To Shield the Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  Even if my companions had arrived with fast horses, on which we might yet reach Cumnor in time, I would still have turned back to Abingdon rather than say to them, “I think the danger lies in Sir Richard Verney.”

  Verney was Dudley’s man, and if they believed me at all, they would have shouted to the skies that behind the threat to Amy were Dudley and the queen.

  If what I feared were true, they might well come to that conclusion anyway, in the end, but I did not intend to be a part of it.

  For as I stood there, a small cold voice was speaking in my mind.

  Imagine Elizabeth discredited, while Lady Catherine Grey and Mary Stuart fight over her crown. Imagine civil war let loose.

  Imagine Mary Stuart triumphant, a Catholic queen on England’s throne. Remember what our last Catholic sovereign, Mary Tudor, did to heretics.

  It may happen anyway but do you want to make it sure? Do you, Ursula, want to be the one who sets off the explosive and blows the frail new peace of the realm to ruin?

  If I deserted Amy in my mind, and perhaps I did, it was not for personal gain but for the sake of England, although a part of me still longs to ask for her forgiveness.

  I did not try to make any of them understand just why I had wanted so desperately to return to Cumnor. I merely shrugged. “We’ll go back to Abingdon,” I said. “If I can walk that far, that is.”

  • • •

  Walking seemed to improve my ankle further, but once back in the town, I sat down outside a tavern and stayed there for the whole afternoon. Pinto and Dale remained with me, sulking at each other, and Bowes wandered off. Brockley, though, fetched us cakes and cider from the inn, and although he went to see more of the fair, he came back several times to ask if I were all right. Later on, Bowes reappeared and between them, he and Brockley got our little party a lift most of the way back in a wagon which had brought a Cumnor tenant and his family to the fair.

  We were home ahead of anyone else. As we made our way up the track from the gatehouse, I saw with disquiet that one or more horses had passed that way much more recently than the morning. I did not draw attention to it.

  In the courtyard, the dogs frisked to greet us. We separated, Bowes going to Forster’s wing and Brockley to the stableyard. Pinto, Dale and I went in a silent and ill-tempered group to Amy’s entrance.

  She was there at the foot of the staircase, a sad, huddled heap. She did not look as though she had been thrown down the stairs, for her clothing was perfectly tidy, white headdress neatly in place, the russet taffeta skirts of her Sunday gown decently disposed. She seemed oddly small, no bigger than a child. Her head was twisted at a frightening angle and her eyes were open and blank. She was quite dead.

  • • •

  Tragedy and farce have a way of mixing themselves up. In our grief and horror, we lost our dignity completely. Pinto sat down on the floor and had hysterics, Dale slapped her and I swore at them both. Then, leaving them to it, I hurried, still limping, out across the courtyard to the Forster wing, and was promptly accosted again by the dogs, barking and prancing, apparently under the impression that the excitement they had sensed was some kind of game.

  Hearing the disturbance, Brockley ran from the stableyard. “Take these damn dogs away!” I shouted. I hobbled into the cloister and through the Forster entrance, calling for Mrs. Odingsell in a voice urgent enough to bring her at once, with Bowes on her heels. Briefly and breathlessly, I told them what had happened. Bowes at once sped off to the scene. Mrs. Odingsell took my arm, led me into a sitting room and sat me down on a settle, and with an unusual air of human sympathy, brought me a goblet of wine.

  “Drink that. You’re very shaken. Now then, say it again, slowly. You have found Lady Dudley lying at the foot of her staircase? You’re sure she isn’t just in a swoon?”

  “Quite sure,” I said, shuddering, remembering the ghastly, unnatural angle of Amy’s neck. I gulped at the wine, and asked the obvious question, which someone else would ask even if I didn’t. “Mrs. Odingsell, has anyone been here this afternoon?”

  “Not that I know of. I was reading the Bible in my room, but I should have heard if there were callers. The dogs would have barked. The whole day has been very quiet.”

  Her cold grey eyes met mine. She was lying; I knew that perfectly well. Someone had ridden in or out very recently. The droppings on the track from the gatehouse had been fresh, and all the grooms, and Forster, were in Abingdon. And yes, the dogs would have barked, and from any room overlooking the courtyard, as her chamber did, one would hear the clatter of hoofs when someone arrived on horseback.

  “I will come over to Lady Dudley’s wing with you, but finish your wine first,” she said. “I feel sure that this is just a dreadful accident. Lady Dudley’s health was poor. She could have felt dizzy and fallen, or perhaps—well, she has had her fits of despair. I told her once that she should trust in God, and she said to me, quite angrily and very shockingly, that she had tried and God had failed her. One can only hope that she has done nothing foolish. But we should remember that there are worse scandals than suicide. If any really shocking scandal should attach to this sad death, it would be very terrible, and not just for this house and for Sir Robin as her husband. It would be terrible on a far greater scale than that. Do you understand me?”

  I didn’t then, and don’t now, think Mrs. Odingsell would ever have been party to a homicide if she knew about it in advance. But afterwards, when the dead were dead and could not be restored to life? In that case, I thought, Mrs. Odingsell, the ardent Protestant, might well be party to anything that would keep the door of England’s throne room firmly shut in the face of Mary Stuart.

  “Oh yes. I understand,” I said wearily.

  • • •

  The rest of the household began to return from Abingdon shortly after that. Mr. Forster arrived and was all horror and outrage, sending Bowes off at once to ride to court and find Dudley. Poor Bowes was barely allowed time for a bite of food. “Get as far as you can tonight but reach Sir Robin tomorrow without fail,” Forster said. “The court is at Windsor.”

  I wished I’d known that when I sent John off, and wondered anxiously when he would come back. He would have had to find the court and then go on to Sussex. Today was Sunday and he might return by Wednesday, but not, I thought, before. I shouldn’t have sent him to Sussex as well, I said angrily to myself. However, the moment I used Meg as an excuse for wanting to write a letter, I had known that I wanted desperately to hear news of my daughter. I had seized the opportunity. And I doubted whether it would have saved Amy, even if Cecil had replied by immediate messenger. Perhaps it had made no difference after all.

  Meanwhile, Forster had ordered Amy to be carried to her room and laid upon her bed. Everyone was distracted. Even the indolent Mrs. Owen, who apparently had dined with Amy and then gone back to her part of the house to sleep all afternoon and was only woken by the sound of Pinto’s hysterics, was very upset, while Pinto just cried on and on, most pitifully.

  Dale berated her for saying that I meant harm to Lady Dudley when, if only I had been allowed to stay with her, I might have prevented the tragedy. Pinto agreed, and clung to me, begging forgiveness, which in a way was nearly as upsetting as her accusations. I had longed for them to cease, but not like this.

  We had a haphazard supper which no one wanted to eat, and we went to bed although I doubt if any of us slept well.

  • • •

  The following morning, no one really knew what to do with themselves. Pinto wouldn’t eat and kept on crying. While Dale and I were toying with our breakfast pottage, Forster and Mrs. Odingsell brought us an early visitor.

  “Master Blount!” I exclaimed, starting to my feet.

  It was indeed Dudley’s cousin by marriage, Thomas Blount, neatly dressed with a sword at his side, but unattended, in his unpretentious way.

  He knew of the tragedy already, from the landlord of an Abingdon inn where he had slept the previous night. Bowes, who must have
passed him on the road, had called at the inn for a cup of ale (“I told him to make all the haste he could; he had no right to waste his time like that! He’d better not charge that ale to his expenses!” Forster barked) and told the landlord of Amy’s death.

  “It was too late then to ride on to Cumnor,” Blount said, as we took him up to see Amy, “but I set out at dawn this morning. So it’s really true. Oh, poor soul, poor soul. I was on my way to see her. Her husband wanted me to bring some money to Cumnor. I have it with me.”

  “I’ll take charge of it, Mr. Blount,” said Forster, predictably.

  I hated Dudley at that moment. He had plotted his wife’s death, I thought, made use of me as a shield, and cynically sent money for Amy just at the time when his hired murderers were putting an end to her. I had no doubt of his guilt and only prayed that Elizabeth might not share it. Whether she did or not, her interests and those of the realm were the same, and for that reason I must not tell what I knew, or guessed. It all but choked me.

  Mr. Blount asked what had happened and we told him how we had come back from Abingdon and found her at the foot of the stairs. Pinto had decided that it must have been an accident. One thing she would not hear of, and that was the idea that Amy had deliberately thrown herself down the stairs. “My mistress was too good a gentlewoman to commit such a sin!” she said indignantly.

  In Pinto’s mind, if Dudley had had an agent in the house, then I was the said agent. I had been in Abingdon when Amy died and was therefore innocent, and in that case she thought Dudley was innocent too. I supposed I should be relieved.

  Presently, we covered Amy’s face and withdrew to the parlour, leaving her alone.

  “Mrs. Blanchard,” Forster said, “will you order some refreshments for us all?”

  “Mrs. Blanchard!” said Blount. “Oh, how remiss of me. Even in these circumstances I should not have forgotten that I had another sad message to deliver.”

  “A sad message? For . . . for me?” I asked, alarmed. “Not about my daughter?”

  “Your daughter? Why, no, Mrs. Blanchard. Dudley did mention to me that you had a daughter. I trust she is in the best of health. This concerns your manservant John Wilton.”

  “John! He’s away on an errand for me. What do you mean, a sad message about him? What’s happened?”

  Blount looked at me so gravely that I was frightened. “On my way from Windsor, yesterday,” he said, “I broke my journey for a meal at an inn called the Cockspur, in between Wallingford and Maidenhead.”

  “I know it,” I said.

  “Your man, John Wilton, was carried there a few days ago. I seem,” said Blount, “to have been greeted by news of violent events at every inn I patronised on my journey! Mr. Wilton had been set upon by footpads, and he was badly hurt. The landlord, Dexter, is a good fellow, and has had him cared for. Just before I arrived, he was able to say who he was, and explain that he came from Cumnor. When I appeared, Dexter recognised me and remembered that Mr. Wilton and myself were in the same party when we took refuge at the inn during the storm, so he spoke to me. I said I would carry the news to Cumnor.”

  I was too upset to speak. Mr. Blount looked at me anxiously. “There will be an inquest on poor Lady Dudley, you know, and you’ll have to be here for that, but I saw Wilton, and his injuries are serious. There’s a bill to settle at the inn, too, for his care and the stabling for his horse. The horse was found loose. I think you should go to the Cockspur.”

  10

  The Cockspur Inn

  I was there the same day. Forster found me a mount without demur and sent me off escorted by Roger Brockley. Brockley, in fact, caused the only difficulty. Since coming to Cumnor Place, I had not ridden, and only now did I discover that he was a sweetly old-fashioned soul who did not think, to quote his own words, that ladies ought to charge about the countryside like wild things. If they needed to travel, they should go by litter or coach or on their escort’s pillion. He wanted me to ride behind him or, if I must ride my own horse, then I had better take the lazy white gelding which had been provided for Dale, and which had remained at Cumnor along with Bay Star.

  “I’m in a hurry,” I snapped at him. “I’m not going to go at walking pace on your pillion or ride that four-legged snail, either. We almost had to tow it to get it here. Let me remind you, Brockley, that her majesty the queen is a noted horsewoman. I am following her example.”

  “There’s no man alive more patriotic than I am . . . ” Brockley began. He couldn’t be more than forty, but he had a deep, serious voice, and between that and the silver strands at his temples, he was capable of exuding as much gravitas as a Roman senator twice his age. His back-sloping forehead shone with earnestness. “But . . . ”

  “Listen, Brockley, I have a sick servant awaiting my help and if you were lying injured in an inn you might like your employer to take an interest!”

  This silenced him and we set out at last, carrying just a few overnight things in our saddlebags. For all my anxiety, I took a malicious pleasure in demonstrating how fast a lady on a modern sidesaddle could gallop. We reached the Cockspur in three hours.

  Leaving Brockley to see to the horses, I went straight inside to find the landlord, Dexter. He took me into the tiny parlour we had used on the day of the thunderstorm.

  “I’m glad you’ve come, Mistress Blanchard. I’d have sent for you sooner but it wasn’t till Master Wilton came round enough to talk a bit that we knew who to send to, or where. Then, luckily, Master Blount turned up. It’s a bad business, mistress.”

  “I want to see him,” I said. “But first, tell me just what happened.”

  “Well, it was a week ago—yes, last Monday. He came in with a party of gentlemen, and they stayed the night. He’d fallen in with them on the road and was riding with them, the way people do, for company and protection. There’s always the chance of a bit of highway robbery.”

  I nodded. Thomas Blount, carrying money for Amy, had trusted to the sword at his side, but most people journeyed in parties if they could.

  “Well, they went off again in the morning, all together. A while later, I had an errand up the road that way. I took a cart to a woodyard for some firewood and I had my dog Watcher with me. It was Watcher found Master Wilton. He’d been dumped under a bush, a good bowshot off the road, about a mile and half from here. My hound was ranging this way and that, the way dogs do, and suddenly he set up such a barking and howling that I went to see. I was that horrified, I can tell you. Well, I got him into the cart and brought him back, and we did what we could for him, until he could speak to us. He’s never done more than mumble—I wouldn’t say he’s ever been properly conscious—but we did finally make out the name Cumnor, and then your name, and by then I’d remembered your party staying here, with Master Wilton and Master Blount included. But then, as I said, Master Blount came along and said he’d see you were informed.”

  “If he was riding in company,” I said, “how did he come to be attacked like that? Who were the gentlemen he was with?”

  “Oh, they weren’t nothing to do with it. Very proper, dignified gentlemen they were! No, no. I wondered about all that myself, Mistress Blanchard, but when I was bringing Master Wilton back, we passed a hind clearing a ditch and I reckoned I’d seen him there when I went by the first time. So I called out to him, saying what had happened and asking if he’d seen the riders go by. He said he’d seen a man go past, riding pretty fast, as if he was in a hurry . . . ”

  “He was,” I said. “His errand was urgent. Well, at the time, anyway. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “According to the ditcher, if it was Wilton he saw, then he was alone. He was on the Windsor road, but the track forks before that—the left fork goes north—and the others were maybe bound that way. He had no money on him and we reckon he was killed for that. We’ve got his horse, though. One of my people found it roaming about a few hours later. It’s in our stable—a nice little bay mare.”

  “Yes, Master Blount mentioned that.�
� Bay Star was safe, but it was John who mattered, poor John, who had never reached either Cecil or Bridget with my letters. “I’d like to see Master Wilton now,” I said.

  “This way,” said Dexter, leading me to the door. “But . . . I warn you again, mistress. It’s bad.”

  • • •

  John was lying on a truckle bed in an upper room. It was a tiny place, with plank walls and no ceiling, just sloping cobwebby rafters and thatch above. The day was hot again, and with the dormer window shut, the room was stifling. There was a foul sickroom smell. I sat down on a stool by the bed and looked at his injuries, and knew that John was not just a servant but a dear and trusted friend and that to see him like this was anguish.

  He lay quiet, with closed eyes, sleeping or unconscious, breathing noisily. There were huge dark bruises and contusions all over his face, the marks not of fists but surely of a cudgel. His spiky hair was hidden by a bandage which held a pad over his right ear. Blood and something yellowish had seeped through it.

  “That’s not all,” the landlord whispered, as if afraid to rouse him. He reached past me and turned back the coverlet to expose John’s tough, wiry body, now relaxed in unconsciousness. There were more bruises on his right side and arm. “He was wearing a dagger when he left here,” said Dexter. “I’d say he tried to fight back and they did that disarming him.”

  “He would certainly have tried to fight back,” I said.

  Someone had fixed a kind of nappy on him, to protect the bedding as far as possible. Tears sprang to my eyes. It was a sensible thing to do, of course it was, but it was such a bitter indignity for a grown man.