Free The Queene’s Christmas by Karen Harper Page B

she was famished, and it both annoyed and touched her that even her master cook knew that she had not eaten much this eve. Would she ever become accustomed to the way her people watched her every move as if she were the head of a massive family?
    At that thought, a shudder swept her. Despite the fact that Hodge Thatcher’s family had obviously hated the Protestant Tudors for “ruining the true church,” as the note put it, Hodge had chosen loyalty to her. Since this was indeed a murder, she must try to solve it for the memory of the man himself and not only to assure the safety of her court or crown. Any crime that struck at one of her people, cook to clerk to courtier, must be solved and punished.
    Cecil and Jenks also took a drink and downed a tart—actually, Jenks ate three. When Elizabeth indicated she’d have no more, Master Stout wrapped up the rest of the pastries in a cloth and handed them to Jenks.
    “They say, you know, Your Majesty,” Stout said, turning back to her with the hint of a bow, “that your mother when she was maid of honor made these tarts for your royal sire.”
    “I’ve heard that, Master Stout, but don’t credit it a bit More like they were concocted by some clever pastry cook who knew he could charge more for them if they could be tied to such a tale. My royal father only favored massive portions, so these are much too dainty and delicate for him—or most men,” she added as Jenks’s big paw managed to crush another tart to crumbs before he could get it in his mouth.
    Meg stood at the oriel windows of the queen’s bedroom and watched the moon glaze a path on the white Thames. “It looks pretty but so dreadful cold out there,” she remarked to Ned, who was seated at the queen’s table as he had been yesterday, once again writing furiously.
    “Chilly in here, too,” he muttered.
    “With this hearth blazing?”
    “I spoke metaphorically, Mistress Milligrew—ah, I mean, Your Most Glorious and Gracious Majesty,” he said, looking up. “If you keep up the way you’ve been treating me, I shall dub you ’the Ice Queen and write you as such into the Christmas entertainment I am planning for my troupe’s arrival tomorrow.”
    “If I’m treating you cold, it’s only because you’ve treated me that way.”
    “Really?” he said, tossing down his quill. “Did it ever cross your mind that I might have a few important and weighty things on my mind this season? And now, the queen’s off on a hunt for a murderer, and who needs that complication?”
    “You’re just angry because you’re not Lord of Misrule this year and can’t get by with all your high-and-mighty decrees as you always have, going about masked, kissing all the girls, the ladies, too —
    “Aha! Do I detect green eyes?”
    “You’re the one with the green eyes, and you know well enough how to use them. No, I’m not jealous, just in love with a man who, by comparison, makes you look pretty bad. As for your foul mood, you ought to be happy the queen’s taking your old fellows in for the holidays.”
    “Happy as a hawk in a windstorm,” he groused. “One member of the troupe is new and untested, and a bit of a climber, I’m afraid, and I’m going to have to take some of my precious time to keep a watch on him.”
    “Hm,” she said. “Takes one to know one, so—”
    She stopped talking midthought as Ned rose and came quickly to stand behind her at the window. She spun to look out again so he wouldn’t be pressing her, face to face, against it. He leaned a hand on the deep sill as if to block her in or embrace her, but she saw he was craning his neck to stare out the window at something down by the iced-in barge landings.
    “Just keep an eye on him yourself, name of Giles Chatam,” Ned said, his mouth so close it stirred the hair at her temple and warmed her ear.
    “You mean he’s a ladies’ man, too,” she goaded, “and you don’t think I’d be safe around him?”
    “I mean he’s likely to be