Free Assassin by Lady Grace Cavendish Page A

linen.
    “Me and Masou will meet you by the kitchen,” she continued, “an’ if you don’t turn up by the time the moon is over the trees in the Orchard, we’ll go and ’ave a look at Sir Gerald ourselves. He’s already in St. Margaret’s Chapel but I don’t think he’s laid out yet—they need to do the inquest first.”
    Ellie hopped off the bed, gathered up a couple of smocks lying in a twist on the floor and one ruff that had been stamped on, stuffed them in her bag, and headed off down the passageway. So I cleaned my teeth, changed into my hunting kirtle, pulled a smock on over the top of it, and here I am. And now, at last, I can hear Lady Sarah and Mary approaching. Soon I will set off on my midnight adventure.
    For now, I will pretend to be asleep.

Lord preserve me, I am in the most terrible trouble. I hardly dare think how angry the Queen was. At least, as I am sent to my bedchamber in disgrace, I can write this.
    To begin where I left off. Last evening, the two twitter-heads came back quite late, about ten of the clock. They had been playing Primero and were arguing over who had given her point-score wrong. Olwen, their tiring woman, helped them out of their gowns. They glugged some of the drugged wine after they’d cleaned their teeth and got into their beds, still arguing about the Primero game. I gathered they’d lost to Mrs. Champernowne.
    Olwen bustled about hanging things up and brushing things and folding things until I wanted to shakeher, and then she left, at last. Very soon, I could hear the twitter-heads snoring.
    I waited impatiently for the guard to change at midnight outside the Queen’s Privy Gallery. When I’d heard the changeover I slid out of bed, leaving the curtains closed, and pulled off my smock. I’d already left my horrible wool stockings off. Then I crept out of the door and down the passageway, dodging into a doorway when a cat came past with a mouse in her mouth.
    The first frightening part was climbing out of a window into the Privy Garden. That bit over, I slunk through the gate into the Orchard: it was kept locked, but I knew that the gentleman who held the key hid it under a stone next to the gate so he didn’t lose it. I went through the Orchard to the compost heaps, where Ellie and Masou were waiting for me.
    Ellie was already wearing boy’s clothes—borrowed from one of the women at the laundry whose son had died of plague the year before, she said, which made me shiver. She’d brought another set for me, but I refused to wear them. Only people like Ellie, who’ve already had plague and got better, aren’t scared of it, because you can’t get it twice.
    Masou shrugged. “If we are caught, my lady, itwill go better for us if they can see you are one of the Queen’s women,” he said.
    I didn’t really want to hear about that because I think half the fun of a midnight adventure is getting disguised. I frowned. “I’ll have to wear my kirtle then,” I concluded. There was nothing else for it. I could hardly climb the Orchard wall in my shift.
    We climbed over the compost heap and the old bean staves covered in bindweed, and found the bit of wall that’s crumbling. Masou had brought a rope to help us and we scrambled over.
    The next courtyard was behind a row of houses that were rented by the room to the young gentlemen of the Court. It was a mess of brambles, beer barrels, broken horn mugs, broken clay pipes, tables, a broken lute, half a dozen chairs that must have been in a fight, and a piece of petticoat caught on a nail halfway up a wall.
    We crept through the clutter, with Masou muttering in his own language when he caught himself on a thorn; then we slid along an alleyway that gave into New Palace Yard. Westminster Abbey loomed over us as we passed through the gate leading to the chapel where Sir Gerald’s body lay.
    Masou crept ahead noiselessly to see if any of Lord Worthy’s men were still awake.
    “They’ll be snoring,” whispered Ellie