Queen of Ambition

by Buckley, Fiona

  “But all that rests on the testimony of the groom, Jem, at Radley’s. He arrives at the stable before Radley himself does in the morning and he said he saw Thomas ride out at his usual time, which was at about five. But I fancy that his master, Radley, was by when he said that. I spoke to him yesterday, however, without Radley overhearing. Jem was forever in trouble for being late and if Radley finds out, he beats him for it. He wouldn’t admit in Radley’s presence that he’d been late that day. He admitted it to me, though, once I had promised him that I wouldn’t tell Radley—and why knowing the truth mattered.”

  “I expect you bribed him to say whatever you wanted him to say!” shouted Jester.

  “No,” I said. “Though I would like him to be rewarded now.” I had in fact, bullied Jem considerably but I had felt it wiser that no money should change hands. “Thomas took the mare out before Jem got there. So Thomas could have ridden out much earlier. I rather think he did.”

  Hardening my heart, I turned to the trembling Jester.

  “I think you met him in the grove, Master Jester. How did you get him there? He would hardly have gone to a tryst with you! Did you use Ambrosia’s name instead? Not that it matters. You got him there. You took a weapon wrapped in an old shirt so that if anyone saw you, you were only carrying a harmless roll of linen. But not many people are about so early; I daresay no one saw you who knew you. You went out by way of the secret room and the tower, and when you’d killed him, you came back by the same route, slipped in through the side gate, came up through the tower, and there you were in the house, upstairs, able to come innocently down them just before five of the clock. Am I right?”

  “What is all this?” Ambrosia cried out. “Ursula, what are you talking about? Are you saying that Thomas was murdered? Are you saying that my father did it? How dare you? It isn’t true; it can’t be true! Thomas and I were going to be married. Father, you didn’t, you couldn’t … !”

  “Just what did Thomas know that was so dangerous?” I asked Jester. “And how did you know he had arranged to talk to me about it?”

  “Father!” Ambrosia shrieked. “Say it isn’t true! If it is, I hope … yes, I hope you hang! I mean it! Thomas and I … Thomas and I … !”

  “Hold your noise, girl! If you’d been a good, dutiful, obedient daughter, it wouldn’t have happened. If Thomas is dead, it’s your own fault! Your fine young lover would have been my death and your uncle’s!”

  Woodforde, who had been listening with the air of one who can hardly believe his ears, at this point shouted: “Roland, be quiet!” but it was as though Jester and Ambrosia, lost in the passion of their private quarrel, had completely forgotten the rest of us.

  “I come up here one day and I find you’ve got that Thomas up here for lovemakin’ an’ kissin’ and I ordered you downstairs and I was tellin’ him what I thought of him and what happens? He’s grinnin’ at me and sayin’ he’ll have you to wife whatever your father may say …”

  “Why shouldn’t he?” Ambrosia was sobbing out loud. “Why shouldn’t we have married? Why not? Why not?”

  “ … an’ he’s fidgetin’ about with my things and he opens the lid of that chest there and says, What’s this? and picks that old musket out of it that we thought we could store there safe enough …”

  “Roland!” shouted Woodforde.

  “Oh, you hold your noise an’ all! They seen you aim that there gun out of the window; not much point pretendin’ it doesn’t exist! You takin’ up musketry? that cheeky Thomas says to me, and then I see him frown and look worried, and I know he’s already got the idea that there’s somethin’ behind that there playlet; sharp, that’s what Thomas was. Sharp enough to cut hisself. And then I’m in the kitchen not five days later, and I hear whisperin’ goin’ on in the shop, so I stepped up to listen, just behind that screen thing I’d had put up.”

  “Did you, indeed?” I said bitterly.

  “Aye, I did, I heard Thomas plannin’ to meet someone and talk to them about his suspicionings concernin’ the playlet! I couldn’t hear everythin’ he said, but I heard enough.”

  I remembered how I had twice had to put my finger on my lips to warn Thomas that he was speaking too loudly. Master Jester, it seemed, had keen ears.

  “Only,” Jester said to me, “I didn’t think it was you he was talkin’ to. The other person was whisperin’ just too low and the screen was in the way, but there was a clerk in the shop as well and just afore he went out, Thomas spoke up in his normal voice and said sorry to him for the noise his friends were makin’ in the street, and the clerk fellow said he’d been the same once but folk grow out of it. I thought it was him Thomas had been talkin’ to all the time. I didn’t know who he was or I’d have gone after him same as I did Thomas. Laid awake that night worryin’ about him, I did. I didn’t want anyone havin’ notions that there was something amiss with the playlet. Thomas hadn’t told him owt and I meant to make sure he didn’t get the chance, but I didn’t like it.”

  “No one was going to suspect us,” said Woodforde furiously. “Any talk of something strange about the playlet and I could have admitted the plan to bring Sybil back to you. There was no need for you to panic!”

  “Well, I did! If I hadn’t wanted Sybil back so desperate, and if you hadn’t held out on me about where she was … just draggin’ me in, danglin’ the thought of her in front of me so I couldn’t resist …” He paused for a moment, his voice choked off by a sound like a sob, and gave Woodforde a savage sidelong scowl. Then he said: “Just as well I let the clerk get away, seein’ as it wasn’t him at all! But I didn’t think Thomas would go tellin’ his tales to a woman. I didn’t think women were hired as spies and pokenoses!”

  “Quite a lot of people feel like that,” I agreed. “Sometimes it’s quite useful. One can avoid suspicion for so much longer.”

  “You killed him!” Ambrosia screamed at her father. “You killed Thomas! You talk about loving my mother; you say you can’t do without her, but you nearly killed her; you drove her away! But I still went on loving you, in a fashion, because you are my father, and I went on helping you and looking after you, and then Thomas came and now you tell me … you admit … !”

  Brockley caught hold of her just in time, before she hurled herself on her father with fingers curved like claws to rend his face. I said uselessly: “Ambrosia, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I did not try to go to her this time but as Brockley pulled her away from her father, they came close to me and she spat in my face. “It’s your fault too! If you hadn’t come here, prying and peeping and finding things out … !”

  “Quiet now. Easy. Easy.” Like Dudley, Brockley had a soothing rumble of a voice and was good with horses. His efforts had no effect on Ambrosia, however. “I hate you! I hate my father and I hate my uncle and I hate you!” Ambrosia shrieked at me. “I’d like to …”

  Her voice faded suddenly. Her eyes went from me to the staircase behind me. Jester and Woodforde were staring in that direction, too. I turned, and there stood Sybil Jester. Dale was just behind her.

  “When the students brought me into the house next door,” Sybil said, “Mistress Brady and Dale showed me up to a bedchamber to wash my face and we could hear the shouting from in there! Then Dale told me that someone was in this attic, and that the queen’s men had gone to find out who it was, and that you were with them, Ursula, in case Ambrosia was here and needed a woman’s help. I must thank you. I see that Ambrosia is indeed in this room. And Roland too …”

  Jester, sitting pinioned on the settle, said: “Sybil,” and then fell silent. Silence, though, can be strangely informative. His eyes searched her face with a look of desperate questioning, as though seeking her pity, her understanding. As for her, as she gazed back at him, she stiffened and—just a little—leaned away. There was pity indeed in her face but her body spoke of fear. Rob Henderson said: “I have to inform you, Mistress Jester, that your husband is under arrest. An attempt on the life of Sir Robert Dudley was made just now, from thi
s room.”

  “I tried to stop it!” Roland pleaded. “I made the gun useless!”

  “He killed the man I should have married!” Ambrosia burst out.

  “Hush,” said Brockley. “Just for a moment. This is between your parents.”

  Even Woodforde seemed aware of that. He sat in his bonds, taut but quiet. Sybil glanced at her daughter but then her eyes went back to Jester. “I would save you if I could,” she said. “But I could never return to you. I will pray for you.”

  Jester said pitifully: “Will you not at least-touch me once, in farewell?”

  “He killed Thomas! You can’t … !” Ambrosia cried. She tried to break away from Brockley, but he held her firmly.

  Sybil glanced at her again. “I lay in his arms the night that you were made, my dear.” She looked at Rob. “May I?”

  “Yes. I give permission,” Rob said.

  She crossed the floor to her husband. She was nervous of him, I thought, even now, when his hands were bound behind him and she had friends all around. I noticed that Rob Henderson and Dick Dodd moved close as well, watching her keenly, as though they feared that she might either wreak vengeance on Jester or else save his neck or maybe both at once, by producing a dagger and putting him out of his misery.

  But there were no such dramatics. She came up close to the settle, glanced coldly at Woodforde, who turned his head away, and then looked intently into the face of her husband. Then she laid a hand on his head and kissed his brow. It was the kiss one gives to the dead, the kiss I had given, for Ambrosia’s sake, to Thomas Shawe.

  “Good-bye,” she said. Ambrosia was crying now, but quietly, in a healthier fashion. Her mother went to her, took her from Brockley, and led her away.

  As they disappeared, Jester spoke, to himself or to us all, one couldn’t tell which. “I saw her,” he said. “A moment back, from the window. I saw her give the flowers. Oh, my God, don’t anyone understand? If I got married to her ’cos her father was rich, well, we’d not been a wed a week before she had me under such a spell … witchcraft, that’s what it was. I’m still under it.”

  Then he fell silent, his eyes fixed on the stairs down which she had gone. I have rarely, in my whole life, seen eyes so full of desolation.

  24

  The Third Line of Defense

  Another scholarly debate in King’s College Chapel was ending. The black-gowned disputants on the platform were bowing graciously to each other, having finished an argument on a fine point of theology with honors more or less even.

  It was Monday, the seventh of August, and there were still two days of the visit to run. This was the third debate to which the queen had listened; there were yet others to follow, along with a stream of dissertations, receptions, banquets, and plays in Latin.

  Elizabeth had been playing close attention to the points for and against the immanence or transcendence of God, even to moving her chair nearer to the edge of her dais and calling to the disputants to speak up, but it was very hot in the chapel and I could see that she was growing tired. Her ladies and courtiers, standing around her, were wilting as well. In such weather, formal clothes felt as though their hems were weighted with lead, and the starched pleats of my ruff were pricking my neck badly. I inched back a step or two, trying to make the best of a faint current of air from a window and found myself next to Rob Henderson, perspiring heavily in violet-colored velvet. He glanced at me sideways and then looked away. I sighed.

  Between me and Rob, who had once been my friend, things were not as they should be. I knew why, of course, and so did Brockley, who, when I remarked on it to him, had put it into words for me.

  “Madam, you and he came here to find out if there was a plot behind the playlet. You arranged to meet Thomas Shawe …”

  “And got him killed.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, madam. Don’t go blaming yourself. The fact remains, it was you, not Master Henderson, that found a student who had suspicions and arranged for him to tell you about them; it was you that found out that Mistress Ambrosia was writing to her mother; you who found the key to the cipher, you who found the secret room and the tower stairs …”

  “I didn’t find the secret room!” I protested. “I was forcibly dragged into it!”

  “But you escaped through the tower, didn’t you?”

  “With Wat’s help!”

  “And your lockpicks. You escaped, you found the weapon that killed Master Shawe, and recognized it, and it was you that saw the movement at the pie shop window. Whereas what did poor Master Henderson do? He caught the marsh fever and failed to snatch a hackbut out of Master Woodforde’s hand because he and Ryder went and collided with Mistress Ambrosia on the way. You’ve done sterling service to the queen and to Sir Robert Dudley, but Master Henderson won’t forgive you easily, all the same.”

  Under cover of some polite applause I said awkwardly to Rob: “Is there any news of Mattie?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “At least, yes; she is well. But the child is yet to be born.”

  When the debate was finished and we left the chapel, he withdrew from my side and was lost in the crowd. I was free now to return to my lodgings, for the queen was to dine privately with the vice chancellor and I would not be needed until a reception much later in the day. Rob must be going to the lodgings as well, but evidently not with me. I found Dale awaiting me and we made our way back together. Since Sybil Jester was now living at the pie shop, I was surprised to find her in the entrance hall, talking to Rob, who had evidently arrived just ahead of me. When he saw me come in, Rob moved aside.

  “Mistress Jester has come to visit you, Ursula. I’ll leave you with her.” He gave me a stiff bow and went upstairs. I gazed after him with regret and then turned inquiringly to Sybil.

  “Can you find time to ride just outside the town with me, Mistress Blanchard?” Sybil asked. “I have to go to the house of Dr. Edward Barley, to do something for Ambrosia. Dr. Barley has left her all his books and I must look at them and have them packed up for her. She can’t go herself; she is ill in bed. I wonder, too, if your manservant could help with the packing up and arranging for a cart to collect the books. Dr. Barley had quite a big library. His housekeeper is still there and will give us a meal, I expect …”

  I had been looking forward to a rest and the thought of a ride through the heat of the day was exhausting, but Sybil looked at me so appealingly that I said: “Yes, very well. What is wrong with Ambrosia?”

  “Prostration, poor lass,” said her mother, and with a small, significant movement of her head indicated our landlady, who was standing in the doorway to her private rooms, arms folded and ears visibly flapping. “To be young isn’t always to be strong. Their energy flags sometimes where ours wouldn’t. I have already arranged to hire a horse from Radley’s. You keep your own horses there, I believe.”

  “Brockley is there at this moment, looking after them,” I said. “He has little faith in Radley. He will advise us about the cart.”

  We were on the way to the stable when Sybil said: “Now that we are out of other people’s hearing, I think I can tell you. You know that Thomas Shawe and Ambrosia considered themselves betrothed?”

  “Yes.” Enlightenment came suddenly. “Is she … ? I mean, did they … ?”

  “She is,” said Sybil, “and they did. She is carrying Thomas’s child.”

  “I saw her faint once,” I said. “And she was sick when her father and uncle made her help them bind me and Wat. I should have guessed before. Is she in danger of losing it?”

  “I think not, but I have put her to bed for safety’s sake. Oh, she will be all right, Mistress Blanchard. So will the child. She made no mistake in choosing her man, or the family into which she hoped to marry. Thomas’s parents came to Cambridge after his funeral, to attend to various matters he left unfinished—bills to be paid and so on—and while they were about it, they waited to see the queen. They are still here and they know that Thomas wanted to marry my daughter. He had h
inted to them that he wished to marry, and he and Ambrosia exchanged letters which were found among his things. Master and Mistress Shawe wanted to see the girl and her parents and they called on me …”

  “How very difficult! What did you say?”

  “I told them the truth,” said Sybil frankly. “There have been lies and deceit enough. They were extremely shocked, especially to learn that their son probably did not die by accident. I felt that I owed them some honesty but I expected them, when they had heard my story, to turn their backs on us and walk out. But they didn’t. They questioned me at some length and then Ambrosia, separately, and decided that we were not responsible for the actions of her father and uncle. Ambrosia’s baby is all that is left of Thomas. They are willing to adopt it. Ambrosia can go to them and stay until the child is born. I shall put it about that I have sent her to relatives until her father’s trial is over. When she comes back, she can resume life in Cambridge. There is money in trust for any children that she has. This child will have a family, and a future.”

  “You intend to stay in Cambridge yourself?” I said.

  “What had I to do with this scandalous plot?” inquired Sybil tranquilly. “I had run away years before, after all! As for my daughter, she is still a young girl. Thomas’s parents don’t blame her for what her father and uncle did, and why should anyone else? There will be gossip and a few pointing fingers for a while, but that will pass. I intend to reopen the pie shop tomorrow. Wat and Phoebe are there now, setting all to rights. I have an idea,” Sybil added with a smile, “that those two will make a match of it one day.”

  I said: “You are making a brave new start. But it can’t be easy.”

  “No.” Sybil sighed. “It is not. I have to endure the thought, all day and every day, that my husband has been taken away on a charge of treason, and his brother with him. I fled from Roland because I feared him and believed I hated him … but when I think of him in a cell, awaiting trial on such a charge, and with such a death beyond it …