To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court

by Buckley, Fiona

  “I had to try something. I’m afraid it did fail, yes. I’ll have to think of a new ploy now.”

  “Please, madam, try not to take such risks again,” said Brockley in a harassed voice. “The things you do!”

  8

  Haggard Falcons

  I had started my inquiries by making a complete mess of them. I did not know what to do next. The following morning, though, the first thing I had to do, as soon as breakfast was over, was to say good-bye to Meg as she set off with the Hendersons, ostensibly for London, in reality for Tewkesbury.

  Gladys left as well, perched behind one of Rob’s men, and accompanied by a Welshman who would guide them to the Black Mountains and bring Rob’s man back so that he could go on to rejoin his master. Some of the servants turned out to stare and mutter at Gladys. One or two of them made the sign against the evil eye, and from her pillion saddle, Gladys sneered back, but the presence of the Hendersons made sure that there was nothing really unseemly.

  Meg and I both cried at parting, even though it was for only two weeks. Whether I succeeded or failed in my task, I had no intention of staying longer. Once the fortnight was over, she and I would be off to France together and I was as impatient for that day as though I were a child myself. I wanted to be with her now. I wanted to hear everything that had happened during our two years apart; I wanted to read poetry with her, to play music and sing songs with her; to dance and embroider with her and talk to her, talk to her, making up for all the time we had lost. Two weeks felt like eternity.

  I watched her go, and then went up to the top of one of the watchtowers on the outer walls. From there, looking over the battlements, I saw Gladys and her escort part from the others and turn west, and watched the rest of them, with Meg sitting very upright on her little pony, dwindle slowly out of sight on the eastward road.

  When I returned to the guest quarters, I called Dale and Brockley to me and said briskly: “I’ve agreed to stay here for a fortnight but I want to cut it short and there’s only one way to do it and that’s to make a quick job of finding out what Sir Philip is up to.”

  Brockley’s answer was unexpected. “Madam, I was shocked when you told us how Sir William Cecil had used your daughter to fetch you to England. But there is one thing. Before we left France, you were very low in spirits. You seem very different now.”

  “I’ve seen Meg and soon I’ll be with her all the time. Can you wonder?”

  Brockley smiled, rather grimly. “Madam, we know you so well. No doubt seeing Meg again has helped. But I don’t think that’s the whole story, by any means. Is it, Fran?”

  I glared at them. “What are you talking about?”

  Not in the least impressed by my frowning brows, Dale sighed audibly, and Brockley shook his head at me. “You’re going hunting again. That’s what’s made the difference.”

  I told him not to talk nonsense, but secretly, and to my dismay, I realized that there was much in what he said. From that moment in Rob Henderson’s study, when I involuntarily asked whether it was true that nothing was known of the scandal which had made Philip Mortimer leave the court ten years before, something had woken in me which had been asleep too long. From that moment on, my depression had begun to lift. Rob Henderson had sensed it too. I would enjoy myself when I got to Vetch, he had told me. It worried me. It was a poor augury for the future and besides, I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to be a huntress. It was merely something that had been forced on me.

  “Never mind all that,” I said. “I have to think of a new ploy. I must talk to Lady Thomasine again.”

  When I once more went out into the courtyard I found it full of bustle. Servants were hurrying about with bedding and fuel, buckets and mops and armfuls of fresh rushes. I made my way through the confusion and in by way of Aragon and the blue parlor. A fire had been lit there, and mattresses and linen were spread in front of it. I met the girl Olwen and asked her if Lady Thomasine were in her chamber. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and I hastened on to the Mortimer Tower.

  The sound of a lute drifted down the spiral staircase to meet me. I found Lady Thomasine, her tawny and cerise slippers poking out from under an elaborate brocade skirt, elegantly disposed in her window seat while Rafe Northcote played a romantic ballad for her. I curtsied to my hostess but waited in the doorway while he finished the melody. He bowed to us both, and I patted my palms together in applause.

  “You really do play well, Rafe,” I said politely.

  “My own Mark Smeaton,” Lady Thomasine said with a smile. “I was always sorry for him, you know. Smeaton, I mean. You know who he was, Mistress Blanchard?”

  “The musician who was one of the men executed for committing adultery with Anne Boleyn,” I said. “My mother served Queen Anne for a time. She knew Smeaton. She said that he was a fine minstrel and a handsome fellow but that there was nothing wrong between him and the queen.”

  “And I’m sure that was true,” said Lady Thomasine. “You can go, Rafe. I know you have other tasks. But I hope to hear that melody again later. It is charming.”

  She smiled after him as he bowed again, and I moved quickly forward into the room so that he wouldn’t have to squeeze past me as he left. “A delightful young man,” Lady Thomasine said, “and nearly as good a musician as Gareth. I shall miss him when he goes home to take up his inheritance.”

  “Does Gareth not mind it when Rafe sings after dinner?”

  “Not he. Gareth’s old and wants to go to sleep after he’s eaten. He’s already asking for a young minstrel to take over when Rafe leaves us. He taught Rafe, you know, and he’s proud of him. Well, Mistress Blanchard? Have you any news?”

  “Alas, no. After supper yesterday, I tried my best to get Sir Philip to talk freely but he wouldn’t.” I didn’t enlarge on what he had done, or tried to do instead. “He hinted again at his plans to become wealthy,” I said, “but he kept the details to himself. Lady Thomasine …”

  “Yes? Speak as freely as you wish, Mistress Blanchard. I would be a fool to call you here to help me and then not be willing to listen to you. What is it?”

  “Well, I was wondering—does he really have a scheme at all? Or is it all just—talk? An obsession—a fantasy.”

  “You think he may be ill in his mind?” Lady Thomasine was not offended. Her eyes were serious. “No. I think his scheme exists. He certainly intends to go to Cambridge at the same time as the queen. He has exchanged letters with his friends there and made arrangements to stay with them.”

  “I see. I wonder if they know anything?” I hoped my quest wasn’t going to lead me to East Anglia. Lady Thomasine, however, was shaking her head.

  “Philip doesn’t know them all that well; they’re acquaintances rather than close friends. I’ve met them, though, and they struck me as the stolid kind. I think they would laugh at any grandiose schemes and Philip doesn’t like being laughed at. I doubt if he’d confide in them.”

  She passed a thin hand across her brow. “Let me think … if I can. Oh, dear. I called Rafe to play for me because I wished to be soothed. My daughter and her husband, William Haggard, and their girl Alice are arriving today, for Alice’s betrothal. I mentioned that to you, didn’t I? Philip arranged it while I was away at court, trying to find you. I do hope the presence of guests won’t hamper you. If I had been here, I would have urged him to hold the affair at Alice’s home. She is such a difficult girl. When they stayed with us at Christmas …” She broke off, apparently contemplating some unpleasant memory of Alice at Christmas. I wondered what the girl had done and waited with interest, hoping that Lady Thomasine would tell me, but she shrugged her slender shoulders and dismissed the matter.

  “Oh well. Let that be. Philip has brokered the match and he wants to host the betrothal at Vetch. The bridegroom-to-be arrives tomorrow—Owen Lewis, his name is. He comes from Brecon, in South Wales. It’s a good match. He’s older than Alice, but in my opinion that is just what she needs. He owns a fair amount of land but he wants t
o acquire property in England and Alice’s dowry includes a farm of some size in the Malverns. He is also paying Philip a commission for promoting the marriage; everyone will gain. But …” She passed a hand over her forehead once more. “You want to know how else you can approach this mystery. Well, all I can think of is that Philip just may have committed something to writing. When he makes plans, he makes notes. In that case, his study is the place to look.” She clicked an irritated tongue. “And my daughter and her family will be sleeping in Aragon, just above the blue parlor and the study. Oh, what a nuisance.”

  “I thought the stairs in Aragon led up to a music room.”

  “They do, but there are some extra guest rooms, too.” Her worried eyes sought mine. “Well, never mind. You had better search the study, and your best chance is at night, only you will have to take extra care, as now there will be people sleeping overhead. Aragon is locked at night but I can give you a key.”

  “But, Lady Thomasine, have you never looked in the study yourself?”

  “Yes, of course. Several times. But my son keeps all documents that he regards as confidential locked in a strongbox and carries the key with him.” She sighed. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to ask you to open his strongbox. It isn’t a nice thing to ask. I must say, I hoped you would be clever enough to find out what we want to know without that. That was why I didn’t mention it yesterday. But according to Luke Blanchard, you know how to force locks. Is that true?”

  I cursed inwardly. Luke Blanchard wasn’t supposed to know about my lock picks but I knew of someone who could have told him, someone who had actually watched me use them. I had brought them with me, just in case. Searching other people’s studies, however, and forcing the locks of their document cases was not my favorite occupation. I was always afraid of being caught.

  I could also see that it was now the only logical move. “Let me have a key to Aragon,” I said with resignation. “I’ll search the study and tackle the strongbox. I may be able to open it, yes.”

  The Haggard family arrived in time for dinner. Lady Thomasine invited me to join Sir Philip and herself in the hall to greet them. When they were seen approaching, I made my way there with Dale.

  We found that Rafe was there too, complete with lute, practicing a serenade of welcome. Dale withdrew tactfully to the background, sat down beside Lady Thomasine’s maid Nan, who was stitching up the hem of a gown, and began to help her with it. Between us, we all created an air of cultured domesticity, a pleasing reception for the guests.

  The guests themselves came as a shock.

  Lady Thomasine was one of the most elegant women I had ever seen, to the point of vanity, and Sir Philip, however deplorable his manners in some respects, at least had a suave veneer. I had supposed that his sister and her husband would be similar.

  But their arrival in the hall was heralded by masculine curses and placating female voices and when the door opened to admit the butler, Harold Pugh, he was pushed aside before he could announce the guests. The pushing was done by a thickset, sandy-haired man unremarkably dressed in brown, with a matching hat, which he could not remove as courtesy dictated, because his left arm was weighed down by an unhooded and angry goshawk, which was beating her wings furiously and plunging a ferocious set of talons into her master’s beard. His spare hand was damaged already. He was shaking it about and drops of blood were flying in all directions from a jagged tear on his thumb.

  “Damn this bird! Get your claws out of my beard! All right, Pugh; they all know who I am, anyhow. Good day to you, Lady Thomasine … Good to see you, Philip. I’d hoped for some sport on the way but I didn’t bargain on being the quarry … bugger it, she’ll have it out by the roots in a minute!”

  “… and Mistress Bess Haggard and their daughter Alice!” declared the butler stoutly, getting through his introduction anyway, and putting extra distance between himself and the goshawk’s impressive wingspan, as two ladies and a patient-looking maid came warily through the door, keeping their distance, like Pugh, from the indignant hawk.

  “Allow me,” said Mortimer. He stepped forward, found the hawk’s hood stuck in her owner’s belt, and put it over her head. The hawk became quiet and Sir Philip, removing her from his brother-in-law’s arm, deposited her on the back of a settle and shouted for someone to fetch Evans from the mews and someone else to bring salves and hot water.

  “She wanted to go after a puppy in the outer bailey,” said Haggard. “I wouldn’t let her. Typical female. Always wanting what they can’t have.”

  “What the devil did you unhood her for?” demanded Sir Philip.

  “There were rabbits about as we came up to the castle. I was hoping to bring you something for a stew. Make your curtsy, Alice.”

  Bess had already greeted her mother in a properly respectful fashion. Bess Haggard didn’t look as though she would ever dare to want anything without first being granted permission by someone. She had a vague resemblance to her mother and brother but none of their elegance. She was simply dressed and she was as meek and faded a woman as I had ever seen.

  The difficult daughter, who had misbehaved in some unspecified way last Christmas, was about sixteen. She was good-looking in a strong-boned way, and probably had character. She had a clear skin, with none of the spots which so often afflict girls of that age, and her brown hair was thick and glossy. She was better dressed than either of her parents, in a moss-green brocade, with a feathered green hat and gauntlets tasseled in green and gold. She sank gracefully into her curtsy before rising to kiss her grandmother and her uncle.

  “Well, Uncle Philip, and my lady grandmother.” She had a clear, carrying voice. “Here I am, all ready for Owen Lewis, dressed in fine clothes as a gift is put in pretty wrappings.”

  There was a tense silence. Over the head of the servant who had come running to attend to Master Haggard’s thumb and the further bloodstained tear on the chin which the hawk had given him, I saw Haggard’s prominent pale blue eyes harden in annoyance. Bess looked miserable. I supposed that Alice objected to the plans her elders had made for her. Very likely, she didn’t want to marry an older man whom she hardly knew—perhaps didn’t know at all. Was this, I wondered, what Lady Thomasine meant by misbehavior and being difficult? If so, I was inclined to be on Alice’s side.

  No one answered her. Lady Thomasine presented her to me, and Alice expressed well-mannered pleasure at meeting a new kinswoman. Face-to-face with her, I saw that she had greenish-blue eyes, oddly set, like Philip’s and Thomasine’s, and I saw too that they were full of unhappiness which her polite social smile did not touch. She had an aquiline profile, like that of the goshawk. A haggard falcon, I thought, making a private pun. It would not be easy, bending this wild bird to the will of others.

  “Rafe here has a song prepared for you,” said Sir Philip. “Got your lute ready, Rafe?”

  Rafe came forward. He smiled at the new arrivals, strummed a few introductory notes and began his song—a simple, harmless greeting, expressing joy in their arrival and the hope that their stay would be happy. But while he was singing, I saw that this time he was not interested in me. He could scarcely take his eyes from Alice and she could scarcely take her eyes from him.

  So that was it.

  “Give over yawning, Dale,” I said. “You had a rest after dinner and you can go to bed as soon as I’ve finished in the study. I don’t intend to take long.” I peered from the parlor window. “We’ll go in a few minutes. The candles in those upstairs rooms have been out for half an hour. They should all be asleep by now.”

  “I feared they’d sit up late for a family quarrel,” Brockley remarked. “There’ll be trouble among them before long, mark my words. All through dinner, young Northcote and that girl never stopped ogling each other.”

  “I think they’re trying to marry her off to a doddering old man because he’s a landowner, and Sir Philip can have a cut off the joint,” I said. “My sympathies are with Alice. Even Rafe might be an improvement on that.”
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br />   “Even Rafe?” queried Brockley sharply.

  “He’s not a particularly pleasant young man,” I said. “Never you mind how I know. In my opinion,” I added, “the Mortimers and the Haggards don’t add up to a particularly pleasant family.”

  I wished I didn’t have to search Mortimer’s office. At dinner, which had been festooned with what I now knew was the usual Vetch formality, I had nursed a faint hope that he might show off to his new guests and come out with some interesting revelations. Accordingly, I had said very little but listened earnestly to all the conversation. Unfortunately, it could hardly have been more mundane. Mortimer and Haggard talked hounds and horses solidly, while Lady Thomasine told Bess that she looked tired and lectured her on the art of fending off wrinkles. The technicalities of repairing a hawk’s tail feathers and treating cracked hooves mingled with advice on tonics of red clover and nettles, face packs of olive oil and rice flour, and the use of crushed eggshells as a powder. Schemes for extracting land and wealth from Queen Elizabeth were not mentioned.

  Supper was no better, although Mortimer did refer to the queen just once, when he broke off in the middle of a story about a peregrine falcon which had escaped from the mews and decimated the population of a neighbor’s dovecot, to ask me if Elizabeth liked hawking. I rather think he did so because he had been distant with me all day, but had eventually realized that this looked pointed. Yesterday evening had no doubt embarrassed him. In jovial tones, he explained to the Haggards that I had been at court.

  I told him that Her Majesty enjoyed both hunting and hawking, whenever her numerous duties of state allowed her the time and tried to give the impression that I was eager to go on talking about the queen. But Mortimer, instead of taking the bait, merely nodded and then, presumably deciding that the exchange of a few casual words with me was enough, turned to his mother and asked her if she could suggest an ointment to soothe Haggard’s thumb where the goshawk had torn it. Haggard at once leaned across the table to display the jagged, weeping wound to Lady Thomasine and me. “Bess has tried her comfrey and elder flower ointment, but it’s still shockingly sore.”