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room and went down on his good knee. “My dear daughter’s missing, Your Grace,” he cried before she even gave him leave to speak. “I and my men have searched everywhere near Gresham House and the exchange site, but I beg your help to put out a hue and cry for any news of her.”
    “Yes, of course. She’s twelve, I believe?”
    “Thirteen, Your Grace, but seems to believe she is older and more responsible than that.”
    “Ah, yes, I remember. Thomas, you haven’t been to either of the starch houses, have you?”
    “Why, no. I planned to go today, but we discovered Marie was missing and …”
    “I’ll summon men to help you hunt for her. You must try to calm yourself and think of places she might be, places you haven’t looked yet, or even admitted to yourself she might have gone. You must write a good description of her and perhaps what she was wearing for me to give my men.”
    “At once, Your Majesty. I warrant she had on her dark blue cloak on this windy day, a recent gift.” As he spoke, he seemed to stare into space. “Very blonde like the mother who gave her birth,” he went on, as if to himself. “Comely and fair, tall for her age, pert nose, graceful, delicate-looking, she is, but made of stiffer stuff than she seems …”
    “Get up, Thomas,” Elizabeth said, when his voice drifted off and it looked as if he would slump to the floor. She helped the trembling man to his feet and led him to a chair. “Sit here while I summon my yeomen guards, and do not fear.”
    The queen knew her words were bolder than her heart. She feared not only for a pretty female child of a rich and well-known man in big, busy London but for the female who floated, yet unidentified, in a vat of thickening starch not far from here.
    Meg was relieved Jenks knew a back way to Hannah’s loft through the vast royal mews and down a narrow, dim alley. At least their solemn assignment kept Ned and Jenks—and her, she admitted—from quarreling. They planted Bates, one of the queen’s elite yeomen guards, now wearing daily garb, near the place. Jenks led the way up the dim stairs she’d climbed earlier today; they were much darker now. Ned brought up the rear, silent for once. The breeze had picked up even more. A blast of air swooped down the enclosed staircase from above, and Meg recalled that the large window overlooking the fields had been open.
    “All clear,” Jenks whispered, and motioned them up into the loft.
    “Hardly all clear,” she whispered. “Oh!”
    “What?” Ned asked.
    “My sacks of roots I dropped right here and left behind. Someone’s dragged them off a bit—and two of them are missing! That’s precious herb they’ve taken!”
    “They who? And keep your voice down,” Ned ordered. “But are you certain? I mean, in your panic to flee and fetch help—”
    “Yes, I’m certain! You saw I had four sacks when you lifted two of them from my shoulders,” she whispered. Jenks frowned at both of them, but she had no time to explain. Ignoring his rival’s glare, Ned moved quietly but quickly to peer into the narrow rectangular vat she’d described to them. He squinted, trying in vain to see into the dense liquid.
    “What if the body’s been moved, too?” she whispered.
    “Stuff and nonsense,” Ned said. “I’d sooner say you imagined a hand floating beneath that viscous, opaque liquor.”
    “Stow the fancy words and dramatic speeches,” Meg hissed at him. “You may live in a world of fancy, but not I!”
    “Devil take it,” Jenks said, also trying to peer in, “the vat is shaped like a coffin, but I don’t see anything in it. Not hand nor hair nor hem of a gown.”
    “That can’t be!” She leaned over the murky vat, which seemed not as full now. The liquid looked much grayer than she remembered. “It’s just beneath the surface, that’s all,” she cried.
    “Corpses in the river sink until they’ve partly rotted, then they float,” Jenks put in.
    “Hell’s gates, would you