Queen's Ransom

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  “Nonsense. People of position must have certain standards in the way they live, if they are to be respected by others,” said Marguerite. “The nuns taught you to read and write and embroider, Helene, but you must also learn how to recognize and value household goods of quality. I am certain that Madam Ursula will be able to advise you.”

  “As far as Persian carpets go, all this is very premature,” said Luke Blanchard dryly. “I have shares in the Muscovy Company, which is trying to set up this new agreement with the Shah, and I have some knowledge of the matter. The company sent a man called Anthony Jenkinson to Persia to negotiate last year and nothing has been heard of him since. But information has leaked out of Venice, to the effect that a group of Turkish and Venetian merchants have sworn that Jenkinson will not be allowed to get back to England. And so far, he hasn’t.”

  “Mon Dieu!” Marguerite exclaimed. “One thinks of merchants as serious men of business, not engaged in plots! Surely they are not planning to murder poor Master Jenkinson?”

  “There would be a lot of money at stake,” I said thoughtfully. “I remember hearing, last year, something about this scheme to set up direct trade with Persia. But it will take a lot of trade away from Turkey and Venice. They certainly won’t like it.”

  Helene raised her head and gazed at me in astonishment. Marguerite smiled.

  “Madame Blanchard is knowledgeable in the ways of the world, Helene, and it is in the world that you must live henceforth. Religion is not everything. Although in these days,” Marguerite added severely, “far too many people think it is. I never dreamed that here in France we would find ourselves at war over it.”

  Whereupon, Helene startled us with a sudden outburst.

  “But of course we are at war with heretics! My confessor used to say that heresy was the wickedest thing in the world and that the souls of heretics are cast into the eternal fire. For their own sakes and for the love of God, we must fight them. If I were a man—”

  “Helene, be quiet. A girl of sixteen does not speak so to her elders. I think,” said Marguerite, “that Madame Blanchard requires the sorrel sauce. Kindly pass it to her.”

  “If Helene were a man, she would be already in Paris, along with my brother Philippe, offering her sword to the cause as well,” Henri said. “However, you are not a man, Helene, nor are you likely to turn into one.”

  “Oh, it is all such a business.” Marguerite sounded exasperated. “We have even had to lay in stores of weapons and food in case of a siege!”

  “I, too, may have to go eventually,” Henri said. “Though I am holding back for a while, hoping that peace will be restored quickly. Philippe went because he has no household to protect and we decided that it was his duty. But we are civilized people and we detest these extreme attitudes.”

  Helene bent her head again and made no reply. I concentrated on my food. My sympathies were veering Marguerite’s way. Helene was an extremely irritating girl.

  My father-in-law began to talk to Helene about England and his home, Beechtrees, where Helene would live until her marriage. There was this much meadow and that much woodland; there was a nice little brown cob for Helene to ride; Ambrose’s wife was fond of hawking, with a merlin, and Helene could have one, too . . .

  Helene made polite, flat responses. There was a feeling of relief when the meal ended. Dusk was coming down as we rose from the table. Marguerite announced that a fire had been lit in a west-facing gallery. “It receives the last of the daylight. There is a spinet, and I will myself entertain you with music.”

  The maids had withdrawn to eat separately, but came to attend us at the gallery. Marguerite was served by a pretty young woman, very elegantly dressed, but Helene’s maid Jeanne was older, gaunt of build, and rather hard of feature, I thought, until I saw her smile as Helene came in. Here at least was one person who liked the girl and I was glad for Helene’s sake. But Jeanne, I knew, did not want to come to England. Helene would have to part from her, too, and make do with me.

  The evening had turned cool. There was a little flutter as seats were moved nearer to the hearth, and Marguerite called for candles to augment the sunset and light the music for the spinet. Henri, who had gone out briefly to take the air by the moat, came in again, glanced at me just as I had taken my seat, and scooped up a fat red cushion from a bench beside the door. He carried it over to me.

  “You will surely need another cushion on that settle, madame. That oak is very hard to sit upon. No, no, I will look after your mistress.” He waved a hovering Dale away. “If you would get up for just a moment, madame . . .”

  I stood up again and he said: “If I place it just so . . .” in a tone that obliged me to turn in order to see what he was doing. For a moment, we were facing the settle, our backs turned to the company, my farthingale brushing his hip. With one hand, he shook the crimson cushion and set it in place, and with the other, using my wide skirt as a shield, he slid a folded piece of paper into my grasp.

  “When I went out to take the air just now, madame,” he said quietly, as I sat down once more, “I met the youth from the inn at St. Marc, just coming across the bridge. I know him by sight. I asked him his errand and he said he had a note for you. I said I would take it and he was too much in awe of me to argue, but he begged me to give it to you discreetly. I promised, and I have kept my word. I ask no questions.” Henri gazed gravely down at me. “But I hope it is not political. If you need any help or advice from me, I will gladly give it.”

  I looked at it and my insides somersaulted. I felt the blood rush into my face. I tried to keep my voice steady as I said: “It is not political. It is from . . . an admirer.”

  “Oh, indeed! So the wind sits there! I should have guessed. Our French gallants are not backward and you are both charming and unattached. If I were not married already, I would just be sorry that someone else had got in ahead of me.”

  “That is a compliment. Thank you,” I said. I tried to sound gracious and I smiled as I spoke, but there was turmoil within me.

  For the writing on the letter was like the sweep of a sword, cutting me away from the civil war, the strange behavior of Luke Blanchard, Queen Elizabeth’s letter. I still knew that they existed, but I could no longer see them or feel them. I could see only my name, in that familiar writing.

  The letter was addressed, wisely, to Madame Blanchard. But the writing was that of my estranged husband, Matthew de la Roche.

  7

  Rendezvous

  “Le Cheval d’Or, madam?” said Brockley. “You wish me to escort you there? And without Master Ryder or the Dodd brothers?”

  “That dreadful place, ma’am!” said Dale fervently. “I thought we’d seen the back of it for good. What’s wrong with here?”

  “Well, as to that,” said Brockley, “there’s a fair amount wrong with here. A popish abbey is no place to be with a religious war on the point of breaking out. If Master Blanchard had said that Mistress Helene could have her way and visit her old friends at St. Marc’s once more, that would have been his business. But for you to urge it, madam, when you’ve said over and over that we should make haste to Paris; and even to offer to bring her without Master Blanchard—well, I said at the time that I couldn’t understand it!” He had, at length. “And now this!” he said. “This, on top of all else!”

  “If you will let me finish, and not interrupt,” I said, “you may begin to understand!”

  At Douceaix, I had said that I saw no reason why Helene should not make a last visit to the Abbey of St. Marc. There was no unrest in the immediate area, and I had pointed out to Luke Blanchard that I wished to make friends with Helene and that this might help me to do so. I had also urged him to remain at Douceaix himself “to make sure you are completely recovered from your illness, dear father-in-law, before we take the road again.”

  So despite the religious conflict and the amount of Huguenot influence in the area, here we were in the guest house of St. Marc’s Abbey: myself, the Brockleys, Helene and J
eanne, and Cecil’s three men, Ryder and the Dodds.

  But my wish to return to St. Marc had had nothing to do with Helene, who was merely an excuse; and my wish, now that we were here, to pay a visit to Le Cheval d’Or had nothing to do with the amenities or the safety of either hostelry or abbey. I looked exasperatedly at my two servants. They were loyal and at times very brave, but now and then I longed to seize them, in turn, by the shoulders and shake them. They were lamentably ready to conclude that I was an idiot.

  True, I sometimes felt sorry for Dale. Dale should have been married early and settled into a home of her own where she could rear a family and devote herself to stillroom and linen cupboard. Brockley had given her marriage, but the life they led with me was completely unnatural to her. No wonder she sometimes found me incomprehensible.

  Brockley, though, should have known better. He respected me, both as an employer and also as one of Cecil’s agents, for I had proved myself in that capacity and he well knew it. But Brockley had grown up with certain attitudes about ladies. He considered, at heart, that we should be protected at all times. He deplored my insistence that both Dale and I should have our own mounts, instead of riding respectably on a man’s pillion. He never forgot that he was the manservant and I paid his wages, but he also believed that as he was a man and I wasn’t, I ought to attend to his advice.

  He had advised me against coming back to St. Marc and been ignored; now he was hardly prepared to listen to my explanations about Le Cheval d’Or at all.

  “I don’t want to speak out of turn in any way, madam . . .”

  “I’m sure you don’t, Brockley.” He always said something like that before speaking very thoroughly out of turn. It was a reliable prelude to criticism.

  “. . . but have you forgotten, madam, that the landlord of that inn threatened to kill you?”

  “He didn’t know who I was. He was protecting Matthew de la Roche. But he won’t harm me if Matthew himself is there to vouch for me. I’m going there to meet my husband.”

  They stared at me. Dale’s jaw sagged. A frown creased Brockley’s high forehead.

  “To . . . meet . . . ?” Dale began.

  “Yes. I’ve had a letter.”

  I didn’t produce it. It was in French, anyway, and neither of them could have understood it. But if I wanted to quote it from memory, I could, for I could remember every word of the few letters Matthew had sent me.

  To my wife, Ursula:

  Greetings. I have heard that you are in France, in fact at St. Marc, and asking after me. If you had not asked after me, nothing would have made me write to you. But you did ask, and I know that although you abandoned me last year, you also did your best to save my life and that I might have been taken but for you. You still have some feeling for me, it seems.

  And now you are here in France and inquiring after my health. I ask myself what this means. Why have you come to my country at this time of trouble? Do you wish to see me? If so, I will be at Le Cheval d’Or, using the name of Mark Lenoir, from sixth April to the morning of the tenth. Charpentier knows who I really am. It was from him that I learned of your visit to St. Marc and that you are going onto a place called Douceaix. I am sending this letter by way of Le Cheval d’Or. If you have already left, Charpentier will send a messenger after you. Do you wish to see me, my Saltspoon? If so, come.

  Matthew de la Roche

  “It could be a trick,” said Brockley. “That’s happened before.”

  “I know.” I had once been fooled in the past, by a forged letter purporting to come from Matthew. “But this is no forgery,” I said. “The writing is his. It looked odd, that other time, and this does not. Also, it uses a . . . a secret name that he has for me.”

  “He could have told someone else about that,” said Brockley. “Master Blanchard, perhaps. Master Blanchard’s been behaving very oddly.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Oh, my father-in-law may know of Matthew’s existence. Ryder and his men know, and Cecil may have told Master Blanchard as well. But whatever it is Master Blanchard is up to—and yes, I fear he may well be up to something—I can’t see that it’s connected to this.

  “I don’t wish to pry, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you two have secret, private names for each other, names whispered only in the dark. Would you tell anyone else about them?”

  Dale went pink and Brockley cleared his throat. “No, madam. No. I see.”

  Saltspoon. Matthew had named me that because of my sharp tongue. He liked it, he said, because he liked a little salt on his dinner. That first forged letter had not used the name. Its presence this time was a seal of authenticity.

  “So,” I said, “I repeat. I wish to go to the inn this evening with you as escort, Brockley. We may hope to find Matthew there.”

  “And how,” said Brockley, capitulating but with obviously bad grace, “will you explain to Mistress Helene why you aren’t at supper?”

  “Helene,” I said, “is all taken up with her old friends and her confessor. If she asks—or if any of the men ask—Dale can say that I am tired and remaining in my room. The men will not intrude and I doubt, frankly, whether Helene will notice whether I’m here or not!”

  We left at dusk to walk across the cobbled square to the inn. There was a surprisingly raucous noise from the quarters of the abbey retainers, and I waited until it had faded behind us before I said to my tight-lipped companion: “Brockley, this isn’t intrigue. This is a rendezvous with my husband, that’s all.”

  “All? It’s near enough to intrigue to worry me,” Brockley said. “Madam, may I speak frankly?”

  “You usually do, anyway! Very well, what is it?”

  “You’re playing with fire. You have parted from Master de la Roche twice, but it seems that you can’t make a final break. You come to France and at once you ask after him; he whistles, and you run to him. This on-and-off business can be good for neither of you. Sooner or later you must make a final choice and abide by it. He must be suffering, too. I am a man myself. Do you think we have no feelings?”

  “Good God, Brockley.” I stopped short in the middle of the twilit square and faced him. “Of course I don’t think that. But—”

  “But what, madam? Why are you going to meet him if you don’t mean anything by it?”

  “I don’t know what I mean by it,” I said helplessly. Qualms that I had been resolutely ignoring snapped at my heels. “I only know that I must go.” A motive crystallized in my mind. “If only to say good-bye properly! It was hardly a proper farewell last time, if you remember. It was a frantic decision, with a fight going on and armed men all over the place and Matthew in desperate danger. I think that’s it, Brockley. I want to say good-bye properly.”

  “Very well, madam. But please take care. If this isn’t a snare laid by someone else, it could be a trap set by Master de la Roche himself. You are in his country and you are legally his wife. What if he just means to take you home with him? Am I supposed to fight him off?” Momentarily, he rested his hand on the hilt of the sword at his side.

  “No. As a matter of fact,” I said, finding some relief in admitting it, “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. I’m afraid as much as excited. But I have to take the risk. I’ve left the letter that I am to deliver in Paris, and my letter of introduction, behind at the abbey, with Dale. If anything happens to stop me from coming to Paris, then will you see that the letter to Queen Catherine reaches her? Carry it to Paris and hand it to the English ambassador Sir Nicholas Throckmorton.”

  “Forgive me, madam. But I think you may have taken leave of your senses.”

  I didn’t point out that I could dismiss him for that. I wouldn’t do anything of the kind, and he knew it. For one thing, I needed someone like Brockley in my service, and for another thing, annoying as he could be, he was a comfort, too. My qualms were getting worse. I even looked over my shoulder, as though once again, someone might be following me. There were a few people about in the darkening square, but I saw no
one suspicious.

  “What is it, madam?” Brockley asked, also glancing back.

  “My imagination,” I said.

  Le Cheval d’Or had quite a welcoming air. Lamps had been lit and hung on the walls, and the door was open. Customers were going in and out. We were held up at the door as a young man emerged to join a middle-aged one, possibly his father, who was apparently waiting for him in the entrance.

  The two of them blocked the door entirely for a moment while the elder man impatiently demanded to know the outcome of some errand or other. They were not locals; from their sun-browned faces and the cut of their clothes, they hailed from somewhere in the south.

  I looked at them thoughtfully. I knew that the south of France, beyond the Loire and the Huguenot territory, was strongly Catholic. In these times, men were indeed on the move, as Charpentier had remarked. These two might well be on their way to join the government forces in Paris. St. Marc, a pocket of Catholicism in a district full of Huguenot influence, would be a natural place for them to stay en route.

  They moved aside when they realized that we wanted to pass, and at last we got ourselves inside. There was a door to the left of the entrance lobby, leading into a public room with a log fire, and numerous trestle tables with benches. Glancing through, I saw that the place was full, mostly, I thought, with local men from St. Marc, although the ersatz Netherlands merchant, Van Weede, was there, sitting with his elbows on a table and a tankard beside him, in earnest talk with two other men; a tall, lean fellow, and a shorter, burly one.

  Brockley touched my arm, and Charpentier’s voice said quietly: “Madame de la Roche.” I turned, and the innkeeper was beside me. “I must make my apologies, madame, for my mistake when you asked after your husband,” Charpentier said. “But you were too discreet to tell me and how could I have guessed? He is here and awaits you. Will you follow me? Your man . . .”