A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) (31 page)

This fellow told him (I think Ericks asks questions with fists and sword) that Dormbois ordered him to keep watch on Master Faldene when he arrived in Edinburgh, and see whom he met and where he went. He was given two companions to help him, strangers, not Scotsmen but English. Ericks now thinks it was Dormbois who told the authorities to seek out the tavern keeper and thus Dormbois who has tried to point him out as a murderer by night. Ericks also says you are surely at Roderix Fort and has told me where it is.

I am desperate with anxiety for both you and my wife. Are you still safe? How should I go about rescuing
you? Do I go back to Stirling and wait for the queen’s return, or is there aught I can do here, and at once? I require your instructions.

I send you my duty as your servant and my hearty love to Fran. Tell her that I swear before God that we will be together again soon.

R.B.

I looked at Father Bell. “You realize that I have been brought here with a view to a forced marriage?”

“Yes, madam, so it is being said among the people in the cottages. These things happen in this wild place.”

“Will you help me?”

“As far as I can. I brought you the letter, did I not?”

“Then tell Brockley that we are both well. And tell him also—tell him—please take heed of this and repeat my words exactly . . .”

“Trust me, madam.”

“Tell him to seek help from Queen Mary as soon as he can but to avoid Master Henderson at all costs. Have you got that? And tell him—these very words, mark you—that
the button belongs to Sir Brian Dormbois.
”

“Ask help of Queen Mary as soon as may be but avoid Master Henderson at all costs. And the button belongs to Sir Brian Dormbois. I won’t ask you the meaning. There is more to this than appears on the surface, it would seem.”

“There is. But if you get that message safely to Brockley, I hope that rescue will come before long.”

After that, I made a confession of sorts, because Father Bell expected it. I had done the same thing when I lived in France with Matthew. Elizabeth was sometimes impatient
with the fuss that people made over the difference between the old religion and the new. It was nothing but a dispute about trifles, she said. I was inclined to agree.

In any case, since I had so little belief in a beneficent God, it scarcely mattered which rituals I took part in, for I usually felt that I was only paying lip service. I therefore went through the form of confession, though with caution, for I did not want to involve this decent man too deeply in the business of my cousin’s violent death.

I did not mention the bargain I had made with Dormbois; only that I had been constrained to spend the night with him, had given in to preserve a sense of dignity, but felt it still to be a sin. I said I might have to do the same again before I was freed, and would prefer not to hear mass until after my release. I also soothed Dale’s tension by explaining that she was in fact of the Reformed faith and would not confess.

After that, we all shared the wine, and when I had let Dale read the letter for herself and gaze awhile at Brockley’s writing, we thought it wise to burn it in our hearth. Father Bell once more repeated the message I had given him for Brockley. Then Dormbois returned.

“Oh, ma’am,” Dale whispered as soon as Dormbois had escorted the priest downstairs. “There’s hope now. I feel there’s hope.”

“So do I,” I said, and at that point a vague ache in the lower abdomen, which had been pulling at my attention for a good half hour, increased to a pitch that was unmistakable. “And there’s one thing,” I said cheerfully. “I think I really do need those linen squares now. What a mercy. I can keep Dormbois at bay for a while without bothering to lie.”

• • •

Dinner was brought to us in the parlor, and after that, we examined some of Marguerite’s gowns. They were of very good quality. They were all too small either for Dale or for me, but not by much. Since it would indeed help to pass the time, we each chose a gown and started to let out seams.

And then came the confrontation that I had known I must face sooner or later. Dormbois came back to talk to me.

“I am sorry for deceiving you.” He stood in front of me, feet apart, a brown fur-edged jacket swinging from his wide shoulders. But the front of it was open and I could still see those buttons, and the space where the missing one had been. I pushed my needle into my work and sat with my hands clasped, wondering frantically what Brockley was doing now.

“At least,” said Dormbois, “I find you calm and occupied. It gives me hope that you are thinking now with a clearer mind.”

“I am thinking only of the work I am doing,” I said in a trembling voice. And then added: “Needlework interests me. That is a well-cut doublet you are wearing. Did an Edinburgh tailor make it for you?”

“No. Marguerite made it, embroidery and all,” said Dormbois. “New it is not, but I am fond of it. Like the earthenware goblets, it is something that no one else has copied. Never mind my doublet. I didnae come for small talk. I hoped that there would be no need for the violence this morning, that I’d win you in those sweet hours we had together. I’m sorry I didnae succeed.
Now, pay heed. I’ll not trouble you at night until nature’s run her course, but don’t think to hold me off longer. You’ll do better to make terms with the future, Ursula. Why not? It’s live with me as my concubine, or else as my wife. As my wife, you’ll be a highly respected lady and no one’ll think the worse of you because your husband won you by capture. Many a girl that lacks your magic’ll envy you and maybe go to some auld witch for a love potion to get some fellow to care for her as much. What’s the use of saying you don’t want to marry again? The time has to come and it’s against nature to defy it.”

I said nothing. I had put my theory to the test but the last faint hope that he was not guilty had gone. There was no possibility that someone else, wearing a doublet like his, had been in Edward’s room that night. It had been Dormbois and no other. Dale, seated apart and still stitching industriously, had understood too. She let out an inadvertent snort and Dormbois glared at her.

“Make that woman of yours know her place,” he said to me. “It’s no’ for the likes of her to comment. Listen, lassie. You’re no fool but a woman of the world, with a daughter. What of her?”

I was jolted into speech. “Meg? She’s safe in Sussex!”

“Aye, but reputations travel. One day she’ll be old enough to wed, but who’ll wed a maiden whose mother is living with a Scottish laird, and they’ve half a dozen children and no bond of marriage? When the first bairn is coming, I think you’ll gladly take me for your lawful husband.”

I went on staring at him and he grew impatient. “Why the big wide eyes? It’s a natural thing between a
man and a woman. As well you know. How else did your Meg come into being?”

In my mind, a door opened, narrowly. Peering through the chink I could see a faint hope. As well as a vista of fear.

“If it’s children you want,” I said, “you would do best to find another lady. I had great trouble to bring Meg into the world. Since then I have miscarried once and had one stillbirth, which almost killed me. It isn’t only grief for Matthew that makes me unwilling to marry again. I want to live, Sir Brian. Force me into bearing your bairn as you call it, and you might find yourself mourning for me as you did for your first wife. She died in childbed, did she not?”

“You keep comparing yourself to Jeannie and Marguerite, but you are nothing like either of them. Jeannie was too young. You’re a woman grown. Most women have their bairns safe enough, or none of us would be here. Some trouble they have, but that’s the payment for the sin of Eve. You may have suffered, but you didn’t die, did you? Now what’s going through that elusive mind of yours? Something is. I see it in your eyes.”

I was thinking about Elizabeth. Elizabeth feared marriage because she feared to give herself into a man’s power. She had told me as much. But thinking now of her slender, fragile form, I found myself suddenly wondering if the danger of childbearing was part of that fear as well.

After returning from France, I had gathered from her other ladies that the council had once tried to urge her toward marriage by begging her to imagine the comfort and delight that beholding an imp of her own would
bring, whereupon she had lost her temper with them and with tears of rage in her eyes shouted at them to be silent. The ladies knew about it because some of them were the wives of council members and their husbands had told them. Everyone, man and woman alike, assumed that the tears were born of temper but had they, perhaps, been caused by terror? Elizabeth feared death more than most, for she had experienced the shadow of the ax, and childbearing had killed two of her stepmothers. I remembered my own perilous confinement in France and I understood.

But Dormbois didn’t. “I’ll leave you now. You need time to settle and to think. Sweetheart . . .”

I ground my teeth.

“. . . sweetheart, don’t let it come to force. It didn’t last night; don’t let it be so next time, either. I want to love you, nothing more. Breeding bairns, that’s part of it, but that comes later. For now, it’s my sweet lady in my arms that I want and I’ve all the world to offer her. Only, I’m not a man to say no to. So—think well, my dear.”

He was gone. I put my face into my hands and Dale said: “Oh, dear Lord, this is terrible. What are we to do?”

“We’ve a few days,” I said. “Five—I sometimes go on for six. I doubt if that will help, though. Brockley said the queen would be gone for three days. Does that include yesterday or not? Not that it matters. She’ll have to start by ordering my release and then Dormbois will say no, and she’ll have to mount a siege. If she thinks I’m worth the effort, that is! Oh, I could kill Dormbois! Dear heaven, has he
no
sense of honor?”

I shared the big bed with Dale that night and I slept, because I was too worn-out to do anything else. My cramps had passed by then. In the morning, Dormbois did not appear. Breakfast was brought. Then Dale and I went on altering Marguerite’s clothes.

As we worked, we talked. I wondered if the letters I had sent through Henderson had been received at Faldene, by Mattie at Thamesbank and Sybil Jester in Cambridge, and whether any replies would ever reach me. “Am I truly cut off from the world in this place?” I said to Dale. “Surely, Queen Mary will try to set me free, and if she doesn’t, well, when Cecil and Queen Elizabeth find out, they will make representations . . .”

“I hope so, ma’am,” said Dale unhappily.

“I know,” I said. “But we’re so far from home!”

Dinner came: mutton stew with dumplings and bread, and a kind of tart made of thick pastry and filled
with cherries preserved in wine. The flavors were pleasant but much more of this heavy fare with no exercise, I thought, and Dale and I would both have upset stomachs.

When the dishes had been removed, I suggested that we should walk about the room, but when we were doing so, our attention was caught by voices below, and we went to look out of the window.

Two visitors were crossing the courtyard from the gate, escorted by two of Dormbois’s plaid-draped soldiers. One of them was Father Bell. The other was Brockley.

• • •

Ten minutes later, Fraser appeared to say that I was wanted in the hall. “And ye’re woman had best come too, this being a place of men otherwise.”

He was polite enough to let us go down first. We arrived in the comfortless hall to find Dormbois there, with the visitors. The two men who had brought them in were standing back, but with an air of being on guard. All the faces were serious, to the point of grimness. Brockley was holding a piece of rolled parchment.

“Ah. Madame de la Roche. Come here.” Dormbois beckoned me. “This concerns you.” He looked at Brockley. “Speak your piece, man.”

“I come as a herald,” said Brockley. His plain brown clothes were splashed with mud from much riding and his face was both tired and unshaven, but he held himself with great dignity. Brockley had presence and knew how to use it.

“Madam, I have of course asked for your release and that of my wife,” he said. His eyes went briefly to Dale, and he smiled at her before continuing. “This was refused, which I expected. But I did not come principally for that purpose, but as an emissary from someone else.”

There was a pause while he unrolled the parchment. He cleared his throat and read. “Master Adam Ericks, descended through his mother from the Gordons, a swordsman serving Patrick Lord Lindsay in arms, sends me as his second. He has a lawful quarrel with Sir Brian Dormbois in that he accuses Sir Brian of having tried to lay on him the blame for the bloody and dishonorable murder of Master Edward Faldene in Edinburgh on the night of February the eighth in the Year of Our Lord 1565.

“He wishes to clear his name by combat. The combat to be sword against sword, the time and place to be chosen by Sir Brian Dormbois. In the event that Master Ericks prevails, Sir Brian, if living, must publicly clear the name of Ericks; if not living, then someone appointed by him must do so in his stead. Also, in the event that Master Ericks prevails, Madame de la Roche, otherwise known as Mistress Ursula Blanchard, and her tirewoman, Frances Brockley, otherwise known as Frances Dale, at present held in captivity by the said Sir Brian Dormbois, are to be set free that they may return to their home. On this understanding, I, Roger Brockley, agree to act as herald and second.”

“I have said,” Dormbois declared, “that I havenae attempted to blame Master Ericks for anything whatsoever. I’ve scarcely heard of the man. He apparently claims that I laid information with the authorities concerning the
quarrel in the tavern between Ericks and Faldene. I did not. I also said, before you came down to the hall, madam, that I saw no reason why I should accept this challenge, since this man Ericks is no more than a man-at-arms whereas I am nobly born. However . . .”