The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (6 page)

“His Grace’s affairs are so very confidential?” said Hugh.

“His Grace deals with many matters of business,” said Dean. “And he has family cares as well. There are always those who envy wealth and influence and wish their possessors harm. Sometimes it is wise for great men such as the duke to be cautious. It is the penalty of greatness.”

“Great man?” I said. “If Norfolk is a great man, I’m the
Queen
of Cathay. No really great man could possibly talk as he does about Mary Stuart!”

“His possessions are great,” Hugh pointed out, “and his title. There’s no denying that.”

We had supped with the duke that evening. The meal was served in a pleasant supper room with linenfold paneling and a view of the grounds, and there were eleven of us at the table. The duke headed it, and his three secretaries were present. So too were Sybil and Meg, and grace was recited by a dark-gowned man who was introduced as Father Luke Mercer, the duke’s chaplain. At my request, Brockley and Dale were also with us, seated below the three secretaries but at least partaking of the excellent food. The journey had tired Dale a good deal and I wanted to show her some consideration.

There was conversation but Norfolk did most of the talking, and what he talked about was largely Mary. In fact, supper lasted over an hour and we spent nearly all of it listening to the details he had discovered of Mary Stuart’s childhood in France as the dauphin’s betrothed.

“One of the Venetian ambassadors said she was a child of exceptional prettiness . . . she had the most tender feelings for her mother; did you know that she fell ill with grief when she
heard of her mother’s death, even though they had not met for years? . . . She personally nursed her husband, the young French king, when he was dying . . . ”

Now, with relief, I was alone with Hugh, who was sitting on the edge of the bed in his linen nightshirt, a loose woolen gown over it for warmth. He was filing his nails by candlelight, while I was already between the sheets, leaning against my pillows, glad that I need no longer make respectful noises in answer to Norfolk’s naïve enthusiasms.

“For all his wealth and titles, he seems as besotted with Mary as a plowboy with a milkmaid,” I said. “And he hasn’t even met her!”

Hugh reached to put the file on a little table and turned to me. “Norfolk’s obsession with Mary hardly matters to us. He speaks of it so openly that it can’t be unknown to Cecil and the council. It’s their worry, not ours. We’re here because of Dean. What did you think of him?”

“We’ve had little chance to weigh him up. Norfolk didn’t give us much opportunity at supper! But I didn’t take to him, even before he called Norfolk great. He’s . . . ” It was difficult to put my instinctive aversion to the man into sensible words. “He’s cold,” I said, finally.

“What I sense,” said Hugh, “is something hidden about him, as though he isn’t what he appears to be. Well, he’s only a secretary for the time being and out of necessity and if he were a thriving merchant, in his own proper world, as it were, he might seem different but . . . ”

“I agree. I don’t think he’s what we want for Meg. She was looking at him,” I added, “all the evening. And he was looking at her.”

“Yes, I noticed that too, with some concern. So—we are not in favor of going ahead with this betrothal, then?”

“I suppose we must talk further to Dean before we finally decide, but I think not,” I said worriedly.

“We shouldn’t have come. You were right. She’s too young!” Hugh sounded exasperated. “Too young to decide for herself, and too young for us to decide for her. Her nature isn’t fully
formed yet. And we wouldn’t have come, except for Gladys. Ursula, what are we to do about Gladys? I’m beginning to think that after all, she
is
becoming—well, odd, as aged people sometimes do. When we take her home, we may have to keep her under lock and key. Where is she now, by the way?”

“In with Brockley and Dale, on a truckle bed. They don’t like it much—they don’t like
her
much—but they take my orders. She’s been there since Brockley marched her out of the kitchen. She’s quietened down. Meg went to see her and asked Gladys to tell her some of her tales of life in Wales.”

“We won’t have long to wait before Meg really does grow up,” Hugh said thoughtfully. “That was very good sense.”

“Indeed. And did you know that Meg arranged for a supper tray to be made up for Gladys from the duke’s table this evening? She said that the trick with Gladys was to make her feel that people minded about her. I came downstairs before you, if you recall, and I found Meg loading a tray with a slice of game pie, peas with herbs, roast goose cut up small on account of Gladys’s teeth, a custard with cinnamon, and a goblet of wine. She took it up to Gladys herself.”

“Fine fare to give an old serving woman!” said Hugh, amused.

“Yes, it was. I gather that the servants just had chicken stew, the remains of the salmon, some syllabubs, and small ale. But I think it worked. Before I came to bed, I looked in on Gladys and she seemed quite good-natured.”

“All the same, we can’t go on like this. Let me think about it. You shouldn’t have to shoulder all the responsibility.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully. “Hugh . . . ”

“What is it, my love?”

“I have the impression that Norfolk is quite serious about proposing marriage to Mary Stuart. From what he said, the queen doesn’t know about it. You think the council are sure to know, but do they? He may talk more freely to us than he does at court. I haven’t been there lately and he may not think of me—or you—as being part of court circles or having the ear, nowadays, of anyone in a high position. He may know who my father was but I doubt if he knows about my—secret work.”

“He’s a fool to talk freely to anyone, if he doesn’t want the council to find out,” said Hugh.

I said: “When I
was
at court, I learned something of his reputation. He is said to be not very clever.”

There was a sudden silence. An uncomfortable one.

“Are you saying,” said Hugh after a moment, “that before we go home, we ought to make certain at least that Cecil knows?”

He dropped his voice as he spoke, and our eyes met.

“I don’t think anyone’s hiding behind the tapestries,” I said, “but it’s odd. One does have an instinct to speak softly. Look, Hugh, what do
you
think we should do?”

Hugh frowned. “We’re not here on any kind of assignment. We’re just guests. It seems hardly proper to go tattling to Cecil that our host is making plans to marry himself to . . . ”

“Quite,” I said glumly. “To a queen who is also Elizabeth’s rival.”

“But he really did speak freely. He calls it confidential but it sounded like an open secret to me.”

“The idea of this marriage came up last year,” I said slowly. “Cecil knew of it then. But . . . ”

“Was it quelled?”

“I’m not sure. I never heard exactly what happened about it.” I brightened. “From what Norfolk says, though, he obviously intends to seek the queen’s approval before he goes through with it. Perhaps I’m worrying needlessly and . . . ” I stopped, interrupted by a sudden hubbub in the distance, of raised voices and running feet. “Whatever’s that?”

Hugh slid off the bed and went to look out of the door. Throwing back the covers, I followed him. Our door opened on a wide passage, lit at night with lamps. In one direction, the passage led to the staircase down to the hall and parlor, and in the other, went past the two bedchambers occupied respectively by the Brockleys and by Sybil and Meg, ending at a flight of stone steps. Downward, these led to the kitchen quarters; upward, to the servants’ dormitories on the floor above. The noises were coming from above. Somebody was crying noisily and somebody else, by the sound of it, was being appallingly sick. The Brockleys,
Gladys, Sybil, and Meg now appeared in the other doorways, doing up overgown belts and looking alarmed.

“I’m going to see what’s happening,” said Hugh. “Brockley!”

“Sir?”

“Come with me. The rest of you stay here.”

They were back before long, grim of face.

“About three quarters of the servants have been taken ill. They’ve got the gripes and some of them,” Hugh said, “are clearing their systems both ends, if you take my meaning. And”—his eye fell grimly on Gladys, who was still at Dale’s side in the bedchamber doorway—“there’s a hysterical maidservant or two talking about witchcraft and being cursed by . . . er . . . Mistress Morgan that came with the Stannards.”

“By that old hag, I s’pose you mean,” said Gladys. “You wouldn’t repeat it but that’s what they called me, I don’t doubt.”

“Witchcraft be damned,” said Brockley. “I’ve been down to the kitchen. There’s four more scullions down there—they sleep there to guard the fire. They’re as sick as dogs but they pointed out a pot of the stew they had at supper. There’s some left. Chicken stew, it is, one of them told me, in between fits of retching, and I had a sniff at it. That chicken was past its best. I could smell it. Curses, indeed!”

“And I know what to do for them all, or at least what might help. Pity there’s not much chance they’ll ask me!” Gladys growled.

She would have turned back into the bedchamber, except that I caught hold of her. “Gladys, what would help? Quick, tell me!”

“Clear it out of them, what else? Warm salt water. That’ll bring it up. Empty their stomachs right out. Then clean well water to wash ’em through. I’m going back to bed.”

“Come on,” I said. “Dale, Meg, Sybil. Let’s see what we can do! Upstairs first!”

“I’ll go to the kitchens and help the fellows there,” Brockley said.

The scene in the servants’ dormitories upstairs was highly unpleasant. There was one for the menservants and another for
the women, with a dozen or more occupants in each. In both rooms, someone had managed to light candles, so we could at least see what we were about. Everyone hadn’t been stricken and those who were not were trying to help the less fortunate, most of whom were either crouching on chamber pots or leaning over basins. There was a hideous smell of vomit and excreta.

Hugh and I rapped out questions and counted heads and then, with Meg, Sybil, and Dale behind us, we rushed down to the kitchens. As we reached the foot of the steps, we heard more sounds of distress coming from a passageway to the left and we veered along it to investigate. Discovering two doors, opposite to each other, we plunged through one and found ourselves in what looked like the butler Conley’s suite. It was empty, however, and we now realized that the noises came from beyond the other doorway. This proved to be the housekeeper’s domain. Conley, looking slightly green but not violently ill, was there, holding Mistress Dalton’s head as she threw up into an earthenware bowl.

“It was the stew,” he said shortly as we came in, and his usual dignified tones had slipped, revealing a down-to-earth London accent and a down-to-earth mind to go with it. “It’s happened before, with chickens. The cooks plunge the carcasses into boiling water before they pluck ’em, to make plucking easier . . . ”

I nodded. During a secret assignment that had obliged me to work in a pie shop, I had learned a good deal about the art of plucking poultry. After immersion in boiling water, the feathers came out easily if pulled against the grain. But the exposure to heat also meant that the meat didn’t keep for long. Chickens treated in such a way had to be cooked promptly.

“. . . all the plucking for the day is done in the morning and birds not used for dinner go on one of what I call the supper shelves in the larder. There’s dinner shelves, too. Anything that’s being kept for tomorrow’s dinner is put there, but it shouldn’t ever include chicken. We never hang plucked poultry, either. But mistakes can happen, like I said. Some careless lad or lass puts a plucked chicken on the shelf for tomorrow’s dinner instead of today’s supper, and no one notices because they’re always busy and
our chief cook always wants everything done yesterday if not last week, and the chicken’ll still be there next day, by which time it’s started going off, and some not very bright novice cook . . . ”

Here, Conley went off at a tangent. “They’re never bright when they’re novices. Our head cook scares them senseless sometimes; wallops the shit out of them if they do things wrong. Well, the young have got to be trained but you can go too far with these things.”

He shook his head and came back to the point. “So some young kitchen hand in a fluster and a hurry, probably being shouted at, takes things off the dinner shelf and puts them on a kitchen table and doesn’t think to ask if that chicken ought to be there. Or maybe hasn’t yet learned enough to know. And the morning’s supply of poultry is being plucked and dumped on the kitchen table too, and before you know where you are, a bad bird’s found its way into the stew. I didn’t have much stew myself,” he added. “There was salmon and I like that better. And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about curses, either!”

Mistress Dalton groaned but whether in agreement or otherwise, it was impossible to tell. Gladys would have a supporter in Conley, though. “We’ll do what we can, mistress,” Hugh said, and rushed us all out again and on to the kitchen.

Here we found the four scullions and Brockley. The fire had been banked but Brockley had livened it up and set water to warm. One of the scullions—in fact, it was young Walt—had recovered enough to stumble about, getting out salt, trays, cups, and jugs, and Brockley was just coming back from the well with a fresh pail of water. We had dosed the remaining three scullions and Mistress Dalton, and Brockley was looking after the scullions while the rest of us were clattering beakers and jugs onto trays to take upstairs, when Edmund Dean arrived, his hair on end and a brocade bedgown tied anyhow round his middle.

“This is appalling! The racket woke the duke and all of us secretaries. I’ve just been to the servants’ rooms. They said you were here, getting remedies together. Julius Gale needs them too—he’s ill as well!”

“Badly?” I asked.

“Yes, very badly! I’ve just been to his room—it’s the people who ate supper down here who are ill, and he was among them—and if we don’t do something quickly, I think he’s so sick, he could die!”