Free The Hooded Hawke by Karen Harper

never have wed a foreigner or a king, my love,” he whispered back, leaning so low he could have toppled off his horse into her coach. His eyes lit and a saucy smile crimped his lips. “How I wish my glorious and beautiful queen would wed a true Englishman, one whose passionate love and fervent loyalty is ever hers and will be my entire …”
    His low words were drowned by rapid hoofbeats that stopped a short way behind them. As they were once again passing open meadow with no people lining the road, Elizabeth turned and craned her neck to look back, despite how the armored breastplate made her feel like a turtle in a tight shell.
    It was the courier Keenan pulling an extra horse and coming from somewhere to hand Cecil, who rode just a ways back, a packet of letters. They spoke in hurried bursts, both frowning.
    “Robin, tell Cecil and his man to attend me now. And, my lord Norfolk,” she said, turning to him and raising her voice, “I shall have you ride ahead to gauge our distance yet to Farnham.”
    “And to get me out of earshot,” she heard him mutter as he put his spurs to his horse’s flanks, while Robin rode away in the other direction. As her guards closed ranks close to the coach again, the queen noted well that, unlike many in this warm weather, Norfolk wore fine leather gloves. She had been offering her gloved hand to her courtiers overmuch today, then scanning their wrist and finger skin for a nettle rash like those the Naseby boys still sported and scratched at, despite Meg’s skinsoothing concoctions.
    She turned to face Cecil as he rode up on her left with Keenan on his outer flank. Robin returned and kept his horse on the other side of her coach where Norfolk had been.
    “What news, my lord?” she asked Cecil. “Not just more tedious correspondence from London, I warrant.”

    “Sometimes I am certain you have eyes in the back of your head, Your Grace. Yes, Keenan has brought news from one of my sources in London, who, in answer to my query, informs me that the new Spanish ambassador, de Spes, has a man in his employ who is a fine archer and crossbowman.”
    “Ah. And can said archer and crossbowman be located in my capital at this time, or could he have strayed to the countryside for a summer respite?”
    “We are working on that, Your Grace. Thus far, we cannot locate him.”
    “Keenan, what do you know of Spanish shooters?” she asked. “You are back and forth to London and about the countryside a great deal. Have you heard aught of how such a one might compare with my best English-born bowmen in skill and distance?”
    “I know little of that, but I must admit, Your Gracious Majesty, I have heard Spanish crossbow bolts and arrows are the best.”
    “Yes, I have heard that, too,” she said, thinking of what young Sim Naseby had blurted out yesterday. “So, would such bolts or arrows be simple to purchase here in England, or are they far too dear in price?”
    “Available but dear, I would wager,” Keenan said, as Cecil nodded.
    “Only affordable by someone with means, someone with coins?” she mused aloud. “So, though poor dead Thomas Naseby made fine bolts, the best and truest—as you say, Keenan—could be Spanish made.”
    “But the same with leather goods of all sorts, Your Majesty,” he added. “Most Spanish imports are fine quality.”
    “Robin,” she said, turning his way, “do you, for example, own Spanish arrows or bolts?”
    “I, Your Grace? I would wager most of your nobles do. As Cecil’s man says, it’s just like owning Spanish leather gloves or a fine Cordoba leather jerkin.”
    “My lord, gloves and jerkins are not shot from bows to maim or kill people! And you have prettily danced around the question.”

    “But the bolt which killed your falconer was made by that dead thatcher,” Robin protested.
    “And if that man were innocent and had his bolts stolen as he and his sons say, someone was clever enough not to use his own bolts but try to blame