To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court (15 page)

We all spun around. The man in the doorway had been brought in by Pugh, but as so often at Vetch, the unfortunate butler hadn’t been able to perform his office. The uproar must have drowned his first effort, and finally, the new arrival had got in ahead of him.

The newcomer removed a dashing blue velvet cap, darkened by rain but brightly adorned with a golden brooch, and made us all a most courteous bow. “I am Owen Lewis of Nant-y-gwyn in the Brecons. Nant-y-gwyn means the White Stream,” he added to Alice, speaking directly to her as though they were alone together, and the scene into which he had walked had no existence. “There is a waterfall near my house, which pours down the hillside in a streak of white foam. But it’s not the only cascade in my valley. There are four more. Beautiful, the place is, as you will one day see for yourself.”

“Owen! You’re here already! We expected you today, but you are so early!” said Mortimer in confusion.

“I could get no farther last night than Ewyas Harold, on the Dore, but I pressed on this morning, anxious to make my bride’s acquaintance. My man is unsaddling my horse. Will someone be kind enough, perhaps, to welcome me in?” said Owen Lewis mildly. “It’s raining and I’m wet, and your butler and I have been standing here unheeded for several minutes.”

There was a moment in which we all gazed at him in silence. I was still close to the door and he was quite near
me. I remember very well the powerful impression he made on me. It was so powerful that I stepped back, reminding myself that he had come to meet Alice; that I was merely a guest, and a married woman at that. In truth, if I had met him before I met Matthew, and if he had shown the slightest interest in me, I think Matthew would have been lost in his shadow.

Owen Lewis was by no means an old man. He was certainly older than Alice, but at most he was in his thirties. He was dark, which I suppose is my preference, for Gerald had been dark, and so was Matthew. Owen was shorter than Matthew and a little more heavily built than Gerald, and as he now removed his damp cloak and resigned it to Pugh, who looked relieved to have something useful to do, I saw that his costly blue doublet was cut to accentuate a broad chest and shoulders. His square, symmetrical features were not only strong but staggeringly handsome, and his deep-set dark eyes were vividly alive. His voice was deep and steady. But most impressive of all was his air of assurance. It emanated from him like a vigorous wind or the scent of the sea. We could all sense it.

The pause lasted for an appreciable time. Then Rafe, not looking at anyone, walked to the far door of the hall, which led to the tower parlor, and went out.

Alice was gazing at Lewis in silence. I looked at her and I actually saw it, the moment when her cosmos changed and the foundations of her world shifted under her feet. Then her father pushed her forward and because she had been well brought up, she automatically did the proper thing—which was to curtsy to Master Lewis. He lifted her to her feet and gave her a kiss, but a
very restrained one, before handing her back, not to her father, but to her mother, apparently not noticing Bess’s tearstained face.

Alice turned to her mother and hid her face against her. “Come,” said Bess. “Your hair’s coming down, my girl. You must have it put right and we must get you into prettier clothes.” She led her daughter away.

“I am so sorry,” Haggard burst into speech. “I suppose you heard most of that … what must you think? You …”

“There is no cause for concern,” said Lewis calmly. “Your daughter, Master Haggard, has never seen me before and she is at an age when a personable lad can easily sway her heart. Give me a little time with her, and I hope to change her mind. We can delay the betrothal ceremony for a few days, can we not? It might be best not to force the pace.” His smile was so attractive that my head swam. I actually took hold of a nearby table to steady myself. “I am not afraid of a callow youth,” he said, and although the words sounded conceited, they were not. They were a simple statement of fact, born of a knowledge of personal worth.

He held out his hat, with the gold ornament in it. “I was in the doorway listening when I heard the wench say that that young man has an estate with copper on it. I have gold on mine. Not much—but this brooch is made of my gold, and I will give her a wedding ring of my own gold, as well. There’s romance for her. Be kind to her, and a bit forgiving to the lad too—no need to make her too sorry for him—and let me do my own courting. Now, I have ridden a good few miles today already and I took little breakfast. I wonder if … ?”

Bemusedly, Sir Philip went to the door of the kitchen quarters and bellowed a demand for service and food. Lady Thomasine, turning at last in my direction, caught sight of me and raised inquiring eyebrows.

I moved to her and she drew me away to the corner of the hall, where I gave her my somewhat censored report of my unsuccessful foray the previous evening. A kind of normality had returned, if anything in this extraordinary household could ever be described as normal.

It wasn’t really normality. The whole day was strange.

Rafe did not reappear. Lady Thomasine went about her duties as a hostess but in a harried fashion, giving household orders in sepulchral tones, as though there had been a death in the family. Bess Haggard, having seen Alice arrayed in a fetching gown of orange tawny, with her hair folded glossily into a gold net, brought her back to the hall, where the men were talking horses and hawks. Alice came in with a wary face, but the moment she saw Lewis again, I saw the foundations of her world shake for the second time.

“I know,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “You were expecting some wrinkled old horror of a Welsh savage. Believe me, some of us are civilized gentlemen and this particular gentleman is a fine capable fellow too. Come along with me now to the blue parlor. Lady Thomasine’s had a fire lit there to brighten this wet old
day and you and I can talk in comfort. And in private,” he added in a voice guaranteed to warn off intruders.

With that, away he went, Alice tripping obediently and bemusedly at his side. Mortimer and Haggard, tacitly withdrawing from the situation, demanded their cloaks and went off to the mews to see how Haggard’s ill-tempered goshawk was settling down. Feeling in need of a restful occupation, I went back to the keep and did embroidery with Dale.

At dinner, I saw that Sir Philip had changed into doublet and hose of black velvet, which looked fashionable but did nothing to offset the funereal atmosphere which still unaccountably surrounded Lady Thomasine. I say unaccountably, for Lewis’s courtship seemed to be progressing rather well. He was sitting beside Alice and they were talking quite freely. Several times, he made her laugh. Rafe was still absent, and Bess asked Mortimer if he had told the boy to keep to his room.

“No. Owen himself asked me to forgive the lad and I have, therefore, told him that provided he behaves himself henceforth, I would say no more about all this. He has stayed away of his own free will.”

“Ashamed to show his face, I suppose,” said Bess. “Well, it’s not surprising.”

“No, indeed,” said Mortimer in a heartfelt voice. “I still feel I must apologize to you, Owen. He has acted very wrongly.”

“He is a good boy at heart,” said Lady Thomasine sadly. “And he plays the lute so well. He is my devoted minstrel. I was telling Mistress Blanchard that sometimes I call him my Mark Smeaton.”

Lewis broke off from wooing Alice to remark that
Smeaton’s fate had been discouraging and that he hoped Rafe would have a happier future. “I wish him no harm,” he said. “I can hardly blame him for falling in love with Alice.”

“I am not fickle,” said Alice suddenly, in a high, nervous voice.

I saw Mortimer and her parents stiffen, but Owen just smiled at her. “There is no question of fickleness and I would never say such a thing. Listen.” Leaning toward her, he lowered his voice and spoke to her earnestly. He also meant to speak privately, but I was on Alice’s other side and although no one else could have heard what he said, I could make it out.

“It is a matter of wisdom and making a right choice,” he told her softly. “I do not ask your blind obedience, to me or even to your parents. I only ask to place before you what I have to offer. Then you will think and no one will hurry you; and you shall choose, and you will be wise, and choose aright. You are young, but you are not foolish, and you know well enough that all of the life that lies ahead of you is now in hazard, like a sovereign on a gaming table.”

As well as admiring his more obvious attractions, I began to have considerable respect for Owen Lewis’s intelligence.

The weird day wore on. Rain continued to fall. Gareth played for us after dinner instead of Rafe. He played well but there was a wrong note or two, and looking at him from close quarters, I saw that the gray-haired Gareth was very elderly indeed and had swollen finger joints. Sir Philip apologized for keeping him from his
afternoon rest and released him after just one tune.

Dinner over, the not-quite-betrothed pair went back to the blue parlor. I made friends in a mild way with Bess Haggard, and in the afternoon, I went on embroidering but this time with Bess, in the tower parlor. She confided to me that Alice was their only surviving child, the others having succumbed to illness as young children so often do.

“Alice is dear to us. So far, she has kept in good health, but she is an anxiety to us in other ways, alas. Haggard by name and haggard by nature.” Bess heaved a sigh. “She is as wild as any untamed falcon. She rides horses too strong for her; she studies attentively, but she does not just accept what she reads or what she is told, but must needs ask questions. It is not fitting in a young girl. And now this! Well, we must leave it all to Master Lewis. I wonder he didn’t walk out in disgust. We warned him that she was headstrong, but he can hardly have expected … haggard by name and haggard by nature …” The sad litany started again.

Suppertime came. Rafe remained invisible; Lady Thomasine remained sepulchral; Bess remained fretful. Lewis and Alice sat side by side again but talked less. Alice was thoughtful and Lewis seemed willing to let her think undisturbed. Night descended. Lewis had been accommodated in the Mortimer Tower, but the Haggards were still in the rooms over the blue parlor. I could only hope that after all this emotional upheaval, exhaustion would make them sleep deeply, and that this time Alice had no midnight assignation with Rafe.

“Because,” I said to Dale and Brockley, “tonight we’re going to try again.”

“Then, ma’am, you’d best lie down for a while,” Dale said. “You were up beyond midnight last night. You’ve not had enough sleep.”

She was yawning herself and I studied her with concern. Poor Dale needed her rest. I understood how she felt, for I too had been feeling tired as the day wore on. Once, I had been able to survive several bad nights in succession without too much difficulty (which was just as well, for like Elizabeth herself, I had a tendency to sleeplessness). But I was no longer the young girl I had been and these days, I felt my bad nights more.

Well, I had got to stay awake, but Dale did not. “You needn’t come tonight,” I said gently. “You get your sleep. I’m sure I can manage with just Brockley to stand guard.”

At midnight, Brockley and I were ready to start. I was as usual wearing an open-fronted overskirt which, like all my overskirts, had a hidden pouch sewn inside it. In this I had put my lock picks and the keys to Aragon. Both Brockley and I had hooded cloaks to protect us from the rain. We had a candle-lantern, as before, and Brockley handed me a tinderbox. “Put that in your pouch, madam. It’s windy out there. The lantern might go out.”

Then, of course, there was a delay. I looked out of the parlor window to make sure that all was quiet and that the castle was asleep, and found that it wasn’t. I wasn’t anxious about the faint glow in the window of the blue parlor, since I knew that a fire had been lit there during the day; while the fitful glint from the window of the study was only the reflection from a torch which had been left burning in a niche over the hall porch and was flickering in the wind. Nor did the occasional lantern carried by one
of Mortimer’s traditional night patrols worry me. They were on the outer walls, beyond the bailey, and to them, the courtyard would be a distant pit of darkness. But up in the Mortimer Tower, one room was brightly lit. I watched it for a moment, and a dark figure moved across it. My eyesight was good and I recognized Philip Mortimer easily. He seemed to have a book in his hands and to be wandering restlessly about while reading it. He was still wide-awake, anyway, and I didn’t want him to glance up from his reading and catch sight of two cloaked figures carrying a lantern across the courtyard.

“We can’t start yet,” I said irritably.

Half an hour later, the room was still lit. However, after watching for a while without seeing Mortimer, I concluded that by now he was reading in bed. I was tired of waiting.

“We must just be very quiet and very careful,” I said, “and we’d best not use the lantern. We’ll light it when we get there. Come along, Brockley.”

As warily as stalking cats, we tiptoed downstairs, passing from the wide staircase which was part of the modern upper storey to the gloomy, stone-built entrance of the old Norman keep. We stole past the door of the Raghorns’ room and slipped out into the courtyard.

“Now,” I whispered, “keep in the shadows. We’d be wise to go round rather than across. We don’t want to bump into the wellhead.”

We reached Aragon without mishap and I let us in. All was quiet. As I had surmised, the fire in the blue parlor was still alight. I knelt to light the lantern candle from it, and Brockley breathed that he would remain in
the parlor. “I can hear if anyone moves upstairs, and see from the window if anyone comes across the courtyard.”

“Good. I’ll be as quick as I can.” Once again, I was about to reach up for the study key on the lintel, but as I did so I saw that as before, the door was slightly ajar. Warily, I pushed it wider and looked in.

This time, the study was dark, but I knew at once that someone had been there recently. The flickering gleam which I had seen from the guest parlor had not been the reflection of the flambeau over the hall porch. It had been a candle, and the smell of it still hung in the air.