Queen's Bounty

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  To begin with, although the Reverend Giles Parkes, Sir Edward Heron’s creaky-voiced chaplain, was a genuinely ordained vicar, the ceremony wasn’t taking place in any kind of chapel or church, but in front of a makeshift altar in the great hall of White Towers. There were no bridesmaids, no flower garlands, no wedding breakfast. In addition, both of the parties looked as unhappy as though they were there to be executed rather than united in marriage.

  There had been some attempt to create a proper wedding atmosphere. Bridget, coming suddenly to life, had rushed Margaret upstairs and changed her dove-grey dress for a silk gown in lightning-blue, over a bright pink and silver kirtle. She had put a blue hood on the girl’s head and provided an open ruff.

  I thought Bridget must have lent the clothes. Margaret probably had nothing suitable. Not that the borrowed finery was suitable either. It was much too garish for Margaret and didn’t fit properly. The wide ruff was too old for such a young girl, and the elegant hood and the gown were both too big. Margaret kept on nervously pushing the hood straight, and the shoulders of the gown kept slipping down on to her upper arms, while her body rose from an oversized farthingale like a small pin from a very large pincushion. The ensemble was completed by a rope of rose quartz beads which hung too far past Margaret’s waist, and a pair of matching earrings.

  Bridget hadn’t changed, but she had put on dangling pearl and silver earrings to go with her pendant. Before taking Margaret upstairs, she had whispered something to Thomas, who had shaken an impatient head. I fancied that she had suggested that he too change into something more suitable for a bridegroom than the plain buff doublet and hose he was wearing, and he had refused.

  So there we were, a highly unorthodox wedding party. Sybil and myself, prisoners under a cloud of terrifying accusations. Sir Edward Heron, who was supposed to be here to hale Sybil and myself off to prison. Brockley and Wilder, our would-be rescuers, looking bemused. Peter Maine, steward and priest, sullenly standing aside because he wasn’t conducting the ceremony himself. Jane Cobbold, who loathed me and whose presence in this house was such an affront to Walter Ferris that he scowled every time he looked at her. Walter Ferris himself, forced to see his son married in this fudged-up and extraordinary fashion and visibly detesting it.

  And there was Master Emory, who had intimidated Ferris into agreeing to it – Emory, who was now cast as the father of the bride, with the duty of leading her to the makeshift altar. There was Bridget Ferris, attempting to look as though she were a perfectly ordinary mother of the groom, and trying to pretend that the hall was a church. And there were the unhappy couple, neither of them appropriately dressed: Thomas, with a face as mournful as a funeral, and a tight-lipped Margaret who had said nothing while her future life was arranged for her and had let herself be adorned for the occasion as though she were a doll.

  Parkes had provided a prayer book, and Bridget had produced a ring, a little gold hoop with a pearl in it. ‘I think it will fit,’ she said.

  The prayer book now lay open on the table with the ring on top of it. Bridget had asked if there could be some lighted candles, but Parkes had sharply refused. Thomas, prodded by his father, took his place in front of the table. Paul Emory, looking pleased with himself, took Margaret’s arm and led her to Thomas’s side.

  The ceremony began.

  It started with an interminable prayer, unmelodiously intoned by the Reverend Giles Parkes, who was, I thought, enjoying himself. It gave him pleasure to be introducing Protestant customs forcibly into this Catholic household.

  But the kernel of the matter was reached at last. Emory placed Margaret’s hand in that of Thomas and stepped back. Parkes began to administer the vows. Thomas, asked if he took Margaret Eleanor Emory to be his lawful wedded wife, and was willing to love and cherish her, muttered ‘I will,’ and was made to repeat it, louder.

  Parkes turned to Margaret. ‘And do you, Margaret Eleanor Emory, take Thomas Henry Ferris as your lawful wedded husband? Will you love, honour and obey him, and will you be bonny and buxom at bed and at board . . .?’

  Paul Emory’s normally dour face broke into a smile as he waited for her reply. Even Ferris, on the other side of Thomas, smiled a little.

  ‘Margaret?’ said Parkes, since she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘No,’ said Margaret.

  Her voice, though not loud, was clear and icy. The word fell through the air like a single and obtrusive hailstone. Thomas turned and looked at her in amazement. Emory and Ferris stared at her, two comical faces, mouth and eyes stretched open.

  Peter Maine said audibly: ‘Scandalous!’

  Bridget gasped: ‘Margaret!’

  Sybil simply gasped. Wilder looked embarrassed. Heron didn’t visibly react at all.

  Brockley murmured: ‘Well, that’s put a fox into the hen-run and no mistake. What now, I wonder?’

  The calmest persons present seemed to be Margaret herself and the Reverend Giles Parkes. ‘I repeat,’ said Parkes, ‘will you, Margaret Eleanor Emory . . .’

  Margaret waited until he had got to the end of the promises she was supposed to ratify and then said: ‘No, I said no. I meant no. I don’t want to marry Thomas, and he doesn’t want to marry me, and aren’t we supposed to be willing? Isn’t that why we’re asked to say I will? Well, I won’t. I can’t take vows I know I shan’t keep. Thomas shouldn’t have to, either!’

  She spun away from them all, from Thomas and the altar and her father. Emory clutched at her, but she evaded him and ran for the door. It was Bridget who caught her and pulled her back. ‘What is the meaning of this? How dare you so insult my son – and embarrass us all! You were brought into this house to marry him; you’ve known it from the start. I am ashamed of you . . .!’

  ‘Let me go!’

  ‘I will not let you go. Come back to the altar and take your vows as you should, as you have known for years that you would one day have to do. Do as I bid!’

  ‘No!’ screamed Margaret.

  Bridget slapped her, and Margaret, no longer calm, but losing her head entirely, kicked Bridget’s shins. Bridget slapped her again, very hard indeed, and Margaret shrieked and burst into tears, causing Brockley’s Sir Galahad streak to appear.

  ‘Here!’ he said indignantly, striding over to them and pulling Margaret away. ‘Easy, now. Who wants to marry a bride who’s all over bruises?’

  ‘Bring her back here!’ Emory rushed at them. ‘Give her to me. What are you about, you silly girl? Straighten your hood; what do you think you look like, with it over one ear? Come back to the altar and—’

  ‘One moment!’ Heron had risen sharply to his feet. ‘I will not have this! I will not allow anyone to take marriage vows under duress, not in my presence. It is against the laws of the church, and it invalidates the vows.’

  Yes, Heron, for all his obsession with witches, was fundamentally honest. He had stepped between the Emorys and the altar. ‘Let go of your daughter, Mr Emory. Let go, I say! Margaret, will you explain yourself, please? You need not fear me. Are you resolved against this marriage, or just overcome by its suddenness, and frightened, as a young girl might well be, confronted by such a solemn undertaking, without time to prepare or ask your mother the questions that you might naturally wish to ask? Have you, because you were frightened, said things you will later realize you didn’t mean? Speak freely.’

  Margaret, dishevelled, crying, pressing a hand to her reddened face where Bridget had hit her, merely whimpered, but Emory released her, and as he did so, Brockley guided her over to me. I put an arm round her. With Brockley on her other side, she was protected from Emory and Bridget alike. She was becoming quieter. Heron repeated his questions.

  Margaret gulped, but answered him. ‘I can’t marry Thomas. I can’t. He wants to marry someone else, and I . . . have no wish to take her place. Besides, I think of Thomas as a brother. It isn’t right for us to marry. I am not frightened of marriage. I just can’t agree to this one.’

  ‘Good. That is enough. There will be no
marriage. Parkes, give the ring back to Mrs Ferris. We will resume our earlier business. Find a maidservant to take care of Margaret. Wash her face and get her out of that hideous rainbow of a gown and into something modest and decent. We will then—’

  A sudden hammering on the front door, sounding clearly across the entrance vestibule that lay between it and hall, interrupted him. He stopped short. We all looked at each other with eyes that said: what now?

  ‘Answer it,’ said Heron.

  Ferris nodded at Maine, who disappeared into the vestibule. A moment later, he reappeared, accompanied by two men. One was our gnome-like Arthur Watts, looking tired, with the dust of travel in the lines on his seamed brown face. The other, large and sun-reddened, a glowing East Anglian beacon of rectitude, was Bartholomew Twelvetrees, courier, of Norwich.

  TWENTY

  So Faint a Stain

  ‘Sir William Cecil found him,’ said Watts, addressing me and Brockley mainly, but with an uncertain nod towards Heron, who had resumed his seat, which was obviously a place of honour. ‘His men, they’d just brought him to Hampton Court when I got there. This here’s Bartholomew Twelvetrees, and he’s a courier by trade. Master Stannard and Mistress Stannard, they wanted him found.’

  ‘I come back with Master Watts,’ Twelvetrees agreed, in his slow Norfolk voice. He pulled off his hat and bowed politely. ‘Seems these folk, the Stannards, think there’s questions I can answer.’ His voice was slow and accented but perfectly self-possessed. ‘Well, here I am. Ask anything you want.’

  Any resemblance the gathering had ever had to a marriage party had leached away. No one had had time to take Margaret out of the room and she was still with us, sheltering between me and Brockley, but with her face reddened from Bridget’s blows, and her oversized farthingale sagging badly, she hardly looked like a bride. The Ferrises and Paul Emory were standing about, apparently beyond speech but flushed with outrage. Jane Cobbold had retired to the inglenook, looking as though the whole situation was beyond her. Master Twelvetrees was the centre of attention.

  ‘Who is this?’ Heron demanded. ‘A courier, he says? What has that to do with anything?’

  ‘He brought the letter that Anne Percy of Northumberland sent to me,’ I said. ‘Master Ferris insists it was a forgery, but that wasn’t so.’

  ‘What is all this?’ Ferris shouted. But there was fear in his eyes.

  ‘Is that what you want to ask about?’ asked Twelvetrees. ‘That letter?’

  ‘Is it?’ Heron said to me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Master Twelvetrees, this is Sir Edward Heron, sheriff of the county. Please will you tell him – tell us all – did you, in August, bring a letter to me, handed to you in Norwich by a man who had arrived from the Low Countries? And on what date did you get it to me?’

  ‘Ah. I’m none so good at dates,’ said Bartholomew, ‘but it wor August right enough. I brought that there letter to your house, Hawkswood, sometime in the first half of that month. There was two letters, matter of fact. One for this house, and one addressed for a Master Ferris that wor here at this place. Said they was both urgent, he did, the fellow that hired me, that come off the ship in Norwich. I called here first, if I remember right.’

  Brockley and I looked at each other, drawing simultaneous breaths of relief. The essential questions had been answered, before they had even been asked.

  Ferris, however, was fighting back. ‘Oh yes, you came here,’ he said. ‘Of course you did, but what of it? You brought a letter on a business matter.’ He was trying to sound offhand. ‘Nothing to do with any Countesses of Northumberland. That letter this prying Mistress Jester was caught with, that’s still lying there on the table, it’s just a forgery that she put among my papers to make a criminal of me!’

  Heron looked uncertain, and silently, I cursed.

  What is the matter with the man? Isn’t it obvious that Ferris is lying to save his skin? Any fool ought to be able to see it! Will this man dismiss every piece of evidence in my favour or Sybil’s? Why? But I knew the answers. Heron wasn’t corrupt, but he wanted, so much, to catch some more witches.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Brockley. ‘I was there when you brought the Hawkswood letter, Master Twelvetrees. There’s something I remember about it. It was in the form of a scroll, but there was no outer covering, was there? Wasn’t it just a single sheet of paper, rolled up and sealed?’

  ‘Aye, well, that’s how it looked,’ confirmed Twelvetrees.

  I said: ‘I wondered if maybe the lady was short of both parchment and paper.’

  ‘Oh, must we listen to this?’ Ferris enquired of the room in general.

  Heron turned to him. ‘I think we must.’ Once more, I saw the honest sheriff in conflict with the witch-hunter, and once more, the sheriff gained the upper hand. ‘If it is relevant, that is. Is it, Mrs Stannard?’

  ‘Very much so, Sir Edward!’ I had begun to hope again. ‘I think I know what Brockley has remembered. Master Twelvetrees apologized as he handed me the letter, because it had a dirty mark on it. During the journey, it was accidentally dropped. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t much of a mark, and it was on the outside. It didn’t spoil any of the writing – not the superscription or the letter itself. If anything could spoil such an ugly message,’ I added bitterly.

  ‘Exactly. And I saw the grubby mark on the back of the sheet when I came into the room when Master Stannard was reading the letter aloud,’ Brockley declared.

  ‘You mean that if the letter on the table has that mark, then it is genuine?’ Heron asked. He looked at Twelvetrees.

  ‘Aye, just so,’ said Twelvetrees.

  ‘Perhaps you would look for yourself.’ Heron pointed to where the two letters lay.

  Twelvetrees went to the table. ‘These them?’ He picked the two letters up, turned them both over and then held one up. ‘This here’s the one I brought to Hawkswood, to Mistress Stannard. That’s your name on the back, mistress, and there’s the dirty little stain where it got dropped out of my saddlebag in a muddy inn-yard, and I’m still sorry over that.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘Show the mark to Sir Edward Heron, please.’

  Twelvetrees did as I asked. Heron stared at it. ‘So faint a stain,’ he said. ‘With so much to say. Fellow, how did it come about that Sir William Cecil sent to find you?’

  ‘Master Stannard and I asked him to do so,’ I said. ‘We thought, if Master Twelvetrees could be traced, we might learn something of any messages that Anne Percy had sent to White Towers.’

  ‘Sir William’s men asked after me in hostelries in Norwich,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They found someone as knew I’d gone to Thetford. They got on the road to Thetford and met me on my way back. Brought me straight to Hampton Court, they did. Said I’d nothing to fear, but afeard I was, a great man like that wanting me found!’

  Heron was still gazing at the trace of dirt on the back of the letter. ‘Let me see the other one again,’ he said. Parkes brought it to him, and as Heron studied them, a frown creased his forehead. He turned once more to Parkes. ‘Where are the notes you took, Parkes?’

  ‘Here, Sir Edward.’ The small writing table had a drawer beneath it, and Parkes had slipped his notes into it. He brought them out.

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was a pause while Heron read the notes through. Finally, he set them down and once more compared the two letters.

  ‘I see,’ he said at length. ‘Yes, I see a good deal. The two letters are in the same hand. Of that, there is no doubt. This alters things considerably. It appears to me that the letter to Mrs Stannard must be genuine, since its courier vouches for it. In that case, the other letter, the one to Mr Ferris, must be genuine too. Yes, that changes the situation altogether.’

  ‘Couriers can be bribed!’ Ferris burst out.

  ‘I ain’t been bribed. That’s a bloody insult, that is!’ Twelvetrees snapped.

  ‘I think not,’ Heron said, addressing Ferris. ‘I can hardly suppose that either Mr Twelvetrees
or his companion really knew, before they got here, just what questions were going to be asked, or why. I admit I had no wish to find these letters genuine. Even now I find it difficult to believe what this evidence appears to say. I have known you, Mr Ferris, for most of my life, and much as I deplore your religious views, I have always respected you. But it seems that, after all, you did receive instructions from Anne Percy of Northumberland to destroy Mrs Stannard and her manservant Roger Brockley. I cannot now avoid that conclusion. And from the time that you received this letter, the attempts to harm Mrs Stannard and Mr Brockley began. I can see the trail now, in Mr Parkes’ notes, like a line of footprints, leading on from that faint, grubby stain.’

  He picked up the letter to me once more and stared again at the dirty mark. ‘So very faint . . . and so telling.’ He was musing aloud.

  ‘This is all complete nonsense,’ Ferris shouted. ‘You can’t make so much out of a little smear of grime on a piece of paper!’

  ‘Here!’ said Twelvetrees indignantly. ‘Are you saying I can’t remember if I dropped a rolled-up letter in an inn yard or not, and what the smear looked like? I surely can. It’s the sort of thing I don’t like to happen, and if that if it does, it’ll stick in my mind. I tell you that’s the letter and that’s the smear.’

  ‘You would go into court and swear to that on the Bible?’ Heron asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Twelvetrees belligerently. ‘I would. And there’s plenty of folk in Norwich would give me a character and swear I’m no liar.’

  Brockley said: ‘I wish to make a request.’

  Heron turned to him. ‘Indeed? And what might that be?’

  ‘When Mistress Stannard and Mistress Jester were brought back here after the witnesses Mistress Cobbold and Master Emory were fetched,’ said Brockley, ‘they were escorted in by Maine here, and two other men. Those two aren’t here now. I’d like to see them again.’