Mistress of Mourning (31 page)

“Yes, I—I think he said something like he thanked me for my…my future assistance,” I said, almost stammering.

“Future?”

“I had mentioned the chandlery to him, for candles and shrouds if his cousin died. Oh, I rue the day I told him where to find me, though he never visited, as far as I know.”

“Of course we can’t be certain it was Lovell. He could be dead or in Europe yet, for all I know—if he ever went there in the first place. But if it was Lovell, I’ll wager he knew who you were before his pretended chance encounter, at least that you were going to the palace, working for the queen. Mayhap he was lurking around to try to harm Arthur and Catherine then, or maybe to get access to the queen, Prince Henry, the king himself—hell, I don’t know! Damn the dangerous demon, if it was him. He could not harm the Tudors in London, so he came to Wales.…I don’t know.”

“But so few knew about my ties to the queen. Even if he
followed me to Westminster, how would he know whom I went to serve or why? Could Jamie have told someone, such as maybe his brother, who serves the king at the Tower? But why would the stranger, Lord Lovell or whoever he is, try to harm me either in the crypt or the bog?”

“I know not, but if your Alan Bainton from Colchester said he was looking for the grave of a Stoker, perhaps it was in reference to his pride in arranging, then escaping capture in the Battle of Stoke. These things may be circumstantial, but some of the pieces fit.”

“I…Yes, it seems far-fetched, but so is believing in a ghost. How devious! As if he’s playing a game, enjoying all this.”

“There’s more. Bainton was the name of one of Lovell’s favorite properties in Yorkshire, forfeited years ago, as all his possessions were once the king attainted him. After he fled the Battle of Bosworth Field, promising to fight the Tudors another day, it was rumored that Lovell fled first to St. John’s Abbey in Colchester. Later—rumors again—he left the abbey to lead another revolt against King Henry. All of that…I’m not sure, and was too young to do anything about it. When that rebellion failed, word was he found sanctuary in the Netherlands, but now I’d bet my life, which indeed I may be doing, that he’s back with a vengeance and intends violence against the Tudors.”

“Or has committed it already against the prince. So perhaps he hates those, like us, who closely serve them.”

“Or he needs to stop us, especially because he may have heard how I hate him in turn, or he fears we are onto his game. Yet I would wager all I have that he wouldn’t bother
with the likes of us unless it could serve his ultimate purpose to harm or kill the king.”

“But even if he somehow learned I have access to the queen, could he know for what? Could he know about my carving the effigies—that the queen was deeply disturbed by the loss of her brothers and her children? No, how could he? I think we’re reading too much in. Maybe my dream was full of foolish fears.”

“I still say too much fits. But if he’s really back in England, the king must be warned.”

’Round and ’round we went, until our voices trailed off from exhaustion. Just where we sat, I clung to Nick and he to me that night, both with our own thoughts and terrors, dozing, then jolting awake again. It took not only a rapping on my door but also the crier in the corridor, calling, “Rise and make ready! Rise and make ready!” to rouse us fully.

When the crier had passed, Nick slipped out to his own room, and I, still stiff and sore from my flight through the bog and sitting up most of last night, donned my cloak and lifted my saddle packs. I could hear the rain beating on the window, and I dreaded going out to face the long, mournful journey. Even more, I dreaded being out in the open, where our mystery murderer—be he Lord Lovell or, for all I knew, Glendower’s ghost—could shoot an arrow at me. At least we were leaving Wales and would surely be safer soon.

I
t was easy to find my place in the waiting funeral procession, close behind the hearse, draped with black velvet and now covered with Westcott waxen cloth to protect it from the rain. How I wished that my departed husband as well as my hardworking sister and brother-in-law could share this moment of pride with me. I would tell my dearest boy, my own Arthur, that the chandlery he would inherit someday had made the covering and the candles for Prince Arthur, the boy who would have been king.

As I adjusted the cloth to be sure it was tightly tied, I noted that Rhys Garnock was on a horse, back in the group of guards. His father must have agreed that he could go with us. Had Nick known and forgotten or forgone to tell me that too? And where was he?

As if I’d shouted his name, he appeared at my elbow and pulled me back under an archway out of the rain. “Just before the last London courier arrived, I was given a letter for us
from the king and queen,” he told me. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the hubbub. He patted his leather pouch, so I assumed he had the missive there. I could not have read it in this gray, rainy dawn anyway. “It seems that, under our names, a package was sent from here via the same messenger who goes back and forth. The package held a heart.”

I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth before lowering it to ask, “A human heart?”

“They thought so at first. But the royal physician deemed it the heart of a beast. And another beast is back in England—Lovell. The king’s informants have it on good authority.”

I grasped his hands hard, but he didn’t so much as flinch. He was looking at me but through me, perhaps seeing his enemy in his mind’s eye, though he’d said he was not certain what he looked like. But was I?

“Then,” I whispered, “that could have been Lord Lovell or one of his lackeys who shot those arrows at me.”

“Probably not a fellow conspirator, as Lovell seems to be working alone this time. Having failed more than once in open rebellion, perhaps he’s now a lone wolf, damn him! Killing the prince, trying to poison the princess. But yes, why try to capture or harm you—twice, or even three times?”

“Yes. If the man in the cemetery and in the bog is the same one who chased me in the crypt, I vow he killed
Signor
Firenze too! But why should he be after him and me? Because we served the queen? And how could he know of our sacred, secret task of creating her wax effigies? Could he have killed Fey too?”

“I don’t know, and we can’t tarry now.” Nick exhaled
hard and stared out into the gray morning mist. “All I know is that with his tricks and treacheries, Lovell’s back, and I’m going to get him, whatever it takes.”

“The heart of a beast,” I whispered, picturing the horrid package Their Majesties had received, and under our names. Nick had started away but turned back. “Do they think we would do such a thing?”

“I sent a brief message back explaining we knew naught of that outrage. As for the messenger who delivered the package, he recalls nothing of its donor but that a tall man with a sun-browned face and silver hair—a deep cleft in his chin, more like a scar, also—caught up with him just outside the castle as he rode last time for London and gave him the package from us.”

“Alan Bainton from the cemetery! Probably the poison peddler from the bog!”

Nick nodded solemnly. “In my reply to Their Majesties, I said only that we would have news to report to them about what I called our personal preparations for the funeral. I signed from both of us but dared not say more in writing. I’m not sure whom we can trust anymore.”

“Except each other,” I said. I felt Nick was distancing himself from me again, but I could hardly blame him for being caught up in the rush of duties for this departure. And surely Their Majesties must know we would do nothing like that. Had not the queen realized that I, who agonized over my lost son, would never be a party to such a horror?

“It was the heart cut from that steer in the bog!” I insisted. “It must have been, and that peddler devil meant for them to think they’d been sent the prince’s heart.”

“Or it was some sort of message to them—a clever threat. ‘You have had, or will have, the heart cut right out of you’—something like that. Varina, what if Lovell has them on his death list next? As bad as all this news is, I wanted you to know. We need to leave. I just pray that those six black-draped horses can pull the hearse on these roads. I’m taking a team of oxen along just in case. Keep an eye on that coffin—and be careful. I’ll be near.”

Rhys appeared to help me mount, giving me such a strong boost up that I almost catapulted off the other side. “Sorry, milady,” he said. “Not so used to horses yet.”

“Rhys,” I said, leaning down to him, “you must call me ‘Mistress Westcott’ and call Nick ‘Master Sutton,’ instead of ‘milady’ and ‘milord.’ You have a lot to learn, including that titles and rankings matter. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth a bit more shut until you have been around for a while.”

“I’m grateful, Mistress Westcott. Many thanks to you and Master Sutton for taking me on.”

I was going to ask him what Nick had told him about whom he was to serve, but a sudden hush fell over the assembled entourage. Hearing muted gasps and whispers, I sat up straight and looked around. From the shadows where Nick and I had just stood emerged a woman I thought at first to be a nun. It was the princess Catherine in black formal mourning attire, including a nunlike barb headdress that covered all but her face. Had she come to bid Godspeed to her husband’s coffin?

Men nearby who recognized her in the dim light snatched their caps off, then dismounted to help the women
dismount and kneel. The princess was supported—propped up, more like—by two of her women with hooded capes. She whispered to them, and they stepped back as she gazed up at the coffin on the hearse, blinking into the rain, which soon streamed down her wan face. If she was crying, I could not tell.

Not waiting for Nick or Rhys, I slid off my mount and went to the cart that held the extra wax cloth. I had two rolls of it separated from the rest, lest I needed to grab them fast to rewrap the coffin en route. Nick had appeared again as word of the royal arrival spread up and down the entourage, and many others dismounted and knelt on the wet cobbles. The Earl of Surrey appeared from his forward position in the procession, bowed, then took Her Grace’s hand.

Nick rose from his bow, saw what I was doing, and hauled Rhys over to me. “Rhys,” I whispered, not waiting for Nick’s order, “hold high the back of this cloth behind the princess while Nick and I cover her with the front.”

Having freed herself from Surrey, the young widow was now standing with both hands flat upon the side of the coffin, stroking it through the layers of waxen cloth and black velvet. She pressed her forehead, then her mouth there in a farewell kiss. Tears blurred my eyes as we three held the covering over her. “
Adios, adios, mi esposo, mi amor
,” I heard her whisper over the patter of the rain on the cloth above us. Then she added, “
Que te vayas con Dios.
”

As she turned toward the castle, her gaze caught mine. I think she saw for the first time that we held the shelter over her. She seemed to simply nod her thanks, and I thought she would pass on, but she gripped my wrist with amazing
strength and said, “I never forget your kindnesses. Like an angel, guide him to his rest.”

Her two women were instantly at her side again. How much she seemed to have aged, but it was probably that close-fitting black barb that made her look so pinched and pale. My heart went out to her, one young widow to another.
Like an angel
, she had said to me. Like the carved angel candle I had given her…

In that moment, despite my fears, I made a vow: Even at great risk to myself, I would help Nick find and stop Lord Lovell.

Despite the initial inspiration we mourners took from the people of Ludlow village lining the road—I saw Rhys’s family wave him farewell—the journey was arduous. The roads that we had covered so quickly heading west had been churned to mud and mire as we plodded east. All along the way, my eyes scanned dripping foliage, the dark places of the forests. In the open fields I felt we were being watched too, though I could see no one riding abreast, even afar. Looking for a tall, caped man, I scanned the faces of the mourners from villages and farms along the way. When I saw one or two such in the dreary miles, I jerked alert, my eyes searching for Nick if he rode not beside me, until I saw the humble roadside mourner was not the very devil himself but another man.