Queen's Ransom (26 page)

The walk did help. My mood grew less stormy, though my spirits stayed low. I missed both Dale and Brockley. I had long leaned on Brockley’s common sense and reliability. Jenkinson was a good companion, but his interests were his own and not mine. Brockley was like a sturdy windbreak, and without him, I felt the draft.

I went back to the inn to eat an indifferent dinner of dumplings in a thin stew, indigestible barley bread, and an allegedly sweet omelet that was sloppy in the middle and not properly sweetened either. Jeanne, who had got up for dinner, said, though wanly, that she would sit in the parlor with Helene, and I decided to go upstairs, take off my shoes, and lie on my bed for a while. I fell asleep, awakening suddenly, much later, to realize that it was already nearly evening, and that in my father-in-law’s bedchamber next door somebody was shouting and somebody else was in tears.

Hurriedly, I put on my shoes and went to investigate. I knocked at the door and called, but no one took any notice, so I turned the handle and stepped inside. Helene, red in the face and weeping copiously, was backed against the window and reiterating, over and over: “No, it isn’t true; I didn’t; I haven’t!” She was leaning back as if to get away from my father-in-law, who was shaking his fist in her face.

“Master Blanchard!” I shouted.

Blanchard swung round. “Ah, Mistress Ursula. And where have you been all afternoon? Jeanne is resting again; but you are supposed to be Helene’s companion. You should have been with her, watching over her, instead of letting her run about unsupervised. What have you to say for yourself?”

“I was asleep myself,” I said. “I left Helene with Jeanne. But what has Helene done?” I found it hard to imagine what a model of piety like Helene could possibly have done, especially in a lonely place like this. The opportunities for mischief seemed so very limited.

Blanchard promptly confounded me. “She’s been meeting a man, that’s what she’s been doing! I saw her myself, from the window. She was out there with him, under the trees, and what’s more, I think I know who it was. I knew the shape of him. It was that thickset fellow Longman. She crept out of the inn on her own this afternoon, because you weren’t keeping an eye on her—”

“I didn’t, I didn’t!” Helene wailed.

“I saw you with my own eyes,” bellowed Blanchard. “I saw you leave him and come back into the inn yard; I watched you all the way till you came indoors. Don’t whine to me that you didn’t, you didn’t! You did, madam, you did! You’re betrothed, let me remind you! Betrothed to a young man from a good Sussex family, a good
Catholic
family; and what’ll they say if he finds out on your wedding night that you’re damaged goods? Answer me that, slut!” He grabbed Helene’s shoulders and shook her. “Has he had you? Has he?”

“No, I’m not a slut, I’m not!” bawled Helene.

“But you met him! I saw you.” Blanchard shook her again.

“Yes, all right, but it was only to talk, just to talk. He’s nice. He’s kind. He’s good company. But we didn’t do anything wrong, we did not!”

“If you’re lying,” said Blanchard menacingly,“if I find out that you’re lying—if you lose your virtue before you get to the altar with your lawful bridegroom, you’ll wish you were dead. You’ll cry tears enough to float a merchantman and you’ll sleep on your stomach for a week. I’ll have to compensate your groom for taking you secondhand. If he takes you at all, that is! Most likely, he won’t and I’ll lose all the profit I ought to have made!”

He had begun this speech in a moderate tone but ended it in a shout because, by then, Helene was not so much crying as screaming. She jerked about in his grasp, turning her head from side to side. Finally, he stepped back and let her go, and Helene’s screams subsided into sobs. I found a handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Perhaps,” I said to Blanchard, “we ought to have a word with Longman.”

“It won’t be any use,” said Helene in muffled tones from behind the handkerchief. “He’ll deny it all. We . . . agreed that he should. If any questions were asked. He values his employment. It’ll be his word against yours.”

“I saw the two of you together!”

“But we were only talking!”

“Were they?” I asked Blanchard. “Did you see more than that?”

Unwillingly, my father-in-law admitted that he had not. “Go into our chamber,” I said to Helene. I saw her through our door myself and as I did so, I whispered: “If all you did was meet and talk, there’s no harm done. That is all it was, I hope.”

“He kissed me,” Helene whispered back. “But that was all. Truly, that was all.”

“Still no harm done. But don’t do it again,” I said, and turned the key on her before going back to Blanchard.

“I think she’s telling the truth,” I said. “She hasn’t had much opportunity for assignations, with Longman or anyone else, and these things take time to develop. Especially with good, pious girls like Helene. Can you imagine anyone seducing Helene without having to work at it?”

“I had no idea . . . no idea,” said my father-in-law, “what a responsibility a girl of sixteen can be.” He wiped a hand across his brow. He was actually perspiring with rage.

“It could even,” I said, “be a good thing.”

“A good thing?”

“You were quite glad when she showed an interest in De Clairpont,” I said, “because it meant that she was human. So does this. What sort of wife would an alabaster saint make? A wife needs a few natural urges.”

“She’s not entitled to natural urges until she
is
a wife. You
would
say a thing like that,” said Blanchard, quite pettishly. “You and Gerald eloped, after all. You let your natural urges get the better of you, both of you. Oh, never mind. All that water flowed under the bridge and down to the sea a long time ago now. But I shall speak to Jenkinson. I shall tell him to keep his man in order. The horses attached to this inn have come back—they came in this afternoon. We’ll be on our way in the morning. Oh, how far is it to Antwerp? Will we never get there?”

Leaping Fish

Altogether, it took ten days to reach Antwerp. Blanchard continued to be annoyed. In his opinion, Jenkinson had not been shocked enough by Longman’s assignation with Helene.

“Stephen’s no fool. He wouldn’t try to seduce your ward, Master Blanchard. But a little flirtation—well, why not? It might do that girl good,” said Jenkinson, and added: “I’ve never known him be attracted by pious airs and a lanky figure before. He likes them plump and giggly as a rule. But I’ll have a word with him if you like.”

“I’ve no confidence in what he calls having a word,” my father-in-law confided to me. “He doesn’t take it seriously.”

Whether Jenkinson did or did not speak to Longman, I didn’t know. But Helene showed no further inclination to creep out to clandestine meetings. We traveled more slowly on the last part of the journey, but both she and Jeanne were exhausted at the end of each day and Helene was content to remain in her room in whatever inns we found, and even to take meals there rather than join us downstairs.

The final day was easy riding, since the road was well maintained and the land was flat. Antwerp, like most trade centers, was surrounded by villages as a prince is surrounded by courtiers or, as Anthony Jenkinson more cynically remarked, a mouse hole is guarded by cats. As we passed through the last village, we saw the tall pinnacles of the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin coming nearer, and soon we were in Antwerp itself, in the winding streets among the tall, narrow houses that I remembered so well. By dinnertime, we were unsaddling in the courtyard of an inn called, if translated into English, the Sign of the Leaping Fish.

Both Jenkinson and I had been there before, though at different times. Although Gerald was a member of Sir Thomas Gresham’s household, we had not lived under Sir Thomas’s roof. Before we left England, Gresham had noted Gerald’s talent for getting to know people and persuading them to talk to him, and had decided that this young man would be good at finding people who could be bribed or blackmailed into helping to steal the city’s treasures.

If so, his prospective victims would trust him more easily if his address was not the same as Gresham’s, and we spent our first few days in Antwerp at the Sign of the Leaping Fish, while we looked for lodgings. Jenkinson, it now transpired, had stayed there two years before us. We both remembered it well, however, and agreed that it would be a good choice if it hadn’t changed hands.

It hadn’t. The landlord we had both known, Meister Piedersen, was still there. He was big and ginger-bearded, one of those highly professional hosts with a memory for names and faces, and he spoke English. “Mistress Blanchard! Master Jenkinson! But of course, of course, I remember you both. And this is your father-in-law, Mistress Blanchard? You are most welcome, sir. And where is Master Gerald? Dead? I had no idea. What a tragedy. I am desolated to learn of it. And this is your ward, sir? Welcome, Mistress Helene. You have had a long journey, it seems. You must be thankful to be out of France. The stories we are hearing . . . ! You wish to be known as Master Drury, sir? By all means. You can trust my discretion. Yes, we have rooms. A merchant and his train have just left . . .”

The inn reminded me of Gerald. As we took our late dinner, I found myself constantly remembering meals I had eaten here with him. Afterward, most of the others went gratefully to rest. But another of Piedersen’s professional skills was that of recognizing the needs of his guests, sometimes even before the guests themselves. “Do you wish to be alone, mistress?” he asked me quietly, as I paused hesitantly just outside the dining room. “You will have memories to think about, perhaps. My other guests are mostly out and the inn is quiet. There is a parlor here where you can be private for an hour or so.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I did want to be alone, but until that moment, I hadn’t known how much. The parlor was small and gloomy, paneled in some dark wood, but the moment Piedersen gently closed the door after me, I felt as though I were in a haven. The solitude was like a long drink of cool water after hours of thirst. I sat down on the window seat, turning to look out into the narrow alley at the side of the inn. In one direction, I could glimpse a waterway. Waterways were as much a part of Antwerp as roads. I wondered, but could not quite remember, how far we were from Hoekstraat.

But if I couldn’t recall where Hoekstraat was, I remembered every detail of this room. Gerald and I had played chess together here. Closing my eyes, I pictured him. He had been dead just over two years and much had happened in between, but in two years, memory does not fade so very much.

I loved Matthew. I had married him less than a year after Gerald’s passing. But the marriage had been forced on me. Matthew had attracted me, yes, but I would never of my own free will have gone to him so soon. Here in this place where Matthew had never been, where Gerald and I had been happy, I sought out my first love, Meg’s father, once again.

What if the door of the room were to open, and Gerald were to come through it? What would I feel then?

Memory may not dim much in two years, but the pattern of life can change irrevocably. I had gone on from Gerald, formed a new link and almost broken free of that as well—accepted new tasks and faced new conflicts. Gerald was buried here in Antwerp, but I had already decided that I did not want to visit his grave. And yet . . . if Gerald were to walk in . . . would I run to him crying his name? Or sit in dumb distress, realizing that the man I had once loved wildly enough to run away with him was no longer important to me—was now an embarrassing irrelevance?

But he was dead. Never again would he open a door and walk into the room where I sat. When he first died, the fact that he was gone and would not come back was all but unbearable. I couldn’t believe it or endure it. I longed so much for the impossible to happen. Now, I saw that the finality of death was a blessing, for it had set me free to journey on. How would bereaved people repair their lives if they were never sure whether or not the bereavement was permanent; if there was always a risk that a door would open and the lost one would return? The finality was anguish, but at least you knew where you were.

For a moment, thinking it out, I closed my eyes. Only to open them again in terror because the door
was
opening. Someone—a man—was coming in. Then I let out my breath in a sigh of relief. “Master Jenkinson!”

“The landlord said you were here. He said you wished to be alone, but when I explained I had something important to discuss with you and that you would want to hear it, he showed me to this room. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”

“No . . . no, it’s all right. It’s just . . .”

“What is it?” He came quickly forward. “Mistress Blanchard, what is the matter? You look ill!”

“I’m not ill. I’ve been remembering Gerald, and being here with him. And . . .”

For other anxieties had now shot to the surface of my mind, awakened by the memory of my warm, safe life with Gerald. Those memories had shown me how far from warm and safe was my present situation.

“I’m afraid,” I said. “All the way here, I’ve buoyed myself up, telling myself that I have only to collect the treasure and then take it back to Paris, and set Dale free. But what if it’s gone? Or we can’t get into the warehouse in Hoekstraat at all? Suppose it’s been demolished, or swept away in some unexpected flood tide? What if—?”

“Hush, hush. You’re panicking,” said Jenkinson. “Wait!” He stepped to the door, put his head out, and shouted. Someone answered and Jenkinson snapped: “Wine for two, and something to eat as well. Bring it all to this parlor, quickly!” He came back and placed himself on an oak settle. “I noticed that you took very little dinner. You need something to revive you. You’ll feel better then.”

“I’ll feel better when I’ve got my hands on that treasure. Because if I don’t get my hands on it—oh, God, what will happen to Dale? She’s living through day after day, not knowing if I’ll be able to save her, terrified of what will happen to her if I don’t. Brockley gave her that phial to save her from just this danger, but now it’s thrown her into it instead. The potion has been taken from her and even if we made a fresh one we might not be able to smuggle it to her. I can’t bear it for her, or for Brockley. If I don’t bring the treasure back . . . what will I do?”