A Deadly Betrothal

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘Another summons to the court?’

  ‘Yes. Ursula, tell me, while you’ve been on your travels, staying in various hostelries, no doubt, have you heard any talk about the queen and the Duke of Alençon?’

  Brockley and I were both startled. Because we had.

  We had been about fifty miles from West Leys, spending the night at an inn in the market town of Basingstoke. It was a market day and the inn was busy. We could only find one room and were lucky even to manage that. We all had to crowd into it together. We ladies shared the one big curtained bed while the innkeeper found a truckle bed for Brockley. Joseph slept over the stable along with other grooms, and our horses were turned into a paddock, since the stalls were all full. We had gone down to the public rooms for supper and there we had mixed with the crowd, a mixture of local people and folk from outside the district, who had come to the market. And yes, there had been talk of the queen and Alençon, and not pleasant talk, either.

  I explained. ‘There was lot of speculation,’ I said, ‘about whether the queen would or wouldn’t marry him, and would it be safe for her to have children at her age, and what would happen to the English religion, if she plighted herself to a prince who is a Catholic, even though he’s supposed to be tolerant. Some were saying that once married, he would want the crown matrimonial – he would want to be king!’

  ‘And,’ Brockley elaborated, ‘someone said that if anything were to happen to the queen, God forfend, well, if there were a baby, then would this French duke be the regent until his child grew up? And how safe would the Protestant religion of England be then?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And the same man said that tolerant or not, the pope would get at him; his own family in France would get at him … he’s committed to a campaign in the Netherlands but wars cost money. Likely enough he’d need support from his kin and suppose they will only help him with finance, if he tries to make England Catholic?’

  ‘All that?’ said Christopher grimly. ‘A lot of ordinary people seem to know a good deal about affairs of state!’

  ‘Yes, apparently they do,’ I said. ‘It was a considerable crowd and some of them were indeed well informed. And there was more. There were some who said they’d take up arms to stop the marriage. There was a man who was drinking a tankard of ale and he banged it down on a table, so hard it spilt, and cried out that he’d take up arms too, and someone else shouted that the only good Catholic princes were dead ones!’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We all edged away. We didn’t want to get entangled. But I meant to report it. I was going to write to Walsingham or Cecil about it. Only, we had to get Eric home first. Anyway, I reckon that those things weren’t just being said in one inn or one town. It’s likely enough that Walsingham and Cecil already know.’

  ‘They do,’ said Spelton gravely. ‘And that’s partly why you’re wanted. The queen is upset and longs for your support. Though it isn’t just that. The duke and de Simier have returned to France now, but before they left, de Simier told her something she didn’t want to hear. He told her about the secret marriage of her favourite, the Earl of Leicester.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said. ‘So he did find out, or else de Lacey did.’

  ‘You knew of it?’

  ‘Lord Burghley told me. It’s Lettice Knollys, isn’t it?’

  ‘I knew, too,’ Brockley said unexpectedly. ‘It’s common knowledge at court. De Simier and de Lacey were both bound to hear of it. Only it was being kept from the queen. Until now, evidently.’

  ‘Yes. Her majesty is furious, and in addition, there’s a rumour at court that before de Simier and the duke left England, Leicester attempted to get de Simier assassinated.’

  ‘Did he?’ I asked.

  ‘I really don’t think so,’ said Christopher, ‘but the rumour is there. De Simier himself started it, I think, in retaliation for Leicester’s opposition to the marriage, which was quite passionate. Her majesty is distressed, Ursula, for several different reasons, all at once. When she heard of Leicester’s marriage, she almost sent him to the Tower, except that the Earl of Sussex persuaded her not to. He said it would make the people of England even angrier than they already are. She sent him away from the court instead. But that appalling rumour is still circulating. I fancy the queen may want you to investigate it. Anyway, she is in a bad state of mind and needs you at her side. As soon as possible.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I can’t. I mean …’ I began on the story of Thomas’s disappearance and Eric’s death and the suspicions which Brockley and I now harboured. Spelton listened, his eyes growing wider and wider as I spoke of the possibility that Eric had been murdered.

  ‘I called this a terrible business, but it’s worse than that!’ He was clearly horrified. ‘This is diabolical! My poor Aunt Anne! My poor uncle! These things are like stones flung into a pool; the ripples spread far and wide, and that anyone should deliberately set them going …! But what are you proposing to do? What can you do? How can you confirm your suspicions? And meanwhile, the queen has summoned you. That must come first. That concerns the whole realm – not just one family.’

  ‘I see,’ I said bitterly. I had been through all this before. It was not the first time that I had been bidden to put the good of the realm before the interests of private life.

  Christopher, however, was thinking. ‘You could reasonably take a day or two to prepare before travelling to Richmond – that is where the court is just now. Can you think of a way to make good use of such a short time?’

  ‘I can’t think how to investigate Eric’s death,’ I said despairingly. ‘We’re here now, and Rosmorwen is three hundred miles away! There was an inquest but it was no use.’ I thought feverishly. ‘If we only knew, if we could only find out, what really happened to Thomas, that might give us a start! Knowing that might point clearly to the person responsible for both his loss and Eric’s. Only I can’t see how to do it. The search was so thorough.’

  ‘If he’s alive, he has either run away or been got away and if so, there’s not much chance of finding him,’ Spelton said. ‘But if he is dead, his body must be somewhere. Has every possibility been covered? How wide was the search?’

  ‘It was very wide.’ I went into details. ‘But there are woods and heaths all over the county where a body might lie hidden for a long, long time.’

  ‘Or be found by someone exercising a dog, or a gamekeeper patrolling his master’s land. And the further that the killer or killers had to transport it, the greater the chance of attracting notice. If I were disposing of a corpse,’ said Spelton thoughtfully, ‘I would want to do it as quickly as possible and that would mean getting rid of it somewhere not too far from where I did the killing. You say his mother insists that if he is dead, the body must be in the pinewood belonging to the family?’

  ‘Yes. But that was searched more than once. I took part in one of the searches myself.’

  ‘You looked everywhere? You and all the others who helped? On the ground, to see if it had been disturbed, in hollow trees, in undergrowth?’

  ‘There isn’t much undergrowth in that wood. But yes, everywhere.’

  ‘Did you,’ said Spelton, ‘think of looking up?’

  SIXTEEN

  Lapis and Silver

  So now we knew. I looked at what lay in Brockley’s palm and what had been suspicion hardened into certainty. We had done what Christopher said. We had searched the fir wood again, looking upwards. We had found Thomas. And we had identified his killer – or one of them.

  We had decided that although I must go to Richmond with as little delay as possible, I should nevertheless call at Hawkswood, leave Dale, Sybil, Tessie and Harry there, and then, with Brockley and Joseph, go straight on to Firtrees to investigate the pinewood once again. Just one day would suffice, or perhaps two, if we found anything, Brockley said.

  Spelton would ride straight to Richmond to deliver the latest Janus letter and announce that I w
as on my way, but had paused at home to settle my small son and his nurse there, before following him. That would be accepted, as long as I didn’t prolong the delay.

  And here we were. Whoever had got rid of Thomas had put him in a sack – in fact, in four sacks, making a thorough job of it – and then tied the whole horrible package up in stout twine and slung it high among the dense evergreen branches of a massive silver fir. The arrangement wasn’t visible from the ground unless one was looking for it, peering intently upwards, searching for a place where the thick growth of fir needles seemed unnaturally dark, where there ought to be at least a few tiny chinks of light, and yet were not.

  I didn’t look towards the horrid heap that Joseph had brought to the ground, but stared instead at the object that Brockley was showing me.

  ‘This could have been pulled off a jacket or doublet when … whoever it was, was disposing of him up in that tree, struggling with the twine and trying to wedge the whole nasty package into the branches,’ Brockley said.

  Joseph nodded. ‘Wedged in a fork, it were, good and tight.’

  ‘Or,’ said Brockley, ‘if Thomas fought for his life, it could have been wrenched loose then. His jacket and shirt have rents and bloodstains. He was stabbed from behind, more than once. He could have had a little time to struggle, reach backwards, claw at his assailant …’

  ‘Brockley, don’t!’

  ‘I’m trying to imagine what happened. No one reported hearing cries for help; perhaps his attacker had a hand over his mouth. But if Thomas did fight, he could have grabbed at this and then the sacking and the branches did the rest.’

  It was a button. A big button. It had a central stone of lapis lazuli, set in silver, and the stone had a little motif carved into it. I had seen buttons like that before.

  ‘We thought it,’ I said, ‘but now we know it. Robert Harrison.’

  ‘And his father as well,’ said Brockley. ‘George Harrison has charge of Edmund Harrison’s papers, has he not? Master Meddick said he had written to Edmund about the tin mine. George Harrison must know about it, and he would be next in line to inherit it. I fancy he is after that mine, and poor Master Lake, under the terms of Edmund’s will, was in the way. The son helped the father. They kept themselves informed of Master Lake’s plans and laid their own accordingly. One of them went to Cornwall at the same time as we did, and arranged the note, and followed the messenger, ready to meet Master Lake at the mine. Perhaps he told Master Lake that he was there on Tremaine’s behalf.’

  ‘And then politely let Eric walk into the mine in front of him, knocked him out and then hitched his horse to the roof support and … we know the rest,’ I said. ‘Eric would have had no suspicions. He hadn’t a suspicious nature. Two monsters, as you said.’ I was shuddering.

  We fetched the handcart, and between them Brockley and Joseph loaded the horror onto it, piling the sacks on top so that I need not glimpse what lay below.

  ‘We can’t just take this straight to Firtrees,’ I said. ‘Lisa mustn’t see it! I think we’d better get the local vicar to help. We’ll report our suspicions to him. I really do recognize that button. When we met Robert Harrison while we were sheltering from that storm, he had them on his doublet. One of them actually fell off! I noticed them because they were unusual.’

  ‘So did I,’ Brockley said. ‘Also …’

  ‘He offered to marry Jane, very soon after Thomas vanished. Almost as though he knew for sure that Thomas was dead.’

  ‘And,’ said Brockley, ‘didn’t he say he meant to go travelling to see his employer’s English customers? Maybe he went to Cornwall instead. But I wonder why he wants to marry Jane. Conscience?’

  We made our way out of the wood, pushing the cart. I tried to think things through.

  ‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘he wants to make sure that Lisa doesn’t start legal proceedings after all. I know she didn’t seem to be considering it, but what if she changed her mind? Marrying Jane would be a wise move.’

  ‘It would,’ Brockley agreed. ‘I’d reckon that father and son planned all that ahead like everything else. He made that offer only a few days after Thomas vanished.’

  I said: ‘We had better make haste to find that vicar!’

  SEVENTEEN

  Royal Fury: Royal Plea

  When we got back to the horse-drawn cart we had left in the lane, I collected the gown that I had brought with me, retired among the trees, and changed into something more suitable for visiting a man of the cloth. I knew my part of Surrey well enough to know that Lisa’s parish church was called St Andrew’s and was at Priors Ford. We found the vicar, whose name turned out to be Dr Gideon West, practising the organ in the church, and presented ourselves.

  I had not previously met Dr West and was thankful to learn that he knew all about Thomas’s disappearance, had taken part in the first search, and well understood the fact that my summons to the royal court had to be obeyed. He was a sensible, middle-aged man, and to my relief, he took all responsibility from me. If I would prepare an account of how we found the body, and our suspicions about the murderers, he would see that they reached the right authorities, and that the necessary inquest was arranged. I would probably have to come from court to attend it, but would be informed about that in due course.

  I wrote my deposition for him in the vicarage study, and after that, he came with us to Firtrees, to inform Lisa of our find. It was a painful business but at last we left him comforting her and explaining the formalities of inquest and funeral. For the moment, the matter was out of our hands.

  We went home for one night and the next day, I rode to Richmond Palace. I took Brockley and Dale with me and also a groom. Brockley had seen to the horses last time, but it had been complicated for him, attending both on them and me. The newlywed Joseph would naturally want to stay with his bride, so I took the youngest Hawkswood groom, Eddie, to look after our horses.

  We were halfway to Richmond when I discovered that the lapis and silver button, which I ought to have left with Dr West, was still in my purse, but it was too late then to do anything about it.

  Richmond was one of Elizabeth’s favourite palaces, and it was even more beautiful than Hampton Court, with its wind chimes and the grace of its slender windows and towers, which always looked as though they were stretching skywards in an attempt to touch the heavens. We crossed the Thames at Kingston Bridge and once at the palace I found that I was expected and that rooms were ready for me. I said to Dale that as soon as our unpacking was done, I must find out where the queen was and announce my arrival. Looking from the window, I glimpsed her in the grounds, unmistakeable even from a distance because wherever she went Elizabeth moved in a cloud of ladies and courtiers, with a page running ahead to clear a way for her.

  ‘She’s going to the bowling alley, I think,’ I said, as Dale helped me out of my crushed riding dress and began dressing me in something suitable for the court. ‘Let’s go there.’

  We made our way down two narrow flights of stairs and out into the open air. The bowling alley wasn’t far away, but we were not destined to get there without interruption. In fact, we met with three.

  Our first encounter was with Antoine de Lacey, who seemed delighted to see us. ‘Mistress Stannard! You have returned! Her majesty will be overjoyed!’

  ‘You are still here, M’sieu de Lacey? I thought you would have gone back to France with the duke and M’sieu de Simier.’

  ‘I had a little business to complete – some investments that I made while we were in England. My master gave me leave. Have you heard the rumour concerning the Earl of Leicester, by the way?’

  ‘About his marriage? Or the tale that he attempted the life of Jean de Simier?’

  ‘Oh, please, keep your voice down. These palaces are full of prying ears and eyes!’ De Lacey looked furtively round, as though he feared that a spy might be lurking among the bushes of a nearby shrubbery.

  ‘My master fell ill after a dinner at which the Earl of Leicester was also pr
esent but I know nothing to suggest that the earl had anything to do with it,’ he said. ‘Or anyone else, for that matter. I am glad, though, that for the time being, my master has left the country. I feel responsible for him.’ He paused and then added, in a low voice: ‘I was presented to you as Jean de Simier’s clerk, but my duties are a little more onerous than that. It was known, before ever he or the duke set foot on English soil, that there might be opposition to this marriage. My real function was that of, well, of a bodyguard. I was to watch for danger and give warning or protection as best I could. I have had training.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, thinking that anyone so nondescript in appearance did not look much like anyone’s bodyguard. Though it was true that unobtrusiveness could be useful. He could watch for danger as a cat might watch from long grass – ready to pounce at the right moment. I said: ‘I have only just arrived and I have not yet seen the queen. I must speak with her to find out how I can best serve her. Perhaps you could tell me one thing. Is the Earl of Leicester here?’

  ‘No,’ said de Lacey, and his smile was malicious. ‘The queen dismissed him when she heard of his marriage.’

  ‘And it was M’sieu de Simier who informed the queen.’

  ‘Quite.’ Clearly, de Lacey didn’t feel apologetic about it. ‘Leicester nearly found himself in the Tower, except that Thomas Radcliffe of Sussex spoke for him – a noble act, considering that Sussex and Leicester detest each other. In the end, the queen just sent Leicester away – told him to go home and rejoice the heart of his wife, since he could no longer rejoice that of his sovereign. He is at his house in Wanstead.’

  ‘There have been some lively events since I was last at court,’ I remarked.