A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) (17 page)

When the galliard was over, he handed me back to my place and then, to my annoyance, left me without a word in order to claim the hand of another lady for a pavane. He did not return to me for an hour. The dances grew livelier, well-bred galliards and dignified pavanes giving place to spirited reels and hilarious round dances. Queen Mary, obviously enjoying herself immensely, took part in most of them, with a variety of partners, although they didn’t include Darnley, who seemed to have disappeared for good, along with Elboeuf and Bothwell.

Anxious to talk to Dormbois again, I tried to avoid dancing too much and declined offers from Riccio and the depressing Rokeby, although I took the floor once with Maitland and joined in with a round dance, for which partners were not needed.

Dusk drew on at last, early, for the day was overcast. There was an interval, during which people could get their breath back and the musicians could take some refreshment, and a steward announced that a supper had
been laid in the dining hall. The candles were lit. As the music started up again, I began to wonder if Dormbois had left the festivities like Darnley and the others, but then he was back, once again offering his arm. I accepted, and at once found that we were parading, not onto the floor, but through the door to the supper room.

Here too, there were candles but fewer than in the dancing chamber and there were pools of shadow along the walls. As yet, only two or three people were there, standing with their backs to us as they chose cold meat and cheeses from the table. Dormbois, after pausing for a wary moment in the doorway, gripped my elbow and steered us quickly across a corner of the room. He whisked us out through a side door, down a staircase, along a short passage lit by a couple of flickering flambeaux in wall sconces, and into a small stone-floored chamber. This was lit by two more flambeaux, but the window embrasures were caves of gray shadow. He led me to one of them and sat us down on the padded window seat.

“Well,” I said, “if anyone finds us here alone together like this, my reputation won’t be worth a penny.”

“Who is going to find us, lassie? I made sure no one in the supper room noticed us. My apologies for leaving you so brusquely earlier, but I didnae want to draw any attention to us. Not that they’d be interested, anyhow. They’ll be too busy thinking up rude jokes to make at the bedding. I was sorry not to dance with you longer for you dance like a dream come true. As I told you the day we met, I like you fine.”

“Thank you. You dance well, too. But, Sir Brian . . .”

“Oh, lassie!” He shook his head at me and put a heavy arm around my shoulder. I thought it politic not to remove myself, but I could not help stiffening and he gently shook me. “Och, now, I’m not an ogre, am I? And nor are you a timid virgin. Twice-married should mean seasoned.”

“I am not a dish of venison, either,” I said tightly. “Sir Brian, I must ask your pardon if I seem lacking in response, but I am lately widowed and I have no wish to . . . to involve myself with any other man as yet.” Even as I said it, I was conscious of the warmth of his hand, which lay on my upper arm. It had been a long time since I said good-bye to Matthew, a long time since I felt a warm, loving male hand on me.

I said primly: “I am only here with you because I hope you have something to tell me. I think you know that. Please, if you have found out anything that bears on my cousin’s death, let me know what it is.”

“Businesslike, businesslike.” He shook his head again, and a stray flicker of light from one of the torches made his silver temples gleam.

“Sir Brian, please!”

He withdrew his arm, and no, I did
not
regret the removal of that warm, strong hand. I told myself so, with vigor. “I’ve news, surely, lassie,” he said. “Not the name of the fellow who crept in at your cousin’s window and put the blade in his chest. Maybe it was Ericks and maybe it wasn’t. Who knows? But I can tell you this: Master Furness, the tavern keeper, who told the inquiry of the quarrel between Ericks and Edward Faldene, didna come forward of choice. He is not a man to get entangled in an affair like murder, unless
he had to. Someone laid information with the authorities, and it was the constable’s men who went to him and questioned him and required his testimony. And I know who laid that information.”

“Who?” I turned eagerly toward him. Too eagerly. His right hand was behind my head and his mouth was on mine on the instant. I froze, keeping my lips closed, and after a moment he sat back with a sigh.

“You’re a hard conquest, lassie. Well, the harder the nut the sweeter the kernel; that’s what I’ve always thought.”

“Sir Brian, you were saying . . .”

“Aye, I was. But for the moment, I think I’ll say no more.”

“What?”

“I could have you, you know,” he said thoughtfully. “Here on the floor of this very room. We’re here alone and I’m stronger than you are.”

“This palace is full of servants.” I sat still however, knowing by instinct that it was the safest thing to do. The more you waggle a piece of string, the more readily will a kitten pounce after it; dogs chase rabbits—or cats—mainly because they run. I have seen a dog completely disconcerted by a cat that sat down in its path and stared at it. “I’m sure,” I said icily, “that a few loud screams would attract attention.”

“I daresay they would. And in fact, I have no intent to force you. That’s no way to make love. A man’s needs must be desperate to do such a thing and desperate in these matters I have never been,” said Dormbois complacently. “But sometimes, when a lassie is especially charming, a little persuasion may be
in order, to convince her where her own best interests and happiness may lie. You want the name of the man that gave Ericks’s name to the authorities. I will tell you, sweeting, as your morning gift, when you wake on a pillow with your head next to mine . . .”

“How dare you? It would appear,” I said, standing up and shaking my skirts angrily, “that I shall be forced to discover what I want to know by myself. I made a grave mistake in asking for your help.”

“Och, not so fast, lassie.” Out shot that strong hand again, and it closed on my wrist. “I said I had no mind to force you, but I’ve told you a little, have I not? Will you no’ give me a kiss, a real, loving kiss, by way of payment? Is that too much to ask? You might enjoy it! Why not try?”

“There’s someone in the passage! Let me go at once. I am not prepared to be discovered in your arms!”

I spoke so sharply that his grip actually did slacken and, jerking myself free, I stepped quickly away from him. It was just as well, for the sounds in the passage were coming nearer and an instant later the door was thrust open. Three men blundered into the room, disputing.

“Thisisanoutrage!”
One of them was extremely drunk and slurring all his words together. As they stumbled into the circle of light from the torch above the door, I saw tousled fair hair above black velvet. “You have no right, no rightatall . . . !”

“I’ve every right, you damned young fool.” One of the men grasping him also had fair hair, though his was a deeper shade, and as I stood transfixed, I recognized his voice. “You were sent here for a purpose and I was
sent here to see you did your best at it, and no, I will not look on while you throw it all to the winds . . . !”

“Lemme alone, I tell you!” This was accompanied by a surge of movement, as of violent resistance, followed by an ominous
“Aaaaurgh!”

“Oh, Gawd, he’s goin’ to throw up again,” said the third man. He was dressed, as far as I could see, in soldierly brown, and his voice, which was also familiar to me, was that of a Londoner.

“I woanallowit . . . not a child. Getchahandsoffme! Wouldn’t treat Bos . . . Bot . . . Bothwell or Elbif . . . Elboeuf like this-ohGod—
urgh!
”

“Rene of Elboeuf and the Earl of Bothwell aren’t courting Scotland, and if you’re being treated like a child it’s your own fault! You’ll bloody well get sobered up and you’ll go back up there and dance with Her Majesty . . . oh, bring it up on the floor, damn you! Throw it up and throw it out and let’s hope you’ve brought nothing back from that whorehouse that’s harder to be rid of than bad wine . . .”

“Aaaaurgh . . . gh!”

“Tut tut,” said Dormbois reprovingly from behind me. The soldierly Londoner had grabbed the head of the drunk and was holding him steady while Henry Lord Darnley, wooer of Queen Mary Stuart, Lady Lennox’s precious son and hope of future power, emptied his system onto the flagstones. The man with the dark gold hair jumped out of the way with a muttered oath and found himself staring straight at me. “Dear heaven, what’s this? We don’t seem to be as private as we thought . . . who are you? And who’s that in the window behind you? Come into the light!”

“Good evening, Master Henderson,” I said, to my friend Mattie’s husband, Rob, with whom I had, to my regret, quarreled when we had worked together the previous year. “This is Sir Brian Dormbois, who has been trying to obtain some information for me. Dear Rob . . .” The endearment was a sop, an attempt to reawaken our old friendship, though I could see, even in the shaky torchlight, that there was no friendship in his face. “Dear Rob, what on earth are you doing in Scotland?”

Rob appeared to know Dormbois already. He cut short my attempts to introduce my unwanted suitor more fully but requisitioned his services immediately to help his man take Darnley away to be sobered up by the fastest means possible and then returned—preferably chastened—to the wedding festivities and the ballroom and the company of Queen Mary Stuart. Rob then sank down onto the window seat vacated by Dormbois, wiped his brow, and said: “I could kill that wantwit Darnley.” Unexpectedly, his tone was almost amiable.

“Rob, what’s going on? I thought you were at court in Whitehall.”

“I was, but I was given an assignment which brought me north.”

“Looking after Darnley?”

“Exactly. And it takes some doing, I can tell you.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. I sat down at the other
end of the window seat. “I knew that policy had changed—that Queen Elizabeth and Cecil had decided that a marriage between Mary and Darnley wasn’t, after all, the worst thing that could happen, even if they are both Tudor descendants. But you’re talking as though they actually want the marriage so much that they’ve sent someone—you—along to promote it.”

“They do and they have. I’m the someone. Oh, Darnley was hardly their first choice. What Cecil really hoped,” said Rob, “was that Robert Dudley could be married off to Mary.
He
hasn’t got any Tudor ancestors and he’s a good sound Protestant . . .”

“I wouldn’t trust too far to that,” I said, remembering an occasion when Elizabeth’s good-looking Master of Horse had harbored serious hopes of marrying her, despite widespread disapproval, and been quite prepared to change his religion if Philip of Spain would promise to lend him an army with which to put down any indignant rebellions.

“No, nor would I, to tell you the truth. But he really does have affection for Elizabeth and I fancy they looked on that as a safeguard. Anyway, it came to nothing. He didn’t want Mary, and even though Elizabeth made him Earl of Leicester last autumn, Mary still doesn’t want to marry the man that she calls the Queen of England’s horsemaster. In the tone of voice you’d use to say
a mere groom.
”

“That sounds coarse, for Mary Stuart,” I said, amused. “She’s so charming. Has she really said that?”

“I’ve heard her.” Rob did not share my amusement. He said soberly: “Mary is on the marriage market. You know all this, Ursula! If we don’t stop her, she is likely
to marry into one of the European Catholic royal families—Spanish if she can manage it—but anyway, someone willing to back her claim to Elizabeth’s throne through force of arms. Compared to that, Darnley has considerable advantages, just because he
is
of Tudor descent. A son from such a marriage would be a sound heir for England, and by the look of it, Elizabeth is never going to produce one of her own. And he’s not likely to be dangerous to England himself, because firstly, he doesn’t have an army at his beck and call, and secondly, we have his mother in England. One threatening move on Darnley’s part, and Lady Lennox will be in the Tower. She’s our hostage, in other words.”

“Er—how much does Darnley know about all this?”

“It hasn’t occurred to him that his mother’s our hostage, no. He knows that the marriage is thought politically sound and that he’s expected to do his best to bring it about, and that his reward will be to be King of Scotland and father of England’s heir. The trouble,” said Rob glumly, “is that our golden-haired lad—the long lad the Scots call him, because of his height—is as vain as a peacock and likes the company of roisterers like Bothwell and Elboeuf. I saw them leave the banquet together and followed. Along with my man Barker . . .”

“So that’s who it was! I thought I knew his voice.”

“Yes, Geoffrey Barker. He’s one of my best men. He came with me when we went after Darnley and helped me get him out of the whorehouse that the Earl of Bothwell and the Queen of Scotland’s irresponsible uncle took him into. It was an expensive place,” said Rob fairly. “The clients are offered a choice of wines and a
dish of oatcakes and a chance to talk to the girls before they pick one and proceed to business. The wines are cheap and the oatcakes are underdone and the girls talk such broad Scots that it might as well be Chinese, but never mind. I didn’t want to create a disturbance, so I had to pause to explain myself to the madam. That delayed me and I didn’t get at Darnley before he’d passed the refreshment stage. I just hope the girl was clean!”

“How do you know the wine was bad?” I asked with interest.

“You haven’t changed, have you, Ursula?” said Rob, and now the unfriendliness was back. “Trust you to ask a sharp, nasty question. For your information, the madam gave me some, but one sip was enough. It was horrible. But Darnley probably drank all of his and he’d already had a skinful at the banquet. He’s had a good education,” said Rob disdainfully, “but he has no taste. In any sense of the word.”