The Queene's Cure Read Free Page B

Meg's fate. But Meg had misled her queen about being wed. Worse, she had dared to pass herself off as the queen without permission and had even forged her royal signature.
    Her Majesty always looked straight ahead as she passed, even when she knew Meg stood in her door, because she could not bear to look into her eyes or admitshe had sent the girl away too hastily. God forgive her, she'd far rather trust Meg than her own treason-tainted cousins, Katherine Grey and Margaret Douglas, who coveted her throne.
    Katherine was currently confined to the Tower on the other side of town that also housed Margaret's dangerous Scottish husband, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox. Margaret, who favored Mary, Queen of Scots, for the English throne, was herself under house arrest with her son, Lord Darnley, at Sir Richard Sackville's home at Sheen. Her Royal Majesty was not backing down from dealing with anyone who challenged or defied her.
    “Don't see Meg—I mean Sarah—today, Your Majesty,” Jenks called to her. “She's always hanging out the door or window when you go by. Seen her on boats in the Thames when the royal barge passes too. But look, there's Bett waving!”
    “Leave off,” Elizabeth said without letting her gaze waver. “I don't give a fig if you and Ned visit the shop, but do not try to cozen me into taking her back.”
    “But I din't mean—”
    “Ride ahead and tell the eminent doctors that their queen is on her way and she has much to say.”

    H ER STOMACH KNOTTED WITH CHURNING EMOTIONS , Sarah Wilton watched and waited. Cocking her head, she listened too. Ah, there was the distant clatter ofa goodly number of horses' hooves. Huzzahs came closer, echoing in the narrow, crooked streets of the City, the heart of London within the old walls and gates. She tugged her hood closer about her face, then gripped her hands tightly under her russet cloak. The queen was coming.
    As the entourage and its crowd spilled into the end of Knightrider Street, Sarah stepped back into the narrow mouth of an alley so she would not be seen by the palace folk or the robed and flat-capped physicians who were slowly filing outside their ornately facaded guildhall. Their large, four-storied, black-and-white framed building was a place the barber surgeons and apothecaries of London knew all too well, but she wondered exactly why the queen was visiting today.
    Sarah, who still always thought of herself as Meg Milligrew no matter what her husband or the others called her, reckoned she knew most things about the queen, even those that had happened the last two years since she'd been sent away in disgrace from royal service. And one thing Meg Milligrew knew was that Elizabeth of England seldom made purely social visits, not that clever queen.
    Pressing herself against the plaster wall, Meg peeked around the corner as the noisy rabble filled the street. She picked out the queen's one-time favorite, Lord Robin Dudley, and skimmed the queen's retainers for Her Grace's Secretary of State, the wily William Cecil.Fortunately, he wasn't here, because not much escaped his eyes. Then Meg saw, in the center of it all, Elizabeth.
    Meg's skin prickled, and her mouth went dry. Her Grace looked fine as ever—maybe a bit thinner, if that was possible—but Meg could read vexation in the clenched set of the high, pale brow and purse of the narrow lips. Aye, Bess Tudor was here apurpose for more than reveling in public adoration or a pleasant chat with the chief doctors of her realm. Meg could see Elizabeth's dark eyes assessing the small cluster of cloaked and befurred master physicians before she intentionally turned away from their set smiles to wave again with a slender, gloved hand to the crowd. The people responded as if she'd caressed them, the dolts, for Meg, like Lord Robin, knew well that royal affection lavished one day could languish the next.
    Under her dark blue riding cloak, the queen wore another new gown Meg hadn't seen, a dark green brocade