To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court (21 page)

Brockley made a last-ditch objection. “I’ve explored the castle, maybe more than you have, madam. There are doors from the upper floors of that tower out onto the west wall and the south wall. Those doors have bolts on the outside. Now, are you sure the door into the courtyard has an ordinary lock and not a bolt? You can’t pick a bolt.”

“I’m quite sure,” I said, once more blessing my tutor’s training. He had taught us not only to memorize poetry, but to look at things when we were out walking and remember what we had seen. “And,” I added triumphantly, “I still have the key to Aragon that Lady Thomasine gave me. What with finding Rafe dead, and bundling us into that dungeon and then sending us off to die on the—Mynydd Llyr, you call it, don’t you, Gladys?—she never took it back.” I felt in my hidden pocket, found the key and brought it out. I held it up. “Here it is. We can walk straight in.”

Brockley met my eyes and then nodded slowly. Dale bit her lip and put her hand on his arm, but he took her hand and held it firmly and she too met my eyes and gave me, if unwillingly, her nod.

“And God be with us all,” said Gladys.

“That Lady Thomasine must be out of her mind,” Dale said. “And if that son of hers
did
know all about it, and I wouldn’t be surprised, then he’s out of his mind too! Shutting us up in that hut like that! Didn’t they think anyone would come asking after us? Master Henderson would.”

“I know,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s very strange. Lady Thomasine implied that they were somehow going to hide the fact that Rafe was murdered. He’ll have disappeared, though—that’s for sure—and I think we were meant to disappear as well. But—four people, just vanishing into thin air? Yes, I do wonder how the Mortimers meant to explain it.”

We were in the hermitage, pounding dough to make a supply of rye bread to take with us. We meant to carry a fair amount of food. “You don’t know what might go wrong,” Gladys had said in sibylline tones.
“You might not find what you want straightaway like, and need to hide in the tower for a day and try again the next night. Best be ready.”

“We are not going to spend a day in Isabel’s Tower,” I protested. “We’ll search the study for … the evidence I’ve orders to find … and be away as fast as we can.”

“I’d say we should be off without even stopping to rest,” said Brockley, “except that we’ll all very likely be frazzled and in need of some sleep. I don’t want Fran getting ill. She’s been through enough as it is. And the mistress is right; the tower’s the only shelter.”

“No harm in being ready,” Gladys insisted, and set about making rye bread regardless. Dale and I were now helping her. We could hardly start out that day, after all. We needed to get hold of some ponies first.

Brockley, who had turned out to be carrying a fair amount of money on him, had set out to find mounts for us. Griff had taken him to the village which lay at the foot of the mountain, below the woods. I thumped the dough irritably, due to impatience at the delay, and Dale said again that the Mortimers must be crazed.

Gladys snorted. “They’re neither of them quite right in the head if you ask me. But they’re crafty enough in some ways. They wouldn’t have wanted your bodies anywhere near the castle, in case anyone
did
ask questions. They asked Evans’s advice, I expect, about somewhere to put you. Evans’s ma came from the same village that I do and he’d know about that hut. It’s empty most of the year because the sheep only go up to the Mynydd Llyr for July and August. They’d all reckon you wouldn’t be found in time to save your lives.”

“Why on earth didn’t they kill us outright, I wonder, and take us away in sacks?”

“Maybe Mortimer didn’t much like killing Rafe,” said Gladys shrewdly. “Killing’s easy to say and nasty to do. Likely enough, he found that out. Evans and Pugh felt the same, I daresay. Three of you, as well! Be like a massacre. Shutting you up like Isabel and Rhodri were, that’ud be easier. They’d have had your bodies out of the hut afore anyone could find them, I expect. As for explaining it all away, clever folk can always invent a story. You could invent one yourself if you tried. In their place, what would you do?”

“I can’t imagine what story they’re going to tell about Rafe,” I said. “As for us—well, they could pretend that we’d left the castle in the normal way and claim that they’d no idea what had happened to us after that. They’d have to get rid of our horses but I suppose they could turn them loose somewhere well away from the castle. Mortimer could have done that at daybreak.”

“See?” The hermitage had a bread oven, at one side of its hearth. Gladys pushed the first of the shaped loaves into it. “You’re thinking up ideas already.”

“They could just pretend that Rafe had been sent away.” Dale straightened up from tending the fire, a thoughtful frown on her forehead. As always when she was upset or anxious, her pockmarks stood out more than usual. “They could say he’d been sent abroad because he behaved so badly with that girl Alice. Packed off to Venice or the Netherlands or somewhere. Later, they could say they’d heard news that he was dead of some fever or other. That would smooth everything over, at Vetch and at his home, too, the place he was
going to inherit. And they could say that we’d just left, gone back toward Tewkesbury and if we hadn’t got there, we must have been robbed and murdered on the road. At Vetch Castle, they’d be all shocked and horrified.”

“There you are,” said Gladys, with one of her diabolical cackles. “Oh, they’d think they could get away with it, all right. Your bodies would have gone down a ravine somewhere. Plenty of those hereabouts.”

She cackled again. Repelled, I left off thumping dough and went to the door. Looking down the hill I saw two riders just emerging from the woods. Even from this distance, I recognized Brockley. The other one must be Griff, and they were bringing us a couple of ponies.

I was disconcertingly glad to see Brockley. This wouldn’t do, I thought. It was only because I was deprived of Matthew. I needed Matthew. I needed his companionship and his physical presence. Come to think of it, I had been much too impressed by Owen Lewis. Without my husband, I was becoming susceptible to male charms in general. Well, it must stop.

Once back at Blanchepierre with Meg, I said to myself, I would adapt to the formality of Blanchepierre; I would stop pining for England. The longer Elizabeth held her throne, the more secure she would become. Perhaps Matthew would eventually desist from conspiring against her. I would settle down to domestic life and maybe, I thought optimistically, once my mind was at ease, my body would become cooperative enough to bear another child in safety.

I would waste no time at Vetch Castle, I decided. If I could not examine the strongbox at once or found nothing in it, then I would give up. I would rejoin Meg
as quickly as I could, and go back to report failure to Cecil. At least I would be able to say that I had tried.

There. I had come to a sensible decision. Meanwhile, I would stop worrying at the mystery of what was going on at Vetch. I then found that my mind refused to do any such thing but on the contrary continued, obstinately, to gnaw at the puzzle.
Who
had killed Rafe and why? And if Mortimer’s plans really did include some kind of threat to the queen, what manner of threat might it be?

I could think of no new theories about Rafe’s murder. Brockley and I, in our dungeon, had thought of every possibility and found proof of none. The possible threat to Elizabeth offered more chances for speculation. Elizabeth was vulnerable to scandal, as she had already learned, when the wife of her favorite, Dudley, had died in mysterious circumstances. Could there be another scandal concerning her, going back ten years? Could Mortimer’s abrupt departure from court a decade ago have something to do with it after all? Lady Mortimer had said he was involved in a duel over a woman, and had claimed not to know any details. But what if Elizabeth had been the woman? Perhaps Mortimer had fought a duel against someone who was spreading scandal about her, or had evidence of scandal …

I pulled myself up sharply. I didn’t like that train of thought and didn’t propose to mention it aloud. I wished I knew the truth about that duel. It was possible that Mortimer might have fought on Elizabeth’s behalf ten years ago, but kept in mind what he had learned and was now proposing to use his knowledge for purposes of blackmail. One thing was certain: if scandal against Elizabeth
was involved in any way, then she and Cecil certainly ought to be warned and the investigation, equally certainly, should be discreet. We must be very, very careful not to get caught.

Brockley and Griff were almost here. I went to meet them. “You’ve got some ponies, then. They look sturdy.”

“They’ll do,” said Brockley. “They’d better. The lies I’ve had to tell! Griff here introduced me to the landlord he works for, and I told him I was buying on behalf of a wool merchant who wants pack animals that can be ridden as well. I said I was on foot just now because my mare went lame a few miles back and I had to leave her.”

I had decided to adopt a tone of casual cheerfulness with Brockley. “You’re a plausible rogue, once you set your mind to it,” I said.

“I suppose I’m to blame for this insane scheme,” he said. “It’s on my conscience, madam, and I wish you’d give the idea up. But if you won’t, I must do my best for you.”

He had bought some secondhand saddlery as well—a couple of well-worn saddles with saddlebags, and basic bridles with snaffle bits and no nosebands. “We could set out at once,” I said.

“Got to let the bread bake first,” said Gladys, who had come out to look at the ponies. “First light tomorrow, when we’re fresh; that’s best. I got a ham we can take along and some goat’s cheese. Griff’ll have to milk the goat and feed the chickens while I’m gone.”

“I bought some flasks for water, too,” Brockley said. “We can carry them in the saddlebags. We may want
some during the night in the tower. And Griff’s found a bit of rope for bundling stuff up so as we can carry it. It looks like his mother’s washing line but as I can’t speak Welsh and he’s hardly got any English, I couldn’t ask, though we’ve managed well on the whole, with sign language.” He grinned and I saw in him the adventurous gleam which had in the past made him such a blessing. He always counseled caution and urged more ladylike behavior on me, but when it came to the point, he was the best comrade in the world.

We started out at dawn the next morning, Brockley on one pony with Dale perched uncomfortably behind him; me on the other with Gladys as my pillion rider. Gladys had supplied a salve and some linen wrappings for my sore calves, and I was grateful, but I wished she wasn’t riding with me, for she smelled terrible. Brockley said she would be a nuisance and shouldn’t come at all, but she was determined and we dared not leave her behind in case she somehow told on us after all. Despite the debt she owed us, I think we were all rather afraid of her.

We carried blankets by using them as saddlecloths, which was more comfortable for the pillion riders, who had to do without saddles and would otherwise have been jolting about on the ponies’ spines. Each of us had a bag of food rolled up in a fleece and tied to our backs with lengths of what Gladys had confirmed was Griff’s mother’s washing line. “Well, her spare. Careful, Bronwen is. Always keeps spares of everything.”

With the ponies carrying double, our journey was slow, but our tough little mounts served us well. I did not think my mare Bay Star could have coped with the double
weight. I was very fond of Bay Star though, and wondered what had happened to her and to Speckle, and whether I would ever get them back.

It took two days to get back to the castle. The weather was overcast but fortunately dry. We lodged overnight in a farmstead near Ewyas Harold and made a few extra purchases in the little town, including some stouter footwear (we had left our riding boots in the keep guest quarters and my shoes were now letting in water), candles, a couple of lanterns, and a lute. The lute was Gladys’s idea and neither Brockley nor I approved of it. “We’re not really going to pretend to be ghosts,” I complained. “We’re just going to be as invisible as ghosts, that’s all.”

“A few twang-twangs in the night might keep nosey folk away,” said Gladys. “You thought of that?”

“No,” I said. “Besides, Rhodri’s shade is supposed to play a harp. We can’t afford a harp and anyone with an ear for music would know the difference. The minstrel, Gareth, for instance! It might just fetch people out to see who was playing games. The castle can’t be entirely populated by timid mice! I don’t see Pugh or Evans being frightened of a few twanging noises.”

“Quite right, madam.” Like me, Brockley had adopted a brisk tone when we talked together. “We could draw trouble on us rather than keep it away.”

“You have the lute now, all the same,” said Gladys. “There’s useful it might be, after all. Or can’t any of you play it?”

“I can,” I said. “But I’m not going to.”

“I can’t,” said Dale sadly. “It’s a skill I never learned. But Roger plays.”

“Just about,” Brockley said. “Not that I’m in practice but I could manage a tune or two if need be, though I don’t see the need of it now. Oh, very well. We’ll take the lute, but in my opinion we’d be fools to use it.”

The farmstead had been comfortable, and while there, I managed to have a thorough wash. But a long ride and a night in Isabel’s Tower now lay ahead, a prospect so depressing that before we got there, I was regretting the whole enterprise. We could have reached the castle well before the end of the second day, but we did not want to enter the tower until darkness had fallen, so we waited in a small wood, moving off the track and out of sight of it. We had a piece of luck in that we found a spring, so that we could drink freely from the flasks we had filled at the farm, and then fill the flasks up again.

While we waited, we talked our plans over once more. Gladys was disappointed that we only intended to search Mortimer’s study. “What about Rafe?” she said. “You fall over him lying dead on the floor and don’t want to know for sure who killed him? Aren’t you goin’ to try and find out?”