A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) (22 page)

Elizabeth and her agents were quite capable of such a ploy. And might not the Thursbys believe it? They clearly loved their home and would grieve bitterly if they lost it, and though John Thursby sounded like someone prepared to endure a situation that was right but sad, he hadn’t sounded at all like someone prepared to offer horses, men, and money to bring that situation into being.

And there was more.

“. . . our daughter, our dearest Jane . . .”
Euphemia, with anguish in her voice.
“. . . we were held up on the road by armed men
—
under the command of this young noble. Our daughter was taken from us.”
And she had died, their beloved daughter Jane. And then John Thursby, saying: “
Of homesickness and ague in that vile, cold castle, and probably of ill usage too. She had a black eye when we saw her . . . She was dead in six months . . . God have mercy on her soul, and a curse on the soul of the man who seized her.”

I had asked if this sort of thing was a commonplace in Scotland and John Thursby had said ominously that
Scotland was very different from England.
“It is a wild place,”
he had said,
“with little rule of law.”

The Thursbys, once, a few years ago, had been willing to support Queen Mary in any invasion of England. But since then, they had learned to love St. Margaret’s, which might be lost to them under a Catholic government, and they had utterly lost their daughter, to a lawless, undisciplined Scottish noble. How likely were the Thursbys, now, to want, really to want, Mary, Queen of Scots, as a ruler in England?

Mistress Thursby’s voice spoke again in my head.
“We breed horses and people come to buy our stock at times, and now and then, of course, groups of traveling players come by, or a stray peddler or merchant . . .”

This was foolishness, I said to myself. I couldn’t build a theory—an accusation—out of a commonplace remark like that, something anyone might say. Peddlers roamed about everywhere. It was true that the peddler who had been one of the messengers who had been used as a go-between for Matthew, Edward, and the Scottish court had eventually been caught, and of course, he might have stayed with the Thursbys on his travels. But there was a huge gap between a casual remark about stray peddlers, and the idea that the Thursbys, knowing that one particular stray peddler was a spy’s courier, had betrayed him. And that Edward had somehow discovered this and might report it.

“Our steward is not here just now. He is a Scotsman with family over the border
—
as indeed we ourselves have
—
and went off yesterday, to see a kinsman who’s been ill or had an accident or some such thing.”
That had been Euphemia.
Dormbois had confirmed it. The kinsman in question had been his land agent, the worse for wear after breaking his leg. And Dormbois apparently lived close to Edinburgh.

Quite a useful excuse, though no doubt another could have been found, if the Thursbys wanted to send a man to Scotland, for an innocent-seeming purpose.

When all the time their real purpose was to send a man to dispose of Edward before he could let Queen Mary know that they, the Thursbys, were no longer to be trusted. That messengers who passed through St. Margaret’s were liable to be betrayed. The Thursbys might have formed a habit of going through the belongings of Queen Mary’s messengers and found that Edward had them down as unreliable on his list; even had them down as betrayers of other messengers.

I tried to put myself in Edward’s place. I was my cousin, traveling north, knowing—from some source or other—that the Thursbys were no longer friends to my cause. When had they changed their minds? I wondered. The peddler’s betrayal had been recent. Perhaps their decision to betray Mary’s cause had been recent too. These things can burn slowly and then spring suddenly to life. Very well. I am Edward, aware of their duplicity—but I don’t realize that they are actually inspecting my baggage or that they wish to get rid of me because they know that
I
intend to betray
them
to Mary Stuart. I am of course aware that they might have reported me to the English authorities. Had Edward ever meant to return to England? He might have hoped to smuggle his family to Scotland instead.

So, I am Edward, bound for Scotland and perhaps intending to stay there, but the Thursbys have decided to dispose of me. They wouldn’t, of course, want to do this on their own premises . . .

It’s all supposition, I said to myself, while Dale and Brockley sat watching the expressions on my face come and go. It’s a house built on sand, a theory made of bits and pieces, like a patchwork coverlet.

Yet it made sense. It created a
pattern.
Too much of a pattern to be dismissed as just imagination. It was something that must be examined.

Go through it again. The Thursbys loved St. Margaret’s and feared to lose it. They had loved their daughter and Scottish savagery had taken her from them. So they’d changed sides and betrayed the peddler and then—yes—it
did
make sense, had become afraid that if the news reached Scotland, there might be reprisals. I remembered the defensive walls around St. Margaret’s. Raids across the border were nothing new.

Their steward, Hamish Fraser, had undoubtedly been near Edinburgh at the right time.

Over my left eye, another warning hammer blow made me narrow my eyes against the candlelight. I knew why. I didn’t want to believe this of the Thursbys. I had liked them so much. I put the papers quickly back into my skirt pouch and slowly, unwillingly, through the thudding in my skull, I told Brockley and Dale of my theory and its reasons.

“I think,” I said, “that we shall have to go back to St. Margaret’s and see the Thursbys. At once, if you can manage it so soon, Dale. I want to see them again, to learn, if I can, whether this idea of mine is even possible. I
don’t know how I’ll do it. I shall have to talk to them . . . trail a lure, as it were . . . and see what happens.” I rubbed my forehead and Dale’s eyes became alert.

“I am well enough to travel if need be, ma’am,” she said, “the weather’s not so cold now, but I think that you need a good night’s rest. I can tell that your head’s getting bad again. There’s quite a lot left of that poppy draft that the queen sent me, bless her, and one only needs a small dose. You’d better have some.”

The sleeping draft was an unappetizing muddy brown and I didn’t like the look of it much. However, it dissolved out of sight when mixed with red wine, and it worked quickly. I took it when I was in bed and fell asleep within ten minutes. I had a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I was capable of traveling.

We therefore set out for St. Margaret’s the very next day, a Thursday. I sent polite excuses to Queen Mary and had us on our way before noon. We didn’t travel hastily, and I pretended that this was out of consideration for Dale, for I knew quite well that she was still not strong, but although I wouldn’t admit it, it was really out of consideration for myself. I was much improved but I didn’t want another attack of migraine.

The weather was clear and dry and there were no delays. We reached St. Margaret’s without incident on
the Saturday, just as the daylight was settling toward dusk.

It looked so welcoming that it made me homesick.

It hadn’t reminded me of Withysham when first I saw it, but now I realized that there were indeed resemblances. Both had protective gray walls (though at Withysham they lacked battlements because they were there to defend Benedictine serenity not from besiegers but from the temptations of the world). Both had low, recessed doors with pointed arches, and the last time I had seen my own home, candlelight had been gleaming from the slender leaded windows, just as it was doing from the windows of St. Margaret’s now. Tears sprang to my eyes, of sheer longing for Withysham and Meg, and when Euphemia Thursby hurried out to see who the new arrivals were, she found me sitting on my horse—or rather, the horse I had borrowed in the first place from St. Margaret’s—and dismally blowing my nose.

“Oh, dear, this cold weather. I know; it makes my nose run too. My dear Madame de la Roche! Do get down and come in, all of you. We have lots of company just now but the more, the merrier, we always say.”

“You have other guests?” I asked, as Brockley dismounted and came to help me and Dale to alight.

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter,” said Euphemia, chatty as always. “You can have the room I meant you to have before, except that you insisted on rushing away the same day. The one overlooking the cloister garden. The Bycrofts always have the one in the corner tower when they stay overnight, and Uncle Hugh likes a room on the ground floor because his joints ache now that he’s
getting on in life and stairs are a trouble to him. And Father Ninian prefers the tiny top-floor room above the Bycrofts because it’s just right for a priest’s cell, and the stairs lead down to a door that’s only a few yards from the chapel.”

“The Bycrofts are here?”

“Yes, because of Father Ninian. He’s a priest who visits us now and then. He stays either with us or the Bycrofts and we always get together so that he can say mass for us all at once. You will join us tomorrow, of course.”

“Of course. You have a houseful, I see.” I hesitated and then said carefully: “I hope we shan’t be a nuisance. We’re on our way south but neither Dale nor I have been too well lately and I did hope we could rest a couple of days here . . .”

“Oh, by all means! Think nothing of it. I see you’ve brought our horses back in good condition. We have the ones you left here, also in good condition, sound and healthy. Now, do come inside.”

“Yes, and at once!” John Thursby, short, rubicund, and perky as a pixie, had come out to join us, but was shifting restlessly from foot to foot and had crossed his arms in order to rub warmth into his elbows. “No one’s the better for standing in a cold wind. There’s a fine fire in the parlor and there’ll be mulled wine and raisin cakes on the instant, and in the kitchen, they’ll find something for your servants. Our steward is back, heaven be praised. Hamish Fraser watches over every detail of our household. We have a little joke that if anyone in it were to lock themselves into a room at the far end of the house from Hamish, and cough, the
moment they came out they would meet the maidservant he had sent to them with a licorice and horehound cough mixture. When he is here, the household is all it should be.”

We went indoors with them, while Brockley helped the St. Margaret’s servants to bring our saddlebags in. The horses were now in the care of their own grooms and for once he didn’t feel obliged to look after them himself.

Could my theory possibly be right? I thought once more of Edward lying in that bloodstained bed, eyes staring and mouth distorted. Could such a crime have been hatched here? Could this happy, busy house be the seedbed of murder? Was it conceivable that either of the jolly, talkative Thursbys could have dispatched their steward to Scotland in order to . . . ?

It seemed like madness. “Mulled wine and raisin cakes by a good fire sound most inviting,” I said.

Nevertheless, when we went inside and I realized that we were being greeted by Hamish Fraser, the steward, I studied him with curiosity. Dormbois had spoken of him disparagingly as an indoor man, but although he wasn’t weather-beaten, he was a stocky fellow who looked tough enough to me. He had one of those boyish faces which are not as boyish as they seem, with round, steady blue eyes and the corners of the mouth tucked in. He might well be capable of killing someone, I thought. But were the Thursbys capable of ordering such a thing?

Wanting to keep Brockley and Dale near me, I asked Euphemia if there was a bedchamber near mine where they could sleep. “Indeed, yes,” said Euphemia, beaming.
“There’s a small chamber leading from yours—it looks out from the other side of the house, over the stableyard. I’ll show you up myself. One of the apple trees is close by. I wish you could have seen it in bloom, but of course, it’s too early in the year for that. It’s a sight to delight the heart when the blossom’s out.”

“St. Margaret’s is so big,” she added, as she led the way upstairs. “There’s always room for a few more. It’s a house for a big family. We had other babes beside Jane and our son, but babes are so tender we lost all but those two. Our son married well and he said that if he could inherit the stud, Jane could have this house as her dower. We hoped that one day she and her husband would fill it with their children, but . . .”

“Well, let’s not speak of that,” said her husband, who was following us. “There’s nothing to be done about it now.”

They made sure that we had all we needed and then left us. I washed my face and hands quickly and Dale tidied my hair. Then, calling Brockley to come in from the adjoining room, I told them both to go downstairs and make sure that they had something to eat and drink.

“That we will do, madam,” Brockley said. He considered me questioningly and then repeated a question that he had already asked at least three times on the journey.

“Madam, what exactly do you mean to do here? You keep saying things like
I’m going to trail a lure,
but just how are you to go about it? I think Fran and I should know—so that we say and do nothing that might interfere with you by accident. What does
trailing a lure
mean? You can hardly smile at the Thursbys across the dinner table and
ask them if they sent their steward to Edinburgh to murder your cousin!”

“No, of course not! I’m not going to talk about Edward at all. No, what I want to know is whether, perhaps, the Thursbys really did inform on that unfortunate peddler and, also, I shall try to learn if the tooth-drawer ever stayed here. And I shall try to find out just how far the Thursbys would go to protect their ownership of St. Margaret’s. After all, they think I’m a Catholic like Edward. Perhaps I can get them to confide in me a little. I can—well—raise topics of conversation and see what emerges. So can you. Try and find out what kind of man Hamish is.”