Queen's Ransom (36 page)

“Formalities,” I whispered, and added, in anguish in case he gave offense and we lost Dale even now: “Hush!”

But Blanchard had at least had the sense to mutter into my ear, and no one had noticed. De Clairpont turned to the queen. “The treasure would seem to be correct according to the inventory made by the assessors, and the quality of the items meets the descriptions given. The value is in fact greater than that originally offered by Mistress Blanchard.”

Queen Catherine asked to examine the salts more closely. More formalities: a way of giving the ceremony strength through length, as it were. I understood that, but the delay was torment. Brockley’s face was rigid with strain and Dale seemed to shrink and grow more sunken-eyed than ever.

But it ended at last. Queen Catherine was satisfied. “Let the business be completed,” she said.

De Clairpont’s clerk stepped forth, importantly unrolling his scroll. He read out a declaration to the effect that inasmuch as a ransom consisting of (he went painstakingly through the list), approximate value ninety thousand crowns, had been paid over for the release of the English prisoner, tirewoman Frances Brockley, otherwise known as Frances Dale, the charges against her had been withdrawn and she was free to return to her husband and her employer, who would, however, be held responsible for her good behavior as long as she remained in France.

Then Dale’s guards, at last, let her go and she ran to us. Brockley’s arms went around her, tight and hard. I was glad to see it, and I was thankful to feel such gladness—to know that it was not diluted because I was alone without either Gerald or Matthew and might never feel loving arms around me again. It always is a blessing when one feels the right emotions without having to strain after them.

There were a few more courtesies. Throckmorton gave a short speech of thanks. I curtsied to the queen and spoke my own thanks. But Catherine was already tired of her little drama, and besides, she had business waiting. Every day now she had reports to hear; councils of war to attend. De Clairpont’s men came and packed up the chests again, and we were dismissed.

With Throckmorton, we left with Dale, by the west door. “It’s over,” I said with relief as we made our way back toward my apartments. “Oh, Dale, we are so very happy to have you safe, and with us again.”

“I’m grateful, ma’am. All you’ve done . . .” But Dale, half-carried in the crook of Brockley’s arm, was too overcome to say very much and her eyes were brimming. Brockley murmured something soothing, and hurried her along a little faster.

“I doubt if any of us will be able to call ourselves safe until we’re out of this country,” he said to me bluntly. “We’ll be leaving for England soon, I trust, madam.”

“Yes,” I said. There was, for the moment, no other course to take, but I still had the future to think about. I had had so little opportunity to make any decision about Matthew, but soon I must. Where was he now? I could hardly seek him out across this war-torn country; nor would he expect that. But the war must end one day and if he survived it . . . oh, Matthew, what if you don’t . . . ? but if, God willing, he did . . .

What had he said, when we parted at Le Cheval d’Or?

Ursula, since you cannot come with me now, finish what you
came to France to do. Pray for peace, so that France may grow safe
again. And then—make your choice. This way, you will have time to
think. Only, let it be the right decision, and the last. When you know
your mind, let me know, somehow. . . . Ursula, don’t leave me wait
ing and hoping and wondering for too long.

I would have to take shelter in England until the turmoil in France had subsided. Besides, Meg was there. For the time being, I would have to go back to the court. But when France was at peace once more . . . then what would I do? I didn’t know. I couldn’t see that far ahead.

Throckmorton was saying something, telling us that our journey home would be easy to arrange. “You’ll be able to travel under safe conduct. You’ve returned at the right moment.”

“How do you mean, Sir Nicholas?” I asked him.

“Ah,” he said, amused. “Wait and see.”

He would say no more. He left us at the door of my apartments and Harvey also took the men off, saying that they were going to celebrate in a tavern by the quay.

“The one we have in mind is hosting a cockfight after dinner,” Ryder added.

The rest of us went inside. I had set food and wine in readiness, and now I left Blanchard pouring wine for himself and Jenkinson, while Brockley and I took Dale into my bedchamber. I had myself laid a fire in the hearth and put a kettle of water beside it. I lit the fire and started heating the water so that Dale could wash, and then went to fetch a tray of food.

After that, I left them alone together and went back to the sitting room. My father-in-law handed me a glass of wine and observed acidly: “You are waiting on your servants, I see. An odd reversal of the usual state of things.”

“It seems right, at the moment,” I said mildly.

“I’ve looked after my men when they’ve been hurt or ill, on journeys,” Jenkinson said. He was at ease on the window seat, one knee drawn up and a dish of meat pasties in his hand. “Once when Longman had a fever, I sat beside him three times a day for six days, spooning milk into his mouth as if he were a baby. That was last year, on the way south to Persia. Longman couldn’t travel; we had to pitch camp and stay put for nearly a fortnight.”

“The other men should have looked after him,” Blanchard said fastidiously. “Such menial tasks were not your business.”

My father-in-law was in one of his irritable moods and was determined to bicker. Jenkinson always seemed to find it amusing but I did not. I was relieved when we were interrupted by a tap on the door. I opened it to find a page on the threshold. He bowed deferentially and said, with a creditably correct English pronunciation: “Sir Henry Sidney, madam.”

Dudley’s brother-in-law looked exactly as he had looked the last time I saw him, which was in the Tower of London, when Elizabeth inspected her treasury. He was as lissome in his movements as ever, his auburn beard as precisely trimmed; and I thought he was wearing exactly the same russet velvet doublet and breeches. His shoes matched; so did the hat he was politely carrying in his left hand. He came in, bowed courteously to us all, and then gave me a friendly hug.

“My dear Mistress Blanchard! I am most relieved to find you here, safe and well and all your household with you. I have heard from Sir Nicholas about your troubles. I am so very sorry and so glad that you have your tirewoman back unharmed. Sir Nicholas said you had Anthony Jenkinson with you, too . . . ah, Master Jenkinson! He and I have met before, in England, Mistress Blanchard. Master Jenkinson has attended council meetings to report on matters to do with trade. And this is . . . ?”

“I am Luke Blanchard, the father of Ursula’s late husband Gerald.” Blanchard, putting bad temper aside and obviously impressed by this exalted visitor, bowed politely and gestured to the wine.

“I arrived the day before yesterday,” Sir Henry told us, taking a seat and accepting the offered refreshment. “When Sir Nicholas told me your news, I said I must see you as soon as possible, but he said, better wait until this morning’s ceremony was over and your woman was safely back with you. As soon as Sir Nicholas sent me word that all went well this morning, I set out to see you. Did Sir Nicholas tell you that I was here, by the way? Because I said to him that of course, you could travel home with me.”

“He didn’t mention you by name,” I said. “But he hinted something about our journey home being made easy.”

“Very easy,” said Sir Henry. “I sailed over—and will sail back—on a most comfortable ship; modern vessels really do take the misery out of sea journeys.”

“Can anything?” asked Blanchard.

“Oh yes, to some degree. Deeper keels, more stable construction altogether; these things make such a difference. When we arrived,” said Sir Henry cheerfully, “we berthed next to a ship that I would hate to sail in. Built, by the look of her, for maximum wobble, and not even well maintained. The
St. Margaret,
she was called. I only hope her saint is watching over her; she must need supernatural help to stay afloat.”

At the name of the
St. Margaret
there was a momentary pause, which I quickly covered by saying: “But what brings you here, Sir Henry? How do you come to be in France?”

“Ah. As to that . . . now, there’s an interesting thing, and another reason why I wanted to see you, Mistress Blanchard. If I might . . . ?”

He glanced politely but meaningly at Jenkinson and Blanchard. Taking the hint, they picked up their wineglasses and retired into the second bedchamber. I took Jenkinson’s vacated perch on the window seat and looked inquiringly at Sir Henry.

“Really,” he said, “it’s most odd. Most odd. I can’t account for it at all. I am here to present to the queen regent a letter from our Queen Elizabeth, offering to act as a mediator between the Catholic government and the Huguenots, in the hope of bringing about a peace. It would save many lives and might well save the Huguenot cause. Elizabeth fears they will be crushed if the war continues unchecked and she does not want that. Wherever there is a country where Protestants thrive, she feels England has friends. England completely surrounded by solidly Catholic countries is England under threat.” Sidney sighed. “I myself would see no harm in it if England reverted to the old religion but few would agree with me, I know. Queen Mary Tudor saw to that.”

“Yes. She did.”

“I see that you hold that view. Well, well, never mind. The point is that the prince of Condé has sent appeals for help to all countries where there are Protestant communities, and one of them, of course, is England. The letter I brought to Queen Catherine is Elizabeth’s response. But when I delivered the letter, I learned that Queen Catherine had already received one. Mine had various proposals for the ways in which mediation might be carried out and I learned that the earlier letter was much less detailed. What I cannot understand is why there was an earlier letter at all. Queen Elizabeth is good at being one step ahead of everyone else, but there seemed no point in this. At the time when she wrote the letter, war had not yet begun. There had only been a few isolated acts of violence, and no one had appealed for foreign help.”

“Indeed?” I said cautiously.

“Yes. There is normally a protocol in these matters. One does not intrude in foreign affairs unless asked. In fact, that earlier letter has done harm. Queen Catherine seems to feel that our own queen is much too anxious to help; she suspects ulterior motives and I fear that she will reject the offer I brought. But she spoke to me with some frankness; she knows I have sympathy for the Catholic faith. I learned, Mistress Blanchard, that the bearer of the earlier letter was yourself. Can you throw any light on this oddity?”

I looked away from him, out of the window, at the river. I could not, from here, read the names on the vessels down there but one of them was presumably the
St. Margaret.
I wondered again who had journeyed on her.

But it was not Wilkins who now filled my mind. Elizabeth had made such a point of sending me to France with that letter. That needless, unasked, ill-timed letter. Why?

And then, cruelly, as though the words were being written in my soul by a cold, cold pen—by an icicle—I saw what the answer to Sidney’s question might be.

“I don’t know,” I said to Sir Henry. “Believe me, I am not in Her Majesty’s confidence to a sufficient extent. I imagine she thought she was, as you suggest, keeping one step ahead of everyone else. Perhaps it was a mistake. I did as I was told, but I am only a Lady of the Presence Chamber. I am not a council member.”

Sir Henry sighed. “I suppose that is true. But I did want to ask you.”

He was a likable man, was Sir Henry Sidney: competent, intelligent, far far kinder than his sister’s husband, Robin Dudley, but for that very reason, in some ways an innocent. If I had guessed right, then that letter had had a very definite purpose, though not one to be discussed with Sir Henry. It was my private business.

“I need to speak to you,” I said to my father-in-law. “Privately, if you will.”

He gazed down at me, frowning, but saw that I was very serious, and said mildly enough: “The sun is warm. Let us go to the courtyard garden.”

The courtyard garden was a good place for private conversation. The box hedges that surrounded it and edged the little gravel paths between the regimented beds of flowers were only two feet high. No one could lurk behind them and overhear us. The flowers were familiar, blooms I had known in England: golden and purple heartsease, little blue forget-me-nots. In the center of the garden there was a flowering tree and beneath it was a bench, where we sat down. Then I came to the point without wasting time for I was by now extremely tired of mystery and evasion.

“I already know,” I said, “that when you brought me to France you knew a trap was being set for my husband, Matthew de la Roche. To keep me close to his home for a while, you feigned illness at Le Cheval d’Or. You knew that Cecil’s men were watching me. One of your own men, Harvey, searched my baggage in case Matthew had written to me. All this, I have already discovered. But was there more? I thought that Cecil was just seizing the opportunity given by my journey to France. Now, I think that my entire journey was planned for that purpose.”

“What?” Blanchard stared at me.

“I think,” I said, “that Cecil asked you to seek my help in bringing Helene over; so that I would not suspect that it was his idea and that of the queen; so that I would not suspect I was to be used as bait! I think, too, that the queen gave me a pointless letter to deliver to Paris in order to keep me in France longer, to take me to the court, where Matthew might well be if he were not at home in the Loire. All to increase the chances that Matthew and I would contact each other.”

I thought back bitterly to that summons after the visit to the Tower, to that apparent last-minute request to carry a letter to Queen Catherine. It had been clever. Elizabeth had made use of the massacre at Vassy to give color to it, to make it seem extra important.