Page 39 of A Murder on London Bridge
The steward bowed and rushed out, no doubt to carry out the King’s command.
“As for the names Lady Halloran has brought to us,” the King went on, “I will make enquiries—quiet ones—of them as well as others.” He ticked them off on inky fingers. “Overton. The little fish with sharp teeth who mistakes Parliament for a pulpit. The rest—Montagu, Coventry, Denham, Jermyn—are talkers born. They will whisper whichever way the weather sits. And Parquier—” He paused there, and even his smile admitted a draft. “Parquier fancies himself a builder of scaffolds. I should like to see him try to build one under my nose.”
His lightheartedness irked me. “Your Majesty,” I said, because I had not come this far to be gentle, “ladies die under noses every day if the men around them decide not to notice. Lady Margaret is dead. The ledger is proof. The men who wrotethemselves into it intend to harm your Queen. This is not a cause to be taken lightly.”
The King’s look sharpened. “You argue well for a lady newly come to court,” he said.
Too late I realized that, mild as it was, the reproof of the King’s jest might cost me, and the Queen, dearly. And that would not do. “I didn’t intend it as censure, Your Majesty, only as an observation.”
Something like pride flickered across Catherine’s face so fast I nearly missed it.
“Very well, Lady Halloran. Yourobservationhas found favor with the King. I will put eyes where Parquier thinks there are none and ears where he thinks all are deaf. But if I find this is air only?—”
“It is not,” I said, and Catherine’s hand came to rest, light as a blessing, on my arm. A caution. I’d said enough.
The King’s humor returned like a cloak he shrugged back into. “Then let us not choke on our breakfast before we have it.” He stepped close to Catherine and lowered his voice, not so low that I could not hear. “Be watchful. Indulge my precautions even when they annoy you. And, my dear heart, do not drink anything sweet that has not been sipped by a dull, loyal man first.”
Catherine’s mouth curved. “I will try to keep one or two dull, loyal men at hand.”
“Between us,” he said, glancing at me, “we may find three.”
He dismissed us with a bow that managed to be both affectionate and kingly. Outside, the corridor felt colder.
Catherine walked a few paces in silence, then spoke without looking at me. “Thank you.”
“I only said what was true.”
“Truth is rare here.” She stopped. “Tell your friend he is a fool if he travels alone.”
She meant Hollingsworth. “He will not be alone,” I said, and only after I’d said it did I realize I had decided for both of us.
Her gaze warmed by a single degree. “Then both be fools who live.”
We parted there, and I retraced my steps through corridors that had acquired sharp edges. In my chamber, I found no peace—only a chair pulled back as if someone had risen in a hurry. Anne was not there. Odd. But then she probably had other tasks to do.
I wrote a note for Hollingsworth and sent it with a page Anne trusted to deliver it to him:
Met with the Queen who insisted on relaying the information to the King. His Majesty will have her table watched. He will inquire into our names. I will await word from you. But I intend to walk along with you.
The day stretched seemingly forever. Eager to do something, I walked through the garden to stand at the buttery stairs and measure how far a woman might fall if a hand caught her unawares. When the sun tipped and bled into evening, I was summoned to supper. With Anne still missing, I had to beg the help of another maid to help me dress.
Catherine’s ladies placed me at her table, where their eyes measured everything I did. I ate because they pressed a trencher on me and watched me lift it to my mouth. I drank because a dull, loyal man sipped first and did not die. All the while I felt their glances slide toward me—polite, curious, watchful. Whether it was protection or suspicion, I could not tell.
When at last I was released to my chamber, I was surprised Anne had not returned. She’d been my shadow since I’d awakened in this time. But someone had lit the fire in the hearth. It had to have been her. Maybe she’d come and gone while I had been at supper.
On the table that lay in the center of the chamber I found a folded scrap sealed with a crest emblazoned with an “H”. Had to be Hollingsworth’s. I broke it open, heart quickening. The writing within was hurried but legible:
The ledger is gone, hidden. But there will be a meeting. Meet me at our usual place at eleven, so I can share what I know.
It was not poetry. But it was a plan.
I read the note twice, then tucked it with the others into the hidden pocket of my petticoat. The scraps from Margaret’s grate, the assignation at the buttery stairs, a copy of her journal entries—all pressed close against me, like the steady beat of my heart.
When the bell spoke the hour, I gathered cloak and courage both. London held its breath. Something in the air tasted metallic, as if the city had a coin under its tongue.
“Live,” the Queen had said.
I meant to. But before we earned the right to do so, we would more than likely follow a trail to a meeting to hear conspirators talk openly of treason.
