Conspiracy by Lady Grace Cavendish

have had time?”
    “Even so, I'd like to talk to him,” I said.
    We left the ladies' tack room and he locked it carefully behind us. He shook his head again. “I can't believe someone would want to hurt our sweet Queen,” he said. “Is it true a statue nearly fell on her yesterday, as well? And there was a magic thunderbolt that a black magician loosed off which hit one of the tumblers.”
    “No,” I said. “That was a firework. Thank you very much, Sam. We must be going now.”
    I could hear dancing music coming from the Long Gallery inside the castle, and the thunder of elephants—well, Maids of Honour. I was so glad I didn't have to parade up and down, and pirouette, and try to remember which move came after which, and bump into people, and fall over and get wailed at by the Dancing Master. I can do dances I know well,but not new ones. I don't know how anybody remembers them quickly, and as for twitter-pates like Lady Sarah, who pick them up in the twinkling of an eye—well, it's just annoying.
    But I was glad Sam had reminded me about the statue, because now we had found that one of the accidents was no accident at all, I was very suspicious indeed about that statue and intended to investigate further.
    Ellie came with me. When I asked anxiously if she'd get into trouble with Mrs. Fadget, she snorted. “I'm not having you wandering about the castle without an attendant,” she said firmly. “It ain't right. So I'll attend you and worry about Mrs. Fadget after—the old cow!” she added, which showed she wasn't quite as unworried as she said.
    So Ellie and I went and looked at the statue of the lion with two tails. I don't know why that's the Dudley family badge, though it might be something to do with the fact that a lion has his power in his tail—so if he's got two, he's twice as powerful.
    When I looked at the place where the tail had been, it didn't look as if it had cracked naturally. I could see some white marks, as if the stone had been hit very hard with something metal. And behind thestatue there was a flattened place in the bushes, where someone had clearly been standing.
    “Hm,” said Ellie, poking the white places with her finger. “It looks like it was chipped.”
    “It
was
chipped,” I said. “And recently.”
    So I sat down at once right here in the maze, to write it all down so I wouldn't forget anything. And I think it's very interesting that— Oh, somebody's shouting for me.

    I must catch up with all that has happened, so I am writing this secretly at the joust.
    It was Mary Shelton shouting for me in the garden, so I went over to her. She was very red in the face from dancing practice. “You are so lucky to get out of the dancing,” she moaned to me. “I don't think it's fair—why should we have to go over and over it and get shouted at? Anyway, the Queen wants you because you have a speech to give, and one of the Earl's house-poets has written it.”
    My heart sank. It would probably be very long, and the rhymes idiotic. It's a terrible pity nothingmuch rhymes with
Elizabeth
, because very often poets call the Queen
Eliza
so they can rhyme it with
surprise her
, or worse.
    We all headed back into the castle. Ellie came with us so she could gather some dirty laundry and use it as her excuse for being away so long.
    When I got to the Long Gallery, all the Maids of Honour were there, as well as four Ladies-in-Waiting—so there were ten naiads and dryads in all. They were fanning themselves and drinking mild ale thirstily. It looked as if it would be a very vigorous dance, but that's how the Queen likes them.
    The Dancing Master, Monsieur Danton, was drinking aqua vitae by the gulp. “Now zen, milady Grace,” he said, “You 'ave just a few steps,
vous comprenez?
Only a very few. And zen you say zis speech …” He gave me a long scroll and I looked at it with foreboding. It began, “All hail, fair England's fairest Queen. All hail, our gracious Eliza …,” which told me