Queen Without a Crown (15 page)

We left the next day, in bitter weather. Hugh and I kissed long and hard. Dale wept, but my eyes were dry. For me, the time for tears was past. As Hugh had looked into my eyes, I now looked into Dale’s, except that I was not seeking a promise and a message of reassurance, but giving them.

‘We all have good horses,’ I said to her. ‘Roundel is sturdy; so is Brockley’s Brown Berry. Trelawny’s mare looks almost too well bred, but Trelawny says that she’s the toughest thing on four legs he’s ever come across. Mark uses Lord Sussex’s string of post horses and changes mounts whenever he feels like it. We’re taking packs on our backs and in our saddlebags to save being cluttered with a pack animal. I shall race round the northern counties as fast as I can. Mark says that it’s possible his great aunt or one of her daughters will actually have that portrait. They’re the only members of his family left. Anyway, even if I do have to go from one place to another to find it, some of the four suspect houses I have to visit may be on my route. Why,’ I said, brightly, ‘we could be back here in three weeks!’

She-Eagle

W
e made good speed to Westmorland, but it was in the teeth of a north wind that cut through our hooded woollen cloaks like a scythe through corn. Twice we rode through snowstorms. Several times, we had to stop so that Brockley could clear balled snow from the hooves of the horses.

We parted from Mark at Sheffield. He went on northwards, to York by way of Leeds, while I and my escort turned north-west for Bolton, Lancaster, and ultimately for Westmorland.

We could have called at Tyesdale, where Jane was living with my former ward Pen and her husband Clem, but I decided to leave that until we were on our way home. If I could find Gervase Easton’s portrait and it showed a right-handed man, I would have news that was at least hopeful. Besides, two of the houses on Sussex’s list were in Westmorland. I wanted to complete my business and return to Hugh, as fast as possible.

We pressed on, therefore, using the hours of daylight as best we could, avoiding upland paths which were sure to be choked with snow. My companions were steady and watchful, careful of my welfare and that of the horses. Trelawny, I knew from Cecil, was aware of both our purposes and had been informed of my secret work. He gave me odd, amused looks sometimes, but Brockley told me quietly that I need not worry; I could trust him. Both of them used their clowning habits to keep our spirits up.

Brockley, mounted on his sturdy cob, Brown Berry, had a helmet on under his outsize hat, which drew many witty remarks from Trelawny, concerning the size of Brockley’s head. Trelawny himself, astride Strawberry, his elegant roan mare, had dressed for a fashionable silhouette. He had a high-crowned hat complete with a long golden-brown feather which he said came from a species of hawk imported from the New World, a well-cut cloak of mulberry wool lined with silk and magnificently puffed-out breeches (I suspected he was actually wearing two pairs, for warmth). He also had a thick quilted doublet, a dignified ruff and riding boots which he polished every night. Brockley said he looked like a dandy.

Sometimes I joined in with the laughing jibes, free now to exchange whatever jokes I wished with Brockley, though I sometimes felt guilty about this.

I learned more about Trelawny as we travelled. Unlike Brockley, he had never married, although I gathered that he had had many a brief romance in the course of a restless existence. To him, soldiering was the best kind of life, and when not in an army of some sort, he had always been employed in a way which offered at least an occasional chance of a fight. He had been a retainer in several households where his main tasks were carrying messages or accompanying his employer as companion and guard, always with a sword on his hip and always ready to use it.

Eight days after leaving Windsor, on a grey and bitter afternoon, we arrived in Westmorland and, because it was on our way, presented ourselves at the first of Lord Sussex’s suspect houses.

Nine days after leaving Windsor, as another overcast and savagely cold dusk descended, we reached the second.

Neither turned us away. I introduced Brockley and Trelawny as relatives who were acting as my escort, and we were all greeted with courtesy, given good guest chambers and invited to dine and breakfast with the rest of the household.

In both houses, we took the opportunity of enquiring about pictures, explaining that we were trying to trace a family portrait which had been sold to someone in Westmorland. It made a very handy excuse for our journey. In both houses, we were invited to look at all their pictures (we found no portraits that could possibly be of Gervase), and in neither did we meet anyone who could have been either of the rebellious earls or their wives.

One household was headed by a quiet young woman with two small children and no visible husband. She said vaguely that her husband was away. (‘Among the fugitives in Scotland, what would you wager?’ Brockley said to me afterwards.) The other was in the charge of a steward because both master and mistress were somewhere else, unspecified.

But in both cases, after our night’s stay, if we were not exactly hurried out of the place, we were certainly not encouraged to linger, and in the conversation at the dining table, in both houses, I thought I detected a constraint, a caution. I did not risk raising political subjects myself. I wished I could say that I was the widow of Matthew de la Roche, for he was well known among the supporters of Mary Stuart and a connection with him might have improved my welcome. The fact that he was still alive, however, prevented me. I was not his widow, and his new wife was probably known to be with him in France.

I left those two houses feeling that I had sensed something, but I couldn’t be certain what. It was as though the people who lived there were aware of things they would not mention in my presence, and in the house which was being looked after by a steward, there had been an interesting incident.

It happened while the steward was showing me the pictures, which he did in the morning, while our horses were being saddled. He was leading me towards a staircase which he said went to the gallery where most of the pictures in the house were hung, apart from two in the dining chamber, which I had already seen. As we approached the stairs, we passed a room with a door standing slightly open.

Glancing in, I saw that the room was a weaponry, and that two men were in there, one sharpening a sword and the other cleaning a musket. The steward saw me looking and remarked that his master liked everything to be kept in good order all the time. Then he hurried me on, talking volubly about the pictures upstairs, all his master’s family portraits, he said. It was a small thing, but it was a pointer. It looked as if further fighting was expected. But when and why, and who would be fighting whom?

On the tenth day after leaving Windsor, with half of Lord Sussex’s task now performed, though scarcely with much success, we arrived at the town of Kendal.

‘Our next visit is to do with our own errand, isn’t it, Mistress Stannard?’ Trelawny asked. ‘We’re going to see someone’s great aunt now, are we not?’

‘What is her home called?’ Brockley asked me. ‘Her name is Mistress Tracy, I think you said?’

‘Yes. She’s known as Bess, but I suppose that means Elizabeth. Mark couldn’t remember the name of her house, but he did say it was big, and it’s on the far side of Kendal, beside a lake. Someone in Kendal will have heard of it, I think. We’d better call on the vicar of the largest church we can find. He’ll be able to tell us, for sure.’

Kendal turned out to be a busy place with a market in progress. The weather had brightened, and the edged wind had dropped, encouraging the crowds. There was no sign that war had recently raged round the district. The town had no defensive walls, and its inhabitants seemed entirely concerned with their own affairs, which plainly centred round the wool industry. In the market, stalls selling cloths and yarn and pens full of sheep were much in evidence. We found a helpful vicar without difficulty.

‘Mistress Elizabeth Tracy? Of course, of course.’ He was a cheery, chatty fellow, who didn’t look as if he had ever heard the word
war
. ‘Just go straight through the town and towards the lake and you’ll see the chimneys of her house from the road. It’s on the eastern side of the water. Littlebeck House it’s called, from the stream that runs through the garden down to the lake. It’s easy to find. You are relatives?’

‘We’re here on behalf of a great-nephew of hers,’ I said. ‘We have a message for her.’

‘She’ll make you welcome. She’s a fine old lady.’

The house was impressive. Well, no doubt Mark’s great aunt would be impressive as well. His recollections of her had been intimidating.
Great Aunt Bess’s tenants do what she tells them, and if they don’t, she eats them grilled for breakfast
, sounded positively terrifying.

We were admitted by a manservant and shown to a panelled hall, adorned with pairs of antlers from both red and fallow stags and a set of tapestries depicting the story of Helen of Troy. The floor was strewn thickly with fresh rushes, and a luxurious log fire burnt in a big stone hearth.

Our hostess found us clustered round it, standing up, since although there were stools and settles round the walls, there was only one seat near the hearth, an elaborately carved chair upholstered in crimson damask, which somehow we were all afraid to sit on.

Bess Tracy walked with the aid of a stick, but she held herself very erect. She was indeed a fine old lady, but also an alarming one. I never saw another human being who reminded me so powerfully of an eagle. She had all the essential features: strong hooked nose, fingers like talons – though I think that was due to the joint evil in her hands, which she clearly could not use with ease – and an extraordinary headdress like a bonnet coated with brown feathers. No doubt it was warm. What one could see of her hair was white, but her carefully plucked eyebrows were a pale golden-brown, and her round, arrogant eyes were a perfect match.

I introduced us, explaining that I had come on behalf of Mark Easton and once more presenting Brockley and Trelawny as relatives. They bowed graciously. Bess studied us with those remarkable eyes. Queen Elizabeth had golden-brown eyes too, but Mistress Tracy’s were much more yellow and they were penetrating as well as arrogant. In a sharp voice which held only a trace of northern accent she said: ‘Never heard of any of you, though it’s not surprising. Mark never writes, though his uncle Robert did. You say he sent you, mistress?’

I hesitated. After all, since the matter concerned not merely a portrait of Gervase Easton but also his reputation, and since Bess Tracy was his kinswoman, the matter was more than a little delicate. I began with caution.

‘I am a Lady of the Bedchamber to the queen,’ I said. ‘I met Mark, your great-nephew, when he came to Windsor with a message from Lord Sussex, concerning the – er – disturbances here in the north.’

‘A charming way to put it,’ said Bess Tracy. ‘Disturbances, eh? I’m lucky that I don’t hold this manor as a tenant of Charles Neville of Westmorland. It’s my property, freehold. Though I’d have plenty to say to any landlord that told me he’d throw me off my estate for not betraying my lawful sovereign. His ears would ring, I promise you. And hers!’

‘Hers?’

‘He has a wife like a she-wolf,’ said Bess the she-eagle, seating herself on the damask-covered chair. ‘Jane’s the sister of Norfolk, that overambitious popinjay. She has twice his strength of mind. But I,’ Bess informed us, propping her stick beside the hearth and closing her talons round the chair arms, ‘have twice
her
strength of mind. I would have had things to say if either she or her husband dared to threaten
me
.’

I believed her. The Nevilles, I was fairly sure, would have kept well away from Bess Tracy, even if she had, technically, been their vassal. I personally wouldn’t have wanted her as an enemy.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘You have a message from Mark?’

‘He sends his compliments to you and will be glad to know that we find you well. Should you need anything that he can supply, he is in York with Lord Sussex and we’ll take word to him on our way home.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s something else. It concerns his father.’

‘I wondered when you would come to the point. Why hasn’t Mark come himself, though, or sent a courier with a letter? A court deputation suggests . . . I don’t quite know what, but I scented an ulterior purpose at once.’ Her mind was as sharp as any eagle’s beak or talons. ‘Oh, sit down,’ she said impatiently. ‘Pull some seats near the fire and let us be comfortable. Hardman will bring wine.’

The manservant appeared at that moment, with a tray. When he had gone and we were all seated, she looked at me keenly. ‘So you are here for some reason connected with Gervase. Gervase the poisoner.’

‘If he really was a poisoner,’ said Trelawny boldly.

Of the three of us, Trelawny was assuredly the hardest to intimidate. He grinned at Bess Tracy, apparently not in the least troubled by her resemblance to a ferocious raptor.

Bess raised her thin eyebrows at him and enquired: ‘If?’

‘Mark thinks Gervase may have been innocent,’ I said. ‘And he is anxious to clear his father’s name, if that is possible. He wishes to marry a young lady, the daughter of a friend of mine. Her name is Jane too,’ I added, ‘like the wife of Charles Neville, but although it’s a long time since I last saw her, I think she is a very sweet girl. She and her family are well known to me – and her parents will not agree to the match unless Gervase can be proved innocent.’

‘From all I heard, he wasn’t,’ said Mistress Tracy with a sniff. She sipped some wine. ‘Not that I was anywhere near the business. Hearsay, that’s all I have to go on. But didn’t someone actually see him add something or other to the victim’s dinner?’

‘There were two witnesses,’ I said. ‘The one who claimed she actually recognized Gervase has left Windsor and no one knows where she is. The other only saw a man who met the same description, but one thing she is sure about, and that is that the man she observed was left-handed.’