Free Conspiracy by Lady Grace Cavendish Page B

understand it,” he said, heading away from the manure heap towards the main tack room. “I don't understandit at all. I checked that saddle myself with one of the Gentlemen of the Guard, not half an hour before the horse was tacked up, and all of it was perfectly sound. Let it came away and nearly took the Queen with it. I don't know,” Sam mused, shaking his head gloomily, “maybe I'm getting too old for this game/That a saddle I put on a horse should have threatened the Queen's sacred life …”
    I patted his arm. “I'm sure the Queen doesn't think it was your fault.”
    “Hmph,” said Sam. “The Master of her Horse does. I told me not to come to work until he's satisfied what 'appened, and when I said I couldn't keep away from the stables, me—what else would I do?—'e said I could work on the manure heap. So I thought I'd tidy up where the young scalawags have left things messy.”
    Messy? I never saw a tidier, better organized stable!
    We were at the door to the ladies' tack room. Sam took a key from a lace round his neck and opened it. The place was full of side-saddles on long poles from one end to the other, and bridles hanging up beside them. At the other end, on the workbench, was the Queen's gold-embossed, red leather saddle, with tools all around it.
    I went over, trailed by Ellie and Sam, and looked at the saddle. I could see where the two important straps had come loose—the girth and the crupper strap that goes around the horse's haunches. I examined them closely.
    They hadn't broken or torn. I blinked and peered closer. “Look,” I said. “Ellie, can you see?”
    She looked where I pointed with my finger and gasped. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Cuts.”
    “What?” said Sam, with his nose practically touching the saddle. “I can't see nothing.”
    “I think you need good eyes to see them—or perhaps one of those miracle lenses for people with bad eyes,” I said. “There are little cuts between the stitch holes—here, and along here—as if someone used a very sharp knife to cut through the stitching.”
    “You mean …,” Sam said slowly.
    “Yes, someone purposely cut the stitches so that when the Queen rode fast—which she always does when she gets excited on the hunt—the straps would give way.”
    “Saints above!” exclaimed Sam. “So it was done a-purpose. My God. Who would do such a thing? A scurvy Scot? A Frog? We must tell my lord—”
    “No,” I interrupted. “I think it would be better to keep quiet about it until we know more.”
    Sam started to look stubborn, so I added, “We don't want anyone to say it was you, Sam.”
    Sam gulped and stepped back. “But I never would!” he said frantically.
    “No, of course you wouldn't, Sam,” I said. “I just want to be sure of the facts before I talk to Her Majesty. Can you move the saddle and hide it? Just for a short time? It could be evidence.”
    He thought for a moment, then nodded and took the saddle off the workbench. He hid it behind the bolts of leather in the corner, moved the other saddles along, and brought one of the Queen's spare saddles to go on the workbench instead. “It needs work anyway,” he said. “And the saddlemaker don't know which is which.”
    “You checked the saddle before you tacked up the Queen's horse?” I asked him.
    “Aye, and it was in perfect condition, no stitches loose nor anything. I put it on, done up the girth, and checked it. Then one of the young gentlemen came and led the horse out for the Queen to mount.”
    “Do you know who it was?” I enquired.
    “Well, I don't,” he confessed. “I think he was one of the Earl's men, or perhaps one of Secretary Cecil's—not anyone from the stables anyway. Didn'trecognize 'im, but then I often don't when we're on progress.”
    “Hm …”I looked at Ellie significantly. “If you should see him around the place, could you tell me, Sam?”
    “Of course,” Sam replied. “You don't think he could have … Why, surely he wouldn't