Court of Conspiracy (16 page)

The next morning, Luke came down to breakfast to find two rabbits and a plump pigeon lying on the table. Robin was pouring ale into a jack and had put bread and cheese on the table. Luke gestured to the boy’s catch.

“What are you going to do with them?”

“Thought I’d hang one rabbit and the pigeon. I’ll cut the other rabbit up and put it in the pot with onions, leeks and ale.”

“Fair enough. I need you to run an errand for me.”

“Where to?”

“Master Dufay’s house near Hampton. It’s past the stables, mind.”

Robin swallowed. “If I go early, they’ll all be out exercising the horses.”

“Yes, go now. Today, I promise I’ll extract some walnut juice and make the change more permanent. You must tell Mistress Garrod that it is time she used the oils I gave her.”

* * *

Luke shut up shop in the middle of the afternoon. He had spent some time making an elaborate perfume for Pippa to give the Princess. After tipping a little onto a fine lawn kerchief, he put the phial in his scrip, together with some other glass bottles in case he was stopped. The kerchief he left rolled up tight in a small stone jar in his bedchamber.

He strolled out of the main gates and toward Hampton, not daring to walk directly to Master Dufay’s house, but contenting himself with visiting a fellow apothecary in the village first. There were a few women on the roads carrying baskets back late from the market, but nobody appeared to be in the least interested in his movements as he began to walk back toward the palace. He could hear the shouts of the stable boys galloping the horses on Bushy Park. Luke glanced round before turning off the path at the edge of the village to his destination.

He knocked on the door and a tall red-haired girl dressed in a green gown opened it. Luke’s initial reaction was surprise, but then he realized that Pippa, having used the perception oils, must have seen him from the window and answered the door herself. She was Pippa, but not Pippa. He congratulated himself on a well-constructed invocation.

“Master Ballard. I did as you instructed. Who was that boy you sent?”

“Just an urchin, Pippa. Is Master Dufay at home?”

“No, but he said he would be back before nightfall.”

“We must make sure you are, too.”

“Fine. Tell me what to do.”

“We should sit down where we will not be disturbed.”

“Come into the parlor. It is seldom used unless Master Dufay has visitors.”

“Does he have no other servants?”

“Only a woman from the village who comes in to help. I sent her home for the day.”

They sat opposite each other. Luke put his hand into his scrip. “I need to make a few adjustments to your appearance,” he said. “Close your eyes and concentrate on my voice.”

He spoke softly for a few moments, then took a small box from his scrip and threw a pinch of dust over her. Her breathing deepened.

“Can you hear me?” he asked.

“I hear you.”

“Your name is Mistress Gurdon. You have a message and a gift for Her Grace, the Princess Elizabeth, from Master Parry at Hatfield. What is your name?”

“Mistress Gurdon.”

Luke took the perfume bottle from his scrip. It had used the last of his supplies of rose petals. He held it under Pippa’s nose and pulled out the stopper.

Chapter Eighteen

“I am Mistress Gurdon, charged by Master Parry at Hatfield to bring a message and a gift for the Princess.”

Pippa could feel her knees shaking and knew her face must appear pinched and pale. Would the yeoman usher regard that as normal or be suspicious? She had no means of knowing what security arrangements were in place for those visiting the King’s sisters. Her only hope was that Luke had taken that into account. She could feel Ajax’s nose nudging her skirts and prayed that he was invisible to the usher. Luke had assured her that a chamber full of hard-nosed courtiers had not seen Joss during his own interrogation, but that did not stop her heart from thumping like a tabor in a jig.

The yeoman’s cap dipped and lifted as he looked her up and down. She carried nothing save the perfume bottle. After a few moments, he grunted and opened the door wide enough for her to enter.

As she waited to be summoned, Pippa looked around. She had never seen royal apartments before and thought it unlikely she would again. The outer room disappointed her, being sparsely furnished and the walls a bare white. Through the open door into the interior room, she had time to see four of the attendant ladies sitting on cushions near the fire playing cards before the yeoman beckoned her in. At the far end, in front of a wall hanging depicting elephants, a straight-backed girl of about her own age sat, staring to her left out of the window. As the girl turned to look at her, Pippa dropped into the deepest of curtseys. She rose, walked forward a few more steps and curtsied again and then, in front of the chair, she made her third obeisance and remained thus until the Princess gave her leave to rise.

“I greet Your Grace on behalf of Master Parry at Hatfield and bring you his gift.”

Elizabeth stared unsmiling, her eyes fixed first on Pippa’s hair and then on the perfume. She nodded and called to her attendants on the cushions to go and fetch refreshment. Two of the ladies immediately curtsied and left. The Princess gestured again and the other two retired to the outer room.

Given the opportunity to gaze about her, Pippa noticed a bulge in the hanging behind Elizabeth’s chair, caused, no doubt, by a draft, or, more likely, a concealed door that had just been opened. The cloaked and hooded figure of a woman pulled the hanging aside and stepped into the room. Pippa’s first thought was that it was an assassin attempting to kill the Princess, but as she opened her mouth to warn the girl in the chair, she noticed the greyspring at the woman’s side. The hood slipped back from dark hair. Again, Pippa sank into a curtsey.

Elizabeth held out her hand and Pippa placed the glass bottle into it. Mother and daughter exchanged a glance and at a nod from Queen Anne, Elizabeth beckoned Pippa closer. Then she removed the stopper from the perfume.

* * *

Luke arrived home to find that Robin had skinned the rabbit. He picked up the pelt and hung it on the wall a little way from the fire, so that it would dry slowly. When its companion’s pelt joined it, they would be stored to await the cold days ahead. He intended to ask Mistress Paige to make the skins into a hat for when he foraged in the freezing depths of winter. Having an affinity to fire, Luke hated the cold more than most. It slowed his brain to such an extent that every year he wished he could sleep through the wintry months as did the woodland animals.

“I’m making rabbit stew,” Robin said, his face red from stirring the pot on the fire.

“Good. Don’t forget to put thyme and a bay leaf in it. I will be down presently.”

Luke climbed the stairs. The first thing he did on entering his chamber was to dress in clean clothes. He threw the soiled tunic in the corner on top of his other one, noting with a grimace that it was time to make more soap and wash them. He retrieved the stone jar and took it to the large chair by the window. With Joss sitting between his knees, he closed his eyes and lifted the kerchief to his nose. Immediately the fragrance of rose and musk assailed his nostrils. His head dropped to his chest and his mind’s eye found Pippa on her knees in front of Queen Anne and the Princess Elizabeth. The princess had just removed the stopper from the bottle.

Pippa’s voice sounded as if she was half-asleep. “I have not made as much progress as I had hoped, Your Grace. I think that two roses covered in thorns given as gifts to Mistress Garrod and Mistress Quayne by Master Geoffrey Peveril may be of the same variety as that put under the King’s saddle, but I know not the location of the bush the roses came from, nor can I think how to find it with certainty. The rose is a common one.”

Luke paused, half his mind concentrating on maintaining the link with Pippa and the other on making the report as short as possible. This was the first time he had spoken through her and her mind’s natural instinct for self-protection would be at work.

“Yesterday, I found a soft leather glove close to the Royal Mews. It has blood and tiny holes that might have been made from rose thorns on the thumb and fingers. I have it safe, but cannot do any further tests on it. John Bell, the Mewsmaster is under a shadow, but I have not discovered the identity of the sunderer.”

He heard Pippa’s low voice stumble on the word
Mewsmaster
and inhaled the scent from the kerchief again.

“One of the stable boys who was there when the King’s horse was made ready states that Gethin Pitt did not put the stem under the saddle. Shortly after the King’s accident, Master Bell sent this boy to sleep off his early morning start. He did not awake until much later in the day, by which time Gethin was on his way to the Tower. Until Gethin was hanged, the lad was sent to work with the horses on the timber wharf. I believe it was no accident that a few days after I began my enquiries, this same boy was falsely accused of stealing and a hue and cry set up after him.”

Luke felt Pippa’s essence begin to stir, but he was prepared for it and visualized calming blue stars along his mental link with her.

The Queen leaned forward. “Can you hear me, Master Ballard?” she asked in a low voice.

“Aye,” answered Luke through Pippa.

“You say Bell is overshadowed?”

“Aye, Your Grace. It is not the first time I have encountered darkness, but each shadowing is individual to the person being corrupted—each has its exclusive stench. All I know is that the air around the Royal Mews smelled fresher when Bell left.”

“Who is Geoffrey Peveril?”

“A friend of my former master, Corbin Quayne, the head of the Guild of Apothecaries of the Grocers’ Company. Peveril is paying court to Master Quayne’s daughter, Mistress Bertila.”

“I can tell from your tone you think the rose under the saddle may have come from this Peveril, or is it that you do not like the man?”

“It is possibility, Your Grace, no more. As I said, the rose is a common one. And you are correct. I neither like nor trust Master Peveril.”

“Then, you must find out more about him. Get closer to the Mewsmaster. Find out where he drinks and help him to ease his conscience.” Luke could hear the laughter in the Queen’s voice.

“My main problem, Your Grace, is my inexperience with this kind of enquiry. I have no idea how to accomplish it.”

“Master Apothecary, when someone comes to you with a pain in the stomach, how do you deal with it?” Queen Anne’s voice now held a hint of impatience.

“I ask questions, but the patient wants to help me aid his recovery and is eager to answer. That is not the case here.”

“Then perchance you must ask your questions in a less direct way. A conspiracy starts with one man, Master Ballard, and spreads like the tendrils in a spider’s web. You are on the edge of the web. You must gather intelligences enough to lead you to the center of it without alerting the spider. Think how you would deal with an invalid who was testing your skills.”

Luke nodded. “An interesting concept, Your Grace. I will.”

The Princess’s voice interrupted her mother. “Why have you given this girl red hair?”

“I pray pardon. The Queen counseled caution. Pippa is tall, almost as tall as Your Grace. I thought that, from a distance within the palace, she might be mistaken for you and not challenged. If questions arise, Your Grace has many people who can swear you never left your apartments.”

Luke waited for the explosion he was sure was imminent. It was common knowledge that alongside her hair, the princess had inherited her royal father’s temper. “I see,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “A wise precaution and one that gains my approval.”

Luke let out a breath of relief. “I thank you, Your Grace. Do you have any further instructions?”

Queen Anne replied. “The envoys from France and Scotland will be arriving in four days’ time. I think His Majesty will be most at risk whilst they are here, possibly until negotiations are complete and the marriage contract is signed. Have you in truth no indications to the traitor’s identity?”

“When I make a pomander, Your Grace, I must mix the ingredients in their right order, or the bead will not hold together. In this enquiry, I must gather my evidence and put it together in its true face or, like the bead, it will fall apart.”

“In that case, Master Apothecary, I suggest that you find your ingredients and mix them. Quickly.”

“Your Grace, I swear that this matter has my whole attention. May I beg that you give Mistress Garrod food and drink before she leaves? The mirroring will have taxed her.”

“The Princess will see to it. I must return to my apartments. You may go.”

The last thing Luke saw before the link was broken was the stopper being returned to the perfume bottle.

If the Queen were right, Luke had very little time to find hard evidence linking somebody near the King to the attempts on his life. What was it Queen Anne said? A conspiracy begins with one man and spreads. The rose stem was the first piece of evidence of a plot to kill Henry IX. Luke knew two earlier attempts had failed but not what form they had taken. Perhaps he should have asked Anne.

The rose stem. In his own mind Luke was certain that the glove had been used to handle it, but who had handled the glove? Not Bell, according to Robin. Yet Luke was certain that the blurred figure in his vision had been the Mewsmaster. Was his brain making connections where there were none? The Queen spoke truly when she said that John Bell was his best hope of moving the investigation forward, but then her clear, quick mind had kept her alive against many attempts to topple her. He went downstairs and into his shop. If the man really was being overshadowed, the only way to find out was with a clarifying spell, and Luke had not mixed one of those for a long time.

* * *

Pippa, feeling a little sleepy, was making her way down the stairs from Princess Elizabeth’s apartments and into the courtyard near the Chapel Royal. She paused by the door into the cloisters, hearing the sound of soft laughter. With Ajax pushing from behind, she stepped into the dark corridor and, eyes on the floor, walked past the door to the chapel.

The movement of two bodies springing apart caught her peripheral vision. She swung round, one hand to her throat in fear. A girl and a thickset man were glaring at her from the shadows. At once, they began to crumple into a deep obeisance, but then the man looked more closely.

“I thought you was the Princess,” he said.

Pippa opened her mouth to speak, but just then the girl came round from behind the man’s shoulders. Sudden fear rendered Pippa immobile, but she felt Ajax move to stand in front of her, calming her tumbling thoughts. Her initial response had been to turn and rush away, but her feet refused to move. They’d thought she was Elizabeth and she had come from the direction of the Princess’s apartments. Could she pass herself off as one of the ladies-in-waiting?

She decided to let them break the silence, all the while staring at the girl who wriggled under her scrutiny. Oh, she knew those hated features so well. Rosebud lips pursed in discontent, the petulant, wide eyes. It was her cousin, Cecily Messingham.