Queen's Ransom

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  “There we are,” I said.

  Jenkinson said: “I can’t believe what I’ve just seen. Mistress Blanchard, who or what are you? Where did you learn how to . . . ?”

  “This is not the time to discuss my life history,” I said. “I was hard up and hard put to it to support life at court and also support my little daughter. Sir William Cecil offered to employ me to—make inquiries for him. I accepted. Gresham knows. He will vouch for me, just as he vouched for you.”

  “Sir William Cecil . . . ?”

  “Yes! Look, we can’t stand here on the landing stage all night, or until someone sees us and warns the watch. Come on!”

  “Lead the way, Mistress Blanchard! Longman, stay and guard the boats. Dear God. I never thought to see such a thing in my whole life! Do you carry lock picks with you all the time—a respectable young woman like you?”

  “Yes. And a dagger as well. Brockley lives in a constant state of scandalized amazement.” I pushed the door open. Beyond it was impenetrable darkness. Professional agent or not, I found it frightening. I was glad that Jenkinson was with me. “My work enables me to pay Brockley’s wages,” I said airily, forcing myself to a pretense of sangfroid, “but he doesn’t approve of the way I earn my living, not in the least. Where are the things we need? The lanterns, the tool bag, and the rest?”

  “Pass them up, Longman. But be careful. Keep in the shadows.”

  Stealthily, Longman handed up what we required. One of the lanterns had been lit before we started and carried in the bottom of Longman’s boat. Arming himself with this, Jenkinson moved boldly ahead of me into that terrifying blackness. Nervously, I followed him, closing the door after us. There were bolts on the inside. I shot them before we set about lighting the rest of the lanterns from the candle in the first.

  The light was a relief, driving back the shadows. It showed us that the ground level of the warehouse was big and open, supported by a few timber pillars, with stone walls all around. There was a door on the opposite side. “That gives on the street,” I whispered.

  Jenkinson crossed to look at it. Here, too, there were heavy bolts on the inside, and these had been shot home. “All secure,” he said, coming back to me. “We’ve been lucky. The last person to leave here must have gone out through the landing-stage door. We’d have been in trouble if whoever it was had used the street door and bolted the one we’ve just come in by. All the lock picks on earth wouldn’t have got us through it then. Ah. The place is in use, but there isn’t much here, all the same, which is fortunate.”

  He was right. There were racks of shelving along one wall, and some of the shelves held bales of cloth. But not many, and there were no racks or bales out on the floor.

  The owner must have rented the place out again when he learned that Gerald was dead, but whoever had taken it on was either doing poor business, or going through a lull between consignments.

  “We’ve been very lucky indeed,” I said, shaken by new and awful possibilities. “If those shelves were full of eastern brocades or unpolished diamonds, we might have had a welcome from a private army of watchmen, with a whole pack of guard dogs!”

  “Where now?” Jenkinson asked.

  “Here,” I said. “It’s on this level, under these very floorboards. I need to find Gerald’s mark.”

  Jenkinson used his lantern to scan the floor. “What sort of mark was it?”

  I managed a tremulous jest. “Well, he didn’t chalk Here Be Treasure on the floor! It was very small, and not quite in the middle of the room. Let me look.”

  Taking a lantern, I moved to and fro, stooping. I had watched Gerald make the mark, and he had told me what he was doing. “I’m drawing a triangle with the tip of a knife. A very small one, only an inch across. It won’t cause any comment if anyone notices it. Boards in timber yards get marked for all sorts of reasons—to identify the buyer, if he’s leaving the wood there to season, or even to set a trap if there’s been pilfering and someone is suspected. If the board is stolen, the suspect’s premises will be searched and a marked board can be recognized.”

  But what if the mark was gone? What if some of the boards had gone rotten and been replaced? What if . . . ?

  No. None of the floorboards were new and all the nailheads were brown with rust. Holding up the lantern, I saw that I had moved too far toward the rear wall. I came forward again, bumped into a timber support, and remembered that wherever the hiding place was, it hadn’t been close to a support. I moved away, lowering the lantern again to scan the floor. Then I saw it. It was dark now with ground-in dust; it had been easier to see when it was new. But it was there; a triangle, an inch across.

  “Got it,” I said.

  Jenkinson came over and squatted down. Opening the tool bag, he attacked the nails of the marked board, digging at the wood around the nailheads with a sharp awl, and then wrenching the nails out with a clawhead hammer, shuffling along the length of the board in order to deal with them all. Then he produced chisels, and kneeling beside him, I helped him lever the board up. As we laid it aside, we paused. We could hear the ring of nailed boots approaching along the street. The watch was on his way back, along the street side of the warehouses. We lowered our lanterns out of sight into the cavity, in case a gleam of light should show through any crevice, and waited, motionless, until the footsteps had gone past.

  Then we looked into the cavity to see what our lanterns had to show us.

  I had been right to think that it was too shallow for such bulky items as two-foot-high salts, but Gerald hadn’t let that worry him. Beneath the floorboards were joists, and below the joists was an older floor of cobbles. It must have been hard work, but Gerald and his servant, John Wilton, had dug some of the cobbles up to make a square hole with sufficient depth, and into this, several bulging sacks had been stuffed. To get at them, we had to shift two more floorboards. Then we hauled out the first sack. It was very heavy. Jenkinson cut the cord that tied its neck and we pulled out a linen-swathed object that we carefully unwrapped. A gold dish, elegantly chased around the rim and with a crested bird engraved in the middle, lay gleaming warmly in the lantern light.

  Jenkinson yanked out a second sack. This proved to contain what Gerald’s inventory had described as sundry small costly ornaments, total value approximately seven hundred pounds. I whispered this information to Jenkinson and we examined them together, concluding that they had been undervalued and were probably worth nearer to a thousand pounds than seven hundred. I had seen them before, once, but I had never handled them and had not remembered what they were like. They were in linen bags, some of which contained sets of pieces, all wrapped individually to keep them from abrading one another. The sets included several little gold figurines of pilgrims, and a lady’s toilet set of silver, crystal, and white jade, complete with silver manicure tools and three tortoiseshell combs.

  Other bags held a pretty gold box with an enameled pattern on the lid, a ruby pendant on a gold chain, a silver cup, small but exquisitely chased, and last of all, a chess set, the board made of polished woods, the chessmen of ivory, so intricately carved that when I picked one up to examine it closely, I gasped.

  “They’re so delicate!” I touched the chessmen gently, half afraid of damaging them.

  “Come on,” Jenkinson muttered, urging me on as earlier I had been urging him. “The watch will come back along the walkway eventually. Besides, Longman’s guarding the boats on his own.”

  From the direction of the bolted street door, there came a very faint sound. It just might have been someone stealthily testing the door. Crouched beside our lanterns, we froze, heads up like startled deer. From the other direction, from the waterway, came a splash of oars. “That’s just another rowing boat,” whispered Jenkinson. “But I think we should hurry.”

  We hurried, dragging out the last two sacks. Undoing the first of them, I saw the miniature turrets of the golden salt in the shape of a castle tower. I removed another fold of sacking and revealed the crested bird s
et in rubies. Jenkinson whistled softly, impressed. A swift look into the last sack showed us the scallop shell lid of the silver salt, slightly tarnished.

  “I think it’s all here,” I said. “Oh, how I wish we could just, simply—”

  “We’ll keep to our plan,” said Jenkinson. “It may be a needless precaution, but we should make certain. It isn’t far to the lodging, Ursula. We shall be back here and away again before daylight.”

  “If only we knew for sure if there was going to be an attempt. And how and when!”

  “If we knew all that, taking precautions would be easy,” Jenkinson pointed out. “As it is, we can only guess and hope for the best. Come on, now. Which of the small items shall we risk losing?”

  I made myself be businesslike. “We’ll hazard the toilet set and two of the figurines.” I set them aside, and began to put the other items back inside their sacks. Then I noticed that Jenkinson was watching me in a curious, covert fashion. “What’s the matter, Master Jenkinson? What’s wrong?”

  “Is it true—that you work for Cecil as . . . an agent?”

  “Yes.” I folded sacking tenderly around a golden turret. “But please, please treat it as a secret.”

  “That goes without saying. But—it’s not right. Not for someone like yourself.” Jenkinson was much in earnest. “You’re beautiful, you know.” He paused, sitting back on his heels and looking at me with frank appreciation. “Not in a voluptuous way like a tavern wench but . . . I have heard it said,” said Jenkinson, “that Queen Elizabeth has a spirit full of incantation. I had an audience with her once, and I know what was meant. I think there is incantation in you, too. Midnight hair and eyes that shift from green to dark and back again; there’s something magical about you.”

  “I have no magic,” I said. “I do what I do to support myself and my child. That’s all.”

  “But how many other young women in your position would do what you do? You’re so unexpected. You’re like a small, neat black cat, all softness and purrs one moment; but the next, it’s steel springs under the fur, needle claws, and glittering eyes. I was there when you hurled that pail of water over your henchman at Le Cheval d’Or, remember! And now you produce a set of lock picks! In a way, they add to your enchantment, but it is a dark enchantment. My very dear Ursula—for you have become dear to me, even though I am a married man and I have a wife I care for deeply, and have been parted from, perhaps, too long—my sweet Ursula, claws are natural to a cat, but are lock picks and fights in inn yards natural to you? So far they haven’t dimmed your beauty but one day they might. Do you realize that?”

  “Yes,” I said bleakly. I thought again of the man to whom I had given yew poison. But for that, Brockley would never have thought of bringing yew poison with us to France; and if he hadn’t, then Dale would not have been arrested and I would not now be crouching in an Antwerp warehouse, wrapping up treasure and shivering with dread. “I think,” I said, “that it has already dimmed my soul.”

  “Then change your way of life,” said Jenkinson. “You have a husband. Go to him. Or if you can’t do that, if you can’t live with him, then find a way to release yourself and take another husband. I am a man of the world, Mistress Blanchard—or De la Roche. My advice is worth having.”

  “Brockley has said much the same things.”

  “Brockley is no fool. He is probably,” said Jenkinson unexpectedly, “the type of man you should be married to.”

  “Oh, really!”

  “I know, he’s your manservant. But men of his stamp are to be found in other stations of life. I’ll say no more. For the moment, we’ve got to get out of here. Let’s set about it.”

  Rapidly, we finished our preparations and then went out to the landing stage, each of us carrying a sack. “Longman?” Jenkinson kept his voice low, but clear. “We’ve got it. Be ready to . . .”

  He stopped short. Longman was sitting in the boat. He was sitting very still indeed. This was because, on the stone jetty of the adjacent warehouse, only ten feet or so away, stood two men with crossbows, the bolts trained steadily on his heart.

  We could see all this quite easily, because the crossbowmen were not alone. Beside them, holding up a blazing flambeau, stood a bulky and authoritative figure. The light threw all the planes of his fleshy face into relief. Dr. Ignatius Wilkins. Of course.

  “Ah. Mistress de la Roche and Master Jenkinson.” Wilkins’s thick voice greeted us as sociably as though we had met at a reception. “Yes, I thought you would use the water entrance, though I do have a man watching the street door. Let me present my companions. They are retainers of the Abbey of St. Marc, graciously lent to me by the abbess to assist the cause of the true faith. They will be joining the Catholic army as soon as this little assignment is over.”

  The flambeau gave us a good view of the crossbowmen’s faces. I recognized them at once. So did Jenkinson. “Ah. The abbey riffraff we met at St. Marc’s. They looted the homes of some murdered citizens, Dr. Wilkins. Did you know?”

  “The fate of heretics, or their goods, is no concern of mine,” said Wilkins. “I have no complaint of my retainers.”

  I recalled that the abbess of St. Marc’s had said she intended to get rid of her deadwood. Wilkins, presumably, had given her the opportunity and she had taken it.

  I was too afraid to speak, but Jenkinson, still cool, said: “What is all this about? What do you want with us?”

  “The treasure you have come to collect, of course,” said Wilkins. “I have no intention of allowing that wicked woman, Frances Dale, to be ransomed. The treasure will go straight to the Catholic cause, and the woman Dale will burn. I have just heard you announce that you’ve found it—and those bags you have there are part of it, presumably. Thank you for retrieving it for me.”

  His voice was thickly pleased. We said nothing. Wilkins ordered Longman to get up to the landing stage and join us, and then spoke to one of the crossbowmen, who handed his weapon to Wilkins and then, unexpectedly, whistled a little tune. This must have been a signal, for a third man appeared from an alley between the two warehouses.

  “He’s the fellow who was keeping watch in the street,” Jenkinson said in my ear. “We heard him trying the street door.”

  “Attend to me!” Wilkins’s voice was pitched low but it was menacing. “Put those sacks down and step back from them. Then stand still, all three of you. The crossbows are now trained on you, Mistress de la Roche, but I hope we won’t have to shoot you. Even though you are disporting yourself in men’s clothes, which is deplorable. I suppose it is what one might expect of such a one as yourself.”

  We did as he bade us, and then stood there, facing the crossbows. Jenkinson spoke for the first time. “Don’t concern yourself, Dr. Wilkins. We shall give you no trouble. Frankly, the treasure’s not all that we hoped for.”

  “Indeed?” said Wilkins. He sounded faintly disconcerted. There was a question in his voice, which we didn’t choose to answer. “Well,” he said grimly,“we shall see.”

  The man who had whistled and the man he had summoned came around by the bank to our landing stage, collected our sacks, and loaded them into one of our boats. Then they went into the warehouse and emerged with the remaining sacks. They leered triumphantly at us as they passed us. “There’s a nice gold figurine at the top of this bag here!” one of them called to Wilkins. “The treasure’s not so poor as all that!”

  “I thought it might not be,” Wilkins said. “Well, get on with it. We’ve no time to waste.”

  “I’d like to kill that man Wilkins,” I muttered. “I’d like to see him lying dead at my feet, in a pool of blood.”

  “Don’t be so vindictive,” said Jenkinson. “They’d better hurry. They certainly don’t have time to waste. The watchman will be back very soon.”

  They did hurry. In a very few minutes, the last sack had been loaded. Then, while we watched in silent outrage, Wilkins’s men took both our boats and rowed them out to the middle of the canal, while Wilkins and
the crossbowman beside him, taking turns to cover us, went down into a boat that was moored by their own landing stage. As Wilkins passed his flambeau to the other man, it lit up the name of their craft. The Anna.

  “When we return to France,” I said in a choked voice, directing my words across the few yards of water between the two jetties, “I shall report this to Queen Catherine.”

  “I shall do so myself,” said Wilkins. “I shall donate the treasure to the Catholic cause, without strings. I doubt if Queen Catherine will raise any objection. It is a cause dear to her heart, whereas the death of a heretic servant is of no great moment to her. I do not fear you, which is why I am happy to let you live—to see the fate of Frances Dale—or perhaps I should call her Mistress Brockley. You will have to walk home, I fear.” He pointed back along the walkway. In the distance, we could see a bobbing light. “The watchman is coming back. He has taken his time. But I believe he sometimes stops at a house in Hoekstraat for a tankard of mulled ale. There’s a lady who makes him welcome, even in the middle of the night. Since Eve tempted Adam, woman has been a temptation and a peril unto men. I do not pity you, or your servant. Good night to you all.”

  The three of us watched him go, part of a small fleet that included our two boats. We would have to compensate Klara now, and the yard that had hired us the second craft.

  “Well, well. He’ll look so sweet with those tortoiseshell combs in his tonsure,” said Jenkinson cheerfully. He added: “There are plenty of small craft moored along the waterside. When the watch has gone past again, I’ll see if we can borrow a couple. But for the moment, we had better get out of sight. Come on. Back into the warehouse.”