Queen Without a Crown (21 page)

‘Well, well. You really are a well-equipped spy, are you not? You must be highly valued. You’ll make a
very
useful hostage, and this time you won’t escape. You won’t get out of the wine cellar, and here’s a reminder not to try. Pull her cloak off, Annet.’

Annet obeyed, and Lady Anne used the whip again, twice. I cried out, and Brockley, unable to help me, swore furiously in his captors’ hands. Then Lady Anne said: ‘Bring them!’

‘Quite like old times, isn’t it?’ said Brockley, obviously trying to be cheerful. ‘Reminds me of Vetch Castle, this does. Only, this one’s just a little more hospitable. We shan’t die of thirst, at least.’

He was referring to the Welsh border castle whose dungeon we had once experienced. That one certainly had been worse than this. I looked at the wine casks round the walls of our prison.

‘I suppose we could drink ourselves to death,’ I said. I shivered, crouching where I had been thrown, huddling my knees into my chest. Someone had flung my cloak down after me, probably because a live hostage is more useful than one who has frozen to death. I didn’t imagine it was an act of kindness. I was still grateful to have the cloak and pulled it round my shoulders. ‘Where’s the light coming from? And the draught?’

The faint, pale light which enabled us to see each other seemed to come from the same source as the chill stream of air which made the place so cold. The effects of Lady Anne’s whip and the serving maid’s broom handle were subsiding a little, but nevertheless, for the moment, I preferred not to move too much. Brockley, however, was prowling about, examining the door, the walls and the vaulted roof above us.

‘They both come through this grating,’ he said, pointing upwards. ‘I think it’s the one Trelawny mentioned, in the courtyard. I imagine it’s there to let in light, and I expect the grating can be undone so that barrels can be lowered through it. This cellar seems to be partly under the hall and partly under the courtyard.’

‘I can see that the door has a lock,’ I said dismally. ‘But Lady Anne has my lockpicks. We’re trapped.’

‘Yes, madam. I think we are. We can suppose ourselves lucky that you are known to be the queen’s sister; otherwise I fancy they would have disposed of us by now. They may yet dispose of me.’

‘Dear God, I hope not! But look, Trelawny’s got away! I suppose he’ll make for Carlisle.’

‘How long will it take him, though? And will we still be here if he brings help? In Lady Anne’s place, I’d move us to another hiding place. We might be hard to find.’

I said: ‘I hear footsteps. I think someone’s coming.’

Pewter Plates and Olive Oil

W
hat was arriving was food and, to our surprise, blankets. Annet and Ulverdale carried them, but with them were Lady Anne, Robby and the other man who had been briefly captured by Brockley and Trelawny.

‘We do not intend to harm you,’ Lady Anne informed us. I could still feel, all too well, the places where her whip had landed but Anne of Northumberland probably didn’t regard that as harming me. Indeed, the expression in her chilly eyes was very much that of a cat which knows it will never eat the pretty bird in the cage, but would dearly love to all the same. I was very much afraid of her.

‘Because you could be useful to us,’ she said, ‘we have to feed you and make sure that you don’t die of cold down here. Tomorrow,’ she informed us, ‘we shall move somewhere else and take you with us. Mistress Winthorpe will be glad when we’re gone, though she may be lonely. When I took over the house I made her send her own servants away, though I didn’t let her explain why.’

Some had probably guessed, I thought. Here, perhaps, lay the origin of the rumours which had alerted Lord Sussex and fastened suspicion on Ramsfold. I felt better. Inefficiency in an adversary is always cheering.

‘When we go,’ said Lady Anne, ‘she’ll be on her own. She may be able to persuade some of the villagers to come and sweep her floors and cook her meals, I dare say. She’s a poor thing,’ said Northumberland’s unpleasant wife disdainfully.

‘Where is she now?’ I asked. With an effort, I stretched for a blanket to pull round me, over my cloak. The warmth was wonderful.

‘Locked in her chamber,’ Lady Anne said. ‘Don’t look to her to rescue you. You will find enough food on the tray, I trust. There are also two goblets. You have my permission,’ she added with a thin smile, ‘to help yourselves to any of Mistress Winthorpe’s wine which appeals to you. However, we have also supplied a flask of well water.’

That was the end of the visit. Lady Anne, having said her say, turned away and they all left us. We heard the key turn in the lock.

‘Let’s see what they’ve given us,’ said Brockley.

There was bread, a bowl of bean soup, a stew with a reasonable amount of meat in it and a spoon each. There were goblets and the promised flask of water, too.

‘They do value you, madam,’ said Brockley. ‘They may even be a little frightened of you and your influence in Windsor.’

‘Lady Anne isn’t nearly frightened enough,’ I said, pressing my hand to my side where her whip had left its memory.

‘Did she hurt you much?’

‘It could have been worse, but only because my clothes are thick. I hate that woman. I want something painful and undignified to happen to her, as soon as possible.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Brockley. ‘We’d better eat this,’ he added. ‘Before they change their minds!’

We ate, drank some of the water and then prowled round the cellar to get ourselves some wine, though I had to move gingerly. Brockley, in a cleverly judged mixture of deferential manservant and loftily knowledgeable courtier, made absurdly pompous remarks about the rival merits of various wines. He even managed, once or twice, to get me to laugh. Brockley always denied that he had in him the makings of a strolling player, but he would have made a very good one.

‘After all,’ he said when we finally settled down again, blanket-wrapped and as far from the draught as we could manage, to sip our final choice of canary, ‘we’re not in mortal danger, and Trelawny is free. If only he gets safe away and gets help. Every time I hear a sound from above, I wonder if he’s been caught and they’re bringing him back.’

‘I hope he’s somehow exchanged that donkey cart for a horse,’ I said. ‘He won’t get far with the cart.’

Brockley said: ‘Wherever he is, he’ll need shelter soon. The night will be cold.’

The day wore tediously away. As darkness fell, we tried to sleep, without success. The blankets were little protection from the rough paving of our prison floor, and my bruises ached anew. Moonlight shone through the grating, casting a criss-cross pattern of black and white on to the paving stones.

We were both still wide awake when a shadow obscured the moonlight, something clinked against the grating and Trelawny’s voice said softly: ‘Mistress Stannard! Roger! Are you there? I’ve got your dungeon key.’

‘How in heaven’s name . . .?’ Brockley, shedding his blanket, was under the grating at once, his face upturned. ‘Trelawny? But how did you get back? What was that about the key? Where . . .?’

‘Here,’ said Trelawny, and with some difficulty pushed a big iron key through the bars of the grating.

Brockley caught it. ‘But how . . .?’

‘You went off with the donkey cart!’ I said, ignoring my stiffness, throwing off my blanket and coming to Brockley’s side.

‘No, I didn’t. I jumped into it, drove it off, fast as I could, round to the outer court and the gatehouse – which was open, I suppose to let the cart in in the first place. Anyway, I sent the donkey tearing through it and down the hill – those hounds in their pen were making hell’s own racket and the poor ass was only too glad to gallop away – while I jumped off and dodged into the gatekeeper’s quarters. It wasn’t too safe, but it worked out well. You chopped him down, remember, Brockley? I wasn’t sure he was dead, but I thought they might bring him back there anyway, to tend him or lay him out, in which case I’d hide under the bed and hope for the best. As it turned out, no one came in. It seems you and I killed both him and Hankin. Later on, peeping from a window, I saw them carry the bodies out of the front gate. I dare say they were local men with kin in the village and our charming Lady Anne didn’t want to be bothered with the burials. So there I was, nice and snug in the empty lodging. Very satisfactory.’

‘We thought you’d get right away,’ I said, astonished. ‘Why did you stay here?’

‘I wasn’t going to abandon you. Certainly, I’ve been here. One should always,’ said Trelawny sententiously, ‘make use of what is to hand. I once saw a comrade cornered in the parlour of a house we were looting at the time and killed outright by an enemy soldier. He’d lost his own sword in a skirmish outside, and he just never noticed that the parlour was practically a weapon store. There was a cloth on the table that he could have flung over the enemy’s head; there was a five foot iron candlestick with four candleholders on top and an ornamental spike in the midst of them, sharp as a spear, fit to run a man through. But he just backed up against the wall, shouting:
Quick, Carew, I’ve lost my blade!
and I couldn’t reach him in time. I slew the soldier from behind, but my poor mate was dead by then.’

‘Carew, will you stop burbling and tell us what now?’ Brockley growled.

‘I stayed in the lodging for quite a while,’ Trelawny said imperturbably. ‘I think some of our delightful hosts went chasing after the donkey cart. They must have been annoyed when they found it empty. I dined off the gatekeeper’s food. They did him well. I had cold chicken, new bread and some really good quality ale. I’ve had my sword taken away, but I found a spare dagger among his things. And I found his keys.’

‘How do you know this is the right key?’ Brockley asked. ‘And how did you know where we were?’

‘I heard someone say so when they were going out, chasing my donkey cart.
Where are the prisoners now?
one of them said, and another laughed and said:
my lady’s shut them in the wine cellar.
As for the key,’ said Trelawny, ‘I don’t think the gatekeeper could read. But he could draw. Each key hangs on a hook with a dear little picture drawn on the wall beside it. This was labelled with a picture of a cask. I reckon it’s the one. I grabbed a few other useful-looking ones as well, including the key to the hall and the gatehouse.’

‘Didn’t anyone come into the lodging to get them when it was time to lock up for the night?’ I said.

‘One must take chances sometimes,’ said Trelawny cheerfully. ‘However, the angels seem to be on our side, for a change. Nobody came for them. Ulverdale locked the gate. He’s got his own set of keys, I fancy. The big door at the top of the steps opposite the gatehouse has bolts on the inside and no lock at all. It was unbolted during the day, but I reckoned they’d fasten it at night, so before dusk I found a chance to slink in and hide in the hay store. Once I reckoned everyone was in bed, I prowled round and through the grating, I could hear you fidgeting and grunting so I knew you really were there.

‘Your cellar door opens into the hall, so to let you out, I needed to get into the house and I couldn’t. The key to the hall door was no use because that’s got inside bolts as well – this is a maddening house, bolts all over the place – and when I forced a window and tried getting in through that, I nearly got stuck. The lower mullions are all too narrow to crawl through. Thank God for the grating.’ He shook it. ‘At least I’ve got your door key to you.’

‘But how do we get away from here?’ Brockley demanded.

‘Easy. The stable and the harness room aren’t locked. I’ve already saddled our horses, and I’ve been able to open the side gates – they have inside bolts, but I
was
inside, after all. In the dark, I slipped through, went round to open the gatehouse and then slipped back. The hounds made a to-do, but they’ve been upset all day because of all the disturbance. No one paid any heed. We can ride straight out.’

‘Madam,’ said Brockley, turning to me, ‘we’re wasting time. Let’s be away.’

I made for the door and tried the key. Trelawny had made no mistake. It turned at once. I locked it again once we were through. Movement was mercifully easing my stiffness now. In front, just visible in the gloom, were the steps up to the hall. We emerged into it at the kitchen end, and Brockley, pointing, said: ‘That way. We can open the door to the courtyard from inside.’

We moved forward. By moonlight and the glow from the dying fire, we could see the central table, which still held a number of items carelessly left over from supper, and the dull gleam of the dusty pewter on the sideboard. We were halfway to the courtyard door when we heard a sound from the minstrels’ balcony at the far end, and then a voice thundered: ‘
Stand
!’ and on the instant, the gallery was full of people and light.

Halting in alarm, we looked up, to behold Lady Anne and Joan, both wrapped in fur-trimmed bed-gowns and holding up flaring torches. Between them, with a cloak over his own nightwear, stood Ulverdale, and in his hands was a crossbow, wound and ready to shoot.

‘Shoot the man. Not the Stannard woman!’ Lady Anne snapped, and the crossbow bolt shifted as Ulverdale trained it on Brockley.

Next to the sideboard, a window banged open and Trelawny’s face appeared. ‘Lackwits! Use what’s there!’ he shouted, pointing in frenzied fashion at the sideboard and the table.

In the same moment, Ulverdale loosed his bolt. Brockley seized hold of me and flung us both sideways, and the bolt missed. We collided with the sideboard, rattling the dishes. Brockley snatched a pewter platter from a shelf, and like a boy bouncing a stone on water, he launched it spinning, edge on, at the butler. It struck Ulverdale’s upper arm as he was reloading, with so much force that the butler yelled and dropped his weapon.

The crossbow went over the edge of the balcony and crashed to the floor of the hall, somersaulting towards us past the table. Brockley caught it up and threw it through the open window. I glimpsed Trelawny retrieving it and running off across the courtyard. Lady Anne let out a most unladylike oath, and she and her companions ran to the slatted stairs and jostled down them, intent on seizing us.