Free The Queene's Cure by Karen Harper Page B

was too meager a space for all she was coming to possess.
    With their treasures bundled within, daily wardrobe carts trundled back and forth from palace to wardrobe, a brick building off Thames Street which had housed the black friars' sewing and mending shops before the Tudors took it over. Kat felt so tired she'd almost taken one of the carts today, settled down amidst the royal attire. She could have ridden a barge, too, but you might know all of them were out fetching goods or people.
    “Are you quite certain you won't mind if I stop round to see my children before we head back to Whitehall?” Anne asked, as she drew her horse up within Blackfriars' once-hallowed precincts. Despite being Lord Hunsdon's wife, Anne didn't know why the Mistress of the Royal Robes was really here. The queen insisted that her Privy Plot Council keep secrets, even from spouses. As far as Kat knew, no one had broken their pledge of honor yet—hopefully not even the disgraced Sarah Wilton, alias Meg Milligrew, who had known her share of them.
    “I expected you to see your little ones,” Kat assured Anne. “Go on then, and I'll meet you here at the wardrobe in an hour.” Kat figured it wouldn't take her long to cross-question the guard and give the wardrobe girls a good going over about the missing gown and petticoats.
    The old woman dismounted with difficulty, then stomped over and cuffed the dozing guard, slumped on a bench in the sun by the wardrobe door. He lunged to hisfeet, cursing until he saw who had smacked him. He swept the door open for her with, “First Lady here unannounced!”
    “Next time you'll watch that door proper and help me dismount too!” Kat muttered as she entered the cool, vast building.
    “Queen's First Lady of the Wardrobe here!” the guard bellowed a second time, then beat a hasty retreat, closing the door behind him.
    Seeing no one down the shadowy rows of suspended garments, Kat nonetheless heard scurrying, as if she'd stirred up a nest of mice in a larder. The mingled scents of lavender, rosewater, and lime curled around her to calm her nerves.
    Finally, the two men who drove the delivery cart and the two women who did the mending and scenting fell into a line, dropping ragged curtsies and bows as if she were the queen herself. Though the main laundry, where most things were boiled and bleached, was in the outbuildings of Whitehall, two light-soil laundresses came running, wet to their elbows. She'd forgotten about them. She supposed she should separate this lot and go at them one at a time, but she had not the patience nor strength for that.
    Though Kat wasn't expecting her, one of the queen's cobblers, actually a slipper-maker, came running too. Foolish lass, she held a long needle in one hand and could have accidently jabbed herself or any of them. Finally,the two who embroidered or stitched on jewels and pendants, as well as the haughty old dame who was the royal lace-maker appeared, with her new ruff girl in tow, so it looked as if Kat would get them all in one fell swoop.
    “I've been ailing of late,” Kat began, “but I'm back now and my being indisposed is no excuse for your laxness.”
    “No, milady,” echoed in various voices down the line.
    “I consulted my book, and I want you to fetch a gown the queen hasn't worn for some time but wants to see now,” she went on, setting in place her plan to make them search for that which was not there. “A tawny, branched velvet skirt, matching single sleeves, and boned bodice. The skirts have flowers appliquéd on, made of matched topaz, and—”
    “Oh, I know the one,” Melly, who was the brightest of the bunch, piped up. Kat hoped she would not be implicated, because the girl could sew on a gem in any pattern and have nary a thread show. “I spent all night putting those golden daisies on that gown, and went near blind as a bat. I know where it's kept too, back with the golden or canary ones what have sprinkles of jewels.”
    She darted out of