“He can’t hurt us, madam.” Brockley sat down at my side and again put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “The dead can’t hurt anyone.”
“So people say,” I whispered back. I kept whispering because I had an unreasonable fear of waking the thing on the floor. In the darkness, the body was no longer Rafe, the boy who had stood defiantly hand in hand with Alice only that morning. And if it were to stir, to wake, then the life in it would not belong to Rafe but to some demonic trespasser. Mortimer, I thought, had understood very well the horror he was inflicting on us, or at least on me.
At least Brockley was there, his warmth and common sense a blessing beyond price. We sat together, not moving, and did not talk any more, until the lock clicked again, and into the room, candlestick in hand, came Mortimer, followed by the tall figure of the butler Pugh, and the hefty bulk of the falconer Evans, both dressed in dark breeches and doublets.
“There’s a useful dungeon under the keep,” Mortimer said to us. “That’s where you’re going to spend the rest of the night. On your feet!”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “We’re guests here. I’m one of Lady Thomasine’s kinswomen. All we did was see a light and come to see what it was. You can’t seriously suppose …”
“Mistress Blanchard is perfectly right. If she is mistreated in any way, you’ll answer for it!” Brockley backed me up. No one, however, deigned to answer us. In silence, Mortimer closed steely fingers around my upper arm and pulled me off the settle while Pugh and Evans seized Brockley’s elbows and hustled him backward to the door. Once, Pugh and Evans had been slightly comic figures: Evans the falconer, who presented hares to his lady at dinner; Pugh the luckless butler, who was forever failing to introduce arrivals properly. But now, as they hauled us into the courtyard, they were impersonal and frightening. As we were dragged into the open, we stopped either resisting or shouting, out of a sense of dignity, for it was obvious that we could not escape and none of Mortimer’s servants were likely to come to our aid.
Mortimer put the candlestick down in the parlor, but in the entrance lobby, we found Lady Thomasine waiting with a lit torch. The rain had stopped and the torch burned steadily, lighting our way as we were haled across the courtyard.
We were taken back to the keep, but not to our rooms. Just inside the entrance of the keep was an inner door which I had noticed only vaguely before, supposing that it led to a food store or wine cellar. Through this we were thrust. It opened onto a flight of dank stone steps leading down to a heavy oak door, which Mortimer unlocked. Beyond that was a short stone corridor with another stout door on each side and a third one at the far end. This was open and we were shoved through it, so roughly that I fell on all fours, landing amid a scattering of fresh straw. Turning as I picked myself up, I found my nose an inch from Lady Thomasine’s pretty slippers with the cerise roses and I saw with satisfaction that the dirt and wet from the rain-swept cobbles had done them no good. In desperate circumstances, one takes pleasure in sadly petty triumphs.
“You’re a lady of standing, Mistress Blanchard,” Mortimer said, none too accurately, considering that I was on my hands and knees at the time. I got up quickly, in order to look him in the eye. “And by marriage,” he said coldly, “you are a member of my family. I have not forgotten. I have, therefore, ordered that you be treated accordingly, and your companion may share in this. You will spend the rest of the night here, but we’ve put straw down for you. You can pile it into bedding and sleep, if you can sleep. In the morning, you’ll be fed. But you will then be handed over to the authorities. I shall send to Hereford for the sheriff tomorrow. As a justice of the peace, I do of course have full authority to incarcerate you, and I can have you brought to trial for murder at the Midsummer Sessions in Hereford. Good night.”
11
Precipice in the Dark
They went out, taking the torchlight with them. The door shut with a hollow echo and the bolts were shot. I stood in the rustling straw and said: “Dale will be anxious by now.”
“She was probably watching from a window. I told her to sleep but she said she couldn’t, not until we got back. She saw us being brought across the courtyard, as likely as not,” Brockley said. “But we can rely on Fran. She’ll get word to Tewkesbury.”
“If they let her,” I said pessimistically.
“If they don’t, we’ll get word ourselves, through the sheriff. You’re a lady of standing, madam; even Mortimer said so. Don’t worry.”
The darkness had seemed absolute at first but as my eyes adapted, I saw a faint gray patch in one corner, above our heads. There must be a grating in the courtyard, to let in air. I moved toward it and immediately stepped into a puddle, which splashed my ankles. The grating had let the rain in as well.
“It seems to be dry over here,” said Brockley, moving in a different direction. “We can pile the straw up just here and make a bed of sorts. We may as well rest if we can.”
Fumbling in the gloom, we gathered up the straw and put it in a corner that, as far as we could tell, was free of water. Then we sat down, side by side. “What o’clock is it by now?” I wondered.
“Not one in the morning yet, I fancy,” Brockley said. “Things have happened fast. There’s time to sleep.”
“I’ve never been farther from sleep,” I told him. In the study, with Rafe’s body lying invisibly but horridly at our feet, we had wondered feverishly who had killed him. Now the question seemed to ask itself again. “Brockley, who can have done it?”
Brockley rustled the straw as he settled himself more comfortably. “If you ask me, I reckon it’s between Mortimer and Lewis, like we said back there in the study. Unless it’s Alice.”
“Alice?”
“She and Rafe were lovers,” Brockley pointed out. “They could have had another secret meeting and quarreled. She seems to be turning toward Owen Lewis now. Maybe she told Rafe so and it made him angry. Maybe he grew violent and she stabbed him to defend herself. Or perhaps she’s pretending, with Lewis, to please her family and it was Rafe who wanted to end their affair, and she attacked him in a temper. It’s possible.”
“I can’t believe any of it,” I said flatly. “I can’t imagine a well-brought-up young girl like Alice stabbing anyone for any reason, even if she is a trifle headstrong by nature. And I can’t really believe that other suggestion, that Rafe was caught searching the study. Why should he be searching it? If he can open a locked strongbox, Lady Thomasine would have told him to do it long ago. As for Mortimer killing the boy in a fury merely because he’d been trifling with Alice … it’s just not reasonable.”
“I think I agree with you, madam. That leaves Lewis, but …”
“Lewis is getting somewhere with Alice. I’d swear that’s genuine. He can’t have thought that murdering Rafe would further his courtship. Unless he caught them together and he and Rafe started fighting, but in that case … It had only just happened,” I said slowly. “I could smell the candle and Rafe’s body was warm. If there had been a fight, it would have made a noise. We would have heard something as we crossed the courtyard. And what about the Haggards? They were sleeping upstairs. If there had been a noisy quarrel, or a fight, they’d have got up to investigate. And if Alice had been there, they’d have found her. We’d have found her! No. It wasn’t a quarrel between Rafe and Lewis at an interrupted lovers’ meeting. It can’t have been.”
“It is possible to quarrel quietly,” Brockley said. “Especially at a clandestine meeting, with people sleeping nearby. If Lewis somehow came to suspect that they had an assignation and went to interrupt it, he might not have wished to compromise Alice. He might have told her to get out of sight—scared her into it, maybe. Except … no, it still won’t do. Rafe was stabbed in the back. That doesn’t fit with Lewis, not if I’m any judge of men. Mortimer’s more likely, whatever his reason and however it came about. It would explain why Lady Thomasine turned on us, you know.”
“To protect him? Yes. That does make sense. But what do either of them
think will happen when we tell our side of the tale? Oh, I can’t work it out!” It was cold and I was shivering. All this talk seemed pointless. Who were we to speculate? We weren’t in charge of an inquest on Rafe. Far from it. However unreasonably, we had been accused of murdering him.
Brockley perhaps felt the same. With a sigh, he changed the subject. “We can talk it all over when we see the sheriff of Hereford tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll listen. Meanwhile, we’ve got to wait the night out. We really should sleep if we can. I know it’s cold, but if we keep close together and pull the straw round us and use our cloaks as a double coverlet, we should be able to keep the chill out.”
He was talking sense. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could, lying close so that we might give heat to each other, our two cloaks spread over us. Once more, Brockley’s nearness was reassuring. Despite my fear and discomfort, I began to drift. I edged closer to him, snuggled my nose into his fustian doublet, and slept.
I don’t know how long I was asleep. I recall dreaming of the wet courtyard, and the dirt on Lady Thomasine’s pretty shoes. Then I woke and thought for a moment that I was at home with Matthew, and surfacing from sleep to the gentle pressure of my husband’s desire. Half drowsing, I moved to let my mouth meet his.
Then I was fully awake and aware, knowing where I was and with whom, but my mouth was still pressed hard against the lips of the man at my side, and his need was still thrusting gently against me.
We stayed like that for … was it a few seconds? Or an hour? Or a century? It was like a moment withdrawn altogether from time. But it ended when at the same instant, we jerked ourselves apart and sat up.
“Madam!” Brockley gasped. “I’m sorry! I was … I think I was dreaming …”
“So was I.”
“I apologize. What must you think of me? I would never in my right senses … you’re perfectly safe …”
“It’s all right, Brockley. I’m not angry, or frightened. Please. It’s all right.”
Gingerly, we settled back into the straw but this time well apart. We lay still. But my eyes stayed open and in the tiny trace of light from the grating, I caught a glint from Brockley’s eyes as well. He was wide-awake too.
I was shaken. It was as though imprisonment and fear and the horror of Rafe’s dead body had stripped away an old pretense. For years now, through many dangers, I had trusted Roger Brockley, exchanged private jests with him, relied on him. How long had we secretly desired each other? Matthew had known. Dale had sensed it. Only the two most concerned had remained ignorant until now; until this moment when we had only each other for comfort in the dark.
And I wanted that comfort. At that moment, in that terrifying cell, I wanted it so badly that even though I did not forget Matthew, but tried on the contrary to visualize him, he wasn’t real to me. He was not there, and Brockley was. In the darkness, I said, “Brockley?” out loud, with a question in my voice.
The straw rustled. I reached out toward the rustle and his fingers closed over my hand. “I’m here, madam.”
“This is an awful place. We’re in a dreadful situation.”
“It’ll all be put right in the morning. Go to sleep.”
“Brockley …”
“I know. But it wouldn’t be … right. We wouldn’t be able to go back. It would be like falling off a precipice.”
“You mean,” I said, “that we would turn from madam and Brockley, to Ursula and Roger, and we wouldn’t be able to forget it?”
“That’s right. It would do harm,” he said. “Break us on the rocks, as it were.”
I turned on my side. I left my hand in his, letting that small intimacy represent the greater one to which we had no right. Presently, he said: “Don’t think I didn’t want to. And don’t think that when I wanted to, it was just … a thing of the body, madam. I value you more highly than that.”
“Thank you. I value you more highly than that, as well.”
There was another silence. Then I said: “In the morning, we will forget this. We need never mention it again. But I would like to say, just once—good night, Roger.”
“Good night, Ursula,” he said. Quietly, with one accord, our hands let go of each other. Before long, we were asleep.
*
We were roused before dawn, by the grinding of the bolts. We sat up blearily. In the faint gray light from the grating, we saw each other’s grimy face. For one moment, my eyes and Brockley’s met, in mingled affection and embarrassment. Then we got to our feet, shaking straw from our clothing, as the door swung back and in came Lady Thomasine. She was drawn and pale, as though she hadn’t slept at all, and looked at least seventy.
“You must come,” she said in a low voice. “Come with me now, at once. Quickly. There is no time to be lost.”
We tried to ask questions as we picked up our cloaks but she shook her head at us impatiently. “Just come. I know you did not kill Rafe—and neither did my son, by the way. I daresay that’s what you think, but you’re wrong. He really believes it was you, Mistress Blanchard. He thinks you summoned your man here to help you hide the body. He is very angry. You do not know my son; what he’s capable of. I must get you away at once.”
“But who did kill Rafe? If we can get to the sheriff in Hereford ourselves, of our own free will …” I began, but Lady Thomasine, already marshaling us out of the cell, brushed all this aside.
“You must get away from here, but you mustn’t go toward Hereford. You wouldn’t reach it. Philip would expect you to go that way. He would catch you and deliver you in chains, and tell such a lurid tale of your supposed crimes that you might find it hard to make the sheriff believe you. Philip might even not deliver you at all! He might decide to dispense his own justice. He was talking of it last night and it would take only a little provocation to make him do it. I tell you—you don’t know him. He not only wants to be a border baron with power of life and death, there are times when he thinks he really is one. Mistress Blanchard, you once hinted to me that he might not be right in the head. I think it may be true. Your only chance of escaping him is by going off in a direction he won’t expect and hiding till all this is settled. I have thought of a way to settle it. No one will be accused of murder for there will be no murder, as far as the world knows.”
“But Rafe was murdered,” I said in bewilderment. “I saw his body myself.”
“Leave all that to me.” Impatiently, Lady Thomasine unbolted one of the other doors off the underground passage, revealing that it led not into another cell but into a farther passage, low-roofed and damp. “Along here, quickly. After a little time has passed, it will be safe for you to come out of hiding, but then you must go straight home, keeping well away from Vetch, and forget I ever called you here. This way. Hurry.”
“What about Dale?” I asked as we followed her through the passage, and at the same moment Brockley said, “What about my wife?” But this time she didn’t answer at all. She merely quickened her steps and we scurried after her perforce, heads bent, following the gleam of her lamp. At the end of the passage was a narrow spiral staircase of stone leading upward. Lady Thomasine climbed it and opened another door, with a key this time. Mounting the stairs behind her, we followed her into a dusty, empty chamber, with narrow windows which let in a wet, gray dawn and just enough light to reveal the quantity of cobwebs and dirt in the place.
“Where is this?” I asked.
“This is the ground floor of Isabel’s Tower. Over here. Hurry!”
“Isabel’s … ?”
“The haunted tower. You’ve heard the story, haven’t you? Your daughter Meg has—she asked me about it.”
“Yes,” I said. “Rafe told it to me.”
“Then you know that a castellan in days gone by shut his wife up here to die with her minstrel lover. The wife’s name was Isabel. She was my ancestress, poor soul. The minstrel’s name was Rhodri. It’s said their bones moldered here for twenty years before her husband would let them be taken out and buried.”
/> In the time it took to give us these gruesome details, Lady Thomasine had locked the staircase door behind us, crossed the floor, pushed open a door into a further chamber, and led us across that too. At the far side was yet another door, small and low. Here we paused while she nervously wrestled with her key ring, searching for the right key, which at first she couldn’t find. When at last, hands shaking, she managed to open the door, its rusty hinges groaned noisily and resisted her. Brockley stepped forward and added his weight to hers. The door gave way and a moment later, we were outside on the grassy slope above the moat, under a sky of low, racing clouds, threatening more rain.
Brockley shoved the door shut again and Lady Thomasine, once more, locked up behind us. Then she hurried us to the right along a narrow path between the western wall of the castle and the water below. Once more, Brockley asked about Dale and this time got a reply, albeit a terse one.
“The woman Dale is going with you. I did not forget her. Don’t waste time. We go down here.”
We had reached the point where the moat turned away from the castle and became simply a stream flowing in from the west. Beyond that, the fall of the ground was so steep that in the days of siege and foray, no ditch had been necessary. But there had been changes since medieval times. A winding path had been made, leading down. As we descended it, still hurrying, I realized how tired I still was, and also how cold and hungry.
Below the castle mound, the path joined a sunken lane. To the right, it evidently led to the village. I could see the church tower in the distance. To the left, it crossed the stream by means of a ford and led westward and away from Vetch altogether. Waiting for us at the junction of path and lane were the butler Harold Pugh and the falconer Simon Evans, on horseback. With them, mounted astride and peering out at us from the hood of a woolen cloak, was Dale, and Evans had two more saddled horses on leading reins.
I exclaimed: “Dale!” and Brockley said: “Fran!” at the same moment, both on a note of thankfulness. I looked at Dale’s dear, trustworthy face and was grateful beyond belief that last night Brockley and I had not betrayed her. Brockley assuredly felt the same. On her side, Dale burst out, “Oh, ma’am! Oh, Roger! I’m that glad to see you both safe!”
To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court Page 13
