Read The Maid, the Witch and the Cruel Queen for Free Online

Chapter One
The Messenger in Gold and Red
    I remember the day Queen Mary Tudor came to our town. It was the most fearsome, exciting and heart-stopping day of my life. I’ll remember it if I live to be a hundred.

    I was a serving girl at Lord Scuggate’s manor house – a small castle, really. And I was invisible!

    No, really!
    I carried the food and the wine from the kitchen to the table and all the grand folk in the great hall ignored me.
    They never said “Please”, they just held out a wine cup to be filled. They never, ever said “Thanks!”. It was as if I wasn’t there. Invisible in my shabby black dress.

    My mouth stayed shut. But my eyes could see and my ears could hear. That summer evening there was a sudden hammering on the door. Lord Scuggate looked furious.
    â€œWho dares to knock at a Scuggate door that way?” he demanded.
    I hurried over the rushes on the stone floor and opened the door. A young man in a coat of blood-red and gold threw his handsome head up and marched in. The hounds by the fireside growled.

    â€œLord Scuggate of Bewcastle?” the young man asked, and his voice whined like a leaking trumpet.
    â€œWho wants to know?” his lordship asked. “What sort of slabberdegullion are you to come barging in on Lord Scuggate and his guests?”
    Sir James Marley of Roughsike squeaked and tried to shake Lord Scuggate’s arm.
    His lordship shook him off.
    â€œI’ll have you stripped and whipped and dragged at the cart’s tail all the way to the gallows!” he yelled at the messenger.

    He swelled like a pig’s bladder that the boys blow up to play football. His face was purple. “I’ll have you…”

    â€œNo, your lordship!” Sir James squawked. “Look at the badge on his coat.”
    â€œShut up, man,” Lord Scuggate snapped without taking his eyes off the messenger. “I’ll have you hanged by the neck and I don’t care who your master is…”
    â€œMistress,” the shocked messenger mumbled.
    â€œWho your mistress is!” Lord Scuggate snorted. “I see by your badge you wear the sign of…”
    He stopped. Everyone was looking at the floor. Even the dogs that chewed their bones stopped crunching.

    The only sound was Lord Scuggate spluttering as if someone had stuck a needle in his pig-bladder face. “…the sign of … er … the sign of…”
    â€œHer Majesty Queen Mary Tudor of England,” the messenger said quietly. Lord Scuggate grinned weakly showing his broken and yellow teeth. “And you are very, very welcome to Bewcastle Hall, my dear young friend!”

Chapter Two
The Cruel Killing Queen
    The messenger had said that the queen would be passing through Bewcastle on a tour of the Scottish Borders. She would stop at Scuggate Hall for lunch the next day.

    When the young man in red and gold had gone, the Bewcastle men muttered over their wine cups as the invisible maid heard their terrible talk.
    â€œDown in London, they call the queen ‘Bloody Mary’ because she burns anyone who doesn’t worship at a Catholic church,” Sir James Marley of Roughsike said quietly.
    â€œShe’d burn us if she found anyone who doesn’t go to church,” Father Walton of Catlowdy Church warned them.

    Lord Scuggate looked at him sharply. “It’s your job to make sure people go to church,” he said.
    The priest in the velvet cloak spread his hands and smirked. “My lord, it is you the queen will blame, and you the queen will burn.”
    Lord Scuggate’s blotched face turned pale. “Everyone in Bewcastle goes to church… Well … they go at Easter and Christmas anyway, don’t they?”
    The men brought their heads closer together.

    â€œWe could get all the Bewcastle folk together and have a march through the town to the church, just as Queen Mary arrives,” Father Walton