midst at the next meeting, if there are no objections.”

“To replace Kat?” Meg asked.

“No one replaces Kat, or ever could.”

“Then Kat hasn’t become suspect?” Ned asked, putting his hands up as if to ward off an attack from the queen. “I mean, I realize you said at an early meeting to ‘leave Kat out of it,’ Your Grace, but I’m not sure we can now. She admitted she sneaked out at night to speak to Templar in the maze, evidently just before he was murdered, then she threatened Bettina and
voilà—”

“Ridiculous,” Elizabeth cut in. “She was in bed in my chamber during the time Bettina must have been dispatched and placed in the knot garden.”

That settled that, she thought, but she knew full well, though she’d put Kat to bed last night, she’d finally fallen asleep only to find her dressed and having breakfast when she and Rosie awakened. At night, the hall guards changed and even nodded off at times. But Elizabeth knew deep down, despite Kat’s dementia, she would harm no one. It was Mildred Cecil she was starting to suspect.

“My Lord Cecil, I hope Mildred slept through all of this, so as not to upset her.”

“She was still asleep this morning, Your Grace, so I haven’t even had the opportunity to tell her this tragic news.”

Steadily, almost defiantly, his eyes met his queen’s stare. They both knew Mildred did not like Bettina. Perhaps, Elizabeth thought, as she broke their gaze first, if Mildred was dangerous, she should send her to Theobalds as she’d requested. Had she actually asked to go because she wanted to flee a murder she knew about before anyone else? But to think that the staunchly moral Mildred would harm someone was as insane as blaming the befuddled Kat.

“What did the local authorities say when they came to claim and examine Bettina’s body?” Meg asked.

“I meant to begin with that but was distracted,” Elizabeth said.

“I’ll bet they declared it murder outright,” Ned put in, “especially when they heard her husband was recently dispatched in a maze, too. And if they knew about your attack, then—”

“I did not tell them any of that. Besides, we don’t know for certain,” Elizabeth challenged, “that Bettina
was
murdered or that it was
in
the knot garden, and it’s not quite the same as a maze.”

Everyone’s heads had snapped toward her, even Cecil’s. Ned’s jaw dropped before he closed his mouth. Obviously, they were surprised, but once again, she had not been impressed with the rural bailiff and his men. Nor did she want it noised far and wide that she had been attacked, probably by the same murderer. And truth be told, she’d do anything to protect Kat from being questioned.

She was beginning to panic. She was going to lose control. Even to be considering those dearest to herself and Cecil as people with motives to eliminate the chatty, promiscuous Bettina terrified her.

“I want an independent investigation of Bettina’s body,” Elizabeth explained further, “without the authorities being swayed by what happened to me or Master Sutton. We must see if they can discern a natural cause of death, or if it must indeed be poison. I gave them permission to bury her in St. Alban’s, and they will report to me soon, but I—we—cannot wait for their findings.

“So, let us turn our thoughts toward the relationships between Bettina and her husband’s former students—his younger students, I mean, of course, my lord,” she added with a nod at Cecil.

“I believe,” Cecil put in, “other than Lord Darnley, Chris Hatton and Jamie Barstow are our best bets for a culprit.”

“You are no doubt right,” Elizabeth said. “In the hall last night, Bettina immediately blamed Chris Hatton for gossiping about her and even declared she’d get him for that. Perhaps she went looking for him, they argued … though I cannot believe it of him.”

“But he’s ever with Master Barstow,” Ned put in. “And it’s obvious Barstow’s been his guard as well as valet and tutor at times, so he’s probably the man to question, too.”

“I am suspicious of the young men,” Cecil said, “Darnley too, because of the cut-off clothing and the clippers stuck in the ground as they were. It seems to me to be the work of some randy young man who wanted to insult Bettina for her carnal and seductive nature. Not that I believe her murderer actually ravished her, for then, why bother with that bold display?”

“So you aren’t implying she was ravished?” Elizabeth asked.

“I certainly have no way of knowing that. It could be that the mere message of the clippers and exposed legs
were
the assault on her person.”

“Then that hardly rules out a woman murderer,” Ned said. Elizabeth saw Cecil glare at him, though she too would have liked to order Ned from the room.

And, Elizabeth thought, though she agreed with Cecil’s smooth reasoning, the sexual innuendos from the way the corpse was displayed hardly pointed to a woman assailant—unless it was a woman who wanted to publicly punish and shame Bettina for her promiscuity.

Across the table Meg hugged herself and shuddered. “At least the murderer didn’t cut the poor thing up with the clippers. If I only hadn’t left them there the day before …”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Elizabeth said. “But, needless to say, we are looking for the bottoms of Bettina’s skirts. They may be merely hidden or someone may have kept them for a sort of trophy. Meg, I want each inch of that overgrown knot garden searched for them.”

“We can at least trace this,” Cecil said, producing from his satchel the goblet they’d recovered from the murder site.

“But it’s plain—commonplace,” Ned observed, “like a hundred others I’ve seen. Maybe it was even Bettina’s. Have we considered suicide? I mean, she was emotionally volatile, bereaved, and then made distraught by Kat’s claims which shamed her with courtiers and her queen looking on.”

“I believe she was too strong and clever to take her own life,” Elizabeth said, though she realized that solution would solve so many problems. “But, if that goblet did hold poison, I vow I will find whether it was hers or someone helped her die. Her room has been sealed, but tonight—when a hundred eyes won’t watch me—I will search through the few possessions Bettina brought with her to Hatfield.”

“Well,” Meg said, “I can’t see the Countess of Lennox or Lord Darnley having a goblet plain as that, though that hardly lets them off the hook.”

“But I can still see this whole thing amusing Lord Darnley,” Ned said. “He’s wily and slippery as an eel, and I believe it pleases him to play games. Perhaps, like Templar used to, he fancies puzzles or conundrums.”

“He has not half the wit Templar Sutton had, though he’ll be thoroughly questioned again,” Elizabeth declared, hitting the table with her fist. “I’ve had my yeoman guard Clifford watching him, and he says Darnley took an evening stroll late last night, after the hubbub with Kat and Bettina.”

“Though,” Ned added, “with Darnley’s proclivities for late night assignations, he may have been meeting a man.”

“But,” the queen countered, “if Bettina was out wandering the grounds and Darnley ran into her, he could have killed her to plague us all again. ’S blood, I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“Clifford didn’t follow Darnley when he went out?” Cecil asked.

“I had told him to stay put in the hall of their wing and note all their comings and goings, which he did faithfully.”

“I will do anything I can to help,” Cecil said with a fierce frown that contorted his features, “but if I begin to interrogate courtiers, it will get out we’re investigating on an official level.” He looked so tired and careworn that Elizabeth’s heart went out to him despite her own inner chaos.

“And, I suppose,” she added with a deep sigh, “if I go after everyone broadside, they will whisper that I am trying to pin both Templar and Bettina’s deaths on someone else to protect Kat. But we must persevere, and I am the one most able to get away with an inquisition, at least of Chris, Jamie, and that damned Darnley. I swear, as soon as I can discern Darnley is not a murderer, at least, he’s going to be sent straight to Scotland!”

She sighed again as everyone headed for the door. “Did you reclothe poor Bettina properly?” Elizabeth asked Meg, the last one to leave the room.

“Yes, Your Grace, with an extra black skirt of Mildred Cecil’s her lord brought me. One Lady Cecil won’t want, he said, as it was stuffed in a rag bag, but he had their servant steam it out. It’s a good, somber black, not fancy but of good stuff. It had some snags in it, a hole too, but I made sure that was under her. You know, maybe it would be best if the coroner declares she took her own life, though that’s a vile sin and …”

But Elizabeth had not listened to Meg after she mentioned the hole in Mildred’s black gown, one she’d evidently hidden away. Yes, without telling Cecil the real reason, she must send Mildred, as she’d asked, to Theobalds, then go there herself to question her forthwith.

Chapter the Thirteenth

“BUT THAT’S DREADFUL ABOUT BETTINA,” MILDRED told her husband as they ate a private dinner together. “First Templar, then Bettina. Who could have held such a grudge against the two of them, my lord?”

“All I can say is that the local authorities have been summoned. As for grudges …”

His voice trailed off, though Mildred could tell he had something to say. Her stomach in knots, she bided her time, forcing herself to keep eating the fine pigeon pie which might as well be filled with sawdust.