The Hooded Hawke by Karen Harper Read Free Book Online

search.”
    The queen rose; the others stood, too, as if dismissed, though she kept up her stream of orders.
    “My lord Cecil and Captain Drake, I shall leave you here to separately inquire—through casual conversation, of course—what Sir William and the Duke of Norfolk think of all this. They may give naught away, or indirect questioning may implicate them. Besides, I do not want them trailing along nor using this morning for their own covert conferences. Tell my courtiers, if you must, that I simply yearned for a solitary walk. And, when Sheriff Barnstable shows his face here today—with egg on it—hold him until I can fully question him after I examine that gaol of a cellar he mentioned.”
    “Of course, Your Grace,” Cecil said. “But can you not simply send the others to report back to you and not go out yourself this morning? If indeed this hedger was innocent of the attack, someone is still about who can put a bolt in the middle of someone’s chest from over a hundred yards away.”
    “I’ve made the mistake of letting others look into this, Cecil, and I can hardly wait for nightfall to search for clues.”
    “I have a partial set of dress armor in my things,” Drake said. “It’s lighter than some, but it would deflect arrows, unless
a shot came from close range. It would be too large for you, but if padded and then covered with a cloak, you could wear the breastplate and backpiece well enough.”
    Cecil chimed in. “Your enemies are clever, perhaps desperate—and as yet unknown.”
    “Yes, I warrant that would be wise. Drake, deck me out like a soldier, then, for this is war.”
    I t was such a lovely summer morn that if the queen had not had a murder on her hands—actually, two of them, she wagered—she could have almost enjoyed the walk. But then, too, Drake’s armor was a heavy, hard reminder that this was no primrose path stroll.
    Yet as her tall yeoman Clifford, who had been in the haphazard search yesterday, led them upland through the screen of trees toward a large hay meadow edged by hedges, they did see yellow primrose and many other flowers, spilling from the base of the head-high hedge. Elizabeth noted cow parsley, hawkweed, and lords-and-ladies, and Meg lagged a bit to bend toward others the queen could not name. Prickly hawthorne, from which the hedge was mostly made by having its limbs cut, bent, and interlaced, was in bloom. Orange-black butterflies and buzzing bees darted along the plump, dense barrier while magpies and finches flitted here and there, and a kestrel sketched circles in the sky.
    “I see the stile,” Ned said, pointing.
    “We saw that on our first pass through this area yesterday,” Clifford said. “I just looked over it and saw no one, nor didn’t think much of it.”
    “But now we know,” Ned went on, “it’s the one poor Naseby claimed someone had cobbled together and hacked partly out of the hedge. Jenks said that meant some sheep got out, so Naseby had to patch it, though he wouldn’t otherwise deal with it’til winter, when it was bare of leaves.”
    “Be careful, everyone,” Meg said, coming to life at last. “I see stinging nettle along here. Devil’s Plaything, they call it, and for a good reason. It burns one’s skin and makes a dreadful
rash. For some folks it’s even fatal—see, that’s it right there. Steer clear, now.”
    It heartened Elizabeth to see Meg show some interest as she pointed out the delicate green leaves. “Bad place to build a stile with these nettles nearby,” her herbalist muttered.
    The stile itself looked makeshift and shoddy, but it did hold Ned’s weight, then Clifford’s, as they climbed over and came back. “Get down,” the queen said. “I’m going up.”
    She cast off the awkward cloak she wore to hide the armor, hiked her skirts, and climbed partway up. Peering over at the next field, she saw no more three-foot-high blowing hay but sheep and closer cropped grass. The rooftops of the village of