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

  “Madame de la Roche, from the tenor of your talk yesterday, at supper and after, I think you are suffering from a troubled spirit. You spoke of owing loyalty to Queen Elizabeth because you had served her, and also because she is queen of your country. It sounded as if your sense of human honor and loyalty has come into conflict with your sense of your duty to God. Am I right?”

  Keeping up my deception, I said: “Yes, Father. I suppose you could say that.”

  “I understand.” He had a south of England accent, and although his hair was dark and his shapely face was browned by riding in the wind, his eyes were light. Calling him Father made me uncomfortable; he was too young for that. “It does you credit, my daughter,” he said. “It is not wrong to feel that if you have worked for someone and taken their wages—eaten their salt, as the saying used to be—then you owe them something. And naturally, subjects do owe loyalty to their sovereign. These, I think, are the things you were trying to say last night?”

  “Yes, Father. And there was more I could have said.”

  “Indeed? And what was that?”

  “There are many people who would fight for Elizabeth and for the Reformed religion. Any attempt to change either the queen or the religion could lead England into civil war. How can that be justified, even for the sake of bringing England back to the fold of the true Church?”

  “My daughter, this is where you are confused. I sense that to you such an attempt would be an attack on your true queen, your accredited sovereign. But Mistress Bycroft put her finger on the principal point. Your confusion lies in the fact that although Elizabeth sits on the throne and wears the crown, although she has been anointed as queen, she is not your rightful ruler. Her presence on the throne is an attack on the true queen! It is indeed the duty of true subjects to resist it—by placing their loyalty behind Queen Mary Stuart, who will reign with the blessing and approval of the Church.”

  “But . . . I have met Queen Mary,” I said. “She is gentle and kind. Would she truly want to reign over England—once she understood that it really would mean war?”

  “She will listen to her spiritual advisers. I think Mistress Catherine Bycroft put it very well yesterday evening, when she said one must do what is right and leave the rest to God.”

  “Even if it means—a battlefield?”

  “If that is God’s will.”

  I was angry. To hide it from him, I lowered my eyes. I said in a trembling voice: “When I was a young girl, when Queen Mary Tudor ruled, she . . . she began to root out heresy.”

  “Yes, I remember. I was only a child at the time but yes, I recall those days.”

  “I never saw a burning but my uncle and aunt did and they . . . they described it to me. It horrified me! If such things were to happen in England again . . .”

  “Mary Stuart is not willing that they should. She believes that the flock should be led, not driven,” said Father Ninian calmly. “But if the Church were to insist . . . you speak of being horrified, my child, but the pains of hell would be ten thousand times more horrible. Those who died at the stake were saved from it. They are now in heaven, their souls purged by fire of the errors they committed on earth, and if you could ask them, they would say now that they are grateful.”

  I sat still, not letting my hands, lying in my lap, clench as they wanted to do, keeping my eyes downcast, concealing with all my might the cold sickness with which his words had filled me.

  “Be at peace,” he said soothingly. “There is no need to torment yourself. Put your faith in God and His Church; follow where they lead you; do not rack your brain with questions. It is a mistake to question, a mistake to think too much.”

  I said: “You spoke just now of what Queen Mary believes. Have you met her?”

  “Yes indeed, my daughter.”

  “I know that she has priests and other people in her employ who travel through England bearing her goodwill to those who support her, and seeking out those who will offer practical help when the time comes. You must be one of them.”

  He didn’t reply. I took a deep breath. “What can I do,” I said, forcing myself to look up and smile into his eyes, “but wish you well and pray for you? Thank you for talking to me, Father. You have cleared my mind. I think I understand now. I have a little money with me, in my room. May I give you a donation for your cause? It will be modest, I’m afraid—but even modest donations add up, I suppose?”

  Money is one of the great solvents. One of the things it dissolves, sometimes quite magically, is suspicion. If you are willing to give money to a cause, then your credentials as a supporter are assured.

  “I would be most grateful, daughter. Be sure that the money will be well used. I do gather donations, and I keep the most careful account of them. They are wisely invested on the Continent. Your husband used to see to it for us at one time. Now—we have found someone else.”

  He didn’t entirely trust me and my promised donation clearly hadn’t dissolved all his doubts. I had better keep my word and let him have one, I supposed. Promises ought to be kept. One donation was neither here nor there; it wouldn’t alter the outcome of any future war.

  I knelt for his blessing and went away, in turmoil of mind, caught between the millstones of a piety too blind to recoil from starting a war, and a love of one’s home, which I understood but which might have led to murder in the night. I found them both unbearable. I wanted to leave it all and go back to Withysham.

  But I couldn’t. I had seen Edward’s deathbed.

  • • •

  After dinner, Hugh Stannard, who had been seated some way from me, came to my side and said quietly: “We had an unhappy conversation yesterday evening, but I think at the end of it, you understood me. Yesterday, when we first met, we had a pleasanter talk together. Could we renew that, do you think? Will you have a game of chess or backgammon and talk to me . . . Mistress Blanchard?”

  I wasn’t certain what he meant by this, but agreed, and it turned out that he meant exactly what he said. We sat in the parlor and played a game of chess, found out that although I could play, I was nowhere near a good enough opponent for Stannard, and turned to backgammon instead.

  While we played, we conversed. We talked, again, of gardens. I described the herb garden that I had restored at Withysham and had also done much to enhance at Blanchepierre, in the Loire Valley, during the brief time I spent there with Matthew. Stannard spoke of new varieties of roses that he had cultivated. He became animated, even merry, as he told me about attempts that had gone sadly wrong.

  “If there were such a thing as an ugly rose, that would have been it! And the other experiment I made that year was charming to look at but had no scent.” He laughed freely and could afford to do so because he had lost few teeth and those that remained were still white. Yesterday’s talk of tooth-drawers had made me very conscious of such things.

  Our talk drifted on to literature, to poetry, and to the Latin I was studying with my daughter and the Greek I hoped we would both learn in due course. At the end, he said suddenly: “You enjoy speaking of these subjects, do you not? How in the world did you get into your extraordinary line of business, mistress?”

  “Money,” I said succinctly. “I needed it to clothe myself suitably for my place at court, and to support my daughter. It happened, almost by chance, that Sir William Cecil offered me a way to earn it.”

  “I see. But are you still in need of it? Surely not.”

  “No. But . . .”

  “Quite. Habit,” said Stannard. “But you could form other habits—as a student of Latin and Greek and a lover of herb and knot gardens, perhaps?”

  “I was trying to do that when my family summoned me and sent me after Edward.”

  “So although I suspect that your family have not always been kind to you, you were willing to help them? Now of that, I approve. That was good-hearted of you. Evidently you did not make this journey altogether of your own free will. I hope you will soon reach your home again and resume your own p
rivate life. You will be happier.” He smiled. “You are good company, and very pleasant to behold, and if you have no known father, you are none the worse for it. It would make a difference to some men but not to me. If I were not so much older than you, and if I didn’t know myself unable to give a woman children, which is after all what most women desire, I would offer you my hand.”

  I blinked at him.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “But as things are—I wish you well. And I urge you simply to leave all these secrets and all this probing, to let others protect the interests of the queen and Cecil, and to settle into the peace of private life. Your cousin’s wife, in Sussex, will be awaiting your return, will she not? She will want to know all you can tell her of her husband’s death and his burial. Unhappy news, but still, she will want it.”

  “I have written, in some detail.”

  “But nevertheless, she will need you.”

  “I will go home,” I said, “as soon as I can.”

  • • •

  Which might as well be tomorrow, I thought, as I prepared for bed that night. I had learned nothing. I had a theory; I had suspicions; I could not see how to confirm any of them. I was so uncertain that I didn’t even want to put my ideas into writing and send them to Rob Henderson. He had authority, which I had not, and might be able to launch an investigation, but I did not want to turn such heavy cannon onto people who might indeed be as innocent as Hugh Stannard evidently believed.

  Well, innocent of murdering Edward, anyway. They had probably harbored traitorous messengers, but then so had the Faldenes, my own family, and the messengers had been sent out originally by my own husband! Though the Thursbys might have betrayed the said messengers. The sides in this secret war were becoming appallingly muddled.

  As I got into bed, I felt another warning twinge of pain above my left eye. I wanted no more of this, I said to myself. I would go home, as Hugh Stannard had advised, give what comfort I could to my aunt and uncle and Helene (since they didn’t like me, I wouldn’t be able to do much for them but at least I could try), and leave the moral muddles, the deceptions, and the betrayals to others.

  The hovering headache faded after I had lain quietly for a while with closed eyes. I had slept so ill the night before that this time, once I was asleep, I went deep. I dreamed vividly, and not of Edward, but of Withysham, of walking through the herb garden and breathing the scent of mint and lemon balm. When someone shook my shoulder and began calling urgently to me to wake up, I didn’t want to and resisted. The sun was just coming out from behind a cloud, and the downland near my home was splendid in the green and gold of grass and buttercup. Then my eyes opened and the sunlight, after all, was a candle, held by Dale, who was shaking me with her other hand. She had pulled back the bed curtains and I could see that the room was still dark.

  “Wha . . . what’s the matter, Dale? What time is it?”

  “Not much past four of the clock, ma’am, and I’m sorry to disturb you but Roger says to come. Something’s going on down in the stable yard under our window.”

  I was out of bed at once and Dale, setting the candle down, picked up my loose gown and threw it around my shoulders. Seizing the candle again, she lit my way through to the little adjoining room where she and Brockley had been sleeping. Brockley was by the window, his silhouette showing dimly against a faint grayness outside. The casement was open a little, and a cold wind blew in, making the candle flame stream.

  “I heard a horse whinny and it woke me,” he said in a low voice. Brockley was always alert to any disturbance involving horses. At heart, he was still more groom than manservant. Still speaking low, he said: “Put out the light, Fran. It mustn’t show. Madam, please to come over here.”

  I did so. I heard the clop and scrape of restless hooves and the murmur of voices before I even reached the window. When I peered out, I saw that John Thursby and Henry Bycroft were both in the yard, John holding up a lantern and Henry at the head of a saddled horse while a third man tightened the saddle girths. They were all just outside the stable door, which was quite close, but because of the apple tree, which was also close though fortunately not between me and the stable, the Brockleys’ window was in deep shadow from the point of view of anyone below. Cautiously, I pushed the casement wider and leaned right out, straining my ears.

  “. . . I know it’s a long way and it’s a bad time of year but I told you; your pay will take that into account. We trust you.” Thursby was talking to the man who was adjusting the girths. In the still, cold air before dawn, his voice floated up to me with reasonable clarity.

  “You’re on my best mare and I don’t want her foundered, so it’s a matter of not too fast but fast enough.” Thursby, as voluble as his wife, was fussing. “Ninian won’t leave until after breakfast; you’ll have a fair start. Just as well. He’s traveling as a clerk on his master’s business so he’ll not linger. He only stayed here yesterday because it was Sunday. You’ve to get to London ahead of him if you can.”

  Bycroft, whose voice was deeper, rumbled something that sounded like: “Not so loud.” He said something else as well, but the horse chose that moment to snort and stamp and I couldn’t make out the words.

  “The house is asleep,” said Thursby, though more softly. “Here’s the letter, Paul, and the token to help you deliver it. Keep them with you at all times till you’ve done our errand.”

  With the girths now satisfactory, the man who had been tightening them turned and took something that his master was holding out to him and I recognized him as Paul Bisselthwaite, one of the Thursby grooms, the one, in fact, who was good at doctoring horses as long as he was paid extra. He was evidently being paid extra for a different kind of service now. He spoke to Thursby in a quiet voice, which again I couldn’t hear, but I could make out Thursby’s reply.

  “Of course the token will work. There was only a difficulty that once, when you had to deal with a new servant. Cecil’s people didn’t give trouble at other times, did they? Not that it mattered even when they did; you persisted and got in to see him just the same. Of course you did. You’re a good man. I said we trust you.”

  I had begun to shiver, and not just from cold. The Thursbys were sending a messenger to Cecil and were making sure that he got to southern England ahead of Father Ninian. It wasn’t hard to interpret. They had been betraying the messengers who kept Mary Stuart in touch with her English and Continental adherents. At least, John Thursby had. I didn’t know about his wife. The Bycrofts were obviously involved as well, which was surprising, but there was Henry Bycroft in the stable yard, to prove it.

  I still did not know if the Thursbys—or the Bycrofts, come to that—had had Edward murdered to keep their activities private, but the motive was there: no doubt of it. Thursby was holding the lantern up in order to watch Paul stow what he had been given inside his jacket. The light fell on the red Thursby cheeks and gappy smile but cast John’s eyes into shade. He didn’t look like Robin Goodfellow now, but like an evil goblin.

  I drew back, slowly, carefully, and inched the window shut. “Did you hear any of that, Brockley?”

  “No, madam. I was standing behind you. What’s happening?”

  I said carefully: “They are sending word to Cecil—about something. I’m going back to bed now. But make sure I’m not late for breakfast, Dale. It could be important.”

  I went back to bed and lay there in turmoil. Should I warn Father Ninian or not? I detested and feared him, for he was working to destroy Elizabeth, to bring about the ruin of the England I loved, but then, so had Matthew been. I had in the past saved Matthew from being caught, and although Ninian was a stranger to me, should I not also save him? Even if he was not thought worth a traitor’s death, he might still find himself imprisoned for years in a Tower dungeon once Cecil got hold of him, and before he was finally locked up, he would be questioned. I knew what that would mean.

  As a true subject of Queen Elizabeth, it was my duty to let him be taken. I should admire the Thursby
s and the Bycrofts for what they were doing. I did not know what motives the Bycrofts had but they might well have their reasons. The Thursbys certainly had reasons, and normally would have had my sympathy. I too served Elizabeth, and in my time, I too had sent men to their deaths. I too loved my home and I had been saddened, as well, by their story of their kidnapped daughter. Why should they love Scotland? Why should they not do all they could to halt the ambitions of her queen?

  But there was still Edward, my objectionable cousin who was nevertheless my cousin, and who had died so horribly.

  Yes, there was still Edward. Then I fell asleep and woke an hour later to find that the migraine that had threatened me again last night had kept its abominable promise. I could scarcely lift my head from my pillow. I had feared that our hasty journey to the Thursbys would make Dale relapse, but I had done the relapsing instead. In the intensity of the pain, Father Ninian’s plight was wiped from my mind. By the time the onslaught had climaxed and the tide of agony had gone out, leaving me as wobbly as a newborn foal, Father Ninian had set out and was on his way to his betrayal.

  I told the Brockleys then what I had heard in the night. Brockley considered the matter thoughtfully. “The illness came to stop you from warning him, I fancy, madam,” he said. “The queen and Cecil wouldn’t have wanted you to. You always keep faith with them, even when they haven’t kept it with you. I’ve noticed that.”

  “I sometimes feel like a pawn on Elizabeth’s private chessboard,” I agreed bitterly. “But if these people had my cousin murdered, then I am not prepared to be a pawn, even for her.”

  “So—what now, madam?”

  “As soon as I feel strong enough,” I said, “which at the moment I don’t, we must set off again. We must pretend to our good hosts that we are going home, but in fact, we must go back to Scotland. I’m ready now to report what I know to Rob Henderson. He may be able to find out the rest of the truth.”