Queen Without a Crown (28 page)

‘Well, here we are,’ said Brockley as we came ashore at a landing stage and surveyed the crowded city before us. ‘This is Oxford.’

Dale said dismally: ‘It’s much bigger than Abingdon and so . . . so thick with buildings. Ma’am, it’s going to be like looking for a black cat in a cellar at midnight.’

‘And if we do find Mistress Lamb,’ John Ryder added, ‘I hope she doesn’t refuse to talk!’

‘I think,’ I said grimly, ‘that we now know of a way round that.’

Dale had been needlessly pessimistic. Sometimes, when you’re searching out something that is hidden and difficult to find, you may feel as though you’ve been seeking in vain for a century – and then there comes a moment of breakthrough. Suddenly, the skein unravels.

Once again, we used the system of enquiring at vicarages. The third vicar we tried was able to direct us. Yes, he knew of Master Hayward, tailor; in fact, he had married him to his second wife. The couple, along with Hayward’s four children from his first marriage, were living in a rented house only two streets away.

We were there ten minutes later. The Haywards’ home proved to be a thatched cottage of fair size, prosperous-looking in an unpretentious way. We knocked upon the door, and it was opened promptly.

By Susannah.

Obnoxious Company

I
knew who she was at once. The various things that people such as Sterry and Mistress Freeman and Medland, the innkeeper at Nettlebury, had said to us about her had created a picture in my mind, and this woman matched it exactly. She was about fifty, massively built, with thick red arms protruding from black stuff sleeves, a slabby face and an expression both suspicious and truculent. Hands on ample hips, she surveyed us, and then something about us – probably the sight of Ryder and Brockley, once more shoulder to shoulder – seemed to disconcert her. When she said: ‘Yes?’ the tone was wary.

‘Mistress Lamb?’ I said.

‘I . . . Yes. But—’

‘Mistress Susannah Lamb?’ said Brockley.

‘Yes, but I’m not the lady of the house. That’s my brother’s second wife. I housekeep for her. Pretty lass, she is, but half his age and no hand at running a house,’ said Susannah. I thought she was attempting an air of good-humoured tolerance, but it came over as catty. Mistress Lamb was not an attractive personality. ‘She’s out,’ she said. ‘She’s gone off with her maid, buying fripperies. The master’s in his workshop, at the back here. It opens on the street behind this.’ She jerked her head to indicate the rear of the house. ‘He’s a tailor. There’s a customer with him now.’

‘It’s you we want to see,’ I told her. ‘Do you remember a man called Peter Hoxton, who was murdered in Windsor Castle something over twenty years ago? You identified a man called Gervase Easton as the killer. The death of Hoxton is being enquired into again. We want you to repeat your testimony and also to answer one or two other questions.’

She stared at us, out of large brown eyes, like the eyes of an ox. ‘Peter Hoxton? What does anyone want to start that up again for, after all these years?’ Her chin rose. ‘And who might you be, anyway?’

But the indignation was forced. There was fear in those bovine eyes, and before she clasped her hands to still them, I saw them quiver.

‘This is Mistress Ursula Stannard, one of her majesty’s ladies-in-waiting. Her majesty knows of the enquiries Mistress Stannard is making,’ said Dale boldly.

I gave her an appreciative glance. I loved that shrewd streak in her, which so often appeared at unexpected moments. She had just implied, without actually saying so, that I was here at Elizabeth’s behest.

Susannah looked as if she would like to close the door in our faces, but Brockley and Ryder had moved unobtrusively forward, and Brockley, as if by accident, had put a foot in the doorway. ‘May we come in?’ he said. ‘We may have to talk for some time.’

Most unwillingly, Susannah stood aside and let us enter.

She took us into a parlour. A fire burnt in the hearth, and she went to it to warm her hands. Brockley and Ryder stationed themselves between her and the door. With formality, I introduced my companions and then said that we had taken much trouble to find her, because there were things we wished to learn which only she could tell us.

‘So what do you want to know?’ Susannah asked sullenly.

‘You identified a man you saw putting an extra dish on Hoxton’s tray,’ said Brockley.

‘I saw a man putting a pie on
a
tray. Yes, I remember that much. Had to tell a whole lot of people that came asking questions. So I’m not likely to forget.’

‘You said it was Gervase Easton.’

‘What if it was? He worked in the Spicery. I knew him well enough by sight. That’s what I said at the time, and that’s what I say now. What else is there to say?’

‘It was the truth?’ I asked her.

‘Of course it was the truth! What would I go pointing a finger at the wrong man for?’

‘You hadn’t been working at the castle all that long, though, had you?’ said Ryder, stepping in with assurance. I had had plenty of time since leaving Windsor to make sure that Ryder fully understood the details of this enquiry, and I had not only done so with thoroughness, but I had also repeated most of it when I shared my thoughts with my companions in the Unicorn at Nettlebury.

‘Not that long, but I knew Easton right enough. What
is
all this?’

‘There was a second witness,’ I said, ‘a girl called Madge. She couldn’t name the man she saw, but she could describe him. We’ve spoken to her, and she says he was left-handed. We have established that Gervase Easton was almost certainly right-handed. That seems strange.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that. I never noticed anything of that sort at the time. I was questioned, and I told what I’d seen.’

‘But your honesty has been questioned as well, hasn’t it?’ said Ryder. ‘Come, Mistress Lamb. You know you’re no saint. We know why you left your post with the Medlands in Nettlebury, and we’ve heard that you came to work in the Spicery at the castle because you’d been caught out misbehaving in your previous place. You don’t mind stealing, it seems. Do you mind lying?’

He was using his fatherly tone. It had never before occurred to me that to be fatherly can also suggest that one is uncomfortably all-knowing. Speaking in that mild voice, Ryder sounded positively sinister.

It worked better than any of us could have expected. Mistress Lamb’s face went pale, and I saw the tremor begin again in the thick hands she had stretched out to the warmth.

‘What . . . what are you talking about?’

‘By the sound of it,’ said Ryder, ‘we’ve wakened your sense of guilt, but I’m wondering what you feel guilty about. Before you came to the castle, were you dishonest with your previous employers in Windsor? Who were they, by the way?’

Susannah’s face now turned to the colour of goat’s cheese. While we were still gazing at her in astonishment, Dale said: ‘Careful, she’s going to faint,’ and taking Susannah’s arm, steered her on to a nearby settle. She put a hand on the back of Susannah’s head and thrust it down between her knees.

‘The arrow’s hit the target, I fancy,’ said Brockley.

Susannah sat up again, the moment of faintness over though her face was still a bad colour. ‘You had better answer our questions,’ I said. ‘The trouble you got into at Nettlebury wasn’t so long ago. We are prepared to forget it, just as Master Medland has, but only if you cooperate with us. Otherwise, you could still find yourself before the magistrate. Most unpleasant things can happen to convicted thieves. Anything from the whip to the rope.’

Brockley suddenly grinned. ‘So that’s what you meant, madam, when you said that if Mistress Lamb proved difficult, you thought you could find a way round it.’

‘B–but . . .’ said Susannah.

Despite the chill of the room, her brow was sweating. She wiped it with her palm. Her breathing had become a wheeze. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not well. I . . .’

‘Where’s the kitchen?’ said Brockley. ‘There must be servants there. I’ll get them to bring a restorative for her.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Ryder. ‘She doesn’t need restoring; she needs to do some talking. Susannah! We mean you no harm. We are not here to bring you to justice for petty theft. But we are here to find out the truth about Hoxton’s death. We aren’t accusing you of causing it, but we strongly suspect that you know who did. And that it wasn’t Gervase Easton.’

‘Listen, Mistress Lamb,’ I said. ‘Is the name of whoever employed you before you came to the Spicery somehow part of this miserable story? We need answers to our questions. So come along!’

‘But I . . . I . . . Madge saw the man who did it – she saw him, same as I did.’

‘She saw a left-handed man. Who therefore probably wasn’t Gervase. Why do you insist it was Gervase that you saw? Did you lie to protect someone?’

Once more the shaft struck the target squarely in the centre. Susannah’s mouth went slack with terror. When she finally answered us, she stammered.

‘I w–worked for Bowman b–before I came to the Spicery. Jonathan Bowman, him that married Judith Easton later on. He said I’d tried to steal from him. I didn’t! It wasn’t true! I was just curious, and looking through some things on a table, but there was money there in a little bag and he said I was trying to steal it. I was only looking! That’s all! But he . . . he . . .’

This time, she really did faint.

She came round after a few moments, and we helped her back on to the settle. This time Ryder agreed that a restorative was needed, and Dale fetched some ale from the kitchen. Thus fortified, Mistress Lamb was capable of answering further questions, and did so, though not willingly. We got it out of her by fits and starts. She baulked at intervals, like a horse confronted by fences it doesn’t want to jump. She still obstinately maintained that she had not been thieving when Bowman caught her looking at a bag of coins, but we were not interested in her guilt or innocence there, only in the outcome.

Perhaps Bowman himself hadn’t been sure, for he had done no worse at the time than dismiss her and – as she now told us – had helped her to find the post in the Windsor Castle Spicery, using the castle contacts he had acquired through his glover’s business.

When he went to the castle, though, it was to see customers there, and he would attend them in their quarters. Susannah, hurrying through the kitchens on some errand or other, had been surprised to find him in that part of the building and more surprised still to notice that he was apparently augmenting the dishes on a tray. He had been just as startled to see her. And he had ordered her to visit him in his home, above his shop in the town that evening – or risk having information laid against her as a thief.

By the time she went to the shop, the word had gone round that Peter Hoxton, though still alive, had been stricken by some new sickness and was probably going to die – and had very likely been poisoned. And, it transpired, she had been fairly sure that the tray on which the extra pie had been placed was for Hoxton.

‘I knew about him being ill and needing trays sent up, and all about his tray being put out to be collected, see. I knew
where
it was put. And I’d seen Master Bowman d–doing something to a tray that was very likely Hoxton’s, and he’d seen me, too! I was that s–scared when I went to see M–Master Bowman. I thought: this is something to do with Hoxton being poisoned, like people were saying. I thought: he’s going to . . . going to k–kill me too! I told one of the other women where I was going, in case I didn’t come back!’

‘Why didn’t you tell somebody what you’d seen?’ I asked her. ‘Before you went to see him that day, I mean.’

‘Because I weren’t sure enough! I weren’t sure the tray he’d been messing about with was Hoxton’s; I just
thought
it was. I only knew that if I upset Master Bowman, he’d tell on me, and then what would happen?’

‘All right. Go on,’ said Ryder, using his most paternal (and authoritative) voice.

Susannah took several more sips of ale and said: ‘If I say aught about him, he might still tell on me!’

‘We’ll do our best to stop his mouth,’ I said. ‘Please continue.’

She looked about her in a hunted way, but finally, under the gaze of our accusing eyes, she consented to go on a little further.

‘He offered me – Master Bowman I mean – offered me something to drink, and I wouldn’t, and he laughed and said he wasn’t going to harm me – I was precious in his eyes. I didn’t know what he meant! He scared me more than ever, talking like that. Then he said that I’d seen him put an extra pie on a tray, hadn’t I, and it was something he didn’t want mentioned to anyone else. He cooked the pie himself, he said. He was as good a cook as any woman when he felt like it. It looked a bit like bilberries in the pie, but it was something more bitter than that, though that didn’t matter because he’d put honey in it and . . .’

‘And . . .?’ I said as Susannah, her eyes frightened, hesitated.

She swallowed. ‘He said it was clear enough, from the way I wouldn’t say yes to a drink, that I’d got an idea that what was in that pie wasn’t healthy. I said I’d heard that Master Hoxton, one of the Comptrollers, was like to die, and I knew he’d been having food sent up to him because he’d been ill, and I thought . . . I thought Master Bowman’s pie had been sent up to him. And he said yes, Master Hoxton’s illness meant he couldn’t taste his food much. He said he’d been making gloves for Master Hoxton’s manservant, Edwards, lately, and he’d heard from him all about Master Hoxton’s feverish cold and the arrangements for getting his meals to him. It gave him an idea, he said. Gave him a chance!’

With that, she came to another stop, and Brockley said in a puzzled tone: ‘But why? A chance to harm Hoxton? Why would Bowman want to do that? Didn’t he say?’

Susannah had turned sullen again. ‘No, he didn’t say. I didn’t ask.’

It was as though she felt that as long as she kept something back, she would somehow still be protected from Bowman, which was hardly reasonable, but Susannah didn’t seem to be a very intelligent woman.

‘Look, Mistress Lamb,’ I said. ‘I have visited Bowman, in the cottage where he lives now. Where you presumably worked for him for a while. He talked about maidservants.
I used to have maidservants when I could afford them, but they were more trouble than they were worth, mostly. I had three altogether and nicknames for all them – Lazy, Saucy, Lightfingers, that’s what I called them.
That’s what he said, and it seems to me that Lightfingers is now in front of us. You might bear that in mind. Let me remind you. We know of your – misdemeanours. You’d do well to obey us. Lately, I have remembered something else. During that visit I had a seat by the fire, and it was on my right-hand side. Bowman was opposite to me, embroidering. I kept thinking that the hand he held the needle in must be getting scorched, it was so near the fire. But if the fire was on my right, and he was opposite, then it must have been on his left. He’s left-handed, even if Gervase Easton wasn’t.’