To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court (25 page)

After about three interminable hours, however, the traffic in the courtyard grew less and then ceased, and Gladys said surely we could risk it now.

“Are you coming?” I asked her, slightly surprised.

“Not to the study I’m not but there’s something I want to look at out in the courtyard. Then I’ll come back here. You got the key for Aragon? And them wire things you were using just now on the door? Brockley, you got your lute? Might frighten someone off if they come near the study while you’re there.”

Brockley muttered under his breath, but brought the lute all the same. “Just to keep Gladys quiet,” he whispered to me. I felt in my hidden pocket to make sure that the lock picks and the key to Aragon really were there. Dale took the lantern. Gingerly, I opened the door, just enough to let one person at a time sidle
out. The hinges creaked, but not very much. Lights still showed in the hall and chapel, and in the hall someone was singing a Welsh lament, but the courtyard itself was empty. We crept forth. Gladys at once hobbled ahead, making straight for the well, where she disappeared into the shadow of its thatched roof. She emerged again almost at once, beckoning and grinning.

“They usually leave a full bucket of water out when there’s a feast. It’s there. We can all have a drink and no risk of clankin’ bucket chains.”

“Well done,” I breathed. Our water was getting low and Gladys’s ham, though good, was salty. Gratefully, we scooped water up in our palms and drank. Gladys grunted with relief.

“Good, that is. I wanted a drop of water. Now I’ll go back to the tower. I’ll wait there, just inside the door.”

She shuffled off. The rest of us, in single file, moved on across the courtyard. We went like shadows, with the lantern shrouded under Dale’s cloak, because we could see without it. The stars were out, amid broken cloud, and a few lit torches had been set here and there, in niches over various doors. There was one over the door of Aragon, but as I had the key, I did not have to linger in the light while I fiddled with lock picks.

“They say,” Brockley whispered to me as we stole into the blue parlor, “that the third attempt is lucky. Well, this is the third time you’ve tried to reach that strongbox.”

“I hope you’re right. Brockley, as before, you stay by the outer door, and listen. Dale, go to the foot of the stairs. I’ll have to take the lantern.”

This time, the study door really was locked but the key was in place on its ledge overhead. As I entered the study, I realized that, whatever his feelings about it, Sir Philip had once again used the place during the day for it was warm and, as before, a dying fire glowed in the hearth. The strongbox was still on the floor near the window. I put the lantern down beside it. The box was fastened with a simple padlock. It was ridiculously easy to open. Within moments I was throwing back the lid.

The box wasn’t especially big, but it still held a good many documents. I worked my way through them as briskly as I could, laying each one in turn on the floor beside the lantern and peering at it to see what it was. Most were dull affairs: letters about buying sheep and selling fleeces, a wad of documents concerning a lawsuit over a land boundary; some correspondence from William Haggard and Owen Lewis about Alice Haggard and her dowry, and the nice little commissions which both Haggard and Lewis were going to pay to Mortimer for his efforts as a matchmaker. Sir Philip had had good reason to be outraged by Rafe’s romantic intrusion.

Though whether he could actually have been outraged to the point of murder … I shook my head in puzzlement over that, but went on working as quickly as I could, though with care, making sure I knew what each document was before I put it aside.

Below the letters was a sheet of parchment, of very good quality. I lifted it out and saw the words
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
penned across the heading. Then I saw the name of Northcote, and quickly moved the parchment into the light in order to read it thoroughly.

It was the will of a man called John Northcote. I frowned for a moment and then remembered Mortimer, during the quarrel with Rafe and Alice, declaring that he still missed his friend John Northcote … who was, of course, Rafe’s father. Rapidly, I read the will through.

As far as learning how Mortimer proposed to extract land and honor from the queen, the will gave me no help. It did give me something else, however. Here at last was a clear reason why Mortimer might have wanted Rafe out of the way. John Northcote, it seemed, was a man with a sentimental attachment to his friend Philip Mortimer, and a touching degree of trust in him.

“Since Philip Mortimer once helped me to uncover a steward who had falsified his accounts for personal gain, for which reason I look on him with trust and gratitude; and there being no relatives left to take care of my son Rafe if I should perish before he reaches the age of twenty-one years, I therefore name Sir Philip Mortimer of Vetch Castle in Herefordshire as his guardian. Should Rafe in turn be taken to God before the age of twenty-one (for the chances of this world are many and all life hangs by a thread), in recognition of my past gratitude, I further name Sir Philip Mortimer as my heir after Rafe …”

The will then went on to describe John Northcote’s estate in detail. The manor of Rowans lay a few miles to the west of Shrewsbury and consisted of two sublet farms and a home farm, the latter chiefly concerned with sheep and including around six square miles of hill pasture. So far, Rowans was not remarkable. It would represent wealth to a poor man, but to
Sir Philip Mortimer of Vetch Castle it was hardly a temptation.

Then I read the last paragraph.

Alice, trying to convince her elders that Rafe was an eligible husband, had said that his manor had copper deposits. It certainly had. According to the will, John Northcote had had the hill pastures prospected, and the copper deposits found there had a value, at the most conservative estimate, eight times that of all the land and stock put together and could well be worth much more.

If Mortimer were out to make his fortune, he could do worse than start by getting his hands on Rowans. Only Rafe’s life stood between him and those copper deposits. I crouched there, frowning, over the will. Perhaps he had intended at first to be an honest steward, but had been so angry when Rafe made approaches to Alice that rage had pushed him over the edge. I tried to imagine what had gone on in his mind. Not only was Rafe going to get Rowans and all its wealth instead of Mortimer, but the ungrateful youth was apparently hell-bent on swindling his guardian out of the commission Owen Lewis and William Haggard were to pay him for brokering the match, and probably wrecking Mortimer’s friendship with Lewis into the bargain! Rafe didn’t deserve Rowans … and with that, Mortimer, perhaps tempted already, perhaps teetering already on a perilous edge, might step over it.

Yes, it made sense. If a man were desperate enough for money, then here was his motive for doing away with Rafe. It was far more convincing than anger over Rafe’s advances to Alice on its own, or any convoluted
notions of protecting his mother’s honor from an amorous young man.

I sat back on my heels, thinking of Rafe’s body, lying in this very room; of Mortimer trying to put the blame on me and Brockley; and with his mother’s help, getting both of us out of the way and hiding the fact that there had been a murder at all. For a moment, my mind checked. Lady Thomasine had been very attached to Rafe. But blood ties are strong. She might be fond of her admiring minstrel boy, her personal Mark Smeaton, yes; but Philip was her own son.

I put the will aside and worked on, wondering if Mortimer was in debt and whether I might find any clue to that in the box. It would account for his desire for money. I could still hear faint noises of revelry from the direction of the hall, but nothing nearer at hand. I was glad that Dale and Brockley were keeping watch, though. The memory of Rafe’s body was suddenly very vivid. I wondered how his meeting with Mortimer in the study had come about. Perhaps Mortimer had enticed him to the study with a message purporting to come from Alice. And been waiting for him, dagger in hand. It was not a pleasant thought.

This was an unpleasant task altogether. I wanted to be done with it, and anyway, the candle in the lantern was burning down. I discovered that Mortimer did indeed have debts, big ones. He had spent huge sums on lawsuits, in trying to regain possession of Mortimer lands, and then needed to borrow money for repairs to the fabric of the castle, and to replace sheep lost in bad weather last winter. I also came across a couple of estimates for new tapestries and furniture, pinned together
with a note which said
not under present circumstances
. Rowans would have cleared his debts and left him money to spare. Had Rafe known the full value of Rowans? I wondered. And had he seen the face of the man who killed him? Had he understood why he was to die?

I had nearly reached the bottom of the pile. So far, nothing had had a bearing on any schemes Mortimer might have for coaxing wealth out of the queen. Perhaps it was just a figment of his imagination, after all; a grandiose daydream. He amused himself with boasting about it; half believed in it, perhaps. He had planned to be in Cambridge when the queen was there … but what had he meant to do there? How on earth did one frame a blatant request for a string of castles and their accompanying lands and incomes? I could find no trace of any lever or threat. Daydreams, I thought: wild imaginings …

The last two items were letters. Like the will, they were written on parchment, but this parchment was old. Even by candlelight, I could see that it was mottled with age and that the ink was faded. The handwriting, the same on both sheets, was difficult and I moved the light to see better. I looked at the dates. I read the first one through. And then, with trembling hands, I put the second letter on top and read that as well.

I looked at the dates again.

My stomach contracted. I felt the crimson run up into my face, as though I had been caught out in some nasty, indecent sin.

This couldn’t be true. Oh no, please, God, don’t let it be true. If this were so, then … I thought about it and
it was as though the whole world had turned upside down, and everything that I had thought fixed and certain had tumbled out to lie in a pattern not only alien but ugly; so ugly that every drop of blood in my body surged with horror and fury. No, no,
no!
It was not to be endured. No claims to honesty or legality could make me willing to endure it. I would not see England, or Elizabeth either, so wounded, not for anyone or anything.

It was borne in on me then that whatever might have happened in the past, I loved Elizabeth. I loved the vulnerable girl behind the royal robes; I loved the strong-minded, valiant queen who lived inside that girl and sometimes strode out into the light to startle and intimidate her council of statesmen who were all male and mostly much older than she was, and yet were often afraid of her. She was all Tudor then; her father’s daughter in every way.

Of course she was. Of course she was. I made myself read the two letters again. My burning flush faded and my hands steadied. The letters might look convincing, but they lied. Not that it mattered. I felt my jaw set with determination. Whether they lied or not, for Elizabeth’s sake and for England’s sake, I would connive at any deception necessary to keep these letters from doing damage.

Mortimer, of course, was insane. These, presumably, were the lever by which he had hoped to wring land and money out of Elizabeth. I wondered again if the duel he was said to have fought, long ago, was somehow involved. I had a feeling, like an itch in the mind, that that duel was part, somehow, of all these machinations.
Perhaps he had fought the duel and killed his man in order to suppress these letters! But if so, why had he not destroyed them? Had he, even then, thought that one day he might have another use for them? He was a fool if so. If he really hoped to gain a fortune by threatening to publish them, then he was living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Any such ploy would have put him in the Tower of London on a charge of treason faster than a shooting star can cross the sky. But even so, he might do terrible harm. If anyone not well disposed to Elizabeth should see these documents—if anyone at all who was not discreet should see them—if there were any more such documents, hidden somewhere else …

Something caught my eye. I picked one of the letters up for a closer look. One of the marks on the parchment was surely recent. It was a dirty thumbprint and after one appalled glance, I knew whose thumbprint it was. There was no mistaking it. This thumb had had a jagged, weeping zigzag cut across it. I had had a disagreeably close view of that cut, across the dinner table, the day before I made my first attempt to investigate this study.

These letters had been handled by William Haggard. In which case, presumably, he had read them.

They could not be left here. If Mortimer had shown them to even one other person—and he obviously had—then he might do the same thing again. Already, this deadly knowledge might be spreading. I must take the letters at once and Cecil must know what was afoot. Henderson could see them, I supposed, but no one else. I must reach him as fast as possible and we must go straight back to court.

Quickly, I put the other documents back in the
strongbox, locked it again, stowed the letters in my hidden pocket, and left the study. Brockley, inappropriately armed with his lute, came toward me as I turned the key in the door.

“Madam? Did you find anything?”

“We’ve got to get away,” I said in an urgent undertone. “Please don’t as much as breathe on that lute; we’ve got to get out at once and we mustn’t—
mustn’t
—get caught. Find anything? Oh my God, yes. It’s worse than I could ever have imagined. Where’s Dale? Dale, come quickly! We’ve no time to lose.”

It was raining again as we slipped back across the courtyard, but we hurried and didn’t get seriously wet and I didn’t think it mattered. I was wrong.

When I said we must get out at once, I meant it literally. The moment we were back in Isabel’s Tower and could talk properly, I told the others that I couldn’t explain to them what I’d found, but I’d rather go about with a pocket full of gunpowder or a handkerchief soaked in pus from a plague victim, and we must be off now, without delay, in the dark.