Queen of Ambition

by Buckley, Fiona

  Even at that, we took four days to reach it, because we had packhorses and they slow one down. I was annoyed but Dale was thankful, for she always found riding a trial. The journey was interesting, though. I had not seen East Anglia before. Gradually, the land grew flatter and marshier and more seamed with waterways, and the sky above seemed to grow wider every day, stretching from horizon to horizon. We had one wet day and we could see the cloud coming from the west long before it reached us, a heavy blackness with the rain sweeping below it in pale, hazy curtains.

  The local people, whenever we had occasion to speak with them, had broad, slow accents, often hard to follow, and some curious skills. We were startled one misty morning to see two towering figures, at least ten feet high, thin and spindly, moving about on the boggy ground to the right of our track—until we realized that they were men on stilts, wading through the mud.

  In the evening and the early morning, wild geese often flew overhead in a formation like a V, honking in wild voices. On the third morning, I was riding beside Rob Henderson, talking to him about my plans for when I reached Cambridge, when a flight of geese swept by above us, and looking up at them, I said: “Their calls always seem to be full of salt winds and vast empty spaces.”

  “You like them, don’t you?” Rob said, and withdrawing my gaze from the sky, I found him regarding me quizzically.

  “Well—yes, I do,” I told him.

  “That says something about your nature,” he said. “Will you ever settle for domestic peace? I wonder. Or will the wild geese call to you for the rest of your life?”

  I was startled. Rob and I were friends, although we were not and never had been anything more. I would have said, though, that we knew each other well. But never before had handsome, stylish Rob Henderson, who adored his bubbly wife, Mattie, and his growing family, looked at me so searchingly or assessed my nature so shrewdly.

  He was right, too. No matter how much I missed my husband, no matter how much I enjoyed peaceful days as a chatelaine of a manor, no matter how many tears I might shed on parting from my daughter, once I was abroad in the world on the queen’s business, seeking out miscreants, another part of my nature took over. There was another Ursula in me, a huntress who needed to chase a quarry now and then in order to be really happy; who could not resist the call of adventure. Who responded and perhaps always would respond to the cry of the wild geese.

  Rob’s remark made me uncomfortable. Detaching myself from him, I rode forward to catch up with Brockley, who was just ahead. I wanted to talk to him, too, concerning my Cambridge plans.

  “In my opinion,” he said to me presently, “this whole venture is a wild-goose chase,” and then he looked surprised, because I burst out laughing.

  Brockley often sighed over the peculiarities of my character, and as for poor Dale, though she was deeply attached to me, she found me a most exhausting employer. We reached Cambridge just after noon on the final day of the journey, but only because on the previous day, I had grown irritated by our slow progress and begun urging us to hurry. Dale, roused early before she had anything like recovered from the long ride of the day before, bundled onto Brockley’s pillion after hardly any breakfast, and then forced to endure more miles on horseback, was even more worn-out by the time we reached the city than she had been when we arrived at Richmond.

  Coming into Cambridge, we saw, to either side of us, tangles of narrow lanes crowded with traffic, horse and foot, and heavily shadowed by overhanging upper stories. Every now and then we glimpsed the roofs and spires of colleges and churches, and sometimes, to our left, the glitter of the sunlight on the River Cam. I tried to fix an idea of the city layout in my mind but Dale’s obvious weariness distracted me. The university dignitaries who had returned ahead of us had arranged lodgings for us all and it was well we found them without difficulty because my poor tirewoman really seemed about to topple out of her saddle altogether.

  In her youth, Fran Dale had had smallpox and it had left her slightly pockmarked. The marks were not very obvious; most of the time, one noticed her well-shaped face and large blue eyes rather than the pocks. They showed up, though, when she became upset or overtired. When she started unpacking in our chamber, I saw how noticeable they were and told her to leave the hampers.

  “Just help me into a clean gown,” I said. “Brockley will be here as soon as he and Henderson’s men have settled the horses—the stables our landlord suggested are quite close, it seems. Then we’ll have a meal and you can sleep.” If she became much more exhausted, I knew she might fall ill. On the way, Henderson had mentioned that because of the marshlands, there were fevers peculiar to East Anglia, which could strike at any season. “You can finish the unpacking this evening. We shall have to go out tomorrow morning, though not very far,” I told Dale.

  “Where will we be going, ma’am?”

  “Well …” I began doubtfully, and then turned at the sound of Brockley’s familiar tap on the door. I called to him to come in and the moment he did so, I said: “What is it?” Brockley did not have an expressive face but I knew him well enough to recognize the signs of exasperation.

  “We were recommended to leave the horses at Radley’s Stables, madam, and I’m sorry to say that there was nowhere else to leave them but I only hope they’ll be all right. We’ve had to waste a lot of time over it.”

  “What’s wrong with Radley’s?” I asked him.

  “Wrong with it!” Brockley snorted. “When we got there, the owner was clouting a weedy under-groom all round the yard, shouting at him to do this and finish that and bellowing that they were all behind because the fellow had come in late in the morning again. The noise was upsetting the horses. I could hear them stamping and whinnying in their stable. We stopped at the gate and I left one of Henderson’s men to hold my Speckle, and slipped into the stable for a look round. Our respected Mr. Radley was too busy knocking the daylights out of the groom even to notice he’d got custom!

  “I found a young student in there, patting a nice-looking mare. He told me he’d come to explain that he couldn’t take her out for his usual early morning ride tomorrow, and wanted someone to exercise her, but he couldn’t get a hearing either and he wouldn’t recommend anyone to stable a horse there; he wouldn’t do it himself only the place is cheap and it was the only way he could afford to keep his horse in Cambridge at all. He said the hay was usually dusty and I had a look, and it was. He suggested the Eagle Inn in a place called Benet Street and told me where to find it. So I went back to the others and to the Eagle we went and the stabling there is all it should be, as a lot of people obviously know because it was full. So in the end we had to go back to Radley’s and this time we got some attention from the ostler. But I’ve taken it upon myself to pay him extra to buy good-quality hay. I hope I did right, madam, but your little mare is choosy about her food and won’t eat up unless it’s to her liking. I don’t want her losing condition.”

  “Nor do I. Yes, of course you did right.”

  “I also told Radley that if all our horses weren’t well cared for, I’d warm his lugs and his back for him, personally, and Master Henderson’s men all said they’d lend a hand. We’ve put the fear of God into him, I trust. But it’s not the kind of stable I’d choose if I could help it.”

  “I’m sure you did your best, Brockley, and with you to keep an eye on the horses, I’m also sure they’ll be all right,” I said briskly. “Now, I want a word with you. About tomorrow …”

  “We are to visit the pie shop?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are serious about this, madam?”

  “Brockley, you know I’m always serious about my schemes.” I turned to Dale, who was looking at us in a puzzled way. “Brockley and I had a discussion about this during the journey,” I said. “I daresay you noticed us talking together.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dale agreed.

  “I also talked to Master Henderson. It was about these plans that Brockley has just mentioned. The journey has ta
ken longer than I wanted. The queen will be here now in a fortnight. I must find a way to get near the heart of the arrangements for this confounded playlet. I’ve told you that it involves a pie shop in a place called Jackman’s Lane. Tomorrow, we are all three going to visit it. And after that …”

  Our lodgings were in a timbered four-story house only a few minutes’ walk from either Queens’ or King’s Colleges. Rob and I had asked to be in the same lodgings but we were decently separated, with my rooms at the top of the first flight of stairs, and Rob on the topmost floor, right under the roof. The arrangements could hardly have been otherwise, though, for we had as landlady a middle-aged widow, whose sparkling white ruff, apron, and cap, and cowed maidservants, were proof of her sublime respectability. After changing my clothes and taking some food, I climbed two flights of stairs in search of Master Henderson.

  We had left the other harbingers behind on the road but when they arrived, they would want to know about the advance work we were supposed to be doing. I didn’t want word getting back to the court that I wasn’t attending to my duties, because as far as Elizabeth was concerned, a harbinger was all I was, here to cast a female eye over the arrangements in general, especially the Provost’s Lodge where she was to sleep, and the rooms her ladies would use.

  “I want to be seen to be doing something,” I said to Rob when I had found him. “I may be otherwise engaged very soon.”

  “Let’s go over to King’s College and see what we can inspect straightaway,” Rob suggested, and then added: “We can talk at the same time.”

  We found that the rooms in the Provost’s Lodge were being swept and sweetened and were not yet ready for our inspection. The rooms that had been set aside as audience and council chambers could be seen, however. “Very well,” said Rob. “We’ll look at those.”

  Court business had to go on wherever Elizabeth was, even if ambassadors wishing to present their credentials had to chase her around the country. Therefore, she had to have audience and council chambers always available. Both needed space and dignity and a dais for the queen; the council chamber must also have good light, tables, seats, and writing materials, and her servants must be able to fetch refreshments without delay if required. There must be an ample supply of candles, which must not be scented. Messengers must be constantly available and have somewhere to wait. And so on and so on. The list of requirements, which we had in writing, was formidable.

  Rob produced the list and we set off, guided by a minor university official, who was fortunately overawed by the importance of the arrangements and by us, and who was easily dismissed when we told him to leave us by ourselves to inspect the rooms, at leisure. We walked around them, noting shortcomings—there were several—but meanwhile, in quiet voices, we discussed other things.

  “I intend to interview all the students who are to take part in the playlet,” Rob said. “I will speak to them officially, one by one. Look, Ursula, there’s really no need for you to go through with this pretense you have in mind, but if you insist …”

  “I do.”

  “Very well. If necessary, I’ll see that your disappearance is explained. I can say I sent you back to one of the houses where the queen will stop on the way here, because during our journey, I noticed one or two things I wasn’t happy about.”

  I nodded. “Yes. That will do, I think. Now, as well as talking to the students, what about talking to Woodforde? Cecil says he has looked into Woodforde’s character already, but nevertheless …”

  “I know.” Rob frowned. “Woodforde seized on the idea of this playlet, didn’t he? Well, he’s back in Cambridge now. As a woman, you can’t haunt the university but I can. I’ll see what more I can find out about him.” He considered me gravely. “What does Brockley think about your wild scheme?”

  “He’s shaking his head over it.”

  “He always shakes his head over your schemes,” said Rob. “This time I feel he’s right to be uneasy. I don’t like it, Ursula. It isn’t fitting.”

  “What has that to do with it? There’s no time to waste. I must find out what, if anything, is going on in that pie shop. Should we not arrange for supplies of paper for note-taking during council meetings? And inkstands at each place round the council table?”

  Rob groaned, but said no more.

  Next morning, having borrowed one of Dale’s drab working gowns (although it still had an open overskirt, into which I had quickly stitched one of my secret pouches), I set out for Jackman’s Lane and Master Roland Jester’s pie shop. Dale and Brockley were with me but not in the characters of maid and manservant. For the moment, the three of us were trying to look like equals—in fact, relatives.

  I had sent Brockley out in advance to find out just where the place was and he led us straight there. Jackman’s Lane was a short street that turned off from Trumpington Street, the main road in from the south. Jackman’s ran, slanting, in the general direction of the river but came out in Silver Street, close to Queens’ College.

  Elizabeth would pass through Jackman’s on her way to hear an address of welcome at Queens’, and there in the lane, she would pause, to receive her gift of flowers from a woman of Cambridge. The dais where she would be briefly enthroned for this purpose hadn’t yet been put in place although its position had been roped off and was already causing a fair amount of nuisance to the ordinary traffic of the lane. It had been placed toward the Silver Street end, which was a little wider than the rest, and Jester’s shop was very close to it.

  On the side of the lane opposite the pie shop, the buildings were just cottages, small and solid and each in its own little garden, and not all the same size. The pie shop side, however, was quite different, consisting of a row of shops and houses, all adjoining and obviously all built at the same time. They were handsome affairs, with redbrick ground floors, overhanging timber and plaster stories above, and attics with dormer windows peeping out of the thatched roofs. Their architect had had a sense of style, for he had given them chimneys with decorative brickwork, and finished the line of buildings off at each end with four slender, faceted buttress towers, one at each corner. These were of redbrick as well, patterned to match the chimneys, with gray stone to pick out the facet edges, and ornamental crenellations on top.

  The shops sold a variety of wares, and all of them had substantial living quarters above, with private side entrances beside the shopfronts. The pie shop itself was at the end of the lane, the last one before Silver Street, and had a walled garden that ran around it from front to back. Facing on to the lane was an open shopfront with a counter where passersby could purchase hot pies to take away. This was manned by a pink-faced lout with a bull’s voice, which he used for bellowing requests for fresh supplies back to the kitchen inside. Those who wished to sit down and eat indoors, though, could go around the end of the counter, give orders from their tables, and be waited on.

  We studied the place and then Brockley looked at me inquiringly. “We go in,” I said.

  It was dark inside, but clean enough, with fresh sawdust on the stone-flagged floor, and a partly open door at the rear, showing a glimpse of the kitchen beyond. Intriguingly, it also allowed us to hear that in the kitchen, a man was shouting and a girl was tearfully protesting, and as we seated ourselves at a rough table, some of the words clarified.

  “… and I’m a-tellin’ you, Ambrosia, I’ve other plans for you and Thomas ain’t one of them.” The man’s East Anglian voice was aggrieved, almost shrill. “He’s not our sort and his family’ll say that, same as I do. They’re gentry even if they ain’t of the richest. We’re trade and the two don’t mix. If only your mother was here …”

  “I wish she was here! She’d understand!” This was accompanied by a loud clatter as though the girl were rattling pots and spoons together in a fury.

  “Aye, maybe she would at that! Come to think on it, your mother never did have the sense she was born with or know her own good luck when she had it. Maybe she would lead you on to make a fool of yours
elf! Well, I won’t! You’ll not leave this place without I say you can, and someone’ll allus go with you, till this here nonsense stops.”

  “That’s not fair! That’s not right!” Clatter! Crash!

  “You’ll thank me one day, my girl! Once this business of the queen’s visit is over and done with, I’ll see Thomas never sets foot in here again. Now get out there and serve; I’ve heard someone come in or my name ain’t Roland Jester!”

  “Mercy!” Dale whispered. “What a merry household.”

  “It happens,” I told her. “You should have heard Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha when they found out that there was something going on between me and young Master Gerald Blanchard, who was supposed to be marrying my cousin Mary. Roland Jester in there’s a dear little baa-lamb by comparison.”

  “The girl is coming out,” muttered Brockley. “Quick, madam, talk of something else.”

  “I wonder who did the carving on this settle,” I said clearly. I was facing Dale and Brockley across the table and although they were seated on a bench as rude as the table, I was on a settle with wooden arms that ended in heavy, carved lions’ heads. I fingered the mane of the lion immediately beside me and then withdrew my finger with a startled “Ouch!” and used my teeth to remove a splinter.

  “They were all right when they were new but all our seats and tables are old now,” the girl said in a dull voice as she came up to us. “With the queen coming to visit Cambridge and all, we’re having new seats and tables made. Father thinks maybe courtiers might come in.” She didn’t sound as though she shared her father’s optimism. Even in the poor light, I could see that her hands were callused and chapped with work, and that her eyes were reddened; she walked as though bowed with depression. She had a dark stuff gown on with a stained white apron over it. “What’ll you eat and drink?”