Queen's Ransom (7 page)

Charpentier put his head close to mine, breathing garlic into my face. “Why are you asking after De la Roche?”

“I met him when he came to England. I was asking if you knew of him! I wanted to ask if he was well! That’s all!”

“Is it? Is it? We have had English spies before, asking after De la Roche.”

“I’m not a spy! Oh, really, Master Charpentier! This is ridiculous! Do I look like a spy?”

“How do I know what a spy looks like? If I were sending out spies, I would see that they seemed innocent! As innocent as you, traveling with your father-in-law, who seeks only to take a young girl out of the path of a war!”

“You’re making a mistake,” I gasped. “We’re on our way to visit a Catholic household. Do you intend to murder me here in your kitchen?”

“It is not murder to dispose of a spy.”

I drew breath to scream for Brockley but the black-haired woman (I never found out whether she was Charpentier’s cook or his wife, and didn’t care, either) had moved closer to me and as I opened my mouth, she clapped a powerful palm over it, silencing me. “No noise, my lady. Shall we take her outside, Jean?”

I aimed a kick at Master Charpentier’s shins and brought up my spare hand to wrench at the woman’s wrist. I might as well have attacked a couple of trees. The pair of them were impervious. I don’t know what would have happened next if there had not, just then, been a merciful interruption. There was the sound of men and horses and a voice from the front of the building calling for the innkeeper. Assured, booted feet came ringing along the stone passage, and a young, cool French voice said: “Charpentier? Where in the devil’s name are you? We’re earlier than we thought to be but it’s the first time since I’ve known you that you haven’t come out at a run at the sound of fifteen horses and four pack mules!
Mon Dieu!
What is going on here? Who is this girl?”

“She’s English and she’s asking after Matthew de la Roche,” said Charpentier over his shoulder.

This, apparently, was sufficient explanation. I twisted about and tried to speak and the elegant young man who had appeared in the doorway said: “Never before have I arrived at a hostelry to find the innkeeper about to cut the throat of a young woman in the kitchen. It tends to undermine confidence in the cuisine. Charpentier, I think she wants to say something. I would like to hear it.”

The muffling hand was withdrawn. “I’m a completely innocent traveler from England,” I said angrily. “Not long ago, in my own country, I met a visitor from France called Matthew de la Roche. I simply asked after him—I know he lives somewhere along the Loire. That’s all! And then this man Charpentier attacked me and threatened to kill me!”

“A little extreme, I agree,” said the stranger. He was sophisticated and of some standing, with quantities of embroidery on his dark blue doublet and the matching cloak he wore tossed over one shoulder, and gems upon his sword hilt. I was grateful for his intervention, but for all his gallantry, he didn’t make me feel a great deal better.

As he came indoors, he had removed his dashing high-crowned hat as a gentleman should and his unshadowed face was sharp and cold. So were his eyes. They were disconcerting, both indeterminate in color, but not a match. One of them tended toward brown and the other toward blue, and they held a chill that made me uneasy. He gave me the same feeling as Robin Dudley. Here was a man of whom one should be wary.

“I call this behavior
very
extreme!” I said vehemently, and let my voice carry, in the hope that some of my own companions would hear it. I was trembling, but now it was partly with anger. I rounded on Charpentier. “And foolish! May I remind you that I am traveling not only with my father-in-law but also with an escort of eight men? If I were to vanish, do you think that nobody would notice?”

My captors had slackened their hold and I shook myself free of them. As I did so, the contents of my hidden pocket bumped against my knee, and I heard, faintly, the clink of the lock picks and the rustle of Elizabeth’s letters. It was not the moment, though, for bringing out the letter of introduction to Queen Catherine. Elizabeth had confidence in the status of her messengers but these people might well see her only as a heretic queen, and the letters as somehow proof that I was a spy. Elizabeth knew that France was dangerous, I thought grimly, but she had no idea just how dangerous.

Anyway, I had a champion, even though he was in his way nearly as alarming as Charpentier.

“The lady has a point,” the stranger was saying. “We have the reputation of France to consider. If Madam were to disappear, her friends might take home a sorry impression of us.” He bowed to me formally. “Seigneur Gaston de Clairpont, at your service. I regret this incident, madam, but I should say that it is not advisable to ask after Seigneur Matthew de la Roche, not in an English voice. I take it, Charpentier, that you did not answer her questions?”

“I only wished to hear that a former acquaintance was in good health,” I expostulated.

“He is in perfectly good health, and will, I trust, remain so,” said De Clairpont. “Let her go, Charpentier. I hope you are not hurt, madam?”

“Fortunately, no,” I said. I was going to have a badly bruised upper arm but it wasn’t worth remarking on. “I and the rest of my party,” I said with emphasis to Charpentier, “will be glad to take bread and soup on the tables outside, as soon as it is ready.” Then, holding my head high, I walked out. No one tried to stop me. De Clairpont bowed again as I passed. I inclined my head to him graciously. On shaking legs I made my way back along the stone passage and met the Dodds and John Ryder hurrying toward me.

“We heard your voice. You sounded alarmed,” Ryder said.

“I was. I hoped someone would hear. You’re a reassuring sight, all three of you. Come back upstairs and I’ll explain.”

We went up to my room. There, with Brockley and Dale to swell the outraged audience, I described what had happened.

“I never heard of such a thing,” Dale gasped. “Innkeepers threatening their guests—attacking a lady! What sort of a country is this?”

“Charpentier had better be careful,” said young Walter Dodd. “If he takes to slaughtering his guests in the kitchen, people will wonder what he puts in his casseroles.”

Everyone laughed except Dale, who snapped: “That’s disgusting!”

“The Seigneur de Clairpont said much the same thing,” I said to her. “I just hope it impressed Charpentier!”

“This Matthew de la Roche,” Ryder said. “You say he’s an acquaintance of yours. Perhaps I should tell you that we do know that he is your estranged husband. Sir William Cecil told us. I knew before, anyway. I have known Sir William since he was a boy, Mistress Blanchard. My mother was maid to his mother. I can remember clipping Sir William Cecil’s ear for him once or twice, when he was a lad!” He laughed. “It was natural enough for you to ask after him. Why shouldn’t you?”

“Charpentier doesn’t know I’m married to Matthew. I wish now that I hadn’t mentioned Matthew at all,” I said. I wondered, in passing, whether, after all, Luke Blanchard knew about Matthew, too. Not that it mattered. “I shan’t ask after him again,” I said. “It isn’t safe.”

Brockley, who was fuming, said that he would go down and punch Charpentier on the jaw, but I forbade it. “We don’t want to get into trouble. What we do want is to carry out our business and go home safely. The sooner we leave this detestable inn, the better.”

“There’s not much chance of that just now,” said Dick Dodd glumly. “We have just seen Harvey. He says that Master Blanchard is very unwell, won’t take anything except warm milk, and by the look of him, we’re likely to be stuck here for days.”

I went at once to see how Luke Blanchard was. He was lying in his bed, his proudly curved nose pointing to the ceiling and his short gray hair tousled. He looked miserable.

“I’m not at all well, Ursula,” he said when I asked him how he did. “I fear it’s beyond me to leave this bed.”

“What are your symptoms? My mother taught me some simple remedies. Perhaps I can help.”

“My stomach’s been hurting ever since I was so sick on the ship,” he said fretfully. “And I’ve no appetite. If I try to eat anything, I feel sick. Milk is all right. Charpentier says he shouldn’t, because it’s Lent, but he let me have some milk all the same.”

I asked a few more questions. He had had loose motions, he said, but not to a violent extent and no, the stomach pain wasn’t more in one place than in another. But it got worse if he moved about. He just wanted to lie still. I said I hoped he would feel better soon, and went worriedly away. “Just when we need to get on with our journey, this has to happen!” I said to Dale when I rejoined her in our room. “Well, we had better take some food ourselves.”

As promised, Charpentier had set out a meal on the forecourt, and Lent notwithstanding, there was meat in the soup, and the bread was fresh and crusty. The red wine was fullbodied and there was cream cheese, so delicate and light that I found I could eat cheese after all. Mark Sweetapple positively wolfed it. We also had some kind of fruit preserve that went well with the bread. We all felt better when we had eaten.

A maidservant waited on us, but Charpentier presently emerged, behaving as though the scene in his kitchen had never happened and inquired, like any other innkeeper, if all was to our liking. I took courage and said politely that it was, and then asked if there was an apothecary in the town, as Master Blanchard was still ailing.

Charpentier said yes, there was such a one, but the shop would be shutting by now. It would open early in the morning. If Master Blanchard was no better at daybreak, I said, I would see what the apothecary could recommend.

When we went indoors after eating, we found De Clairpont in the wide entrance hall talking to another man. De Clairpont called to me.

“Mistress Blanchard, I hear that your father-in-law is ill. I am sorry. A miserable business for him, away from home, and in a troubled land. I wish him better health soon.”

“Thank you,” I said. I glanced at the second man, wondering who he was. He did not, somehow, go with De Clairpont. He was some years older, and did not have the air of a retainer, or even of a Frenchman. His brown doublet and hose were very well cut, in a style often seen in London. He had a plain linen collar, but his sleeves had scarlet slashings and his boots were of very good kid. He had a compact, broad-shouldered build, a rosy-brown face, a brown beard and bright dark eyes, and reminded me of an outsize robin redbreast.

He smiled, and announced in competent but heavily accented French that he was Nicolas van Weede, merchant, from Antwerp. “I, too, am a guest at this inn. I have been hearing of your unhappy experience this afternoon. It is wise, in France just now, to be most careful. You are recovered from your fright, I trust?”

“Indeed, we both hope so. A most disturbing experience for a lady,” said De Clairpont.

“I am quite recovered, thank you. It was all a misunderstanding,” I said carefully.

I went on my way. Dale had lingered, waiting for me. “Who would those gentlemen be, ma’am?” she asked. “Do you know them? How do you know who to trust, in this nest of Papists?”

“Dale!” I snapped warningly, pushing her ahead of me up the stairs, and when we reached my room, I shut the door after us and once again gave her a piece of my mind. “One more remark like that and you’ll regret it, Dale. I’ve never raised a hand to you but how many more times must I warn you?”

“Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” I had never spoken to Dale quite so harshly before and now her eyes filled with tears. But France was a perilous place and for Dale’s sake as well as my own, I had to make my point.

“Never mind about being sorry; just watch your tongue, do you hear? Either De Clairpont or Van Weede could have overheard you and it just won’t do, Dale. I suspect that Van Weede may speak English. De Clairpont’s obviously educated and may understand it, too. Keep your opinions to yourself while we’re in France. De Clairpont rescued me from Charpentier, which entitles him to my courtesy, and Van Weede I’ve never met before, which means I have no reason not to be polite to him.” Dale’s tears were now streaming and I moderated my tone. “All right. You understand now, I think. I am grateful to De Clairpont and I quite liked the look ofVan Weede, but trust doesn’t come into it. De Clairpont is rather frightening, somehow, and as for Van Weede . . .”

I had lived in Antwerp with Gerald and met many Netherlander merchants. I had heard them trying to speak French, too. Sir Thomas Gresham had a cosmopolitan household in which people were forever trying to communicate with one another in languages not their own. Netherland merchants didn’t dress or speak like Van Weede. At a guess, I would have said that he was English.

“I must say I don’t care for this feeling of mysteries all round,” I said, after I had explained this. “I want to leave here quickly and I can only pray that Master Blanchard will be better in the morning.”

He was not.

I came down to breakfast next day, to find William Harvey trying to explain to Charpentier that his master needed a physician. Because of Harvey’s bad French, Charpentier couldn’t understand him.

“Can I help?” I said.

Brusquely, Harvey explained. “Master Blanchard’s worse,” he said to me. My heart sank. But in seeking medical help, Harvey was doing the right thing. I translated for Charpentier, who, once he understood, informed me that the local apothecary whose direction he had given me the day before, was also the local physician. His name was Dr. Alain Lejeune. “And fetch him quickly,” he said. “Sick guests don’t do an inn any good. People wonder if it’s catching, or if the food is bad.”

De Clairpont had already made the point that murdered guests were even worse for an inn’s reputation than sick ones. I refrained from repeating it. “I’ll fetch the doctor, Harvey. It had better be me, since I speak French. Dale will come with me.”

Harvey nodded brusquely, and after a pause had the grace to say: “Thank you.” He even added: “Last night, you and Dale supped upstairs, to keep out of the way of the other guests. Best you do the same for breakfast now.”