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

  “Kind of you to take sich an interest, mistress,” said Fraser. He sounded as though he wasn’t sure whether he was being sarcastic or not. I wasn’t sure, either. “True enough, Sir Brian’s found someone. And ye’re right; this is no place for Hamish. He doesna like Scotland. It’s his homeland but he doesna like it! I sent word when I was laid up and wondering if I’d ever walk again, asking him to come and see me, but I had to send twice before he’d do it, and when he was here, we couldn’t even get him to go out round Sir Brian’s lands and tak a look at them. He stuck under this roof like a delicate maiden, the whole time he was here.”

  “Really?” I said. “He didn’t strike me,” I added, “as a particularly delicate or . . . foolishly fastidious fellow.”

  “Can’t always go by looks, lassie. Hamish doesna care to soil his hands or tire his legs and that’s the truth. He . . .”

  “Ma’am,” said Dale, who was inspecting the viands, “we have good meat and bread here and salt too, but no pepper and no vinegar.” She addressed the lad. “Can you fetch pepper and vinegar for us?”

  The boy looked blank but Fraser said something to him in broad Scots, in an impatient tone, and he nodded and scurried out. We heard him hastening away down the stairs.

  I looked at Fraser thoughtfully, and tried a long shot, knowing that it probably wouldn’t hit its target, but all the same, determined to try.

  “I have some money, Fraser. How much do you want for leaving a good long coil of rope here in this room by—well, by accident?”

  Dale immediately understood what I was after and looked ready to faint at the idea of swarming down the outside of the tower on a rope. I didn’t like the notion much myself. I was almost relieved when Fraser said coldly: “I’m no’ for sale, lassie. Sir Brian’s a good laird and he’ll mak a good husband too if ye’ve the sense to give him the chance.”

  “You obviously admire him,” I said gloomily. “And you love Roderix Fort, too, from what you say.”

  “So will ye, one day.”

  I doubted it. If Dormbois’s first wife had died in childbed, his second, according to him, had died simply because of the starkness of her husband’s stone tower. I could understand it, all too well.

  My silence seemed to spur Fraser into words. “I tell ye, my father was bailiff here before me and his father before him and I’d live nowhere else. My brother has no sense. The place we were offering him was the best in the world to my way of thinking but wud he have any part of it? Not he. Wouldna stay above four days and scarce poked his nose out of doors once all that time.”

  “I expect it was cold,” I said.

  “No colder than Northumberland, from all I’ve heard! But four miserable days, they were all he’d give me. Got here at twilight, saying he was tired because he’d been riding hard for two days—they breed good horses at St. Margaret’s, I grant you. He took the laird by surprise! Sir Brian was hoping that he’d come for the second time of asking, and himself came back from Edinburgh a-purpose to see him if so, and was here the next midday and found Hamish here already. But four clear days, that was all Hamish would stay. When Sir Brian rode back to Holyrood, my brother rode off with him, wanting to see the big city and buy gewgaws for his wife.” He grinned, briefly. “They left at dawn and Hamish said they’d be in Edinburgh the same day and he’d spend the whole of the next one in the town because it would be the fourteenth and that was the feast of some popish saint or other, to do with love . . .”

  “St. Valentine,” I said.

  “. . . and his wife would like it if he bought her something on that date. Popish saints!” said Fraser with a snort. It looked as though some of Dormbois’s adherents had been far ahead of him on the road to the Protestant faith.

  The boy reappeared with the pepper and vinegar. He put them on the table and then he and Fraser took themselves off. I pulled the table over toward a window seat and signed to Dale to join me.

  “Thank you for getting the vinegar,” I said. “I’ll be prepared before Dormbois comes back.”

  “Ma’am, whatever happens, even if you get hold of some rope, I can’t climb down the tower on it—I can’t!”

  “I don’t think I can, either,” I admitted, as I took some cold meat. “This looks good and the bread seems fresh. We’d break our necks, as like as not. I think . . .”

  In the act of breaking a piece of bread, I froze.

  “What is it, ma’am?”

  “Dale!”

  “Ma’am, what is it?”

  “Just a minute!” I looked about me, saw nothing in the form of writing materials, and began to count on my fingers. “I’m wondering . . . Dale, from what Fraser said, Hamish must have left here on the thirteenth of February. He was in Edinburgh on the fourteenth, St. Valentine’s Day.”

  “Yes, ma’am. The day of the inquiry. We know he attended that.”

  “Yes, but that isn’t what I mean. His brother said just now that Hamish was here for four clear days before that and arrived at dusk on the fifth day, counting backward. Four clear days before the thirteenth would be the twelfth, eleventh, tenth, and ninth, so he must have arrived on the evening of the eighth. Edward was killed on the night of . . .” I counted on my fingers again. “. . . yes, of the eighth! Hamish can’t have been here and in Edinburgh murdering my cousin! If what Fraser is saying is true, we’ve got it all wrong. It can’t have been Hamish Fraser, and in that case, the Thursbys are very likely innocent too.”

  I didn’t mind being wrong. I had liked the Thursbys. They had almost certainly been responsible for betraying enemy agents, but not, it now seemed, for murdering my cousin. I could hardly blame them for the first, and concerning the second, I could only be relieved.

  But if they and Hamish Fraser were innocent of the murder, then who was guilty? The only person who might have the answer was Dormbois.

  21

  The Price of a Name

  The washing water should have come before the food but followed it half an hour later instead and wasn’t all that hot, either. There was no doubt that the hospitality of Roderix Fort was on the rough-and-ready side.

  Still, there were warm towels to go with it, and the saddlebags from my horse were brought up at the same time. Having washed and tidied ourselves, Dale and I unpacked. We had lost her saddlebags but we had a good many things safely with us: facecloths, a hairbrush, my clean stockings and underlinen, and our medicines, including the remainder of the queen’s poppy draft and the ingredients for the dose that sometimes relieved my headaches. A sick headache would have been quite welcome just then but migraine is a wayward visitor who never comes when it might actually be useful.

  Dale’s shoulder bag yielded the sponge she had mentioned and three or four spare vials. These we filled with vinegar, and with the small dagger that I carried in my hidden pouch, we cut up the sponge. Then we stowed the vinegar and the sponge pieces back in the bag in readiness.

  Shortly after that, Dormbois came to the parlor once again, to ask us how we did.

  I had made up my mind. I had little to lose, after all. I had thought of some wild and desperate expedients, but just as I didn’t think I could climb down a ninety-foot tower on a rope even if I had a rope, I didn’t think either that I could stab Dormbois with my dagger during the night. To do that, I would need a mentality like that of the man who killed Edward. I hadn’t, and didn’t wish to have, either.

  Not that it made much difference, because there were in any case some powerful arguments against it. Even if I succeeded, which certainly couldn’t be guaranteed, how would we get out of the fort? And if we did, the body would soon be found and we would be hunted down . . .

  No. The dagger was not the answer, any more than it had been on the ride to Roderix Fort. It was just possible, though, that I might be able to negotiate. At least I could try, and if it cost me a night . . .

  Oh, Gerald. Oh, Matthew. My two dear lost ones. What would you have me do?

  They could not answer. I thought then and thi
nk now that they would have wanted me to resist, not by risking my own life in an attempt at midnight murder, but at least by struggling until I could struggle no more. I don’t think they would have wanted me to—sell myself.

  But it would come to the same thing in the end whether I resisted or not, and meanwhile, I might gain some information.

  And so, my decision taken, I greeted Sir Brian Dormbois calmly. Yes, we had washed and eaten—“Though not in that order. Your servants seem to be trying hard but their training leaves much to be desired.”

  “You’ll tak them in hand, maybe? Marguerite tried for a while and would have done well, if she’d lived long enough. She had a good way with servants,” Dormbois said.

  “You’re assuming that I will live here from now on,” I said.

  “And so you will, and it’ll not be the terrible fate you imagine,” Dormbois informed me reassuringly. “As you’ll find out.”

  “Sir Brian,” I said, “I want to make a bargain with you.”

  That interested him. He sat down on a settle and looked up at me inquiringly. “We Scots have a reputation for liking a bargain. What’s on offer?”

  “I will give you one night of my life,” I said. “One night. Willingly, with no resistance; indeed with cooperation. One night—in return for the name of the man who ordered the death of my cousin Edward Faldene.”

  “I thocht ye knew it.”

  “I have realized that I was wrong.”

  “One willing, complaisant night, as the price of a name?”

  “Yes,” I said as steadily as I could. I couldn’t believe now that I had ever been drawn to this man. I wasn’t sure that yielding to him wouldn’t prove as impossible as stabbing him. But I would have to try. “And after that,” I said. “My freedom.”

  “No, no, lassie, that’s too hard a bargain! I want you for a lifetime and all you’re offering is a single night!”

  “A happy night, worth having,” I said. “Otherwise,” I told him, “I’ll fight with all the strength I have. Don’t mistake me, Sir Brian. I’ll destroy your pleasure. It seems plain enough that you’ll use force if you have to, but you say you don’t want to, and if that’s so, then you have a conscience of sorts, and I’ll wake it up! By God, I shall! I’ll make you hate yourself. When my strength gives out—oh yes, I know it will—then I’ll lie like a log of wood, like a corpse. I’ll sicken you of yourself. If you keep me here, I’ll sicken you of me. I’ll moan and whine and pine till you can’t stand the sound of my voice or the sight of my face. But I’ll give you one kind night—for the sake of that name.”

  Dormbois came to his feet. His eyes were sparkling as if the sun were on them. “By God, lassie, how I like you! I’ll have a wager with you! I’ll tak the bargain. One night from you, one name from me, and then you and your woman can walk out of my gate free as air—if that’s what you then want. After a night with me, in friendly style, and who’s to say you’ll want to walk anywhere? That’s the heart of my wager. I’m gambling on myself to be man enough tonight to win you.”

  I said: “We had horses. We should ride out of the gate, not walk.”

  “Och no!” He shook his head. “No, no, if it comes to it, I’ll keep the horses. To remember you by, if nothing else.”

  I had been going to ask that a search be made for Dale’s horse. I thought better of it.

  Dormbois, meanwhile, had crossed the room and opened a cupboard in the paneling. I hadn’t realized it was there, for the knob of the cupboard perfectly matched the wood behind. Inside, was a shelf with a row of about a dozen tall, narrow goblets on it. He took four of them out and brought them to the table. I looked at them in some surprise, for I had never seen anything like them before. They were beautiful, but most unusual. The stems were short and most of the height was taken up by the cups, which had the proportions, roughly, of a daffodil trumpet, and were fluted in much the same way. They weren’t daffodil color, however, but were made of rich brown earthenware, glazed to a high polish and delicately edged with gold around their fluted tops.

  “These are a tradition in my family,” Dormbois said. “On any grand occasion, before any great undertaking or if there are oaths to swear, we drink to the enterprise, whatever it is, in these. One moment.” He went to the door of the stairs, put his head out, and bellowed: “Fraser!”

  There was an answering call from below and Dormbois, a hand cupped around his mouth, shouted: “Come up here and bring wine for four! In a jug! The goblets are here!”

  There was an interval while Fraser was fetching the wine. Trying to preserve an atmosphere of civility and dignity, I sat down and made conversation about whatever harmless subjects came into my head. I asked which crops grew in this climate—oats and barley were the answers, of course—and whether there were any books or embroidery materials with which Dale and I could pass the time. All ours had been in the saddlebags of Dale’s runaway horse. There were books somewhere, Dormbois said. Marguerite had liked poetry. He’d find them for us.

  When Fraser arrived with a jug of red wine, he seemed to know what this little ritual was all about. He filled the four goblets, which used up all the wine, and each of us, Fraser himself included, took one.

  “To a bargain!” pronounced Dormbois. “A bargain between Sir Brian Dormbois of Roderix Fort, and Madame Ursula de la Roche, also known as Mistress Ursula Blanchard, of Withysham. That’s right, is it not, my lady?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are our witness, Fraser, and this is the bargain,” Dormbois declared, holding his goblet high. “That tonight, she will be as my bride, bonny and buxom as ever she was to the husbands who went before me. And that tomorrow, I shall tell her a certain name which she desires to know, and then, if she still wishes it, set her free to walk unmolested out of Roderix Fort, with her tirewoman. Though I shall strive my best to see that she does not so wish, for her place here as my bride is assured forever, if she will only choose it. Drink!”

  We drank, with some difficulty, owing to the narrowness of the goblets. One’s nose got in the way. The dark, narrow shape made the wine look like ink, as well. It was good wine, though. Dormbois had a worthwhile cellar. There were gleams of refinement in his peculiar nature and his equally peculiar home. Such a pity, I thought, that the barbarian in him took over so easily, and at all the wrong moments.

  • • •

  That night, I sold myself, body and spirit alike. To my life’s end, I shall remember that night with bitterness.

  I was carrying out my part of a bargain. I kept that in mind throughout. It was for me to smile, to look willing, to respond, to welcome, and all of it was false. I longed so much for Matthew. It was nearly a year since I had parted from him, and things had not been quite right between us then. Now he was gone and this reminder of what we had had together broke my heart. I wanted to weep. And must not.

  In fact, once we were in the dark, with the candles out and the bed curtains closed around us, a few tears did escape me. I tried, in the dark, to pretend that the man I was embracing was Matthew but it was no use. I was conscious, all the time, of Dormbois’s own shape and texture. The bones and muscle of his body and limbs were different; the texture of his skin was different; his smell was different, sour compared to Matthew’s smell.

  He was different too from that other memory, farther back, of Gerald. Nothing at all was familiar or comforting. I was left with only one recourse, to do as whores do, and pretend.

  One of the troubles between Matthew and me was that because we had such different beliefs, he had secrets that he kept from me. Gerald and I, though, had talked of anything and everything. Among the things that Gerald had told me (though not from personal experience) was that even with a whore, some men still want to give pleasure. They want her to enjoy it. Whores mostly don’t; they do it as a job and spend the time thinking about something else. When enjoyment is demanded, they act.

  Dormbois wanted enjoyment from me. He began with prolonged, unhurried nuzzlings and caresses that m
ade his wishes amply plain and so . . . I acted. Having known the real thing, I knew how to create the semblance. At least, that is how it was the first time. But the second time . . .

  The second time is the worst of my memories of that night.

  After that first union, Dormbois slept. I did not, but lay beside him open-eyed and wretched, waiting for him to wake up again, knowing that he would, and to me that time seemed endless. Then, while the night was still deep, he stirred and turned over, reaching drowsily out to me and his caresses began once more.

  And this time, against my will, treacherous as quicksand, my wayward body answered him. I fought it. Inside my head, I screamed to it to be silent, to be unfeeling, to refuse its own needs, its own instincts. It would not. It had been almost a year since I parted from Matthew. I was still young, and more hungry than I knew.

  That second time, I did not have to act. Against my own will, I gave the reality and not the semblance. Then he fell asleep once more, and as the gray dawn began to seep through a chink in the bed curtains, I cried silently but in good earnest, the tears mingling with the sweat of my own unwanted passion.

  There was only one part of that night that I can recall without shame, and that was earlier, after our first lovemaking, if it can be called that. Before he fell asleep he talked to me for a little while, I think trying to build some kind of friendly bridge between us. He said: “You were interested, were you not, by those brown goblets? You’d expect goblets used for ceremony to be of gold or silver or jewel-studded, maybe?”

  I responded politely. “I suppose so. I’ve never seen goblets made of earthenware before.”

  “They’re not English. They’re Roman—modern Roman, that would be, nothing to do with Nero or Julius Caesar. My father’s father—his name was François Dormbois—liked to travel. My da took after him—which is how he came to Scotland. But when he was young, before he was wed, Grandda’s itchy feet took him the other way, south, to Rome. He wanted to see the pope. He was of good family, and on the way he’d look for lodgings in the houses of good families when he could, but one night he found the dark coming down on him and nowhere to lodge but in a little village place. He knocked on doors and found beds for him and his man, with a potter.”