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

by Buckley, Fiona

  “Each figure is multiplied by the number at the head of its column,” said Scrivener patiently.

  I looked again and understood. I nodded.

  “You’d have to destroy all your workings out afterward,” he said, “but this way, you wouldn’t easily go wrong.”

  “Let’s try something longer,” I said. “I want to understand this properly. I may not be able to decipher these letters—after all, there seem to be so many possible variations—but all this is interesting. I want to grasp the idea behind it properly. Let me see . . . ”

  Scrivener chuckled. “Who shall we involve in this sorry conspiracy, you mean? The queen’s Sweet Robin, her Eyes, as I believe she variously calls him; shall we have him? He is not widely popular. Let us encipher the words My Lord of Leicester. We write it out—so—and then, under each letter, goes its first-stage number—still using the simple system where A equals 1.”

  M

  Y

  L

  O

  R

  D

  O

  F

  L

  E

  I

  C

  E

  S

  T

  E

  R

  13

  25

  12

  15

  18

  4

  15

  6

  12

  5

  9

  3

  5

  19

  20

  5

  18

  3 4 5 6

  13 25 12 15

  18 4 15 6

  12 5 9 3

  5 19 20 5

  18

  “Then,” he said, “you sort it all out into its four columns, so.”

  We all studied this with interest and I picked up the abacus again. “Let me see.”

  It was something of a struggle. My tongue came out between my teeth, as though I were a small child wrestling with a first attempt to learn the alphabet. Finally, though, I sat back in triumph. After much muttering and clicking, because I was out of practice, I had arrived at 39, 100, 60, 90, 54, 16, 75, 36, 36, 20, 45, 18, 15, 76, 100, 30, 54.

  I considered this with my head on one side. “There are some repeated figures. Thirty-six, for instance.”

  “Yes, but those two thirty-sixes represent different letters. The first one is the F of OF and the second is the L of LORD.”

  “But the R in LORD and at the end of LEICESTER both work out to 54.”

  “It does happen,” Scrivener agreed. “But not too often.”

  “My head’s spinning,” said Dale, making us all laugh.

  And then it was Dale, who, leaning forward and pointing excitedly at the top sheet on the pile of coded documents, said: “But this one starts with just those figures! Look! 39, 100, 60, 90 . . . ”

  • • •

  We all stared at each other, excitement silently rising. “Can you test it, madam?” Brockley asked.

  “The last letter in LEICESTER is R,” I said. “In stage one, that’s 18, and it comes under column one, so it’s multiplied by 3 and that’s”—I once more checked on the abacus—“54. Yes, there’s no doubt about that. So . . . so . . . ”

  “The next figure to be deciphered has to be divided by 4,” said Scrivener. “Go on.”

  “The next figure is 4,” I said. “So that would be 1! The letter A, presumably, at least if this is just being done by the most straightforward system. Then what? The next figure is 95. I’ve got to divide that by . . . yes, I see, by 5. That’s . . . that’s . . . ” The abacus clicked furiously. “That’s 19,” I said triumphantly. “That’s S. Then comes 36, which has to be divided by 6—which is 6. That’s F. Then . . . ”

  A few minutes later, I had the sequence 1, 19, 6, 1, 18, 1, and 19 and had written out their alphabetic equivalents.

  “As far as!” Brockley almost shouted.

  I turned to Scrivener, and he reached out and folded the letters I had brought over quietly, so that he could no longer see their contents.

  “We’ve cracked the code,” he said. “Ridolfi has simply used the basic version which I showed him in Florence. Now, you have said that this business is confidential. Then keep it so. I don’t want to know! You have the key.” He held the folded sheets out to me. “Take these away and interpret them in private. There is a lot of material here,” he added. “Don’t try to do it all at once. Take pauses for rest and thus avoid errors. You’ll need the abacus. Do you have one of your own?”

  “No, not here,” I said. “There’s one at home in Hawkswood.”

  “You’d better borrow mine. Here—put it in its box. Then no one will see it and wonder what you want it for. Keep it if you like; I have another. Good luck. I will help again if you need me. I will be here tomorrow morning until the hour of ten.”

  • • •

  “I don’t like the idea of working by candlelight again,” I said. “I’m much too tired. But the evenings are light. I’ll make an excuse, take supper tonight in my chamber, and deal with these letters then.”

  “I think I must leave it to you,” Brockley said. “I never learned to handle an abacus. I can write to your dictation if you wish.”

  “I’d be glad,” I said. “It would help. It’s going to take time, you know. I think I shall have to be ill again!”

  Well, that wouldn’t be difficult, I thought. My lack of sleep the previous night was still making itself felt. I would have no trouble in looking convincingly wan. The plan should work.

  I might have known. That capricious lady, Fortune, wasn’t going to let me get away with anything as well organized as that.

  18

  Long-Necked Birds

  The moment we were back in the Ridolfi house, it was clear that something was wrong. The maidservant who let us in had a flustered air and in the distance, I could hear angry shouts and somebody crying. Then Signor Ridolfi himself appeared from the direction of his study. He rushed straight to me, seized me by the arm, and burst into voluble speech.

  “Mistress Stannard! I am most glad to see you, most glad! I returned home to dine today and what do I find? My wife is out; you are out also, and my dinner is all in confusion.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said inadequately. I had been trying to think of a tale to tell Madame Ridolfi, to explain my own long absence when I was supposed to be unwell, and I was glad she was still out. However, I was bewildered by Signor Ridolfi’s problems with his dinner. His meals weren’t my responsibility.

  Then the situation clarified. “Your servant, Mistress Stannard, your elderly servant—Gladys, that is her name, is it not?—she has quarreled with the topiary gardener and set all my kitchen by the ears. I must ask you to control her.”

  “Gladys! We might have known,” said Brockley, under his breath, and Dale echoed him, sighing: “Gladys. Oh, of course.”

  The faraway disturbance was continuing and the maidservant had scurried away, apparently to join it. I could hear what sounded like a man—though it wasn’t Father Fernando—reciting prayers. I sighed, in my turn. “Just what has happened?” I asked.

  “I was halfway through my dinner,” said Ridolfi. “In my study as usual. But the second half wasn’t served when it should have been. I came out of my study and shouted to know why no one had brought it, and then Greaves came to tell me that that old serving woman of yours was wrangling with Arthur Johnson, in the kitchen, where my servants were gathering to start their dinner when I had finished mine. Greaves said that my servants don’t like either of them much but they’re used to Johnson and laugh at him, while your Gladys Morgan frightens them. They took Johnson’s side and your woman turned on them and said things that upset them and all work in the kitchen came to a stop.”

  Behind me, Brockley muttered a heartfelt, “Strewth!” and I felt my heart sink, like a stone thrown into deep water. “. . . er . . . just what did she say?” I asked, dreading to hear that she had cursed them
.

  “Greaves said she told them all they were a pack of fools,” said Ridolfi. “And then, I am sorry to tell you, it seems she looked at the ceiling and asked the powers in the heavens what else could be expected in a Papist household! I did not know she was not of our faith! Nor did I know she held us in such contempt! Did you?”

  “. . . er . . . no. Gladys rarely speaks of such matters,” I told him.

  “Well, she spoke of them today. Then, it seems that one of the maidservants had heard something about Gladys from some servant of Norfolk’s, who came with him once to this house. She blurted out that according to Thomas Howard’s man, everyone in Howard House believes Gladys is a witch because she’d cursed them, whereupon they all fell ill. Then, my cook, instead of serving up my next course, took to reciting paternosters and crossing himself, and this Gladys stuck out the forefinger and little finger of her left hand . . . ”

  “Oh no!” I said involuntarily.

  “. . . and said she’d let them off this time but they’d better be careful, and with that she burst out laughing, or cackling, Greaves said, and walked out of the kitchen. Johnson went after her. They started shouting at each other out on the terrace and most of my servants rushed out to listen except for my cook, who’s still praying aloud. Greaves said he’d fetch the rest of my meal but he hasn’t done so. Mistress Stannard, the woman is your responsibility. I must ask you to deal with her!”

  Still grasping my arm, he fairly marched me through to the back of the house. On the way, we passed the door to the kitchen quarters, where the cook was still praying, but we didn’t stop there and I realized that most of the noise came from somewhere else. We reached the terrace and there, with many of the servants gathered interestedly around, were Johnson and Gladys Morgan, still in furious face-to-face confrontation.

  “. . . and don’t you call me a silly old fool again! That ain’t no way for a decent woman to talk to an honest man! Been at my work, I have, man and boy, for sixty years come next Michaelmas and folk as have eyes in their heads and a bit of sense there as well, can see for theirselves what I’ve clipped my yew trees into!”

  “Silly old fool I said and so you are!” screeched Gladys. “All this fuss over nothing that matters a straw, look you! How many more times do I need to say it afore you see sense? I tell you again, they’re just long-necked birds! And all green—they’re not even white. They could be anything, bloody herons as like as not! And what’s more . . . ”

  “Herons? First it’s geese, then it’s herons! I clipped them yew trees into swans, swans, and if you ’ad the sense just to look at the shape of them, you’d know! Swans ain’t the same shape as geese or herons!”

  “Bah!”

  “Bah yourself!”

  “Oh, really!” I said. “How old are they? They sound as if they’re in a nursery!”

  Ridolfi thrust me forward. “Do something!” he growled in my ear. “I can’t. I don’t want her cursing me,” he added, candidly if cravenly. “And I think Greaves is frightened of her, too.”

  “. . . I’m telling you, you old hag . . . ”

  “Who’re you calling a hag?”

  I started forward, but stopped short as Johnson’s retort reached me.

  “. . . it’s as well you said no to me this morning, acos if you hadn’t, I’d be backing out of the marriage now! I wouldn’t have you as a wife for a hundred sovereigns!”

  “You wouldn’t get me for a hundred sovereigns! My price is above rubies, so it is!” bawled Gladys.

  “Has he proposed to her?” I asked blankly, turning back to Ridolfi.

  “By the sound of it, yes,” said Ridolfi. “But I want this racket stopped. Go on!”

  I advanced on the couple. “Gladys! Gladys! And Johnson! What are you about, shouting like that so that all the world can hear?”

  Engrossed with each other, face-to-face like two cats on a wall and ready to spit or scratch at any moment, the pair ignored me. At this point Greaves caused a diversion by appearing from the house, catching sight of his employer and at once shouting busily that all the servants should get back inside and that the rest of Signor Ridolfi’s dinner was now awaiting him in the study.

  “And Madame Ridolfi’s coach is back and she wants her sewing maids—make haste, Eliza! Phoebe, that means you as well! Come along!”

  Brockley and Dale, who had followed me to the terrace, now decided to take a hand themselves. Brockley grabbed Gladys and pulled her away from the angry gardener, while Dale glared at the hovering servants and declared that coming out to stare was just encouraging the uproar and she couldn’t abide such shocking scenes! The shocking scene, however, was far from over. Brockley dragged Gladys over to me, and Mistress Morgan now condescended to notice my existence.

  “He’s a daft old man, he is!” she informed me, pointing rudely at Johnson. “First of all he wants me to marry him—at his age! Ought to have his grimy mind on higher things, he ought!—and then . . . ”

  “My mind ain’t grimy, you horrible old witch!” yelled Johnson. You’re the one that’s grimy! Carrying on as if I was beneath you and not worth considering! Can’t even be gracious to a fellow that’s offerin’ you his hand and heart, you can’t. And you as foul as a midden your own self! You allus smell, you do.”

  “He didn’t say that when he was sweet-talking me this morning!” Gladys spluttered, addressing me. “It was all compliments then! First of all, he wants me to wed him; now he’s calling me grimy!”

  “An’ so you are!”

  “He’s a good one to talk—him that peeps in at windows if he thinks the maids are in there undressing! He’s going woodwild, mistress, all because I thought them there birds he’s carved out of the yew bushes in that garden there were geese and they’re swans.”

  “I thought they were geese myself,” I said, causing Johnson to scowl at me as ferociously as though I had questioned his paternity. I glared back at him. “It all seems to be a great to-do over nothing much and as for you, Gladys, you’ve made yourself unpopular among Signor Ridolfi’s servants now! Weren’t Hawkswood, Withysham, the vicar of Faldene, and Howard House enough for you? You’ve no more sense than a child of five and that’s just what you sounded like just now!”

  “Nothing much!” bawled Johnson. “She insults my work and you call it nothing much!”

  “And you’re as bad! It’s not for me to give you orders but I think Signor Ridolfi would like you to return to your work, or, if you have finished for the day, to go away. Gladys, come with me! And don’t try cursing me; I shan’t be impressed. Come along at once! Signor Ridolfi, I am extremely sorry. Please go and finish your dinner. I’ll see to this.”

  Somehow or other, Brockley, Dale, and I hustled Gladys indoors. “We’ll take her to our chamber,” Brockley said. She muttered and grumbled and was inclined to resist but we bundled her up the stairs somehow, pushed her into the Brockleys’ room, and turned the key on her.

  • • •

  Coping with Gladys had been an exhausting nuisance. “I wanted to settle down at once and start on the deciphering,” I said, as the three of us retreated breathlessly into my chamber. “I feel almost too tired now to breathe! I hope Madame Ridolfi doesn’t want me this afternoon. We’ll have to say that I felt better and went out, but that now I’ve been badly upset by this business of Gladys and have gone to lie down again. I think . . . ”

  I stopped, struck by a revelation out of nowhere. They looked at me curiously. “Madam?” said Brockley.

  “I’ve just realized!” I said. I sank down on the side of the bed. “I’ve just seen! Gladys and Johnson showed me. I ought to be grateful to them. Where the swans are . . . we were watching the wrong swans the other night! Ridolfi didn’t mean the real ones, he meant the topiary ones! That’s where Paige went. That’s where we should have hidden. That’s where Signor Ridolfi meets his contacts! Of course! Why, one of the seats is beside one of those swan-shaped bushes! It’s an obvious meeting place. I’ve let myself be distracted from
this business of his secret meetings, and I shouldn’t have. When he was making the arrangement with Paige, he implied that he’d made similar arrangements before. I daresay he’ll make them again! We ought to be on watch.”

  I rubbed my forehead and they eyed me concernedly.

  “We can’t go prowling in the topiary tonight,” said Brockley. “You need some rest, madam. And there’s still the deciphering.”

  “Yes, of course. You’re right. Well,” I said. “The cipher is the first thing. Let’s begin on that, while we can.”

  I had the letters in my concealed pouch. It was as well that I was only just reaching for them when the tap on the door came and Donna’s voice outside said: “Mistress Stannard?” I quickly withdrew my hand, empty, kicked off my shoes, swung my feet onto the bed, threw myself into a lying position, and nodded to Dale to let Donna in. She swept into the room in a swirl of brocade skirts and a stream of French in her soft, pretty voice.

  “Mistress Stannard! I heard you were better and had risen and been out! Do please come and see what fine materials I have bought! Enough for five new gowns, and I did all the haggling myself; I am so proud of that! One of the gowns shall be for you, ma chère amie, and one shall be for your young daughter . . . !”

  “My daughter?” I queried.

  “Oh yes, indeed. I have such a surprise for you! I thought you must be sad, separated for so long from your sweet girl and indeed from your husband. I wrote to Master Stannard at your Hawkswood house, and asked if your daughter at least could come to us. He has sent word that he agrees. Your sweet Meg will be here tomorrow!”

  “Oh,” I said blankly.

  “And now,” exclaimed Madame Ridolfi, “do come and see what I have bought!”

  It seemed wiser not to resist her, to do nothing that might seem odd or suspicious. For the rest of the afternoon I wearily examined materials and patterns, trying to appear interested and animated, while time went by and the unread letters crackled now and then in my pouch. Evening and suppertime came and, after my show of lively interest in the gowns Donna was planning, it was difficult to claim that I was suddenly unwell, though I was by now so tired that it was true. I arranged for Gladys to be given food in the Brockleys’ quarters, but I supped in the dining room and not, as I had intended, in my chamber.