The Fugitive Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  At the top of the tower was a music room and in between was a study. In them we found tables gray with dust, a lute and a spinet, both made useless by neglect and damp. Cobwebs festooned every corner. If cared for, the rooms could have been charming, which made their condition even sadder.

  The big hall had a parlor adjoining it at one end. At the other was a small minstrels’ gallery with the doors to the kitchen and to Whitely’s office beneath it. The hall had probably been lofty to begin with but at some point an extra floor had been put in so that new rooms could be built above (as a result, the minstrels’ gallery was now suitable only for rather short minstrels). A staircase led up from the hall, emerging into a passageway with windows at each end and doors leading to bedchambers, two at the back and two at the front. They were spacious and had been kept dusted; in fact, Whitely was using one of those at the back. The beds in the others were not made up, but each had a supply of linen in a window-seat chest.

  A farther narrow staircase went on up to four small attic bedchambers under the slope of the roof. “Jamie and I sleep up here,” Agnes said.

  I led us back to the hall after that, because there, in addition to a scarred table and an array of battered-looking stools and benches, I had noticed a large sideboard. It was as scratched and unpolished as everything else, but I had been wondering what was in it.

  Pulling it open, Sybil and I found silverware inside. We got it out for a closer look and compared it with the inventory. It hadn’t been cleaned for a long time, and if the inventory was accurate, some of it was missing. “Where’s the rest?” I said to Whitely. “And why has none of this dreadful furniture or any of those out-worn hangings been replaced?”

  Whitely was indignant. He couldn’t, he said, think of taking it upon himself to authorize the purchase of new furniture or hangings unless the owner had inspected the old ones first, and as for the silver, what was in the sideboard was all of it. The missing items had never existed. Dudley’s agent, whom he said he remembered very well, had been careless and apt to write things down twice.

  “There never was but one of those ornate salts, Mistress Stannard. The old master wasn’t such a wealthy man. The wealth of this place is in the sheep. And we never had but the half dozen silver candlesticks, not two dozen as it says here . . .”

  I didn’t believe him. It would be hard to prove that he had disposed of the absent items himself, but by this time I had taken in the fact that Master Whitely’s plain buff garments were actually made of very good materials and had been cut by a highly competent tailor. A doublet that fit across the shoulders like a second skin was a telling sign. Like Dudley, I was beginning to feel suspicious of Master Whitely.

  The inspection over, it was time to decide who was to sleep where. I chose one of the front bedchambers over the hall for myself, to share with Sybil. It was sunny and overlooked the courtyard. The rooms at the back also had a pleasant outlook, though, over the fields and moorland to the north and there was no outer wall at the back to interrupt the view. The wall we had seen on the way in only enclosed the courtyard and the sides of the house. At the rear, the house wall went virtually straight down into the moat.

  Sybil and I helped Agnes to light a fire in the hall and put the bed linen to air, and we agreed with Ryder that when our party was reunited, he, Tom Smith, and the Brockleys should have the three spare attic rooms. Meg, by this time, had become restless and wanted to get up from her settle, so I set her to cleaning the surviving silver. A quiet manual occupation, I thought, might be steadying for her.

  During the afternoon, the bright weather faded once more and a rainstorm swept down. It cleared presently, however, and soon after that Jamie Appletree reappeared, accompanied by a large, loud-voiced man with a drooping ginger mustache and a workmanlike suit of russet brown, who announced himself as Master Toft, by trade a tiler, but for this year burdened with the duty of being the constable of Fritton, and what was all this about one of our men being murdered?

  I looked at Master Toft and felt a terrible new weight of weariness descend on me. I knew his type. Constables are local men, usually with other trades to follow as well, who take on the task of upholding the law for a year or two, after which someone else replaces them. Some are good at the task, conscientious and intelligent. Some enjoy the power and become too zealous, arresting people for foolish reasons.

  And some have too little experience of the world outside their town or village. They don’t know what is important and what isn’t, and automatically distrust all strangers, assuming that anything they say is only half as reliable as the testimony of local folk. They may be energetic but they’re often ineffectual. On sight, I judged that Master Thomas Toft was one of that kind. And I was right.

  6

  Against the Wind

  Jamie had taken the gray cob to Fritton. It apparently belonged to Whitely but was used by anyone who needed a horse, since Whitely himself spent most of his time at the house. Ryder borrowed it next, because our horses were all tired and he wished to show Toft the scene of Harry’s death.

  Ryder hurried Toft off straightaway and did not return until dusk. Ryder was visibly in a temper. Toft, unmoved, declared patronizingly to me that nothing had been found that could be investigated. He declined my request that he should speak to Meg about her kidnapping. “T’lass is back unharmed, and like enough they meant marriage, any road. That’s nearly always the way of it and t’girls get husbands as good that way as any other.” He then took himself off back to Fritton and his tiling business, and by that time, I was in a temper, too.

  “The rainstorm did for us,” Ryder told me bitterly, as we sat by the fire, glad of its warmth, for all that this was July. “The blood had all gone and even a lot of the hoofprints had been washed out. Toft, who is a complete fool, kept saying that if we didn’t have Harry’s body and there was no sign of bloodletting, how did he know Harry had ever existed? Well, we can all take oaths that he did and there are the Grimsdales and all the innkeepers between here and Richmond, but I don’t think Toft thinks anywhere outside of Yorkshire really exists either!”

  “The Grimsdales aren’t outside of Yorkshire! Did you see them?”

  “Yes, oh yes. And Mistress Pen is better and all the rest of our party will be here tomorrow. Dick’s with them. Yes, the Grimsdales said they thought we’d had a third fellow with us when we set off in the morning, but they couldn’t be sure. They hadn’t counted the heads in our party and what with it being so dark inside their place . . .”

  “Oh, for the love of heaven!”

  “Quite. But that’s what they said. At least, the men did. The women looked as if they might have said more, only they were too scared. The younger one did start to say something at one point but her husband told her to hold her tongue and not interfere in men’s business. Toft, of course, thought nothing of it. That’s the way these farming folk always treat their wives, he said, and it didn’t mean anything. I thought it did, but . . . well, we went to other places, too, in the direction more or less that we went to find Meg. There’re quite a few little farmsteads over that way; there’s a sort of long valley with usable land in it—though not good land, by any standards—and farms, poor places, all of them, are dotted here and there. We didn’t find anything suspicious in any of them. We didn’t notice anything that might be a new grave anywhere, either. Toft says that unless we can prove to him there ever was a murder, there’s not much he can do, and there have been no reports of robbers in this district since Dickson Morley. Why the devil he should think we’d made it all up, I can’t imagine, but I really believe he does!”

  I thumped an exasperated fist down on the arm of my chair, which creaked alarmingly. “So what next? What am I to write to Hugh about Harry’s death? And what else can we do to find out what has happened to his body? I have all these other things to see to! I have to . . . to deliver a message to Mary Stuart in Bolton! And help Pen put this place in order and look for a husband for her and . . .”

>   Find out if the said Mary Stuart had tried to blow her husband up the February before last, as well! A hateful task and one which I couldn’t for the life of me see a way of accomplishing. All this, and the disaster with Harry, too. It was too much.

  I did not speak of that last errand to Ryder but he saw in my face that I felt as though I were being pushed beyond endurance. “Mistress Stannard,” he said gently, “you should retire to your chamber. You need sleep. Mistress Jester and Meg are already asleep, I fancy.”

  “Yes. They went up before you came back.”

  “Join them. Things will look better in the morning.”

  • • •

  That night, since it was our first in this unfamiliar place, I had sent Meg to share the same room as Sybil and myself. She slept well, to my relief. I slept soundly, too. I hadn’t expected to, but sheer exhaustion saw to it for me. I can’t say, however, that the outlook seemed any better when I woke in the morning. In fact, it seemed just as harassing as ever. I still had no idea what to do about Harry or how to carry out Cecil’s impossible mission in Bolton. I felt as though I were struggling along, head down against a strong, cold wind.

  Pen and the others reached Tyesdale by noon. I had sent Ryder back along the track to meet them and make sure that they found the way. They had, of course, already heard of Harry’s death, and their mood was somber. Pen and Dale looked frightened, as well they might.

  However, as it happened, there was something at Tyesdale to lighten the air for us all. Agnes Appletree had duly found a couple of girls and set them to cleaning the tower rooms. They were laborers’ daughters, glad enough to earn a little and willing to work. “Feeb”—whose name was probably Phoebe though I never inquired into the matter—was only about thirteen and was lumpish and slow, almost to the point of being a lackwit, but wiry little Bess, who though so small was actually about seventeen, seemed bright enough. They both wore clogs all the time and we could tell from a distance whose footsteps were whose. Tom Smith, who had liked Harry well enough, but was too young and naturally lively to keep a sad face for long, found this amusing and said so.

  “Feeb goes Clop, Clop, Clop,” he said, “and Bess goes clip-clop, clip-clop. Don’t you, Bess? If I nickname you Bess Clip-clop, will you mind?”

  “Nay, I’ll not mind. Been called worse than that when I annoy my da,” Bess informed him with a grin.

  Unlike Feeb, she didn’t mind the Tyesdale dogs, either. I had by now made friends with the dogs and learned from the Appletrees that their names were Gambol and Grumble. They weren’t used for hunting, but were guard dogs and ratters. Feeb was scared of them but Bess liked them and said that they regularly sired puppies on her father’s brindle bitch, Streaks. I gave her the job of feeding them.

  Agnes chivvied the two girls cheerfully about and I had the impression that in contrast to Whitely, she enjoyed having some life and bustle about the house, to the point that she kept on forgetting that the rest of us were in a state of grief. I couldn’t reprove her for that, for after all, she had never seen Harry, and if Tom Smith could smile then surely Agnes could.

  For the time being, I decided, reluctantly and angrily, but of necessity, I must accept that I could do no more about Harry. Though I would find a way of inquiring further, somehow, sometime, I told myself. Information would reach me or I would stumble across something significant and I didn’t intend to leave Yorkshire until it happened. It was plain that Ryder and Dodd felt the same.

  Meanwhile, I must turn to my other tasks, whether I liked them or not. The one immediately to hand was Tyesdale itself. From the moment that Pen arrived, I had realized that the impetus for rescuing it would have to come from me. Pen, who was after all the official mistress of the house and should therefore be the one most concerned about its condition, wasn’t interested.

  Pen, in fact, had taken an instant dislike to her new possession. She walked around it, wrinkling her nose with disapproval, and then told me bluntly that she thought it was a horrible place. She wanted to go home, to Lockhill or Hawkswood or Withysham, she didn’t mind which, as long as she didn’t have to stay here. She didn’t care if Tyesdale fell down around her ears; in fact she wished it would.

  I sighed. Tyesdale was Pen’s property and Pen was old enough to take charge. But now it seemed that I must shoulder the full weight of it, on top of all my other tasks. Well, I had better get on with it. I had brought a fair supply of money with me, but I would have to go into the Tyesdale finances, I thought. Dudley had told me that he had been receiving the profits from the wool and produce, and that he had allocated a sufficient sum to be kept back for the maintenance of the house and to pay its servants. I wondered how much of it had been used for that and how much had gone to Master Whitely’s tailor.

  In addition to all this, on our second night there, I sent Meg to share her bed with Pen, and Pen roused me at midnight because Meg was having bad dreams. I had to waken her gently and take her back to sleep with me. I had thought she was getting over her fright, but clearly it wasn’t going to be as easy as that. During the night, she woke me twice more, crying out in distress, and I had to shake her back to consciousness and comfort her. I got up next morning feeling jaded. I hoped that I would at least find Pen in a more compliant mood but it was plain enough before we had broken our fasts that my irritating ward was still sulking.

  And then, of course, the neighbors came to call.

  7

  A Surfeit of Company

  The morning was bright and windy and I decided to try what fresh air and distraction could do for Meg. I called Brockley from the little chapel where he was interestedly peering into various cupboards and crannies and asked him to take her out for a ride. “Let her practice her falconry with the merlin, Joy.”

  Meg was nervous. “Suppose we meet those men again?”

  “They sent you back,” I reminded her gently. “I don’t think you are in any danger. I’ll tell Brockley not to go far from the house. See if you can bring down enough small birds to make a pie for supper.”

  Meg accepted that, and went out accordingly. I then told Whitely that as steward of Tyesdale, he should have made sure that the abandoned plow in the barley field was removed and would he do so at once, and after that I wrote a letter to Sir Francis Knollys at Bolton Castle.

  I knew I should also write to Hugh but I shrank from putting the news concerning Harry down on paper yetawhile. Knollys, though, would be expecting to hear from me very soon. Though Dudley hadn’t sent a courier ahead to Tyesdale, Elizabeth had sent one to Bolton to smooth the way into the castle for me. Ryder, borrowing the gray cob once more, took the letter to Bolton for me. “Now for Pen,” I said to Sybil. “I must do something about her but I wish I knew how to deal with her.”

  “I think, Mistress Stannard, that Pen is still not really well. She wasn’t truly fit for the ride yesterday, except that we could see we were a trouble to the farmer and his family. The way they all looked at us when we went downstairs yesterday morning . . .”

  “Yes. I see. You think that her bad temper is partly because she still feels out of sorts?”

  “Yes, I do. My daughter never had this particular problem, but as a young woman, I did and I know what it’s like. It will pass presently.”

  “Very well.” I was relieved to think that perhaps I need not rebuke Pen, for the prospect gave me no pleasure. I found her in the parlor, sitting by the empty hearth and staring miserably at the fire irons. She stood up politely as I came in, but her face was mutinous and she obviously expected a lecture. Instead, I smiled and signed to her to be seated again.

  “Pen, I think you need some further rest and quiet. Now, I want to examine the account books this morning. They’ll tell us a good deal about the estate—and about Master Whitely’s honesty. Will you help? It won’t be arduous. We can sit in here—it’s pleasanter and quieter than the hall—and I’ll have a fire lit here instead. It’s supposed to be July but it’s astonishingly cold.”

  Unlik
e most girls, Pen enjoyed figurework. For a moment, her desire to go on sulking visibly clashed with the prospect of an interesting task beside a comforting hearth. Then the accounts won and she agreed, if not altogether graciously.

  I went to give orders about the fire and find the ledgers, taking Sybil with me for moral support in case Whitely proved difficult. But he had no doubt expected the request. He led the way to his office without demur.

  I hadn’t paid much attention to it when I wrote to the constable on the day of our arrival. Now I noted that it was a dull little room with plain, cheap paneling, and that its contents consisted only of a table, a writing set, a small coffer, and a shelf of ledgers, bound in brown leather, much like the ones my uncle Herbert had. “I keep a little money in the coffer,” Whitely said in his mincing way, opening it to show us, “and a few unpaid bills, but I’m a tidy-minded man and I don’t hold with keeping documents too long; they just get into a dusty muddle, to my way of thinking. I put the figures in the ledgers and that’s where I look them up if I need to.”

  He pulled a ledger off the shelf. “This has the incomings and outgoings for the last three and a half years. I understand double-entry bookkeeping and I trust you’ll find everything in order.”

  Thanking him, I carried it back to the parlor, where I found Agnes on her knees, encouraging the fire with bellows. As I came in, she rose, bobbed, and took herself off to the kitchen, leaving me and Pen alone. Knowing that we would have to go into estate matters, I had included an abacus in the baggage. Equipped with this, we settled down in the warmth to study the pages of notes and figures.