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Catherine climbed up from underneath the trestle table. She jumped onto the table where Nick had already run and threw off her sheep skin to race forward. “Don’t eat it, Your Majesty.” She kicked it away from her and then made a little curtsey in her breeches before turning to Lord Burghley. “You neither,” she pointed, and he immediately dropped his fork. It clanged against the gold plate.
“The baker woman,” Lucy said, yanking her arm from a guard to point at Mary where she struggled against Nick’s hold. He was strong, but he was only ten years old. “For God’s sake, grab her.”
Walsingham pointed at her, and three guards surrounded Mary and Nick, two catching her, while one held onto Nick. “We’ll get to the bottom of this now,” Walsingham called out and waved the guards to bring Lucy forward. Greer was already headed that way, so his guards finally let go, following him while tugging to right their red doublets.
The glittering crowd parted, letting Walsingham, Lucy, and Greer stride forward. She heard whispers as ladies pointed at her hose, doublet, and ungloved hand. Lucy’s heart beat hard in her chest. What if they were wrong? They would all be in the Tower, and Lucy would never live a simple life on a farm with Greer.
Elizabeth waited at the head of the table. “What do you mean?” She threw a hand toward the cake on the plate that Catherine had kicked farther across the table. “The baker ate a piece off my own slice.” She made a show of looking over at Mary. “And she seems fairly robust and unaffected by poison.”
Lucy’s tight stomach uncoiled a bit when she saw the markings on the cake. Mary had decorated the top with swirls and stars made from sugar. The twelve slices were outlined by a design, indicating where she should cut. Lucy nodded toward the cake. “She knew which slice to give you with the designs painted on top.”
“The queen and William Cecil, Lord Burghley,” Greer said.
Elizabeth snorted. “It seems you are as dangerous as a queen, Spirit.”
Lord Burghley stared at his delicious looking cake that he’d almost eaten. “I am hardly.”
“Ye are pushing hard for uniting Ireland with England, milord, a joining that some Irish Catholics will not tolerate without bloodshed.”
Through all this, Mary stood silent, her face hard like stone.
“What say you, Goodwife O’Brien?” Walsingham asked and motioned to the guards at her elbows to bring her closer. “Why are there slices marked on top of the cake?”
“I saw her turn the cake around until one slice faced you, Bess,” Lord Leister said.
“I marked where the Twelfth Night pea would sit in one piece,” Mary said. One pea was placed in a Twelfth Night cake so it could be found, marking the finder as the queen for the rest of the night. “I wanted to make certain the queen found it in hers. So she could be the merry queen for the rest of Christmastide.” Mary glanced at Lucy. “Since her chosen one is a traitor.”
“Lies,” Alyce said, frowning fiercely.
Mary nodded toward the plate. “Like Her Majesty said, I ate some of her piece and feel well indeed.”
“She froze the poison in small ice balls so it would not spread within the cake or even the slice during baking,” Lucy said. “Perhaps she froze the bean in with it, but either way, I am certain Master Darby and Master William will find ratsbane or arsenic inside the queen’s piece and Lord Burghley’s piece.”
“The apothecary on London Bridge said Simmons bought ratsbane,” Walsingham said.
“Because Mary’s husband, who has been masquerading as Jasper Lintel, asked him to, as well as Mistress Wakefield.”
“I’ve never heard of a Jasper Lintel,” Mary said, narrowing her eyes. “You saw some innocent baking that night after I caught you and the lady tupping in the pantry.”
Another round of gasps followed a wave through the hall.
“The man is in Whitehall now,” Greer said. “He pretended to be part of a business deal with Simmons, Mistress Wakefield, and Richard Whitby,” Greer said.
“All they planned was to find favor with the queen so they could petition to own a small, abandoned abbey in the west,” Alyce said. “We eavesdropped.”
“Simmons would never poison the queen,” Catherine added with a serious head nod. “He is too proper to do anything as such.”
Walsingham took Lord Burghley’s fork and cut through his cake until he came to the center where the cake batter was still raw. Leister did the same to Elizabeth’s piece, finding the bean in the center surrounded by raw batter.
Lucy chest expanded with relief. They were right! “The ice kept the batter cold in that spot, so it did not bake properly,” Lucy said, speaking quickly. “’Tis still raw there.”
Walsingham nodded to the guards who started going down the table to check the cake slices and uncut cakes. Reginal Darby came up with William to the queen, who studied the wet part of her cake. “May I, Your Majesty?” Reginald asked.
“By all means, master chemist,” she said, and let him take it.
He poked around the area. “There is a bean,” he said, “and the batter around it is uncooked as if the bean had been frozen in liquid.”
Reginald Darby moved the knife around in the wet batter, holding it up with some white substance on the tip. “And white powder.” The elderly chemist looked to Walsingham.
