A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) Read Online Free
her to tell us what was wrong and then we learned why he had really gone to Northumberland and also that he intended to visit Scotland as well—and that before he left, he had had reason to think that his valet was spying on him. We agreed with Helene that this must mean that someone somewhere suspected Edward. We were greatly alarmed. That was when we first considered coming to you—except that we were afraid to trust you.”
“I had never been easy in my mind about Edward’s work for Mary Stuart,” said Uncle Herbert. “But he was so eager . . .”
“And I encouraged him,” said Helene, sniffing. “As I said, I was so proud of him. But not after the business with the valet! I tried to dissuade him from going north and I was so thankful when he came safely back. I implored him to take no more risks. He said he wouldn’t. He said that he had learned some very useful facts. He had only to put them together with the reports he had asked for, from other people in different parts of the country, and then he could prepare his final document for Matthew and his task would be done. The other reports had mostly come while he was away, so he was able to get on with that without delay. And then . . .”
I interrupted. “How did Edward communicate with my husband? Or indeed, with his contacts elsewhere in the country?”
“We have reliable servants here,” said Uncle Herbert. “They carry messages within the country. For keeping in touch with Matthew de la Roche, in France, we used Matthew’s own couriers. There were two regular ones. They even kept to their normal schedule throughout the time of the civil war. They traveled back and forth between France and Scotland. One was an itinerant tooth-drawer and the other was a peddler. The tooth-drawer went on foot; the peddler had a mule. They were excellent couriers because they were so ordinary. They were the sort of folk no one ever notices.”
I said nothing but inwardly I sighed. Matthew and Ihad disagreed about so much, but I had truly loved him, and curiously, one of the most endearing things about him had been a kind of innocence. Matthew genuinely believed that Mary Stuart ought to be queen of England, and that if she became so she could simply tell the English to return to what he called the true faith, and that would be that. The truth was that Mary would never gain the throne without a vicious and gory civil war, and if she won it, then England would be wide open to emissaries of the Inquisition with all its attendant horrors. I could never make Matthew see it. When I tried to point these things out, it was as though my words just slid off from him, turning away like beggars from a closed front door.
Now, I thought, my uncle and his family were displaying the same streak of innocence. From working with Sir William Cecil, I knew very well that ordinary men making commonplace but frequent journeys were the likeliest bearers of treasonable messages and that they were far from unnoticed. Cecil had a payroll on which literally hundreds of harbormasters, innkeepers, and ships’ captains were listed, and they kept him informed of who traveled on what routes and how often. I had no doubt that the journeys of the tooth-drawer and the peddler had been noted long since. What Helene said as she resumed the story confirmed it.
“I was afraid that Edward would be angry when he knew that I had told his parents what he was about, but when he came home, he just shrugged and said that he had expected them to guess, anyway, since he had used Faldene servants to carry messages back andforth,” she said. “He made his report—it was in the form of a list of families and what each family had offered—and waited for one or the other of your husband’s couriers to arrive. The peddler usually came back from Scotland in early August and the tooth-drawer perhaps a week or two later. But they didn’t come, and then a messenger brought word of your husband’s death to Withysham,
“I had never been easy in my mind about Edward’s work for Mary Stuart,” said Uncle Herbert. “But he was so eager . . .”
“And I encouraged him,” said Helene, sniffing. “As I said, I was so proud of him. But not after the business with the valet! I tried to dissuade him from going north and I was so thankful when he came safely back. I implored him to take no more risks. He said he wouldn’t. He said that he had learned some very useful facts. He had only to put them together with the reports he had asked for, from other people in different parts of the country, and then he could prepare his final document for Matthew and his task would be done. The other reports had mostly come while he was away, so he was able to get on with that without delay. And then . . .”
I interrupted. “How did Edward communicate with my husband? Or indeed, with his contacts elsewhere in the country?”
“We have reliable servants here,” said Uncle Herbert. “They carry messages within the country. For keeping in touch with Matthew de la Roche, in France, we used Matthew’s own couriers. There were two regular ones. They even kept to their normal schedule throughout the time of the civil war. They traveled back and forth between France and Scotland. One was an itinerant tooth-drawer and the other was a peddler. The tooth-drawer went on foot; the peddler had a mule. They were excellent couriers because they were so ordinary. They were the sort of folk no one ever notices.”
I said nothing but inwardly I sighed. Matthew and Ihad disagreed about so much, but I had truly loved him, and curiously, one of the most endearing things about him had been a kind of innocence. Matthew genuinely believed that Mary Stuart ought to be queen of England, and that if she became so she could simply tell the English to return to what he called the true faith, and that would be that. The truth was that Mary would never gain the throne without a vicious and gory civil war, and if she won it, then England would be wide open to emissaries of the Inquisition with all its attendant horrors. I could never make Matthew see it. When I tried to point these things out, it was as though my words just slid off from him, turning away like beggars from a closed front door.
Now, I thought, my uncle and his family were displaying the same streak of innocence. From working with Sir William Cecil, I knew very well that ordinary men making commonplace but frequent journeys were the likeliest bearers of treasonable messages and that they were far from unnoticed. Cecil had a payroll on which literally hundreds of harbormasters, innkeepers, and ships’ captains were listed, and they kept him informed of who traveled on what routes and how often. I had no doubt that the journeys of the tooth-drawer and the peddler had been noted long since. What Helene said as she resumed the story confirmed it.
“I was afraid that Edward would be angry when he knew that I had told his parents what he was about, but when he came home, he just shrugged and said that he had expected them to guess, anyway, since he had used Faldene servants to carry messages back andforth,” she said. “He made his report—it was in the form of a list of families and what each family had offered—and waited for one or the other of your husband’s couriers to arrive. The peddler usually came back from Scotland in early August and the tooth-drawer perhaps a week or two later. But they didn’t come, and then a messenger brought word of your husband’s death to Withysham,
Readers choose
Matthew Ballard
Erika Masten, Catherine Vale, Bryce Evans, Michelle Fox, Elle Boon, Katalina Leon
Roberta Kray
Vanessa Devereaux
Steve Miller, Sharon Lee
Kristen Proby
Alain de Botton
D C Grant
J.T. Edson
Linda Baletsa