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“Her grandmother’s secret technique,” Greer said. “Ballocks.” His hand went to clasp the back of his head before dropping.
“The ice pieces could be stuck into very specific areas of a cake before baking,” Alyce said.
Lucy began speaking quickly. “So the poison wouldn’t seep into the rest of the cake but stay there, melting as the cake bakes.”
“Then after the assassination,” Greer said, “the poison part would have been ingested and therefore undetectable in the rest of the cake.”
Lucy grabbed Greer’s arm. “We need to stop them from eating their cake.” She dropped her hold and ran forward.
“Lucy, wait,” he said, but she continued.
“There’s poison in the cake!” she called out at the same time the Great Hall erupted in laughter over the play that was being enacted. The two guards at the doors grabbed her, stopping her from running inside. “Let me go! The queen and Lord Burghley.”
“We’ve got you, traitor,” the guard, Giles, said, yanking the shawl off her head.
Slam. Greer’s fist hit Giles square in the jaw, making him reel backwards. Lucy wobbled, but Giles released her as the other guard attacked Greer. Lucy surged forward into the room, leaving Greer to deal with three other guards who rushed past her.
The Great Hall was full of courtiers dressed in splendor and masks made of velvet and jewels. The actors performed off to the left in a cleared area where she and Greer had danced the La Volta days before. It seemed so long ago now.
Elizabeth sat on her throne with Lord Leister to one side and Lord Burghley on the other. Mary O’Brien hovered near them, slicing pieces of her Twelfth Night cake.
“Stop!” Lucy yelled as another guard caught her arm.
“Lucy?” William said, blocking her.
She shoved against him, trying to break away from the guard. “I must get to the queen and Lord Burghley,” she yelled. “There is poison in the Twelfth Night cake.”
People around her gasped, but the rest of the room continued to watch the play, laughing at the antics of a lad dressed as a woman who shrieked at her father for making her wed.
“Let go!” Lucy yelled.
“I don’t want to kill ye,” she heard Greer say behind her. She couldn’t move forward. Between William, the guards, and the crowd, it was as if she were caught in thick mud.
“Don’t eat the cake,” she yelled, but Elizabeth was looking to Walsingham, who had stood up, his gaze falling on her from across the hall. The queen couldn’t hear her.
Mary O’Brien was setting sliced cake on plates at the head of the table, nodding to something one of the ladies nearby said. Mary’s smile was calm and her gaze sharp on the cake as she carefully pulled a slice to place on the queen’s plate.
Walsingham began to push toward Lucy through the crowd. Lord Burghley, as fond of sweets as Elizabeth, picked up his fork. Holy God! They wouldn’t make it.
By Lucy’s legs, a sheep hurried past, scurrying on hands and knees.Catherine. Behind her came Alyce, draped as the Virgin Mary, and Nick, dressed as a shepherd. While the guards held Lucy back and kept Greer fighting outside the room, the children raced toward the dais. Alyce’s cloak caught on a chair back, and she threw it off, pushing forward. Catherine continued to crawl under the table like a mouse.
“Stop,” Alyce yelled, her voice finally reaching Elizabeth.
Elizabeth stood. “What is this?”
Mary O’Brien backed away.
“Get her, Nick,” Lucy yelled. Nick hopped onto the well-dressed table, running along it, kicking off holly and overturning goblets of wine, most of which had been untouched by the wary courtiers. The white tablecloth was fast becoming a bath of crimson.
Leister jumped in front of the queen, but Nick leaped to the side to race around, grabbing Mary O’Brien.
“The cake is poisoned,” Lucy called to Walsingham as he got close enough to hear.
The actors on stage paused, and everyone turned to watch the spectacle, several people saying, “Poison?”
Lettice and Margaret gasped, and murmuring rose in volume as everyone glanced between the ruined table, cakes, Lucy, and the queen.
“Let me go save your bloody queen,” Greer yelled as he forced his way forward even with two guards clinging to his arms, their heels trying to find purchase on the polished floors. He dragged them along using brute strength.
