A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court)

by Buckley, Fiona

  As for the Macnabs, who had been letting their attic to paying guests for years, no one could advance any reason why they should suddenly have turned on one of the said guests and murdered him. The usual motive in such cases was robbery, but Master Faldene had not been robbed and the Macnabs were known to be perfectly solvent.

  The open window and the trail of bloodstained marks were in any case plain evidence that the killer or killers had come from outside. The trail led over the roof of the lower story to the wall and down into the alley, where it stopped. The alley, which the constable’s men called a wynd, led from the High Street to a less important street called Cockburn Street, emerging into both through narrow arches where miscreants could have lurked in the shadows until they were sure it was safe to step out.

  “Verra likely,” said the officer who presented the report, “an accomplice, or more than one maybe, was waiting in the wynd with clean footwear and cloaks. Looking commonplace enough and leaving no further trail, the killers could have escaped into the town where, nae doot, they went to ground.”

  I now learned, however, that as a stranger, I was still required to give an account of my purpose in Edinburgh. I was called to explain myself.

  I was careful in what I said. From the moment when the constable’s men first questioned me, on the day that we found Edward’s body, I had been appalled at the prospect of getting into the deep and muddy waters of political relations between England and Scotland, let alone the question of possible schemes against Elizabeth. I had decided, quite simply, that I wasn’t going to.

  On the other hand, I had to tell them a certain amount. I had already briefly confirmed to the inquiry that I was Edward Faldene’s cousin, Madame de la Roche, widow, who had come to Edinburgh to see him on family business. Urged to enlarge on the said family business, I told them that Edward’s wife and parents had sent me to fetch him back because they were worried about his safety. Thereafter, I pleaded ignorance.

  “I don’t know why he came to Scotland because they wouldn’t tell me what it was all about,” I said, as firmly as I could. “They only insisted that they were worried about him. I asked why, of course, but they just shook their heads.”

  They had pleaded with me to come after him, I explained, because they hoped that a family member would have more chance of persuading him to come back than an ordinary messenger, and I was used to traveling, as I had in the past journeyed to Antwerp with my first husband, and later lived in France with Matthew de la Roche. I had also for a time been attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth and gone on Progress with her.

  I mentioned my link with Queen Elizabeth in the hope that it would be some sort of protection, and I think it was. To me, my story sounded thin. I didn’t think I would be believed when I said I didn’t know Edward’s business in Scotland, and I expected to be pressed hard on the subject, but I was not. After I had stood down, however, there was a surprise.

  The proclamation that summoned us to the inquiry had also required any who had knowledge bearing on this horrid murder to tell the authorities forthwith. A tavern keeper by the name of Master Furness was now called and came forward to say that an Englishman named Edward Faldene had been caught up in a quarrel in his tavern, though not on the eve of his death, but on the previous night.

  It transpired that the other party to the quarrel was present, and he too was called forward. He emerged from the crowd, a dark, hirsute fellow with a scowling face. To my English eyes, the plaid that he wore belted around him gave him a wild appearance, though it was no doubt a good protection against the penetrating cold. There was a hearth in the hall and the fire was lit, but in a chamber of that size, it made little difference.

  He gave his testimony straightforwardly. Despite his permanent scowl, he had a certain dignity. What he had to say, though, was hardly helpful. He identified himself as Adam Ericks, son of Johann Ericks, a soldier domiciled in Scotland but born in Norway, and Jessie Ericks, who had been born Jessie Gordon and was actually a distant cousin of the current head of the Gordon clan. Adam was a skilled practitioner with the claymore—I gathered that this was the form of broadsword used in Scotland—and made his living as one of the retainers of a nobleman called Patrick Lord Lindsay, who was a Protestant and an associate of James Stewart, the Earl of Moray.

  Around the court, heads nodded, mine included, as I recognized the name that Helene had mentioned, that of Queen Mary’s powerful Protestant half brother by one of her father’s many mistresses. That he was his sister’s chief aide, and that she had other ardently Protestant nobles in her entourage, was certainly one of the more piquant features of the Scottish court.

  “I ought to have gone with the Progress to Fife, but I was sick and couldn’t,” Ericks said. On shaking off his illness, however, he had celebrated his return to health with an evening in Master Furness’s tavern. While he was there, Edward Faldene had come in and Ericks had noticed that Edward wore a cross.

  “I’m of the Reformed persuasion, sir, like my master. I follow the preacher John Knox, whose house is close to this very building. I have often heard him speak . . .”

  “Aye!” broke in a loud, harsh voice from the back of the room. “And so the man has, for he is often among my congregation here in this verra Kirrk of St. Giles and I am here today at his plea!”

  The voice had an astonishing resonance. Everyone turned around. At the back of the court, a thickset, dark-clad, pale-faced man in middle age had risen to his feet. He now launched into a harangue.

  “I’ve spoken with this man Erricks!” The r’s rolled like thunder. “Many a time he has asked me godly questions. He is passionate for the Prrrotestant faith but he is honest and in my hearing, none shall say he is a murrrderer of men in the night and not be challenged!”

  The provost, his pursed lips jutting out, was bristling with indignation. Clearly he considered that after defeating the Burgh Court, interference from any other quarter was the last thing he had expected.

  “Master Knox! If you wish to testify, then you may do so, but after we have finished with Master Ericks, if you please!”

  So the famous John Knox, the virtual founder of the present Protestant movement in Scotland, had agreed to interest himself in this matter, on behalf of Adam Ericks. I peered across the room at him, intrigued, for this was the man against whom the Bycrofts’ chaplain had railed, the preacher who had caused the Bycrofts to refer to Queen Mary as a poor beleaguered lassie.

  With a sense of depression, I recognized his breed. This was a bigot or I had never seen one. I had to my own discomfort crossed the path of a similar individual in the rival encampment, so to speak. Matthew had once had a passionately, not to say murderously, Catholic acquaintance called Dr. Wilkins. Knox, the ardent Protestant, was remarkably like Wilkins. Even their voices, thick and deep, were similar.

  “Continue with your testimony,” said the provost, in a steely voice, to Adam Ericks.

  Heads reluctantly turned again, away from the famous Knox to the possibly infamous Adam Ericks. “Aye. Well, I don’t like these popish symbols. If folk want to follow the pope, they ought to be a bit decent and discreet about it, to my mind. Or better still, not follow him at all.”

  Once more, an officer spoke up, this time to inform the court that just after Her Majesty Queen Mary first arrived in Scotland, Ericks’s employer, Patrick Lord Lindsay, had led a violent protest when she attempted to hold a mass at Holyrood House. Master Ericks had been one of the crowd trying to storm the chapel, shouting and brandishing weapons. Only a determined stand by the Earl of Moray, who had on this occasion chosen to defend his half sister rather than his religion, and had personally stood in the chapel doorway to defy the mob, had kept it out.

  I wondered what the young queen’s good and gracious spirit had thought of a scene like that. At that moment, a new commotion broke out around Knox, causing the officer to falter and stop speaking. Knox, brushing other people out of the way, was marching toward the empty pulpit. Reaching it, he
climbed the steps, faced the hall, and began to declare loudly that it was a grievous day when the idolatrous mass was allowed to be heard in the very chapel of the queen, in the palace where he himself had once been a royal chaplain.

  “Master Knox! This is not the time or the place! Be good enough to leave the pulpit immediately!” shouted the provost.

  A couple of men, both well dressed, who seemed to be Knox’s friends, pushed their way to the foot of the pulpit and began trying to persuade him to come down. Knox continued to declaim, booming that on that day at Holyrood, Ericks had been only one of many other honest men outrraged by this blasphemy, and had in fact been loyally following his lorrd, who was in turn one of Knox’s own followers. The provost, his face now red instead of pink, picked up his gavel and pounded the table in front of him in fury. One of the men climbed into the pulpit and took Knox’s arm. Knox resisted; the other man pulled, and the two of them lurched about and then came down the pulpit steps in a stumble that was just short of a fall.

  The near-accident produced a few snorts of laughter, but Knox, shaking his friend off, drowned them out by thundering: “For Patrick Lindsay is one of the Lorrrds of the Congrrregation whose shepherd and pastor I have the honor to be . . .”

  The crowd had turned to him again and he was on the verge of mounting the pulpit once more, no doubt in the hope of taking over the entire proceedings. By raising his voice once more and using the gavel as though he wanted to smash the table to pieces, the provost regained control, but I could feel that the balance of power in the room was slipping. For the moment, Knox was forced into silence, and his friends held him back from the pulpit, but we all felt that at any moment he might burst out again.

  Ericks, asked for his side of the story about the interrupted mass, coolly agreed that it was true and added, with apparent pride, that he had personally snatched an altar candle from a servant who was carrying it to the chapel and thrown the thing on the ground and stamped on it. There were various murmurs in the court, by the sound of them mostly of agreement by people who already knew about the exciting first Sabbath of Queen Mary’s reign in Scotland and had probably taken part in the uproar. They assuredly were not expressions of surprise.

  Standing there with Brockley and Dale, I realized that, after all, the Thursbys had been partly right. Prompt though the officers of the law had been to investigate my cousin’s death, nevertheless, this was a violent land where a mob trying to interfere with the private worship of their sovereign was not thought strange or even particularly wrong, and a respectable minister with great lords in his following might encourage such a thing.

  Ericks, once allowed to resume his testimony, said, quite openly, that with a few tankards of ale inside him, he was apt to be free with his fists and had let himself be provoked by the sight of Edward’s cross and had “told the popish fellow to put it out of sight.” Edward had indignantly refused, and words had been exchanged.

  “I asked him who he was, prinking about wearing silver crosses, and he told me his name and said he was a supporter of Queen Mary, but I didnae like his mincing southron voice, so I threw a punch,” said Master Ericks casually.

  Edward had hit back, and with bystanders cheering the two of them on, there had been a lively display of fisticuffs until the tavern keeper pushed his way through the crowd to yank the pair apart and tell them to go and settle their quarrel outside.

  “But the mincing white-livered craven gave me the slip and dodged off into the night,” said Ericks in disgust.

  He had tried to pursue his quarry, but not for long, because he was still a wee bit short of breath after his illness. No, he had not followed Edward home and had no notion where he was staying. He had given up the chase and been back in the tavern within a few minutes, and there were those there who knew him and could say so. The tavern keeper, recalled, bore this out. He also said that he had heard most of the exchange between the two men and no, Edward had not said where he was lodged.

  “So I don’t think Ericks could have known. Besides, it makes no sense. It was just a squabble. They’re always happening, especially with Ericks. I’ve had to order him out a couple of times before. That sort of thing doesn’t lead to this.”

  By this, he meant assassins who crept in at windows in the small hours of the morning, more than twenty-four hours after an argument in a tavern, and stabbed people in their sleep, and he was right. Everyone knew it, and if they hadn’t known it, John Knox, interrupting the proceedings for the third time, and this time wresting control from the provost so forcefully that even though he was not in the pulpit, he nevertheless became to all intents and purposes the presiding authority, proceeded to tell them.

  Ericks, he declared resoundingly, was a good man, zealous for the Reformed faith, and he, Knox, would testify to Ericks’s charrracter at any time and in any fashion it pleased the prrovost or any other authorrity to require. To suppose that Ericks had gone on to spend the day after the argument in creating a tangled scheme of stealthy murrder, and one, at that, which most likely needed at least one accomplice, was madness, and to believe it was to believe the whispering of demons. If Ericks had encountered Edward again, likely enough he would have offered rrighteous blows but as for crrreeping in at windows with a blade in his hand . . . !

  “If this poor honest man Adam Erricks is named as the murrderer?” roared Knox, “it will be over my dead body and so I tell you!”

  Loud cheers broke out from the people around him, and standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, I realized that, in fact, quite a number of men were gathered around him now and that some of them, judging from their rich furred cloaks, were some of his Lords of the Congregation.

  And no doubt they had retainers with them.

  Whether or not Knox and his supporters swayed the verdict, I can’t be sure, but I would wager that they did. Confronted with the possibility of mayhem and further bloodshed, the provost and his jury did what Knox plainly wanted them to do and eliminated Ericks as a suspect. The provost was visibly simmering with anger but he was helpless, his court’s verdict decided by outside influence just as the Burgh Court’s verdict had been on an earlier occasion.

  Not that the verdict was itself unfair. I did not myself think that Adam Ericks was guilty. It was true enough, I thought, that as the verdict said, Edward Faldene, visitor on unknown business from England, had been murdered by a person or persons unknown.

  Then I realized with infinite relief that it was over and we were free to go. Thankfully, we made our way out through a crowd of townsfolk, hindered only by a crippled lady who was being carried in a chair, and who gave us a sweet, apologetic smile as we stopped to let her be borne out of the hall ahead of us.

  The Macnabs had not had room for us—unless we used the attic, which we certainly didn’t want to do. We had taken the lodgings recommended by the Keiths. They were not far from the Macnabs’ house, in another narrow, timber-fronted building, and they were chilly, cramped, and poor.

  Our landlady, who had a plump face and a comfortable figure but eyes as cold as slate, kept one room free, she said, so that she could get some money for letting it to folk visiting Edinburgh, even if it meant her children sleeping on the floor in their parents’ chamber. One glance at the room showed that it was not only free of the children but practically free of furnishings as well. All it contained was a very small hearth for which we had to buy our own coal and firewood, a plain table with a bench on each side, a mattress to go on the bare floor and some blankets to cover it, and some more bedding inside a tall built-in cupboard, similar to the one I had seen at the Macnabs.

  I gathered that I was expected to take the box bed while my servants shared the mattress, but although I was accustomed to curtained four-posters, the idea of sleeping in a pitch-dark cupboard appalled me. I told Brockley and Dale that if they could stand it, they could have it. I would prefer the floor. They said the box bed was quite warm and comfortable, and I must say that my solitary mattress was neither, but I pr
eferred piling cloaks on top of me to changing places with the Brockleys.

  We couldn’t find any alternative lodgings, though. The pending inquiry had made people suspicious. Our cold-eyed landlady had only let us in because, she said, she knew the Keiths and trusted them. “But ony trouble,” she warned us, “and ye’re oot. So tak that as a warning.”

  She was kind enough to say, when we returned from the inquiry, that she was glad it was all over and that our names were clear. She then spoiled the effect by asking delicately how long we would be staying.

  Brockley started to say that we would be leaving almost at once but I checked him. “I may have some business to complete in Edinburgh,” I said. “Do you really object if we stay on for a few days? Have we given you any cause for complaint?”

  Grudgingly, she admitted that the answer was no. “Truly,” I said, “we have just been caught up in this tragedy by chance. And it is a tragedy. I am grieving for my cousin and dreading the news I must carry back to his wife.”

  “I’ll grant that you’ve been no bother as yet. Well, as long as that continues . . .”

  “It will,” I said, and led my companions upstairs to our room. I closed the door firmly behind us. Brockley and Dale regarded me questioningly.

  “Are we not to leave Edinburgh at once, then, madam?” Brockley asked. “But—why?”

  “When I gave evidence,” I said, “I didn’t tell the court of inquiry everything.”

  “No, madam,” Brockley agreed. “You didn’t mention the list.”

  “That wasn’t all I didn’t mention,” I said. “Listen, both of you. I was given leave to pack up my cousin’s things and I did so. I did it myself. Brockley, do you remember that on the day when we found him, you found a button from his black velvet doublet lying on the floor by the bed?”