The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries)

by Buckley, Fiona

  CHAPTER 20

  A Candle in the Dawn

  I was by now feeling very ill. Nothing seemed real, and my mind was skidding as though it had lost its footing on ice. I remember that as Matthew sprang to the parlour door and opened it to see what was happening, I tried, for no good reason, to invent a stupid pun about lock-picks and pick axes. Then the street window fell inwards and my rescuers started clambering through.

  “Fight!” roared Wilkins, and rising massively to his feet, snatched up a stool and dashed past Matthew, out into the shop. Through the open door, by the faint light of dawn as it came through the smashed window, I saw him drive the legs of the stool at the first man over the sill. He had guts in a way, I thought hazily.

  Wilkins, however, was thrust back, and a split second later, the parlour emptied as Wylie, Mew and Matthew also rushed out to fight. Brockley went after them, unhindered, shouting to Rob Henderson. I stumbled to the door. Beside it hung a heavy curtain, used, I suppose, to keep out draughts. Clinging to this, I watched the shop disintegrate in a storm of violence.

  It was noisy: shouts, gasps, cries; Wylie cursing obscenely as he laid about him with his cudgel; the clash of swordblades; the scuffling of feet; the tinkle and crash of destruction. A clock which had been taken apart and laid out in pieces on the counter, was swept to the floor in a shower of glass splinters and little metal wheels and rods, which were instantly crunched to shards beneath furious booted feet. A careless sword-slash glanced off the pale blue face of the big ornate clock by the staircase, giving it a dent like a silly grin. Another blade caught the machinery below, setting it a-jangle and starting the clock chimes off to add to the uproar.

  I couldn’t tell how many men Rob had, but there seemed to be hordes of them, all helmeted, all wielding swords. The conspirators were outnumbered, but they fought with a rage which was astounding. Wilkins, who despite weight and age was remarkably agile, tried to escape through what seemed to be the door to the kitchen. He came out again almost at once, backwards, with two men after him, presumably the ones who had been in the garden and had now forced an entry through the back door. Wilkins had made good use of his few seconds in the kitchen, however: he had dropped his stool and now held a knife in one hand and a broken glass tumbler in the other, its jagged edges as lethal as a handful of daggers.

  Brockley had got hold of a sword, and was trying to get at Wylie with it. I saw Wylie’s cudgel smash the jaw of one of Rob’s men, laying him flat on the littered floor. Splashes of blood joined the bits of broken clock underfoot.

  Mew, whose name now seemed weirdly appropriate, since he was uttering strange, shrill noises like the cries of a distressed cat, had got behind the counter and was attempting to keep the enemy off with his dagger. He seemed as upset about the danger to his stock as to himself, and when one of Rob’s retainers bounded over the counter, swiped at Mew with his sword, missed and swept a row of clocks off a shelf instead, Barnabas yowled as loudly as though the sword had bitten into his own body. He also closed with his adversary, stabbing with the dagger, and it was the retainer who suddenly dropped his weapon and doubled up and then slid to the floor.

  Wilkins attacked someone, horribly, in the face with the jagged glass. I heard the scream and saw the blood spurt and then saw Wilkins’ knife go home. The scream crescendoed and then faded as the victim slumped. Wilkins stooped and grabbed the man’s sword. Brockley appeared from the mêlée, and attacked Wilkins, but was driven back. The detestable Ignatius had obviously been trained in the arts of war.

  Then, from the midst of the confusion, Rob and Matthew appeared, engaged in a one-to-one duel. I cried out in fear for them both and they heard me.

  “Get back! Out of harm’s way!” Rob shouted, and in a weird moment of agreement with his enemy, Matthew echoed him. A sword hissed frighteningly close to me, proving their point, and I jumped back, just as someone barged into Rob and knocked him aside, away from Matthew. Matthew seized the brief respite to swing round and slam the parlour door, leaving me inside.

  My head was red hot. Suddenly, my stomach heaved. I staggered across the room, wrenched back the window curtains and opened the window, and was sick over the sill. I leant there for a few seconds, and then, forcing my leaden legs to work, I reeled back to the door and opened it again.

  The scene had changed: Mew had been seized and two of Rob’s men were binding his hands, and Wylie was dead, lying on his back on the floor, eyes glassily fixed. Wilkins, backed against a nearby wall, was still holding off attack, using his sword like a veteran, and Matthew and Rob were still locked into their duel. Matthew shouted at me once again to get out of the way, back into the parlour.

  “Come in here, Matthew!” I shouted back. “Come this way! Quickly!” I opened the door wider and flattened myself against it. “It’s your only chance! Hurry, hurry!”

  He understood what I meant, shifted ground, and jumped through into the parlour, but Rob was too hot after him, and when I tried to shut the door between them, Rob’s foot struck out and knocked it wide again. They were both in there, swords striking this way and that in a space much too confined for them, points scraping the low ceiling and scoring the panelling, feet tripping on rugs.

  I snatched a triple candlestick off the table just before they overturned it, and blew out the candles. It made no difference to the light, for now the dawn was growing strongly. There were other candles in wall sconces, and a second triple candlestick on a shelf, all alight but with their flames growing faint in the daybreak. So far, the swords had missed them. They had also, so far, missed me, and as I ducked away from them, I could only hope my luck would last. I tried to reach the doorway, but was pushed back as Wilkins, scarlet faced, gasping and streaming with sweat, came in crabwise, holding off a swordsman. He crashed the door shut in his enemy’s face. It had a bolt on the inside and he shot it. He leant against the door, gulping for air and rubbing a sleeve across his soaked forehead. His knife and broken glass were both gone, but his sword was smeared with blood.

  Crouched by the wall, I shouted to Rob and Matthew to stop, but they couldn’t hear me, or if they did they ignored me. Black spots danced before my aching eyes and I knew that I was crying. Matthew was my husband and Rob was my friend and rescuer; I didn’t want either of them killed, but there was nothing I could do.

  At least, there was, but I didn’t think of it. Ignatius Wilkins, however, did. Though still gasping for breath, he caught hold of the heavy curtain beside the door and used his sword to hack it free. Then he stepped forward, threw the curtain over Rob’s head and neatly tripped him up.

  “No!” I screamed, as Rob crashed to the ground and Wilkins raised his sword. I threw myself forward and landed on top of Rob. “Leave him alone!”

  “Ursula, get up!” Matthew caught my arm and tried to drag me to my feet.

  I resisted, holding on to Rob with all my strength. “You’ll kill him and I won’t let you!”

  “I don’t kill helpless men wrapped up in curtains!” barked Matthew. “Get up and let him up as well.”

  “No! I don’t want either of you hurt!” I shrieked into Matthew’s face, and jerked my arm away.

  “I’m your husband! Do as I say!”

  “This man came to save me! Don’t you understand?”

  “Drag her off,” said Wilkins angrily. “I’ll finish him if you won’t, Matthew! I’ve no time for chivalrous airs.”

  “You had no right to interfere in my fight!” Matthew snapped. “You interfere too much! Stand back!”

  Someone was beating on the door. Brockley’s voice demanded to know what was happening in there.

  “I’m safe, Brockley, I’m safe!” I shouted. “Leave me be! Don’t try to come in!” I heard an argument break out on the other side of the door as I got shakily to my feet, trying to fight off another wave of nausea. “Matthew,” I said urgently, “the window’s open and I don’t see anyone in the garden. Can’t we get away? If we go now, quickly . . .”

  “Help me
tie him!” Matthew said brusquely to Wilkins. “Tie him, not kill him. Do as I say!” Rob, cursing in muffled tones, had almost struggled free of the curtain. They knelt on him together, turning him on to his face, while Matthew, producing a belt knife, slashed at the curtain and then used his teeth to tear a couple of strips from it.

  Rob, resisting furiously but vainly as they secured his hands and feet, saw me and demanded, “Is this your husband—is this de la Roche?”

  “Yes, Rob.” They weren’t going to kill him. It would be all right. In a moment, I would be away with Matthew. I’d have to put up with Wilkins as well, but go to France with Matthew I would. “Rob, thank you for coming—God bless you for coming—but I must go with Matthew. He is my husband. My place is with him. I’m going to France. I’m sorry. You’ve got the others. Make sure you look in the basement. The door to it is in the office . . .”

  “You can’t do this, Ursula!” Rob shouted. “Are you out of your wits? You can’t go with him! These men are traitors!”

  “Quiet, you!” said Wilkins, jerking a knot tight.

  “Open this door!” Someone outside, not Brockley, was demanding entry. “Open, I say!”

  “In here, hurry, hurry!” Rob yelled.

  “I said, be quiet!” Wilkins snarled, and gave Rob an open-handed blow on the side of the head. I caught at Wilkins’ wrist, shouting at him again to leave Rob alone, but he shook me off. “Mind your own business! Must she come with us, Matthew? If ever this were proof that women are a snare and a temptation to men . . .”

  “Ursula!” Rob raged. “You can’t go with them! Think!”

  “I already have,” I said, wondering how, feeling as I did, I would even get out of the window and reach the horses in their shed across the alley, let alone climb into a saddle and ride for my life. I wanted to lie down and die.

  Outside the door, Brockley was shouting my name again and somebody else was threatening to break the door down. I shouted once more that I was safe, let me be!

  Matthew said, “There’s no time to lose. Come on, Ursula. Come on, Ignatius!”

  “What about your daughter?” Rob demanded from the floor. “What about Meg? I won’t let her go, Ursula! Nor will the Queen! You can’t take her to live with enemies of the realm!”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Matthew to me. “We’ll find a way. I promise. I promise! Come on!”

  Something crashed into the door. Wilkins had tightened the last knot on Rob’s bonds and was already at the window, with a knee on the sill. Matthew caught my hand and pulled me towards the window too.

  I meant to go with him, I swear it. What happened next is a mystery. Did God command me, or something deep in my own mind? I do not know. Most people believe in God—after all, who or what made the world?—but sometimes I have wondered. We are taught to pray and told that our prayers are heard, but are they?

  When Gerald fell ill with smallpox, I prayed for his life, and so did he, but what did it avail us? Afterwards, when Sir Thomas Gresham’s chaplain came to offer me spiritual comfort, I asked what sort of deity had let my husband die like that, while he was still young and Meg and I needed him? The chaplain had said that there must be a purpose and I must have faith. I would have preferred an explanation. We are given no reasons for our suffering, but still we suffer. So, when later on I described what happened next to a vicar—Dr. Forrest, as a matter of fact—and he said that God must have moved me, I had my doubts. I have them still, but the mystery remains.

  As Matthew pulled me across the room, I stumbled on a rucked-up rug, and with my free hand I caught for support at the shelf which held the second triple candlestick, knocking the candlestick to the floor. As it fell, the flame caught the edge of the one cheap wallhanging, and a line of red licked up. Snatching my hand away from Matthew, I clapped the smouldering edge between my palms.

  Why did I do such a thing? At my feet lay the rug which had tripped me. I could have caught that up to muffle the fire. I did not need to use my bare hands. They put out the little flame at once, but my palms were seared as they did so, and I jumped back, crying out in fright and pain.

  For a few seconds, everything stopped. In those seconds, the door was attacked once more with some kind of ram, and once more I shouted to the men out there to stop. In those seconds, too, I looked at Ignatius Wilkins, half in and half out of the window, struggling with his gown, which had caught on something, and I thought of the weaver and his daughter: their faces, which Rob had seen through the smoke, and their screams, which had pursued him as he tried to get away. I remembered, yet again, the ghastly description of a burning, to which Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha had made me listen.

  Such thoughts, such memories, reduced even my feelings for Matthew to the trivial. If he were prepared to bring that back, to consign not traitors or murderers, but honest men and women to death by flame, simply because they would not believe what he believed, then . . .

  “I can’t go!” I gasped to Matthew. “I can’t, I can’t. Don’t ask me! Go on your own! Save yourself! Quickly, quickly! I can’t come to France, I’m sorry but I can’t.”

  “What? Ursula? But . . . ?”

  “You’re her man!” I wailed. “That damned Stuart woman! If she ever comes here as queen, people would die at the stake again and you know it.” I pointed at Wilkins. “And he’d send them there! Go, Matthew, go!”

  Outside the door, there had been one brief pause, but now the battering ram had begun again. There was no more time.

  “God damn you,” said Matthew. He spoke quietly, but his voice shook with anger. “You’ve betrayed me twice!”

  “No, I haven’t.” The tears were pouring down my face. “I want to save you. You know that. You know that. Go! Go!”

  He turned away, heaved Wilkins unceremoniously over the sill into the garden, and scrambled out after him. The garden, misty and silvered with ground frost, was mercifully still empty. No one had thought to go round again and guard the way out through the parlour window. Few people are completely efficient in moments of great excitement, and Rob and his men, thank goodness, were among the majority.

  I watched Matthew and Wilkins run down the garden; saw them struggle briefly with the bolts of the gate and then disappear through it. He was gone. My husband was gone. I would not see him again—of that I could be sure. I had made my choice.

  I gave him what chance I could. Once more I cried out to my would-be rescuers that I was all right and they were not to break down the door. I prevented Rob from contradicting me by putting my hand over his mouth. But my voice was full of tears, from grief and the pain of my hands, and Brockley, hearing it, demanded to know what was the matter. Somebody else shouted, “For God’s sake, let’s get in and find out!” and with that, the ramming grew heavier.

  The parlour door was stout, but no door could have withstood such an attack for long. When it gave way under the onslaught from what turned out to be a kitchen bench, I was kneeling at Rob’s side, pulling his bonds loose, not very skilfully because I was weeping too much to see what I was doing.

  I remember thinking, absurdly, that it was frosty outside and hoping that Matthew’s doublet would keep him warm enough. He had no cloak.

  Not until Brockley took hold of me and lifted me to my feet did I realise that my headache had suddenly, miraculously gone.

  CHAPTER 21

  Engaging a Craftsman

  After that, came all the explanations and the business of coping with the aftermath of violence. Two of Rob’s men had been killed, as well as Wylie, and others were hurt. A neighbour had called the parish constable, who arrived in haste to find out what the affray was about. He was astounded to find himself in a clockmaker’s shop which looked as though it had been sacked by Attila the Hun in person, and had a basement full of counterfeit coinage.

  The constable and Rob knew each other, however, for as a friend of the Cecils, Rob had been to civic functions at Windsor Castle and the two of them had met before. They co-operated well. To
o well for my peace of mind, in fact, for despite my pleas, Rob told him to start a hue and cry after Matthew and Wilkins.

  “I shouldn’t worry,” said Brockley comfortingly. He had held me against his shoulder while I cried myself out, and he was now dressing my seared palms with butter and bandages made of torn-up sheeting from one of the bedchambers. “Your husband’ll be well away by now, and that mist out there is turning into a proper thick river fog. I doubt they’ll even be sighted, let alone caught.”

  Meanwhile, the spotty apprentice Timothy and the maidservant, who both apparently lived out, had presented themselves for work, bewildered to find a crowd in the street outside. They were nearly arrested, except that Rob could see that they were scarcely out of childhood and quite innocent. He wouldn’t allow it, though he said they must hold themselves ready for questioning.

  The house was put under guard, the bodies removed, the injured men taken to the castle to be doctored. Ale and food were found in the kitchen so that we could have breakfast of a sort. Someone had discovered a silver music box under the shop counter, and brought it into the kitchen for us to see. It was in good working order.

  “I want to speak to Mew,” I said.

  Mew had been bound and dumped on the floor of the shop. He was able to use his bound hands to hold food and a beaker, and someone had given him something to eat and drink, but he hadn’t taken much of it. His small, compressed features were dirty and very pale, and there were tears in his eyes as he looked up at me.

  “That silver musical box?” he said, resentfully. “I was making that for myself. Well, I shan’t want it now. Take it! Why not? It’s about the only thing in the shop that hasn’t been broken. All my lovely clocks, all my handiwork. It’s not right.”

  My palms still hurt badly and this did my temper no good. “I didn’t think an arrow out of the undergrowth was altogether right, either,” I said. “Nor a poisoned bedtime drink. I’ll take the musical box, but as I’m honest, I’ll pay for it. I’ll leave the money in your office. It will be good coin and the shop will be under guard. Your heirs will get the money in the end, or else the crown treasury.”