The Fyre Mirror: An Elizabeth I Mystery: 1 (Elizabeth I Mysteries) Read online

  Half-timbered houses both small and large stared at each other across the town green, on which grazed black-faced sheep. A small church, but one sporting a spire and well-tended graveyard, stood across the way. How far from danger this rural setting seemed, but she would not let herself be lulled into complacency. Somewhere here were answers to her questions, and she meant to find them.

  She turned back to discover what was keeping her fellows and saw Rosie peering at her through the thick-paned window of the inn, as if Elizabeth were a child out at play who must be watched. Jenks soon scurried around the front of the building, and Clifford popped out the door to announce they had the rooms. Such good people, she thought proudly, so vigilant for her safety and well-being.

  “Are the horses being fed and watered?” she asked Jenks, who nodded. “Now that we are established, I plan to chat with the innkeeper about where we can find someone who lived through the demise of Cuddington and recalls the building of Nonsuch.”

  “I already found out one person who was at both, Your Grace,” Jenks told her. “An old man named Beeson, at the blacksmith shop out back. It’s his son what runs the stables.”

  “’S blood, I knew it,” she muttered, slapping her gloves on her palm. “I should have come to Cheam the first time Dr. Dee mentioned that some who’d worked at Cuddington might still live here. And did this Beeson work on the art or decorations at Cuddington?”

  “Seems Beeson was only a groom for the Mooring family there, Your Grace,” Jenks said, shuffling his big feet, “so I’m not sure how much he’ll know.”

  “If he knows half as much as my trusted friend Stephen Jenks, who began as my groom,” she said, patting the big man’s arm, “he may know a great deal.”

  Gil had laid into a good joint of mutton when he heard the hue and cry: “Fire! Fire in the kitchen wing!”

  Since such an event was not uncommon, a few kept eating, but those who had been to Surrey with the queen jumped up and ran, either away from or toward the kitchens which adjoined this banquet hall. Because Gil’s chamber was in that direction, he ran with those going to help or to gawk.

  He scented smoke before he saw it. Damn, but it looked as if the men rushing with buckets were heading down his very hall! He made his way farther, through a makeshift bucket brigade composed mostly of kitchen staff. He tried to dart around the bystanders, then pushed his way through.

  It was his chamber! And they were heaving bucket after bucket of water into it.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “You’ll ruin everything!”

  “Too late for that,” a voice cracked out. Cecil. Secretary Cecil himself stood here, watching, maybe organizing things. It was Cecil all right, even though he was holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

  “My lord, that’s my chamber!”

  “With your portrait of the queen, which has gone up in flames, the last of the bunch!” Cecil said, then started hacking.

  Gil gaped in the door and beheld devastation. But he’d been gone only a quarter of an hour. Granted, he’d left the lanterns burning, but they had been on the table—nowhere near the bed, where they lay now. They had hardly leaped across the room!

  He was desperate to explain to Cecil, but he went as mute as he had been as a boy. Someone had come here to burn him out. The bedclothes had caught. It looked as if both the queen’s and Dorothea’s portraits had been thrown on the bed to be incinerated, and water damage had completed that destruction. He was not sure if his tears were for his loss or from the smoke.

  “I—is the fire setter here?” Gil choked out. “My work—the queen.”

  “Arrest him,” Cecil said to someone, and two big guards—the queen’s yeomen—seized his arms. “You figured you’d best sacrifice your things to save yourself, didn’t you, lad, but left the chamber first?” Cecil demanded as other guards cleared onlookers from the hallway.

  “No—I—no! I swear it!”

  “You were seen bringing the lanterns in here, and that’s what started the blaze. You’ve been holding things back all along, and that’s the same as lying to Her Majesty. Now you can cool your heels under lock and key until she can question and deal with you later. Take him upstairs to one of those little rooms high above Sermon Court and keep him locked in and guarded.”

  Gil wanted to protest, but he knew better. His own half-truths had done him in. As he was hustled past Cecil, Gil overheard him whisper to a guard, “At first light tomorrow, you’ll ride with word of this to the inn at Cheam, then, if need be, on to Dr. Dee’s at Mortlake.”

  Gil’s mind raced as fast as they were forcing his feet up the back servants’ staircase. He could understand John Dee being informed of this fire, for it was obvious he’d been helping Her Majesty look for the fire setter through logical deduction. But who was staying at the inn at Cheam?

  Paul Beeson, called only by his last name, was a wizened old man with a bird’s nest of white hair and a face that looked as if it were tanned leather. The queen thought it ironic to find him by a belching farrier’s fire with leather bellows. She thought too of Dame Dee, sitting by her hearth fire, for this seemed not to be Beeson’s place of employment but retirement. It turned out another of Beeson’s sons worked this forge, just the way one owned the stables.

  “Greatly honored to make your acquaintance, milady,” Master Beeson said more than once, nodding his head, when Elizabeth introduced herself as Bess Smythe from Coventry. The old man had evidently decided on his own that she was a lady, and she didn’t correct him. She saw that he was nearly blind; one eye was cloudy, and the other never focused on or followed her.

  “And I am honored to meet you, Master Beeson. I dare say your hoary head and wrinkled visage bespeak not only many years but much local knowledge.”

  “Used to tend horses at a great house near here, I did,’fore its fall.”

  “Its fall?” she prompted as the old man walked her away from the heat of the forge and the huffing hiss of the bellows that fanned it. He did not pick up his feet when he walked, but shuffled. Yet he moved as if he had the placement of everything memorized. She hoped she was dealing with a sword-sharp mind.

  “Aye, the Moorings’ manor house at Cuddington,” he explained. “You’ve heard how it was torn down, manor, church, and town, I warrant.”

  “Oh, yes. You knew the family?”

  “Knew the sire, Master John, who loved to ride and hunt. Like everyone else, admired from afar Mistress Malinda, a rare beauty. But taught young Master Percy to ride, I did,” he said, thrusting out his thin chest.

  Elizabeth’s heartbeat quickened. “But even after Cuddington fell, as you say, you stayed in these parts while the palace was being built?”

  “Nowhere else to go, and had family here,” he explained as they paused between the blacksmith shop and the inn. Chickens scratched and scurried about their feet, but she ignored them. From here she could see into the public stables, where her horses were being curried by local lads, perhaps Beeson’s own grandsons.

  “My good man,” she went on, “do you know of anyone in these parts who worked to adorn Nonsuch—painting, carving, and the like? That would have been anytime after 1538.”

  “Hm, how many years ago is that?” he asked, stroking his chin. “Must admit I sometimes pay no heed what year or month it is, though I still got my memories, that I do.”

  “It would have been just over twenty-seven years ago.”

  “Damned Tudor king, and most folks in these parts still feel the same, e’en when the young queen comes calling across the hunt park,” he groused. Both Clifford and Jenks stiffened at that, but she shook her head at them. “Well, milady,” the old man went on, “I can think of two who might have suited, but they’re both dead and buried.”

  “Of old age—natural causes?”

  “Tell you true, both of unnatural causes. Old Friar Rolland—he wasn’t no friar, but wore his hair like that, you know, milady, cut in a tonsure—he fell off a roof. He was a tiler, see, but no one knows how
he slipped,’cause the roof he was doing then, just down the way there,” he added, gesturing vaguely, “wasn’t that steep.”

  “At least it wasn’t a fire,” Elizabeth muttered to Rosie, who stood beside her.

  “Now, how’d you know that,” Beeson countered, “’cause Will Croydon worked on setting them Roman emperor’s portraits into the walls of the inner courtyard of Nonsuch. And got hisself kilt by a hearth fire what spread to his bed clothes one night and burned him to death in his own bed, it did. Always said I’d like to die in my own bed, but not roasted like a pig in a poke.”

  Elizabeth shuddered. The pattern and possible motive for the attacks on Will Kendale and Simon Garver matched these deaths. Someone was killing, mostly by fire, the artists or craftsmen who had worked to adorn Nonsuch. And had those vengeful acts then spread to attacks on other artists—her artists? Or on the queen’s ladies and the queen herself?

  “Master Beeson,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “can you tell me anything about the two strange hillocks which are to the east side of Nonsuch?”

  His eyes widened as he seemed to regard her anew, though his vacant gaze looked slightly past her. “You hain’t been staying in Nonsuch, have you?” he asked, his voice shaky.

  “I am simply interested in this area,” she assured him. “It is very beautiful and the local history fascinating.”

  “Best not be riding onto Lord Arundel’s land and what’s still a royal hunt forest, e’en though they say the queen’s gone back to London,” he warned. “Trespassing at best, poaching at worst.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she said, taking two gold crowns out of the pouch she wore on her belt.

  “The Moorings were formerly a Cath’lic fam’bly on the climb,” Beeson said. “I don’t know for sure, but I think that was another reason—besides the fine prospect of their land—that the king good as beggared them. Supposedly, they were compensated,” he said with a derisive snort, “but it wasn’t nothing like what they lost.” Elizabeth listened raptly, holding the paltry coins in her perspiring palms before she slipped them back in her purse. “Proud of their manor and the church and little town what sprung up around, they were. And of their two fine children.”

  “I noted well your pride, too, when you mentioned how you taught the heir, Master Percy, to ride,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened to all of them when they had to move elsewhere?”

  “Bitter and broken, all of them. But Master Percy never had to turn his back on his birthright and ride away like the others. You asked, milady,’bout those hillocks, aye, man-made, they were. I helped haul in the soil and pile it up.”

  “For watchtowers or hunting platforms or blinds? I note there are remnants of building foundations there, and something once made of the same stones in the meadow.”

  “Who are you really, then, milady?”

  “Someone who regrets what happened here and wants to be certain such never happens again.”

  He nodded and started to walk again, past the inn, out toward the high street through the village. Elizabeth, trailed by her trio of companions, hurried to keep up.

  “Once we reach the green, you’ll have to steer me the rest of the way,” Beeson declared.

  “Where are we going then?”

  “I think it’s time, milady, you paid a visit to Master Percy.” This tiny room might as well be a prison cell, Gil thought as he rolled over on his lousy, sagging bed. He hadn’t had lice for years, but he would now. Still, he lay there, fingers linked under his head, staring up at the ceiling.

  He felt he might as well have burned up in that fire too. He’d lost everything he valued, the painting which was his past and the one which was his future. His very supplies, Italian, costly. His clothes, but for these work ones on his back. The queen had his mirror, and could even have his life when she returned.

  He figured she’d gone back to Surrey to oversee an investigation of the murders, for he’d seen her do such before, leaving Meg Milligrew in her place and just shutting her doors to everyone but Cecil and Lady Ashley for a day or two. If he could only get to her, plead his case, tell her the truth—and warn her that the fire setter was here at court but was not the person the zealous Cecil had locked away.

  Gil groaned and sat up. He had to get out of here. His eyes still stung, not only from the smoke, but from the sight of his beloved Dorothea blackened, and the queen, so regal and so real, gone up in flames, as had the works of Kendale, Lavina—but not Heatherley. Oh, no, that braggart had repaired his well enough! If Gil had to pick someone to blame, it would be that blackguard with his grandly scrolled HH on each portrait that might as well mean his idol Hans Holbein as well as his own name. A good thing Holbein was dead so he didn’t know what leeches artists could be to copy another’s works by hook or by crook! Heatherley was as bad as the Italians, mimicking others’ works, though they did it with their damned mirror tricks and not a pack of lies.

  Gil forced himself to his feet and stood on tiptoe to look out the single, high window of this tiny room. It let in light but no breeze. If there hadn’t been a guard on his door, he’d have broken the glass and risked his neck trying to get up on the roof. But everyone knew it was guarded now, lest the fire setter walk freely here as he had at Nonsuch.

  He heaved a huge sigh and fiddled with the window latch. In olden days, before he grew so tall and broke his leg, he would not have feared going out that window, grabbing the roof tiles, and getting himself out of here.

  To his surprise, as if it were a sign, the latch lifted and the window shoved easily, silently outward. Sweet air and the late-afternoon sun came streaming in like a beckoning finger. He tried to shove the single chair under it so he could look out, but the legs grated against the stone floor. He knew a guard was on his door. And if he heard a sound or came in, Gil had no doubt that Cecil would take an escape attempt as a sign of further guilt. So he lifted the heavy chair to move it silently. Climbing on it, he saw he was not under the eaves but on the next story down—the one, he could see, that had the narrow decorative ledge running under it.

  He closed his eyes and prayed hard, not in Italian, as he had done when he was in Italy, but in good, solid English. Oh, Lord God, if you could just get me out of here and spirit me to the queen, I could set everything right … let truth and justice prevail … warn her that her palace and people are in danger here. I could keep her throne safe for all Christendom. Please give me a sign if this is what I should do.

  He sensed no answer, and stuck only his head out to look down at a ledge the old Gil would have danced along in delight. That is, he sensed no answer until a lark flew into the nearby ivy, fluttered its feathers, and sang him its sweet song.

  “Those heavy ivy vines run all along this side,” Gil muttered. “I’ll just walk on the ledge and hang on to the vine, and hope the roof guards don’t look down or across the court.”

  With nothing but the clothes on his back—and frantic fear in his heart—Gil glanced around the room, then lifted himself up by the lintel above the window, and got his feet out first. He writhed through the small rectangle, wishing he were little Gil again. Turning over, belly down, he held on to the sill with his legs and backside dangling and felt with his booted toes for the ledge beneath.

  How far below? Where? At first, his feet windmilled nothing but air. Cecil would think him a double liar now for claiming he never climbed anymore. There! One toe on it. If only his old skills—and old courage—would come back.

  His shoulders got stuck, and when he tried to wrench them free of the window, he nearly fell backward away from the building. He grabbed for the thick vine. Twigs and ivy tore free from the brick; the lark darted and protested, as if he were after its nest. But he held tight.

  And then he made the mistake of looking down. Three stories below lay the patterned pavement of Sermon Court. The black and white diagonals seemed to waver, the corners to round and shift. He closed his eyes tightly, then looked up and out over the thatch,
shake, and tile rooftops of London toward the broad river.

  That steadied him somewhat, and he made himself a vow. He was going to get down from here and to the queen or die trying.

  Chapter the Fourteenth

  GIL PRESSED HIS BACK TO THE IVY-LACED WALL, ARMS straight down to grab the thicker vines behind his bum, and shuffled along the narrow ledge high above the pavement. Several courtiers walked below, even two of Cecil’s scriveners, earnestly nodding in conversation. He thanked God that none of them glanced up, nor did he see the queen’s guards on the opposite roof.

  His bad leg began to ache, then to tremble. No, he was shaking all over. If he got caught, he might as well have fallen. Cecil considered him guilty of the fire murders. Worse, Gil knew that he’d used up all his favors with the queen. And now that his portrait of her had been destroyed …

  He gulped as he came to the corner which would take him around to the Kings Street gatehouse. This would get him outside the bounds of the palace proper, but it presented two problems. More people would be on the street below to see him. And the ivied wall was about to be left behind.

  However would he get down from this height to the public thoroughfare to make his final escape? He could never manage a flying leap to the nearby trees. And then, without a farthing to his name and looking like the street urchin he once was, how could he get all the way to Cheam or Mortlake to throw himself upon the mercy of the queen—if indeed she was in Surrey?

  The corner terrified him, when he would not even have slowed for it years ago. He and his mother, Bett, had been the best of anglers, crawling in second- or third-story windows to steal or at least survey what to steal later with their long angling hooks. Now he held to the last of the ivy vine for dear life and managed to turn inward to the building to chance the corner. He scraped his face and chest as he went around it. Yes, the thick mat of ivy ended here; he was on his own with just a ledge barely as wide as his painter’s palette.