The Reluctant Assassin Read online

  So she had fled for her life, taken refuge in England and here she still was, half a guest and half a prisoner, in Elizabeth’s hands. She had sought Elizabeth’s protection but had never ceased to maintain that she should be Queen of England instead. Plots had gathered round her. She was willing to reward anyone, any foreign prince, who would either restore her to the Scottish throne or oust Elizabeth in her favour.

  I could well understand Alençon’s doubts. Elizabeth herself was nervous of Mary and had good cause. But as for the feeling in the countryside …

  Both questions were difficult. I said: ‘I can’t read Mary’s mind. To that question, I just don’t know the answer, though I know she is closely guarded and watched, so that even if she has evil intentions, she would find them hard to carry out. As to the feeling in the countryside, well, I have very rarely heard anyone mention the matter. Mostly, people just don’t. They have their own lives to live.’

  ‘Yes. That is what all reports say,’ Elizabeth said snappishly. ‘But they must still be thinking. I want to know what they are thinking.’

  I tried to marshal my thoughts. ‘Majesty, to you, affairs of state are normal, everyday life. But to the people of the fields and shops, the fields and shops and household affairs are everyday life. They think about ploughing and sowing and harvesting; they think about buying provisions, and getting the pony shod and finding someone to repair the thatch … things like that. They only talk about state affairs when such matters are thrust under their noses; when something dramatic happens and there are proclamations and so on …’

  My voice trailed away and they looked at me curiously.

  De Simier said: ‘Please tell us what you know, Mistress Stannard,’ and Elizabeth said: ‘You do know something. I can see it.’

  Yes, of course she could. She knew me so well. But I could see an assignment coming up and heartily wished myself elsewhere.

  ‘If you do,’ de Simier said, ‘it is your duty to explain.’

  ‘I recall that there were one or two occasions,’ I said, ‘when the duke visited England – but that’s nearly two years ago …’

  ‘Get on with it!’ Elizabeth barked. ‘What do you recall?’

  ‘I was travelling. I and my servants were in a crowded inn and we heard some talk, some adverse comments about the French marriage.’

  ‘How adverse?’ asked de Simier.

  ‘Quite … Quite angry,’ I admitted. ‘Resentful.’

  ‘Threatening?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Because he is Catholic?’

  ‘Yes – both of those. From a few people.’

  ‘He is no fanatic,’ said de Simier. ‘He is sympathetic towards the French Protestants.’

  ‘I know, but most people don’t fully realize these things,’ I said.

  This was awkward. What did Elizabeth want me to say? Did she want me to discourage the marriage or to reassure her? Or did she just want facts?

  I thought about the facts, which were complicated. I knew them only because I had so often been involved in affairs of state, and also because for many years I had had my wise third husband, Hugh, to talk to.

  From one point of view, there was quite a lot to be said for the marriage with Alençon. It would bring into being a most valuable treaty with France. France and England would swear to stand shoulder to shoulder if necessary to keep Spain at bay.

  Which just might be necessary, though one hoped not.

  Probably the reason why none of the numerous plots round Mary had ever come to anything was because her support in England was so limited, even among English Catholics. They were, after all, English as well as Catholic. They had learned that life under Elizabeth was on the whole quiet and fairly safe. Even if they did secretly yearn to put Mary on the throne instead because she would restore what they called the true faith – and in spite of a shocking Papal decree that they were not obliged to obey Elizabeth’s laws and might even incur damnation if they did – a good proportion of them also realized that Mary would never succeed in ousting Elizabeth without help from abroad, which would almost certainly mean Spain.

  And they were English. Few of even the most ardent English Catholics really wanted a foreign army trampling about on England’s soil. They also knew that a Spanish victory would bring the Inquisition into England and some of them had sense enough to recoil from that. The majority of the English population were Protestant and there were still plenty who remembered the heresy hunts of Elizabeth’s predecessor, the Catholic Mary Tudor. In their eyes, Mary Tudor had been bad enough; the arrival in England of the Inquisition would be unthinkable. Resistance to it would be savage.

  Confronted by the prospect of the Inquisition, the larger part of the population would consider all Catholics to be deadly enemies and might well take to massacring them. The marriage with the duke could keep England safe from Mary of Scotland’s ambitions, and the English Catholics safe from their fellow countrymen. But Mary did of course have supporters who didn’t realize any of this. Weirdly, Mary’s supporters would dislike the French marriage because they would see it as a barrier to the re-introduction of their faith, while a great many Protestants would see it as a back door by which the Catholic faith might be let in!

  I tried, with difficulty, to explain some of this.

  ‘Thank you, Ursula,’ said the queen.

  De Simier was dismissed. But Elizabeth, with a gesture of her slender white hand, bade me stay where I was and as soon as we were alone, said: ‘I believe that of late, you too have been obliged to consider the business of marriage. Remarriage, in your case.’

  I sighed. ‘That is so, majesty. I don’t want to marry again, but I have pursuers. I feel like a hunted deer sometimes.’

  ‘Tell me about your pursuers.’

  ‘I have had two approaches from Surrey gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Both pleasant fellows. But I have refused them. I have also had an approach from a man in the household of Sir George Talbot – the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is here at court. The man is one of his secretariat, Russell Woodley. Not as well off as my Surrey gentlemen but not a fortune-hunter either, I think. He seems to be really – well …’

  ‘In love with you?’

  ‘Apparently. He offered me heart and hand, and support and comfort. I don’t dislike him. But I still don’t want him. I don’t want to marry again.’

  ‘The choice is yours,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You at least are not fretted by the thought that your marriage may be necessary for the safety of the realm and that your feelings don’t matter. They do. It is mine that do not. The Duke of Alençon may fear danger in our marriage. I fear marriage itself, as you well know. I like his company,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I long to see him again, to dance with him and talk with him. But friendship is one thing and marriage another. I think of what marriage means, and that is when I fret.’

  She looked up at the study window. Beyond the diamond-shaped leaded panes, at the heavy sky. ‘The embassy from Paris is definitely coming. Matters are now serious. I need to be able to speak to them truthfully of the situation here – and I want the truth to be that Alençon would be safe to proceed with the marriage. Yet, I also find the prospect of marriage and what it entails a very grey outlook. It puts an edge on my temper and my tongue, and I find it hard to sleep at night.’

  TWO

  Applications by a Tutor and a Groom

  Home! I had indeed looked forward to my stay at Richmond but when it ended, just ten days later, I was thankful. I had spent those days doing my best to avoid Russell Woodley and wishing that Sir George Talbot would go home and take his entourage with him. Sir George was in fact due to leave for his home in Sheffield just a few days after my own departure. Why, I asked uncooperative providence, couldn’t he have gone home sooner, so that I really could enjoy Richmond, at least for a little while.

  Mercifully, I had not been called upon to undertake any alarming assignments, and Elizabeth had not – as I had feared – asked me to stay as her moral support during the official embassy from Franc
e.

  When she bade goodbye to me, she said: ‘In the past, when there have been discussions about this marriage with Alençon, I have often asked you to support and advise me. But things now are so far advanced that I feel … I feel that the final decision must be made between the duke and myself. If you should hear of any rumour that bears upon his safety if he marries me, then you must inform me. But this is not an assignment, Ursula. Just a request to be told of anything relevant that comes your way. I thank you for all the help you have given me in the past.’

  So, here I was, my disappointing visit at an end, going home with a free mind, and there ahead of me were the chimneys of Hawkswood, showing above the woods through which the approach road led. They were handsome chimneys, tall and ornamental, for I had lately had the brickwork altered. It was now patterned, very like the brickwork of the chimneys at Hampton Court.

  The late March weather was still grey and cold and I was pleased to see smoke rising from several of those chimney pots. I had sent word ahead to let my people know when I would arrive, and they had made ready for me. The hall fire had been lit and it was clear that the kitchens were busy. I hoped there would also be a fire in my favourite parlour.

  Jewel, my black mare, had also realized that we were near home and no doubt had thoughts of her warm stall and a feed of bran mash. She tried to break into a trot. I checked her, because beside me Brockley was coping with the leading rein of our pack pony, and also being careful of Dale, on the pillion of his dark chestnut, Firefly. Dale had never been much of a rider. It had been a slow, prolonged journey from Richmond.

  We were seen before we reached the gatehouse, and my gentlewoman companion, Sybil Jester, who had been left in charge while I was away, was out in the courtyard to meet me, a shawl thrown round her shoulders for warmth. Sybil had an unusual face, for its features looked as though they had been slightly compressed between chin and hairline, so that she had a long mouth, and long eyebrows and slightly widened nostrils. The effect was not extreme; in fact, it had an attractiveness of its own, enhanced by the fact that those same features were mobile and very expressive. Her smile of welcome was wide and beautiful. Beside her was my tall, grey-haired steward, Adam Wilder, and at the kitchen door stood the big, broad figure of John Hawthorn, my chief cook, holding up a wooden spoon in salute.

  And there, running eagerly from the door that led to the great hall, was my son Harry. I was down from my saddle before anyone had time to offer me a hand, but because Harry was now nine years old and beginning to be conscious of his male dignity, I didn’t rush to embrace him but let him come to me and make me a formal bow. After which he came into my arms anyway.

  He was becoming handsome, I thought. He had surely grown even during the six weeks of my absence, and now it was not only his dark hair and eyes that reminded me of his father; his features too were settling into remembered shapes. Matthew had had the same bony, very slightly asymmetrical face.

  Joseph Henty and Arthur Watts, two of my grooms, came hurrying to take the horses. Brockley was down and steadying Dale to her feet. ‘How has everything been?’ I asked, putting Harry back from me and aiming the question at all of them at once.

  Sybil’s smile became broader than ever. ‘There have been applicants for both of the positions you wanted filled, Mistress Stannard. I had them cried in Guildford and Woking and there are three applications for the position of Harry’s tutor.’

  Mr Hewitt, who had held that post for nearly two years, had caught a winter chill and died, quite suddenly, just before I left for the court. I had left Sybil to assemble a list of possible replacements. ‘I’ll see them as soon as I can,’ I said. Harry made a face and I playfully pulled his hair. ‘You have to have a tutor and well you know it. Sybil, what about the stud groom’s position?’

  I had for some years been building up my stud of trotting horses and had had an excellent chief groom to help me. But he had also met with disaster, just a month before I went away. He had had a bad fall when training a young team to work as a four-in-hand and they had got out of control and overturned the training cart, throwing him out headfirst. He recovered but he was not young and once he was well, had announced that he wished to retire, and did so, without delay.

  ‘We have found someone, madam,’ said Arthur, who was the senior groom for the horses used by the household. ‘A man called Laurence Miller. He applied, Joseph and I showed him round the stud, and he impressed us. So we gave him a trial and subject to your approval when you meet him, we feel that he will do. He has a reference from the Earl of Leicester, no less.’

  ‘He was working for Robert of Leicester and he’s left? Why?’ I enquired.

  ‘His mother was lately widowed, it seems,’ said Sybil. ‘She lives in Woking and he wanted to be near her if he could. He has to earn a living, which for a stud groom would mean living with his work, so he can’t just move in with her. He isn’t married himself.’

  ‘If all goes well, she can come to him and share the head groom’s cottage, if they want that,’ I said. I turned to Joseph and Arthur. ‘You say he impresses you?’

  ‘He’s got a way with horses.’ Joseph was a taciturn young man but when he did speak, it was usually much to the point. ‘That stallion that you bought just afore you went off to Richmond; he’s a fine beast but he’s temperamental.’

  ‘He’s scared of thunder,’ Arthur said. ‘There was a storm a week after you left, madam, and he panicked; broke out of his stall and right out of the stable, ran properly amok he did until we could catch him and get him calm. Luckily the storm were past by then.’

  ‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘Let’s get ourselves inside and I’ll decide who I’m going to interview and when. Tell me, Sybil …’

  As usual, there was plenty of household news to absorb. I listened to Sybil while I washed and changed out of the old riding dress that I used for journeys, and then I went to take a late dinner, not in the big hall which was such a feature of Hawkswood, but in my preferred parlour, which was the smaller of the two at Hawkswood, and very warm and comfortable.

  One member of what I privately called my inner circle had not come out to greet me in the chilly courtyard, but came to the parlour before supper was served, to bring me some mulled wine. Gladys Morgan was a lame and aged Welshwoman who had long ago attached herself to me after Brockley and I had rescued her from a charge of witchcraft. Gladys was not a particularly charming person. She had dreadful teeth, like brown fangs, and a shocking habit of cursing people who annoyed her, but I had affection for her and I knew that she had affection for me. I was as pleased to see Gladys as I was to see any of my household, and the warmed wine was a pleasure. I was tired.

  The meal was good. My chief cook John Hawthorn and his first assistant, Ben Flood, were clearly eager to welcome me home. Once I was comfortably full of good fresh bread and half a roasted chicken and a pie filled with preserved plums and had drunk a considerable amount of the mulled wine, I was overcome with sleepiness and went to have a rest until suppertime.

  Yes, I decided as I settled down, I was pleased to be home. I didn’t like the renewed talk of the queen’s marriage. It had hung in the air like the mist that shrouded Richmond’s pinnacles. It was putting the queen out of temper before any of the French embassy had set foot on English shores. Even if Talbot had gone back to Sheffield sooner and taken Woodley with him, with the French embassy looming like a tidal wave or a thunderstorm, the atmosphere at Richmond would still have been uncomfortable. Here at home, I could be at ease.

  There are people who seem able to sense the future, but I am not one of them. I had not the least idea that my sense of ease and peacefulness was pure illusion.

  In the morning, I summoned Brockley and Arthur Watts, and asked them to accompany me to the stud. To accommodate it, I had leased a couple of fields from a neighbouring farmer who was getting old and was very happy to make money out of his two most outlying fields without having to work them. I had had stabling built, with accommodatio
n overhead for the grooms, and also a coach-house and tack-room, and a small cottage for the head groom. I wanted to take a look both at the horses and Laurence Miller.

  I had several mares in foal, three generations of youngsters, the eldest ones now being broken in and prepared for sale, and the stallion, Bay Hawkswood. This was the first time the stud had had its own stallion, but I had had the idea in mind from the start and had built enough stabling to provide for visiting mares. It was expensive and I had had to fell a good deal of timber in the Hawkswood woodland in order to pay for it. Some I had sold, some was retained as building material for the stables. But I felt it was a worthwhile investment. Bay Hawkswood was a splendid animal, rich red bay in colour, with black points, a high-stepper with an arrogant head-carriage. He would command good stud fees.

  ‘I’m proud to have such a one to care for,’ said my prospective new head groom.

  I considered him thoughtfully. He was a tall, lean, laconic man, and within five minutes I had realized that by nature he was as taciturn as Joseph. His long face had a dour expression; I didn’t think he was much given to smiling. But he had a pleasant voice, with deep undertones, and the horses responded to it; I could see that. I asked him to harness up a couple of the better-trained youngsters and watched how he handled them, and how confidingly they nuzzled him as he adjusted their bridles and checked their hooves. I observed that they were glossy with grooming and good feeding.

  ‘I am pleased with what I see,’ I told him. ‘I suggest a three-month trial. If I am satisfied, you will be welcome. You have a reference from the Earl of Leicester, I understand?’