Queen Without a Crown Read online

  There was no hint in the letter that Gervase expected his son to clear his name, only that he desperately wished that Mark would believe it to be clean. Silently, we handed the letter back. ‘When did this come to you?’ Hugh asked. ‘You have never done anything about it before – never made any enquiries? How did your father die, by the way?’

  ‘He drank geneva,’ Mark Easton said. ‘The spirit made from juniper berries. A lot of it – the empty flask was found by his bed. Then he went down to the river and plunged in. He couldn’t swim, anyway. His body was washed ashore later that day. He left this for my mother. She married again, the following Easter. I think she needed someone to provide for her and me; she couldn’t manage well enough alone. She was so lovely that she had no difficulty in finding a new husband. Myself, I wish she had taken more time and found a nicer stepfather for me, though. I believe my stepfather is still alive and lives near here. He didn’t like me. He used to hit me and shout at me, even though I was so small.’

  ‘But you said you were brought up by your uncle,’ Hugh said, frowning.

  ‘When I was just turned five, my grandfather died – the one who had disinherited us. He left Uncle Robert everything, but even though my father was dead by then, my uncle was a good man and he wasn’t happy about it. He came to see my mother, to tell her the news, and he saw that things were not right between me and my stepfather. My mother could not leave, being married, but Uncle Robert offered me a home. Mother kissed me goodbye and gave me to him, for my own peace and safety, she said.

  ‘He took me back to Derbyshire. He was married, but no children ever came, and in the end, he made me his heir. He was very prosperous by then – in fact he had just acquired the Devonshire property. He said he was glad to give me a future, that it would put right the injustice my grandfather had done. He said he’d married for love as well, only in his case, the girl was someone his father thought “suitable”. She was nice,’ Mark said, wistfully. ‘Aunt Kate, I called her. She was always kind to me. We lost her to the lung-rot, one bad winter, when I was about eighteen.

  ‘Well, I hadn’t been with them more than a few months before word came that I had lost my mother as well as my father. I think my stepfather ill-used her, just as he’d ill-used me. Her belongings were sent to us, but they were put away in a chest and mostly forgotten, until three months ago when Uncle Robert died too and everything came to me. I had to go through his possessions, and I found the chest pushed into an attic, up under the roof. This letter was inside it.’

  Hugh said: ‘And you believe what it says? Because it would be very natural for your father to want his wife and son to think well of him, to believe in his innocence, even if it were not true.’

  ‘He swears,’ said Easton, ‘on his hopes of the resurrection. That is a very serious thing. Who would take an oath on that, on the very edge of the grave, unless he spoke the truth?’

  He said it with sincerity, a young man evidently unable to believe in anyone devious or cynical enough to play games with oath-taking. Studying him further, I saw that he was essentially a straightforward individual, quite lacking in guile.

  But clear-headed. ‘Someone poisoned Peter Hoxton,’ he said, ‘though I’m convinced it wasn’t my father. I want to know who it really was. Mistress Stannard, according to Lord Sussex, who knows something about you, you have a reputation for being able . . . able to find things out. You are said to be clever at it. I would try on my own account, but I have duties which occupy all my time. Will you help?’

  ‘What if it’s the wrong answer?’ Hugh asked.

  ‘It won’t be,’ said Easton fiercely. ‘I know it won’t.’

  We were all silent. The fire crackled, and rain spattered on the windows, as though impatient fingers were tapping at them, as if ghosts from the past were trying to get in.

  ‘It will be difficult,’ said Easton at length. ‘I know that. But if you do uncover the truth, I would reward you. I . . . could sell that Devonshire property. It’s leased to someone now and brings in some extra income, but I can do without it. In fact, I already have a possible buyer. My Derbyshire land is profitable. I could give Jane a comfortable life there. I believe,’ he added, ‘that the value of the Devonshire house and land would be around two and a half thousand pounds.’

  There was another silence. I didn’t look at Hugh, nor he at me, but we were both thinking the same thing.

  Two and a half thousand pounds, roughly, was the present value of the loan for which Hawkswood had so unwisely been put up as security. That amount would cover the interest as well. Solve Mark Easton’s mystery and Hawkswood would be safe.

  I said: ‘But what if I find the truth and it is the wrong answer? That possibility can’t be just ignored. Or, of course,’ I added, ‘I might try but fail to discover anything. After all this time, that is the likeliest outcome.’

  ‘I have no doubt that the truth would clear my father,’ said Mark, ‘but provided there is no doubt at all that the truth is what it is, I would pay up. I would pay for honest endeavour.’

  There was no choice, no question at all about what my reply must be.

  I said: ‘I will try.’

  At least I wasn’t going to be forced to travel to Westmorland or Northumberland to foil the schemes of dangerous conspirators. That was certainly a relief.

  THREE

  Pictures

  ‘Someone’s coming across that bridge at a gallop.’

  Hugh had said that as we watched Mark Easton thunder across the bridge towards Windsor castle. I had known what he was thinking. The last time we saw someone do that, he was a courier and was bringing a letter for Hugh. I had watched him read it, watched his face change, and been frightened. For some time, his health had been making me uneasy, for he seemed often to be short of breath, and there were times when his skin seemed grey-tinged and his eyes shadowed, as though they were sinking into his head. Now these changes appeared all in a matter of moments, and with them came a terrible look of misery and age.

  ‘Hugh?’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  At first he seemed unable to speak and he avoided my eyes, but when I asked the question again and put out a hand to him, he took it and then, at last, his eyes met mine. ‘Oh, Ursula,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? For what? Hugh, what’s happened?’

  It came out, not all at once but in bits and pieces, as though he could only bear to put a little of it into words at a time. I will tell it more simply. I had known nothing of it, but more than a year ago, Hugh had joined with some merchants of his acquaintance in a venture which, said Hugh sadly, had promised fine profits. Two of the merchants imported luxury fabrics from a number of sources, and they had recently travelled to Venice where they chanced to meet the agent of a Turkish buyer who was interested in purchasing modern firearms and seasoned oak timber in bulk. They had come home with an idea.

  ‘The Turkish fellow probably wanted guns and timber for warships,’ said Hugh. ‘It’s a stormy part of the world, the eastern Mediterranean. Maybe he was setting up as a pirate! But my associates didn’t worry about that. They were afire with their new scheme, and they infected me.’

  The outcome of all that was one of the merchants hastened back to Venice in a hurry to clinch the deal, and in England, the group set about acquiring the goods required. Two ships were leased and crews hired. The plan was that when the arms and timber had been paid for, the money should be used to purchase silk brocades, damasks and velvets in bulk, along with quantities of rare spices and dyestuffs, to be brought home for sale at a healthy profit.

  ‘So – what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘We had such great hopes,’ Hugh said unhappily. ‘I expected to make money; plenty of it. I had visions of buying you fine jewels; maybe purchasing more land. But it all took much longer than expected. The Turkish agent haggled and delayed before he paid up. He did pay eventually, but by then it was autumn. The return voyage didn’t start until November. Our two ships sailed in convo
y with another, belonging to someone else. It’s a long way – through the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea, westward through the Mediterranean, and then northwards towards England and through the Bay of Biscay.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Biscay is notorious. There was a storm. The ships were blown this way and that and in the end . . . our two were blown inshore and piled up on rocks. The third ship survived to bring the news home. The crew saw the disaster happen, but they couldn’t save anyone, or any of the cargo. This letter is from one of my associates. We have lost our investment. And . . . Ursula . . .’

  ‘Yes, Hugh?’

  ‘I didn’t have enough free capital for my contribution. So much was involved – buying ships and cargo and getting crews together. I borrowed over two thousand pounds. I shall have to repay it somehow. And . . .’

  ‘What did you use for security?’ I asked, alarmed.

  ‘Hawkswood,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Hawkswood!’ I said, a single word, my first after Mark had left us and Hugh had shooed the others out, to give us privacy.

  ‘I know.’ He drew me to the window seat and sat me down. ‘If you could solve Mark Easton’s mystery, then, as you say – Hawkswood. We would save it.’

  ‘Only,’ I said ‘how can I possibly go about it? Where do I start? It was all so long ago. I need to turn time back, and no one can do that!’

  Hugh was standing up, gazing out of the window towards the low, wooded hills to the north, blurred now by rain into outlines of grey shadow. He was slow to reply, and when he did, it was only to agree with me. ‘It’s as hard a challenge as anyone could well imagine,’ he said.

  ‘I think Mark believes what his father wrote,’ I said, thinking it out. ‘But he has such good reasons for wanting his father to be innocent. He could easily be wrong.’

  ‘And also,’ said Hugh, ‘in this castle, we are in a kind of protective imprisonment. If the quest led you away from Windsor, you might not be allowed to go. The queen isn’t likely to be sympathetic to a fool like me who took too big a risk, nor to a young man’s affairs of the heart. She has other things on her mind, and so, I suppose, have we.’

  I, too, turned to look northwards. Somewhere in that direction, armed men were on the move, and in Tutbury Castle on the Staffordshire border, Mary Stuart, who had lost the Scottish crown, was probably dreaming not only of getting it back, but of seizing Elizabeth’s crown as well, to adorn her own carefully groomed head. I imagined her, beautiful and charming, her long white fingers working at her embroidery while she brooded on her plans. I saw the armed men marching.

  Hugh brought me back to the present. ‘But I can think of one or two ways to begin making Easton’s enquiries, if you’re willing to try.’

  ‘Of course I’m willing! I’ll do almost anything to save Hawkswood, and since you refuse to let me sell Withysham . . .’

  ‘I do indeed refuse. And that is final. I can’t do that to you.’ He still kept his head averted as he added: ‘My poor Ursula. I look back and I think: how could I have been so rash? I meant to look after you, and then I bring all this trouble on us.’

  I said: ‘I have had peace with you. Peace from Matthew’s endless plotting, even peace from the fear of childbirth. I nearly died when Meg was born, and again with Matthew’s baby, the one that didn’t live.’

  ‘The physicians told me,’ said Hugh dryly, ‘that I could never be a father because I had the swelling sickness as a young man. Most women don’t think of it as an advantage.’

  ‘To me, it is. Hugh, hunting for this bygone killer will at least be a distraction from worrying about the trouble in the north. Is there really any danger from the rebels, here, so far away, I wonder? After all, according to Mark Easton’s message, Lord Sussex means to get his forces in-between the rebels and Mary Stuart. That means being between the rebels and the south of England as well.’

  ‘We don’t know how much support Sussex will be able to raise, and we don’t know how strong the rebellion is, either. What if they break through?’

  ‘They’ll be hard put to it to get Mary out of Tutbury, from all I’ve heard of Tutbury. And if they did,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘there’s a Regent in Scotland who doesn’t in the least want to hand over power to her. James Stewart of Moray is her half-brother, and even Mary can’t bewitch a brother as she apparently bewitches other men. I wonder what plans the rebels and Mary have for him?’

  ‘That woman!’ Hugh snorted. ‘A fine queen of Scotland she made! She picked a dissolute boy like Darnley as a husband, was almost certainly a party to his murder and then married the noble who was assuredly the ringleader in it. The Scots turn on her and she flees to England, and now we’ve got her as a hybrid between a prisoner and a guest and she’s become a focus for plots to put her back on the Scottish throne and then snatch Elizabeth’s! Someone ought to chop her head off and be done with it!’

  ‘Tutbury is secure, surely.’

  ‘I dare say, but there’s more than one way of taking a fortress than knocking down the walls with cannon. There’s treachery – or alternatively, there’s the option of just marching straight past Tutbury and coming directly south to see if they can seize the Tower and Windsor and the person of Elizabeth instead. Or put her to flight. Either would do, I fancy.’

  ‘Hugh!’

  ‘I dreamt of it last night,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ve been dreaming of Hawkswood on most nights, but this time I dreamt I was here, at this window, looking out at those hills, and I saw the banners and lances of the rebel force coming towards us, over the skyline there.’

  That was a thought so frightening that if it hadn’t been for the need to redeem Hawkswood, I don’t think I could have undertaken Easton’s commission because I just wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on Peter Hoxton. As things were, however, I knew I must pick up the gauntlet. ‘Your ideas on how to investigate Mark’s mystery,’ I said. ‘What are they?’

  ‘My Little Bear!’ said Hugh, and he smiled. Little Bear was his nickname for me, because my name, Ursula, meant a she-bear. Matthew had called me Saltspoon. In a way, my two nicknames said similar things about me. Matthew said my conversation always had salt on it; Hugh’s pet name implied, gently, that I possessed a fierce side. But the smile drew us together.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘There’s an obvious place to start,’ said Hugh. ‘But . . .’

  He paused, head cocked, and then peered out of the window again. I moved to see what he was looking at. The rain had stopped by now, and the queen had emerged on to the terrace again, amid her usual cloud of courtiers and ladies, cloaks billowing in the chill air but hoods pushed back so that we could see who was who.

  Senior ladies walked close to the queen, but bringing up the rear were the maids of honour and a handful of their friends, chattering among themselves. Among them was my daughter Meg. Sybil had joined the group too, but was walking a little way behind Meg. Hugh undid the window latch and pushed the casement ajar, and Meg’s voice floated briefly up to us. ‘Ooh, you didn’t!’ The girl beside her giggled. Then they were past and going away from us.

  ‘Damnation,’ said Hugh.

  ‘I know. I feel the same, and I hardly know why. Girls are always giggling over things, especially things they shouldn’t have done. Mostly, there’s no harm in it, but somehow, for Meg, it seems wrong. She’s more grown-up than those other girls in some ways, but in others – she’s too young to be in their company. I don’t feel they’re good for her.’

  ‘Ursula, I know I’m not Meg’s father. She’s Gerald Blanchard’s child, and from all I’ve heard of him, it was a tragedy that you lost him to the smallpox while you were still so young and Meg so little. I have tried to look after you both. I don’t feel,’ said Hugh with bitterness, ‘that I’ve distinguished myself lately. But I do want to do right by the two of you. I am wondering whether, once we are allowed to leave the court, Meg need ever return to it. Need she ever be a maid of honour? Most of these girls are sent here by their families i
n the hope that they’ll make good matches, but Meg already has one in the offing. If that excellent young man George Hillman remains of the same mind when she’s sixteen, they could be married then.’

  As so often before, I experienced a surge of gratitude towards this man, with whom I had found so much repose. His ships had found no safe harbour, but I had found one in Hugh himself.

  ‘I have been thinking along the same lines,’ I said.

  ‘While we have to stay here,’ Hugh said, ‘I think it would be best to keep her busy. Did we not, some time ago, talk of having her portrait painted? There’s a portrait artist staying in Windsor – a man called Arbuckle, Master Jocelyn Arbuckle.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s been painting one of the queen’s other ladies,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly finished now. I believe he has quite a reputation.’

  ‘Suppose we asked him to paint Meg?’

  ‘Can we afford it?’

  ‘Oh yes. Might as well. If we do have to sell Hawkswood, it’ll cover the portrait as well, and if we get Mark’s two and half thousand, that will cover it instead. I’d like us to have a picture of Meg while she is still a young girl. She’ll grow older, and we’ll forget how she was at fourteen. She’s at a very charming age, you know.

  ‘And,’ he added, ‘if we splice long sittings for Arbuckle on to her Latin and Greek studies with Lambert, and her embroidery and music and dancing, she’ll have much less time for chattering with those girls. If you agree, I’ll find Arbuckle and sound him out. Meanwhile, about Mark Easton. I think you should start by going to the kitchens and talking to anyone who was there at the time of Hoxton’s death and remembers it. See if anything emerges. Though, there are a couple of things to see to first . . .’

  The couple of things involved, firstly, drawing up a contract with Mark, which he and I and Hugh all signed, with the Brockleys as witnesses. The second thing meant talking to the queen. I was, after all, about to intrude into her kitchens. It seemed only right to ask her permission first.