“While you play the innocents and heroes, I suppose,” she said and managed a laugh. “Best be careful, Ned Topside, queen’s master player, or all your friends will see right through you,” she scolded and, most unqueen-like, pushed him back and darted to the table to read the playlet he’d written.
“I’m going out,” he announced, hard on her heels; he snatched the paper before she could read it.
“But you’re to stay here.”
“I’ll be back directly, but I’ve got to use the jakes and can hardly borrow Her Majesty’s velvet close stool, now can I?”
“How do you know about something as privy as her close stool?”
“Let’s just say,” he muttered, “she’s as good as dumped me in it lately.”
“Ned Topside!”
“Stop fretting. My stomach’s just upset by something I ate at dinner, and it’s ruining my disposition, too.”
Meg wondered if he actually had a wench to meet He didn’t look ill. She knew he was vexed with the queen, but that gave him no leave to ignore her wishes. Hands on hips, Meg watched Ned walk away, open the door, duck under the yeomen’s crossed halberds before they could react, and disappear at a good clip down the hall.
The door to the boathouse moaned mournfully, but the interior provided shelter from the cutting wind as the queen, Cecil, and Jenks stepped inside. The large wooden structure sat upon rows of sawhorses and four-foot stilts along the river bank, but the entrance was level with the smaller of the two barge landings. Not only were the valuable rivercraft being kept under lock and key; the thick double doors were barricaded by a large beam bar the two men had lifted to get in.
Their two lanterns illumined the queen’s massive state barge sitting high on tree trunks where it had been rolled in. Two other passenger barges and several working boats were hulking shadows in the depths of the low-ceilinged building. The single small window at the back overlooked the frozen river.
“Over here, in this far corner,” Cecil said and started away. Elizabeth followed, then Jenks with the second lantern.
Floorboards groaned under their feet; the entire edifice creaked from the cold like old bones. Elizabeth and Jenks slowed their strides when they approached the ten-foot wherry in the corner. A sliver of moonlight sliced across the boat’s prow.
“I had him laid in here like a mummy in a sarcophagus, so we’ll have to unwrap his head,” Cecil said, leaning over the side of the boat.
As Elizabeth stepped closer and looked into the ribbed hull, she wished she hadn’t eaten even one little tart. In this cold, no odor emanated from the body, but the sight of the shrouded form shook her deeply. Cecil’s mummy comparison aside, Hodge was laid out lengthwise in the boat, as if he were about to be launched for a fiery Viking funeral.
“Your Grace,” Cecil interrupted her thoughts, “if you can hold a light for us, we can unwrap the top of his head, keeping his face covered.”
“Yes, good idea,” she said, taking the lantern Cecil held.
Jenks put down his lantern and little bundle of pastries on the wherry’s single seat and climbed inside the hull to support Hodge’s shoulders while Cecil opened the shroud from the top; they worked together to turn the body so that the back of the head was visible.
“Definitely struck from behind and with a downward blow,” the queen observed, her voice sounding as shrill as did the wind through the boathouse chinks and cracks. They all startled at a distant hollow boom followed by a crackling sound.
“Just river ice settling,” Cecil said. “It will be solid soon, but back to business. Hopefully, he never knew what hit him.”
“But we must discern exactly what did,” she said, “for it is our best hope to solve this riddle. There—hold him a moment just like that Yes, I see the shape of the blow.” Holding the lantern in one hand, she rested her other on an oarlock and bent closer. “But his thick, blood-matted hair keeps us from clearly discerning whatever pattern was on the weapon,” she observed. “The coroner at least should have washed his head there. I wish we had some sort of lather to shave that spot for a close look.”
“I could go fetch some and a razor,” Jenks offered.
“No, I think that won’t be necessary. Since the coroner is finished with the body, and we are the ones who will bury him when there’s a thaw, I don’t think anyone will even notice what I intend. Jenks, let me borrow your knife and those Maids of Honor, if you please.”
Both men held the corpse while Elizabeth proceeded to smear the custard filling over the area on Hodge’s head obscured by blood and hair. Carefully but awkwardly, her hand shaking, she began to shave his matted hair away.
“I can do that, Your Grace,” Cecil said.
“Just keep holding him. I’m going to use this cloth to wipe it off, and then we shall all see what pattern of murder weapon lies beneath.”
Her belly cramped from leaning into the boat as well as from her stomach-churning task. At least Cecil’s sketch had captured texture as well as shape: Whatever had hit Hodge from behind had dented in his flesh and skull in a pattern. Within the outer form, there was a sort of band or belt with what might be an insignia in the middle of the band.
“A coat of arms or design, even a short word?” she asked, shifting the lantern to try to make the contours of the wound stand out in shadow. “If only we could read it!”
“As the coroner suggested, made by a sword hilt?” Cecil said. “Or by a large kitchen utensil?”
“That brighter light’s better,” Jenks observed, and Elizabeth nodded until her stomach cartwheeled again.
“What light?” she asked. “No one’s moved a lantern, and the moonlight can’t shift that fast. Could someone have a light outside?”
She tore her gaze away from the corpse. Through the single window of the boathouse, moonlight flooded in. No, it could not be that, she reasoned, for this was golden, warm light, not that of the winter moon.
“Someone must have lit a fire outside on the ice“ she said. “We’ll be seen leaving here and going back to the palace.”
Both men looked up as she hurried to the window, then scrubbed at the swirling frost patterns on it so she could see out. She suddenly recalled how Hodge, lying in the boat, had looked as if he were about to be launched for a Viking funeral.
“We must run!” she cried. “I wager someone’s lit a fire under us!”
Jenks dropped the body and vaulted from the wherry. Grabbing a lantern, he ran to the door and rattled it. “It’s locked or barred from outside!” he shouted. “We’re trapped!”
Chapter the Fifth
Mince Pie Mangers
This Yuletide variation of mincemeat pie should be baked in a rectangular crust, in the shape of a manger to recall the birth of the Savior. But the following recipe for the filling must be made months ahead so it can ferment. Mixtures of spices and liquors well preserve perishable meats and fruits.
Grind or crush (some use large stones for this mincing) 1½ pounds boiled beef ½ pound suet. Combine with 4 cups beef broth and the following: l½ teaspoons salt; 2 pounds apples, peeled, cored, and chopped; 3 cups brown sugar, tightly packed; 2 cups raisins; l½ cup currants; 2 tea-spoons powdered cinnamon; 1 teaspoon each of powdered mace, cloves, and nutmeg; 2 cups finely chopped candied rinds; 2 lemons with rind, ground up; 3 oranges with rind, ground up; l½ cups cider; 2 cups of red or white wine, such as Rhenish or sack. Seal and age at least 3 months.
“WILL ONE OF THESE SMALL OARS FIT BETWEEN THE doors to lift the bar?” the queen asked Jenks as she and Cecil rushed to join him at the entrance to the boathouse. “I doubt if someone has the other key to lock us in. It’s probably just barred.” But she saw that the crack between the doors would take nothing wider than a sword, and such would never lift that heavy piece of wood.
They could smell smoke now, curling through the floorboard cracks; they could hear the crisp crackle of flames. Surely, the queen thought, on the open riverbank in the cold of night, a fire had not been set by vagabo
nds trying to keep warm.
“Someone will see the blaze and come running!” Cecil cried, then began coughing in the thickening pall of smoke.
“But maybe not in time!” Jenks shouted. “I can break the window, but it’s high up from the ice.”
“Yes, break it!” Elizabeth ordered.
The men lifted a large oar from the state barge and smashed the window. Cold air and smoke belched in but, God be thanked, no flames so high yet The men ran the oar around the small window, knocking out the panes of thick glass and their diamond-shaped metal frames.
“I’ll drop down first to be sure no one’s waiting,” Jenks said, ripping off his surcoat. She thought he would discard it to keep it from catching fire, but he laid it over the jagged sill of the shattered window. Just behind their feet, tongues of flames flicked through the floorboards.
Drawing his sword and using only one hand to drop, Jenks went lithely out the window.
“All clear!” he shouted up. “No one!”
“All at tables and revels,” the queen muttered, but she sucked in smoke and began choking, too. Her skirts and cloak burdened her, so she threw the cloak out first, then divested herself of layers of petticoats and heaved them out. With Cecil’s help above and Jenks’s below, she climbed out, dangled, then dropped the short way. Jenks half caught her, but the bank was slick with frozen mud; she sat down hard and sprawled out onto the river ice. Jenks came sliding after her, but she told him, “I’m fine. Help Cecil!”
He was soon out the window, too. “ ’S blood,” she cursed as the two men helped her climb the banks with her gown hems dragging, “I’ll have the head of whoever set that blaze. And, I war-rant, we’ll find it’s a villain who’s as adept with nooses as with fire-brands.”
Even the voices of the boys’ choir from St. Paul’s, echoing so sweetly in the chapel at Whitehall, could not calm the queen the next morning. At the beginning of the Christmas service, as she had requested, a prayer had been offered for Hodge Thatcher’s soul, though it had not been announced that someone—perhaps someone here in the congregation—had killed the man.
Not only did Elizabeth have a murder on her hands, but she was blessed to still be alive herself. Last night, Jenks had summoned help to fight the fire while she and Cecil had beat a hasty retreat back to the privy staircase. But with the river frozen, water to douse the flames had been slow coming. The building, with Hodge’s body inside, had burned to its footers. Only the state barge had been saved, rolled out at the last minute because it sat so near the doors.
A hue and cry had gone out for the vagabonds who were supposedly to blame, but the queen believed Hodge’s murderer had set the fire, at best to warn her, at worst to roast her like the Christmas peacock or suckling pig. Unfortunately, the press of people trying to put the fire out had trampled any other boot prints they might have matched to the one Cecil had sketched.
Elizabeth shifted in her seat. The service had gone on for nearly an hour already, most of it with Bishop Grindal’s droning sermon.
“The holy scriptures of this blessed morn are, of course,” he intoned, “readings of the nativity of our Lord.”
His shrill voice roused her from her exhaustion and agonizing. However did this man come so far with that voice, she wondered. There were many fine, deep-voiced ministers she had known, but this one had talents and powers to rise above his greatest weakness.
As if he were a politican and not a prelate, the silver-haired, portly bishop had a habit of seeming to smile no matter what he said; sometimes it seemed his plump face would crack open like a porcelain ball. It was ironic that Grindal always looked quite smug and jolly compared to his chief aide, Martin Bane. Thin and black-garbed as a raven, Vicar Bane stood beneath the pulpit as if he were some sort of enforcer of whatever his earthly master might decree.
Elizabeth felt hemmed in with the Earl of Sussex on her right hand and the Scots envoy, Simon MacNair, on her left, though she had invited both men to those seats. Margaret Stewart and Lord Darnley were also in plain sight, across the aisle in the front row. Behind her sat Kat and Rosie. Robin, fuming at not being asked to sit next to her, was on MacNair’s other side. She must tell Robin, at least, what had really happened to Hodge. He and everyone else here today knew he had enemies at court, but not that one particular person had stooped to both mockery and murder—and perhaps even attempted a fiery assassination of the queen.
“So it was while they were in Bethlehem, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger.
“That humble manger,” the bishop continued, looking up from his text, “must be a reminder to us of humility. It is wrong to pursue overly lighthearted practices at this season. For instance, I speak to those who allow your mincemeat pies to be fashioned in the shape of the manger and brought to your feasts and who then celebrate with great abandon. And is it not pure, pagan superstition that a person will have as many happy months in the upcoming year as mince pies one tastes?”
Mince pies, Elizabeth thought Bane had called snowballing profane yesterday, and now Grindal was scolding about mince pies? Did they not see the important things in this holiday season? Did they not know the large political and social as well as religious issues she faced, which made snowballing and pies mere trifles?
“Have not some of you,” he plunged on, “even decorated that pie with springs of holly or the pagan mistletoe? Have I not heard that some have placed upon such a pie the pastry form of a babe, which was then devoured with said pie?”
Elizabeth had given him no leave to scold her people for age-old traditions of the day. He and his spokesman Bane presumed far too much of late. Not daring to look her way, Grindal continued reading,
“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of judea, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.’ “
Though she was tempted to stand and order Grindal to stick to such readings and not his own rantings, the queen settled back in her seat again. She wanted nothing to ruin the beauty or sanctity of this day. Already the season had gone awry with Hodge’s death and the Christmas Eve tradition of the Yule log being postponed until today. Still trying to find a compromise between mourning for a death and rejoicing in the Lord’s birth, she had asked that a religious mystery play be performed tonight and had postponed the Lord of Misrule’s antics yet again.
“That star was a sign to the wise men of that day,” Grindal said. “And today, do not those who are wise read the signs of the times, too? When lightning struck the dome of St. Paul’s three years ago and caused the fire, some said it was a sign that God Himself was displeased with the indulgent, extravagant way that some ornate, Catholic practices were yet clung to in this land while it is claimed such things are purged and purified.”
“And,” the queen muttered only loud enough for those around her to hear, “some said that fire was God’s displeasure with a radical, Puritan-leaning bishop who can do naught but criticize and carp!
Simon MacNair, despite the fact he represented the Catholic queen of Scotland, murmured his approval of her words.
“And have we not now had a like sign?” the bishop went on, while Vicar Bane nodded as if his head were hollow and set on a stick. “The fire which destroyed the royal boathouse last night seems a warning against too much levity or frivolity at court this time of year. And the death of the man in the kitchens who was to decorate the peacock—one wonders if we are not harkening back to the pre-Papist church days of yore when the pagans had a human sacrifice—”
“What?” Elizabeth cried. “We harken back to no such thing!” Pews creaked and satins rustled as heads snapped her way. Bishop Grindal seemed momentarily cowed, though his lackey Bane looked furious at her interruption.
“I’ll not have my London bishop prophesying or pronouncing judgment on the c
ourt and Christmas!” she went on. “You are not here to cast a pall but to give your blessing. Choir, another song, something for a recessional. Let us have 'Good Christian Men Rejoice,’ for that is what we should all do on these Twelve Days, beginning with the bringing in of the belated Yule log to the Great Hall forthwith. Though there will be no mumming this evening, we shall view a mystery play by a visiting troupe called the Queen’s Country Players. Bishop, will you dismiss us with your blessing?”
Elizabeth of England stood, glaring at Grindal and Bane. Everyone else rose. His voice still defiant, Grindal pronounced a blessing on them all. The queen barely let him get out his Amen before she bade Robin escort her out.
Elizabeth cheered with her courtiers and servants as six men dragged the huge Yule log into the Great Hall. It vexed her that Bishop Grindal—who had, she’d heard, hastily departed the palace, leaving Bane to oversee things—had been right about one matter: She’d read in some history book that in olden, pagan days, this part of the festival had included a human sacrifice.
The log was actually a tree trunk, marked a year before, on last Christmas Day. Though the lengths of logs varied by the status of households and the size of hearths, any of the queen’s palaces could take one of ten feet. Her arm around Kat’s shoulders, Elizabeth watched it drawn along the floor to impromptu singing and some dancing to carols played by the musicians in the gallery overhead.
“Oh, prettily decorated!” Kat cried in her excitement and clapped her hands like a child. “I haven’t seen one that gaily done with garlands and ribbons for years!”
“I am happy that you are happy, my Kat,” Elizabeth told her.
Everyone followed the log as it was rolled and lifted onto andirons; burning brands were thrust under its middle.
“Wait'” Robin cried. “Who has the piece of it kept to light next year’s log? As Lord of Misrule, it is my duty to keep it safe.”
“I see you have studied your duties well,” Elizabeth called to him over the hubbub. He did not look so angry at her now. Robin had always liked being the center of attention, and she did not mind sharing that with him today. It warmed her to see everyone so merry, though the smell of smoke and the sight of flames recalled too well her nightmare in the boathouse last night.