The Queene's Cure Read online

drunk at morning and evening first and last, taketh

  away the stench of the mouth and breath, and restoreth

  speech to them with the dumb palsy.

  JOHN GERARD

  The Herball

  EVER SINCE HE'D NEGOTIATED A TREATY WITH England's northern neighbor two years ago, William Cecil had hated the wily, stiff-necked Scots. And Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, husband to Elizabeth's cousin Margaret Douglas, was one of the worst of that dyed-in-the-wool ilk. Lennox was forty-six years old, but looked ten years younger, as if that raw climate to the north somehow preserved the wretches.

  “Och, if it isna the queen's own secretary come calling in the flesh,” the strapping, sandy-haired earl greeted Cecil when he entered his Tower cell without the ado of announcement.

  Amazing, Cecil thought, how this blackguard could make a greeting sound like a drubbing. And he detested their guttural Scots burr, as if they had caught in their throat those prickly thistles they so venerated as their prideful symbol. Lennox no doubt only rose from behind the small table where he'd been writing because he was tall enough to look down his nose at Cecil. As if this chill cell suited him, the earl wore only an open-necked laced shirt, hose, and breeks of crosshatched muted hues that Highland rebels always favored.

  “I was in the vicinity,” Cecil said with a small shrug, “and thought I'd bring you a bit of news.”

  “Naught amiss wi' my lad?” the man blurted. “He isna ill?”

  “Not that I've been informed. Nor your wife, since, of course, you have a care for her health too.”

  “My countess is of braw constitution, so I dinna inquire after her.”

  “Even in here, I've no doubt that someone slips you word of how she's faring, as you two have always been skilled at covert communications.” Cecil let his eyes dart to the letter the man had been writing, then looked briefly ceilingward.

  “Och, mon, you should not listen to vile rumors. Her Gracious Majesty must surely ken we dinna wish her but goodwill and a long reign,” Lennox insisted, gesturing that Cecil might take the only chair in the spartanly furnished cell. When Cecil didn't budge, he added, “And Her Grace kens full well how forces swirling aboot one close to the throne can be mistaken to be rebels by the monarch's counselors.”

  That little rejoinder, Cecil thought, was less a slap at him than an allusion to Elizabeth's stay in the Tower for supposedly encouraging a Protestant plot. Though the earl and his countess had lately professed Protestantism, more than once, the Lennoxes had been put under close watch for plotting with Catholics against her. But the queen had a long memory: Cecil knew she would never forget that Margaret Douglas Stewart, Countess of Lennox, had once tried to garner proof to send her to and keep her in this place.

  “Must I lecture you on the vast differences between you and Her Grace, Lennox?” Cecil countered. “Her Majesty was proved innocent of malicious, slanderous accusations, whereas the bedrock facts against you and your countess …” Cecil rolled his eyes yet again. “But I came to inquire for your health, my lord. How goes the treatment for gout in the second joint of your left big toe?”

  Only for a moment did surprise almost betray the man. Cecil could see him thinking: If the crown knows that small detail, what else do they know? But the earl soon vexed him again by laboriously explaining how badly his toe pained him and made him walk shoeless with a halting limp he demonstrated ad nauseam back and forth in the small cell.

  But then, Matthew Stewart had never been a simpleton, however much his wife actually seemed to overshadow him when they were together. Even if he had not wed Margaret Douglas, Henry VIII's niece through the former king's sister, Lennox had his own convoluted family claims to the throne of Scotland. However, it was now held by Mary, Queen of Scots, Margaret's second cousin, to whom the Lennoxes were obsessively if covertly loyal.

  And the Stewarts were canny enough, as the Scots themselves would put it, to know that, since it would mean a bloody war to claim the throne themselves, a marriage between their son, Henry, Lord Darnley, and the young widow Mary must now be their righteous cause. They'd even sent the boy, aged seventeen, to France to court Mary when she was newly widowed there, before the English managed to fetch him home and put him under house arrest with his mother at Sheen while the earl languished here—or limped here.

  “Enough of this damned demonstration,” Cecil insisted, though he had a good nerve to let the man keep walking since it did seem to pain him. “Is this particular malady of yours being treated fully?”

  “Didna your sources pry that from Dr. Caius too?” he parried, sinking in his chair.

  “What is he treating you with?” Cecil asked, ignoring the man's latest jab. “I've a touch of that too.”

  “ ‘Comfrey for gout and for all inward griefs and hurts,’ ” he recited. “The mon's a canny healer and much misused these days, it seems.”

  “Dr. John Caius counsels you about how to alleviate your inward griefs and hurts, does he?”

  Cecil sensed that remark hit home. Lennox's left eyelid began to twitch; he rubbed it quickly, as if it would betray more than he already had. Cecil had every intention of questioning Lennox about hiring and inspiring Dr. Caius in some plot to terrify or unhinge the queen with effigies and corpses. But that interrogation would come later when the trap was better baited and sprung—and the queen had the Stewart family in her clutches at court.

  “ 'Twas just a wee bit of some medical book the doctor quoted, Lord Cecil. Och, I ken too he said hemlock was a surer cure for the gout, but dangerous if taken inwardly. He said he'd ne'er get past the guards wi' it, being poison and all if ingested. And he's a stickler for doing things by the book, and you can tell Her Gracious Majesty such. Meanwhile, you just take a care you dinna get any hemlock in your craw if a doctor lays paste of hemlock leaves on your gout, master secretary.”

  The man dared to smile, like a beast ready to spring, baring its fangs. Despite the palace guard outside the door, Cecil shuddered. And this was the man, with his she-wolf and handsome, spoiled whelp in tow, whom the queen thought should be brought back to court to keep an eye on them the better?

  “Hemlock's out at court too,” Cecil said, “so you'll have to stick to your comfrey cure, Lennox. And I wager you'll have to change to one of the queen's court doctors.”

  “What? Why's that then? What about Dr. Caius?” the Scot demanded.

  Cecil turned rudely away, though he'd told Elizabeth he would not betray her scheme. But he half turned back, watching the man out of the corner of his eye. “Her Majesty,” Cecil clipped out, “in her wisdom and great generosity, is bringing your countess, son—and you—back to court, where you can all become one family again.”

  He almost choked on that line the queen had asked him to use, but his last comment had, at least, shocked Lennox to silence. Mayhap, after all, Her Grace did know how to handle the treacherous feral pack with Tudor blood always baying for her own.

  COME ON THEN, BOY,” NICK TOLD GIL AND HUSTLED HIM along busy Cheapside, a main city thoroughfare lined with shops and clogged with traffic. The wide, paved street of which Londoners were so proud ran east and west, so the morning sun both warmed and lighted it. The street was most famous for its huge open market, but it was also lined with sedate shops leading to one crowning block of houses and commercial establishments known as Goldsmith's Row. The fourteen shops there stretched between Bread Street and the Cross, four stories high, all decorated with the goldsmith's ornate, gilded arms, for they were not only jewelers but bankers.

  Though Gil had said he'd had a hearty breakfast at the palace, Nick thought the boy seemed a deep, empty pot waiting to be filled. Dragging back against Nick's rush, Gil looked more interested in the oyster stalls and the lures of street vendors hawking hot sheep's feet and pies than in this chance to have his muteness cured.

  “Come on then!” Nick insisted, pushing him past food stalls and carts.

  Gil rounded on him and signaled with flying hands and fingers, I go to qu
een's doctors if I need talk. Or at least Nick was pretty sure that's what the boy dared, when Meg had been so kind to arrange this and Dr. Clerewell was willing.

  “Meg says this man has a good heart and wants to help,” Nick explained as busy shoppers shouldered by them.

  What if queen wants me draw, not talk, Gil signaled, slapping out his motions so fast Nick could hardly follow. What if I talk she send me away for go behind her back?

  “Deuce it, boy!” Nick shouted, stopping at the door they wanted. “You should of told your mother all this, not me. We're going in here to see Dr. Clerewell, and that's that. 'Sides, Meg thinks your muteness will take lots of treatments. You won't be just jabb'ring away. So you can ask Her Majesty if need be. Now, hie yourself in there when he comes to the door.”

  Nervously, Nick knocked on it once, then again, louder. Huffing for breath, a plump, pink-faced woman opened it. Nick was surprised not to see Marcus Clerewell in this shop where he'd always met him at the door for deliveries. And he'd never seen this woman before, so he looked at the doctor's painted sign above the door to be sure he was in the right place. He was.

  “Here to see Dr. Clerewell,” Nick told her, keeping a firm hand on Gil's shoulder.

  “Oh, the physician who tends the place when Dr. Pribble's out,” she said in a singsong voice. “He's s'posed to be by this morning for a spell, but … Oh, there he is,” she sang out as Clerewell rushed toward them down the street with his satchel in his hands.

  “You're late,” she told him, “and you've missed Dr. Pribble.” She opened the door for all of them. “Good, now I'll go back to tidying things upstairs. That's what I do for Dr. Pribble, just tend to the upstairs and never mind what goes on down here.”

  As she hurried back upstairs, Clerewell shooed them into the front room and seated them across a small table from the only chair with arms, which he took. This lowceilinged, beamed chamber was sunny and furnished with table, chairs, and three corner cupboards, the one that was open full of stoneware jars and boxes.

  Nick was glad to finally see the man take his hat off. His scars were covered but the bad side of his face still looked bloated. And, 'course, that one drooping eyelid showed. But mostly, the mess Meg had described on his face was hidden, but for blotches of different-colored skin where the curing cream was. Bett and Meg had made Nick and Gil swear to keep all this secret, so Nick didn't even mention it now.

  “Well, Nick, Gil,” Clerewell said, producing packets and a flask from his satchel, “you've caught me at my game.”

  “What's 'at?” Nick asked.

  Clerewell looked surprised. “The fact that, during deliveries and as today, I treat this physician's shop as mine. I've only come to London two years back and found it quite an expensive place to begin my practice, at least in a decent place.”

  “Sure 'nough, it is that—expensive,” Nick agreed, and Gil stopped studying the face long enough to nod.

  “I'd take it as a favor,” Clerewell continued, “if you don't tell Mistress Wilton or Bett—and certainly not Her Majesty—that I watch another man's place and am allowed to see my patients here while he's out. My rooms are up Gutter Lane not far from here, but I am hoping for grand things—a home in the country someday, a shop along this fair expanse of Cheapside. Well…” he left off as if he was out of fancy words, “a man's got to start somewhere.”

  “Aye, he does,” Nick said. “And how 'bout you start today working on Gil's throat? Some sort of potion, Meg says?”

  “Meg?”

  “You know, the name Sarah Wilton had when she worked for the queen. Meg Milligrew. She prefers it, but if you don't tell her I slipped it out, Gil'n me will keep your secret too.”

  “I do like a man who knows how to strike a fair bargain, Nick Cotter. Now, distilled rosemary tonic, no matter what any mere apothecary says, is best for what ails the young man here, of course, with a bit of powdered licorice for dry cough and hoarseness which may follow.”

  “Laws,” Nick said, frowning. “Give him something to help, then something to help that?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” the doctor said testily and turned his eyes on the fidgeting Gil. “The queen's young artist, eh? Ah, Gil, if you could only talk, what tales you could tell.”

  Gil tapped Nick on the arm then signaled words Nick translated as, “The queen likes I don't tell tales.”

  “So this cure could be a grand surprise for her?” Clerewell asked the boy.

  Gil shifted in his seat and nodded.

  “A pleasant one, I'm sure, because no doubt Her Most Gracious Majesty only wants the best for you. And what a blessed gift from God to be able to draw. Some doctors are skilled at that, you know, drawing herbs or anatomy, the former so that apothecaries don't confuse similar leaves and such. I wish I could draw, but I don't have a drop of artistic talent in me—facts, just facts and new ideas, that's my stock in trade. Come over here by the window, Gil, and let me get some light to peer into that throat of yours.”

  Gil got up, looking, Nick thought, as if he'd been commanded to mount the gallows. “Oh, by the way, Nick,” the doctor said as he turned Gil to face the window, “I'm hoping you'll take a note to Mistress Wilton for me. You see, I propose to treat Gil completely gratis.”

  “Gratis?”

  “For free. I wager you will be able to run this errand for me privily since I hear you run errands for Her Majesty at times.”

  “Oh, Meg tell you that?” Nick asked. “It's kind of a secret.”

  “And I will keep that secret. I usually ask a patient to say ‘ah,’ but can you even say that, my boy? Ah—ah!”

  Gil only made a hacking then a retching sound when the doctor stuck a flat wooden stick down his throat. He bit it clean through, spit it out, then signed to the doctor a string of foul names. If Her Majesty would have seen it, Nick thought, she might have laughed, but Bett would have washed out that poor mute mouth with tallow soap for sure.

  ELIZABETH SLOWLY ENTERED KATHERINE GREY'S CHAMBER. It was larger than most cells, indeed larger than she had remembered it. Though Katherine dropped her a half curtsy, for one moment they stared at each other in silence. Then from the ceiling, the small, shrieking demon dropped on the queen's head.

  “Ugh!” she managed as she struggled to get it off. It yanked her hair; it chattered and shrieked.

  “Oh, dear, oh no!” Katherine cried. Through a shifting web of hairy arms, feet, and tail, Elizabeth glimpsed her cousin hand her year-old son to her maid. “Marchie, bad boy! I had no idea he'd do that when he climbed up on that ceiling beam, Your Grace. Marchie, no, no!”

  A pet monkey! It jerked her hood off, clung to her neck, crushed her ruff, and tore her hair free from her upswept coif. It screeched directly in her ear before her guards bounded into the room and pulled the thing off, even as Katherine tried to unwind its wiry limbs. The baby began to wail, and two little dogs emerged from somewhere to nip and yelp at the queen's feet.

  “Consuela and Miguel, shush right now! Please don't hurt Marchie, please,” Katherine cried to the guards as they took the monkey away and shoved the dogs out with booted feet. The lord lieutenant motioned the nurse to step out with the child. Tears in her eyes, Katherine wrung her hands. At least that look of defiance was gone, Elizabeth thought. It had said so clearly, No matter your power over me, I have an heir and you do not.

  “I said the Lady Hertford could have furnishings,” Elizabeth clipped out to her distraught lieutenant, “but I did not give permission for a wild menagerie!”

  He opened his mouth, then obviously thought the better of whatever he could say. As he bowed his way out and the door closed to leave the two women alone, the queen shoved her hair back and stood staring at her cousin again. It had hardly been the auspicious beginning she had planned.

  “Oh, Your Majesty, dear coz, I had no idea you would visit us, or I would have tied Marchie's collar to his chair,” Katherine told her. “Marchie, short for marchpane sweets since he's so sweet and, with our dogs, are my li
ttle Edward's only delight.”

  “You mean Consuela and Miguel?” the queen inquired, trying to keep calm as she and Cecil had decided. “Quaint names.”

  “Ah—Spanish.”

  “I believe I noted that. A gift from someone Spanish, someone who must have visited here?”

  “I am allowed no visitors, Your Majesty,” Katherine retorted and glanced around the room as if a foreigner hid here even now. “I just thought the names were fanciful, that's all. Please do not have my pets—or my dear son, Edward—taken because I so long for companions here. You surely know how that is in this place.”

  “I do indeed. But I tell you, the queen who sits the throne now has been more generous in the furnishing of this chamber than the queen who sent me here.” Elizabeth slowly walked the small circuit of the room she used to pace, noting the Turkish carpet on the floor, the velvet padded chair and footstool from the storage rooms at Blackfriars.

  “And I do thank you,” Katherine said, her voice low, “that my son resides with me and my Lord Hertford nearby.”

  “Though you have not cohabited with him.”

  “Oh, no, Your Grace,” Katherine assured her, wrapping her cloak closer and walking to the single window with its leaded casement set slightly ajar as if she suddenly needed fresh air. “Forgive my question,” Katherine blurted, “but why have you come in person when I know you cannot abide this place?”

  “To inquire after your health, cousin.”

  “My health?” she asked, blanching. “You know?”

  “Were you tended by Dr. Pascal or Dr. Caius?”

  “You have spoken with them?”

  Elizabeth nodded, studying the girl. In the short time she had been here, Katherine Grey had gone from defiance to distress and now absolute panic, though she sought to hide it.

  “They both tended me, Your Grace, and both confirmed the—the diagnosis. I supposed, if pressed, your kindly lord lieutenant would tell you they both visited me.”

  “Kindly, is he? But let's not stray from the doctors. Did they come together or at separate times?”