To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court (10 page)

“But you both look healthy enough to me,” Brockley said relentlessly.

“True enough. My husband says there are no such things as witches,” Mattie declared, backing us up, head high and plump hands clasped at her waist; the lady of the manor reproving ill-behaved servants.

“I’ve just lost a child,” I said to Pen. “My son was born dead and I nearly died myself. But it was misfortune, not witchcraft. My first husband died of smallpox, before he was thirty. That wasn’t witchcraft, either.”

“That’s as may be, but this
was
!” Pen shouted at me. “She cursed him. She cursed him! I heard her!”

“Your bloody brat stoned me for being ugly. I’m glad he’s dead!” shrieked Gladys, hardly helping her own cause.

“And we’re going to stone you out of Vetch Village!” shouted David Howell, and with that, he picked up a stone from the nearest pile and threw it.

A shower of other stones followed. Brockley ducked, putting up his hands to protect his head. Dale screamed and threw herself in front of him, and without stopping to think, Mattie and I ran to join her.
“Stop this, or you’ll have Lady Thomasine and Sir Philip to deal with!” Mattie shouted.

The stones stopped momentarily, but then someone called out something in Welsh. The name of Lady Thomasine was embedded in it somewhere and I thought I heard the word Mortimer as well.

“What are they saying?” Mattie demanded of Gladys.

“That Sir Philip and Lady Thomasine won’t care for the likes of me,” said Gladys sullenly, and after a suspicious pause, as though she had belatedly decided on discretion. What had really been said had been more disparaging than that. I wondered what it was. Then another stone came through the air and I lost interest in the matter. I ducked just in time, and a frighteningly big stone followed, barely missing Mattie. “Master Cooper!” I screamed. “Do something!”

“Then take yourselves off, all of you!” Cooper retorted. He made more damping-down gestures, however, and those who were lifting stones ready to throw paused in the act. “Leave Gladys to us. Or else take her with you; we won’t object. We want her gone. Take her to the castle if you want, but don’t let her come back.”

I moved to Gladys’s side and caught her arm. It was so thin that my fingers went right around it.

“All right,” I said. “Come on.”

“I got a lamb to rear,” said Gladys exasperatingly.

“Master Cooper,” Brockley barked, “a lamb belonging to the castle was in Gladys’s care. See that someone attends to it.”

“There you are, Gladys,” I said. “Now come along.”

After all, it was as easy as that. Well, almost. There was an element in the crowd which still wanted to hunt Gladys into the wilderness on all fours in front of a hail of stones, but Cooper held them back, while we all edged past them in a tight group with Gladys in the middle and hurried her back past the outlying cottages, making for the zigzag path. It was steep for her and she complained that her knees hurt, but we pushed and pulled her up it somehow.

In fact, the most difficult part of the rescue came when we arrived back in the stable yard, to be at once accosted by a crowd of Vetch servants and retainers, including the girl Olwen and led by the red-faced Evans, who announced that they’d heard what was afoot because Dale and Mattie had let it out when they rushed back to the castle and started asking where I was. “And we don’t want that Gladys here and Lady Thomasine won’t have her here either. She’s sent her away once already.”

“Well, let’s ask her,” I said. To my relief, Lady Thomasine herself had just appeared from the door to the Mortimer Tower and was crossing the courtyard toward us. “Here she is.”

“Now what’s all this to-do?” Lady Thomasine had exchanged her elegant slippers for clogs, but walked awkwardly in them. “You’ve brought Gladys in? But why?”

“The villagers were about to stone her from the village for being a witch,” I said shortly. “But I don’t believe in witches. Nor does Brockley here.”

“No, Lady Thomasine. I don’t. And I won’t stand to see an old soul stoned and mistreated.” Brockley spoke up strongly.

“I intend to find somewhere for Gladys to go,” I said. “Perhaps she could go with Mattie—if you’ll take her with you when you leave, Mattie?”

Mattie had supported me loyally so far and she shared my skepticism about witchcraft but she didn’t look overjoyed about this suggestion. At this point, however, Gladys joined in. “I got kinsfolk in the Black Mountains. They’ll take me in, once I get there. Came from there as a girl, I did; and don’t I wish now I’d stayed and not fallen for Morgan’s bright eyes, God rest his soul. There’s been nothing right with me since he went, and there were lads would have wedded me if I’d stayed in Wales where I belong.”

“There you are,” said Mattie, with relief. “Rob will surely lend you a man to take you on his pillion, Gladys. Maybe Lady Thomasine will provide a guide.”

I looked Lady Thomasine in the eyes. “While I am your guest, I would rather be a help to you than a hindrance. I mean to do my best in every way. But if you could help us over the matter of the guide, we would be so very grateful.”

She took the point. “A guide into Wales I can certainly provide. Most of my men know the Black Mountains. I wish Gladys to leave by tomorrow, at latest.”

“I’ll not trespass in your household for long, my lady; never fear,” said Gladys acidly. “Nor put a curse on you. Or your lamb. They’ll have handed it to my neighbor. Someone ’ud better go and make sure she’s treatin’ it right. And what about my things? Clothes I got, and an old ornament or two that Morgan gave me when I weren’t ugly and brats didn’t jeer at me.”

“Gladys, be quiet,” I said, although I was beginning to admire her. Old, powerless, and hated, she still had the guts to stand up for herself.

“We’ll look after her and send for her things,” Mattie said to Lady Thomasine, who shrugged gracefully and said that as long as she herself need have nothing to do with Gladys, we could see to her as we chose.

Mattie took charge of our rescued witch. Once she was out of hearing, I had a few sharp words for Brockley, about involving himself in local affairs without proper knowledge of them, but he merely replied: “With respect, madam, in the same circumstances I’d do the same again, and what’s more, I think you’d be ashamed of me if I didn’t.” Which was true.

He went off to the stable, saying that our horses needed attention, and I returned to the guest rooms with Dale. Mattie was there, supervising while her own maid, Joan, attended to Gladys’s cut forehead. I let them get on with it and asked Dale to make me a chamomile draft. My temples ached but I couldn’t possibly have a sick headache just now.

A few moments ago, face-to-face with Lady Thomasine, I had, obliquely, hinted that if she would not cooperate over Gladys, I might not cooperate over Sir Philip. But she had agreed to help and now I must do my part. Rob and Mortimer had ridden back into the stable yard just as I was leaving it. They would be at dinner. It was my duty, and I knew it, to be there too; to be full of sprightliness and flowing conversation, and to get Sir Philip Mortimer drunk.

Supper the previous evening had been quite ordinary but I now discovered that the Mortimers liked to dine in state, although their notions of state were somewhat odd. It was as though Sir Philip desired to live splendidly but had an imperfect grasp of how to go about it.

I was no stranger to ritual, heaven knows. Mealtimes were ceremonious at Blanchepierre, and at Elizabeth’s court I had attended many an official banquet. But these occasions had never been other than dignified. At Vetch, alas …

To begin with, the hall at Vetch was depressing; too shadowy and subject to stealthy drafts which made the aged tapestries stir disconcertingly, as though shaken by unseen hands. It was pervaded, too, by a doggy smell from the sheepdogs, greyhounds, and mastiff, which once again were dozing by the fire.

Rob, Mattie, Meg, and myself were, however, ceremoniously led by the butler Pugh to our places at the top table, which was draped in white damask and set with silver. We were required to remain standing while Mortimer and his mother, both of them dressed as if to receive royalty, came in to seat themselves in high-backed chairs. Then the food was borne into the hall by a dozen servants in procession, singing in Welsh and preceded by an elderly and gray-bearded harper dressed in an archaic tabard of pale green, with a vetch plant, purple flowers, and darker green leaves, embroidered on it.

Rafe, arriving late, after the food was on the table, apologized gracefully to his guardian and then hurried to kneel beside Lady Thomasine and apologize a second time, not so much gracefully, as abjectly. He might have turned up late for her coronation instead of merely for a meal.

“Think nothing of it,” she said, but laid her hand on his head as forgivingly as though he really were being excused for a serious offense. For a moment they stayed motionless, Lady Thomasine gazing kindly down on Rafe, and his profile outlined against her plum-hued gown.

In profile he was a little less handsome than he was full face, for his nose was too sharp and his chin just too long for perfection, but he and Lady Thomasine made a charming tableau and I wondered if the pose was deliberately meant to echo the figures in the threadbare tapestry just behind Lady Thomasine. It showed a woman resting her hand on the horn of a unicorn, as if bestowing a regal blessing. Except that the woman in the tapestry was much younger than Lady Thomasine,
and the horn of a unicorn, I knew, was a symbol which was hardly appropriate in this case.

When Gerald and I were in Antwerp and Gerald was employed by the financier Sir Thomas Gresham, we had often dined in Gresham’s splendid house and there I had seen some fine tapestries featuring unicorns. Gerald, gleefully, had explained the symbolism to me. I hoped that both Lady Thomasine and Rafe were unaware of it.

The mastiff chose that moment to get up from its place in front of the hearth, jump onto the dais, sit down on the other side of Lady Thomasine and gaze at her, dribbling hopefully in expectation of tidbits. Beside me, Mattie let out a little snort of amusement, and I repressed a chuckle. Meanwhile, Lady Thomasine, ignoring the dog, withdrew her hand from Rafe’s hair. He rose and took his own seat. Mortimer smiled at his mother, apparently finding nothing strange or laughable in the little playlet with Rafe, and began to recite a lengthy grace.

At the end of it, as we sat down and the servants crowded around us, offering dishes and pouring wine, Evans strode into the hall. I had the impression that he had been waiting just out of sight until Mortimer had said
amen
. Once more, he was dressed in green, but this time it was clean. He had a hooded falcon on one arm, and from the other hand dangled a brace of hares. He came up the hall, onto the dais, and around the table to Lady Thomasine, where he went down on one knee and gravely presented the hares to her, as a gift from her loyal falconer.

“Is that what he is?” I whispered to Mattie. “The falconer?” That explained the streaks of bird droppings.

“Simon Evans? Yes, he’s the head falconer. Mortimer has three of them,” Mattie whispered back.

“I have asked,” said Evans, in booming tones that could be heard all over the hall and were meant to be, “that these shall be served to my lady tomorrow, cooked in wine.”

Thanking him, Lady Thomasine formed another tableau by resting her hand, this time, on the falconer’s rough dark head. Once more, Mattie emitted a small, disrespectful gurgle. After posing for a count of about three, Evans stood up, bowed, and withdrew, taking his hares with him. The mastiff leaped down from the dais and went with him and the other dogs also got up and followed him out. I heard him in the courtyard, shouting at someone to for God’s sake feed these animals, before they stole his catch. On the dais, the serving of food and wine resumed. Our goblets were filled and our silver platters loaded. Pugh made it his personal task to look after Lady Thomasine. In my ear, Mattie whispered: “I think she thinks she’s Eleanor of Aquitaine.”

“Who?” I whispered back.

“Eleanor of Aquitaine. You know. Henry II’s queen. She invented courtly love. Noble ladies had pretend lovers who swooned over them and sang songs and wrote poems to their beautiful eyes and their hard hearts and presented them with dead hares as well, I expect.”

I dredged my memory for more recollections of the history lessons I had shared with my cousins. I could dimly recall hearing about Eleanor of Aquitaine, although not about courtly love. Our tutor had probably regarded that as either too frivolous for his pupils or
else improper. But it was obvious enough what Mattie meant. In this castle, which was run like an imitation palace, Lady Thomasine was queen of an inner court and her son took it all as normal.

Conversation had begun, and was promisingly political. Mortimer had started to talk about Mary Stuart of Scotland and the current speculation over her marriage plans. An English noblewoman called Lady Lennox, who was descended from a sister of Henry VIII and was, thus, a cousin to both Mary and Elizabeth (Elizabeth detested her), was reportedly interested in promoting her son, Henry Darnley, as a bridegroom for Mary. It would be a powerful alliance in the eyes of those who considered Elizabeth to be illegitimate and, therefore, not entitled to the throne.

“The sooner our good queen is married and with a son, the better,” Sir Philip remarked. “A secure succession would steady people’s minds. She must herself be aware of that.” Rob observed that the future peace and happiness of England depended on Elizabeth’s choosing the right husband and over that, she would have to exercise care. Lady Thomasine said that everyone hoped the queen wouldn’t marry Robin Dudley, her Master of Horse, but that it looked less likely now, since the rumors had been circulating for years and nothing had come of it.

“I believe it has even been said that last year she offered his hand to Mary Stuart of Scotland,” she added.

I agreed that this rumor had reached me in France, but evidently nothing had come of that, either. I agreed too that it had probably never been seriously meant and
was no doubt nothing but a political ploy, perhaps to distract Mary Stuart from thoughts of Henry Darnley. I sipped my wine but found it uncomfortably strong. There was water on the table as well and I would do best, I thought, to drink that instead. Such strong wine might well have the desired effect on Philip, though, if only I could get him to overindulge in it.