The Queene's Cure Read online

  Katherine had begun to tremble, though she held her cloak closed in a vain attempt to hide any sign of it. The girl had always been of overindulged, volatile temperament, but she had a Tudor backbone of steel. Mayhap she was simply afraid for her gaoler, who had obviously summoned and admitted the doctors and risked allowing pets. Or now that she had a young son, mayhap Katherine feared for his sake.

  “They are both approved men of your Royal College of Physicians and came when they could, and I was—in need,” Katherine said. Her eyes did not meet Elizabeth's, and she was all too obviously picking her words warily. “And, of late, I have been sore in need. Please, Your Most Gracious Majesty,” she cried, her voice rising, “punish me if you must, but do not harm my children!”

  “But I have seen to it that your heir was christened and titled Viscount Beauchamp,” Elizabeth began to argue before what the woman had said sank in. “Children?” she demanded.

  Katherine nearly fell back against the wall. Again she shifted her cloak closer. And then the queen knew. Knew the so-called unknown or untold malady from which this deceitful wretch was suffering. Knew that the “kindly” Lord Lieutenant of the Tower had let more than dogs and a monkey into these rooms to amuse and comfort the pretty and beguiling Katherine Grey. After all, her husband's cell was in this very tower.

  “It—cannot be!” the queen whispered, more to herself than to the cowering girl. “I came to inform you that you may come back to court—if you would promise to behave—and you have not behaved but have defied and betrayed me yet again!”

  She leaped at the girl, ripping her hands and cloak wide. Katherine wore but meager petticoats in here. Her belly was barely showing, but it was more than what overeating or a disease like the dropsy would do to a twenty-two-year-old, one nearly as trim as the queen herself.

  “You stupid, little fool!” Elizabeth shouted, pounding her fists on the windowsill instead of on Katherine. “You're with child again when that was what gave you away and caused all this before. Do you never learn or think? You're breeding another heir when one is sorely needed elsewhere! Now traitors will doubly flock to you.”

  Despite the royal raving, the girl looked so much a Tudor at that moment—for of her three Grey cousins, Katherine had always resembled her most closely—that Elizabeth almost pitied the chit. But had she not fathomed yet that Tudor blood in one's veins meant duty and denial, not giving into one's passions, and especially not with men?

  Wanting to both cuff and cuddle the stupid girl, Elizabeth shoved her back into her seat and hovered over her, leaning slightly forward with her hands on the arms of the chair.

  “I want answers from you, Katherine, and now. Since both the Papists Pascal and Caius have lived abroad, did they act as your go-betweens with foreign or Catholic contacts?”

  “N-no, Your Grace, but who am I to read what was in their hearts?”

  “ 'S blood, forget hearts and think with your head! When Pascal and Caius were here, did they suggest that you cohabit with Edward Seymour? Did they urge it? Bribe the lieutenant to allow it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Elizabeth slapped her once across the cheek. “Look into my eyes when you answer my questions and recall that I am your queen. I am not your sweet coz anymore, not some fond, romantic soul you can convince with tears and sighs and meanderings. I am sick to death of public talk I should loose you and Lord Hertford because of the sad story of your love. And yet I came here to do just that, to bring you back to court.”

  “You did? Truly?”

  “All the better to keep an eye on you, but now you've ruined even that.”

  “I insist you take us back. You must!”

  “I intended for just you and your son to return. But Katherine,” Elizabeth countered, her voice deadly cold, “we both know, for those who continually defy and endanger their queen, that the view outside this window used to include a scaffold for others of our blood and their husbands too, and orphaned heirs can be fostered out or even reared at court.”

  Katherine gulped audibly and slumped back in the chair. She gazed into the eyes of her queen as if facing a hovering hawk about to swoop for the kill.

  “I—I believe that the doctors,” Katherine whispered, “perhaps Dr. Pascal, spoke with the lord lieutenant about how distraught I was, Your Grace. The doctor said that my husband's company would be a far better tonic for me than any medicine ever would.”

  Tears like a fountain ran from the girl's cornflower blue eyes and dripped off her chin. But Elizabeth hardened her heart as she always had when it meant her survival, even when she most wanted to comfort. Her throne, her life, her realm could be at stake if there was a plot afoot.

  “And,” Katherine choked out, her words half smothered by her sobs, “it was Dr. Caius who suggested the molding be made of me for a statue, ere something happen to me in here, so my son—now two heirs—would have a remembrance of me … and … What? Why are you looking at me that way?” she cried, cowering even more. “I am telling you God's truth, so you have pity on me and my own.”

  “A molding made? Explain yourself. A—a plaster death ma—a life mask?”

  “Yes, I guess so,” the girl admitted, nodding wildly as she teetered on the edge of hysteria. “Dr. Caius had a friend of his visiting from somewhere in Italy do it. Someone who knew that clever Italian doctor who taught anatomy there—Dr. Caius's teacher—the one who stole the bodies to make death masks and take them apart.”

  “Take them apart? The masks or the bodies?”

  “The bodies. To learn more about the human form to make better treatments and cures. I think he called it dissolution.”

  “Dissection,” Elizabeth said. “But stealing bodies is only one step from killing them first.”

  “What?” the girl cried, looking totally appalled. “I swear by all that's true, he said nothing of killing anyone, only healing. And I thought a painted mask would be a sweet and charming thing, like at the masques with music at court, even like that one your fool Topside staged before I was sent here. And who would not want a fine sculpted bust made of themselves?”

  “ 'S blood,” the queen clipped out, bracing herself on the carved arms of the chair. “Caius may,” she whispered to herself, “have used that life mask for the effigy mask. You resemble me closely enough, but I knew there was something slightly off in the face.”

  “My face? Death mask? Please, Your Grace,” she cried as the queen straightened and stepped away, “I swear I shall never defy you again, nor allow foreign elements to cling to any hopes that I might heed—”

  “Foreign elements indeed—Papist ones! From Italy perhaps, such as Dr. Caius's visitor, or from Spain, someone who brought pet dogs as a little gift. Or that deceitful dog that is your husband!”

  As Elizabeth started away, Katherine threw herself at her, going to her knees, then her stomach, but catching only her hems. “I beg you, Your Majesty, do not harm my husband or those I love! Though I bore a son and would bear another heir, do not blame me for being just a woman—”

  The queen stepped back and pulled her skirts free, though Katherine's nails ripped her hem. “You, like me, cousin Katherine, can never afford to be just a woman. You are of royal blood but have not learned yet that the price of your willful desires and conniving must be paid. Do not fear I will take your life nor harm your husband or your children, though you and he must go separate ways, far away from London this time. You may keep the new babe with you, as the heir goes with your husband. And you will answer every question put to you by a cross-questioner who will be here on the morrow. So, stand up for your babe and for your Tudor blood, for we will never meet again.”

  Katherine's gasp and smothered sobs were the only sounds in the room as Elizabeth turned away and knocked once on the door. Her guards opened it immediately. She lifted her skirts to avoid tripping over the dragging hem. On the stairway down she saw Cecil coming up. Mayhap he had heard their raised voices, but they exchanged a glance that said it all:
Nothing goes as planned. Her guards fell in behind her as she passed Sir Edward Warner, who bowed so low she could barely get past him on the stairs.

  “For allowing dogs, monkeys, husbands, and spies through that door, you are now the retired Lord Lieutenant of the Tower of London,” she informed him. “Be ever grateful you are not the newest tenant here. Be gone to your rural home by nightfall and never return.”

  “And Lady Hertford?” Cecil whispered as he followed her down the twist of staircase.

  “She's fingered John Caius, Pascal too, to a lesser degree. Send for them both to be brought to Whitehall— separately. As for the lady, I shall never see her again. Never.”

  She could tell by the sound of his steps that Cecil had stopped walking for a moment. Then she heard him hurrying to catch up as she left the Bell Tower and cut across the cobbled courtyard.

  “And I shall never see this godforsaken place again,” she shouted so loudly that her voice echoed off the cold stone walls.

  THE NINTH

  You must not think, courteous people, that I can spend

  time to give you examples of all diseases. These are

  enough to let you see so much light as you without art

  are able to receive. If I should set you to look upon the

  sun, I should dazzle your eyes and make you blind.

  NICHOLAS CULPEPER

  The English Physician

  THE SIDNEYS AND LORD ROBERT ARE HERE TO SPEAK with you,” Kat announced as she entered Elizabeth's privy chamber late that afternoon. “Send them in,” the queen said and threw down her quill.

  Cecil and three of his secretaries yet hovered over the table strewn with bills, grants, warrants, and decrees, which she'd been reading and signing. Though rattled from her visit to the Tower earlier today, Elizabeth had sat through two meetings with ambassadors and one with Parliamentary advisers to accomplish the nation's business this long afternoon.

  But her mind was not on her labors. If she didn't diagnose the strange symptoms of this effigy plot, she feared she might not even survive to do the nation's business. Indeed, malicious intent toward her lurked behind that mocking effigy and the body in her fountain. She was thinking of escaping to Hampton Court earlier than planned, just after an annual public healing ceremony at the Abbey in two days.

  “My Lord Cecil, please stay,” she said, gesturing his secretaries away. “I had ordered Lord Dudley and the Sidneys to report what they discovered about that body in the fountain during their mermaid masque, and they'd best have answers for me.”

  After stilted greetings and overmuch bowing and scraping from the three of them, Mary Sidney said, “We have spoken with nearly everyone at court, Your Grace, servants too, even the Cheapside jeweler who fashioned the mermaid pin. But it seems no one who knew of the timing for the masque looks guilty of abetting or committing murder.”

  Both men nodded but kept their peace, and that from Robin was most unusual. Elizabeth sensed that they'd had a family council and made Mary their speaker. They were, no doubt, harboring hope that her close friendship with the queen would smooth things over.

  “But we did locate ladder marks,” Mary went on.

  “From the feet of a ladder, deep-set marks,” Robin put in.

  “I am getting to that, my lord,” Mary remonstrated. “Deep-set marks, we surmise, because someone carried that unknown woman's body up and over the wall, behind the orchard—precisely between those two pear trees you favor, Your Grace.”

  “And footprints?” Elizabeth asked as her pulse quickened.

  “Yes, a single pair, a man's boot soles, quite deep too.”

  “I hope they have been preserved, as Gil's been out with his parents today, and I would have him sketch them. We must judge the man's size, whether the boots were worn or not, and—”

  Robin cleared his throat and exchanged a wary glance with his brother-in-law.

  “Say on,” the queen ordered. “Tell me flat, Robin, for I didn't used to call you My Eyes for naught.”

  “We fetched a gardener's ladder to go up and look over the wall ourselves,” he said. “Ah, Jenks was there poking about too, but we told him we had it under control.”

  “And?” she prompted, her voice rising as she stood. “Must I turn torturer to get you to spit it out?”

  “We found an abandoned ladder on the public passageway side of the wall,” he blurted.

  “But then,” Mary added, “in coming back down our ladder on the privy garden side, in the soft loam there, the ladder wobbled—with both Henry and Robin on it, trying to duplicate the weight of two bodies—and they had to leap off to keep from falling.”

  “And somewhat obscured the best prints,” Robin concluded when Elizabeth stared him down.

  The queen employed one of her father's favorite seagoing oaths and began to pace. “But you did go around on the other side to look for prints and tracks there?” she demanded.

  “ 'Tis stones and cobbles on the other side, not garden loam,” Mary explained. “But we—they—asked folks in the area if they'd seen anyone carrying two ladders or even one. They said they were searching for someone trying to pinch late apples, so they didn't stir up a hor-net's nest of suspicion or start rumors.”

  “Pinch late apples from denuded pear trees?” Elizabeth asked, uncertain whether to laugh or cry.

  “But, Your Grace, we came up with a clue—in a way,” Mary said, coming closer and holding out her hands beseechingly to her royal friend. “You know that walkway on the far side of the wall goes to the public water stairs. A bargeman hanging about says he indeed saw someone on a ladder there Saturday evening. He thought it was just a man trying to get a glimpse within, for the man had no one—or thing—with him. Especially visitors, some even foreign, he said, sometimes try to see you within your walls those times no one is invited—”

  “Invited to catch a dazzling glimpse of the sun,” Robin put in with a hopeful smile. “We all understand wanting a glimpse of our smiling, radiant queen, do we not?”

  “You spoke to the bargeman?” the queen asked, ignoring the flattery that used to make her fall headlong for him.

  “Robin did,” Mary said, with a warning look at her brother, “and it was that man your former Strewing Herb Mistress of the Privy Chamber wed before she came into your service. If you want him brought in for questioning, he's most willing.”

  “Ben Wilton,” the queen muttered. “No, that won't be necessary if Robin spoke with him. But the description of the man Wilton saw up the ladder?”

  “A man,” Robin said, obviously aching to take over, “all in black with a hat with some sort of flaps over his ears. Actually, it sounds like physicians' garb.”

  “Why didn't you say so at first?” Elizabeth cried. “See, Cecil, the two men you have sent for are exactly who hold the key to this deadly puzzle.”

  “What men?” Robin demanded. “You still suspect Dr. Caius or Dr. Pascal? Pascal's fat as a pig and could never get up that ladder, not with a body over his shoulder. And Caius is no new-fledged stripling to be hefting weights either.”

  “Then Wilton said the man was not fat or elderly?” she demanded.

  “He couldn't tell,” Robin admitted. “Besides that flapped cap, the climber wore a black robe or cloak, though I must admit that would fit a doctor's garb too.”

  “Of course,” Lord Henry put in, the first time he had spoken in all this, “that's assuming that a murderer—any murderer—would not wear a loose black cloak and some sort of obscuring hat to hide his identity in case he was seen.”

  They all looked at him. Elizabeth felt deflated and foolish. She was so desperate of late, she was wildly pinning her hopes on any clue, however secondhand. And that reminded her of the lovely mermaid pin Mary had given her on that dreadful night. She would not want to wear it again. Frowning, she dismissed Mary and her lord with brief thanks. Robin stood before her now, looking half hopeful, half fearful.

  “I do have one more question for you, Robin.” />
  He eyed both the queen and Cecil suspiciously. Despite the fact he had not been bidden to approach her, he walked around the table and went down on one knee before her chair. “Ask me aught you would know or have me do,” he said.

  “I believe you still employ the squire who so cleverly created a dummy for your passes with the lance and sword at the quintain rail.”

  “I not only have him, but just today scolded my man Jenks—”

  “My man Jenks.”

  “As you wish, my queen. Scolded Jenks for shoving his nose in to ask my squire to see that old dummy. I take it since Jenks and now you, and who knows who else,” he added, risking a glare at Cecil, “seem suspicious, you believe I am somehow linked to the making of that other effigy you found?”

  “My, how you jump far afield, my lord,” she remonstrated gently. “Not at all, though indeed your effigy was also of a queen.”

  “Of Catherine de' Medici, an enemy to you and your realm, my queen. As Mary, Queen of Scots' former mother-in-law, Queen Catherine is both an Italian and French, Catholic, conniving—”

  “A queen, no less, and one whose effigy, I recall, you had richly gowned and crowned with a fine wig—which you got where?”

  He had the brains to go white as a ghost at last. She could tell he wanted to stand to not be at such a disadvantage, kneeling at her feet.

  “Indirectly, from an old Chelsea wig-maker years ago,” he said, his voice rising. “For my mother when she began to fret about losing her hair, if you must know, Your Grace. But you cannot be serious that I would have aught to do with … with what you found in your coach. And hardly with that body in the fountain.” He stood at last; she rose too.

  “If I believed that, I would have your squire and that dummy both thoroughly examined and you arrested, Lord Robert Dudley.”

  “I will fetch it and him up here straightaway, Your Grace. I have naught to fear.”

  “Do so then, but wait until I summon you again, for I have other visitors to see,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand as she turned her back on him. But the moment he stomped out, she turned to the silent Cecil. “Quickly, my lord,” she whispered, “pick one of your best men and have him covertly watch Robin's every step. I yearn to trust him, but I fear that I cannot.”