Mistress of Mourning (16 page)

Mistress Varina Westcott

J
amie Clopton, as serious as he was, fit well into our household, and, truth be told, I felt better with him sleeping in the shop below at night and staying nearby during the day. He was only twenty, not very bright but utterly loyal, and I had quickly put aside my qualms that he might have been my pursuer in the crypt. His presence assured me that Her Majesty had not meant me or
Signor
Firenze ill.

My only problem with Jamie was that young Arthur adored him and declared he wanted to be a hired guard someday too. Also, Jamie’s brother was a guard in the Tower, and Jamie regaled my son with stories of ghosts and prisoners there, until I asked him to stop. I didn’t need my boy having nightmares like I did.

Today I was pleased to see how much Jamie, like Arthur, was enjoying the mystery play the Christmastide mummers were presenting in the street a few doors from our shop, this
one about the nativity of our Lord. Though it was hardly meant to be a comedy, Jamie was grinning and slapping his knee to see horses with false heads, long necks, and humps, portraying camels. The asses were real but kept munching on the hay under the Christ child, making the rag doll with the halo bounce up and down.

Many of the guilds presented tableaux or set pieces with some dialogue they took from place to place during these festive days: Noah’s ark, King David’s enthronement, our Lord’s walking on the water or feeding the masses with but a few fish and loaves. Everyone this late in the day was filled with plum porridge, mince pie, and yule cake washed down by wassail, and much merriment ensued. Our family had already enjoyed our meal amidst the rich kitchen scents and the sweet smell of our bayberry candles.

Christopher had a chief part in this, the chandlers’ mystery play. He portrayed one of the wise men, since, no doubt, he could hardly play the Savior Himself. This was their last stop, and he had asked to speak to me privily afterward. I knew what was coming: the ruby ring and the ultimatum about wedding him. He believed, correctly, that I was still shaken by my experience in the crypt and Firenze’s death. But if he expected a positive answer, he was much mistaken.

I had thought he would spring the proposal on me quickly after the murder, since he kept claiming I needed his protection. I had steeled myself for this day and felt prepared. Besides, I could feel my garnet necklace under my gown and cloak, for I wore it daily, though usually hidden, and that gave me hope.

Christopher had been most annoyed that I’d hired a new groom, a frivolous female expense, he’d said, since I owned but four horses. I had told him that I had the money to hire and support Jamie, which was quite true, although it was coin from Her Majesty’s purse. I told him that no one could keep death from the doorstep, so the continual sale of waxen shrouds and funeral and mass candles would pay for Jamie.

Though we made and sold more funeral candles than festive ones, everyone wanted Christmas candles to light their yule logs being dragged onto their hearths, so the chandlery was doing well enough. Our own hearth in our upstairs solar smelled not only of wood smoke but also of ivy, bay, rosemary, and laurel. Garlands of holly were strung along mantels and banisters as our own huge yule log crackled merrily each night. But how I wished I could rid my brain of one chorus from the yule log carol we oft sang. It seemed to haunt me, to warn me of something dire yet coming:

Was that fiend who murdered Firenze still out there beyond my well-lit shop and home? Or even standing here in this small crowd? Her Majesty, who had resided for a time now at Windsor Castle, must believe so, or she would not have sent Jamie. Did she look over her shoulder as I did
now, or gaze out of her windows and yet seethe with fury that someone had murdered her royal brothers? How I wished the king had not sent Nick with Prince Arthur and Princess Catherine to distant, wild Wales. Why did they need so many guards there? I’d counted nigh on sixty when my son and I had waved farewell to Nick as he left with the prince’s entourage.

I sighed as the mystery play ended with bewigged men as angels blowing trumpets and everyone cheering the performance. Was Nick in Wales yet? I had scarcely been out of London and, like my father, longed to see more of the world. However, I did not long to see Christopher heading for me, his magi’s crown in hand, an avid look on his face.

“Let’s away up to your solar,” he said with a smile, and took my arm to steer me toward my house. “We can have it to ourselves before everyone else comes up. I have a gift for you.”

One, I thought, that was ruby red and would almost match the garnet necklace I so cherished. “Christopher, I regret I have not given you a definite answer before, but you really would not listen,” I began as he hustled me through the shop and up the holly-garlanded stairs to traverse the hall that led to the solar.

It was here that I had walked lately at night when the house was silent, my pacing well lit by candles, anxious for Nick’s safety and my own, trying to decide when to tell Christopher I could not wed him. By the saints, I was a bit of a coward, for he had said more than once that his vouching for me had kept me from being more stringently questioned by the constable about my relationship to
Roberto Firenze—“When I know for certain that nothing untoward passed between you!” he had said, emphasizing each word.

“With all that has gone on in my life lately, I must tell you that I am not ready to wed,” I told him now. “Not you, not anyone.”

“Then we will set a day a month or so hence, so you can get used to it.”

“You have been generous and kind, but I can put off my refusal no longer. It isn’t fair to you.”

“By hell’s gates, it isn’t, woman!” he said, though I had seldom heard him curse. His hand on me tightened so hard that I flinched. He hurried me along even faster. “Do you not know which side your bread is buttered on?” he demanded. “The benefits of our union and the guild for you?
Was
there something between you and that volatile Italian, you two artists always chatting about paint and colors? And in my own house, when I left you alone?”

“Of course not. Let me go. You are hurting m—”

“I’ll not let you go! You’ve been hurting me. Everyone knows you’ve been putting me off, and it doesn’t help my reputation! Or was there someone at the palace you favored while carving your pretty candles?”

“The palace is in my past,” I insisted, shaking his hand off and turning to face him in the doorway of our solar, where the yule log snapped and crackled. Susan, our maid, who had been tending the fire, fled the room through the back servants’ door before I could call her back.

“But your service to the queen doesn’t have to be in your past—our past,” he insisted, seizing both my elbows, pulling
me toward him into the room, nearly lifting me off my feet. “Surely the queen will want more carved candles—the Spanish princess too. United, with the correct connections, we could have the premier chandlery of all England, catering to the Tudors, and our own children to follow in our footsteps. A Tudor dynasty—a Gage dynasty. Gil and Maud know what’s best, and I’ll win Arthur over.”

“Christopher, you aren’t listening. I am wedding no one now, perhaps ever.”

“You do realize I can ruin you in more ways than one, Varina,” he said, his voice a menacing whisper, his face furrowed in a frown. That voice—so like the man in the crypt. “Gil needs to be accepted in the guild; you need pardon for selling carved angel candles without permission—and if the authorities caught wind that you had a personal relationship with that dead Italian—”

“The crowner didn’t rule for murder, but he should have!”

“That’s my point—an inquiry can always be reopened. I said
if
they were to learn that you had a personal relationship with the Italian, they might just do so, and you just might be the one under suspicion.”

“There was no personal relationship between us, but an interesting acquaintance!”

“Ah, I can see it now,” he went on, his voice taunting, “a lovers’ quarrel that day in such a holy place. You slapped him or mayhap pushed him away; he fell and broke his neck; you dragged him out where other bodies lay in the dark, interred forever.”

I was aghast at his tirade, his implications. And at how such an accusation might force me to expose my duties for
the queen. Would she help me or abandon me if I were arrested and sent to trial?

As frightened as I was, I was even more furious. “Leave my house!” I told him. “That is a pack of lies, and I will appeal it beyond the city authorities if I must.”

He locked the door to the hall. He put his magi crown down on a table and slapped his gloves there too—black gloves. “Swear to me you will wed me, or I swear to you I will do all I said,” he whispered.

Undecided whether to stand my ground to defy him or flee, I crossed my arms. “If so,” I countered, “I will claim that you were the tall man in the crypt with the black gloves and the lantern. I will say you wrongly believed that the
Maestro
and I were having the relationship you claim, and your overweening pride was hurt. You had set it up that Firenze and I would be in the chapel alone together. You came back early from the beekeepers in Kent, not only for the secret rites but to kill both of us, only I fled from you. Take your lies to the constable, and I will swear you were that man.”

He had stared at me all through that, his mouth agape. I warrant he had locked the door because he meant to make love to me, whether I was willing or not. He had certainly not expected a mere woman to turn his threats against him. And the fact that he had obviously thought all this out—could he be the killer? I needed protection indeed not
by
Christopher Gage, rather
from
him.

He leaped at me, and I ran. He yanked me back into his harsh embrace and ripped off my cape, nearly choking me as he tore the ties. I tried to scream, but he clamped a hand over my mouth, twisting my head back against his shoulder.
Why didn’t the others come in? Perhaps Arthur and Jamie were having another snowball fight in the street. I needed Gil or Jamie or someone.… I feared he meant to break my neck—perhaps as he had Firenze’s.

I bit Christopher’s hand hard; he yelped and let go. I started to scream, but as if my panic had summoned him, Jamie leaped into the room through the servants’ entry by which the maid had gone. He pulled Christopher off me and slammed his gloved fist into his face. Christopher’s head snapped back. Blood spurted from his mouth as he slid to the floor, holding his jaw in his hand.

“Damn you, bastard, you broke a tooth! I’ll have your head, you bootlicking cur!”

“This bootlicking cur,” I cried, “is not only in my employ, but was once a guard from the palace!” I looked down at my former friend—my husband’s former friend, at least. Regretful that I had given that away, I yet knew it was the only way to keep this man from causing me and Jamie—my family—more trouble. I put my hand on Jamie’s sleeve to stay further violence.

“You—you still have ties to the palace?” Christopher asked me, spitting blood and a tooth into his hand. “I knew it! And you’re keeping it secret from the guild.”

“I am not in the guild; nor is a weak woman likely to be, and you’ve been keeping Gil out, haven’t you? I repeat, leave my house now and admit this chandlery through Gilbert Penne into the Worshipful Guild of Wax Chandlers, even if he never becomes a member of your Holy Order of the Name of Jesus, our dear Lord who said to turn the other cheek and forgive seventy times seventy.”

“You’ll not preach Scripture to me, woman,” Christopher mumbled, still bleeding. “Or hide behind the queen’s skirts just because you carved a few pretty candles for her to give the Spanish princess.”

“Nor shall I ever wear your bloodred ring. Just call me Eve, then, off on her own, gazing at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—and I see a snake in the grass here before me.”

Whether those words finally shocked him to silence or Jamie’s hulking menace convinced him to leave, Christopher Gage rose shakily to his feet and stalked from the room through the servants’ door. Jamie followed him down the steps to be certain he did no more mischief.

I felt both elated and rueful. I should not have invoked the power of the palace. The queen had given me permission to tell those closest to me that I had, at least, carved candles for her. But Christopher was no longer close to me—he had made himself my enemy. Perhaps that would force him to stay away, not to tamper with my life or with Gil’s. And surely I had not spoken the truth when I’d accused him of being the man in the crypt.

Trembling, I went over to the hearth and braced myself against the mantel, stiff-armed, with both hands, staring down into the red-gold flames. As they slowly devoured the large log, I wished so bright a light could chase away the cold and the dark from my heart.