The Fugitive Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  “That’s right. I’ll only come with you the first part of the way,” Brockley said. “I’m going in the general direction of Fernthorpe.” He gave me his rare smile and said reassuringly: “Don’t worry. I shan’t let on to them that they’re being used in a plot to get Mary Stuart away. I wondered about suggesting that, since they’re not privy to the plot, it seems. They might get scared and back out. But who’s to know which way a cat will jump? They’re supposed to be afraid of getting into conspiracies, but the way they’re after Mistress Pen, well, I wouldn’t place any bets. They might join Whitely and Littleton after all. The Pilgrimage of Grace was a long time back. Clem, what’s the best route in order to pass near Fernthorpe?”

  Clem showed him. Brockley nodded. “Branch off on a little path to the right, after the woodland, bear left round some deserted mine workings . . . very well.”

  “There are some real working mines hereabouts, aren’t there?” I said. “We met some miners, the day we arrived. Who owns them?”

  “T’queen,” said Clem. “They’re on t’land that Fernthorpe had to give to t’crown thirty years back. T’Thwaites have never got over it. Worth summat, these days, coal is.”

  “Brockley, just what are you intending to do?” I asked him.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Brockley said frankly. “But I’ve got a glimmering. Leave it to me.”

  There was a pause. Then I said: “We’d better dine early and rest. It’ll be a long night.”

  The shadows were gathering when, having eaten and rested, we met again in the hall. A last shaft of sunlight was growing dull and changing from golden to coppery as the sun went down. Quite suddenly, it was hard to see the detail of Clem’s makeshift map.

  “It’ll be full dark in half an hour,” said Ryder. “Time to saddle up.”

  • • •

  The dogs had been on guard for some time and we were sure that no one was near enough to the house to hear anything, but we brought the horses out quietly and kept our voices down. Farewells were said in low tones. The four of us who were going mounted quietly and moved off in single file to cross the bridge over the moat. I noticed that Brockley was encumbered with saddlebags, though when I asked him what was in them, he merely gazed at me in his most expressionless way and said: “Well, madam, a fellow must shave and change his linen sometimes,” which told me nothing, as he evidently intended.

  I was pleased to see that although the half-moon was out, it was yellowish rather than bright silver, and faintly hazy. There was a sharpness in the air, too, and I thought that there might be mist later on. Good, provided it wasn’t so thick that we lost our way in it.

  “You are all right, mistress?” Clem asked, bringing his horse alongside me. “It’ll be a weary night for a lady.”

  “I shall survive,” I said.

  I didn’t add that against all expectation, and despite my anxiety for Pen, I was very nearly enjoying myself. My head was perfectly clear and I didn’t even feel tired. I sat straight in my sidesaddle, looking ahead between Roundel’s pricked ears, and silently admitted it. It had happened again, the thing that I thought I had left behind when Hugh slid his wedding ring onto my hand.

  My spirit had once more heard the cry of the wild geese and I was riding after them, into adventure.

  18

  The Scythe in the Moonlight

  In the real world, that night, there were no wild geese but there were owls. They too had a haunting call, which moved something in my blood. As we turned off the track and began to walk the horses quietly in single file beside a drystone wall, I only wished that instead of this wary progress, we could ply our spurs and ride across the moors to Bolton at full gallop with the wind scouring our faces and the hoofbeats thundering like drums.

  Clem, however, led us with steady caution and without him we could not have found the way in the dark. Our new steward, however, took us unhesitatingly along the edge first of the barley field and then of a wide pasture that lay like a grassy shawl over a shoulder of hillside, and on to a sheep track, which meandered down the hill again, conveniently sheltered by numerous clumps of gorse, and led into the wooded valley.

  I had never been there before, even by day. By night, the place was disconcerting. There was a thin path but the trees met overhead and no moonlight penetrated. Roundel’s ears vanished in the intense darkness. So did my companions. I could hear the footfalls of their horses and the faint clink of their bridles, but I rode an invisible horse through the wood in invisible company, and for a while the sense of adventure was drowned by an atavistic voice in my head, whispering that in the darkness, other things might walk abroad besides those of flesh and blood.

  I could feel Roundel, though, even if I couldn’t see her, and she didn’t share human superstitions. Her untroubled plod was reassuring. I wondered if any of the men felt as I did, but I would never ask them, because I knew they would say that because they were men, they didn’t fear the dark and if they were lying, they’d die before they admitted it.

  We came out of the trees suddenly, emerging onto the moonlit moor. We could make out darker clumps, which were gorse bushes, and here and there, the pale light caught the fleece of a few wandering sheep.

  A few yards farther on, Clem halted and turned in his saddle. Brockley reined in beside him and they exchanged a few quiet words. Then Brockley moved off, taking a narrow track to the right. Brown Berry snorted and sidled, swishing an indignant tail, annoyed at being separated from his companions, but Brockley kneed him determinedly away. The rest of us rode on.

  The path we were on now veered to the south, and after a short distance, Clem turned onto the heather to take a straight line westward, following the moon. Ryder came up beside me. “We’re out in the open now,” he murmured. “It’s been a gamble from the start. But they can’t be watching everywhere. Off the path is safer than on it, I reckon.”

  The moonlight showed us little detail, but it revealed distant skylines. This was a wide and lonely landscape. Presently, we reached the lone tree that Clem had mentioned. We passed it and rode on in silence for some time, going slightly downhill at first and then for a while on level ground. Once, in the distance, I caught sight of a thin spire of moonlit smoke from the banked fire in some lonely farmstead. We were crossing the vale where the scattered farms were. After an hour or so, we began to climb again. To the north, on our right, I saw that the moor sloped up more steeply still. Clem turned in his saddle and said: “T’proper road to Bolton’s over t’other side of that crest to t’right. We’re going parallel. We’re where we should be.”

  “So far so good,” said Ryder. “We’ve still got most of the night ahead of us. We need only keep up a steady pace. We can’t risk any speed across rough heather in this light . . . Clem? What is it?”

  Clem had pulled up sharply and his right hand, turned palm downward, made an urgent signal which unmistakably meant stop and be quiet. Ryder and I checked our horses. “What is it?” Ryder whispered.

  “I saw summat, up there on the skyline,” said Clem softly. “I could of sworn it. Something moved.”

  “Could be a sheep,” said Ryder.

  “That was no sheep. Didn’t move right. Proper road’s down t’other side o’ t’crest, like I said. If anyone’s keeping watch, that crest’s a good place to post him, especially with this moon.”

  “What do we do?” I said urgently. “Can we be seen from there? We’re not on a skyline and he’d be looking the other way, anyhow.”

  “Nothing we can do,” Ryder muttered. “And we’re not that visible, no. Reckon we’d better just press on. Just what did you see, Clem?”

  “Summat moving, out o’ t’tail of my eye. Summat tiny but upright-like and t’way it moved were like a man, not a sheep.”

  I cursed silently. I didn’t doubt Clem for a moment. I knew those awful certainties, based on small details and instinctive reactions. He was almost certainly right.

  There was nothing to do but keep moving and hope for the
best. “How far are we from Tyesdale now?” I whispered.

  “We’re a good six or seven miles off Tyesdale land,” said Clem.

  Over eight miles still to go. But we had come far enough to ensure that a watcher couldn’t instantly conclude that any movement he glimpsed in the night was a deputation from Tyesdale. “Let’s ride on,” I said. I added: “We could do with some mist now.”

  “Not just yet,” muttered Clem. “We’re coming to where t’drop’s on t’left. I’d as soon be able to see where we’re going just for a while.”

  “Single file, then,” said Ryder quietly. “And go gently.”

  We went forward at a walk and I was glad to see that the moor was becoming less open. There were more gorse bushes here and some small trees as well. I glanced to my left and saw the drop that Clem had mentioned. We were riding, it seemed, perhaps fifty yards from the edge of an inland cliff. Here and there it curved and gave us glimpses of water glinting below, and a rocky wall, falling away in folds like a sculpted curtain, silvered by the moonlight.

  The quiet was intense. There were no owls now, not even rustlings in the bushes; nothing at all but the footfalls of the horses and the soft clink of bridle rings. Because our pace was slow, the hooves would not be heard at any distance, but I hoped the clinking wouldn’t carry.

  Then Clem’s horse suddenly pricked its ears and turned its head to the right and at the same moment, Roundel whinnied. Behind me, Ryder’s horse trampled sideways, snorting. Ryder swore in a low voice, rose in his stirrups, and then spurred forward, straight at a gorse patch, drawing his sword and slashing at the bushes. We all saw the dark figure start up out of cover and run. Ryder galloped after it, overtook it, and swung his horse across the fugitive’s path. The figure ducked and tried to veer away, but Ryder’s horse was a soldier’s trained mount. It was there again, barring the way, and the upraised sword shone in the moonlight.

  Ryder said something, fiercely, and a frightened voice answered. Then they came back toward us, the fugitive stumbling ahead with Ryder’s horse nudging at its shoulder and Ryder pricking his captive on with his swordpoint.

  They emerged onto the path. Ryder slipped out of his saddle, leaving his horse to stand, and seized the figure by the arm, turning its face into the moonlight. “Who are you and what are you doing, skulking in the bushes and watching us?”

  “Let me go! I’ve done nowt! Can’t a fellow be late home from seeing his lass without being ridden down like a bloody felon? Let me go!”

  “I know him!” said Clem. “Johnnie Grimsdale!”

  “Grimsdale?” I said. I rode up close and recognized one of Grimsdale’s sons. “Well, well,” I said. “One of the fellows we rather fancy went and told the Thwaites that Tyesdale’s new owner was on her way and she was a young unmarried girl and were they interested? Which led to Harry Hobson being killed and my daughter being kidnapped by mistake and frightened half to death. What have you to say for yourself, young Grimsdale?”

  There was no reply. Ryder shook his captive. “And now he’s prowling about in the night and watching us. If you were just an innocent lad coming home from a bit of courting, why were you hiding from us?”

  “Didn’t know who thee were, did I? Could have been anyone. Robbers, maybe. Honest folk don’t go riding through t’night.”

  Ryder sheathed his sword but almost in the same movement, he grasped Johnnie Grimsdale from behind, twisted an arm up his back and put the other around his throat. “Just let’s have the truth out of you. Who set you to spy on us?”

  “No one! No one! Let me go . . .!”

  “Tell the truth. Who sent you here?”

  “Don’t! Don’t!” I couldn’t see what Ryder had done to produce that anguished cry but whatever it was, it broke Johnnie’s resistance. “Master Whitely, it were Master Whitely! Come to our place yesterday and said he’d pay us good money to watch t’road to Bolton an’ report if anyone from Tyesdale tried to set out toward it! My brother’s watching t’road nigh to Tyesdale. I were farther along t’way, up on t’crest, and I saw nothing on t’main track but I did catch sight o’ summat moving down here. Only . . . no, sir, don’t, don’t! . . . I couldn’t make out just what I were seeing so I cut across t’hillside to get here ahead o’ thee an’ get a closer look. I didn’t think o’ t’horses whinnying like that . . .!”

  I believe, so hushed was the night, that I heard the snap as Ryder broke his neck. I saw Johnnie Grimsdale’s body sag. I heard myself gasp. Ryder lowered him to the ground and crouched beside him, pressing his fingers into his victim’s neck and then laying a palm on his chest.

  “Dead,” he said calmly. Then he heaved the body up, settling it across his shoulders, and walked away toward the cliff edge.

  It happened so quickly that there was no time to protest. After my first appalled indrawing of breath, I sat on my horse, paralyzed with horror, and watched while Ryder dropped his load on the brink, crouched, and pushed. I heard a series of thuds and the rattle of small stones as the body fell over the cliff. Faintly, from below, there came a splash.

  As Ryder came back, I said: “You killed him!” My voice had gone high-pitched with shock.

  “There was nothing else to do,” Ryder said coolly. “We couldn’t let him go. If we could have marched him to Bolton with us and had him put in a castle dungeon, I’d have done that, but he was a strong lad and what if he got loose? Where would we be then? He’d report that we’d left Tyesdale. The conspirators could have got away, maybe to conspire again one day—and what of Mistress Pen? As it is, he’ll be found in the stream and it’ll look like an accident. He was out on the moors at night and maybe lost his way in mist . . .”

  “There isn’t any mist.”

  “There will be. Can’t you smell it? He lost his way and his footing. He’ll have a broken neck and the fall will account for that. There’ll be no fingers pointing at Tyesdale. All we have to do is not to mention him to anyone, ever. He didn’t suffer. He didn’t know it was happening until it already had.”

  “But . . .!”

  “Mistress,” said John Ryder quietly, “there’s more at stake than Mistress Pen. There’s a foreign queen with a delusion that she ought to be Queen of England and a desire to bring a French army into Scotland. Sir William Cecil put it to me and to Dodd before we left the south. Queen Elizabeth doesn’t care to admit it, but we’re at war.”

  “But—just to kill him—just like that . . .! We should have taken him to Bolton as a prisoner. We could have done it.”

  “He’d have been a danger to us. Master Ryder’s in the right of it,” said Clem. “Whitely and his friends, they mustn’t be warned.”

  “Mistress Stannard,” said Ryder. “I know, from Sir William, how you got yourself out of Scotland three years ago. Can you say that you have never guided the scythe-hand of Death?”

  I said: “It still gives me nightmares.”

  “Soldiers learn not to have them,” said Ryder briefly.

  • • •

  His horse, which was indeed very well trained, was waiting patiently for him. He remounted and Clem, without further comment, once more led us on our way. The cliff edge seemed to veer southward, away from us, but we continued in a straight line and began to go downhill. On the skyline to the right, against the pallidly luminous sky, we glimpsed another lone tree, which Clem said was the one beside the pool. The downhill slope grew steeper, difficult to cope with, for the moon had become hazy once more.

  And then, at last, there came the expected mist, ghostly wisps of it, drifting around us. Soon it was thick enough to slow us down, and when we reached the streamlet that ran from the pool, we didn’t see it until the horses almost walked into it. We pulled up short.

  It was not wide, but the banks were very steep and we had to ride downstream for some way to find a ford. The silvered vapors were thicker still near the water and gathered close about us as we left the ford behind. We journeyed through the fog like ghosts and once again I was thankful for Clem’
s guidance, for he knew his way. After a time, as he had promised, we struck the drovers’ track. The mist began to lift. As the first grayness was beginning in the east, we reached the gate of Bolton Castle.

  The night watch were yawning at their posts and quite glad to have visitors. I was recognized and we were let in. Ryder and Clem went to see to the horses and someone made haste to tell Sir Francis that Mistress Stannard had arrived with urgent news. It was so early that even the kitchens were not yet astir, but one of the guards fetched us some food from them.

  Sir Francis, with a brocade robe pulled on over his night gear, broke his fast along with me in his study. Our cold pork chops, small ale, yesterday’s bread, and dishes of butter and honey shared his desk with his writing set and document boxes, while I told him of the scheme to get his prisoner-cum-guest out of his hands and en route to France.

  I also told him that we had made our escape from Tyesdale and the journey to Bolton without incident. As far as anyone ever knew, Johnnie Grimsdale went out that night onto the moors, and there in the shifting mists and unreliable moonlight, lost his life in an accidental fall.

  Ryder had done right according to his own set of rules. I understood them. But the call of the wild geese had faded away. Yet again, I longed with all my heart for Hugh, for Hawkswood and Withysham and home.

  19

  The Necessary Sacrifice

  “An interesting story,” Sir Francis said.

  I applied butter and honey to a piece of bread and said: “I only hope you believe me!”

  “Oh yes. It explains a great deal. For one thing, I now know why Lady Mary has spent the last few days alternately lying on her bed and sighing, and flinging herself about her rooms in tears, exclaiming that she feels ill and will never be well until she has more freedom and that her glimpse of the outside world when she went hawking was as good as any physic. She cries out to do that again. She longs for the simple pleasure, denied only to her among all the people of England, to ride out and visit a friend. Can she not visit dear Ursula Stannard? Surely Mistress Stannard is above suspicion? She can return the same day, but such a simple, ordinary thing would give her light and air and exercise and a sense of being, once again, a simple, ordinary woman . . .”