Mistress of Mourning (29 page)

“I’ll come too. You shouldn’t go alone.”

“You were distressed near her last time.”

“I was not distressed! She was just strange, that’s all, but then so are most around here. Besides, I want to hear what
she says about meadow saffron—if she told someone that the prince was searching for wild garlic. It could be what poisoned Their Majesties. But accidentally or on purpose? We are to work together on all this—you said so and the queen did too!”

“Come along then. I’d best keep my eye on you, since I’ve ever been ordered to—and wanted to—from the first.”

With that, he gave me a quick boost up on my mount, and we were off to see someone I was certain was a witch, or perhaps, at the very least, just an everyday Welsh sorceress.

Queen Elizabeth of York

Despite how the king and I shared our grief for Arthur’s loss, it finally helped me to have my ladies about me too. I had wanted only to mourn alone at first, but their chatter and obvious care for me kept my mind occupied. Yet nothing could erase our being sent that horrid heart. Not a human heart, the king’s physician had said, but that of a cow or horse. Still, the king had written a missive to Nicholas Sutton demanding to know why it was sent and what he knew of it. The king had included in that missive a warning: An informant the king greatly trusted had heard that Lord Francis Lovell was back in England—but no one knew where or why.

“I have a question to ask, Your Majesty,” Sibil Wynn said as she looked up from her tapestry frame. The two of us were momentarily alone, as the others had gone out to walk the lapdogs in the courtyard. “I heard that Nick Sutton returned to Wales in a rush. Will he be back soon?”

“I thought you had your cap set for Nigel Wentworth.”

“Oh—yes. I inquire about Nick only as a friend.”

“I should think so, after Nigel has given you such fine gifts,” I told her, eager to get her off the subject of why Nicholas had been sent back to Wales. “It is obvious to me where Nigel’s heart—and, I pray, his future—lies. Even His Majesty has noticed how your suitor dotes on you.”

“Oh—His Majesty too? I hope he knows how fine a man Nigel is, and that he is fully loyal now and wishes to serve with all his heart.”

“Exactly what I was saying. With all his heart—which I hope is set on you, Sibil. You must be careful to guard your maidenhood until you are certain he wants a wife and not a liaison. Before all this unhappiness, I was waiting for Nigel’s request for a betrothal with you, but I warrant he will wait now for the period of mourning to end—to end formally,” I added with a sigh. “For me, it will never really be over.”

“I do understand,” Sibil went on in a rush, her needle poised above her work. “It’s just that Nick and I worked together for Your Majesty’s special task, and I wondered what he is doing now.”

“I value and appreciate your discretion on your fetching Varina Westcott to the palace,” I said, trying another tack to shift the subject.

“I’ll never tell, but can you trust the candle merchant? Surely she must be proud of what she’s done, such beautiful carvings. She and Nick got on overwell, I thought, considering her position here—and in life. Of course, that is all past now, since she’s gone back to her shop, but I just hope she resists the temptation to boast of what she did here.”

I said nothing for a moment and folded my hands in my lap. I had noted a certain camaraderie between Varina and Nicholas. He was ambitious, so I had always imagined he would try to make a prestigious marriage. I did not want him simply toying with my wax woman’s affections, and had told him he might mention their betrothal in Wales only if he needed to protect their reputations or further their investigation. Should I not have overstepped there? Had Varina or Nicholas overstepped with each other?

I said only, “Varina Westcott is of service to me. She is a fine wax candle carver and candlemaker. And do not pass on gossip in general, as it is most unbecoming.”

“As you say, Your Majesty,” Sibil said, looking not a bit contrite as she bent back over her needlework. But, frowning, she looked up again. “Do you mean gossip such as that Sir James Tyrell, who is in the Tower, is being questioned for terrible past crimes even beyond his recent defiance of the king?”

I nearly dropped my book. No one was to know what Tyrell was being examined for! Could someone have spread the word that he might be complicit in my dear brothers’ murders?

“What is being noised about?” I demanded. “Exactly what and by whom?”

She looked startled at my outburst. “I can’t recall who said it. I just heard Tyrell’s in the Tower for questioning about more than refusing to return to England when ordered to do so. Oh, Your Majesty, I only wanted to ask about Nick, and now I’m quite undone and you are too. Forgive me.”

“I will if you leave me alone just now. And do not listen
to or spread tittle-tattle about Nicholas Sutton, Varina Westcott, James Tyrell, or anyone else!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” She stabbed her needle back into the tapestry, stood, and flounced out her skirts. Looking suddenly pleased with herself, despite my scolding tone, she bent me a quick curtsy and was out the door.

I regretted I had lost control, but too much seemed to be spinning out of my control. If word was out about Tyrell’s questioning, would his answers become public knowledge too? And though Sibil Wynn had heard such bandied about, would I be the last to know?

Mistress Varina Westcott

We found the path toward Fey’s clearing after two wrong starts. The rain was turning the forest path into a bog, which unnerved me. Worse, we heard someone singing strangely, coming toward us. Rhys had indicated that Fey did not venture out in bad weather, but could it be she?

“Stay back,” Nick whispered, and drew his sword ahead of me. Thank the Lord, it was Rhys who emerged from the tall grass, head down, slogging along on foot toward us and singing in a strange falsetto. He was walking in water nearly up to his boot tops and, despite a felt hat, was dripping wet, with his hair plastered to his forehead.

“Oh, milord—and milady,” he said as Nick’s sword scraped back into its scabbard. “If you be looking for Fey, she’s not there. Went to get rosemary from her. And”—he lowered his voice so I could hardly hear him in the patter of the rain—“it looks like she just flew away.”

“Flew away?” Nick demanded. “What do you mean?”

“Her footprints are in the mud and then—whoo—just gone.”

I had no idea what he meant, and Nick must not either, for, frowning, he turned back to shake his head at me, then told the lad, “We’ve been to see your father and asked about your services, which we could use now. Here, I’ll give you a hand up, and you ride behind me.”

“What did he say, milord? Can I go with you to London Town?”

“He said he’d talk to your mother and think on it.”

He hauled the lad up, and we were off again. By the saints, my heart pounded so hard it muted the rain. Rhys began to thank Nick for talking to his father, then just went silent too.

“Fey!” Nick shouted when we reached her clearing. “Fey!”

At Nick’s voice, two vultures sitting on her smokeless chimney took flight. Rhys pointed at a spot on the ground, and we rode slowly over, leaning from our saddles to look at it. The rain pattered down less here, since a large oak with new-budding leaves leaned over us.

“See?” the boy asked. “The rain’s pounding them to pieces, but her footsteps—she drags one foot—come over from near her cot to right there, then nothing. She walks to this point and vanishes.”

“I see a single horse’s hooves in a parallel path,” Nick observed. “She must have walked to this point and then a horseman picked her up to ride, just as I did you a moment ago.”

“No,” I said before Rhys could answer. “The horse’s prints are too far from her—unless she…she leaped far.”

“Or flew,” Rhys put in.

“Was there anything amiss in her cot?” Nick asked.

“Not that I saw, milord. Well—’cept the Welsh banner the prince gave her was gone, maybe packed away for safekeeping.”

“Maybe someone came here to steal it,” I suggested with a shiver, as a rivulet of cold rain ran down my back despite my cape and hood. Would that someone then cut and deface that banner like the ones we found in the cromlech?

“Doubt a theft,” Rhys said. “Not someone from these parts. No one wants to cross Fey—she’s like a special thing here, like Glendower.”

We dismounted and searched Fey’s cot. The ashes in her fireplace were barely warm, but they could be left from yesterday. On her cluttered worktable Rhys found a half-bound bundle of dried rosemary, no doubt meant for him to take to his father’s herbal, but the battle banner was nowhere to be seen.

“Not that she kept things neat in here, but I see signs of a struggle,” Nick noted.

“I agree,” I said, pointing to a tipped basket that had spilled its leaves—which looked like dried meadow saffron.

“Wait!” I told Nick as he looked under her bed. I pulled out the packet of the herb Percival Garnock had given me, then compared my sample to the spilled herbs more closely. “It could be the same,” I whispered. “Rhys, do you know what is in this little basket she had?”

The boy leaned down, sniffing and squinting in the
twilight of the cot. “Looks a bit like wild garlic but doesn’t smell like it. Sorry, but one reason Da might let me go is I’m not so good at the roots and leaves.”

Nick and I were hardly listening to him. “Maybe Fey was connected to the peddler,” I said. “She was the supplier, but was she in on why he wanted the herb? Maybe she’s fled because he came back to warn her we were looking around, getting too close.”

“But she must have figured that out from our first visit.”

“We didn’t know to ask the right questions then.”

“Despite the rain, let’s search the area a bit more,” Nick said, and led us outside.

The vultures that had flown before were back on the roof, this time with two more of their ilk. “Something’s wrong here,” Rhys said, stating the obvious as the big birds glowered at us and didn’t budge this time.

Nick walked over to look even closer at the footprints, which the rain was erasing slowly, since the oak partly sheltered them. I went with him while Rhys stood a bit back, holding our horses. Strange events or not around here, I thought, she didn’t just fly away. We were not reading these prints correctly. Witches flew, but that couldn’t be the answer.

I tipped my hood back and looked up, blinking into the raindrops. In the tree directly above us, hanging from a limb by a rope around her neck, was Fey’s drenched, dead body.

A
scream died in my throat. Nick came to stand behind me and looked up too, then grabbed my shoulders. I heard Rhys run over to us. “Hanged?” the boy cried. “Who dared do that?”

I could not look away from Fey. Her sodden gray gown clung to her thin form. Partly hidden by the foliage, hands bound behind her back, she looked as if she danced in the breeze. The rope by which she had been hoisted was tied to a limb just over our heads.

“Rhys, take Mistress Westcott’s horse and go fetch the sheriff in Ludlow,” Nick ordered. “Tell no one else. Bring him here. Now!”

As the boy obeyed, Nick said to me, “We’re going to leave her there for the sheriff to see. He can summon the earl or castle bailiff for this. I’ll be damned if I intend to be interrogated by Surrey again. The queen committed her burdens to us, not him. For safety’s sake, get into the cot.”

“I’m staying with you.”

“We’re both going inside and we’ll guard her from there. We could be targets out here—of a hangman who is also good with a bow and arrow. Let’s go,” he insisted, and steered me directly back into Fey’s cot, pulling his mount so it blocked the open doorway, though we could peer out above and below the horse’s body.

“You think he did it—the peddler?” I asked, my voice shaky.

“I don’t know what to think, but I’m working on it. I’ve had men search the entire circumference of the castle to see whether they could locate a secret way in—for someone to stand on the parapet and watch us bury the prince’s heart. A lot of castles and manors have old, hidden siege escapes. But they found nothing. I have inquiries out in nearby farms and villages with sketches of the fletching on the arrow from the bog, to see whether we can trace it to anyone so fanatically loyal to the Yorkist cause who would dare to kill the Tudor heir.”

“But you and I are supposed to be working together. I didn’t know any of that.”

“I’m telling you now. I feel helpless to be able only to keep those vultures away—the birds, I mean,” he added under his breath, and, holding his horse’s reins so he would not bolt, shouted at the lurking birds, which were now nesting in the oak tree. They flew again but only circled and came back.

“Nick, I realize I shouldn’t have gone out into the bog without you. I regret that Surrey happened to be there. But that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you or—”

“It means you might have been killed, and on my watch!”

“Oh—you’re worried that the queen would hold you responsible. Now I see. Your duty, your future is at stake, especially since you’re in the awkward and regrettable position of having told the king’s Lord High Treasurer, Surrey, that we’re betrothed.”