Murder at Hatfield House (16 page)

Elizabeth shook her head, still smiling. “You
do
pay too much attention, Kate. I say many things for many reasons. The single state must surely be the most prudent, but it is sometimes a lonely one. You are so young still, and have so many choices before you. You must ponder them all well.”

“I shall, Your Grace,” Kate said, mystified as to what might have brought this on. Elizabeth was not usually one to pry into her servants’ private lives, as long as they worked hard and were loyal to her. Kate herself knew she couldn’t think of the future any more than Elizabeth could, not until her father was better and their lives more settled. “Most carefully.”

Elizabeth nodded and turned away. “Then wear the gown tonight, if only to cheer me. And keep the cloak. The red suits you better than it does me.”

Kate thought of how the cloak kept her so warm on the chilly days. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“And send Penelope to me. I must dress for the evening’s festivities.”

*

Kate played a song on her lute as she watched the servants carry in chairs and benches from the dining hall and line them up in front of the makeshift stage. The players were in the curtained-off area behind, and she could hear the sound of their voices as they ran snatches of lines, shouted and murmured, complained about costumes, but she could make little sense of the words.

She wondered if they were to perform the Princess of Carthage play, or if old Master Cartman had truly changed his mind to go with the older, more comic work. All Master Rob had done when she appeared in the great hall was send her to this seat with a distracted smile. He hadn’t even seemed to notice her new gown, or the way Peg had styled her hair with ivory ribbons. When she asked what music she was to play, he answered, “Something that will hold their attention.”

Which was not terribly helpful. Kate supposed she would just have to wait and see what happened when the curtain went up.

In the meantime, she softly played some of the Spanish songs she’d taken to Brocket Hall and watched as the audience filed in after supper. Elizabeth came first, and she sat down in the front row with Sir Thomas and Lady Pope. Sir Thomas seemed gray-faced and distracted, constantly scanning the room as if he feared attackers would leap out of the woodwork. Kate could hardly blame him; she felt that way herself, wary and shivery.

Lady Pope sat with her hands folded and her lips pinched together, disapproving as always.

Penelope sat behind Elizabeth, staring down at the lap of her skirt as she pleated the fine damask fabric between her fingers and smoothed it out again. Kate’s friend looked unusually introspective, as if she was as haunted by feelings of dread as Kate was herself. Kate tried to catch her eye, to give her a reassuring smile, but Penelope didn’t look up. The rest of the servants filed into the back of the hall.

Once Elizabeth and the others were settled, the doors swung open again and Braceton came in. Kate was shocked by his appearance. She’d heard the echo of his shouting when he returned from the village, the terrible threats of the queen’s holy wrath on anyone who had so profaned her church. Just what everyone had come to expect from him—threats and danger, destruction. The whole house seemed to hold its breath to see what would befall it next.

But then a taut silence lowered over the place, like the gray clouds outside and the cold wind that had swept up again. And Kate would hardly have known the man who sat down behind Penelope as Braceton at all. His burly, red-faced bluster was gone, leaving his face white and drawn behind his beard. He took in the stage with narrowed eyes, his fists braced on his knees, yet he said nothing. Merely watched, and waited.

Somehow that quiet attention was worse than anything else had been. Clearly the manner of poor Ned’s death was meant as some sort of message to the queen’s man. A taunt, perhaps—a grotesque warning centered around his Catholic religion. Perhaps the murderer was someone who had lost Protestant relatives to the queen’s fires? Braceton would never let such a thing go unpunished, unanswered. But who would pay?

No demon, as the girl had wailed, but someone very human.

“Psst! Mistress Kate,” someone whispered.

Kate tore herself out of her dark worries, and glanced over to see Rob Cartman peering at her from between the curtains. His golden hair gleamed in the torchlight.

“’Tis
The Princess of Carthage
tonight,” he said. “You can start the prelude.”

Kate nodded, and launched into the lively piece she had just finished learning. It was an interesting song, with an atmosphere of sunnier climes in its tune, a feeling of dancing nymphs and decadent banquets, of sea waves sliding across warm sand and birds swooping low over perpetually green trees.

Yet there was an air of sadness that lay over its lightness, a faint hint of darkness ahead that seemed to suit the night they now found themselves in.

She could feel the eyes of the audience on her as she played, Pope’s wary, Braceton’s piercing, Elizabeth’s encouraging, but Kate let herself sink into the music and become lost. Sometimes music was the only escape, though surely it could never last for long.

As the last notes of the song faded away, the stage curtains swept open, and Master Cartman stepped forward. A gold-edged white toga was draped over his fine dark red doublet and black hose, and his graying hair was covered by a plumed helmet. A blunt-nosed stage sword hung at his side, rattling as he bowed low before the princess.

“My lady, and good gentles all,” he said in a booming voice. He swept a grand gesture over the room, and Kate was amazed that he suddenly seemed not like the changeable, bad-tempered, nervous man who stormed around shouting unpredictably at the other actors. He seemed large, regal, almost otherworldly, and she knew she was back in the magic of playacting. It had been far too long, and despite everything she found herself drawn in. She could tell from the rapt looks on the audience’s faces that they were, too.

Except for Braceton, who still scowled.

“Imagine yourselves not at Hatfield House, not in the midst of the cold and the rain,” Master Cartman went on. “But be transported to a warmer shore, in a place and time far away. A time where emperors of great kingdoms wage wars on one another to win the fertile fields and the shore of the sea, where virginal maidens tend sacrificial flames in vast and rich temples, where conquered peoples are enslaved to the powerful. And where forbidden love blooms. . . .”

He bowed again, and left the stage as the curtains swept open. Kate leaned forward over her lute to examine the scene. The props she’d seen spilled out of trunks and cluttered around the hall now set a classical milieu. White columns set to either side of the stage framed a painted cloth of palm trees and green hills. A pasteboard chaise was set to one side, and one of the young apprentices lounged upon it. He too was transformed, by a long blond wig and a pleated white gown.

He pressed the back of his hand to his brow in despair and glanced at Kate. As she launched into the first chords, he began to sing.

I am Melsemene, princess of Carthage.

He sang in a sweet, pure voice, not yet cracked by adulthood. His words told the tale of how the princess was her father’s only child, the fount of all his ambitions, protected and cosseted, educated in all the finer arts and languages, the most beautiful and kind lady in all the land.

But then her father the king angered the gods, and in retaliation they demanded that Melsemene be married to Guyal, the cruel, ugly son of a neighboring king. Even though Melsemene wants only her life of study and contemplation, she is forced to agree to the marriage to save her father’s life.

The song ended in a roll of thunder from metal sheets beaten backstage; then a new painted cloth dropped down, a scene of dark clouds and lurking creatures hidden among the trees. More actors crowded onstage, dressed in their costumes of armor and swords. War had come to Carthage, thanks to the princess’s new prospective father-in-law, who wished to steal her kingdom and imprison her and make his own son king.

Kate didn’t have to play again until the interval, and she was quickly caught up in the story. The princess and her father were locked away in a tower, but even there, love and hope could bloom. Melsemene glimpsed a handsome prince, played by Master Rob in fine velvets and furs, who was locked in the tower across from hers. They sent messages of poetry, sang to each other and, in one scene that had Kate almost in tears, met to embrace in person. The lovers planned a peaceful life away from the strife of wars and kings.

Melsemene was even willing to give up her rightful kingdom for love and a life of scholarship. It looked as if she would be set free and exiled, alive, united with her true love, and Kate held her breath as she watched their joy, forgetting it was Rob and the apprentice. But then the evil king took back his bargain, and condemned the lovers to death, along with Melsemene’s father.

Kate frowned as she watched the princess fall to her knees to beg for their lives. This tale began to sound all too familiar. A young, scholarly princess dethroned, imprisoned, betrayed by false promises, used as a pawn in the power games of others. Murdered through no fault of her own.

It sounded very much like the story of Lady Jane Grey. Startled, Kate quickly glanced over the crowd, searching their faces to see if they made the same connection. Princess Elizabeth’s face went even whiter, and her beringed hands clutched the arms of her chair.

“Enough of this!” Braceton suddenly shouted, as a hooded executioner raised his pasteboard blade above the princess’s neck.

The actor playing the princess froze, stuttering to a confused halt in the middle of his final speech, and the executioner squinted past the torchlight. Rob, who stood at the side of the stage, held back by two “guards,” closed his fist around the dagger at his waist. Kate saw it was no stage prop, but a real blade. Had he been expecting trouble all along?

Clutching her lute, she slowly rose to her feet and watched as Braceton stormed up the aisle. He reached out and pulled down the curtains, sending the actors waiting for their cues off in all directions. The apprentice leaped up from the block and fled, but Rob stood still and faced Braceton.

“There is still one scene left,” he said. “The death of the prince—”

“I will hear no more of this nonsense!” Braceton roared. “First the church is befouled, and now you vagabonds spout your treasonous poison in this very house.”

Master Cartman slowly emerged from behind the stage, his face-paint streaked by the sweat pouring down his forehead. He wrung his hands together, no longer the regal king. “Nay, my lord, we speak no treason, I vow! ’Tis merely a play, one Master Cecil thought would please the Lady Elizabeth . . .”

Master Cartman surely knew immediately he had said the wrong thing. Braceton leaped onto the stage, and with one powerful backhand sent Master Cartman tumbling to the floor. A woman in the audience screamed, and the young apprentice sobbed loudly.

“I should have known this was the work of Cecil,” Braceton said, tossing the torn curtains down atop the cowering Cartman. “I should have known you carried messages hidden in your pretty words.”

“No messages, my lord. I swear it,” Master Cartman cried.

“I see the meaning in your story, and I will not let it pass,” Braceton said. “The queen’s justice will always be done. No more of your lies! Begone from my sight now, you foul hedge-pigs.”

“Lord Braceton,” Elizabeth called. Kate turned to see the princess had come to the edge of the stage, Sir Thomas hurrying after her. Everyone else was huddled at the end of the hall, watching the scene with wide, fearful eyes, and Kate was glad her father was still tucked up in his chamber and not here to see this. “I fear the terrible events of this day have made you see treachery where there is none. ’Tis merely a play.”

“You know very well, my lady, this is no mere play. You see the tale as well as I do,” Braceton said. He turned away from the shambles of the stage to face Elizabeth, giving Rob time to help his uncle to his feet and lead him quickly offstage. “And such treason will not be allowed to stand. I will have justice if I must tear this house apart board by board to do it.”

Dark pink streaked across Elizabeth’s pale cheeks, and her dark eyes burned. “Then tear it apart! Send us all to the Tower, including these innocent players who only do the bidding of their masters in trying to amuse us. But you will find no treason.”

Braceton stared down at her, huge and glowering, and Elizabeth looked tiny and frail next to him. But she did not turn away. Neither of them would ever back down in this clash of wills. “We shall see, my lady. I have been kind until now, gentle for the sake of your sister the good queen, who still has a care for you even though you have betrayed her again and again. But I will serve her despite that care. No more kindness.”

He kicked out at a fallen column, shattering it. “And get these worms out of my sight, or their heads will be on pikes at your gate by morning.”

CHAPTER 13

K
ate found the players’ cart in the sheep meadow beyond Hatfield’s gates, near a large old oak tree, under which was a favorite picnic spot of Elizabeth’s in the summer. Tonight the field was cold and damp, the moon obscured by the slide of purple-gray clouds. A few torches stuck in the earth illuminated the makeshift campsite, blankets on the ground, hastily packed chests still piled around. A woman sobbed quietly inside the cart.

They’d left in a hurry after Braceton stormed out of the great hall, but it was impossible to travel on such a night.

Kate drew her shawl closer around her shoulders as she cautiously scanned the darkness for any movement. Was someone out there right now, with their arrows or their blades?

“Who is there?” a man called, his voice hoarse with caution. Rob Cartman stepped out of the shadows beside the cart and into an amber circle of torchlight, his sword drawn. Kate sensed a few other people by slight stirrings of movement under the blankets, but no one else showed themselves. It was as if they had all gone to earth, hiding.