The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's

by Buckley, Fiona

  “In with Brockley and Dale, on a truckle bed. They don’t like it much—they don’t like her much—but they take my orders. She’s been there since Brockley marched her out of the kitchen. She’s quietened down. Meg went to see her and asked Gladys to tell her some of her tales of life in Wales.”

  “We won’t have long to wait before Meg really does grow up,” Hugh said thoughtfully. “That was very good sense.”

  “Indeed. And did you know that Meg arranged for a supper tray to be made up for Gladys from the duke’s table this evening? She said that the trick with Gladys was to make her feel that people minded about her. I came downstairs before you, if you recall, and I found Meg loading a tray with a slice of game pie, peas with herbs, roast goose cut up small on account of Gladys’s teeth, a custard with cinnamon, and a goblet of wine. She took it up to Gladys herself.”

  “Fine fare to give an old serving woman!” said Hugh, amused.

  “Yes, it was. I gather that the servants just had chicken stew, the remains of the salmon, some syllabubs, and small ale. But I think it worked. Before I came to bed, I looked in on Gladys and she seemed quite good-natured.”

  “All the same, we can’t go on like this. Let me think about it. You shouldn’t have to shoulder all the responsibility.”

  “Thank you,” I said gratefully. “Hugh . . . ”

  “What is it, my love?”

  “I have the impression that Norfolk is quite serious about proposing marriage to Mary Stuart. From what he said, the queen doesn’t know about it. You think the council are sure to know, but do they? He may talk more freely to us than he does at court. I haven’t been there lately and he may not think of me—or you—as being part of court circles or having the ear, nowadays, of anyone in a high position. He may know who my father was but I doubt if he knows about my—secret work.”

  “He’s a fool to talk freely to anyone, if he doesn’t want the council to find out,” said Hugh.

  I said: “When I was at court, I learned something of his reputation. He is said to be not very clever.”

  There was a sudden silence. An uncomfortable one.

  “Are you saying,” said Hugh after a moment, “that before we go home, we ought to make certain at least that Cecil knows?”

  He dropped his voice as he spoke, and our eyes met.

  “I don’t think anyone’s hiding behind the tapestries,” I said, “but it’s odd. One does have an instinct to speak softly. Look, Hugh, what do you think we should do?”

  Hugh frowned. “We’re not here on any kind of assignment. We’re just guests. It seems hardly proper to go tattling to Cecil that our host is making plans to marry himself to . . . ”

  “Quite,” I said glumly. “To a queen who is also Elizabeth’s rival.”

  “But he really did speak freely. He calls it confidential but it sounded like an open secret to me.”

  “The idea of this marriage came up last year,” I said slowly. “Cecil knew of it then. But . . . ”

  “Was it quelled?”

  “I’m not sure. I never heard exactly what happened about it.” I brightened. “From what Norfolk says, though, he obviously intends to seek the queen’s approval before he goes through with it. Perhaps I’m worrying needlessly and . . . ” I stopped, interrupted by a sudden hubbub in the distance, of raised voices and running feet. “Whatever’s that?”

  Hugh slid off the bed and went to look out of the door. Throwing back the covers, I followed him. Our door opened on a wide passage, lit at night with lamps. In one direction, the passage led to the staircase down to the hall and parlor, and in the other, went past the two bedchambers occupied respectively by the Brockleys and by Sybil and Meg, ending at a flight of stone steps. Downward, these led to the kitchen quarters; upward, to the servants’ dormitories on the floor above. The noises were coming from above. Somebody was crying noisily and somebody else, by the sound of it, was being appallingly sick. The Brockleys, Gladys, Sybil, and Meg now appeared in the other doorways, doing up overgown belts and looking alarmed.

  “I’m going to see what’s happening,” said Hugh. “Brockley!”

  “Sir?”

  “Come with me. The rest of you stay here.”

  They were back before long, grim of face.

  “About three quarters of the servants have been taken ill. They’ve got the gripes and some of them,” Hugh said, “are clearing their systems both ends, if you take my meaning. And”—his eye fell grimly on Gladys, who was still at Dale’s side in the bedchamber doorway—“there’s a hysterical maidservant or two talking about witchcraft and being cursed by . . . er . . . Mistress Morgan that came with the Stannards.”

  “By that old hag, I s’pose you mean,” said Gladys. “You wouldn’t repeat it but that’s what they called me, I don’t doubt.”

  “Witchcraft be damned,” said Brockley. “I’ve been down to the kitchen. There’s four more scullions down there—they sleep there to guard the fire. They’re as sick as dogs but they pointed out a pot of the stew they had at supper. There’s some left. Chicken stew, it is, one of them told me, in between fits of retching, and I had a sniff at it. That chicken was past its best. I could smell it. Curses, indeed!”

  “And I know what to do for them all, or at least what might help. Pity there’s not much chance they’ll ask me!” Gladys growled.

  She would have turned back into the bedchamber, except that I caught hold of her. “Gladys, what would help? Quick, tell me!”

  “Clear it out of them, what else? Warm salt water. That’ll bring it up. Empty their stomachs right out. Then clean well water to wash ’em through. I’m going back to bed.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Dale, Meg, Sybil. Let’s see what we can do! Upstairs first!”

  “I’ll go to the kitchens and help the fellows there,” Brockley said.

  The scene in the servants’ dormitories upstairs was highly unpleasant. There was one for the menservants and another for the women, with a dozen or more occupants in each. In both rooms, someone had managed to light candles, so we could at least see what we were about. Everyone hadn’t been stricken and those who were not were trying to help the less fortunate, most of whom were either crouching on chamber pots or leaning over basins. There was a hideous smell of vomit and excreta.

  Hugh and I rapped out questions and counted heads and then, with Meg, Sybil, and Dale behind us, we rushed down to the kitchens. As we reached the foot of the steps, we heard more sounds of distress coming from a passageway to the left and we veered along it to investigate. Discovering two doors, opposite to each other, we plunged through one and found ourselves in what looked like the butler Conley’s suite. It was empty, however, and we now realized that the noises came from beyond the other doorway. This proved to be the housekeeper’s domain. Conley, looking slightly green but not violently ill, was there, holding Mistress Dalton’s head as she threw up into an earthenware bowl.

  “It was the stew,” he said shortly as we came in, and his usual dignified tones had slipped, revealing a down-to-earth London accent and a down-to-earth mind to go with it. “It’s happened before, with chickens. The cooks plunge the carcasses into boiling water before they pluck ’em, to make plucking easier . . . ”

  I nodded. During a secret assignment that had obliged me to work in a pie shop, I had learned a good deal about the art of plucking poultry. After immersion in boiling water, the feathers came out easily if pulled against the grain. But the exposure to heat also meant that the meat didn’t keep for long. Chickens treated in such a way had to be cooked promptly.

  “. . . all the plucking for the day is done in the morning and birds not used for dinner go on one of what I call the supper shelves in the larder. There’s dinner shelves, too. Anything that’s being kept for tomorrow’s dinner is put there, but it shouldn’t ever include chicken. We never hang plucked poultry, either. But mistakes can happen, like I said. Some careless lad or lass puts a plucked chicken on the shelf for tomorrow’s dinner instead of
today’s supper, and no one notices because they’re always busy and our chief cook always wants everything done yesterday if not last week, and the chicken’ll still be there next day, by which time it’s started going off, and some not very bright novice cook . . . ”

  Here, Conley went off at a tangent. “They’re never bright when they’re novices. Our head cook scares them senseless sometimes; wallops the shit out of them if they do things wrong. Well, the young have got to be trained but you can go too far with these things.”

  He shook his head and came back to the point. “So some young kitchen hand in a fluster and a hurry, probably being shouted at, takes things off the dinner shelf and puts them on a kitchen table and doesn’t think to ask if that chicken ought to be there. Or maybe hasn’t yet learned enough to know. And the morning’s supply of poultry is being plucked and dumped on the kitchen table too, and before you know where you are, a bad bird’s found its way into the stew. I didn’t have much stew myself,” he added. “There was salmon and I like that better. And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about curses, either!”

  Mistress Dalton groaned but whether in agreement or otherwise, it was impossible to tell. Gladys would have a supporter in Conley, though. “We’ll do what we can, mistress,” Hugh said, and rushed us all out again and on to the kitchen.

  Here we found the four scullions and Brockley. The fire had been banked but Brockley had livened it up and set water to warm. One of the scullions—in fact, it was young Walt—had recovered enough to stumble about, getting out salt, trays, cups, and jugs, and Brockley was just coming back from the well with a fresh pail of water. We had dosed the remaining three scullions and Mistress Dalton, and Brockley was looking after the scullions while the rest of us were clattering beakers and jugs onto trays to take upstairs, when Edmund Dean arrived, his hair on end and a brocade bedgown tied anyhow round his middle.

  “This is appalling! The racket woke the duke and all of us secretaries. I’ve just been to the servants’ rooms. They said you were here, getting remedies together. Julius Gale needs them too—he’s ill as well!”

  “Badly?” I asked.

  “Yes, very badly! I’ve just been to his room—it’s the people who ate supper down here who are ill, and he was among them—and if we don’t do something quickly, I think he’s so sick, he could die!”

  “Is he vomiting?” I asked in practical tones.

  “No. He keeps trying but he can’t. He’s sweating, holding his stomach, and throwing himself about. He’s only half conscious! He can’t purge himself either.”

  “Dale and I will see that the servants upstairs are looked after. We know what to do,” said Sybil briskly. “Leave it to us, Mistress Stannard. You go and see to Gale.”

  “Thank you, Sybil. Meg, go and fetch Gladys. She’s got the makings of medicines with her. Master Gale may need a purge.”

  “Not Gladys!” said Dean. “She cursed all the servants and Gale as well and it could be that . . . ”

  “Nonsense,” said Hugh. “They’ve eaten chicken that’s been kept too long, that’s all. Gladys is clever at physicking people. Go, Meg!”

  Meg sped off. Sybil and Dale each seized a loaded tray and made off up the stairs in her wake. Dean stood glaring at us.

  “I don’t agree with this!” he said angrily. “That Gladys creature shouldn’t go near any of the sick. If harm comes of it, it’s on your heads.”

  “I daresay our heads will survive,” snapped Hugh. “Are you ready, Ursula? We’d better hurry.”

  5

  The Significance of a Cipher

  Hugh’s stiff joints were painful for him on stairs, and Dean took over his tray, which held a goblet of salt water and a basin. Then, however, we had to make what haste we could, to keep up as Dean led the way back to the passageway past our room, on across the head of the main stairs and into another wing with a further wide corridor, where Higford, the senior secretary, now appeared, holding up a branched candlestick with four lit candles in it and looking anxious.

  “Thank God you’re here. The duke is awake; he knows Gale is ill and he values Gale highly. Come in, quickly!”

  We crowded into Gale’s room on Higford’s heels. There was just one bed; the messenger had been given a small guest chamber to himself. The only light came from Higford’s candlestick and a second, similar one on a table, and the glow of a dying fire. Much of the room was in shadow, and the shadows were full of anguish. Master Gale was very sick indeed and his pain was almost palpable.

  Hugh went to fetch more light. I put my arm round the patient, placed the basin before him and set about dosing him with the salt water. A few minutes later, Gladys arrived with a nasty-smelling herbal purge. We set about getting that into him, too.

  I didn’t know how near to death Julius Gale really was. He was a healthy young man, after all. We tended him, though, through the small hours when human vitality is always at its lowest and the whole world feels dead and haunted. Wavering candlelight and distorted shadows make that feeling stronger. If we weren’t actually fighting for Gale’s life, we felt as though we were. The struggle lasted until dawn and at one point Hugh did say, uncertainly: “Should we send for the chaplain?” However, Gale himself chose to emerge from near unconsciousness just at that moment and said, clearly if weakly: “No, thank you.”

  By daybreak we had won. The gripes and the nausea, brought on by the salt water and Gladys’s potion, had done their work and ceased. We had found some clean sheets in a chest under the window seat and changed the bedding. Once he could answer questions, we learned that being, as I said, a healthy young man, he had an appetite to match, especially after that long ride from Dover, and had eaten not one but three helpings of the wretched stew.

  In the morning, by which time we ourselves were utterly exhausted, we handed him over to a couple of servants who, like the butler, had patronized the salmon rather than the stew and were not affected. Dean, who had left us and gone to bed just before dawn, came back and said that he would keep an eye on Gale and his attendants and we retired to our beds. We woke in time for a late dinner with a harassed and apologetic duke, who was so horrified that such a thing could have happened in his kitchens that we found ourselves comforting him as though he were an upset child, with Hugh patting his shoulder while I poured him a glass of wine and made reassuring noises.

  Most of the servants were recovering by then, and so, we heard, were three people from outside, who had chanced to eat with them the previous evening.

  It seemed that the duke regarded the servants’ quarters as an establishment separate from his own and never queried their visitors. Indeed, he was generous enough to give Conley an allowance for kitchen hospitality. If a beggar came to the door, he wasn’t chased away at the end of a broom but sent away with food; and if the servants had friends, such friends were welcome—at least as long as the allowance held out—to share their meals.

  As a result, strangers apparently wandered freely in and out of Thomas Howard’s house. Apart from stray beggars at the back door, tradesmen, town criers, night watchmen, off-duty servants from neighboring houses dropped in regularly. Beside that, the duke himself often had visitors who came accompanied by their own servants, who would also be entertained there. Brockley and Dale, who had eaten with us, had been lucky. Last night’s disaster had laid low one night watchman, the assistant butler from a nearby merchant’s house, and the aunt of one of Norfolk’s maidservants.

  Gale, however, was still far from well. During the morning, we heard, he had suffered a renewed bout of nausea and gripes, and in the afternoon, Sybil and I went together to sit with him. We found him feverish, and fretting because his journey north was being delayed.

  “You cannot set out until you’ve recovered,” Sybil told him. “How would it help your employers if you were taken ill on the road?”

  “I’ve got letters to deliver from my master, and His Grace, the duke, has given me letters as well and . . . ” His eyes widened. “Dear God, whe
re did I put them? I can’t remember!” He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “I must make sure they’re safe. Both my master and the duke especially charged me to take care of them and . . . ”

  He stood up, sagged, sat down again with a thud, and grabbed for the basin, which was waiting on a table by the bed. I held it for him while Sybil wrung out a napkin in the warm water that we had ready on the washstand. When he lifted his head, Sybil gently wiped the sweat from his pallid face. “Better out than in,” she said encouragingly.

  “Maybe, but it’s taking the strength out of me. My legs feel like wet string. I can’t stand. Will one of you go through my things and try to find those letters? I must know where they are.”

  “Come. Get back into bed,” I said, lifting his ankles, to swing them up. “You need to sleep if you can.”

  “Yes, but the letters!”

  “We’ll find them,” said Sybil, catching my eye. Her expression said Better do as he wants otherwise he won’t rest.

  We took some time to find them because we began by examining his doublet. I was in the habit of wearing open-fronted overskirts and when I was working as an agent, I stitched pouches inside them, in which I could carry such things as money, confidential documents, a small dagger, and a set of lockpicks. My mind worked in terms of hidden pouches. There were none, however, in Master Gale’s garments. We didn’t find what we were looking for until Sybil came upon his saddlebags pushed into the corner of a clothespress, and drew them out. The letters were in one of the compartments, three of them, tied together with a silk cord. We carried them to the bed so that Gale could check that they were all there.

  With a sigh of relief, he said that they were. He tucked them under his pillow and then, with a hot brick wrapped in flannel pressed against his stomach to comfort his aching abdominal muscles, he slept.