The Fatal Fashione by Karen Harper

staircase, she could barely make out Jenks with his arms around a struggling woman.

Chapter the Fifth
     

    “WHAT GOES?” ELIZABETH CALLED DOWN TO JENKS.
    “Caught this one trying to sneak up the stairs.”
    “Hold her, and we will come down.”
    “I just had a thought,” Meg whispered behind Elizabeth. “Hannah was real tight with her money. What if her work-women rebelled at their wages or some such, and an accident happened? More than one woman could manage to lift her. Then they felt guilty about leaving her in the vat because they knew what it would do to her skin.”
    “Hold all that for later,” Elizabeth said. “For now, we must speak with that woman. Men, put the body back on the shelf, then continue your search for anything unusual. Rosie and Meg, with me, for I will speak with Jenks’s captive.”
    Meg took the second lantern and, as the queen ordered, preceded Her Majesty down the staircase, lighting their way. Lady Rosie, who seemed only too relieved to depart the loft, hurried behind them.
    “Unhand me, you great oaf!” the struggling woman cried, and landed an elbow in Jenks’s solid midriff.
    Meg noted she was nearly as shapely a blonde as Hannah. With one arm around the woman’s narrow waist and the other over her bouncing breasts as she tried to wriggle free, Jenks looked as if he were actually enjoying himself.
    “I’ll not loose you. Hold there!” he ordered. Bates hovered a short distance off, scanning the alley.
    The wench was hardly a goodwife but a laborer in brown homespun with a well-worn apron. She looked ready to cry. Her long hair spilled from her cap in such disarray it reminded Meg of poor Hannah’s.
    “Stop struggling!” the queen ordered, though she kept her voice low. “I would but ask you a few questions, mistress, and my man will not harm you.”
    Evidently at the sound of a woman’s cultured voice and tone of command, Jenks’s prisoner went still in his arms. Reluctantly, Meg could tell, he released her but for one hand on her forearm.
    “Who are you, then?” the queen asked the disheveled woman.
    “Ursala Hemmings, whitster, that’s me, and live nearby, a friend to the starcher what works here,” she said in one long, ragged breath. “Thought you be night thieves or anglers breaking in and these your spotters, that’s what. I meant to send out a hue and cry for the night watch, but this basecourt codpiece grabbed me—”
    “Hold your tongue!” the queen ordered. “We came to see the starcher ourselves, for we do business with her.”
    Ursala gasped, then blurted, “Hey then, you ladies from the queen’s court come to fetch the royal starched goods? But where’s Hannah? Heard she’s ill. Or she been hurt?”
    “Yes, I regret to tell you she’s been hurt.”
    Ursala broke into tears. “That one, there,” she accused, pointing past Jenks at Bates, “been guarding her door and wouldn’t let me pass to see or help her earlier. Thought I’d sneak in at night,’cause Hannah’s not in her room near mine, and—something else gone amiss, hasn’t it? Something’s dreadful wrong!”
    Meg could always tell when Her Majesty had decided on someone, that is, whether to trust the person or not. She could see the queen was going to take this plucky woman into her confidence, at least to get out of her anything she could.
    “Yes, I regret to tell you, Mistress Hemmings,” the queen said quietly, “that Hannah has died, and not of her own hand.”
    “Murder?” Ursala screeched before Jenks clapped his hand over her mouth and held her tight again.
    “Meg,” the queen said, “run upstairs to tell the men to douse their lantern, uncover the windows, and follow us to the mews forthwith. Jenks, bring Mistress Hemmings along where we can talk more privily and quietly than shouting bloody murder in the night streets. Hie yourself now, before someone summons the night watch and we must explain more than just a whitster’s skulking about.”
    “I can’t