Free The Poyson Garden by Karen Harper Page A

her lips but never, without a veil, hide the feelings on her face.
    Kat opened the casement as Elizabeth gave her a jaunty wave. "Oh, there you are, Your Grace," Kat called down. "Best come up and get garbed proper now."
    "She's right, you know," Bea said to Elizabeth, her narrowed gaze traversing her mussed gown and tangled hair again. By comparison, Elizabeth realized, Bea's own impeccable gabled hood, coif, and attire only made things worse. Even when Bea had ridden clear to Maidstone to visit her sister's family, she arrived home looking both comely and kempt.
    "I'll bring the Lady Elizabeth right in and sit with her to give you a respite, Mistress Ashley," Bea shouted up to Kat and waved her embroidered piece like a pennant.
    "How kind of you," Elizabeth said and linked her arm in hers, holding up her heavy skirts with the other. One thing she recalled her father saying was that the best defense was a bullish offense. "You know, I've missed your company, Bea-- everyone's these last terrible days."
    "You just do not look as if you feel better." Bea's repeated words buzzed in her ears. "You had best go straight back to bed."
    "Nonsense. Those head pains just drain me, that's all," Elizabeth insisted as they strolled around and went in the front door, where Thomas Pope confronted them with arms akimbo and face aghast at the bottom of the staircase.
    She'd never let on, but her head hurt indeed, almost as badly as her heart. So she forced another smile, squared her shoulders, and held herself erect. It was the first time she realized what she might have to do to get to the bottom of this
    Boleyn plot: namely, put on an actor's face, skilled as that Ned Topside. Say next to nothing, as that poisoner had done before she killed herself. Or tell lies. And, as Jenks had put it, bluff her way, or even be a sneak. Yes, Elizabeth of England thought, she could do all of that to solve this and to survive.
    She put one step before the other on the stairs, hoping no one noticed she wore mud-speckled riding boots.
     
    Elizabeth Tudor raced her big black stallion Griffin down the road toward the little village of Hatfield. Sheep cropping the lawn scattered; she rode fast enough so that only Jenks managed to keep up with her. It was the sole place she had felt safe lately, out in the open air, on familiar ground, but with no buildings or forests hemming her in or hiding enemies. What had happened at Wivenhoe still haunted her. What to do about it, kept close confined as she was, tormented her.
    She reined in with Jenks at her side. "The Popes are keeping close today," he observed, patting his horse's lathered shoulder. "Sticky as can be since we come back. You don't think they know something, Your Grace?"
    "I believe we got away with our venture. And I must admit I stick close enough to them for everything I eat. If I don't see food go into either of their mouths, I avoid it too. They think," she said with a rueful laugh, "I've become companionable at mealtime."
    "Anything I can do, you only need--"
    "I do need to send you to some apothecary with that bloody arrow. I want to know what it's been dipped in and its properties. 'So blood, I wish I had two of myself so one could keep them occupied while the other investigates ..."
    Her voice trailed off as the idea flashed through her. It was mad, but it meshed so well with her other obsessive thoughts lately. She had been toying with the plan to send Jenks to find both Meg Milligrew, who must surely need a position now, and Ned Topside, who could feign to be only her clown. But in truth Meg could serve as her double and decoy, and Ned would become many different people--be her eyes and ears to find things out when she could not escape Bea and the Pope, just like this.
    "Come on, before they catch up, let's ride!" she cried and spurred Griffin on again.
    They galloped down the main gravel road past the vast lawns and then along the dirt lane skirting the village that had grown up