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

  “Go on,” I said, becoming intrigued despite myself, and finding that I preferred this version of Dormbois, telling a story with his mind on telling it well, rather than on impressing me.

  “Aye, well. The pottery adjoined the house and had a kiln in a kind of shed behind it. In the night, Grandda smelled smoke and woke up, and just as well, for something had gone awry with the kiln and it was afire and the shed as well. He roused the house with shouting, and they all woke up and went rushing to the well for water, and the fire was put out. I never knew him but he told the tale to my da and Da told it to me. Seems there was little danger to life, for the buildings were only one story and everyone could have got out of windows if they’d had to. Grandda said he wasnae any great hero, just for smelling smoke and giving the alarm.

  “But the potter was grateful, because the fire would have taken the workshop next, and destroyed the wheel and the work he was doing and all the things that were made and ready for them that had ordered them. Grandda was good with his hands and didnae think it shame for a nobly born man to use them, though some think in that fashion. He stayed on awhile to help rebuild the shed and the kiln, and the potter made him these goblets and fired them in the new kiln as soon as it was ready. He made them to a new pattern, just for Grandda, so that no one else in the world would have anything the same, and he even used some of a little store of gold leaf that he kept handy for special orders, which was generous of him for he wasnae wealthy. It was the best thanks he could offer.

  “So I grew up,” said Dormbois, “with those goblets as part of my life. My grandda and my da both had affection for them, and as I told ye, they became something to drink from on special occasions. They’re a bit awkward for common use, as ye may have noticed.”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, and he laughed and so did I, and just for a moment we were two human beings sharing a moment of harmless amusement that had nothing to do with male and female.

  But it didn’t last. He slept, and then woke, and our second joining had no easy conversation afterward. He slept again, and I wept.

  I did drift into slumber eventually, but not for long. Soon, too soon, it was time to rise. Hoping that my face didn’t reveal my nighttime tears, I gave my companion good morning. He sat up. Below his mustache, his chin was gray with stubble, and his black hair was tangled. He grinned at me. “And how did I do, my sweet bird?”

  “You were excellent,” I told him.

  “So were you.” He eyed me glitteringly, and, with resignation, I saw that he was going to pounce on me again.

  “One moment. I need the privy,” I said, and fled from the bedchamber into the parlor where Dale had spent the night on a truckle bed. “New sponge,” I muttered to her as I went past, and then waited in the privy until she had handed in a fresh piece of vinegar-soaked sponge. The one I had donned the night before, I tossed down the privy chute. Then, I arranged a pleasant smile on my face and went back to bed.

  After a night that had been all but sleepless, I had no energy left either to respond or to pretend a response beyond a few sighs and murmurs. When it was over, I lay quiet on the pillow and said: “I have fulfilled my promise. Will you now fulfill yours? Who ordered my cousin’s death—and why?”

  “Strewth, woman, can you no’ wait until we’re up and dressed? You havenae told me whether or no you’re willing to stay with me or whether you intend to walk out o’ Roderix this morning.”

  “I haven’t yet decided,” I said ruthlessly. I was lying but wanted to keep an advantage over him until I had the information I had bought so dearly.

  “I’ll tell you one thing. It isn’t a name you’ll like to hear.”

  “I still want to know what it is.”

  “Verra well.” He too lay back on the pillow, linking his hands behind his head. He turned his head so as to look at me and smiled.

  “Master Rob Henderson,” he said.

  I said in bewilderment: “Why? Why would Henderson do such a thing?”

  Dormbois shrugged. “He’s Cecil’s creature, is he no’? Edward Faldene was carrying news to Queen Mary which Cecil didnae want her to have; that’s what I heard.”

  “From whom?”

  “Ah. Well now, that was not in the bargain. You have the name you wanted. I’ll not reveal to a living soul how I know, but Rob Henderson it was, and that’s the truth. I said you wouldnae like it.”

  “It’s time to get up,” I said.

  He called Dale to me and then went to dress in the parlor, shouting down the stairs for someone to bring him fresh garments and leaving me to dress in private. I told Dale what he had said.

  “Do you believe him, ma’am?” she asked.

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” I puckered my brow, thinking. “The reason must concern that list. I’m sure now that it never reached Queen Mary. I fancy that Henderson ordered Edward’s death on account of it, though I still don’t quite understand why. But I suppose whoever did the killing took the list and either handed it to Master Henderson or destroyed it.”

  “The list that Master Henderson gave you, madam, that he said was a copy of an old one . . .”

  “Oh, it was. If he’s got the new one, he wasn’t likely to admit it to me!” I said grimly. I was still trying to think. “I must say,” I said, “that I’d like to know how on earth anyone found out that Edward was carrying the thing in the first place or what was in it, and I do not see why they couldn’t just have taken it without murdering Edward, but . . . yes, I believe Dormbois. It would be such a pointless and unlikely lie! Oh, dear God, if only he keeps his word and lets us leave here today. I want to go home!”

  Since I had my saddlebags, I had spare clothes and was able to put on a fresh gown. Tidy and miserable, I went out to the parlor at last to find that breakfast, in the form of ale, buttermilk, porridge, salt, and what looked like fresh bread, had been brought upstairs. Dormbois, who was already eating, was fully dressed as well, in a businesslike doublet and hose of black woolen cloth, though, since he was a man of position, the slashings on the doublet sleeves were of satin, patterned in silver and pale blue.

  The outfit wasn’t new, for I could see the dull patch on the doublet where it had been sponged, probably to get rid of wine or gravy stains. It was typical, somehow, of the Scottish nobility: a mixture of the luxurious and the scruffy.

  The morning had turned bright, the best I had seen since I came to Scotland, and a shaft of warm sunlight slanted across the room. As we sat down at the table, Dormbois looked at me questioningly across it, lifting his dark brows.

  “You promised that if I chose, I should go free this morning,” I said. “Will you keep your word? For I still wish to go free, to go home. I am sorry.”

  He looked at Dale and jerked his head. “Tak your breakfast into the other room, woman,” he said, and Dale, looking frightened of him, gathered up a beaker of buttermilk and a bowl of porridge and hastily departed.

  As the door closed behind her, Dormbois said: “Will nothing change your mind?” in a voice so grave and sad that I actually found it touching.

  “I said, I am sorry,” I told him. “But I can’t stay. I can’t. I’m homesick, for one thing. As Marguerite was, I think. Would you want me to die as she did?”

  “You are a stronger woman than Marguerite. Ursula, can nothing at all persuade you? If I were to go down on one knee . . .”

  “No,” I said, putting out a hand to check him as he slid from his seat and began to kneel. “Please don’t. It won’t make any difference.”

  “Would this make a difference?”

  He caught hold of me and pulled me against him. I endured his kiss with my lips closed. He put me back from him and his eyes were angry. “So it was all acting, in the night, was it? The performance that women of the night put on for their buyers?”

  I searched his eyes, trying to find in them some trace of understanding or even guilt and seeing nothing but a hard brightness. “It was more dignified than the alternative,” I said. “Wasn’t it?”


  He didn’t answer. I said: “Will you keep your word?”

  Dormbois sighed, taking his seat again. Then he nodded. “Aye. I had the feeling all along that that would be the way of it. Obstinacy’s your middle name, lassie.” He picked up his porridge spoon. “I’m a man of my word. You go on foot for I’m not minded to make it easy for you, but yes, you can go. Fill up with a good breakfast, now. It’s a long walk to Stirling, though there are hamlets on the way. I’ll see you have bread and meat to take with you and water flasks.”

  I could hardly believe it, but he appeared to have given in. Perhaps, I thought, I had not proved such a delightful bed partner as I supposed. Perhaps he was wondering if a different lady might indeed prove a better wife. To my own astonishment, I felt almost indignant.

  But Dale, when I went to tell her what was afoot, was full of thankfulness. “I only hope we can find Roger, ma’am. If he wasn’t much hurt, he’ll have made for Stirling, I suppose. Maybe we’ll find him there.”

  “We’ll find him, anyway,” I reassured her. “We won’t set off for home until we have.”

  I didn’t want to waste time, partly for fear that Dormbois would change his mind, but there was no sign of that. He left us to finish breakfast in private, telling me to call him when we were ready to go. We made all the haste we could. The food was filling, though the porridge, like yesterday’s washing water, wasn’t as hot as I would have liked, probably because it had had to be brought across the courtyard from the round building I had seen on the way in, which must be the kitchen. The appointments of Roderix Fort really were medieval.

  After breakfast we packed our shoulder bags, stuffing in the things from my saddlebags as best we could, and slung them on over our cloaks. I called for Dormbois and he came to escort us downstairs.

  At the door, we were each given a basket containing food and a leather water flask. Dormbois walked with us across the courtyard and the grassy outer enclosure. Both the inner and the outer gates must have been barred the previous night, for they had to be unbolted and opened for us, by gatekeepers who seemed to be constantly on duty. Once the main gate was open, I kissed Dormbois good-bye. It seemed fair, and I was grateful to him for releasing me with such good grace. Together, Dale and I set off down the zigzag path toward the hovels in the valley.

  At least the morning was fine, even warm. “We’d better go at a steady pace,” I said to Dale. “We’ll only tire ourselves if we try to hurry. Someone in those cottages may know how far it is to the next hamlet toward Stirling. I wish I’d thought to ask Dormbois. Dale? What is it?”

  She had stopped and was looking over her shoulder. “I think, ma’am,” she said tightly, “that if you want to ask him anything, you’ll still have a chance. Look.”

  I spun around. Half a dozen riders were spilling out of the gates of Roderix, and in the lead was Dormbois. I knew him by his steed, the silver-gray pony with the dark mane and tail. I looked desperately around for somewhere we could flee to, which would offer shelter, but there was nowhere. We did start to run, but the riders, regardless of the steep slope and the sharp bends of the zigzags, were galloping down the hill, and in a moment they had encircled us.

  “What’s this?” I demanded, just as one of the riders leaned out of his saddle and seized hold of Dale. She shrieked and flailed at him with her basket, but just as when we were captured the first time, her captor hauled her up before his pommel as though she weighed nothing. “You promised!” I shouted furiously at Dormbois.

  “I promised you should walk unmolested out of the gate of Roderix Fort,” Dormbois informed me coolly. “And so you did. I never promised not to come after you; I never promised not to bring you back. I’ve come to tak you home, my sweet.”

  He reached down for me. I backed away but immediately bumped into the shoulder of another pony. Dormbois pushed his own mount up closer, dropped his reins, twitched my basket out of my hand, tossed it away with the remark that I wouldnae be needing that now; there was food aplenty in Roderix, and then caught me around the body with both hands and lifted. The strength of these men was terrifying. Like Dale, I was hoisted from the ground to the pony as though I were thistledown. Though I knew it to be useless, I still instinctively resisted, twisting around, pushing at his chest, trying to break his grip and slip off again.

  He had not put on a cloak. On this warm spring morning, his doublet was enough. As I turned and thrust my hands against him, my nose was only an inch from the buttons down the front.

  They were covered in black velvet and on each, a crisscross pattern had been worked, in tiny stitches of silver thread.

  And one of them was missing.

  22

  No Sense of Honor

  The shock turned my muscles to water. I stopped struggling. I think my body instinctively adopted stillness as a protection, like a red deer calf in the long grass when a fox is prowling. I let myself be borne unresisting back up the hill and through the gates. Dormbois dismounted before the main steps and lifted me down, and I let him lead me in. Dale had given in, as well. Pale and wet-eyed, her pockmarks as visible as black spots on rose leaves, she walked silently at my side.

  But when we had once more been taken up to the parlor and thrust inside, I found the courage to face Dormbois and say: “If you have any feeling for me at all, if your protestations of passion and your endearments in the night were anything more than empty words, then leave me in peace for a while. Dale will look after me.”

  “If I strike you as rough or dishonorable, lassie,” said Dormbois, “then you can take it that my protestations and endearments were a muckle more than empty words. What I feel for you is too strong for dainty wooing in a garden full o’ roses. I’ll leave you awhile, to think and calm your spirits. You’ll find occupation here; I had it put ready, since you asked for it yesterday and maybe it’s best you should have something to do to quiet yourselves. And in that chest there, you’ll find dresses and linen that belonged to Marguerite. Tak what you fancy. She and you weren’t much different in size and I daresay your woman here can tak in or let out as needed. I’ll leave you now and send wine.”

  He bowed and I thought that I even glimpsed something hangdog about him. So did Dale, for as soon as he had gone, she said: “You’ve a hold over him, ma’am. I can see it. You might talk us out of this in the end. He’s got it bad. You’ve got that power over men. I think sometimes you don’t know it.” On the last two sentences, her voice dropped and she looked away, as though she were talking to herself rather than to me. I knew she was thinking of Brockley.

  Quickly, I said: “Dale, where’s that button we found on the floor of my cousin’s room? Do we have it with us?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I dropped it in among the medicines.”

  “Bring it here.”

  When she did so, I laid it in my palm and stared at it. There was no mistake. I looked at Dale. “When he seized me today, I had all too good a view of the buttons on Dormbois’s doublet. One is missing. This one.”

  “What?” Dale’s blue eyes bulged. “But . . .”

  “Yes. Which means,” I said, “that if Dormbois was telling the truth when he said that Rob Henderson gave the order, it was Dormbois himself to whom the order was given! It was Dormbois who was in Edward’s room that night.”

  Fuming, I began to pace around the room, further outrageous thoughts surfacing in my mind. “And what, I wonder, was it all about when he promised to find out more about Adam Ericks for me? A ploy to keep me thinking Ericks was guilty while dangling a bait to make me interested in himself? I think it was! He’s been playing me, Dale, like a fish on a line! My God!”

  “Madam?”

  “And I’ve just thought of something else!” I was frightened and raging, both at once. “When I first met him at Holyrood, Dormbois led me to believe he wasn’t in the city when Edward was . . . was killed. But he was! Do you remember what Jamie Fraser said? That Sir Brian came back from Edinburgh on purpose to see him—Hamish, that is—and was her
e the midday, after Hamish arrived. Hamish Fraser got to Roderix on the eve of Edward’s death, so Dormbois must have arrived the day after. Oh yes, he was in Edinburgh on that night . . . and I know what he was doing!”

  I went on thinking aloud, still pacing. “No doubt either he or Henderson was the man who put the authorities on to Adam Ericks. I daresay that it was men in their employ who urged Ericks and Edward into quarreling in that tavern. They probably had Edward under surveillance and saw their chance of setting up a scapegoat for his murder.”

  Unexpectedly, Dale said: “Were there any stains on the doublet with the missing button, ma’am?”

  “It’s been cleaned—sponged, I expect. I noticed it at breakfast. I thought that food stains had been removed. But it needn’t,” I said grimly, “have been just food.”

  “Oh, ma’am!”

  “Quite. Oh, ma’am, indeed! And last night . . .”

  The memory of the previous night poured over me in a flood. I swayed on my feet and sat down on the nearest settle. “Last night, I lay with that man. I . . . oh, God, Dale, what have I done?”

  Dale, tearful Dale who tired so easily and hated riding and so often declared that she couldn’t abide this or that; Dale who grieved because sometimes her husband and I were closer friends than she could bear, had a core of strength and sheer common sense that showed itself at the most unexpected moments.

  “What you’ve done, ma’am,” she said in a common-sense voice, “is to get part of the way to the truth. You know about Master Henderson’s part in it as well. So it didn’t go for nothing. You just put last night out of your mind, now. God willing, no harm will come of it. The vinegar always worked when you used it before.”

  “Bless you, Dale,” I said. “I’ll try.”