The Thorne Maze by Karen Harper Page B

maze yesterday,” Rosie piped up. “Do you think you lost it outside the hedges instead of in? And I didn’t notice one missing from your jewel boxes.”
    “If it’s lost, how do I know where it is?” She spun to face the two of them. The sheen of sun and exertions gilded their pretty faces, and they both plied their fans so fast they even sent a breeze her way. In her inner tumult, she’d quite forgotten her own fan, which dangled at her wrist.
    Elizabeth decided it best to lessen the number of observers. She was tempted to keep Rosie with her, for she hoped to include her in her Privy Plot Council. But she supposed it would build morale among her people if she told them first—at least Cecil. If she sent one lady back, she’d be hard pressed to explain keeping the other with her.
    “Stackpole, accompany Lady Anne and Lady Rosie back to the palace. Clifford, come with me.” Indeed, she was not keeping Stackpole with her, when he seemed so dense. Clifford she had known and trusted for years.
    Despite their protests and fussing, the two women headed back toward the palace with their plodding guard, while the queen, trailing Clifford, walked on. Near the back of the maze’s exterior, closer to the goal within, trees shaded the area. She saw no breaks in the venerable hedges here at least. Standing on tiptoe, she scanned the trees and their foliage. Could someone have climbed in or out of the maze via a big tree limb? But none seemed to hang far or low enough. She supposed someone could have used a ladder, but damned if she was going to look for ladder marks around this huge stretch of hedge. She’d send Jenks and Ned out to do it.
    “Seeing I’m taller, Your Grace, what is it you’re looking for, if I may ask. Not some pin you lost, for certain.”
    “I was pondering whether I should have the maze replanted here or moved. Go along this back length, and see if you can spot any breaks big enough to see through or get through, as that would quite ruin the whole effect.”
    As he instantly obeyed, she realized Clifford might also be a good man to swell the ranks of the Privy Plot Council. Of course, there was always Chris or Jamie, both young but always ready and able to assist her.
    She watched Clifford move slowly away to scrutinize the hedges. Deflated she was still getting nowhere, she paced the opposite direction, around the farthest back corner of the maze where the tree trunks were the thickest.
    A bright blur of color near the distant, shady grape arbors snagged her gaze—the peacock blue of a man’s doublet beyond the low brick wall. A tall, slender man had a lady pressed against a tree in wildest, passionate abandon. If the queen had not been too warm already, she would have blushed, for even from here, she could tell the blond man—who was that?—ground his loins against the lady’s thighs and belly.
    No, she was sore mistaken. They were both men. Sodomites? It was a crime which, if proven in court, was punishable by death, so it was almost never prosecuted. At least they both looked quite young, for it would be a pity if they had wives. She would send Clifford over at once to learn their names and see they were banished from her court.
    She narrowed her eyes, shaded them with her open fan, and realized where she’d seen that peacock blue doublet before—and the blond man in it. One whom she’d heard only today was selfish, sadistic, and—now this. It was Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, her cousin Margaret’s son and heir.
     
     
    Since the queen was evidently out somewhere—and courtiers hardly hung about when she wasn’t here—Cecil used her empty presence chamber to meet with Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox. He’d managed to waylay him even before the man could huddle with his wife and son.
    Cecil, who had spent time in dealing and treaty-making with the wily Scots, had a certain grudging admiration for their stiffnecked independence, but the sandy-haired, strapping Lennox had always vexed