Murder at Whitehall (20 page)

T
he common room of the Rose and Crown was crowded, but none of the people gathered there by the large fireplace was Lady Catherine. A maidservant made her way across the room, a tray of pottery goblets held high in her hands, the landlady nowhere in sight. Kate went up on her toes in the doorway, trying to peer around the cloaks and doublets, through the smoke rising against the cold day.

She remembered the narrow back stairs, where she had glimpsed the strange young girl the day of the ice-skating. Surely the chambers were up there. She pushed her way past a clump of men near the back archway, who were laughing and talking loudly together in what sounded like Dutch. One nearly spilled his ale on her, and the other tried to grab her arm.

As Kate pushed him away, she wondered for an instant why she went to so much trouble for Lady Catherine, when the lady clearly cared little for her own interests.

But she knew why—it was for the queen. The scandal of one of her relatives, one of her possible heirs, eloping would be great. And also, strangely, because
Kate found she felt sorry for Lady Catherine. For the sad desperation in her eyes.

The maidservant brushed past Kate, a bowl of fragrant stew now in her hands. “Are you lost, mistress?” she asked in a harried, breathless voice.

“I am looking for my friend,” Kate answered. “She is a blond lady, probably in a black gown.”

The maid's eyes widened. “I—I shouldn't say . . .”

“It is most important that I find her.”

“Mistress Fawlkes said the lady is not to be disturbed.”

“Mistress Fawlkes?”

“The landlady here. If I angered her again . . .”

“She need not know.” Kate tucked a coin into the pocket of the girl's apron, which seemed to help her make up her mind.

“In the chamber at the top of the third flight of stairs,” the girl whispered quickly. “Mistress Fawlkes led her there herself. The lady seemed most unhappy.”

“And the lady has been here before?”

The maid hesitated before nodding. “I have seen her here, once or twice. She never talks to me, though, only to the mistress. Mistress Fawlkes has many regular guests. She really will be so angry. . . .”

Kate nodded and let the girl go on her way. She hurried up the three flights of stairs. They grew progressively narrower, the wood creaking under her boots, and the noise from the great room faded behind her. She could hear muffled voices from behind some of the doors, and she wondered about the girl with the red
hair. Was she behind one of those doors? One of Mistress Fawlkes's “regular guests”?

But she had to fetch Lady Catherine safely back to Whitehall first.

She found the room at the very top of the house, tucked under the whitewashed eaves. It was colder there, a draft seeping from beneath the tiny windows. There was only one door on the landing, slightly ajar, and she heard a muffled sob.

Kate pushed open the door, and found Lady Catherine in the small chamber beyond. It was plain, with one bedstead drawn around with plain green wool hangings, a washstand and two stools, with a narrow window set up high in the wall. Lady Catherine whirled around to face her, and Kate saw that her face was streaked with tears, her blue eyes red-rimmed. Her usually immaculate, stylish garments were a bit dusty, her sable-edged cloak tossed over the stool, her hair falling loose from her jet-edged headdress.

“Oh, Mistress Haywood!” she said with a sniffle. “Praise the saints you are here. Did he send you with another message?”

“He?” Kate said. “I am here because Lady Jane Seymour and Lady Violet Green were worried that you had vanished. Lady Jane said you were here, and I came to make certain you were well. You will be missed soon.”

Her tears vanished in a flash of raw, white-hot Tudor anger. She stamped her kid boot on the wooden planks of the floor. “Juno Seymour! She vowed she would not
tell a soul, that little traitor. But if he did not send you, then what—” She bit her lip.

“You did come here to meet Lord Hertford,” Kate said quietly. It was not a question.

Lady Catherine's jaw tightened, as if in defiance. She held out a torn piece of paper, crumpled in her gloved hand. “He sent this, asking me to meet him here. Mistress Fawlkes told me he would be here, in this chamber, but I have surely been here more than an hour. Ned would never keep me waiting, unless—unless something terrible happened. Do you—do you think he was caught?”

Kate shook her head. If what she had seen thus far of Lord Hertford was true, then surely he had been
caught
by a tennis game of a hand of primero. But surely even he, handsome and careless, would not forget a meeting with Lady Catherine.

She glanced at the note. It was short, terse, signed with a slashing
H
. It was not love poetry, but mayhap Lady Catherine did not expect such from him. “Are you certain this was from Lord Hertford?”

Lady Catherine looked down at it, her brow creasing. “I—surely it must be. He said he would send me word when it was safe to meet alone, and I . . .”

And Lady Catherine would wait eagerly for that word, and she would not question a place they had met before in secrecy. “We must return to Whitehall now, before you are missed.”

Lady Catherine stubbornly shook her head. “He will be here soon, I am sure of it. If you only knew . . .”

There was the sudden sound of footsteps running
up the stairs outside the small room, and Lady Catherine spun around with hope lighting her face. “I knew it!” she cried.

Yet it was not Lord Hertford who shoved open the door. It was Senor Gomez, a sword held in his hand. Its blade gleamed in the faint light, just like the smile he flashed at the sight of Lady Catherine. Two men moved in behind him, blocking any exit.

Kate instinctively took a step back, cursing herself for leaving her small dagger strapped to her arm, inaccessible. The face in front of her was not that of the charming man who had chatted with her at the queen's banquet, or the man mourning the death of his friend Senor Vasquez. This man seemed carved of granite, his eyes freezing cold.

She felt Lady Catherine clutch at her arm, holding her back even more from the hidden dagger.

“It was most obliging of you to meet us so promptly, Lady Catherine,” he said with a low, courtly bow. “Senora Fawlkes was kind enough to send us word you were waiting. I did not expect you here as well, Senorita Haywood, but certainly arrangements can be changed. It matters not to me. You have been most troublesome, especially after I sent my servant to search your room for the documents we need, the documents my cousin went to much trouble to find and copy, and you were too clever in hiding them. You could surely be of use, once you are taught to be on our side.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Lady Catherine demanded, some of her natural Grey imperiousness coming through her trembling fear. If she was anything like
her queenly cousin, Kate knew that fury over having her position ignored might soon push away any cool consideration, which would lose them any advantage.

Kate reached up and took Lady Catherine's hand where it held grasped her arm, and gave it a warning squeeze. If they could just get past Senor Gomez and his men, get out of that isolated room and make a run for it—the inn was crowded in its common room. Surely not everyone there could be mixed up with Senor Gomez and Mistress Fawlkes's scheme.

She took a deep breath, and tried to study the men in front of her with a calm, dispassionate eye. Beneath their cloaks, she glimpsed the glint of armor, a match to their swords. There was only the one door, and the impossible window.

“Where is Lord Hertford?” Lady Catherine cried. “I demand you answer me!”

Senor Gomez scowled. “You need have no fear for your Lord Hertford, my lady. He is involved in the most harmless of card games, in the rooms of the Bishop de Quadra. You do not have to think of him any longer. He was never of a status equal to yours. Soon you will not even have to see him any longer.”

“Why?” Lady Catherine cried. “What have you done with him? I demand you let me leave this instant!”

“I am afraid that is not possible. Time grows very short. If our voyage is to proceed as we have most carefully planned, we must leave now.”

“Where are we going?” Lady Catherine demanded.
Her chin was still up, but her voice quavered. Kate held tight to her hand.

A frown flickered over Senor Gomez's handsome face. “Why, to Spain, of course. King Philip will welcome you there, and arrange a marriage for you with a most suitable consort. You will need such a powerful ally when you are made Queen of England.”

“Nay!” Lady Catherine screamed. Kate was so shocked by Senor Gomez's words, and by Lady Catherine's sudden outburst, that she was a split second too late to catch her when she broke away.

Lady Catherine flew at Senor Gomez, her elegantly gloved hands shooting out like claws to scratch at his eyes. He instinctively shoved her back, and she stumbled and fell hard onto the floor. A wave of her golden hair tumbled into her eyes, and she pushed it back, leaving a dark smudge of dust on her cheek.

The fiery glow in her eyes warned she would fly at him again, and there was an ominous metallic clank as his guards raised their swords. Kate quickly knelt down beside Lady Catherine and took her arm.

“I will not go to Spain with you, or anywhere else! I told Bishop de Quadra that when he insisted, and I tell you that now,” Lady Catherine cried. She choked on a wild sob, which rather ruined the imperious demand. “Take me to Lord Hertford.”

“I am weary of this,” Senor Gomez said. “I told my cousin such a scheme depended too much on the whims of weak ladies, but there was no choice in the matter. Your little island is perilously devoid of proper male heirs. But this will soon change, with your
cooperation.” His scowl deepened, and for an instant Kate was reminded of a painting she once saw, in a church before its wall murals were whitewashed over—an image of the devil, dark, angry, implacable. “My cousin died for this scheme, so it
will
go forward.”

Kate thought of Senor Vasquez's body in the garden, a seeming suicide except for the dagger in the wrong hand. “Did
you
kill him?”

Senor Gomez's dark gaze flickered to her, narrowed as if he was surprised she was there. “Of course I did not. Jeronimo was growing weak, wanting to involve the help of the Scots, who are as despicable as the French. But I would never have dealt with him in such a way. He knew the importance of our plan, and he would have done his part in the end.”

Kate held tightly to Lady Catherine as she sobbed in confusion and panic. Kate's thoughts raced. Senor Vasquez had plotted with the Scots, and it got him killed in the end—but not by Senor Gomez? Who else conspired with the Spanish to see Lady Catherine on the throne—and what had gone wrong, ending with Senor Vasquez with his throat cut?

And who was next?

“It must have been one of Spain's enemies who learned of our plans, and killed Jeronimo,” Senor Gomez said. “I will discover who it was, and they will pay
most dearly. But for now we must be away from this city of filth and heresy. A ship waits on the coast to see us to Brittany.”

“I will not go with you!” Lady Catherine sobbed. She lunged toward Senor Gomez again, but Kate held her back as one of the guards stepped closer with his sword. Kate doubted he would kill Lady Catherine, his golden sheep, but accidents did happen. Kate frantically shook at her sleeve, trying to dislodge the hilt of her small dagger into her hand.

She had rushed into this terrible situation with foolish, headstrong thoughtlessness, and she cursed herself for it.

“I did not intend to take two ladies, but it seems you may be a calming influence, Senorita Haywood. Perhaps you can talk some sense into this silly girl,” Senor Gomez said. He gestured to his guards. “Take them both.”

The small room burst into violent noise and movement as the guards ran forward, and Kate shot to her feet. Lady Catherine was dragged away from her, bound and gagged with quick, terrible efficiency as she kicked and struggled. Kate tried to free her dagger, but she wasn't fast enough. The other guard, a burly, bearded man twice her size, seized her in a painful grip, and lifted her off the floor.

She managed to scream only once before she, too, was gagged, her hands tied behind her, and a blanket muffled around her. A hard, iron arm around her waist jerked her off her feet and in a disorienting circle.

She twisted and kicked, cold panic rising up in her
throat like an engulfing wave. A terrible metallic taste of fear and fury was in her mouth, thick and suffocating.

She twirled around again, and managed to drive her elbow into her captor's midsection, just to the edge of the armored breastplate.

“
Condenado
, but this is a wild one!” he gasped, and Kate felt her feet caught and raised up by someone else. “We should get paid double the coin for having two English minxes on our hands.”

“Mierda,”
Senor Gomez growled. “Get them out of here now! There is no more time to waste. We have to get away, while Mistress Fawlkes can hold them off.”

Kate felt herself tossed upside down over a hard shoulder, the air knocked from her stomach. She could hear Lady Catherine shrieking wordlessly behind her gag, felt the rush of cold air around her legs, and then she was tossed down onto the hard floor.

Her head landed against something sharp. For an instant, brilliant silver stars burst behind her eyes—and then she fell down into blank, cold darkness.

“W
ell done, Master Cartman! I think we should not invite you to play boules with us again. You will defeat us all,” Lord Hertford said affably. He and his friends who were gathered on the frosty boules field behind the palace applauded as Rob's red ball knocked into the goal ball, the “mistress,” and sent it sliding over the grass. He had taken double points again.

Yet Hertford and his aristocratic young friends did not seem to mind that an actor was besting them at their game. They had been drinking a supply of fine Rhenish wine all afternoon, and their laughter had grown louder, their jokes bawdier. Rob had only feigned partaking of it himself. When he met Lord Hertford in the corridor and was invited to join their game, it had seemed an excellent opportunity to find out more courtly gossip that might help Kate in her task. So far he had only learned which of the ladies Hertford's friends declared they would corner under the kissing bough—and the fact that Lord Hertford hoped to soon form his own company of players, and steal Rob and some of his men away from Lord Hunsdon.

Rob doubted Hertford could even begin to afford his own troupe, but he had to admit the young earl was good company, full of jokes and eager to be entertained in turn. Even if he was a terrible boules player.

Hertford had just cast his own ball and earned one point, when a lady's cry interrupted them. “Lord Hertford! Oh, thank heavens I have found you.”

Rob turned to see Kate's friend Lady Violet Green hurrying toward them. Despite the chilly day, she wore no cloak over her silk gown, and she was holding Hertford's sister, the pale fragile Lady Jane, by the hand. Lady Violet, much like Hertford himself, always seemed to be laughing, and he felt a jolt of alarm at her panicked expression.

Rob was quicker to reach her than Hertford. “What has happened, Lady Violet?”

“Oh, Master Cartman, I am glad to see you are here as well. I fear I may have sent Kate into trouble, and I need help to find her.”

“Trouble?” Rob said. He pushed away the cold fear, the urge to grab his sword and set off immediately, to remain calm and question Violet and the sobbing Lady Jane. “Where has she gone?”

Violet glanced at Lord Hertford. “She went to find Lady Catherine, who I think has gone to the Rose and Crown. But that was a few hours ago, and they still have not returned. . . .”

*   *   *

“Mistress Haywood! Wake up, please, I beg you.”

The voice seemed to come from a long distance away, but tinny and strange, as if shouted down a horn.
It made Kate's head throb, and she only wanted to get away from it—and from the horrid jostling that made her whole body ache.

“Stop, I am well!” She meant to shout the words, but they came out a hoarse whisper.

“Thank the saints you are alive,” the voice said with a sob.

Then Kate remembered. Lady Catherine at the Rose and Crown; Senor Gomez and his men with their shining swords. Ropes and muffling blankets.

She sat up, gasping as pain shot through her shoulders and stars sparkled behind her eyes. She blinked and shook her head hard, forcing herself to push the pain away and examine her surroundings.

For an instant, she thought they were locked in a wooden box, until she realized it was a coach. She had seen the expensive, rare conveyances only a few times, the queen's gilded creation that was a gift from the Swedish king, and Cecil's, which he used when his gout wouldn't let him ride. This was just as luxurious, with scarlet velvet cushions lining the two narrow benches, and a thick carpet laid on the floorboards where Kate now knelt, her hands painfully bound behind her. But the windows were covered tightly with thick, waxed canvas nailed down.

And no amount of cushions could make a coach comfortable. The jostling, jouncing lurches were bone-rattling. Kate twisted around to face Lady Catherine. Her hair tumbled down her back, her face dusty and streaked with tears.

“They are taking us to Spain,” Kate said, trying to
shake off the haze that still lingered in her mind. “To make you a queen, with a suitable Spanish consort. Did you know of this scheme?”

“Nay!” Lady Catherine cried. “I never want to be queen. Look what it did to my sister. And Spain—so far from my Ned! I would never—could never . . .”

Kate could see the truth of Lady Catherine's desperate words written on her face. Lady Catherine was spoiled, true, and foolishly romantic, but not so stupid as to conceive such foul treason. She wanted her Ned above all else.

“I thought I could use them to teach my cousin a lesson,” Lady Catherine whispered. “That she would see how much power I
could
have, but that I do not really want it, and if she would just give me permission to marry Ned and leave court, all would be well. But I did not understand.”

Nay, Kate thought, she obviously did not. “We must get away,” she muttered. She had to push her own fear away now, not let it overwhelm her. She made herself study the inside of the torturous coach as if it was one of Rob's stage props. There was little there but painted wood, and the rugs and cushions. The doors seemed fastened securely shut, even as they hurtled forward at a hurling pace.

She noticed the canvas seemed to have been hastily nailed over the windows, and a few of the iron nails protruded, one a bit farther than the others.

Lady Catherine's hands were bound also, but in front of her rather than behind as Kate's were. She had
obviously already found a way to release the gags that were tied on them at the inn.

“Here, try to rub the rope on this nail, Lady Catherine,” Kate urged. “If we can loosen the bonds . . .”

Lady Catherine quickly nodded, and scrubbed her hands over the protruding nail. She scraped her fine white skin, but she was not deterred. She kept on until the rope frayed enough for her to snap it apart, and then she quickly worked Kate's hands free.

Kate ignored the sting that rushed into her numb fingers, and pulled a corner of the canvas away from the window. She pulled herself up, pushing away the sparks of pain, and peered outside. They had left the spires of London behind. She could see only fields and thick groves of trees, hedges guarding the borders of fine estates, all blanketed in silvery frost.

Surely even the roads, perilous and bone-breakingly jarring already, would soon become impassable by coach. They were already going much too fast for the rutted, muddy conditions. What was Senor Gomez planning?

“What is happening?” Lady Catherine demanded, half-imperious, half-panicked.

“I can't see anything,” Kate answered. She pushed herself to the other side of the swaying coach, bumping into the wooden seats until she could free a corner of the canvas over the window.

She caught a glimpse of Senor Gomez riding beside the coach, moving at a quick gallop, his face set grimly under the brim of his cap, his short cloak and boots splashed with mud. He shouted to someone, probably
the coachman, but his words were snatched away by the wind.

Kate ducked down before he could see her peering out.

“I'm sure we can't go on much longer,” she said. “The roads will become impassable. We must plan what to do when we stop.”

Lady Catherine shook her head, fresh tears pouring from her eyes. “I will never go with them! I will die before I leave Ned.”

Aye—it
was
rather like one of Rob's plays. “That's all very well, Lady Catherine, but Senor Gomez and his friends will surely do all they can to get you safely to Spain. Without you, their scheme can never work. Me, on the other hand . . .”

“Nay. I won't allow that,” Lady Catherine cried, her face contorted as if with a horrible realization. Kate couldn't help but feel a pang of grudging respect for her. Lady Catherine had been willing to die for herself, but when it came to others she was not so dramatically brave, so uncaring. “What shall we do, then? How can we escape?”

Before Kate could answer, a loud noise exploded over their heads. It cracked and echoed, almost like thunder, but Kate knew what it was—a firearm exploding. The coach, already unsteady, tipped to one side with a horrible, grating noise, a scream from a horse, shouts.

Kate and Lady Catherine were flung to one side, clutching at each other, but there was no time to cry
out. The coach crashed into something amid a great cracking, and went horribly still.

Kate found herself sprawled awkwardly on the wooden floor, her head and shoulders braced painfully against the door, Lady Catherine collapsed over her legs. The canvas was ripped free from the door, and she saw the patch of gray sky beyond, fringed by the skeletal brown branches of trees.

“Lady Catherine?” she gasped.

“I am quite well,” Lady Catherine said, trying to push herself up. She gasped with pain, and Kate saw that her fine black satin sleeve was torn and stained with blood.

Kate reached out to help her, just as the broken door was torn open and she and Lady Catherine tumbled out to the frozen ground.

For an instant, she was dazed, her aching head spinning. She quickly scrambled to her feet, pulling Lady Catherine with her as she took in the scene in front of them. The horses were leaping and whining in fear, yet seemed unhurt, unlike the man who had driven them. He was slumped in his seat high on the box, perfectly still, blood seeping from a wound on his shoulder.

Senor Gomez was still in the saddle, his head turning frantically as if to glimpse their assailant. His guards seemed just as confused, and Kate thought she should take the chance to flee into the woods with Lady Catherine.

But their escape path was blocked by another man on horseback. He wore a hooded cloak, his face
obscured, yet the gun in his outstretched hand was all too visible.

A lady's face peeked over his shoulder from her pillion seat, and Kate saw to her shock it was the girl from the inn. Her dark red hair was tangled, a bruise on her pale cheek, and she looked terrified.

“What is the meaning of this?” Senor Gomez demanded in furious Spanish. He swung down from his horse, drawing his sword.

The other man nudged the girl down from her perch with a rough arm and then climbed down himself. His hood fell back.

Kate thought she screamed out, but she heard no sound come from her numb throat. For the face revealed was one she would never have expected—it was Gerald Finsley, her father's old friend. The man she had known since she was a child.

Surely, she thought wildly, he had come to rescue them? Somehow he'd known how to follow them.

That hope shattered into a thousand brittle pieces when Senor Gomez smiled and said, “You. Why have you come today? Was our business not concluded to your satisfaction, Senor Finsley? Surely the gold was delivered to you.”

“That was not our agreement, and you know that very well,” Gerald answered, in a voice Kate had never heard from him before. A deep, bitter, humorless laugh. “You saw what happened when Senor Vasquez tried to cross me, did you not? Did he think I wouldn't know when he tried to double-cross me with the Scots? We
had an agreement, and he tried to use that fool Lord Macintosh instead of me.”

“
You
killed Jeronimo?” Senor Gomez demanded furiously.

“Of course I did. You do recall our plan—you were to set my wife, the rightful queen, on the throne, and now I see you were intent on the Grey-spawned harlot all along. I will not be used thus, even by King Philip. I have spent years trying to make things right!”

Lady Catherine cried out indignantly at being called a harlot, yet Kate couldn't take her shocked gaze from the lady who cowered like a frightened little bird by the side of the road. She was so slight, shivering in her thin gown, her brilliant hair tangled around her. The rightful queen? Gerald Finsley's wife?

Kate thought of Queen Catherine Parr, of her music, her longing for children. Kate's mind brought her back to her bedroom table, when she compared her father's music from Queen Catherine with the sheet of music she'd found in Vasquez's room. Those dates in the code . . .

Melville Village, Scotland—February 1559—The Lady Mary—church of St. Saviour—in the church porch . . .

Could it be a wedding date? This Mary was barely old enough to wed, but it was possible. A million thoughts raced like lightning in her mind through the taut silence that fell between the two men. The calm before the storm.

Senor Gomez gave a laugh that crackled in that silence like the ice in the river. “When you wrote to my uncle, you assured us your wife was the daughter of
King Henry, hidden away by Queen Catherine for her own safety, and that you had proof. The only thing you had to give us was your own marriage lines, and that proves naught but your own greed. She is the child of the traitor Seymour—that is all. My king needs his own legitimate claimant to the throne. Surely even you, a foul murderer, can't be so stupid as to not see that.”

The girl collapsed to her knees with a raw sob, her hands over her face, and Kate longed to go to her. She dared not move, though, while Gerald Finsley still held that gun. The heavy firearm trembled, as if he could barely keep its weight balanced, and she knew any sudden movement might set it off.

Kate's own anger and pain at realizing how much she did not know, how blinded she could be by her affectionate memories of her father's friends, would have to wait.

“That was why you brought me to London,” the girl said, her words muffled by her hands. “You cannot think—I'm not . . .”

“Hush, you stupid child,” Gerald snapped, not even looking at her. “I would make you a
queen
. No more of your foolishness.”

“I fear you are the one who has been foolish,” Senor Gomez said. “You agreed to help us, we paid you for that help most generously, and you repaid us with lies and murder. You used the money for your own wife's cause. You should consider yourself fortunate you have escaped thus far.”