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

by Buckley, Fiona

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”

  Higford was present too and I thought I heard him mutter something under his breath at this point. I also thought the something included the word officious and referred to Dean, but I couldn’t be sure. Most of my attention was on Meg, in case she said or did anything foolish. Fortunately, she had taken Hugh’s threat to heart and was behaving herself. She curtsied her farewells to the duke and Dean very demurely and left the room with Hugh and me in a well-mannered fashion.

  Julius Gale had left early, as he had planned. “He was off in the half-light, the servants tell me,” the duke said. “I told him last night not to be so worried about making up lost time, but he’s a conscientious fellow. He’ll have taken the north road and be well clear of London by now.”

  Our horses and Hugh’s coach were ready in the courtyard. We had settled privately that Hugh and I and the Brockleys would go to the Strand, where Cecil lived. If he was not there, we would probably find him at the court, in which case, we would leave our horses at a hostelry and hire a boat to carry us to Greenwich Palace, to which we knew—because Norfolk had mentioned it—the court had lately moved.

  Meg, Sybil, Gladys, and our escort, however, were to set out at once for Hawkswood. I wanted both Meg and Gladys to leave London as soon as possible.

  “Meg has been overexcited and visiting either Cecil or the court won’t be good for her,” I told Sybil. “Settle her to her studies as soon as you reach home. You know enough Latin to teach her for the time being. As for Gladys, well, we’re having to return her to Hawkswood sooner than we wanted to do. Try to get her into the house without too many people noticing, and do your best to keep her away from others. Whatever she says and even if she curses you! Keep her in a chamber on her own until we come. We’ll only be a couple of days behind you.”

  We parted almost at the duke’s gate, since those who were bound for Hawkswood were going toward the Thames, to cross London Bridge, while Hugh and I must stay on the London side of the river and travel westward to the Strand. It was a pleasant morning, mild with thinning cloud, which promised sunshine later. The streets were already busy, and once more our coachman had to go afoot and lead his horses.

  We had not gone far before he had to guide us aside to avoid a cluster of people peering into a drainage ditch to the left of the road. We took little notice at first. Until I suddenly saw that on the outskirts of this group, someone was holding a fine black horse with a narrow white blaze. I called out to John Argent to stop.

  Then, peering over the heads of the gathering, which I could do easily enough from the saddle of my dapple gray mare, Roundel, I saw what was happening at the heart of it.

  This part of the street had drainage ditches at the sides. They were narrow but quite deep and were covered over in places, forming short culverts in front of the entrances to the timbered shops and alehouses bordering the road. The crowd had gathered at the end of one such covered stretch. Two men were crouching at the edge of the ditch, reaching down to pull something out from under the culvert. It looked like a pair of legs. As I watched, the rest of the body came into view, sagging limply in their hands. I glimpsed a pale face on a limp neck; and mud-dabbled hair. It was a corpse.

  “Hugh,” I said, turning toward the coach and leaning down, “I think you should look at this.”

  He knew from my tone that it mattered. Climbing out, he used his most authoritative voice to make his way through the crowd. I touched Roundel with my spur and urged her closer. When you have looked after someone who is ill, and helped them with very personal services in the process, details of their appearance become printed on your mind. I knew the face of the poor thing that the men had now drawn out into the open and laid beside the ditch. Where it was visible through the mud that caked it, the auburn color of the hair was instantly familiar, too. And surely, the filthy clothes the man was wearing had been brown originally, and I had seen those muted yellow slashings before.

  Hugh was speaking to the men who had pulled the body out. Brockley brought his horse up alongside Roundel. “What is it? What’s happening, madam?”

  “It’s a corpse,” I said. “And—well, I think that horse there is Black Baron, the one Julius Gale borrowed. I think—it’s his body.”

  “Julius Gale? But, madam, it can’t be—he was traveling north. What’s he doing here?”

  “What’s he doing dead?” I answered grimly.

  7

  Traveling West

  There was no question after that of pressing on to the Strand. We were able to identify the dead man and the crowd were willing to defer to Hugh, the gentleman with the coach. Willy-nilly, Hugh found himself in charge. He told Brockley to get a cloak out of our baggage so that the body might be decently covered and sent someone to find a representative of authority.

  “A constable of the ward or a justice of the peace; ask him to meet us at the Duke of Norfolk’s house. Those of you who got him out of the ditch, kindly follow us. They’ll want you to describe how you found him. The poor fellow set out from Howard House, as we did, and we’ll take him back there,” he said.

  Accordingly, Master Gale’s limp form was loaded into the coach. Hugh didn’t want to ride the black horse, which was snorting and restive, so he took Brockley’s cob while Brockley got into Black Baron’s saddle. Many of the motley crowd came after us, but they melted away when they saw us seek admittance at the duke’s gatehouse. Only those who had found the body came in, most of them nervously, and only because Hugh and Brockley insisted and herded them inside, where they stood in an uneasy huddle in the entrance hall.

  Our messages to authority had already borne fruit. As we went through the gatehouse, we heard a crier in the street behind us, proclaiming that murder had been done and declaring a hue and cry after any known footpads who had been seen of late in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, in the entrance hall, the household gathered around. There were exclamations of horror, tears from maidservants and Mistress Dalton, and impromptu prayers from the chaplain for God to defend us against such evildoers. In the midst of it all, Gale was carried to Norfolk’s private chapel and laid upon a trestle.

  I hadn’t seen the chapel before. On Sunday, we had all worshiped at an Anglican church nearby. The chapel was full of Catholic images: an ornate crucifix, several statues and stained-glass representations of various saints, and a very fine statue of the Virgin. I remembered hearing somewhere that Norfolk was only a nominal Protestant, though having seen him reading an English language Bible, I doubted if he were exactly passionate about the old faith either. He was the kind of man who kept a foot on each side of the line, most likely. If he were to live unmolested under Elizabeth’s rule and also woo Mary Stuart, he would need to be.

  I supposed that Mercer, the chaplain, though he had come with us to church, was Catholic too. No doubt he said Mass here on occasion. Mercer was a sensible fellow, though. It was he who insisted that the body should be immediately stripped, ready for examination as soon as a constable or a justice or their representatives arrived.

  I didn’t stay for this or listen to the questioning of the men in the vestibule, but Hugh did and afterward came to our chamber to find me, looking irritated.

  “The men hadn’t much to say,” he told me. “One of them saw a foot sticking out of that culvert and called for help from some passersby; that was all. They’ve been sent away. Then we all went to the chapel. Dean came too and he annoyed me. He tried to say that this was somehow due to Gladys’s curse, working again.”

  “What?” I was indignant.

  “Some of the sillier maidservants have been saying it, apparently, and Dean is more impressed by the power of curses than an intelligent young man ought to be! Fortunately, Mercer has more sense and so have the officers who came to look at the body—a constable and three officials sent by a local justice; they’re still here, discussing it all with Norfolk, who is also showing sense, even if he is a fool about Mary Stuart. He brushed Dean aside and when Gale
’s body was rolled over so that we could see his back, it was plain what had happened. There’s a stab wound, and we found a matching slit in his doublet.”

  “So it’s definitely murder?”

  “It was obviously that, from the start,” Hugh said. “The horse could have thrown him into the ditch but it would be a clever horse that also pushed him headfirst into the culvert. The wound’s small and there’s very little blood but from its position; whatever he was stabbed with went straight into his heart. It was done with a very thin blade, and I would say that whoever did it knew exactly where to put the blade in. Either that, or they were remarkably lucky, to kill so neatly with one thrust.”

  I thought this over. “But—it must have been done in a busy street. London streets come to life at daybreak!”

  Hugh shook his head. “He left here in the half-light and he was caught not far from the house. The light would have been poor and the street still fairly quiet. It could have been done by someone who was quick about it. They—he—must have accosted Gale and persuaded him to dismount, or threatened him into it, or simply pulled him out of the saddle, and then, maybe, used the horse as a shield to hide what he was about, while . . . well. Quite feasible, if the killer knew his business.”

  “How horrible,” I said. I was on the settle, with Dale nearby, stitching. Brockley was there too, occupying himself by brushing Hugh’s boots. They both looked shocked. “I suppose it was footpads?” I said.

  Hugh sank onto the settle at my side. “No. Not footpads,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “His money wasn’t taken. It was still there, in a pouch attached to his belt, and he had a good-quality sword and dagger and a gold ring on his right hand. None of those things were touched. But the letters he was carrying, which should have been in his saddlebags, were missing.”

  “The letters were stolen?”

  “Yes, and that’s not all. What on earth,” said Hugh, “was he doing on that road? Remember what you said, Brockley? Gale was traveling west, but why? He should have been going north!”

  There was a tap on the door and when we answered, the secretary Higford put his head around it. “His Grace’s compliments, and would you join him downstairs? I’ll take you to him. There’s something new.”

  Hugh signaled Dale and Brockley to come with us. The duke was waiting in the parlor. He was standing by the table and on it was a small cloth bag with a drawstring. As Higford led us up to him, the duke picked up the bag and drew the contents out.

  “Since you brought Gale back, and since Master Stannard was present when the body was examined, I thought as a courtesy that I should tell you what has been found. These are the letters Gale should have been carrying,” he said.

  “The ones that were missing?” Hugh asked.

  Norfolk nodded. “Yes.” His small, plain features had a puzzled frown. “He didn’t take them with him. Mistress Dalton sent two maids to clean his room and change the bed linen and they found them there.”

  “They gave them to Mistress Dalton, who brought them to me,” Higford said. “I spoke to the maids and asked exactly where the letters were discovered. The wenches said they were in the bag you see there, lying on the floor of the clothespress, in a back corner.”

  We gazed at the bundle in disbelief. It made no sense at all.

  • • •

  As soon as we could, we withdrew instinctively to our chamber once again: myself, Hugh, and the Brockleys. It was natural for the Brockleys to be called into conference, as it were. They and I had shared many frightening times together before I ever set eyes on Hugh, and he knew it. He was aware of the bond between us and accepted it.

  Whether he knew or guessed at the full extent of it, I wasn’t sure. I had taken care never to mention the matter, but there had been a time when Brockley and I had come near to being something more than lady and manservant. I had hurt Fran badly, and I was sorry for it. Hugh’s arrival in my life was an infinite blessing, for while he was there, the mysterious link between Brockley and me was kept harmless, one of simple, untainted friendship.

  I was the first to speak, after a silence. “Letters to Scotland, to Mary Stuart, and one in cipher. All that is suspicious enough even without people getting stabbed and the letters themselves being left behind in a clothespress by their own courier.”

  “He’d been ill, ma’am,” said Dale. “Perhaps it was just a mistake. What if he were still feeling out of sorts—muddleheaded, as it were—and simply forgot them?”

  “They were the purpose of his journey, and he was in a great fuss about them while he was ill,” I said. “He could have left them behind by mistake, but it’s very unlikely.”

  A further silence fell, unexpectedly broken a moment later by a surprising sound from the garden. It would have been commonplace normally but in these circumstances, it came as a shock. It was the sound of someone without a care in the world, whistling a merry tune.

  “Who’s that?” Fran Dale was scandalized. Indignantly, she went to a window, opened it, and leaned out. “For shame! To be whistling blithe love songs when there’s a murdered man lying in the chapel and the whole house in disarray! What are you thinking of?”

  “Sorry, ma’am.” I thought I recognized the voice, and I went to the window to look over Dale’s shoulder. I was right. The cheeky-faced youth Walt was walking along on the gravel path just below, carrying a bunch of onions. He looked up at us and grinned.

  “The thing is,” he said, the grin widening, “I reckon I’m in luck myself and I just can’t help it. I want to wed and I thought I’d have to wait years, but I fancy it’ll be soon, after all! My Bessie’s father says he’ll take me on at his tavern as a son-in-law. I help the butler here with the cellars and I know something of wine and ale. If he does as he says, Bessie and I can marry when we like. I’ll be putting this pretty pendant that you and Mistress Meg gave me round Bessie’s neck as a wedding gift before many weeks are out!”

  He pulled it from his pocket and held it up, sparkling in the sunshine, before once more putting it carefully away. “She’ll love it! Life goes on, and that’s the way of it!”

  He went on his way around the side of the house and a moment later, in the distance, we heard him whistling again.

  “He’s right, of course,” said Hugh, as Dale and I left the window. “Life does go on. There’ll be church bells and a crowd of drunken guests to bed the couple in the tavern’s best bedchamber, and that insouciant lad will turn from a boy to a man overnight and within a year there’ll be a baby kicking in a cradle in the back room, and another one a year later, and I don’t suppose Walt will even remember how once a man called Julius Gale left this house at dawn and was lying stabbed in the chapel before midday!”

  “I wish I could be half as lighthearted,” I said. “I’m thankful that Meg’s gone, and Gladys with her, considering what that man Dean has been saying!”

  Brockley said slowly: “There’s precious little reason in any of this, but I do wonder about that stew. Gale was very ill. Have you thought that somehow or other that was an attack on him—someone risked making everyone ill so that it wouldn’t be noticeable if one of the victims died, and then made sure that Gale had an extra dose of poison. That would put the guilty person somewhere in this house.”

  “If the stew was an attempt to murder Gale,” I said, “it wasn’t very efficient.”

  “Judging the dose would mean tricky guesswork,” Hugh said. “It might be difficult to conduct any experiments in advance! Brockley could be right—though it doesn’t prove that the poisoner is in this house. People seem to wander in and out of this building in the most casual manner. I’m always meeting strange faces in the passageways. I wonder sometimes if the duke himself knows who he’s employing and who’s just drifting through. But I don’t think we need to speculate too much. We’ll place what we know in the hands of Cecil—that we must do—and leave for home at the earliest possible moment, though that won’t be until after the i
nquest, I’m afraid.”

  “I wish we could go now. I’m afraid to eat or drink anything under this roof,” said Dale. “Can’t we at least move out to an inn?”

  Hugh shook his head. “I’m sure there’s no need. The duke is insisting that extra care should be taken with all food served here. It should be safe enough. Besides, if Gale was the intended victim all along—well, the killer has succeeded. Why should there be any more attacks?”

  It sounded like common sense. If only it had been.

  • • •

  The rest of the day was confused. I had a sudden wish to go to the chapel and say a prayer for Gale, but when I got there, I found Dean doing the same thing, kneeling by the dead man and too rapt in prayer to notice me. I didn’t want to kneel alongside Dean, and went back to Hugh.

  Shortly after that, Hugh and I were summoned to answer questions put to us by a justice of the peace, who had by now arrived in person, along with several of the aldermen in whose ward the duke’s house stood. When we joined them and Norfolk in the great hall, it seemed to be full of dark velvet gowns with furred edgings, formal ruffs, grave bearded faces, and solemn head shakings over the idea that such a shocking business had touched a man of such eminence as Norfolk.

  Norfolk left us, saying that he would wait in the parlor. The questions began. We did our best, but we had little to say beyond describing how we had come upon the crowd around Gale’s body. When it was over, we went to find the duke. We found him alone, sitting with his back to the window and gazing at a miniature. He took no notice of us.

  Intrigued, I pretended that something in the garden had caught my attention and went to the window, which brought me behind him. Glancing around and peering over his shoulder, I had a glimpse of the miniature and recognized it.

  “He was looking at a portrait of Mary Stuart,” I told Hugh afterward.