The Tudor Vendetta (16 page)

I doubted it, but guilt overcame me as I sidestepped the watchful dog and took a wary step forward. Vaughan had the mien of a man lost to grief and here I was, a stranger, from court no less, about to make his time of mourning even more difficult.

I bowed. “Forgive my intrusion, my lord, but my name is Prescott and I am here by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s command.”

Lord Vaughan’s expression remained blank, as if he was having trouble deciphering my words. It was the little girl instead who piped, “Elizabeth? She is not our queen. Queen Mary is.”

“Hush, Abigail.” Lord Vaughan tightened his hand about hers. In a low voice I scarcely heard above the din of the sea, he said, “Yes, Master Prescott, we have been expecting you.”

I must have looked taken aback, as I had encountered nothing thus far to indicate it. He let out a weary sigh. “We assumed Her Majesty would send someone to investigate. I am glad to see you, though I regret it comes under such circumstances.”

“Indeed,” I murmured. “Please accept my condolences on the loss of your son, my lord. Had I been apprised, I would have—”

“Henry isn’t lost,” Abigail interrupted. “Isn’t that right, Papa? My brother has gone to heaven with the angels and the saints because he was shriven in the one true faith.” She spoke with the earnestness of an innocent seeking reassurance and I saw Master Vaughan’s mouth quiver, though I could not tell if he reacted to her guileless reminder of his son’s death or the fact that his daughter had just confirmed that the household was indeed Catholic.

Then he said, “Yes, my child. Henry is with the angels.” His tender attempt to muster a smile brought a knot to my chest. I had never known such tenderness in my childhood from anyone save the humble woman who raised me, my beloved Mistress Alice. Such care for innocence, particularly among the privileged, was a rarity.

Lord Vaughan said to me, “We cannot conduct our business here before the tomb. We only saw my son into the vault yesterday.”

“No, naturally we cannot,” I said, aware I had broken into a private moment. “I only wished to tell you I was here and pay my respects. Master Gomfrey is seeing to my accommodation.”

I was about to return to the manor, bypassing the dog by a wide margin, when Lord Vaughan said, “We shall speak later. I will have supper served in the hall, as you must be hungry after such a long journey. You must ask Mistress Harper or Master Gomfrey to provide you with anything you may require, such as hot water for a bath or extra comforters for your bed. I assume a chamber has been prepared for you? It has?” he said, as I nodded. “Good.”

He was doing his utmost to convey the solicitous attitude of a nobleman for his guest, even as I sensed his composure fraying. “We have always been loyal subjects to our sovereign, so rest assured we welcome any inquiry you care to present and will do our utmost to assist you in your investigation. Lady Parry is my aunt; I wish to find her whereabouts as much as you do.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Bowing again, I paused to smile at Abigail. Giving Bardolf wide berth, I walked back into the swirling mist.

As Lord Vaughan returned to his vigil with his daughter, I pondered how, in all this, his wife was nowhere to be seen.

*   *   *

Cutting across the garden around the side of the house, I passed the cluster of outbuildings—a henhouse and livestock enclosure devoid of anything save for a thin lowing cow and a few ducks—and moved to the larger structure that must be the stable block. As soon as I entered the building, with its smell of hay and musk of horses, hearing stamping in the stalls, the burden of my task lifted from me. I allowed myself a moment of reflection on the fact that while I had long since escaped my days of toil and fear as a Dudley minion, all it took was returning to a simple place where beasts dwelled for me to feel safe.

Dudley had been right: I was indeed more cur than hound.

“Getting settled in silk and feathers?” Shelton’s greeting pulled me from my reverie. He stood by one of the stalls, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a long-handled brush in his hand.

“Hardly. Where is Raff?”

“Who knows?” Shelton grimaced. He had removed his eye patch. “That lad may be daft as a hare, but he gets about quick as one, too. He had the horses unsaddled and in their stalls faster than any ostler I’ve seen, then went out for water from the trough, brought in feed, and dashed out once more.” He glanced up to the hayloft. “Could be up there for all I know. He’s clearly lived here all his life; he knows the place like a man knows his prick.”

I smiled, approaching the stall where Shelton had been brushing down Cerberus. Next to him in the adjacent stall was Cinnabar, who whinnied at me.

“How’s the manor?” Shelton lowered his voice as if Raff might indeed be perched on one of the rafters above us like a hidden owl.

“Strange.” I went into Cinnabar’s stall to give him some attention. He had been brushed down, his russet-colored coat gleaming as he munched on oats. I told Shelton what had happened, and that Lady Vaughan had yet to make an appearance.

“Well, she’s lost her son,” he said. “She must be distraught. The steward told you she was abed. It is what women do when they grieve. I see no reason for suspicion.”

“No,” I agreed, “neither do I. But I still have this feeling something is not right.” I crouched down to inspect Cinnabar’s hooves, even as Shelton said, “No need for that. Raff already checked and removed two pebbles lodged in the back shoe. I tell you, that dimwit’s got a knack for horses I haven’t seen since you were a boy.” He paused, grimacing again as I turned to him. “Sorry. I know I need to be more circumspect.”

“You do. We both do. It’s imperative we appear to be only master and servant.”

“How Fortune likes a joke, eh?” He guffawed. “Once you quaked at the sight of me and now look at us: I am answering to you.” He paused in his steady stroking of his brush over Cerberus. “You were saying you had a feeling something isn’t right?”

“Yes, but I can’t explain it.” I rose to my feet, caressing my horse. “Though Lord Vaughan went to pains to explain he will be as cooperative as I can expect, I feel as though more than a child’s death and Lady Parry’s disappearance affect this house.” I went quiet, trying to unravel the vague unease I harbored. “I found a chapel,” I added. “They revere the old faith.”

Shelton grunted. “Perhaps that can explain your unease. They must be worried. No papist will be sleeping well, now that Anne Boleyn’s daughter is on the throne.”

“Yes, perhaps that’s it.” Now that we had broached the subject, I wondered how he stood on this perilous matter. “Are you still…?”

He resumed his brushing of his horse. “Venerating saints and creeping to the cross? Nay, I was never one for priests either way. Nan would have my hide to hear me say it, but to me one religion is much like the other. Take away the gewgaws and Bibles, and both preach the same dire end to anyone who does not live by their rules.”

My surprise must have shown, for he went on. “Don’t go thinking I am a heretic. I believe in Christ. I just don’t have use for those who tell me how I should go about it.”

“I think that makes you a Protestant,” I said.

He grinned. “Well, if it does, you must keep it between us. Nan is still papist to her marrow, no matter that she abides by whatever order happens to be the rule of the day.” He went quiet for a moment before he said, “And you? I know Alice raised you in the old ways. She hid it well enough from the rest of us, but I know she kept a rosary in her box of herbs. It is nothing to be ashamed of; we were all papist once. Even old Henry, for all his bellyaching that no pope should tell him how to conduct his affairs, kept to the old ways to his end, despite making himself Head of the Church and making us the foe of every Catholic in Europe.”

“Honestly?” I said. “I cannot say. Alice did raise me in the old way, but she also made sure I learned the reformed one, as well. There was a time after Peregrine … I attended a requiem mass in his honor. I remember thinking how beautiful it was, how worthy of grief. But Protestants also hold services for the dead.”

“Aye. Death is death, while the living are left behind. Still, you’ll want to reassure them you’re not here to inform against their faith,” he suggested.

I nodded. “I will, if need be. They are not trying to hide it, at least not in their chapel. And if they intended to, their daughter Abigail disproved it in front of me.” I turned back to Cinnabar, busying myself with running my hands over his legs, dispelling the awkwardness that had fallen in the wake of our conversation.

At length, I said, “You might ask Raff if he can tell you anything.”

“Such as what? No, he never gets sick? No, no one can help him with his chores? No friends for Raff now that poor Masters Henry and Hugh are gone? The lad is mad as a hare. He’s no use to anyone save to open and close those gates and feed the beasts.”

“Shelton.”

He frowned. “Oh, fine. I’ll entertain myself tonight by asking the idiot if he knows any secrets about the family who feeds him and—”

“No. You just said, Masters Henry
and
Hugh.”

“Did I?”

“You did.” I leaned over the short divide between the stalls. “Did Raff actually mention both those names to you?”

He considered, raising a hand to scratch at his beard. Suddenly, he growled, catching a stray louse and squeezing it between his fingers. “Bloody hell. Forget my lack of faith; Nan will have my hide anyway, and in boiling water, too, for bringing such filth into our bed.”

“Shelton, can you please answer me?”

“Yes, yes. Wait a moment. I am thinking.” He gingerly searched through the gray grizzle on his chin. “Yes,” he said at length. “He said it: Henry
and
Hugh. I am certain of it.”

“You did not mishear him? He said those exact names and called them ‘masters’?”

“I am. What of it?”

“Well, I have not heard of a Master Hugh who lives here, to start.”

“And? The name is common enough. Half the men who toil in the London dockyards hail by it. Perhaps they have a spit boy or kitchen lad. Have you asked?”

“Somehow, I doubt it. The household is most definitely in arrears,” I said. “The son who died was Master Henry. So, who is Master Hugh?”

“I have no idea. If not a servant, maybe another son who died before? What about the tutor? Did not the children’s tutor accompany Lady Parry when she disappeared? They have not found him yet, either. Maybe he’s called Master Hugh and he was friendly to Raff.”

“Maybe.” The unease I had felt earlier returned. “Whatever the case, we should find out. You can ask Raff tonight. I will have food brought to you. Fill his belly and then ask him who Hugh is.” With a pat on Cinnabar’s rump, I exited the stall and strode to the stable entrance.

“Better send ale, too,” Shelton called after me. “And plenty of it.”

Chapter Thirteen

Dusk had fallen, quenching the last of the feeble light intermingled with the fog and creating an eerie penumbra that had me staggering around like a drunkard. Finally, after stubbing my boots on various obstacles, I found my way back to the garden and door through which I had come, but when I tugged on the latch, the door held fast.

I cursed under my breath. I was not looking forward to venturing back around the manor to the front door and contending with Master Gomfrey’s disapproving face. By now, I was in desperate need of a bath and change of clothes; my skin crawled with a perceived infestation triggered by Shelton’s discovery in his beard, and if I was to dine with Lord Vaughan in the hall, then no doubt I was already late. Not to mention, ruffians had ambushed me once already and the stranger stalking me could be hiding anywhere. This infernal soup of fog and dark would provide the perfect cover; even if he was not lurking nearby, I had no idea if that household mastiff was.

I yanked on the latch again. Just as I was about to admit defeat and brave the blackness enveloping the garden, I heard a voice whisper, “You can come through here instead,” and I spun about, not seeing anyone. Childhood memories of ghost stories told by Alice to keep me firmly in bed made the hair on my nape to prickle. If ever there was a place for malign spirits, this was it, though I had always prided myself on being the least superstitious man I knew.

“Here,” said the voice again, and something tapped my boot. I gasped, jumping back as a seemingly disembodied hand reached up from the fog at my very feet. Gut instinct took over; as I began to cross myself, finger to my forehead, left shoulder, then right, the hand became an arm and a pair of shoulders in a plain dress, below the pimply face of a young woman. “Here,” she said again, and I saw she stood on the worn steps of a root cellar, its trapdoor flung open. “That postern door is always locked by nightfall,” she said, as if I were a fool not to have known it. “Come this way and I’ll take you through the kitchens to the hall.”

I paused, looking down at her. “Who … are you?”

She pursed her already needle-thin lips. “I am Agnes, the maidservant who made up your room. Are you coming with me or not? Hurry, before the sprites get in.” As she spoke, her watery eyes scanned our vicinity with trepidation. She, too, it seemed, had a fear of the unnatural, though in her case it was an invasion by night fairies.

As I eased past her down the steps into a moldy space situated beneath the manor’s foundation, which piles of wicker baskets and rickety tables heaped with jars denoted as a place for storage of perishables, I heard her slam the trapdoor behind me. For an instant, I saw nothing. Then the faint glow of a handheld lantern materialized.

“This way.” Agnes lifted the lantern higher, casting a feeble interplay of light over her uncomely features. She was like the manor itself, I thought, as fetching as stone. She moved around me; I lurched after her, practically treading on her patten-shod heels. She cast a look over her shoulder. “You might have a care, my lord. We have only just met.”

I might have laughed at her presumption had I not been desperate to get out of that cellar. I loathed enclosed spaces almost as much as I did deep water. To me, they were one and the same: bottomless caverns waiting to swallow the hapless.