A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court)

by Buckley, Fiona

  And then we all looked at each other and laughed, and Master Thursby said solemnly: “But they are excellent people in their way, and Mistress Bycroft never ceases from good works. She often goes to Grimstone to take charity to the poor villagers and her husband sees to it that their cottages are kept in good repair. Nor do they neglect to tend the souls of their tenants. No one can fault them.”

  Whereupon, we all chuckled again. A servant brought in some wine and poured it, and as I sipped mine, I remarked that St. Margaret’s must have been altered a good deal since the days when it was an abbey. “I know,” I said, “because my own house was once an abbey and that, too, had to be much adapted before it became a real home.”

  I paused, and then, catching at a chance to establish my Catholic credentials, I added gravely: “If the true religion should ever be restored in England, I suppose the Church might reclaim Withysham from me. I should be sorry, although I know in my heart that it would be right.”

  There was a sudden hush. All the puckishness went out of Mistress Thursby’s face. She actually put up a hand to brush tears from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, dear,” she said miserably.

  Easygoing as the Thursbys seemed to be, I had accidentally touched a tender spot. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Now, don’t you go making too much of it, my dear,” said Master Thursby to his wife. “The fact is,” he added to me, “that we love St. Margaret’s too much and can’t help but hope we will never lose it.”

  “It would break my heart if we did,” said Mistress Thursby.

  “Yes, well, that’s as may be. But if it’s ever God’s will that our religion be restored in England, well, as Madame de la Roche says, it’s a sacrifice we might have to make.”

  “The heartache would be so terrible,” said his wife sadly.

  “Yes, it would,” her husband agreed somberly. “But as yet, it hasn’t come to pass. So let us talk of something else.”

  I obliged by asking about Edward, hoping against hope that he might be somewhere on the premises, but I was disappointed. He was not.

  “Oh yes, he’s been here,” Master Thursby said. “But . . .”

  “I take it he’s gone on to Edinburgh,” I said heavily. “I know that he meant to. When did he leave?”

  “The day before yesterday, after dinner. He’ll likely be there by now. He didn’t even spend a night here, for all we invited him,” Mistress Thursby said. Silently, I cursed. “He seemed so impatient to finish his journey,” said my hostess. “He spoke of you once, you know—when he was here last summer. Not that he said much, except that it was you that went with his wife’s guardian to bring his bride out of France. But we knew he had a cousin Ursula.”

  It had never occurred to me that Edward might have talked about me. I thanked providence he hadn’t said more. According to Uncle Herbert, he knew that it was I who had got my uncle, Edward’s father, clapped into the Tower. I certainly didn’t want any of Edward’s friends to know that. Perhaps the talkative Thursbys had interrupted him too soon! (The Bycrofts were probably too busy praying to listen, anyhow.)

  “I need to find him as soon as I can,” I said. They regarded me with expectant interest and I added primly: “It concerns his family at home—it is a private thing, which I’m not at liberty to discuss—but it really is serious. You gave me a charming bedchamber in which to change my dress and I suspect that you would be happy for me to stay here overnight . . .”

  “Indeed, we expect you to stay!” Euphemia exclaimed.

  I shook my head. “I think we should travel on after dinner and try again to catch Edward up. We could cover a few more miles before nightfall. Can you advise us about the route and where we can stay overnight? What inns are there along the way?”

  The Thursbys at once began to shake with mirth. The brief distress over their fear of losing their home had passed and now they resembled nothing so much as a pair of merry gnomes. I looked at them in astonishment.

  “You’re almost into Scotland,” said Mistress Thursby, “and there are no hostelries in Scotland. Drinking places, yes, but not places to stay.”

  “There are traditions of hospitality, though,” said her husband. “Nobles stay in each other’s castles and houses; ordinary folk look for lodgings in cottages and farmhouses and so on. There are a couple of places along the way where you’ll get beds for the night and supper, of a simple kind, and I can give you some addresses in Edinburgh where you can find lodgings. I know where Edward was probably going to stay; I can tell you that as well.”

  “I’d be grateful,” I said, and added politely: “You know Scotland well?”

  Once more, their cheerful countenances clouded. “Oh yes,” said Mistress Thursby, “we have relatives there, as I said. More cousins. We share Scottish forebears, John and I.”

  I must have looked inquiring, for Master Thursby said: “We used to visit them at times, but the last such time was a sad business for us. We never dreamt . . .”

  “We’re not so very young,” said Euphemia, “and our children are grown. Our son is wed and lives on the farm that was his wife’s dower—maybe thirty miles from here. But our daughter, our dearest Jane . . .”

  “We took her with us to visit our cousins, nearly four years ago it was,” said Master Thursby. “Our cousins are well-to-do people in Edinburgh, merchants in cloth and spices and well acquainted with all the fine folk. They got us invitations to a banquet given by a noble who had a castle to the west of Stirling, the town at the head of the Firth. We rode out and stayed a night there, and while we were there, one of our host’s sons fell in love with our daughter.”

  “She was sixteen,” said Euphemia in a trembling voice. “And she was just growing up. She’d been quite an ordinary-looking child, and then, just before we went to Scotland, almost overnight, she bloomed. It was as if she went to bed one night as just a lass, awkward, with a few spots, and woke the next day as though a good fairy had kissed her in the night. Suddenly she was beautiful. Our daughter was beautiful . . .”

  Her voice faltered. John Thursby said: “Our host’s son talked to her at dinner and danced with her after, and came to us the very next morning, before we left, asking for her hand. But we didn’t care for him . . .”

  “. . . and nor did Jane,” said Euphemia. “All of us thought him rough and crude and how right we were. We said no to the proposal, and went back to Edinburgh. But when we set out for home a week later, we were held up on the road by armed men—under the command of this young noble. Our daughter was taken from us. We didn’t realize at first who had done it, but we soon found out. He took her back to his father’s castle and his father, who was no better than his son, saw nothing strange in it. We rushed back to our cousins, but before we could even begin trying to make inquiries or lodge a complaint with the authorities, would you believe it, we were openly invited to the castle to visit our daughter and our new son-in-law—that’s what the invitation said: son-in-law—as though it had all been a normal marriage. Jane was raped the moment she reached the castle and then told that in Scottish law this made her the wife of the man who had ravished her!”

  “It isn’t true,” said Master Thursby. “But Jane was too innocent to know that. She believed what she was told, and when she was offered what her ravisher called the consolation of religion, meaning a lawful marriage by a Catholic priest—these wretched nobles were Catholics, as we are, and more shame to them—then she agreed. Before we could get to her, she was truly married and there was nothing we could do to save her. We told her we could get it annulled, but she was a virtual prisoner in the castle and ten thousand annulments wouldn’t have got her person out of the hands of those . . . those . . .”

  “What of Jane now?” I asked.

  “She died,” said Master Thursby shortly. “Of homesickness and ague in that vile, cold castle, and probably of ill usage too. She had a black eye when we saw her on that visit. It wasn’t a long one. It was made plain to us that we weren’t welcome to stay m
ore than a day or two. We were only asked, I think, to have it made clear to us that we had no power to help Jane.”

  “When we had to go away and leave her there, she cried and cried. I shall never forget it,” said Mistress Thursby.

  “We tried to find a way to make the authorities act, but all we got from anyone was that she was lawfully married and nothing could be done,” said her husband. “It was before Queen Mary came back to Scotland. Perhaps she would have had pity. We found no pity anywhere. She was dead in six months. They sent her belongings back to us and told us that she had had Christian burial. God have mercy on her soul, and a curse on the soul of the man who seized her.”

  “But—is that a commonplace in Scotland?” I asked, staggered.

  “It’s very different from England, believe me,” said Master Thursby with feeling. “Yes, such things happen now and then. When Queen Mary herself first arrived from France, there were a couple of plots to seize her and marry her forcibly to this noble or that. The great Gordon clan were involved in one of them, and young John Gordon, who had presumed to her hand, was executed for it. The plots all came to nothing, but no, there was nothing remarkable about them. Not in Scotland. It is a wild place with little rule of law.” He eyed me with unwonted gravity. “You’re a good-looking young woman and you have property in the south, have you not? Edward told us that. You ought to take care.”

  “I shall not be in Scotland long,” I said. “Or so I trust. I only want to catch up with Edward and I hope to have his company coming back.”

  Master Thursby rose to his feet. “I’ll give you a note of places to seek shelter, on the way to Edinburgh and in it, and how to find the house where Edward is probably staying. Our friends who educated him—they died of lung congestion during a bad winter a few years back, as no doubt you know, poor souls—owned some houses in Edinburgh and the couple Edward’s most likely staying with were their tenants. Macnab their name is. The property was sold in the end, when our friends died, but the Macnabs stayed put. Master Macnab is one of the head gardeners at Holyrood Palace, the queen’s residence. They’ll not have much room, though. They might not be able to take you in as well. You’d best ask our cousins for shelter while you’re in the city. Their name is Keith. I’ll write you some lines of introduction.”

  I said: “Can we borrow a horse from you? One of ours has gone lame. Otherwise Dale will have to ride on Brockley’s pillion.”

  “Oh, my dear,” exclaimed Mistress Thursby, “we told you—we breed them! Did you bring your own horses all the way from Sussex? The poor things must be nearly foundered. Well, our grooms will take care of them. Paul Bisselthwaite is very good at doctoring lame animals.”

  “Especially if you slip him a few pennies extra for his trouble,” observed her husband dryly.

  “Well, and why not, after all? He does take the trouble,” said Euphemia. “Leave them here and take fresh ones all round. Keep ours as long as you need them and pick up your own on your way back south again.”

  6

  The Open Window

  After taking dinner with them, we bade good-bye—with some regret—to the hospitable and voluble Thursbys, and on new mounts set out across the miles of wild moorland that lay between us and Edinburgh.

  We spent one night more on the road, in a little cottage. I was by now attuning my ears to the change in accent, and although our hosts spoke broad Scots, I was able, just about, to converse with them. They tried to make us comfortable but hadn’t much wherewithal to do it with. The horses shared a byre with some goats, and with the cottagers we shared a supper of salt bacon and rye bread. Then we slept as best we could, wrapped in fleeces, on the floor by the fire, and had thin ale, goat’s cheese, and porridge for breakfast. The porridge was made of good oatmeal but lacked the raisins and sugar that usually accompany porridge in the south. Instead, it was served with salt.

  Between that and the previous evening’s bacon, we set off next day feeling rather thirsty and when, during the morning, we came across a tavern in a small village, Brockley insisted on stopping for ale all around. “There wasn’t enough at breakfast and if I don’t have a proper drink I’ll never get the taste of salt out of my mouth, madam, and I daresay you and Fran are no better.”

  We reached Edinburgh in a winter twilight. We rode through a frowning gate in a city wall, and looking up, saw the towering bulk of the castle on its hill, with candlelit windows here and there. We ourselves were in a long street, mostly full of people who seemed to be clearing market stalls away. Tall houses soared up on either side, with upper floors overhanging the road and little alleyways between, dark mouths under arched entrances. As with most city streets, there was a smell of rubbish and ordure, but there was a wind, too, with a sea smell in it.

  Even I was too tired to seek Edward out that night. “The morning will do,” I said. “Let’s find these Thursby cousins.”

  We found someone whose accent we could understand and who was able to direct us. We were already in the right street, a thoroughfare that we gathered was a main route between the castle at one end of the town and the queen’s chief residence of Holyrood at the other. The Keiths’ home was in a small close almost opposite the High Kirk of St. Giles, and there was no missing that, for it was as dignified and majestic a church as I ever saw anywhere. Within a few minutes after making our inquiry, we had found our destination.

  Only to discover that we weren’t entirely welcome. The master of the house, apparently, had fallen ill with an apoplexy.

  But the laws of hospitality held good. There was stabling at the rear for our horses, and we were provided with supper, a good one this time, and warm if crowded beds. I shared one with the two grown-up Keith daughters, while in the next room Dale shared a mattress on the floor with the three maidservants, and Brockley, as so often, slept over the stable with the grooms.

  Being a place of anxiety, the household was astir early. We broke our fast by candlelight, with good fresh bread, fried bacon, and a sufficiency of ale. Our hostess was too concerned about her husband to join us, but her daughters deputized for her, and when asked if they knew where the Macnabs lived, they said yes.

  They gave us directions willingly and if, no doubt on their mother’s instructions, they also gave us directions to a stable that would look after our horses and an address that might give us lodgings henceforth, I could understand why. I apologized for having descended on the family at such a difficult time, hoped that their father would recover and promised to pray for him, and set off with Dale and Brockley just as the sun was rising.

  The city was still quiet. We hadn’t far to go, no more than a little way back along the street to where the houses, though tall, were narrower than the Keiths’ roomy residence; cramped timber-fronted affairs with doors opening almost straight onto the road, although there was a stretch of fencing just in front where we could tether the horses. Brockley was pleased, as he didn’t want to stay outside and hold them. “It would be best if I came in with you and Fran, madam. So that you look properly attended and in case Master Faldene is, well, difficult.”

  “He’s not likely to attack us, Brockley, and we’re not proposing to wrest the list from him by force if he doesn’t want to hand it over. It will have to be persuasion at first and, after that, cunning! That is, if he hasn’t passed the list on already. If only we could have traveled a little faster or he’d gone a little slower!”

  “Let us hope for the best, madam. But I still feel . . .”

  “So do I, really. Yes, come inside with us, Brockley.”

  I did wonder if perhaps we had arrived too soon and would find the household still not fully up, but the door was opened to us promptly enough, although the youthful maidservant who opened it couldn’t make out a word we said and we couldn’t understand her, either. The attuning of my ears hadn’t gone far enough to cope with a dialect as broad as hers.

  However, she called Mistress Macnab, and the lady of the house, fortunately, was able to talk to us. She wa
s a small, busy, businesslike person, fully dressed for the day, with her sleeves rolled up for kitchen work. Aye, Master Faldene was in her house, had been for the last two nights, and this morning was still in his chamber, for all the day was well begun, and yesterday he’d been just as slow getting up, complaining that he wasn’t well. But in her view, it was high time he showed himself, and if we’d step inside, her husband would call him, as Macnab had not yet left for his day’s work though he was up and active. The gardeners at Holyrood started later in winter but Macnab was in a position of responsibility, and made sure he was always there first, and rose betimes accordingly. Mistress Macnab was clearly proud of her husband. Equally clearly, she disapproved of slugabeds.

  Two nights, I thought. Edward had been one whole day in Edinburgh. “What was wrong with my cousin?” I said, as Mistress Macnab stepped aside to let us in. “Did you see him at all yesterday? Did he go out?”

  “I never saw hide nor hair of him, and I dinna know what his trouble was, for he wouldna say. We only spoke through his door. Whether he went out or not, I wouldna know, for I was out myself half the day, at the marketing. Some good cheap fish there was for sale, and a ship in with oranges, a treat for the bairns and with my man being such a good provider, and letting our attic room as well, we can afford such things now and then. This way . . .”