The Fyre Mirror (12 page)
Authors: Karen Harper
Tags: #Fiction - Historical, #Mystery, #16th Century, #England/Great Britain, #Royalty
“There is much to tell which I will discuss with you tomorrow, if you agree to help us.”
“Of course, in any way, though I will not commit Lady Ashley’s care to any other, a charge you gave me when you took me on, Your Majesty.”
“And a charge I will hold you to.”
“Who then is in this group? I would wager a guess on Mistress Milligrew, your Ned Topside and Jenks, perhaps your guard Clifford and your Lady Radcliffe, too.”
“You are a godsend in more ways than one with your sharp wit and discerning eyes. Kat does not have nightmares, does she?”
“To tell true, she does, Your Majesty. Ironically, I have discovered it is something about a fire—and not the recent ones, for she’s had them from the first day I came. Something in her, or your, past perhaps?”
“Yes, but I did not come to unburden myself to you of that. The night and lack of sound sleep do strange things. I shall see you on the morrow.”
“Good night then. My own mother always used to say not the usual adage, ‘Don’t let the bedbugs bite you,’ but ‘Don’t let your nightmares fright you.’”
“Did she? Is she still living then?”
“Dead. Long gone from here—from this life.”
“But still living in your memories, no doubt.”
“Oh, yes. Very, very much alive that way,” Floris whispered, and closed the door quickly and quietly, even before the queen could.
“I HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY YOURSELF TODAY, BUT BE EVER vigilant for our covert purposes,” the queen told her Privy Plot Council members as they met briefly in her large second-story room in the Riverside Inn at Mortlake.
Her trusted group did not include Gil or Dr. Dee this time. But Floris, who had brought Kat with her, was present for her second gathering, as the group had met the last four days to lay strategy. Blessedly, nothing else amiss had occurred at Nonsuch, but the queen hadn’t posed outside or allowed anyone to camp outside the palace walls either.
“And,” Cecil urged, “watch for anyone with a mirror, besides Dr. Dee, that is.”
“But remember,” the queen added, “Dr. Dee’s wife is to be observed, since she supposedly lost that mirror I told you of.”
May Day in Mortlake was as lovely as the other country weather. The queen had brought her closest courtiers and servants along and housed them in the inn, while most of the others of her entourage had tagged along on their own.
She had been tempted to order her three artists to remain at Nonsuch, but eager to see the celebration, they had made the sixmile journey. Lavina and Henry Heatherley had found housing in the village; Meg and Jenks were to discover exactly where and keep close to them. Gil was staying with the Dees. Kat and Floris were in the room next door to Elizabeth at the inn. Everyone was eager to see the torch-lit Maypole dancing and, as the queen had overheard it called, “Dr. Dee’s fantastical reflections of fire.”
When the other Privy Plot Council members had filed out, Cecil closed the door and lingered by it. Elizabeth motioned for him to join her at one of the diamond-paned windows set ajar to catch the breeze. The spacious chamber took most of the second story, with sweeping views in four directions: the river just outside to the north, the village green to the south, Dee’s home to the west, and a charming thatched cottage, owned by the innkeepers next door, to the east.
Like everywhere the queen visited in her kingdom, her chamber, which in this instance had beds for herself, Rosie Radcliffe, and two other of her ladies, smelled of a hard scrubbing and fresh whitewash. The noontide sun on the Thames was so bright that reflections of the water danced in wavering patterns on the ceiling. The effect was mesmerizing but discomfiting, too: it reminded Elizabeth again of mirrors throwing light.
“Your Grace,” Cecil said, “are you not going out to enjoy the early revelries? Those who didn’t see you when we rode in are hoping for a glimpse of their queen.”
“I can see that,” she said, gazing out the window, beneath which a country fair was blossoming. Standing beside the window, Cecil watched with her.
People were pouring into the village, and small groups waited below; occasionally, someone stooped to a child or pointed at the inn to a friend, all the while talking and nodding. Their happy voices carried easily to her ears. Arrayed in finer garb than the villagers, her retinue strolled the area too.
She was relieved that no one was pitching canvas tents, though hastily erected booths offering varied wares and food were sprouting everywhere. The owner of the inn, an elderly man named Simon Garver, who had once worked at Nonsuch, had told her that her presence had made the festivities larger than ever this year. In the springtimes when Dr. Dee had been abroad, old Garver the Carver, as she’d heard him called, had put up the Maypole, but without the display of the mirror.
Across the green from this lofty vantage point, they could see the Queen’s Country Players erecting a scaffold of planks for an afternoon performance. Elizabeth was not surprised that they were here. Giles Chatam had claimed they’d gone from town to town in Surrey the last fortnight, but this was obviously the place to be today.
“There is quite a clear view of Dee’s house from here,” Cecil observed.
“Indeed. And before we join the others, what would you say to going one story higher?”
“But there’s only the attic—ah, you mentioned that someone in that attic could have seen into Dee’s garden, where Mistress Dee says she lost the mirror. And since only our male servants are upstairs for this night, and they should all be outside already …”
He followed her out into the hall. They could hear the voices of her ladies and yeomen guards downstairs in the common room, waiting to accompany their queen outside. The door to the attic stood ajar, and Cecil opened it farther. “Shall I go first, Your Grace? It seems bright enough up there in daylight that we don’t need a lantern.”
“Go ahead, since someone may yet be up there in half dress, though I warrant they are all outside. Despite the true reasons I have come to see this merrymaking with Dr. Dee’s mirror, it will do everyone good to have a respite away from that lurking hunt park.”
Cecil proceeded her up the creaking stairs and into the dustysmelling garret with its crooked floor. He sneezed as they stood at the top of the staircase, surveying the slant-roofed, irregularly shaped single room, now cluttered with the pallets and gear of grooms, secretaries, and body servants. Jenks and Clifford were bedding up here, while Elizabeth had asked Ned to stay wherever his former troupe of players was this coming night.
“It’s that one over there, I warrant,” she said, and gathering her skirts closer, she walked toward the narrow window overlooking Dee’s property. Each of the four thick-paned windows up here was set widely ajar. “Yes, a clear view of even the garden bench from here.”
“And Mistress Dee is a comely woman,” Cecil said.
“Rather like King David spying on Bathsheba at her bath, you mean? Hm, and was that why she was named
Bath
sheba?”
Bath
sheba?”
He merely shook his head at that lame pun. “We must inquire who had access to this room the day her mirror was taken.”
“I already know. Simon Garver, our host here, mentioned that he had to turn out an acting troupe for a night to accommodate our men.”
“Aha!” Cecil said, shifting to see the players’ scaffold better. “Circumstantial, but—”
“There is more, Cecil. Floris told me privily the young woman—Katherine Dee—asked many questions about me when she was at Nonsuch. Evidently Katherine was taking a walk just after the Dees arrived while Floris was getting Kat some fresh air.”
“Mistress Dee was walking near the hunt park or the tents?”
“Heading out of the palace, at least. Of course, Floris thought naught of it then. She also said that Mistress Dee asked Kat about me when she saw the two of them, and Kat told her that Elizabeth Tudor was not queen, but she hoped I would live long enough to rule someday.”
Her voice broke. She crossed her arms over her breasts as if to hug herself.
“I know Lady Ashley’s condition is a great burden to you.”
“Much better now with Floris, at least. But I meant not to digress, because, my lord,” she said, turning away from the window to face him, “our focus must more than ever be on our handsome, smooth-tongued itinerant actor—and on someone else, I regret to say.”
“You think Mistress Dee could be in collusion with Giles Chatam about the missing mirror—and more? Despite her husband’s skill with mirrors, you’re thinking John Dee is clear of suspicion now? Might not the Dees be working together and Giles Chatam be a wild card?”
“I know only that John Dee seemed honestly shocked that his mirror was missing. Besides, Bathsheba did not resist King David’s charms for long, did she? As for motives, Dr. Dee may want to be more trusted by his queen, and his wife may be desirous of making that happen. Perhaps one or both of them realized a strange murder would make me summon him. But she also craves attention for herself.”
“From Giles Chatam?”
“From her husband, at least, she admitted that to me. And with that missing mirror, who knows what sort of plan she might haphazardly have concocted without her head-in-the-clouds husband’s knowledge? She’s very volatile, and as mentally dim as her husband is bright, I think.”
“But, Your Grace, she was not at Nonsuch when Lavina’s portrait caught fire.”
“Or was she? It’s only six miles, and John Dee gets so busy with his work he may not know where she is. And her maid, Sarah, told Jenks that Mistress Dee goes out and about a great deal.”
“Then too,” Cecil said, scratching his chin so hard his beard bounced, “if she’s in league with Chatam, where was he then, eh? I can have Ned try to ask his uncle. Hell’s gates, this is rather like picking at a loose thread on one’s doublet, which then unravels in places you had not seen as damaged.”
Elizabeth walked to another window. “Amazing, isn’t it, my lord, that we are not even up to the top of Dr. Dee’s pole, though I can see how he’s rigged that big mirror from here.”
Cecil shifted to her window, and they stared at the ingenious contraption Dee had fashioned to both keep the mirror attached to the top of the pole and maneuver it with a rope from below.
“If John Dee,” Cecil said, “for some reason, had wanted to burn a tent with a mirror—and not so much as leave the ground, or perhaps even be too near the site—he could have.”
“Granted. And when Kendale’s tent burned, there was Dr. Dee, fortuitously just arrived at Nonsuch, available to be summoned and trusted by his queen. But if he was behind the fires, would he have helped us so much? I know only that we must consider as possible fire demons the Dees, Giles, and all three of my artists.”
“You are resistant about Gil, of course. I know the boy has been a cause of yours, Your Grace.”
She nodded, wishing that she didn’t think of her own brother every time she beheld Gil. The facial resemblance wasn’t extremely strong, and yet there was something that brought back Edward to her in the most disturbing way. Was it the fact that, however talented and glib Gil was, he lately seemed afraid of something or someone? Her brother, though beloved by their father, had feared him, and then, when Great Henry was dead, Edward had both adored and feared the powerful Seymour uncles who advised him. Was that the link between Gil and Edward in her mind? But who or what so frightened Gil?
“Is there anyone else you suspect in the slightest, Your Grace?” Cecil’s voice broke into her agonizing.
“Only someone,” she said, her tone sarcastic now, “who is powerful and hates me and who has been flaunting that hatred publicly in mirrors.”
“That’s no riddle. Your Catholic cousin, Queen Mary.”
“I fear so,” she said with a shudder. “She is like—like a ghost ever in the back of my mind, lurking there, wanting me dead and my throne for herself.”
“But you don’t think she could have sent someone to set the fires?”
“Sometimes, Cecil, I think so much that I don’t know what I think. Let’s go out to greet my people,” she said and started toward the stairs. “Though this holiday has long had a reputation for being wild and free, I only pray the fire demon does not strike again.”
Despite her anxiety, Elizabeth enjoyed the day. She always adored being among her people, and their love for her warmed her more than did the sun. Chatting with many, patting children on their heads, she strolled the impromptu fair with her ladies, examining fancies and fripperies at various booths, even buying a few things from awed vendors.
Traveling hawkers sang out the delights of feathered caps, scarves, and handkerchiefs on rickety tables or lying on bright baize cloths upon the grass. A fortune-teller’s booth had appeared next to one selling succulent sausage pies. Ale and beer flowed freely from the inn. Piled ribbons and woolen thread made a pyramid of color near the players’ stage, where the two lads who did the ladies’ parts were giving a crude puppet show, crowded with children. And in the center of it all, the beribboned Maypole stood ready for the dancing and light show come eventide.
Elizabeth left her company behind, but for Clifford and Rosie, and walked around the makeshift stage while the crowd was entranced with the puppetry. As she had hoped, Giles Chatam was behind the scenes, sitting on a humpbacked trunk, reading what appeared to be lines for a play. He was mouthing his words, and occasionally gave a hint of a broader gesture.
When he did not look up, Clifford cleared his throat.
“Your Majesty, may I not fetch you a seat forthwith?” Giles asked, exploding to his feet to bow grandly and gracefully in that actors’ style which could outdo her courtiers’ any day.
“I am fine, Master Chatam.”
“The real drama is later, of course,” he explained, dazzling her with a broad smile that did not quite reach his startling blue eyes. “
A Surrey Spring Frolic
we’ve renamed it from an older piece set in France.”
A Surrey Spring Frolic
we’ve renamed it from an older piece set in France.”
“I shall look forward to it. I regret my large entourage forced you and the players from your lofty chambers at the inn.”
“We are glad to sleep elsewhere this night, Your Majesty. A haymow will do for the likes of us, of course, as, I must admit, I’ve slept far worse places than that. And far better, too, when fortune’s star was in the ascendant for the Queen’s Country Players.”
“Isn’t Ned with you? He said that for old time’s sake, he’d like to spend some time with his uncle and you, of course.”
“He was here but a moment ago. I can send him to you straightaway when he returns.”
Other books
HMS Aurora: A Charles Mullins Novel (Sea Command Book 3) by Richard Testrake
Tave Part 2 by Erin Tate
All for This by Lexi Ryan
Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers by Marika Cobbold
Bro-mance 101 by Rand , Chanta
Rough Terrain (Vista Falls #1) by Cheryl Douglas
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
The Duke's Deception by Sasha L. Miller
Givin' Up The Ghost (An Indigo Eady Paranormal Mystery) by Gwen Gardner
Village Secrets by Shaw, Rebecca
