A Perilous Alliance

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘No, Mistress Stannard.’ He stood uneasily before me, his brown eyes resembling those of an embarrassed spaniel. ‘I know I couldn’t manage on a horse. I knew it all the time, really, only … but, Mistress, there’s something else I know. I couldn’t speak up among all those others; they’d be angry, and besides, I’d promised Master Lestrange to hold my tongue, only now it seems that maybe he killed her and well, I don’t think I need keep my word now, and besides, there’s Mistress Wilde gone off as well, very likely with the man who gave Lestrange his orders …’

  He stopped for breath. ‘Gently, Ben,’ I said. ‘Just tell me, what do you know? Is it to do with the direction the count and his people have taken?’

  ‘It was something that that man Lestrange, asked me. It was before Joan … died …’ He choked but then went on. ‘He came to me when I was alone, out in the garden, looking to see how the herbs were coming up. Master Hawthorn, he likes fresh herbs, he don’t like using the dried ones as he has to in winter …’

  ‘Don’t ramble, Ben. Get on with it. I can see that you’re still troubled about breaking some promise or other but I think you’ve got to. What did Master Lestrange say to you?’

  ‘He said I was a good Catholic. I’d been to two Masses said by Father Ignatius, you see. He said he thought he could trust me not to repeat this talk we were having, but he’d soon have a confidential errand for his master and he wanted to know if I knew of any Catholic houses near London – places he’d naturally come to if he set out from here by the straightest way, and where he might be welcome to stay while he made further travel arrangements. A private house, not an inn where anyone enquiring after him might be told he’d been there. He said he and the count didn’t know enough about English houses. The errand had nothing wrong about it, he told me, but it was secret, though he could say that it was to do with something that would benefit Catholics, and that anything done to uphold the faith couldn’t be wrong. I believe that too, Mistress Stannard …’

  His voice trailed away, probably because of my expression. ‘Ben,’ I said, ‘we’re about the same age, so you must remember, as I do, the things that happened when the queen’s Catholic sister Queen Mary was on the throne. The people who were so horribly executed because they didn’t share her faith and wouldn’t lie about it! She did that to uphold her religion, let me remind you. And it was wrong.’

  ‘But she did it to save the souls of heretics, madam! I have often worried about your soul, Mistress Stannard, and Master Stannard’s soul too, wondering what fate will befall you both after you die …’

  ‘If what you believe is true then God is a monster and not worth worshipping. Now …’

  ‘Madam!’ Ben was scandalized.

  I swallowed my exasperation. There were more important and practical matters to deal with just now and I had no time for theological debates. ‘Never mind all that, Ben. What did you say to Lestrange? I take it you told him of a place where he might find hospitality, close to London? What house and precisely where is it?’

  ‘Just outside London, madam. It’s called Stag-Leys because there are deer around there – not that there’s a deer park or anything like that; the place is a smallholding; they raise pigs and vegetables or did when we knew it. The Sterling family live there – Joan and I once worked for them. They are good honest Catholics though law-abiding. They go to Anglican services at times, to keep out of trouble, but one of their servants is a priest and he says Mass for them now and then. He doesn’t seek converts, mistress, I know he doesn’t. It’s not against the law to say Mass, only to try to convert people, and the Sterlings keep the law. Oh, dear heaven, now I’ve said too much; I’m in such a state, I can’t think properly. If that Lestrange creature or that count hurt my Joan … Mistress Stannard, you won’t …?’

  Ben’s face and voice looked desperate. I filled in the gap for him. ‘Sometimes the authorities assume that anyone who is a priest and says Mass must also be looking for converts. Yes, I know. But I shan’t pretend to be a Catholic, so the household will be careful what they say to me, and I won’t ask awkward questions. Their priest is in no more danger from me than Father Ignatius was. Go on.’

  In a shaking voice, Ben said: ‘I told Lestrange that he could probably stay with the Sterlings if he needed somewhere. I suppose he was asking for his master and all the others, really.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. I doubt if the count was already planning to elope with Mistress Wilde even before Joan’s death. But they could now be using your advice to Lestrange, and if so, they mean to take a ship from a Thames port. Thank you, Ben. By the way’ – a thought had occurred to me – ‘did you mention your talk with Lestrange to Joan?’

  ‘Yes, madam. She is … was … my wife, after all. I trusted her.’

  Perhaps that was another reason why Joan had taken to listening at doors. That, as well as seeing Lestrange come out of my room, had made her so suspicious that she tried to learn more about Lestrange’s secret errand. She had perhaps thought that Lestrange had searched my room for anything that a spy might find useful. Correspondence with Cecil, for instance. He wouldn’t have found anything, for my private papers were locked up in a deed box which in turn was locked in a cupboard in the study. But Joan had recognized the danger signs and tried to act on them, out of loyalty to me. If only she had come to me first! As it was, I had stopped her mouth when I should have let her speak. And now …

  Ashamed, I spoke very gently as I asked him: ‘Did Joan tell you anything of what she heard when she tried to eavesdrop on the count and whoever was with him – Lestrange or Father Ignatius, I expect?’ I asked. ‘I told her not to, but did she?’

  ‘Yes, she did!’ Probably emboldened by my soft tone, Ben said, quite aggressively: ‘We were man and wife! We didn’t have secrets. She didn’t hear much because they talked French together – the count and Lestrange – but she did hear the count mention Spelton and then laugh and she didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t like the laugh, if you understand me. Mistress Stannard …’ Once more, he stopped for breath.

  ‘You and Joan thought that the count might wish ill to Master Spelton?’

  ‘Yes, Mistress Stannard.’

  ‘I agree.’ Guilt made me feel sick. Joan had tried to warn me, I wouldn’t listen and by now Spelton was presumably in France, all unaware of the danger on his heels. But I knew I must now resume a tone of authority. ‘Ben, you are not to speak of this to anyone. I mean it. There’s to be no chatting to your fellow servants about anything we have said in this room. Do you understand?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Good.’ I then realized that he wanted to say something more. His eyes were frightened. ‘What is it, Ben?’

  ‘I … do I just go back to my work, madam? I mean …’

  ‘Am I going to turn you off? No, Ben. You’ve just buried your wife. I wouldn’t be so cruel. But in future, please remember that you are employed by me, not by any of my guests, least of all those I never invited in the first place. Joan had more loyalty than you. Go back to the kitchen. I must see to a few last things and then I and those who go with me must be off, and at speed. But before you go, exactly where is Stag-Leys? How do we find it?’

  TEN

  Misdirection

  Once we were on our way, my spirits began to rise. They usually did, when I set out on an adventure. It was because of this odd quirk in me that I had for so long worked as a secret agent for the queen and Cecil. I could have stopped. I could at some point have said, ‘No, I have had enough, this is the end.’ But somehow, whenever I was called upon, I responded. Reluctant and protesting as often as not and yet, the moment I started out, my reluctance always faded.

  Even when I was longing for the peace and quiet of my home, I had never simply abandoned my assignment and gone home. I could have made excuses. I would have made myself unpopular with my royal sister and some of her Council, but I would have pleased others. Sir Francis Walsingham didn’t approve of employing
women on secret missions. But when I was on an assignment, it never occurred to me just to drop it and go home.

  A friend of mine had once said that I had something in common with wild geese. I had only to hear the call of adventure, and I would respond like a goose that hears the cry of its kin. There was truth in that.

  And whenever I set out on any mission that could be called adventurous, I always wore the open-fronted gowns with the hidden pouches inside, containing extra money, picklocks and a little dagger. I did so this time. Brockley also prepared himself, ‘For anything that might happen,’ as he put it, having had long experience of adventuring with me. On this occasion, he carried a sword and a few things that he called ‘useful oddments’, which he put in a shoulder bag because they were too awkward for a saddlebag. They included a tinderbox, four lanterns and a bundle of candles for them.

  It occurred to me just after we had set out that in all the haste and distress I had omitted to send word to Walsingham or Burghley to tell them what had happened. I should have done. Indeed, they might have sent help of some kind. I must see to it as soon as possible.

  The weather was cold and dull but it was dry and the roads weren’t bad, for late February. It was a little over twenty miles to our destination, and we covered it easily enough in five hours, allowing for halts for refreshment and limitations on our speed, because although we didn’t have any pack animals, we did have Sybil and Dale.

  Neither was much of a horsewoman; in fact, they were both capable of falling off a horse while it was standing still, but we were trying to rescue Ambrosia and I could not deny Sybil the right to come with us. As for Dale, she didn’t like Brockley to go off with me and leave her behind. She knew that we had once been closer than we should have been. She also knew that I was not a danger to her, but she was still jealous at heart and I didn’t blame her.

  She and Sybil would slow us down a little, but not as much as they would have done if they were travelling pillion. So I put Sybil on the reliable Bronze and Dale on Magpie, who was placid as well as massive, and hoped for the best. I was riding my beautiful black mare Jewel, while Brockley had his cob Mealy and I mounted Joseph on the long-legged chestnut, Redstart.

  ‘You get to Stag-Leys a couple of miles before London Bridge,’ Ben had told me. ‘Go past Stag-Leys and you’d soon come to the George Inn and that ought to be the natural place to stay for anyone wanting to arrange a passage to France, only Lestrange insisted that he didn’t want an inn where he might be remembered if anyone enquired after him. It would be even easier to remember a party! I recommended Stag-Leys. You can’t miss it; the house is right beside the road. It’s like a cottage – a sort of overgrown one.’

  He was right. Stag-Leys was easy to recognize; indeed, I had half-recognized Ben’s description. I had seen the place any number of times on journeys to and from London. It was, as he had said, an oversized cottage, attached to a smallholding. We could glimpse vegetable plots and timber outbuildings behind it. Its plastered walls were painted cream and it was thatched, with a small flower garden at one side, where snowdrops and crocuses were out, harbingers of spring. It was a welcoming place. One felt almost embarrassed at the idea of disturbing its charm.

  There was a fence along the roadside. We dismounted and tethered the horses to it. Then I said: ‘Before we announce ourselves, you should all remember that though Ben Flood says this is a law-abiding household, it is also Catholic. We had better not speak of the information that Count Renard is almost certainly carrying to France. As far as the Sterling family are concerned, he is suspected of murder – we need not go into too many details – and Mistress Wilde, unaware of that, has run off with him and we hope to fetch her back to safety. All right?’ Everyone nodded agreement. ‘So, in we go,’ I said.

  We left Joseph to watch over the horses and I led the others through the front gate. We walked up the short path to the front door, a solid oak affair with a shiny brass knocker. I applied the knocker and the door was answered at once, by a slightly dishevelled young woman with a cap that was not quite straight, a somewhat grimy apron, and a duster in one hand. She looked at us enquiringly, out of ingenuous blue eyes.

  ‘Mistress Sterling?’ I asked, cautiously, because as we rode, it had occurred to me that if Ben and Joan had left the place some time ago, it might have changed hands. Ben might have sent Lestrange into a hotbed of Protestants by mistake.

  However, he had not. ‘The mistress be in the kitchen. I do be a maid here,’ said the young woman, smiling. She was clearly a country girl, from somewhere much further from London. ‘I’ll get her for thee. Who do I say wants her?’

  ‘Mistress Stannard,’ I said. ‘I am actually trying to find a group of people who may have sought shelter here. A Frenchman and his servants.’

  The maid shook her head. ‘There’s been no one like that here. But here’s the mistress herself; you’d best ask her.’

  She stepped back to make way for a woman who had emerged from somewhere in the back regions and presumably from the kitchen since a smell of baking bread and frying onions came with her and a waft of warm air, as from a lively cooking fire. She hastened towards us along a passageway, or perhaps surged towards us would describe it better, for she was a large lady. She was even more untidy than her maidservant, with coppery hair escaping from a cap as hopelessly askew as the maid’s, a much-creased brown dress, its sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and an open neck. Despite the chill of the day, her face and her double chins were shiny with sweat. ‘What is it, Deborah?’

  I saved Deborah the trouble of answering by saying: ‘I am Mistress Stannard; I take it that you are Mistress Sterling?’ and on receiving a nod, repeated my enquiry, this time adding a couple of names. ‘The Frenchman is Count Renard, and he has – he is escorting – a lady, a Mistress Wilde, and he has a manservant called Lestrange, and a chaplain and two grooms.’

  ‘All those folk, putting up here as if we was an inn, and the George not that much further on?’ Mistress Sterling threw back her head and uttered a hearty laugh. ‘Not that we haven’t room, not now that most of my chicks are grown and gone; two sons gone to sea, I have, and three daughters wed, and only the eldest lad still here, since this place’ll be his when Stephen’s gone … no, we’ve no guests here, only our good selves, and haven’t had, since my brother and his family came at Christmas.’ But the laughter and the loquaciousness were hiding something. I had seen it flicker in her big pale grey eyes and so had Brockley, for he moved closer to me as he said: ‘You are sure, madam? Did such a party of people perhaps seek directions here, even if they didn’t stay?’

  Mistress Sterling shook her head and at the same moment started to close the door. Just as, behind her, a door on the left opened and Pierre Lestrange stepped into the passage.

  He shot one glance towards the open front door and retreated instantly but not soon enough. ‘That’s Lestrange!’ Brockley barked and without more ado, he sprang forward, thrusting the front door wide open again, and attempted to push past the mistress of the house. She exclaimed angrily and got in his way but Brockley shouted: ‘It’s a matter of murder, madam; do you want to be a party to that?’ and shoved harder and more successfully. The indignant Mistress Sterling staggered back and Brockley made purposefully for the room into which Lestrange had so hurriedly withdrawn. Sybil and I rushed after him, with Dale on our heels. Sybil was calling Ambrosia’s name at the top of her voice.

  I expected a response to that, but Ambrosia neither appeared nor called in answer and when we flung open the door on the left we found only Lestrange, standing in the middle of what was clearly a parlour, since its plastered walls were adorned with a couple of pretty hangings and the floor was strewn with fresh rushes, and the place was furnished with cushioned settles and a pair of polished cupboards, and two small tables, one with a vase of snowdrops on it and the other with an unlit lamp and a sewing basket, open. There was a small hearth, laid ready for lighting. Lestrange, standing in an aggressive attitude and
grasping a drawn sword, was an incongruous sight.

  I had never really taken his appearance in before; I think he cultivated unobtrusiveness. I knew nothing about him beyond the fact that he spoke good English and could play the lute. His voice was as quiet as his footsteps; he was of middle height and had one of those nondescript, forgettable faces. It was less forgettable just now, because he was scowling angrily. He half-raised the sword.

  ‘Put that down!’ Brockley snarled. ‘Do you want more blood on your hands? Where are the rest of you?’

  Lestrange didn’t sheathe his weapon. ‘What are you talking about? There isn’t any rest of us. I’m here on my own. I’ve an errand to France for my master and it’s no business of yours. And what’s all this about more blood on my hands?’

  ‘Joan Flood, one of Mistress Stannard’s servants,’ said Brockley, ‘mysteriously fell downstairs – or do you and your master murder people so often that you forget them five minutes later?’

  ‘Murder? What is all this?’ said Lestrange, and was echoed from the hallway by Mistress Sterling, wildly shrieking: ‘Murder! Do you say this man has murdered?’

  ‘It seems very likely, madam,’ said Brockley without turning round. ‘We have reason to suspect it. Now then, Lestrange. Where are the rest of you? Your master, Mistress Wilde, Father Ignatius …’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them!’ cried Mistress Sterling, now thrusting her bulk through the door behind us. ‘This man came here alone, wanting to stay while he sought a passage to France or some such thing. Honest Catholic business he said he was on and that’s not against the law, not yet, though that man Walsingham’ll make it so one of these days, I don’t doubt. There’s been no talk of murder nor of this French Count Whatsit …’