To Shield the Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  Dale thawed after that, and between them they gave me a bath, dried me and dabbed me with rosewater, and then I was carefully pinned into the dress and some essential stitching was done. Matthew’s mother had been bigger than I was. We were short of time and some of the pins had to stay.

  Since I was a widow, it wasn’t correct for me to wear my hair loose, but while I was in the bath, Matthew sent a maidservant to the door with a jewelled net for me to wear. “He says to tell you, ma’am,” said the maidservant, peeping round the screen and dropping a curtsy, “that this sort of headdress suits you and he’d like you to have this for the ceremony.” It was a gold silk net very like the one I had worn at Cumnor, but the net was much thicker, and it was studded not only with pearls but with red rubies and green peridots. I looked at the glittering thing, thinking that it was like a symbol of my marriage: jewelled and beautiful, but a net all the same, like a spider’s web, in which, unless I were very careful, I would be caught.

  Part of me wanted to be caught, but then I thought of the three men who had killed John, moving along the roads of England, suborning people like the Westleys and the Masons into treason, spreading a web of their own across England. The gems in that web were false, the glitter a meretricious bait. Matthew did not think so, but Matthew was wrong. I must not turn back.

  I wonder how many brides, as they don their wedding gowns, constantly let their gaze stray to the window and scan the view, taking in the detail of what lies outside with the eye of a general planning a campaign, and looking for features of strategic advantage?

  Dale, folding my hair into the shining mesh, said how pretty it looked, better than loose hair by far. I agreed with her and noted secretly and with regret that the outer wall had, as far as I could see, been completely repaired. Trespassers would find it hard to climb in now; and getting out would be just as difficult. I couldn’t even see any convenient trees.

  Madame Montaigle fastened a small linen ruff round my throat and admired the embroidery on my sleeves, and I agreed with her too, while wondering whether I could create a diversion by starting a fire.

  My eyes returned most often to the paddocks. Their gates, both of them, opened on to the path from the gatehouse, and the gatehouse was probably not shut at all during the day. Matthew was not only having a garden made; he was having new outhouses built, and cartloads of this and that, plants, stones, timbers, were constantly coming in.

  There were possibilities there, I thought. I found an excuse to ask Madame if she had any hartshorn, since I had been unwell the previous day and did not want to feel faint during the ceremony or the feast, and when she went to look for it, I took the opportunity to mutter a few instructions to Dale.

  “Oh, ma’am!” said Dale.

  “It’s important!” I said tersely.

  • • •

  I was married. In the tiny chapel of Withysham House, a low, dark room with a floor sunk several steps below the level of the ground outside, I stood beside Matthew and declared before Uncle Armand and the assembled household that I took Matthew de la Roche to be my lawful wedded husband. “I never did give you a betrothal ring, but let this make up for it. It belonged to my mother, just as your dress did,” Matthew whispered as he slid a thick gold wedding ring on to my hand. “This has the right kind of history,” he said.

  Then I took part, for the second time in only a few days, in an entirely unlawful mass. Dale and Brockley were present as well, although they did not take the sacrament and I could see the words “I can’t abide this” written in Dale’s indignant eyes.

  I sat beside Matthew through the ensuing feast, held in what had once been the abbey’s refectory and was now the household dining hall, a long, light first-floor room with windows on both sides, opening out from the top of a flight of wide, shallow stone steps. I smiled, laughed, ate, drank. I dined in privileged fashion, from a silver dish, and salted my food with a silver spoon. I remember that one of the pins which was holding my gown in place suddenly ran into me, causing me to let out a yelp, and how I then amused the company with a description of how we had struggled to make the gown fit.

  Matthew’s was a musical household. Mr. Malton—he preferred to be addressed as Mr. rather than Master, he told me—played the harpsichord expertly. Uncle Armand could perform on pipe and tabor both at once, and a lanky young man who was introduced to me as a fulltime music instructor, played a spinet. They all played dance music together, and I led the dance with my bridegroom. I felt as though I were splitting into two, for part of me really had the emotions of a bride.

  And now, here I was in Matthew’s bedchamber, which had been strewn with sweet herbs, and Dale and Madame Montaigle were preparing me for my nuptial night.

  I think Dale felt that events had moved too fast for her and that she was lost in a world as weird and alarming as Dante’s Inferno, but she was loyal to me and she had carried out my orders. She had somehow procured for me a piece of sponge and some vinegar, which she had put in one of the rock crystal bottles in my little toilet box. I managed to soak the sponge in the vinegar and push it into myself without Madame seeing. It was supposed to prevent pregnancy and I hoped it would work. I didn’t want to conceive Matthew’s child.

  It was very different from my first marriage. The friends who had sheltered Gerald and myself had given us a wedding feast, with quite a gathering of their own friends as guests. I had thrown my garter to the guests, and Gerald and I had been escorted to bed amid a hilarious chorus of advice and encouragement, until Gerald pretended to be angry and threw his shoes at them to chase them out of the room.

  This time there were no guests apart from Matthew’s own household, and even the dancing had been decorous. Madame Montaigle and Dale drew back the bedcovers for me and I slipped in, and then they left me. Presently, Matthew entered, alone, candle in hand. He put the candle down on a chest and said, “Well, here I am.”

  “And here I am,” I said, shakily. I had known this moment would be shattering but I hadn’t quite bargained, even so, for the sheer reality of him. This was my husband. This was our wedding night. And I wanted him; oh God, how I wanted him. The sensation that I was splitting in two was growing worse; my mind was being riven from top to bottom like a tree struck by lightning. A faint hammer blow of pain over my left eye warned me that I was in danger of another sick headache. I thrust it away by a fierce act of will. No. I would have this. I would have this.

  I did, and I am glad of it. I take the memory out, often, and look at it. I always want to weep, but again and again I drive the lovely knife home into my heart.

  He slipped under the sheets with me and we came together at once, easily and naturally, arms and legs entwining, body enfolding body and mouth joined to mouth. For one brief moment I remembered Gerald and then he was gone. There was only Matthew. I had been hungry so long and he was, as he had promised to be, a banquet. He smelled sharp and spicy both at once, like a mixture of sweat and leather and cinnamon; beneath my hands his body was both hard and pliable, his strength reassuring.

  We longed for union too much to delay it at first; it took only a little while to have me groaning with desire and Matthew too hard and eager to hold back. He slid into me, and we grappled fiercely, urging each other on: go deeper, climb higher, go faster, grip harder, go on, until we exploded together and fell apart, breathless and exalted.

  To rest, and caress, and drowse, and rebuild our longing, and at length to come together again, this time slowly and delicately; satisfying ourselves even more intensely and falling, afterwards, into sleep as deep as an ocean.

  I woke at dawn and slipped out of the bed. Beyond its curtains, out of sight, I stealthily renewed the sponge and vinegar. Then I crept back to Matthew and he stirred as I put my arms round him. He woke and we were together again.

  I was being drawn away from my intent as though in the powerful undertow of a breaking wave. I can’t do this, I said to myself, I can’t go through with it.

  Then Matthew said lazi
ly, “You will like France, Ursula. I promise. We’ll go to the Loire valley, where I used to live. I have relatives there. I came to England for my mother’s sake but it’s never been home. I miss my French cousins and uncles and aunts. They’ll be a family for you, Ursula. You never really had one before, did you?”

  He had meant to distract me from the past but instead, he threw it into relief. In an instant I saw clearly all that I would lose if I went with him. My own land, my own faith. Elizabeth. And it mattered.

  As day strengthened beyond the medieval lancet windows, I turned to him and looked into his eyes, holding back from the temptation to let them bewitch me, but striving to make mine limpid and loving so as to bewitch him. “Matthew, I think I should say . . . I am your wife now and I know it is better that I look forward and not back. I will try to be a good wife to you. I should like to be part of a family. It sounds quite wonderful.”

  “Ursula, sweeting . . . ”

  It was so difficult to go on gazing into his eyes that I turned over and settled down with my back against his belly, curved into his body, close and warm but not, now, face to face. He put his arm over me. “I think I’ll be glad when we’re there,” I said. “I’m a little frightened, Matthew. Shouldn’t we be prepared to go soon—or at short notice? If what you are doing is found out . . . ” I let the sentence trail away.

  “It won’t be. But if it was, we could get away, don’t worry. If we couldn’t risk the main ports, there are such things as Catholic fishermen. I know where to turn for help.”

  I produced a convincing chuckle. “We’d be hard put to it to get Dale to the coast in a hurry. She really is a terrible rider. She bumps in the saddle like a sack of cabbages.”

  “You have such a salty turn of phrase, darling. And now we are lying like two spoons fitted together,” he said drowsily. “You are my little saltspoon.”

  “Mmm.” I was talking with a purpose, however, and persisted. “Dale’s had plenty of practice, these last few days, but it’s made no difference. I once suggested that Brockley should give her some proper lessons. Can he, Matthew? Just in the paddocks inside the walls, of course.”

  “Of course he can. Why not?” said Matthew. “Never mind about Dale now. There’s something else we should be doing . . . ”

  He rolled me gently over again and I yielded to him. My own deception sickened me and yet, looking back, I note that in those strange, brief, bittersweet days of my marriage, I did not again succumb to headache or nausea. It seemed that my deepest self, the part that ultimately gives or withholds consent concerning all vital decisions, the part that sometimes drives people to martyrdom, had made its choice.

  • • •

  “We make progress, sir, madam,” said Roger Brockley, bringing Speckle up to the paddock fence to talk to us as Matthew and I paused on our way back from our morning ride round the Withysham home farm. “It was well done, madam, to put her on a better horse; lazy ones like the Snail may be safe, but they’re tiring. She does better astride too; she feels firmer in the saddle that way. Generally speaking, I don’t care for the sight of women in breeches, but on Dale, they’re quite pleasing. Don’t sag!” he added, raising his voice so that Dale, who was riding in a circle at a slow jog, could hear him. “The mare won’t obey you if you slouch!”

  He turned back to me and his level blue-grey gaze met mine intently. “We’ve met one snag, though. She says the stirrup leathers pinch her. I wonder, madam, if I could trouble you for your opinion?” He turned civilly to Matthew. “If the mistress could just slip down and walk across the paddock, I think Dale would appreciate it. The leather is nipping her legs,” he explained, “and she’s shy about showing them in front of a man.”

  “By all means,” said Matthew, amused. “I’ll stay here!” I dismounted, handed my reins to Matthew and went round to the gate. Brockley, calling to Dale to pull up, joined me and we set off across the grass towards her.

  “Not a very good excuse, but the best I could think of,” Brockley said. “Dale told me that you want to speak to me privately.”

  “I do. It’s time we planned our move.”

  I had had to be cautious. Despite my diplomatic assertion, on that first morning, that I had accepted the situation, I knew that Matthew was watching me not only with love but also with vigilance. I had to make that vigilance relax. Therefore, I had deliberately let myself form a routine. Each morning, after prayers and breakfast, I went to the kitchen to give orders for the day, and since then, except for the one Sunday I had so far spent at Withysham, when we went to church, Matthew at my request took me out riding. I needed the air and exercise, I told him. Next week, I had said, I would ask him to come with me to Westwater and then, if he was agreeable, we would fetch Meg. “I won’t visit her meanwhile; it could unsettle her. She is used to her quiet life with Bridget.”

  I hoped it sounded convincing, as though I had completely given in. I also hoped I hadn’t overdone it. It was a balancing act.

  After the daily ride, I would study household accounts with Mr. Malton, the steward, and after dinner, Dale and I would sew, or else I would practise music on the spinet, with instruction from the young music master. In the evening I would play at chess or draughts with Matthew, until supper. Then we went to bed, and the night had its own secret magic.

  Oh yes, oh God, what magic! How could I forgo it now?

  The treacherous thought slid snakelike into my mind that it would be easy, so easy. All I would have to do was surrender to this routine of pleasant days and luminous nights. All I would have to do was nothing. Brockley was glancing at me. I suspected that he half-expected me to change my mind and stay.

  “Tomorrow, if the weather allows,” I said. “Is Dale ready?”

  “Near enough,” Brockley said. “Putting her astride has done wonders, but the trouble with the stirrup leather is real enough. I pray to heaven, madam, that our scheme works.”

  I had been able to give instructions openly about Dale’s new mount and her new breeches but other matters were more difficult, which was why I had needed, somehow, to arrange this private conference today. We had indeed laid a scheme but only in rapid undertones across Bay Star’s withers when he brought her round to the door for me each morning. In such conditions, polished conspiracy was difficult.

  “If we fail,” I said, “I doubt we’ll get a second chance.”

  “There’s no other way out, either,” Brockley added. “I’ve seen every yard of the walls by now. I did have an idea about starting a fire . . . ”

  “Did you? So did I.”

  “Really, madam? I think this is better.” He was glancing at me again and I turned my head to look at him directly. Once more, his gaze was intent. “You’re sure about this? It is a harsh choice for you. No lady should have to do what you’re doing.”

  “I know, but I’m sure,” I said, with steel in my voice.

  We exchanged a few more words, putting finishing touches, until we reached Dale, who was waiting for us on the back of the brown mare which Matthew had provided for her instead of the Snail. While Brockley stood tactfully back, she showed me the bruises the leathers had made on her calves. Dale had been embarrassed at the idea of wearing breeches to ride astride, but now, except for the bruising, she was obviously relieved. Brockley was right: breeches suited her. I observed too that with all the riding she had done lately, she had lost weight. Her fined-down face was almost handsome. I noticed her glance towards Brockley and exchange a smile with him and it occurred to me that they were the same age and might well be attracted to each other. I wished them well, if so. I would have been glad, just then, to be one of my own servants.

  “You need higher boots,” I said. “Brockley! Come here. Can you lend Dale some boots high enough to protect her? These stop below the bruising.” I let my voice carry to Matthew, waiting by the fence.

  “Well, I could—but she’ll have to stuff the toes. They’ll be bigger all ways, as it were.” Brockley, too, spoke clearly. In a lower v
oice, he added, “I’ll have them for her tomorrow. The plan is settled, then?”

  “It is. You’ve put on a wonderful performance this morning, Brockley. What a good strolling player you’d make!”

  Brockley looked quite shocked. “I can’t say the life of a wandering mummer appeals to me, madam. It’s too chancy.”

  “I’m glad you feel like that,” I told him, “because, to be frank, I’m glad you’re here! Till tomorrow, then.”

  I went back to Matthew. “A simple matter enough. All that Dale needs are longer boots with wool in the toes!”

  Matthew slid from his own saddle and we walked back to the house, leading the horses, “How will you spend the rest of the morning?” he asked me.

  “With Malton and the estate books. I am getting to understand them, gradually. Then, in the afternoon, Dale and I will start making me a gown from the material you’ve given me.”

  “Ah yes, my wedding gift.” Two days after our wedding, Matthew had brought me a beautiful roll of rose-pink satin, which had been lying unused in a chest belonging to his mother. He would give me many much better gifts in time to come, he said, but meanwhile, if I would like this . . .

  He looked at me with affection. “I shall like to see you in the finished gown. I only wish my mother could have been here to see it.”

  Matthew wouldn’t see it, either. I tried not to think of that.

  I worried about the weather. If it turned wet, it would look odd to persist with Dale’s riding lessons, but the next day, though grey, was dry and looked as though it would brighten later on. The clouds were high, not lying mistily on the downs as they did when rain really threatened. We breakfasted, as usual, in a small parlour; Matthew went in for more privacy than my aunt and uncle did. The room was like many at Cumnor, with its stone walls and the pointed arches to its windows, and there was the same smell of stone about it, but the atmosphere was different. Withysham was differently positioned and its windows must have been differently angled, too, for it was not shadowy but caught the morning or evening sun in nearly every room.