The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (15 page)

We thought of Thomas Howard, of his pale eyes and beaky nose, his overfastidiousness, his occasional petulance, his good heart and his sentimentality. His too visible ambition. His obtuse streak. Our silence was answer enough.

“Quite,” said Cecil. “And most of my fellow council members must feel the same, but some of them are so eager to lever me and Her Majesty apart that they are simply indifferent to his drawbacks. But if she once loses confidence in me . . . ”

He looked at me. There was no laughter now in his tired blue eyes. I had never seen them so weary and so unhappy. It was wrong, I thought, very wrong indeed that a man so conscientious should be made to look like that.

“Who will guide and steady her if I’m not there?” Cecil said. “We have worked in partnership for years. In giving her my advice, I have always—
always
—put England’s interests, and Elizabeth’s interests, which I regard as the same thing, first. I promised her I would, at the time of her accession. And she
told
me that she expected such advice from me. She asked me always to speak according to my conscience and my judgment, and not simply to please her. But time brings changes. A young, untried princess, new to power, is one thing. A woman in her thirties, who has been queen for a decade is another. If she were to turn or be turned against me, and look for advice to someone who was more self-seeking . . . ”

“Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,” said Hugh.

“Quite,” said Cecil wearily. “She loves him, though not as the world understands that word when applied to a man and a woman. But he is not the man to guide England safely. I am afraid, for myself, for her, for England. And now, we have these killings: Gale and the boy.”

“Did you already know about them?” Hugh asked.

“Oh yes. Via Mistress Dalton at first. In fact, I sent for a copy of the inquest records, and I’ve read them. Later, though, Norfolk himself told me about the business. Despite our dispute earlier this year, we are still on speaking terms. There are matters on which he wants my advice. He puts his own interpretation on it all. Julius Gale was no doubt killed by some private enemy of his own. The letters he was carrying were found in his room, perfectly safe, and probably had nothing to do with the matter. The boy Walt perhaps knew something dangerous to the killer and was therefore disposed of as well. So many people have secrets in their lives, Norfolk says, questionable acquaintances or interests which they conceal from their employers and their more respectable friends.”

I said doubtfully: “Well, that could be so, I suppose.”

Cecil snorted. “I believe there are certain kinds of fish which, when startled, give out an inky substance that hides them while they make their escape. Norfolk’s theories were very like a cloud of ink. I wondered what was going on behind them. Now, you tell me that this man Ridolfi, who has dealings with Norfolk, and, apparently a secret correspondence with either Mary Stuart or Moray, is also having confidential conversations with de Spes, a man that I neither like nor trust. Nor does the queen,” he added. “She and I are in accord about the Spanish ambassador, at least! She said to me once that de Spes is two men in one body: a whimsical dreamer and a cold fanatic.”

I thought of de Spes’s romantic style of talking, of the secretive smile and the embattled, watchful eyes, and realized that Elizabeth, acute as ever, had interpreted them aright. I said: “I think that sums him up perfectly. Do you have any observers in Roberto Ridolfi’s house?”

“Not at the moment.” Cecil paused and then said: “Master Stannard, you have in the past graciously allowed your wife to serve her queen even though it meant being separated from her for a time. Would you consent to that again?”

I wanted to protest but then I saw Hugh’s expression. I knew what he was going to say. He was an unusual man. He would say that my duty to the queen came before my duty to him. He
would remind me too that she and I were half sisters. He had done so before.

“I would raise no objection,” Hugh said quietly. “But I don’t wish my wife to be put in danger.”

“There is no need for that,” Cecil said. “Not if you are circumspect, Ursula. There have been times in the past when you weren’t, but no one ordered you to risk getting your throat cut. You rushed headlong into danger all by yourself. I certainly never told you to do so! I don’t like using you, a married woman with a child, in this way at all. But I think that without risk to yourself, you could easily fill this need.”

“How?” I asked. I had the feeling that my back was against a wall. My only chance of escape, as far as I could see, lay in the fact that I couldn’t imagine how I could be introduced into Ridolfi’s household.

Cecil had the answer, of course. I might have known.

“I mentioned that Norfolk has been seeking my advice,” he said. “Are you aware that he’s entangled in a lawsuit over lands which are, or should be, his stepdaughters’ inheritance?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“I think I can help him. Customary law is on his side, for one thing. In the absence of a son, it has always been normal for inheritances such as this to be split between the daughters. I do happen to be Master of the Wards, which means that, given I have adequate points of law to work with, I can make recommendations when such cases come to court. My recommendations,” he added, “are usually heeded.”

Involuntarily, I smiled. It was such a charming way of saying:
I order and they jump.

“Norfolk became quite amiable after our discussion of the matter,” he said. “Almost gossipy. He mentioned that lately, Ridolfi’s wife has come to England and it seems that Ridolfi wants a gentlewoman companion for her. Madame Ridolfi speaks little English and needs a lady who speaks either French or Italian, who can assist her in learning English, help her to shop for gowns and household goods, show her the way about London, and so on.”

Remembering Ridolfi’s gentle, brown-eyed wife, I said reluctantly: “Yes, she’ll need someone of that kind. I’ve met her, you know. She’ll need someone to help her with the household servants, too.”

“Norfolk mentioned that as well. Some of the servants came with the family from Italy, so she has no difficulty there. But there are quite a few English ones as well and she would like to be able to talk to them directly.” He laughed. “It seems that the English servants all address her as Madame, as though she were a Frenchwoman, though she doesn’t mind, and says that if it’s easier, she’s prepared to be known as Madame while she’s in England. They call her husband Master Ridolfi. English servants don’t seem able to get their tongues round Signor and Signora, and I daresay the same will be true of half the people she meets in society as well. The English are an insular nation. Even I, for all my high position, can speak no tongue but my own.”

I said nothing, and he studied my face. “It would be a temporary arrangement, for three months or so. When you met—I’ll call her Madame Ridolfi as well—did you like her?”

“Well—yes. At least, I didn’t have much conversation with her, but what I saw, I liked.”

I had lost the contest already. I knew it.

“I may be able to persuade Norfolk into smoothing the way for you,” Cecil said. “We could say that your husband has business at home, but that you wish to stay in London to buy new fashions for yourself and your daughter. I could suggest that the two ladies would be company for each other. That way, we might arrange for you to join Madame Ridolfi as a friend, not in any sense as a servant.”

I longed to say
no.
Then I thought of Julius Gale, being hauled out of a roadside culvert by his feet. I thought of Walt, insulted even in death, hung like a carcass alongside game birds and bullocks.

Cecil was right. Something had to be done.

“I realize that your family is Catholic,” I said, plowing determinedly on, standing in the middle of Norfolk’s parlor and gazing resolutely into Edmund Dean’s unfriendly blue eyes. They were so intense that they had almost physical force. “I was myself reared in a Catholic household,” I said. “The reason why we have decided against this betrothal is the one we have given already. My daughter is too young.”

I didn’t want bad blood between myself and Dean, for I would probably come into contact with him again in the near future. Norfolk and Ridolfi, I had gathered, saw a good deal of each other when they were both in London, and I would be spending at least the next three months with the Ridolfis. They had taken the bait as easily as ponies take apples. I was to become Donna Ridolfi’s gentlewoman companion.

I wished Hugh could have been there to support me but Hugh had already left for Hawkswood. Chance had lent color to the excuse that he was too busy to stay in London with me, though we wished it hadn’t. He had gone because of a worrying letter from Sybil.

Sybil, being both educated and ladylike, had worded the letter in dignified fashion but her alarm came through all too clearly.

. . . Meg has been downhearted. It seems that she wanted to be betrothed to Master Dean and has even said that she thinks of herself as
betrothed to him because, apparently, she told him so one day when they were walking together. I do my best to distract her but I fear she is lovesick. She does not attend to her studies as she should and even rides out and goes hawking as though it were a duty rather than a joy.

As regards Gladys Morgan, I did all I could to follow your instructions, but it is not possible to keep her confined in the house, she being most offended by this notion. She caused so much ado when she found her chamber door locked that it seemed best to allow her some freedom. I bade her to be circumspect in all she said and did, and at first all went well, but then she offered to make a medicine for an ailing maidservant and went out into the fields to find herbs and there met the Hawkswood vicar. He asked her what she was about and when she told him, he said she was acting presumptuously, pretending to be a physician, which is an art to be practiced only by men, and that he feared her purpose was witchcraft. Whereupon she cursed him in some fashion and, alas, some dwellers in a nearby cottage heard them disputing and came out and were not pleased to see Gladys, whom they knew and distrusted. This caused her to turn on them and curse them too.

I now have her under lock and key again and have promised the vicar and the villagers (who sent a deputation to me) that she will not annoy them again. I repeated that she was a foolish old woman with a bitter tongue but no unnatural powers. The vicar said, however, that if any harm befell him or the cottagers, charges will be brought.

No such harm has yet come but what if it occurs by chance? I most earnestly seek your advice and your presence too, if possible . . .

All of which, reduced to its gist and invested with the full force of the emotion behind it, meant:
Meg is in love with Master Dean and thinks she is promised to him and I don’t know what to do about it, while Gladys is impossible and will get herself hanged if she isn’t careful. Coping with either of them is beyond me. I call for help!

So, Hugh had gone to Hawkswood to do what he could, but before he left, we agreed that I should put the ambiguities of tact aside and make a final end of the betrothal question.

“Otherwise it may drag on and there may be further approaches,” I said. “The way we were introduced to his parents was a warning. They might even pay a visit to Hawkswood and disturb Meg further.”

“I agree. It’s time to be definite,” Hugh said.

This was proving difficult. Dean didn’t seem at all disposed to take no for an answer.

“Mistress Stannard, if my adherence to the old faith is not a difficulty, then why is Margaret’s youth such a barrier? Time will mend that! I have already said there can be no question of marriage until my circumstances are better and the wench is older. That was always understood. Early betrothals often work out well. The young people concerned know that their future is settled. Your girl is dutiful and obedient to you, I am sure.”

I was much less sure of that, though I could scarcely tell him that my daughter’s independent spirit was more likely to be ranged on his side than on mine.

Patiently, I tried again. “We came in good faith. But soon after we came here and, as it were, saw Meg in the position of a girl being presented as a marriage prospect, we realized that we had made a grave error. We were sorry, as we felt that we had led both the duke and yourself on to believe—to have hopes—to . . . ”

I was dithering. That frosty stare was unnerving me. “Master Dean,” I said, sounding harsh out of sheer desperation. “Please! We have changed our minds. We shall not consider any betrothal for Meg until she is at least seventeen and has spent at least a year at court. By then, if all goes as you expect, you will have made your way and found another wife. There is no point in continuing these . . . negotiations.”

“I see. You will not take into account that I—and perhaps your daughter too—may have fallen in love?”

“Meg is too young to fall in love, just as she is too young to be betrothed. And you, I’m sure, won’t pledge your whole life to a dream.”

“Very well. I wish your Meg—though I like her full name of Margaret much better—a happy life and a happy marriage, if not to me. I am sorry, for believe me, she has enchanted me and I will not forget her. I understand you are to visit Madame Ridolfi soon? I wish you a pleasant time with her. I am sure she will find you a great support as she learns her way about an unfamiliar city. Good day, Mistress Stannard.”

He bowed, turned on his heel, and went out. He had said all the right things. No one could fault his words. But if he had at last accepted his rejection, it wasn’t in any amiable spirit. There had been such a flash of fury in his eyes that, as he left the room, I found that I was trembling.

I was also sure that I had done the right thing. This was not the man for Meg.

I went to take my leave of Norfolk. “You and Master Stannard have really decided against Dean?” he said regretfully. “I must admit I’d hoped . . . it would have been doing him a kindness.”