Feud (8 page)

I spotted a little oven in one corner, with a separate cupboard next to it. I hastened over and opened the door. Yes! There was the charcoal in a big sack.

“Lady Grace, what are you doing?” asked Lady
Horsley, sounding puzzled. By this time, I noticed that Mary Shelton was being helpful and had found the nibbed almonds in the first cupboard I opened.

“I, er … Oooh!” I gasped. “I thought I saw a mouse run in here!” Well, it was the best excuse I could think of at such short notice. “Look! There it is!” I cried, pulling on the sack of charcoal so that it fell over and scattered a few little pieces across the floor.

Lady Horsley sighed and smiled. “Lord save us, Grace, you are as clumsy as Mrs. Champernowne says you are—which I didn't think possible! We'll put Grimalkin in here tonight to catch the mouse.”

I swept up the charcoal and managed to grab a few pieces, lift my kirtle, and slip them into my petticoat pocket. I had to be terribly careful not to get any more black dust on my kirtle—there already was some from when the sack fell over. Now there's charcoal smeared on my petticoat, too. I hope it comes out more easily than ink.

Lady Horsley offered Mary Shelton and me some more sweetmeats, and then handed Mary a whole tray of them.

“Would you take these sweetmeats up to Carmina, without nibbling any, and tell her I shall be there myself to read to her shortly?” she asked.

Mary nodded, took the bowl, and left.

I was just about to go with her, when Lady Horsley decided that the marmelada—which was a stiff paste now, and coming away from the sides of the dish—was ready to be taken off the heat.

“Would you be so good as to cover these with waxed paper for me, Lady Grace?” she asked, as she scooped the mixture into the metal moulds and pressed it down.

I hurried to help. The marmeladas won't be ready until they have dried for a month, but then—yum!

When we had finished, Lady Horsley chivvied me out of the stillroom, with her friend Lady Seymour, and then locked it carefully. I suppose if it weren't locked, none of the sweetmeats would last out the night, but I sighed at it, for how was I supposed to get any more charcoal?

It was now so late that I had to wait until after dinner before I could go and see Carmina. We ate with the Queen in the Privy Parlour. She seemed to be in a terrible temper, and kept sending away food on the grounds that it was not cooked properly—or had been burnt—until finally two gentlemen were sent to buy pasties for all of us from the cookshop in the nearest village. I thought it was very cleverly done—nobody
would have guessed Her Majesty was worried about poison at all.

Mrs. Champernowne had made a posset of ale for Carmina, so I volunteered to take it up. At last I thought I would have a chance to talk to Carmina privately about the mysterious Frederick, and give her the charcoal in my petticoat pocket. The only trouble was, the thought of me carrying a jug of ale posset up the stairs made Mrs. Champernowne so nervous that she insisted on coming with me! She watched, eagle-eyed, as I poured it out, though I didn't spill a drop.

Carmina managed to drink a little. She looked pale, poor dear, and was bored and weary, but she said she felt better.

At last Mrs. Champernowne took herself off, and I settled down with my embroidery work, watching in case Carmina was going to be sick—with my luck it would go all over my new white kirtle and everybody would blame me. I started stitching butterflies in silk—it's to be a stomacher for the Queen one day.

“You're very kind to keep me company, Grace,” said Carmina anxiously. “Are you sure you wouldn't like to go and watch the players rehearse with the others?”

“Not at all,” I replied. “I don't know what they think they're up to. They're acting as bad as gentlemen laying suit to Lady Sarah, I think.”

Carmina giggled. “I've missed so much,” she said. “You've no idea how boring it is here. Lady Horsley came and read to me earlier, but she sounds as if she's a vicar the way she drones on.”

So I told her about Lady Jane and Lady Sarah arguing over who could sit nearest the players, and then about Mrs. Champernowne shooing them away and sitting there herself. Carmina laughed at that.

“Oh, and by the way,” I added casually, as I got the bits of charcoal out of my petticoat pocket, which was now all black, “I've heard that this strengthens the stomach and you should eat it.”

“What is it?” asked Carmina suspiciously.

“It's, um, it's just charcoal, and it makes your—”

“Ugh, no, I'm not eating that! You must be Bedlam mad, Grace, that's disgusting,” Carmina cried.

“You put pounded ashes of honeybees in goose fat on your nose last week,” I accused. “Why isn't that disgusting?”

“That was because I had a spot and Sarah said it would help,” declared Carmina.

“It doesn't do anything for
her
spots,” I pointed out.

“How do you know? She might have even more if she didn't put medicines and creams on them,” Carmina argued.

“I don't see how,” I muttered. “Come on,” I said, coaxing. “Just try a little charcoal.…”

She made a wry face and pushed my hand away.

“I'm sorry, Grace, I can't eat anything at all at the moment—not even Lady Horsley's lovely sugared apricots.”

Well, I wasn't going to give up that easily, so when she wasn't looking I put some bits of charcoal on the apricots in the bowl. I hoped she might eat some without noticing and that the charcoal might help defeat the poison. Then I offered her the rest of the posset.

She looked at it and sighed. “I'm just not hungry. My mother sent me some cakes yesterday—French bisket bread with gold leaf—and I couldn't eat more than one of them, either.”

“I've heard you have an admirer overseas who's been sending you things, too,” I hinted mysteriously. It was the only way I could think of to broach the subject of Frederick without letting her know of my suspicions.

“Oh?” said Carmina with interest. “Who?”

Hell's teeth! That was not what she was supposed to say. I was hoping she might blush and ask how I knew. “Um, I just heard,” I replied vaguely.

“No,” said Carmina. “Everyone's been very kind, bringing me possets and custards and sweetmeats and such, but I've had nothing from overseas.”

“Oh, I must have heard wrong,” I said, airily. “You know what it's like here, everyone gossips all the time and nobody really knows what they're talking about. I expect you don't even
have
a cousin in the Netherlands, do you?”

“Well, yes, actually I do,” Carmina responded. “Cousin Frederick.” She went ever so slightly pink and looked down at her sheets. “When Greataunt Catherine made her will, there was talk of us marrying—we're not close cousins, you see. I think she left me the manor of Chigley hoping it would come to us both if the match went ahead. But then Frederick left for the Netherlands.”

“He must have been most put out to miss out on the inheritance,” I suggested, hoping Carmina would confirm my suspicions.

“Oh, no, I don't think so,” she declared. “He will still inherit if I should die without issue. But he recently wed some incredibly rich Flemish
merchant's daughter. So he's simply rolling in money now.”

“Oh,” I said lamely. “I thought he was very poor and that's why he went overseas.”

“He was quite poor. He's a younger son so he got nothing much from his father. But he's been doing really well as a merchant at the Antwerp exchange— something boring to do with wool contracts—and now he's married the Flemish girl he could probably buy my father's demesne several times over.” She giggled. “My mother is very cross about it—she wishes she had pushed harder for the match now.”

“Are you sad he married someone else?” I asked solicitously.

Carmina laughed again. “Lord above, no, he's the most boring person you could ever meet and I hear he's got quite fat. They do in the Netherlands, you know, it's the pancakes and cherry beer for breakfast.”

“Oh!” I tried to laugh with her, but really I was quite disappointed. Frederick had seemed such a perfect solution to the problem of who could want to poison Carmina, and now it seemed he was too rich to care much about her little manor of Chigley.

“I so hope I'll be well enough to watch the comedy,” she said, after a pause while she looked at
me sewing. “I thought Richard Fitzgrey was wonderful in the tragedy, even though the story upset me— besides the ending being sad, anyway.”

“Why would it upset you?” I asked.

“Feuds are horrible things, not romantic at all,” Carmina explained. “They make people behave quite stupidly and they drag on and on and on.”

“How do you know?”

“My family had a feud with the Harringtons for about a hundred years. It started over a sheep, I think. Or was it a cow?”

“Oh!” I was surprised and excited. This could be another lead. “I thought only foreigners had feuds.”

“It was back in the reign of the sixth King Henry,” Carmina went on. “We were Lancaster men and they were York followers. When the Yorkists deposed poor King Henry, old Lord Harrington came and stole some livestock and wouldn't give it back. And then one of my great-uncles got killed trying to get the sheep, or cows, or whatever, back by stealth. And then there was a big riot and the Harrington village got burned. And then, well, I don't know quite how it went, but at last the Lord Protector in young King Edward's reign forced my father and Lord Harrington to make it up. They had to swear never to fight again, which I think they
were quite glad to do on the whole, and so the feud was composed and that was that.”

“Is it really finished and done with?” I pressed, unwilling to abandon this new source of potential suspects.

“Oh yes,” insisted Carmina. “Nobody would dare fight a feud now. The Queen would send an army, like they do in Scotland, and hang everybody!”

So that was all I discovered on the subjects of Frederick and the Harringtons, and I was left with no potential poisoners at all! Though it was interesting to hear about a real, live feud—just like the Italians and the Scots have—even if it was ended nearly twenty years ago.

Then Carmina said she was feeling thirsty and would I mind going and finding a Chamberer to fetch some mild ale for her? So I went out and down the passage, where I found that annoying young page, Robin, who is the little brother of one of the Ladies-in-Waiting. He was talking to the old man I had seen painting in the courtyard.

“Now then, lad,” the man was saying. “Are you page to the Maids of Honour?”

“Yes, I am,” said Robin brightly, though it wasn't true. He runs errands for us sometimes when he isn't playing football with the dog-pages.

“I have another little gift here for one of them, the one that's called Mistress Carmina Willoughby,” the old player said, holding a package out nervously, in both hands. “Would you give it her with this note?”

“What's it worth?” Robin asked shamelessly.

The old man didn't mind. “Nothing but a farthing,” he said firmly, “for it's nothing scandalous, only from one as knew her when she was a little 'un and wishes to be remembered to her.”

“Well enough then,” said Robin, holding his hand out for the package and the coin.

The old man gave both to him. “Thanking you kindly, young master,” he said, and went back down the passageway where the Gentleman of the Guard was waiting for him.

Robin was fingering the small package consideringly, when I swooped down on him from behind.

“What's that then, Robin?” I asked.

He jumped and looked guilty as he had been peeping inside the wrapping. “Sweetmeats for Carmina,” he said.

“I'll give them to her,” I told him, and held my hand out for it.

Robin hesitated a moment and then shrugged. “Is it true she's sick to death with leprosy and like to die?” he asked ghoulishly as he handed it over.

“Yes,” I told him, “so you'd best run away quick before your nose drops off.” Which he did, with his hand held carefully over his nose.

I looked at the package in my hand, now full of suspicion at the old player. As Masou had pointed out, the players came a few days ago, which is when Carmina first started to get sick. And now here was one far too old to be even the most hopeless admirer—sending her sweetmeats as a present.
And
he had been painting that yellow sun on the scenery earlier, so he probably had access to poisonous orpiment as well!

At last, it was all beginning to fit together. The old player arrived with the others, and then Carmina got sick. If I could find out whether he had sent her sweetmeats before, and why he might wish her ill, then that would make it certain.

I examined the package again. It was wrapped in a piece of fine linen, with a note tied to it by a ribbon. I decided I would ask Carmina if she remembered the old man before I delivered his present.

After I had found a Chamberer and asked her to get some ale from the buttery, I went back to Carmina and sat down next to her.

“There was a funny thing,” I said casually, giving her just the note. “The oldest player was asking
about you. He said he knew you when you were a child and wanted to be remembered to you. Do you really know him?”

Carmina frowned and sighed. “Yes, I do. His name is Sampson Childs, and he used to be my father's clerk years ago,” she explained. “He got into terrible trouble with my father over a girl in the village. He refused to marry her and left with a band of players that came one Christmas. Now he's here with Mr. Alleyn's company. A few days ago, when they arrived, he gave me kissing comfits—delicious sugared violets and rose leaves—with a letter begging my father to take him back. You see, he has lumbago now and finds it hard to travel about with the players.”

I could hardly breathe at this, I was so excited. The old player had given Carmina sweetmeats
before
she fell sick. It was beginning to look as if I had found the poisoner! “Do you think your father
would
take him back?” I asked.

Carmina shook her head. “I don't really think so. Father had to give the girl a dowry so she could marry somebody else, and it was quite expensive.”

Aha! I thought. All is starting to make sense.
Perhaps this Sampson Childs is pursuing a feud for being dismissed from Mr. Willoughby's household!