The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's

by Buckley, Fiona

“Ah. I thought so, though I only saw it upside down. Mooning over it, is the phrase I’d use,” said Hugh. “The man’s really in love.”

  At the time, Norfolk, apparently realizing at last that we were there, put the miniature away with a sigh and remarked that arrangements must be made for the inquest and that jurymen must be chosen. “And I must send word to Gale’s employer, Roberto Ridolfi—he should be back from Dover soon—and make plans for the funeral. So much to do!”

  “Can we help?” Hugh asked.

  “Yes—send one of my secretaries to me. Any of them. I feel as tired,” said Norfolk pettishly, “as though I’d been hunting all day.”

  The first secretary we came across was Dean, whom we encountered in a passageway. We sent him to the duke. As he was about to go, however, he paused and looked at me seriously. “Mistress Stannard . . . ”

  “Yes, Master Dean?”

  “I’m very sorry that your daughter has left us. I feel I must say it yet again. She is delightful and I still have hopes of her. When you think she is ready, please don’t forget me.”

  He bowed briefly and went off to find the duke, giving neither of us any chance to reply.

  “Meg seems to have kindled quite a fire there,” said Hugh.

  “I know. It makes me uncomfortable. I’ve every intention of forgetting him!” I said. “If I have anything to do with it, once we’re on our way home, he’ll never hear of her again.”

  • • •

  Dinner that day was late and somewhat haphazard. The duke dined apart with the justice and the aldermen; we were given a smaller meal than usual, served in the parlor. In the evening, however, perhaps to make up for the unsatisfactory dinner, supper was served early. We were there in good time for it, all four of us, since I had by now firmly established that Brockley and Dale should eat with us.

  We were the first to arrive, apart from our host. The butler, Conley, was putting wine flagons on the table and apologizing because they hadn’t been brought in more promptly.

  “I am extremely sorry, Your Grace. I wanted to send the lad Walt, who helps me with the cellars, to draw the wine for me, but he was nowhere to be found and I allowed myself to waste time in searching for him—to have the personal pleasure of clipping his ear,” said Conley frankly. “I suspect he’s slipped off to see his wench and I shall have an unpleasant surprise awaiting him when he gets back.”

  And that was the precise moment when, rising up the kitchen stairs, penetrating doors and walls like a cannonball through a house of cards, came a most terrible sound. That was the moment when Mistress Dalton, housekeeper to His Grace Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, began to scream.

  8

  The Same Hand

  I have seen people of rank sit unmoved while what sounds like a war breaks out under their windows and merely nod to their attendants to investigate. This, however, was a disturbance on such a scale that it destroyed all social distinctions. Screams like that fling a noose around mind and body alike. They can drag emperors to their feet and spur tyrants to a gallop. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, left the supper room headlong, with Conley close behind him. The rest of us raced in pursuit.

  The sound certainly came from the kitchens. Rushing to the back stairs and down them into the tangle of little rooms and passageways, we collided with a number of openmouthed and frightened servants, also running toward the cries. All together, we jostled on toward the source of the uproar and found ourselves in the doorway of the shadowy little room where game birds and carcasses were hung before cooking.

  Mistress Dalton was standing in the middle of the sawdust-strewn floor. Her elegant headdress was crooked and the opening of her grande-dame ruff gave us a view of taut, vibrating neck sinews. Her hands were clutched over her elaborate stomacher as though to defend her vital organs and her mouth was wide open. She was shrieking at the top of her voice.

  It was understandable. Hanging from a hook on the left-hand wall beside a bullock carcass, his head flopping sideways from the rope that encircled his neck, his face distorted in a last, hideous rictus of death and a huge splash of dried blood over his shirt and his sleeveless brown jerkin, was the boy Walt.

  He was fully dressed, whereas the bullock had been skinned, but otherwise, he had been treated as just another piece of butcher’s meat.

  • • •

  Dale started to scream as well, but Brockley pulled her back into the passageway and somehow got her to choke her cries down. I gagged and caught at the doorpost to steady myself, one hand clapped over my mouth. Conley stepped up to the hysterical housekeeper, caught hold of her shoulders, and shook her hard. She stopped shrieking, pointed at the pathetic thing on the wall, and then collapsed.

  Hugh and Conley picked her up. Hugh said to me: “Come with us. Bring Dale. She’ll need women with her when she comes to. Conley and I must come back here.”

  Out in the passage, Dale was clinging to Brockley. The pupils of her protuberant eyes were huge and dark, and her pockmarks stood out as they always did when she was ill or upset. Nevertheless, she pulled herself together at the sight of the unconscious Mistress Dalton and became practical. She came to me when I called to her and between us all we got the housekeeper through the crowd of appalled servants and safely to her suite. Norfolk followed, bringing up the rear. Hugh and Conley laid her on her bed and Conley went for some wine. By the time he was back, Mistress Dalton had come around and was trying to sit up. I took the goblet from Conley and held it while she drank. “That thing!” she said, “That . . . that . . . !”

  “Drink some more wine,” I said firmly.

  “Such wickedness!” Outrage was taking over from shock. “Such . . . such contempt! To treat a poor dead lad so! He wasn’t a bad lad, for all his pert ways. He worked hard, except that he crept off to see his wench now and then when he shouldn’t . . . and the poor lass is there in her father’s tavern, still thinking Walt’s alive and going to marry her and . . . ”

  “You just walked in and there he was—like that?” The duke was standing at the foot of the bed. “Can you answer questions, Mistress Dalton? We must know all that you can tell us.”

  “Conley wanted him,” said Mistress Dalton, “but we couldn’t find him and Conley had to attend in the parlor. I thought I’d take a few minutes to look for him myself and I went through the passages, in and out of the rooms, and then I went into that room and I saw . . . I saw . . . !”

  “Have you any idea when this could have happened—or who might have done it?”

  “No, sir, I haven’t; how could I? I’ve been busy here and there; so much to do, with everything so disturbed; the aldermen and the justice here needing their dinner, and the linen still to be counted after the wash. That poor boy. I never thought to see such a thing in this world. It was like a picture of hell, except that it was real! I’ll never forget it till the day I die. Some more wine, Mistress Stannard, please!”

  “Better get her tipsy,” said Norfolk. “It’s the kindest thing to do.”

  • • •

  When we left Mistress Dalton’s room, Norfolk was fastidiously brushing invisible grime off his pale blue doublet and muttering that he was sure it smelt and that in the normal way he never never entered the servants’ quarters. Brockley, however, had more serious matters on his mind.

  It was indeed Brockley who, with the mixture of perfect deference and perfect determination that was so peculiarly his own, moved the four of us out of Norfolk’s house before nightfall and into the Sign of the Green Dragon in the nearby street of Bishopsgate.

  “I am sorry to press you, madam,” he said, “but Fran is terrified. She has done her best to help you and Mistress Dalton, but if she has to spend tonight under this roof, she will not close her eyes and by tomorrow she will be exhausted and very likely ill. I must ask you and Master Stannard, please, to allow me to take her to a hostelry at once and stay there with her. Master Conley,” said Brockley, with unsmiling humor, “has kindly sent one of his surviving scullions to ma
ke inquiries on my behalf. He reports that the Green Dragon has room for us. I realize that we must all stay in London for the inquests, and if you and Master Stannard feel you should stay in Howard House yourselves, we can return early each morning to carry out our usual duties but . . . ”

  The four of us had once more foregathered in our chamber. Brockley stood in the middle of the room, impassive as ever, but rocklike, waiting for us to agree.

  Dusk was falling now. I thought of the thing we had seen, hanging on the wall of that dreadful little room downstairs. I thought of the duke’s fine residence as it was at night: the dark emptiness of the formal rooms, the long passages, some dimly lamplit and some not lit at all, and the cavelike doorways of the kitchen quarters. Candles would only make the shadows blacker, and their flames would flicker and whisper in faint currents of air. The shadows would move and take on shapes. Shapes, perhaps, like the outline of a body suspended against a wall.

  “I think we should go,” I said to Hugh. “There’s just time to put our things together. The duke may not like it but . . . Hugh, please!”

  “I doubt if we’re in any danger,” Hugh said. “I suspect that the boy’s death is linked to that of Gale. I helped to get Walt down and I had a look at him. It was a messier business this time, and the wound was in front, but it was a similar wound to the one in Gale’s back—done by the same sort of weapon; something with a thin, very sharp blade. Maybe he knew something that would have pointed to Gale’s murderer, and so the killer silenced him. But the killer, surely, has no need to attack any of us.”

  “But who, now, can doubt that the killer is in this house?” said Brockley.

  Hugh considered. Then he nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. Clearly you don’t want either your wife or mine to remain here! Very well. I’ll speak to the duke now.”

  • • •

  Norfolk, to be fair to him, was not offended by our wish to escape from his house. “I’d like to escape from it myself,” he said moodily. He even loaned us a couple of servants to help move our luggage, our coach, and our horses. The Green Dragon wasn’t luxurious, but I had seen worse inns. Brockley and Dale had to be content with a pallet in an attic, but Hugh and I were given a small but fairly clean chamber, opening onto a gallery above the courtyard, and the landlord offered us a late second supper with a choice of good wines or a beer, which he highly recommended, called Dragons’ Brew.

  We declined the beer. Brockley said he’d heard of it, and it was notorious for its strength, and also for the strength of the headaches the following day. The landlord, grinning, also asked with interest after events at the duke’s house. He had heard of Walt’s death already.

  “I’ve noticed before,” I said to Hugh, “that innkeepers are always first with the news. Do they have some kind of private signaling system?”

  “No. They just have customers in from the houses roundabout, and the customers talk in their cups, especially if the cups are full of Dragons’ Brew,” said Hugh. “I saw one of Norfolk’s scullions in here with a tankard when we came in. I daresay he was drinking the stuff! And talking!”

  I said: “I hope the inquests are held soon.”

  • • •

  Over the matter of the inquests, there was some bad feeling, since the justice who was organizing them first of all thought that Norfolk’s own house would be a good venue, offering as it did a big hall and a dignified atmosphere. As we were spending most of our daytimes at Howard House, we were there to witness Thomas Howard’s reaction. The Duke of Norfolk, his unremarkable face flushed pink with annoyance above his pristine ruff, and his voice squeaky with passion, expressed to the justice’s representatives, and in our hearing, his heartfelt opinion of what he considered an odious suggestion.

  “It’s plain enough that something very undesirable has been going on in my kitchen quarters but what have I to do with servants’ misdeeds? To have the inquests here is as good as announcing that this scandalous business is connected with me. It is not. Walt’s death and that of Gale may be connected to each other, but they’re nothing to do with me. If there are questionable people in my employ, I want them identified and removed but that can be seen to no matter where the inquiry is held. I won’t have my reputation compromised like this. The inquests will not be held here.”

  In the event, the two inquests, which took place together, were held in what was apparently a normal venue for such things in that locality, an upper room at another Bishopsgate inn, the Black Bull.

  We expected the proceedings to be lengthy but they were not. It took only a short time to establish that Gale had died of a stab wound in the back, made by a thin blade—“but such a blade can kill, if thrust into the heart,” said the coroner, who was himself a former soldier. Then the court heard the witnesses who had found Gale’s body and established that he had not been robbed of his valuables. The jury quickly concluded that the attack on him had either sprung from a personal feud of some kind or else was an attempt to get hold of confidential letters that he should have been carrying, but which had been left behind in his clothespress in Norfolk’s house.

  The letters were not produced. Norfolk declared that they were of a highly private nature and had already been sent on their way in the care of one of his own messengers. He added, however, that only one was from himself. Two had been written by Roberto Ridolfi, a banker. All three were addressed to people of eminence and were to do with money. He was not at liberty to say more.

  Further details were not requested. I looked at Hugh and he at me. No one had mentioned ciphers and we were both privately convinced that Norfolk’s letter at least wasn’t concerned with money at all, but with courtship. However, neither of us had actually read any of the letters and we could hardly stand up in the courtroom and declare that we had reason to suspect (though without proof) that our gracious host, the noble Duke of Norfolk, was telling lies.

  The three secretaries all bore the duke’s testimony out and Edmund Dean didn’t mention witchcraft. One of the maidservants, describing how the letters had been found, did start to talk about it but was cut short by the coroner, who as well as being a former soldier, was also a solid and hardheaded man in the middle years and thoroughly experienced in his present post.

  “We’re talking of dagger wounds and letters concerning financial affairs, young woman. This is not the time or place for beldames’ gossip.”

  It was agreed, by coroner and jury alike, that there was nothing to show whether the letters had been left behind deliberately or in error, by a man who had been ill and perhaps was still not himself. The verdict was murder by a person or persons unknown and further inquiries, said the coroner, must be set afoot.

  When the inquest reached Walt, it was quickly decided that he had probably died by the same hand and that he had probably known something dangerous to Gale’s killer. This was borne out by one witness whose brief testimony moved my heart. It was the girl Bessie, who had been betrothed to Walt. She was dressed in black, except for her white cap and small ruff, and she was very young. I remembered hearing that she wasn’t yet sixteen. I could tell that she found the official atmosphere frightening. Nevertheless, she kept her small square chin raised, and though her voice trembled when she spoke, she made herself heard and she didn’t stammer.

  Walt had told her, she said, that he had come into some money. On the day of his death he had come to her father’s tavern early in the morning and talked with her father, who had agreed that if Walt would put some of his legacy into the tavern, he could become a junior partner in the business, and could marry Bessie whenever the two of them chose.

  Her father, following her as a witness, said that Bessie’s account was right, and two of Norfolk’s menservants agreed that Walt had indeed gone out early that day, and that he had been saying he would be able to marry soon, although he hadn’t mentioned any legacy and as far they knew, there was no question of such a thing.

  From all of this, the coroner remarked, it seemed a fair guess that
Walt was hoping to obtain money from Julius Gale’s possible killer, and that he had met whoever it was under Norfolk’s roof.

  Norfolk’s servants were then questioned, and the easygoing habits of the servants’ quarters, where visitors came and went unquestioned, and the master of the house, normally, never went at all, emerged very clearly.

  Some of the maidservants were distressed by the questioning. Two or three of them cried and said that their characters were being taken away, but no one seriously suspected them of anything. They were all sturdy girls but certainly no one could suppose any of them capable of ambushing a strong and healthy young man like Walt, stabbing him to the heart, putting a cord around his neck, heaving him up to the hook in the meat-hanging room, and then returning to her duties, cap and apron still miraculously straight and clean, to work and no doubt joke and giggle with her colleagues as though nothing untoward had happened.

  The menservants were questioned more fiercely, but here sheer chance seemed to have put them beyond suspicion. They all seemed to have been working under someone’s eye—each other’s for the most part—between the moment when Walt was last seen alive, and the moment when Mistress Dalton discovered him dead.

  Again, the verdict was murder by an unknown hand, though probably whoever it was had murdered Julius Gale as well. There was little to show whether the killer belonged to the Norfolk household or came from outside, but the latter (Brockley ground his teeth here, in disagreement) was possible. And that was that.

  Once again, inquiries were to continue. Therefore, we couldn’t yet leave our inn, in case we were required again. However, the duke was in no mood for arranging entertainments and we saw that, at last, we could visit Cecil without difficulty.

  “All the same,” I said to Hugh. “Cecil must know of this already. An inquest on a murder in a council member’s house! Someone’s bound to report it to him. Norfolk himself, very likely.”

  “I daresay, but will he report all of it?” Hugh said. “Will he admit that his own letter was to Mary Stuart and that one of Ridolfi’s was in cipher? Would I, in his place? We must still see Cecil if we can.”