A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) (35 page)

She stopped. Knowing that she wanted to speak to me privately, I kissed Meg and told her to fetch her latest piece of embroidery, so that I could see it before I left. Then I looked at Mattie.

“I only wish I could share her future with you,” she said. “I wish that together we could see her grow up and go to court and marry. I see that that may not now be possible. But need we quite cease to be friends, Ursula?”

“No. No, Mattie, of course not. After I get home—when I’m released!—I will write to you. I promise,” I said.

Presently, having admired the embroidery, it was
time once more to hug Meg, assure her that I would come back for her as soon as I could, and then, with the best grace possible—because, as I had found at Roderix Fort, if you are being forced to do something, it is more dignified to look as if you are willing—I went out to the barge, Brockley and Dale in attendance, and embarked for Hampton Court.

It wasn’t far. The day was one of brisk wind, with alternate sun and cloud. The river went from sparkling to iron gray and back again to sparkling as we journeyed, and I was glad I had a thick cloak to keep the breeze off. I told myself that I was shivering because the breeze was so cold. It was better than admitting that I was frightened.

Hampton Court is a beautiful palace, standing serenely by the river, built of rosy brick with gray stone edgings, its rooms spacious, its tapestried and ornamental ceilings a wonder to the eye. It has ghosts, though. It is also the palace where Kate Howard, King Henry’s young, frivolous fifth wife, was arrested. She glimpsed him at the far end of a gallery and ran screaming toward him, only to be dragged back by the guards. Some say that sometimes, in that gallery, at dusk, those screams still echo, and although I have never heard them myself, I always feel uneasy there, as though there were a shadow on my spirit.

I was now, for the first time, coming to court as something nearer to a prisoner of the queen than one of her servants. As I disembarked and walked into that beautiful palace, my feet felt as though they were weighted with lead.

I was taken to a small room overlooking the wide
grounds, and there I waited, with Brockley and Dale, with Ryder to keep an eye on us. We were there for the best part of an hour, before I was called into an adjoining room. Cecil was there. With him was Rob Henderson.

I made a correctly deep curtsy to Cecil, and a very shallow one to Rob. He held out a hand to raise me, but I pretended I hadn’t seen it and straightened up unaided. Wordlessly, he stepped back.

“Be seated,” said Cecil. He was already sitting down. Like Uncle Herbert, Cecil suffered from gout and did not like to stand for too long. He studied me gravely. He had a neat fair beard, serious, intelligent blue eyes, and a deep line between his eyes. “Ursula,” he said, “you had no business to go to Scotland without asking the queen’s consent. I think you know that.”

“It was a family matter,” I said. “And Edward . . . I couldn’t ask permission without stating my business. Because then I would have had to explain Edward’s and his was treason. I can say that now, since he’s dead, and anyway, I think you know. But I went to try to stop him from committing treason. It can’t be wrong to try to stop someone from doing that! And,” I said, suddenly ceasing to be afraid because I was very angry and anger drives out fear better than anything else, “I hoped to bring him back alive. I didn’t go to Scotland to murder him! As you did, Rob!”

Henderson said soberly: “I had to. At least, I
could
have arrested him and brought him back to the Tower. Would you have preferred that, Ursula? You know what would have happened to him next. And even men in prison have been known to smuggle information out.
Instead, I stopped his mouth for good, and he died quickly. Does that make me a monster?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I stared at him. I was seeing the Rob Henderson I knew: the handsome, fair-haired man who had so often helped and supported me in my difficult and dangerous work, the beloved husband of my dear Mattie. But he had, so to speak, put the dagger into the hand that killed my cousin Edward and something in me cried out against that. I had once got my own uncle Herbert arrested for treason and I had always felt uncomfortable even about that, though I had little enough reason to love him and I had at the time been trying to do my duty as a loyal subject of Queen Elizabeth. This dead-of-night assassination was far worse. Rob had been my friend, but that friendship was poisoned now, beyond all recovery. I said blankly: “But I don’t understand how anyone knew what Edward was doing, anyway.”

Cecil said quietly: “Your cousin Edward dismissed a valet he believed was spying on him. His family told you that, I think. Well, Edward was quite right, but what he didn’t realize was that the valet wasn’t—and isn’t—the only servant at Faldene who was in our pay. A copy of the document that Edward was carrying to Scotland was made and sent to us just before he set off with it. Master Henderson here was already preparing to join Henry Lord Darnley and accompany him to Scotland. When the news arrived, he was given a second task to perform, that of seeing that neither Edward nor his document reached their destination. And then, just as Master Henderson had finished his packing, further news arrived—that you were going after your cousin as well.”

I remembered the hovering maidservant when I was at Faldene.

“I told Mattie that I was going north to retrieve some jewelry that had been sold by mistake,” I remarked. “I felt at the time that she didn’t believe me.”

“She knew what Edward was doing,” Rob said. “The news that he was going to Scotland was sent to Thamesbank first and then, because I wasn’t there, Mattie herself dispatched it on to me at court. When you arrived, also bound on an errand to the north, she guessed that there might be a connection. She was worried about you. She wrote to me to say so.”

“You didn’t send after me to bring me back,” I said, puzzled now as well as angry.

“It was considered but I argued against that,” said Rob. “
I
argued against it, Ursula. I didn’t want you to realize that we knew what your cousin was about. Because if you did, you might also, when you heard of his death, begin to suspect that we had arranged it. Believe it or not, Ursula, I knew how much that would distress you. I urged that you be left alone, allowed to make your journey—and bring back the sad news to Faldene’s family.”

“I see,” I said. “But once I reached Scotland, I would be likely enough to find out that you were there.”

“That wouldn’t have mattered, as long as you didn’t come to realize that I wasn’t just there to watch over Darnley,” said Rob. “Dear heaven, I’m so sorry you found out what my other errand was! When I agreed to ask Christopher Rokeby to obtain Mary Stuart’s original list for you, I did it because I wanted you to
believe I knew no more of Edward’s death than you did. I didn’t even risk just forging a second version of the list for you to compare with mine, because you are so damned astute. I’ve known you to recognize a forgery before now, from very small clues. And if I’d refused outright, you were quite capable of trying to get at it yourself—I know you!”

“I’m sorry I put Master Rokeby in danger,” I said stiffly.

“You didn’t. That
would
have stopped me from taking the risk. Rokeby has a set of lockpicks, a fund dedicated to the purpose of bribery, and he happens to know that one of the clerks in William Maitland’s secretariat is the real father of the only son and heir of a particularly short-tempered Scottish noble. Rokeby can usually get his hands on any document he wants without running much if any risk. He and I played the comedy out, sweetheart, right to the end. He was in on the secret, yes. Ursula, all that was part of trying to hide the truth from you, to look innocent in your eyes. Mattie loves you. I value you more than you know. But you . . .” His voice took on an exasperated tinge. “I’ve told you before. You’re just like my dog Pokenose. You have to find out everything!”

“Sir William Cecil,” I said coldly, “has on occasion paid me to do precisely that.”

“You have a talent for it,” said Cecil, and at last he smiled. “You have not been arrested, Ursula. You are not going to be taken to the Tower. But you are being warned. For your own safety—from us as well as from others!—never act alone in this way again.”

“I overtook you on the road north,” Rob said. “I
raced you to Scotland, and then went straight to Dormbois. I really did have Darnley to watch. I was supposed to be encouraging a match between him and Mary Stuart. I had work to do, as well as wanting to keep in the shadows as far as Faldene was concerned. I made Dormbois my deputy, as it were. He has been in our pay since John Knox converted him, a year ago now. And Dormbois—doesn’t mind too much what he does.”

“As I well know,” I said. “And Edward was murdered in the night because he was carrying a list of Mary’s English supporters—an updated list. When she already has one, even if it is a little older.”

“Ursula.” Cecil’s voice was calm. “Edward was carrying more than a list. He was also carrying the names of those who were on the original list, but who have since changed sides and are working for us. Dormbois is not the only man who seems to be hers, but is really ours.”

“Yes,” I said. “I realized that something like that was happening.”

Cecil nodded. “She and her supporters are building up a network of supporters in England—but we are creating a network, too. Ours consists of her apparent supporters, who will keep us informed of what she is doing, of every move she makes. Dormbois’s own name was on that list. The Thursbys—you stayed with the Thursbys, did you not?—are on it too. So are the Bycrofts.”

“Those two families were the ones I found out about,” I said.

“Pokenose!” Rob put in.

“The Thursbys,” said Cecil with slight amusement,
“are afraid of having their home repossessed by the Church if a Catholic ruler took over the English throne. My agents have worked quite hard to encourage that fear to the point where the Thursbys agreed to work for Elizabeth. The Bycrofts needed money and could simply be bought.”

“Just like that?” I had wondered a good deal about the motives of the Bycrofts. “But—they’re so pious!”

“They overdo it,” Rob said. I knew from the glint of humor in his voice and eyes that he was trying to win me back as a friend, but I couldn’t respond. “They are so very anxious to appear committed to the Catholic religion,” he said. “There are many others. If their names were ever to reach Mary Stuart or her lords, our network would be lost.”

“And Edward found out,” said Cecil. “Though it isn’t clear how.”

“We have spies in his home at Faldene,” said Rob quietly. “Perhaps other places too harbor servants who listen at doors and read their masters’ letters. Bycroft and St. Margaret’s, for instance.”

John Thursby’s voice spoke in my mind.
Hamish Fraser watches over every detail of our household. We have a little joke that if anyone in it were to lock themselves into a room at the far end of the house from Hamish, and cough, the moment they came out, they would meet the maidservant he had sent to them with a licorice and horehound cough mixture.
I had been relieved to know Hamish Fraser innocent of murder. But perhaps he was guilty of other things instead.

“I know nothing of the other households concerned,” I said, “but if you don’t want Mary to learn that the Bycrofts and the Thursbys have changed their
allegiance, I recommend a sharp look at the Thursby steward, Hamish Fraser. I can’t be sure, but he could be the source of Edward’s information.”

“Thank you, Ursula. We shall investigate,” Cecil said. “We shall make a point of it.”

“And another point that must be made,” said Rob Henderson, “is that Edward Faldene assuredly carried most of those names in his head. We could have stolen the list—Dormbois did—but silencing Edward Faldene was essential as well. And as I said, it was surer, from our point of view, and kinder from his, simply to kill him.”

“Do you understand?” asked Cecil.

“Yes. I understand.” Without warning, I was close to tears. “I understand completely and it only makes it worse. You have to protect Elizabeth . . .”

“Yes.” Henderson was nodding.

“. . . you
do
have to protect Elizabeth. She is England. Yet it seems that everyone else is turned into nothing; people are bought, or threatened, or killed . . . we’re all nothing but pawns on her chessboard and all as expendable as Edward, if it came to the point.”

“Not you,” said Rob. “You are no traitor. Listen, Ursula. You think we are ruthless? What of yourself? You encompassed Dormbois’s death, did you not? I know all that happened in Roderix Fort, my dear. I arrived there less than two hours after you left it, dispatched by Queen Mary with an armed escort to demand your release and bring you back to Stirling. When Brockley went back to Roderix with Ericks, he had the good sense to leave word for the queen. He left it with one of her Maries. Dormbois is dead now, but he
was still alive when I got there and he regained his senses for a while. He told me everything. He realized that he couldn’t live long. He had nothing to lose. He had a conscience of a sort, you know.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes. Really. He let you buy my name from him and it was on his mind. At the time he didn’t think it mattered. You were his prisoner in Roderix and he didn’t anticipate that you’d ever escape him and talk. He didn’t know you! He was mad for you, you know. I stayed with him till he died, five days later, and he said as much to me, over and over. Frankly, Ursula, you are a menace, unattached as you are, riding round the countryside and making men like Dormbois fall in love with you. I wish you would marry and settle down!”

“I agree, though I wouldn’t put it quite so roughly,” Cecil remarked.

“Dormbois,” said Rob, “also told me that he believed you had somehow tricked him into drinking drugged wine and watched him fight and lose. He said he didn’t blame Adam Ericks. He reckoned it was a fair duel as far as Ericks was concerned, but he was as sure as he could be that somehow or other, you had cheated.”