Read The Fatal Fashione Online
Authors: Karen Harper
Tags: #Fiction - Historical, #England/Great Britain, #16th Century, #Mystery, #Tudors
The Fatal Fashione (21 page)
“Be careful up there!” she called to Bates. She gripped her dagger so hard her fingers cramped. She couldn’t stand this place any longer. The sounds of the penned beasts awaiting their fates outside, the smell, dust, and tobacco smoke seemed to suffocate her. Striding to the stairs, she shouted up them, “Bates? Did you call out to Stiller?”
“Come up here!” he cried at last, when she was getting so panicked she was about to leave Badger and shout for Stiller herself. Bates sounded nervous; he, too, was hard to hear over the outside sounds.
She glanced at Badger. He looked unconscious, his head lolling forward. His eyes were closed, and he drooled. Grasping her dagger and holding her skirts close, she went up the narrow, dim stairs to the small landing. There she tried to look out the back window. Her dark reflection as well as more closed shutters on the outside of the glass kept her from seeing Stiller or the horses.
She would quickly see what Bates had discovered, then send him outside to fetch the other guard. She went up a few more steps until her head was even with the floor upstairs. A single lantern hung from a wall peg in the short hall. Why hadn’t Bates taken the light with him into the two small, darker rooms, which both had their doors open?
“Bates? Where are you? What is it?”
“Here!” he called gruffly over the continual hum of noise from outside.
She went up the rest of the stairs and looked left, into the room from which Bates had called. She expected to find Dauntsey’s illicit gold heaped in a trunk, or even the murderer himself, hanging from his own noose, trapped … a suicide.
It all happened fast. On the floor of the room at her left, she saw Bates’s legs stretched out in spilled water—or blood. And next to him, with her back to the door, sat a headless woman!
Elizabeth screamed. Beheaded? In horror, the queen bucked back into the wall.
No, no, it was a woman on her knees with her head thrust in a bucket.
Dauntsey leaped to the doorway at which she stared.
She screamed again and lifted her dagger, but he heaved a bucket of water and lunged at her. Wooden … hit her face … water exploded over her. Before she could see, he wrenched her weapon from her hand and seized a fistful of her hair, which tumbled loose from its pins and snood.
She thought he might shove her down the stairs, but he yanked her head back, forcing her to stare into those rimless, invisible eyes. She read hatred there, teetering on madness.
“This will top them all,” he said through gritted teeth. His voice—he’d spoken for Bates and sounded like him. “My most thrilling drowning. How much do you think the northern lords will pay me for a dead Tudor queen?”
“You and Paulet—”
“That bumbling fool knows nothing of all this,” he hissed.
All this … Buckets—he had six or seven big buckets in the room he dragged her into, and the woman who must be Celia was drowned in one.
Elizabeth fought hard as he tripped her and threw her to her knees—thrust her face into a big bucket. Cold water. His strength surprised her. Hannah … Pamela. Had it been like this, wanting to breathe but knowing that meant death?
She held her breath until she thought her lungs would explode. Pain in her scalp. Clawed and kicked. Grabbed some air before he shoved her down again. She reached blindly for a nearby bucket. Tipped it empty, smashed it backward at him.
He went off balance. She hit him again with it, shoved him, rolled away into Bates. He was bleeding from his head. She scrambled to her feet, bounced off one wall. Lifting her sopped skirts, she tore down the stairs, one flight. Turn corner, down the rest.
Outside. Get outside. Find Stiller. Scream for people—her subjects outside to help. Get help … help …
She heard Dauntsey pounding downstairs after her. Badger still slumped in his chair. The door. She’d latched it herself. If he caught her here …
But as she jerked at the latch, she heard him stop across the room at the bottom of the stairs. She glanced back; he opened a big box. “All right, then,” he called to her, strangely calm, as she lifted the latch, “I’ll just provide a little distraction, like poor Badger did that day he shot at your damned lackey,
Sir
Thomas Gresham. I thought you’d rather be drowned in private, but if you, oh great and glorious queen, always need an audience, so be it.”
Sir
Thomas Gresham. I thought you’d rather be drowned in private, but if you, oh great and glorious queen, always need an audience, so be it.”
A firearm. He had a matchlock!
She tore outside, screaming for help. Stiller came barreling around the corner of the building, but a herd of baaing sheep blocked him from reaching her and blocked her escape toward him. Cattle had shifted closer; she had only one direction to flee.
At first no one heard her cries. Then a few herdsmen looked her way. She must look wild, demented, pointing back toward Dauntsey, forced to run forward into the field.
Darting behind the first water trough she came to, she bent down and peered over it as light in the open door silhouetted Dauntsey and the firearm. Marie had stared at Hannah’s lighted window. She’d seen Dauntsey, but in Badger’s clothes, lifting Hannah from the tub. He’d drowned her, hoping to blame Gresham. After Marie came inside, he’d lifted Hannah out and onto the shelf, because that was something Thomas would have done. Perhaps he’d hidden himself on that shelf while Marie was in the room.
Elizabeth saw that Dauntsey had lit the wick that would ignite the gunpowder in the pan. Could Dauntsey aim and hit her from this distance and through the wooden trough?
She heard Stiller’s shouts. Her yeoman was wading thighhigh through sheep toward Dauntsey as if through deep water, but, unfortunately, the path between her and that madman was now clear.
Just as she opened her mouth to scream for help again, the matchlock belched a flash of light and noise. He’d fired not at her but into the air.
At first the cattle seemed to go still as stone. Several shifted, snorted; some began to bump into others in a growing panic. She heard the warning shouts of several herdsmen and Stiller’s voice again, ordering Dauntsey to put the firearm down.
In that short time, he must have reprimed and loaded again, for one more blast followed. As one great beast, the animals bolted in a churning mass as all hell broke loose in a wild rampage of horns and hoofs around her.
Pressing herself between two drinking troughs, Elizabeth was forced to stand; that made her a better target, should Dauntsey shoot a third time. Instead, swinging at the beasts with the butt of the matchlock, he fought toward her, into the edges of the writhing herd, which now forced Stiller even farther away. On the side of the troughs temporarily holding back the onslaught, though that put her closer to Dauntsey, she edged along while the water in them rocked like waves.
Then she realized what the human beast intended. Amidst the chaos of the crashing cattle and sheep, the water trough reminded her of Hannah’s starch-tub coffin—of Ursala and Pamela’s washtub.
Dauntsey reached the troughs and pursued her down the line of them. In the deafening noise and rising dust, she saw she must face him alone. If she could only fight her way to the sturdy tree trunk that was the memorial to martyrs here, she could climb it and be safe, but it was too far away.
The animals slammed into the barrier of the troughs, overturning some toward her. The two closest still stood, but soon she would lose her last bulwark of protection. Water slopped over the edges in swift surges as some beasts slammed into them before they swerved away.
Trapped by the circle of surrounding buildings with only narrow escape routes, the mingled herds seemed to be circling, swinging toward the center of the field where they had been penned in. Dauntsey was almost to her. Only two troughs yet stood against the rush, and Elizabeth had to either stand and face him or be trampled. Her hand on a quaking tub, she turned and pointed directly into his frenzied face.
“Stand back from me, Hugh Dauntsey! You are finished here!”
He seized her wrist and shouted so close in her face that his saliva speckled her. “For years, I wanted to torment and kill Gresham, but you’ll do! You’ve ruined everything, but losing you will ruin him, too!”
Holding to the trough, she wrenched away, kicking out at him. He went down. She did, too, hitting hard on her elbows and knees—but found herself sheltered by a tipped trough even as its water slammed into and over her. She saw Dauntsey battered down and trampled, a shocked look on his face before his entire body disappeared in the mad rampage of beasts.
She threw herself backward into the tipped trough. Knees curled up, arms tucked against her chest, Elizabeth huddled, tears streaming down her face, praying this would not be her coffin. The animals rushed past or vaulted it in churning dust, trying to rend her apart, like her enemies trying to crush her under the weight of her duties, her fears …
But then, when the herdsmen had rushed past, attempting to retrieve and pen in their stock, Stiller found her, shaken and stunned. He fell to his knees, leaning close to peer into the darkness of her shelter.
At first, she blinked back tears and simply stared at him. Yes, this was how poor Marie must have felt when she hid within herself, stunned, haunted by the evil deeds of others. But queens could not hide or waver.
“Your Majesty,” Stiller whispered, horrified, still hacking in the dust, “are … are you … all right?”
“Of course I am,” she insisted, though her voice shook. “Just soaked so thoroughly by this tipped water my face is all wet. Stop staring, man, and get into that house to help Bates. Quickly now, for I saw that he’s been hurt.”
He gaped at her but obeyed. With a silent prayer of thanks for her deliverance, Elizabeth Tudor rolled to her knees and stood, trembling yet triumphant.
JANUARY 23, 1571
SIR THOMAS GRESHAM’S MERCANTILE EXCHANGE WAS completed at last. After a sumptuous banquet at Gresham House, the queen with her nobles made an official visit for its opening.
“I recall the first day I saw this grand edifice, Thomas,” she told him as he helped her down from her coach amidst cheers from the crowd in the street.
“I do, too, Your Grace,” he said, nodding. “It was barely a foundation then, and that traitor Badger, long imprisoned now, hovered close.”
The entire city seemed to hover close along her journey here today on freshly graveled streets. Church bells clanged, houses were decked with carpets and bunting, and people ran along behind the queen’s coach and entourage. How she loved her people, even the rowdy, blue-gowned apprentices and the pompous lines of guild members, bowing and doffing their caps. If only she had gotten her hands on the former chief constable from the Skinners’ Guild before he’d fled north, some said to Scotland. She’d have skinned him for what he had done to Meg and for his mockery of justice in her realm.
From the balconies above, lutes and guitterns began to play but were drowned out by the royal trumpeters here for the occasion. She could barely hear Thomas when he spoke. “But I hope you do not harbor thoughts of those difficult times that shortly followed that first visit here, Your Grace.”
“How I wish I had Marie’s faulty memory for those days, but all is well that ends well.” They waited for her ladies to arrange her cloak before they entered the building. She was as gorgeously decked out as the exchange was today, in her new fashion of white satin with cloth-of-gold accents and white ermine on her black silk cape. She still favored huge ruffs, now not cartwheels but standing ones, with dangling jewels and pearls, though she wore black pearls today—and knew that, too, would begin a new trend.
“I am pleased that you and Anne seem to get on well, Thomas. She is proud of you, I warrant,” she added, patting his arm. Slowly, with him limping and leaning on his walking stick, they entered the inner courtyard through the arches, under the proud Gresham grasshopper emblem.
“Somehow Hannah’s death gradually helped to heal our marriage,” he admitted, raising his voice above the noise. “And, of course, our united joy for Marie-Anne’s happiness in her betrothal.”
“Sally is thrilled about the coming wedding. She will make Marie a fine, loyal maid over the years—much as her mother has served me.”
To be certain her servants were here, too, Elizabeth glanced back, past her retinue of nobles. With the lords and ladies came her dear Cecil and his wife, Mildred. She intended to bestow a great honor on her friend next month, for she planned to ennoble him as Baron Burghley. Behind the Cecils, over to the side, stood Jenks and his wife, Ursala, pregnant with their third child. Beside them, she glimpsed Meg and Ned, whispering together. Ned’s nose had never recovered from the fisticuffs he’d engaged in to help save Meg from Whitcomb, but he was all to the good for it—not so vain, and he played the villains even better in court dramas.
After a tour of the courtyard where England’s financiers would bargain and trade for goods, Thomas led the queen and her company up the stairs to the second floor with three sides of shops. Though it was not yet dusk this chill day, the entire area glowed with the wax lights she had heard Thomas had ordered to be displayed. In turn, he’d given the lucky shopkeepers a year’s free rent.
“Look at the bounty!” the queen called to the press of people coming up behind her. “Let us support Sir Thomas’s grand endeavor with our choices and our coins!”
Everyone, especially the women, mobbed the pretty shops. It was worse, Elizabeth thought, than that wild melee of animals she’d lived through at Smithfield the night that murderer Dauntsey was trampled to death and her big yeoman Bates was knocked over the head so hard it took him days to recall who he was. Ah, but Elizabeth of England always knew who she was, and since that horrible night when she fully came to grasp the power of revenge, she had used her might more judiciously, even when Parliament was driving her to distraction.
God knows, she’d lived through terrible trials since her Privy Plot Council had solved those drownings five years ago. Plague, plots, rebellion, even excommunication by the pope, which she, like her father before her, considered a badge of honor. She intended to live through much more to rule and reign.
She, too, strolled the booths, admiring their delights. Rolls of thick-piled velvet and shimmering silks in the newest shades of dead Spaniard, popinjay blue, lady’s blush, and lusty gallant. She made a special stop at the van der Passes’ new shop to admire their array of goods.
When she caught Dirck’s eye, she told him, “I hope that no one hangs about your shop to lure your buyers away.”
“Vould serve me right, Your Majesty, but I learned my lesson.”
“So have we all,” she said to herself as she turned away. Though she was but thirty-seven, she felt she had come far, not only to mount the throne but to keep and tend it. And she would face whatever was yet to come.
She nodded to Cecil, who sent a runner to the trumpeters. When their fanfare began, everyone turned to see what was happening. With one hand raised, Elizabeth called out in her clarion voice, “On this special day for London and our realm, I wish to bestow two favors. To my beloved people, I declare that each Sunday on these grounds in good weather shall be presented a concert by the queen’s musicians at no fee to which all are invited. And to my loyal servant and founder of this mercantile exchange, Sir Thomas Gresham, I give a special honor. I do proclaim this is henceforth the Royal Exchange of England, to be designated and so called!”
Cheers went up as word spread through the crowd. The queen, with Thomas, walked to the balcony and waved to the press of people in the courtyard below. Again she smiled at those closest to her, couples all: the Cecils; the Greshams; Marie and her betrothed; Meg and Ned; Jenks and his Ursala, her hand tenderly placed on her breeding belly. Why, even the Queen of Scots had a son, but none of them had, nor ever would have, Elizabeth’s dear lover England.
The cheers and the music swelled again as several stepped forward to present her with keepsakes from the shops. “I wish I could give you all gifts so you could begin a thousand new rages of fashion,” Thomas said to Elizabeth as he put his arm around his wife’s waist.
“Even a queen can’t have everything,” she told him, and blinked back tears to force a smile. But, she thought, turning away to wave again to those below, her best royal fashion would ever be to rule alone with charm and might.
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