Authors: Karen Harper
Tags: #Fiction - Historical, #Mystery, #16th Century, #England/Great Britain, #Royalty
The Fyre Mirror (13 page)
“That won’t be necessary. So, how did you find the accommodations of the old Riverside Inn when you stayed there? I suppose the view is lovely from the top floor.”
“Oh, it is—of the river,” he said, smoothly masking what she read as surprise that she knew exactly where they’d stayed.
Other than asking him if he knew the Dees, she wasn’t certain how to proceed. No good to tip off someone that she was watching him, especially an itinerant actor who no doubt had a hundred haunts to hide in.
“I’ll be looking forward to the play,” she said again, and went back to her circuit of the town green.
Floris emerged from the crowd with Kat, all smiles, trailing behind her. Her dear old friend had a tawdry red scarf tied on her sleeve, but Elizabeth could tell it pleased her mightily.
“Did Floris buy you that, my Kat?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh, no, that young woman who has the same name I do gave it to me,” Kat said, still fiddling with it.
“No, we did buy it,” Floris whispered for the queen’s ears alone. “She’s referring to Katherine Dee. She’s wandering around here somewhere, taking some food to her husband,” she added with a quick glance over her shoulder. “Since you thought it best Kat and I not stay with her, I thought we’d just stop by to look around outside her place. And guess who was there at the door, personally inviting Mistress Dee to see their play about a spring frolic?”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Giles Chatam in the flesh?”
“In the flesh, Your Grace, a good way to put it,” Floris said, rolling her eyes. “From what I saw, the two of them already knew each other, to put it politely.”
“Did they see you?”
“Not me or Kat.”
“Were they passionate?”
“More like familiar. And, I warrant, careful.”
“Floris, you are priceless!” the queen told her with a nod. Though she was not used to Privy Plot Council members taking actions not earlier approved, this news was just what she needed. “I’ll wager,” Elizabeth added, “either Chatam took the mirror, or she gave it to him. Poor Dr. Dee.”
“I’m afraid it only stirs the pot of possibilities,” Floris said, shaking her head. “One thing I’ve learned over the years tending elderly folk like your dear Lady Ashley is patience.”
“Of course, we’ll jump to no conclusions. But we must watch young Mistress Dee and our clever actor even closer.”
“I can help, and if Kat needs to go inside to rest, I’ll get Meg Milligrew to be vigilant.”
“I think,” Kat said to Elizabeth, as if the lengthy whispered conversation between the queen and Floris had not occurred at all, “that Katherine is the same one your father married last. I don’t want her to find out who set the fire in the tent, of course.”
Elizabeth’s insides plummeted. Kat was not only completely confused, but still tormented by the memories of the very fire years ago that haunted the queen.
“Kat, hush now,” Floris said before the queen could speak. “That is just a bad dream you’ve had at night, and this is a lovely, sunny day.”
As darkness descended, torches on poles set in a circle lit the village green, casting the May Day celebrations into flickering half shadows. But it seemed the festivities had only begun. The dancing around the Maypole was so lovely that the queen herself longed to join it. Songs from local musicians accompanied the interweaving of the dancers with their ribbons attached high on the pole, just below the mirror. She stayed among her people as she had all afternoon and evening, tapping her foot, clapping along.
Yet, like others in her band of observers, she kept close watch on those upon whom suspicion rested. John Dee was the easiest to watch, as he stood within the circle of dancers, next to the pole, working his rope attached to the mirror high above. He’d been fussing with it all day. So that her young artist was also in plain sight, Elizabeth had suggested that Dee literally show Gil the ropes. Ever in awe of Dr. Dee, Gil had been glad to act as his assistant.
Katherine Dee was doing nothing untoward; on the contrary, she had brought her mother-in-law to see the festivities in some sort of wheeled chair Dee must have rigged. More than once, Elizabeth had noted their maid, Sarah, darting hither and yon through the crowd. As for Giles Chatam, Ned was sticking tight to him, for both had managed to work their way into the dancing around the Maypole.
Meg had stayed close to Lavina Teerlinc all day, and told the queen that she had been making many swift sketches of these activities. Henry Heatherley, Jenks had said, spent his time drinking in the public room of the inn and boasting about who he was.
“It was worth a good laugh, Your Grace,” Jenks had added, “that when the tosspot bragged of once working for Hans Holbein, none of these countrymen knew a fig about who Holbein was.’Cept, that is, some rough-looking man with an I-tal-ian accent who’d been matching Heatherley bottle by bottle of wine. Heatherley may have gotten poor Will Kendale drunk the night he died, but no one can match the way HH himself downs that wine.”
“Wait—you said a man with an Italian accent? And with enough coin to buy bottles of wine?” she mused. “Who did he say he is?”
“Didn’t. And can’t go question the I-tal-ian now,’cause he’s disappeared. He asked Heatherley questions about your artists, all of them, that’s all I know.”
“About Gil, too?”
“Oh, yes. Even about Will Kendale.”
Elizabeth tried to tell herself that one stray Italian at this crowded English country fair meant naught, but she knew she should ask Heatherley and Gil about the man later.
Suddenly, she felt exhausted. Trailing two ladies and two guards, she went over to the entrance to the inn to sit on a long wooden bench the elderly Simon Garver and his dame had offered her earlier and now sat upon themselves.
“I believe I will take a respite,” she told them. “No, do not rise, as I will sit with you. I find it quite agreeable to have the dancing and that magic mirror the center of attention for a while.”
“Aye, Your Majesty,” Simon said, and his wizened wife just smiled toothlessly and nodded. “I’m always glad to help set all this up, but it’s John Dee’s worry now.”
“I understand the Maypole itself is yours.”
“Oh, aye, one of the straightest trees e’er felled in these parts, much like the ones went for the interior walls at Nonsuch.”
“I’ve always admired your fine work there.”
Simon turned to his wife and bellowed, “Her Majesty admires the linenfolds at Nonsuch!” She nodded, and he turned back to the queen. “Had to have everything just right, your royal sire did, from the moment he tore down Cuddington.”
“I regret the village’s demise. Do any of the former inhabitants still live about these parts?”
“Some second generation over at Cheam, but most got dispersed, just lost. Why, it was twenty-seven years ago, you know.” The queen and the old carver nearly shouted to hear each other over the noise of the revelers. “Even the Moorings got scattered and lost,” he added.
“The Moorings?”
“The family what owned the manor house. Country gentry, relying on the bounty of the fields and local crafts to fill their coffers. Several fine timbered houses torn down too. The Mooring ancestors were buried in the Catholic church what got took down, but the family at the time was parents and two children. The breakup of the churches everywhere was one thing, but the entire village …” His voice trailed off as if he’d said too much.
Elizabeth recalled that Lord Arundel had told her he’d tried to talk the king out of razing the village, but Henry had refused to put his palace at the other end of the meadow. How greatly the local people, as well as the poor Moorings, must have resented the death—the murder—of Cuddington, the queen realized. She always took great care with people’s feelings toward her, but her father had more than once let those be damned.
Though Elizabeth had been long schooled never to doubt or criticize King Henry VIII, she felt ashamed of his acts to build Nonsuch. “I regret the demise of the village,” she repeated, more to her herself than the Garvers, “especially if it was anything like charming Mortlake. How old were the Mooring children then?” she inquired, remembering how devastated she had been to be sent away from court more than once as a child. She could not fathom losing not only her place in a home, but the entire home itself.
“Glenda!” old Simon shouted at his wife, who finally stopped smiling and nodding. “How old were the Mooring heirs when Cuddington went down?
How old?
”
How old?
”
“Not ten,” she yelled, her voice as crackly as old paper. “Maybe the boy six, the girl eight. Never saw such white-yellow hair, like little angels! Died, I think.”
“Both of them died?” Elizabeth gasped.
“Best left alone,” Simon answered for his wife. “Oh, lookie there! John’s got the mirror all rigged to get that firelight clear from Richmond Hill.”
At least, the queen thought, there were no bonfires here. She rose to her feet, awed by the flash of flame that seemed to light the top of the Maypole, then reflect itself in a bright beam through the dark night. The crowd noise hushed, then became a huge “Ahhh!” as if from one throat. Next to Dr. Dee, Elizabeth could see that Gil was entranced, jumping up and down and clapping.
The dancers and musicians stopped as Dee worked his rope to tilt the mirror. From over two miles distant, it caught reflections of the bonfire on Richmond Hill and sent back the light in short bursts of flashes and pauses. Sometimes the glow from afar seemed to dwell within the big mirror itself and other times to leap from it to illumine the night. When Dee evidently moved the rope amiss, the beam would slash across thatched roofs, and once, even through the crowd.
The light show went on for nearly an hour until everyone’s neck was ready to break from looking upward. Elizabeth had forced herself to scan the crowd rather than just watch these signals she knew Dr. Dee would discuss with her later, for he hoped to use the sun’s light to signal from ship to ship in England’s meager navy. But now she saw something below just as compelling as the events above.
Giles Chatam was standing next to Katherine Dee, who had moved several steps away from her mother-in-law’s chair. And Floris, holding on to Kat’s hand, stood watching, perhaps even overhearing the two young people, though if they were speaking, it was circumspectly, out of the sides of their mouths.
When Katherine finally wheeled the old woman closer to John Dee and Giles went the other way with Ned trailing him, Elizabeth hurried to join Floris and Kat. “Could you hear what they were saying?” she asked Floris.
“He told her that her husband might be good with reflected light, but he could ignite a blaze in her to keep them both hotter than fire.”
Elizabeth nodded grimly. It sounded indeed like the sort of ornate speech that smooth-tongued actor would give. At least they had apparently not yet cuckolded Dr. Dee. But they knew each other, and so one or both of them could have committed mayhem with that supposedly stolen mirror. But exactly who and why?
Just to make their queen need the services of Dr. Dee or Giles and his players? Perhaps he—or Katherine, since she was on site that morning—had randomly selected a tent to ignite. When Lavina’s at the edge of the encampment did not catch fire, the arsonist tried to burn the next tent and succeeded. No, it could not be at random, because Kendale’s tent was tied shut from the outside. Or was that act disrelated to the fire?
“In case Kat is tired,” Elizabeth told Floris, “there’s a bench by the inn with the old couple who owns the place.”
“Oh, no need,” Floris said, squinting at the Garvers and shading her eyes even though the flashes of light hardly hit her here. “You’re not tired, are you, Lady Ashley? If so, I can take you inside to bed.”
“I never felt better,” Kat declared, however fragile and feeble she looked.
Despite all the chaos and Elizabeth’s fears, that was the best thing she had heard all day.
Notwithstanding her exhaustion, the queen could not sleep again that night. Too many people were crammed together at this inn. She kept drifting in and out of dreams, hearing creaking boards, no doubt one of the men upstairs getting up or shifting in his sleep. Someone somewhere was snoring in a muffled roar. And it was strangely dusty in this cleaned and painted chamber; the acrid scent scratched at her throat. Again as she pondered old Simon Garver’s sad story of Cuddington, she heard his deaf wife’s crackling voice, speaking of dead children.
Her mind had been in whirls, trying to think through who could be behind the fires at Nonsuch. It could not be Dr. Dee, not her Gil. And yet, how to prove it was someone else? The sweet spring sun had now become an enemy. She should pray for cloudy days to keep the killer at bay, should return her retinue to London, yet she could not bear to leave until she caught her deadly prey.
Her eyes began to sting and water. She rolled over again and stared into the gray, stale air in the room. Had fog or mist crept in clear up here? As she had earlier in the day, she marveled at the way the reflected light on the Thames threw flickering patterns on the ceiling. A full moon must have risen, which acted as the sun had earlier, but these colors were not silver or even pale gold. They were hot hues, something Gil would paint. And it was so bright out the windows of this room, suddenly even bright inside.
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