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

by Buckley, Fiona

  I didn’t expect to sleep much, but unexpectedly, I fell into a heavy slumber almost at once, and once again, I dreamed of lying on the dungeon floor and staring at Lady Thomasine’s pretty rose-embroidered slippers. She began to kick me with them and I woke. I knew at once, from the absence of the smell, that Gladys had gone. The windows were brilliant streaks of light and the storm had passed. Gladys’s fleece and blanket lay empty and I could see no sign of her anywhere.

  “Brockley.” I shook him. “Wake up. Gladys has disappeared.”

  “What?” Brockley sat up, tousled and sleepy. He stared around him. “She’ll have gone up to the next floor to look round, I daresay, or to find a privy. I suppose they had privies in the days when they built this place? Wouldn’t be a bad idea if we all went and had a look. But we’ve got to make sure no one sees us from outside. We’re trapped here for the day, remember.”

  “I could hardly forget,” I said grimly.

  We woke Dale up and got her onto her feet. Then we rolled up our bedding and put it in a shadowy corner, and set off to climb through the several floors of the tower, in search of Gladys and a privy.

  It was a hard climb, for the spiral stair was not only steep but narrow, with uneven steps. It wound through the thick walls of the tower, with a door at each level, leading into the rooms. We were afraid to call Gladys’s name in case someone heard us, so we searched every floor as we went. They were all much alike, each with two adjoining chambers, largely empty, although we did come across a few bits of abandoned furniture: a couple of old settles; one bedstead with moldering curtains still in place; a bench or two.

  Dust lay everywhere and the stone walls were patched with green mold. The courtyard windows were glazed, though some of them were broken, but the arrow slits looking outward had neither glass nor shutters. On the second floor an indignant pair of jackdaws flew out of a nest hole just inside an arrow slit, and we saw a barn owl looking down at us from a ceiling beam, eyes round and unblinking.

  On the next floor, Dale, who had been very startled by the jackdaws, suddenly announced that she could see footprints in the dust. “And they’re not Gladys’s prints. Some look smallish, but not as small as her feet are.”

  I couldn’t see any footprints at all, of any size, and neither could Brockley, even though Dale pointed insistently and got us to come and stand close beside her so that we could all look from the same angle.

  “There’s nothing there. Do control your imagination, Dale,” I said.

  “The mistress is right. I can’t even see a rat’s paw marks,” Brockley said. “You’re seeing things, Fran.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are,” I said. “Forget it. Come on. We must find Gladys.”

  “I expect the ghosts have got her,” said Dale sullenly.

  “Nonsense! And,” I added, “I think that little arch over there might lead into a privy.”

  It did. The privy, which was hollowed from the outer wall of the tower, showed no sign of having been used by Gladys, but we used it ourselves before continuing upward. At the very top, the stairs led onto the roof but we didn’t venture out, for fear of being seen. We stood on the stairs and risked calling Gladys’s name, just loudly enough, we hoped, to reach her if she was nearby. There was no answer, and in any case I felt that so much climbing was probably beyond her. Feeling uneasy, we made our way down again.

  “When we came in,” I said, “I didn’t try to lock that outer door after us. I was so tired—I didn’t think of it. She could have gone outside. The rain must have stopped some time ago. Perhaps she needed a privy but didn’t want to climb stairs.”

  “But she’s been gone so long!” Dale’s voice rose and I hushed her with a frown. “Suppose,” said Dale, more quietly but with big round eyes, “she’s gone to tell someone we’re here?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” I said. “Lady Thomasine doesn’t like her, and the villagers hate her.”

  “It might be a way of getting back into favor,” said Dale dismally. “Do a good turn to the Mortimers in the hope of being allowed back to live in the castle, maybe. She can’t want to live in that lonely hermitage place.”

  “If she’s gone to tell the Mortimers we’re here,” I said reasonably, “then why haven’t they come hotfoot to fetch us? Where are they?”

  “All we can do is wait and keep a lookout,” Brockley said. “We’d better eat something. We can’t go hunting for that strongbox until tonight, anyway.”

  We decided that we could stay on the ground floor for the day, as long as we were cautious. None of us could remember seeing anyone, ever, go near enough to Isabel’s Tower to see inside, and no one wanted to drag bundles up those steep stairs. So we settled down, taking an unexciting breakfast of water, rye bread, and some goat’s cheese, which I disliked. It was a far cry, I thought, from the delicate dishes at court or at Blanchepierre, where Matthew and I had prided ourselves on the excellent Gallic cuisine.

  I wanted to try relocking the outer door but couldn’t in case Gladys came back. We would have been wise to shift to the outer room to keep an eye on the door and keep away from the courtyard windows, but the courtyard attracted us, because there was a puzzling amount of activity there and we kept wondering why. There were voices and footsteps and people shouting orders, and when a mysterious rumbling noise began, our curiosity became too much for us and we all got up to peer out.

  The sight of people with brooms sweeping the pools from last night’s prolonged cloudburst into a drain was no surprise. More intriguing was an oxcart laden with casks, which was being unloaded by the kitchen door. Then we saw Pugh escorting a party of well-dressed strangers to the hall, and noticed a number of castle servants carrying things, including candles and rolls of what looked like dark cloth, into a nearby doorway. “That’s the retainers’ hall, isn’t it?” I whispered. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s the castle chapel,” Brockley whispered back. “It’s tacked on to the end of the retainers’ hall. It’s only used on Sundays—I found that out chatting in the stables. You might not know. We were never here on a Sunday. We got to Vetch on a Tuesday and by Sunday, we were in Gladys’s hermitage.”

  “But what are all those people doing?” I said.

  Dale said fearfully: “There’s someone at that outer door. It might be Gladys, but …”

  It was Gladys. Her familiar shawled figure came to meet us as we hurried to the other room. “Where in God’s name have you been?” demanded Brockley.

  “Bein’ useful,” said Gladys. “Findin’ things out, and now I’m famished. I’ll talk when I’ve eaten.”

  Now that Gladys was back, I decided to tackle the lock of the outer door. It turned out to be of a type which my lock picks would turn either way. While I made us secure, Gladys started her breakfast. I came back to find the others waiting in revolted silence while she slurped at her water flask and mumbled the food with her gums and her few discolored teeth. Watching Gladys eat—which also entailed listening to it—was a horrid business.

  After a few mouthfuls, however, she condescended to talk to us. “I wanted to ask what really happened to that lad Rafe, if you didn’t,” she said with an air of satisfaction. “Can’t say I’ve found out that but learned other things, I have, things you’d best know. You’ll need to be careful tonight. Castle may not be as fast asleep as it ought to be.”

  “What do you mean? Gladys, what have you been doing? Have you been talking to people?” I asked in alarm.

  “Now, don’t you worry yourself. I lived for years in Vetch Village. I told you, I know all about it. There’s a young wench, Blod, takes geese out to the common on the north side most days, early. I met her there. Stepped out from behind a gorse bush, I did.” Gladys cackled through a mouthful of rye bread and goat’s cheese, causing us all to recoil in distaste.

  “She nearly passed out, poor baby,” Gladys said. “Twelve years old, she is, and sweet as a rose for the time being, until some man comes along to pull her p
etals off. ‘Now, you don’t need to be frightened of me, pretty one,’ says I, ‘I’m only old Gladys. You just do what I tell you, and I’ll put a blessing on you. I want to talk to Olwen, what works in the castle. I’ll watch your geese and you go and get her. But she’d better come on her own, except for you, Blod, and no nonsense. If she tells anyone I’m here, or there’s anyone with her, she won’t find me, but her hair’ll all fall out and her teeth as well, and what’s more, her father’ll hear what she gets up to with Mortimer.’”

  “Her father?” said Brockley in a choked voice, between laughter and outrage.

  “You’ve met him. He’s Hugh Cooper. Very moral, indeed, is Hugh Cooper. Mortimer’s been using Olwen since she first came into the castle, a year ago or so now. He don’t take her to his bed; he’d reckon a maidservant’s beneath that, but he uses her just the same. Up against walls; quick ones in the wine cellar; once it was even a fast in-and-out on a table in the hall. Olwen told me that herself.”

  “Told you?” I said.

  Gladys leered. “She’s a fine healthy girl and he’s a healthy man. Carryin’ on like that, what’s likely to happen? She came to me for help and I gave her something that got her out of trouble and she’s not got into it again since then. Maybe she’ll never breed now; that’s the way it is, sometimes, when a girl takes a draft to kill a baby. But she talked to me then; cryin’ she was and scared out of her wits on account of her father. If Hugh knew about it, he’d knock Mortimer’s brains out, for all Mortimer’s his landlord, and beat Olwen into pulp.”

  Gladys paused for a few more mouthfuls. We waited impatiently. “Well,” she said at last, “Blod came back, and brought Olwen with her. Looked terrified, Olwen did. ‘No need to be frightened,’ I said. ‘Just tell me what’s going on in the castle these days.’ ‘Going on?’ she says to me. ‘What do you mean? There aplenty going on. Why, young Rafe Northcote, the master’s ward, threw himself off the Mortimer Tower the other night. He was found at the foot of it, in the outer bailey, all broken—flat on his back, and staring at the sky. There’s been an inquest, and my da was the foreman, and they brought it in suicide, along of he wasn’t let to marry Mistress Alice.’

  “And that weren’t all.” Gladys was enjoying herself. “Olwen had a bit more to say than that, and Blod knew some of it, too. Seems there’s talk about you three as well. You disappeared all of a sudden, Mistress Blanchard, and there’s been whispers about it. No one’s got a reason why you might have pushed Rafe off the tower, but somehow or other there’s a feeling about it. There’s funny, it is, someone throws himself over the battlements one night and someone else disappears the morning after. And there’s some have been saying that there wasn’t enough blood—that Rafe ought to have bled more when he was smashed against the ground, and why didn’t he? It’s all whispers, but the castle’s full of them, and so’s the village.”

  “We’d better be very careful to keep well out of sight,” I said anxiously.

  “I’m not through; there’s more yet,” Gladys said. “Rafe’s going into his grave tomorrow—outside the wall of the churchyard, poor little sod, seein’ that the verdict was suicide and there’s no room in God’s own soil for anyone that desperate. We’ve all got to be happy and thankful for what he doles out to us, even if it’s poverty or bein’ ugly, or accused of what you haven’t done. But they’re letting him lie in the castle chapel tonight—he’s bein’ allowed that much. And he’s to have a decent funeral, no matter where the grave’s been dug. A whole lot of folk are here for it—Northcote cousins, and the steward and the chaplain from the place he should have inherited, and them that are married have brought their wives. They’re going to hold a wake for him.”

  “What’s a wake?” Dale asked.

  “The household and the guests’ll sit up with the body for its last night above the ground,” said Gladys simply. “That’s what they do in Ireland and Sir Philip’s father came from Ireland. These Mortimers keep Irish customs. Well, not just Irish. Some of us Welsh do the same. The chaplain’s keepin’ a vigil by his coffin and his cousins’ll take turns there during the night, and Mortimer’ll be with them for part of the time. All the rest’ll sit up in the hall—Lady Thomasine’ll be there, and so will Owen Lewis. He’s still here. The Haggards took Alice home, of course. The night’ll start off with prayers and talkin’ about how they remember young Northcote, and Gareth the minstrel, he’ll have made a song for him …”

  “I wonder if it was Gareth that killed him?” Dale said suddenly. “Everyone says he’s old and wants to give up, but suppose he was really very jealous and hated it when Rafe was asked to play in the hall instead of himself?”

  “Well, if he did, he’s got away with it,” Gladys said. “He’ll sing a lament for Rafe tonight and everyone’ll admire it. There’ll also be wine and ale for everyone, and it’ll quite likely turn into a party.” She snorted. “Wakes often do. When Sir Philip’s da died, the funeral was late because half the folk who were to go to it had headaches and the other half were throwin’ up in buckets and they were all nearly too tired to stand up straight.”

  I looked at Brockley. “That explains the oxcart full of casks, and all the black cloth going into the chapel. They’re going to drape it, I suppose.”

  “That and the main hall,” Gladys said. “But the point is, the castle won’t sleep tonight. There’ll be people all over the place.”

  “So we can’t do the search tonight,” I said wearily. “We’ll have to wait yet another day, until tomorrow night, again. But have we food enough for four, to last that long?”

  We looked at our supplies. We had been rather too generous with our breakfast. If we had to wait yet another day, we would be hungry.

  “We might do better to try for the study tonight,” Brockley said, “but not until very late. Let’s get it clear, Gladys. There’ll be folk in the big hall and in the chapel and crossing the courtyard. But will they have much business in the Aragon wing?”

  “Not much, I shouldn’t think,” Gladys said. “And not Sir Philip or his mother. They know where Rafe was really killed. In the study there. I doubt they’ll want to go there at night or want anyone else to, either. Like I said, he might walk.”

  Brockley looked at me. “What do you say, madam?”

  “I say that we wait until well on in the night and then, if it looks safe enough, we try. We won’t know for sure till the time comes. You learned some useful things from Olwen, Gladys, but I still wish she hadn’t seen you. Are you sure she doesn’t realize you’re actually hiding in the castle?”

  “Not she. Told her I was going home, I did.”

  “Well, that’s something.” I sighed. “I wish all this could be over.”

  By noon it was raining again. Wrapped in our fleeces and blankets, we passed the time as best we could. Brockley told us tales of his soldiering days, and I recited some of the poetry I had learned as a child. I remember wondering what had happened to the belongings which we had left behind when we were taken to the Black Mountains. Among my things was a volume of verses including some favorites of mine by Sir Thomas Wyatt. I was fond of that book and hated to think that it might have been flung into the moat.

  The day dragged, despite all our efforts to entertain one another. In the afternoon, we tried to sleep again, but no one could do more than doze. We dined on ham, rye bread, and a ration of water each, all of us longing for a fireside and some hot broth.

  At about five of the clock, the rain died out and the western sky turned lemon-colored. A streak of yellow light from a window lay across the floor like a splash of paint. We heard slow footsteps and sad music and looked warily out once more, to see a somber procession carrying a coffin toward the chapel. Gareth led the way, playing a lament on a small harp. The procession did not go straight across the courtyard, but paced around it, and passed quite close to us. Gareth came near enough for me to see that as he walked, he was crying. Since his hands were occupied, he could not brush the tears away and they stream
ed unchecked down his seamed old face. This was grief, candid and heartfelt, for a young life lost and for the gifted pupil he had trained, whose fingers would never caress lute or harp again. Dale’s theory was wrong. Whoever had driven that dagger into Rafe Northcote’s back had not been Gareth.

  As the procession passed into the chapel, Brockley became agitated. “They came too near,” he said. “And there are strangers about. They might be inquisitive about the haunted tower and want to peep inside. It was a mistake to stay down here. We should move to an upper floor now, at once, and take our food and bedding with us.”

  We did so, though it was a struggle and we had to help Gladys up, for the steep stairs were indeed hard on her, spry though she was in other ways. We needed to get to the second floor at least for the first floor was on a level with the windows of our old guest quarters in the keep and someone there might be able to see in.

  Once on the second floor, we prepared once more to settle down and wait. But before half an hour had passed, there was another disturbance outside. We heard the door of the great hall bang; someone whistled, and then there was a volley of barks and yelps. Brockley, peering with difficulty through the dirty glass of an unbroken leaded window, said that the dogs had been let loose.

  “Poor brutes. No one’s taken much thought for them. They’ve just been turned out to do their business and stretch their legs. They’ve been shut in the hall all day, I’ll take my oath. With all the to-do, I hope someone’s remembered to feed them. Oh yes, there’s Susanna. I think she’s going to feed them outside.”

  I pushed off my fleece and blanket and joined him, in time to see Susanna walking across the cobbles with two large feeding bowls. Then I drew back quickly, because she was coming straight toward Isabel’s Tower.

  “It’s all right,” Brockley whispered. “I’ve seen her feed them outside before. She always puts the bowls down in this corner of the courtyard, I suppose because it’s out of the way. She never pays any heed to the tower. Yes, she’s setting them down now. No need to be alarmed.”