The Fyre Mirror (21 page)
Authors: Karen Harper
Tags: #Fiction - Historical, #Mystery, #16th Century, #England/Great Britain, #Royalty
THE ROPE WAS NOT LONG ENOUGH TO BRING DENCH TO the ground. To everyone’s horror, pumping his little legs to give himself more speed, he swung with great velocity up in a huge arc, then back toward his tree, where he intentionally rammed himself headfirst into the trunk.
Rosie screamed. Stunned, they stood stock-still at the sickening sound of Dench’s cracking skull rising above the rustle and twitter of the forest. He fell straight to the ground and lay motionless while his rope bounced, then swayed above him.
Elizabeth ran to him, hoping she could save him, have one last moment to ask him who were the “we” and “lady” he had referred to. But the moment she saw his bloodied head and grotesque sprawl, she knew that he was gone. He had taken so much with him, including the truth of whom he’d been working with.
Gil felt hot, then cold. He wasn’t sure where he was, but the woman who washed his face was not his mother and not Katherine Dee, nor one of the queen’s servants, either.
“Where am I?” he asked, but his voice came out a mere whisper.
“At the boatman’s home, poor lad,” the plump woman said, and lifted a tankard of something to his lips. Beer. Cool beer, or else he was burning up. But he had to get to the queen.
“Bit of a storm come up last night,” she went on cheerily. “They put in at our landin’ rather than takin’ you the rest of the way.”
“Got to go—Mortlake,” he said, then went back to gulping the beer she held to his mouth.
“Just a mile away. We can send one of the boys to tell your mother. You rest now.”
But the moment the kindly woman left the small room, Gil rolled to his side, swung his good leg over the bed, and lifted the other one down with both hands. He saw he had a new bandage on his ankle, though blood had seeped through that, too.
When he tried to stand, the entire room seemed to tilt and sway. But he could surely walk one mile. He’d just ask which way to Mortlake, to Dr. Dee’s, then step carefully on his cut leg, which burned now like the very pit of hell.
Already panting from his exertion, he stopped only to guzzle the rest of the beer. Wishing he had coins to leave for the kindness he’d been shown—and for the lighterman’s knocking that Italian assassin in the river—Gil made a vow. He’d see these people were rewarded if the queen took him back.
He started out the door into the wan afternoon sun, dragging his bad leg and hopes behind.
With the possibility of questioning the “running boy” gone, the queen acted quickly. She sent Clifford back to Cheam with Dench’s corpse and money for Beeson. Clifford was to thank the old man for his help and to see that Dench was buried, perhaps, she suggested, in Percy Mooring’s tomb. Jenks, meanwhile, was to accompany her and Rosie to the Dees’ house, then track down the acting troupe in local villages and bring Giles to her. Elizabeth and Rosie would question Katherine Dee and perhaps Dame Dee, to see what the old woman had observed of the death of Cuddington and birth of Nonsuch.
But after Jenks had ridden off in search of Giles, the queen and Rosie discovered that Katherine wasn’t home. John Dee himself greeted and escorted them into the solar while Elizabeth explained about Percy Mooring and his dwarf Dench.
“So, the puzzle begins to fit together, yet the very corner pieces are still missing,” he said, stroking his beard. When their serving girl came in with a tray of goblets, he added, “Ah, yes, Sarah with wine. But to see you suddenly here like this, Your Majesty, nearly unattended and thusly attired …”
“I could not leave these fire murders alone. No one is safe until the perpetrator is caught.”
“You recall the Roman emperor Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, Your Majesty.”
She shuddered involuntarily. The mere idea of her capital city going up in flames made her sick. “Semantics and stories aside,” she said, “I must speak with your wife the moment she returns.”
“But you do not think she has aught to do wi—”
“Of course not, but I thought she might have observed Giles Chatam. Since we have witnesses who say Dench worked for him in one way, we might assume—”
“Ah, indeed. Might assume that this demented Dench worked for Giles to set the fires, too. But why?”
“One possibility is that when Giles and his players came to Nonsuch just after the second fire, he said he thought they could calm the court.”
“As in that old adage ‘Music can soothe the savage breast,’ which so many erroneously believe is ‘soothe the savage beast.’ Only this time Giles must have hoped you would believe that comedies and romances soothe the distraught court—and queen.”
“Exactly,” she said, admiring his perceptive nature again, yet wondering if it hadn’t occurred to him and Katherine that a fire would also make their queen need Dr. Dee more. After all, it was exactly how she had reacted, both to Giles and the Dees—keeping them closer and bestowing benefits.
“But surely,” Dr. Dee said, “my Katherine cannot help you with information about this Giles Chatam fellow.”
“Has she ever mentioned him?”
“Only that she thought he was quite wonderful at the May Day festivities. I was so busy with the Maypole mirror that day—Ah, I think I hear her.”
Elizabeth stood and put down her goblet of untouched wine. “Let me greet her,” she said, holding up a hand to halt his rush, “and explain my need for her help.”
He nodded, but the queen could tell that he was worried. Perhaps he had put together the puzzle he had mentioned and found his dear Katherine was very possibly a missing piece.
Elizabeth left the solar and walked toward the young woman in the front hallway. When Katherine saw her, she gasped and dropped her basket of strawberries. They were so ripe that everywhere they bounced, including against the hems of both their skirts, they made crimson stains.
“Is my husband quite well?” Katherine cried. “I’m just startled to see you suddenly back here, Your Majesty, dressed so plainly.”
Elizabeth recalled that Katherine had dropped meat pastries at her feet the first day they met. She didn’t seem clumsy otherwise, so was such agitation the outward sign of a guilty heart?
“Come with me into the garden,” the queen said, and surprised Katherine even more by indicating she should precede her.
In the kitchen, Dame Dee was asleep, her mouth agape, her head cocked against her high-backed chair. In the walled garden, Katherine spun to face Elizabeth, the empty basket clutched in her hands before she threw it down.
“Whatever brings you back here so soon, Your Majesty?” she asked before Elizabeth could speak again. “And dressed—well, in disguise, I take it?”
“I am trying to learn all I can about the itinerant actor Giles Chatam, and thought you could help me.”
“Giles Chatam?” Katherine cried, not cloaking her surprise. “You think he has some part in this—this fire problem?”
“I don’t know yet and wish to accuse no one without proof. Katherine, as I have no patience for circling around what I need to know, tell me plain your relationship to Giles Chatam.”
Katherine gasped again, a quick little intake of breath. “Why, I’ve seen him, of course, and thought he was quite wonderful and told him so.”
“You’ve been observed in intimate conversation with him.”
“What? By whom? It’s a foul lie!”
“One of my own servants observed you in most earnest, privy conversation with him nearly on your front doorstep the day of the Mortlake fair.”
“Your Majesty, I swear your servant is mistaken.”
“And I have it on good authority that you were listening to his romantic whisperings the night of the festival. How did you respond to his claim that he could make you hotter than your husband’s fire mirror that night?”
The young woman looked truly aghast. Her palm over her mouth, she collapsed on the bench where the two of them had sat before.
“Katherine,” the queen said, sitting and leaning closer, “this is all deadly serious. Have you been lying?”
Her hand still over her mouth, like a child, she nodded wildly.
“Who first came up with the idea of the fires, you or Giles?”
“No—not that,” Katherine whispered, now gripping both hands between her breasts. “I did not speak privily with him, nor did he speak such fiery words to me. I lied only about losing and finding my husband’s Venetian magnifying mirror. Oh, forgive me, Your Majesty, but I wanted you to need my advice, and to invite him to court more—myself, too—and perhaps pay him more. That is how I lied—only that. I wanted to make you think he might be in danger because someone stole his mirror, so you would want to protect him more … .” Tears soaked her thick lashes and splattered on her flushed cheeks each time she blinked. “I hid the mirror, then pretended to find it. Oh, now I’ve ruined everything!”
“You claim you had no improper, intimate relationship with the actor Giles Chatam?”
“I swear it!” the young woman whispered, looking straight into the queen’s eyes.
Elizabeth’s voice rose in frustration. “Do you deny you ever so much as met him at your front door and stood whispering to him on most intimate terms during the May Day festival?”
“I not only deny it, but defy anyone who says different!”
“Your Majesty,” Dr. Dee called from the inside the house, “your young artist Gil Sharpe has just arrived, and he’s been hurt!” Dee stepped to the door. “We’re tending him. I know you wanted privacy, but I thought you should know.”
The queen and Katherine ran into the kitchen, where Dame Dee had been roused. Though she was still seated, she dabbed with a wet cloth at Gil’s infected-looking ankle. His leg was extended on a bench on which he sat, with his back propped against the hearth near Dame Dee’s chair. He looked flushed, filthy, sweaty, and bedraggled.
“Gil,” Elizabeth cried, leaning over him, “what happened? What are you doing here?” She squeezed his shoulder and bent closer as he groggily opened his eyes.
“I didn’t do it, Your Grace. I escaped but didn’t do it. My lord Cecil says I did, but I didn’t.”
“His cut’s infected,” Dame Dee said, her voice raspy. “’Tis the fever talking.”
They heard a horse outside, coming fast. Dr. Dee ran out, then back in. “It’s your man with Giles Chatam,” he announced.
“Dr. Dee and Rosie,” the queen threw over her shoulder as she hurried out, “I trust you will remain here to help Katherine treat Gil.” Surely, she thought, Katherine Dee could not escape, even if she was guilty—but the thing was, Elizabeth was coming to believe that she was not.
She wondered if Jenks would have Giles tied, but the handsome actor sat easily, gracefully, behind him on the same horse. “Look, Your Grace,” Jenks called out. “Met him with his fellows on the road just outside of town.”
Giles lifted a leg up and over and slid off as Jenks dismounted. “Your Majesty,” Giles said with another of his exquisite bows, “I am amazed to see you looking so countrified, but the effect is entirely charming. I hear you have need of our troupe again?”
“Need of you at least. I want to know flat out with no thespian flourishes or spouted lines, what in heaven or hell is your relationship to Dench Barlow?”
“The dwarf? I can probably get him to come with us if you’d advance me some money, though he’s a bit addlepated. I’ve had him merely beat the drum for us off and on to draw a crowd in these rustic rubbish piles where we’ve had to play, but I could teach him to act the fool at court if you wish.”
“And what is your relationship to Katherine Dee? Have you ever tried to sweet-talk her, to put it politely, man?”
He frowned and tapped his index finger against his lips as if he were actually trying to recall, but then he’d probably left a line of swooning women in his wake. “She’s fetching, I’ll admit that, but I’d never dawdle with the magician’s wife, if that’s what you imply.”
“You fear him?”
“No, for I warrant he’s all noise and show in his performances,” he said, gesturing broadly. “In a way, he’s an actor like myself, with his own brains behind the effects rather than someone else’s script. But I want to keep him on my good side. Someone who’s that brilliant with winches and rigged ropes to fly scenery and mirrors and lights for special effects, why—” He stopped speaking for one moment. “What about Katherine Dee? She told me she thought I played a wonderful role on May Day, but—Your Majesty?”
Though she was dealing now with a consummate actor, unlike Katherine Dee, something told Elizabeth that the rogue, too, was telling the truth. Not that she had not been hoodwinked by liars before, for she had. But Giles Chatam believed he could get by on his looks, charm, and sweet speech, so why would he ever turn to murder? And he had seemed so honestly distraught when he had confessed to her that he was an actor because he wished to be anyone but himself after his parents died in that tragic fire in his youth, a fire he passionately claimed he did not start. Then too, his version of events matched Katherine’s down to the least detail: she had used exactly the same word—
wonderful
—to describe how she’d praised his performance.
wonderful
—to describe how she’d praised his performance.
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