The Queen's Spy Read online

  ‘I must return to the queen.’

  ‘Why? Does my brother’s wife require you to perform some humble intimate task?’

  I tried to move away but he took another step, trapping me against the stairway. ‘Killing one’s own kin gives one an appetite, Lady Margaret. Did you know that? Perhaps you might care to undertake an intimate task for me? It so happens I am in great need of comfort tonight, the kind of comfort that only an obliging young woman like yourself can provide.’

  It was too much. I slapped him hard across the face before I realised what I was doing. ‘You’re drunk, my lord. And you’re disgusting.’

  He winced and rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘I suppose that depends on what disgusts you.’

  ‘You disgust me. You insult the queen, you insult me, and if I were a man I’d …’

  ‘You’d what? What would you do to me, Lady Margaret?’

  He lifted one of my hands to his mouth and, without taking his eyes from mine, gently bit the soft cushion of flesh at the base of my thumb.

  There was a brief moment when neither of us moved. Then I wrenched my hand from his grasp and shoved him hard. He stumbled and fell back against the wall. I ducked my head, pushed past and ran out into the courtyard as fast as I could.

  You fool, I thought. You fool! You fool! You fool!

  Of course that wasn’t the end of our acquaintance. The following morning he sought me out and in front of a giggling audience of two of the queen’s damsels made his stilted apologies.

  ‘I have very little recollection of what occurred between us last night,’ he began, ‘but I’m told I was drunk.’

  He looked like a man who hadn’t slept. There were dark smudges under his eyes and the sides of his mouth were white with fatigue.

  ‘Yes, you were.’

  He stared at me in surprise. He had probably expected a dutiful surrender, not an attack.

  ‘I have been advised,’ he said slowly, fumbling for the thread of his speech. ‘I have been advised that I should offer an apology for any harm I did you or for any harsh words I spoke.’

  I wondered who had advised him and just how much he, in fact, remembered of last night. His eyes were a clear steady blue but he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I have already confessed my sins of yesterday and done penance, and this is all that remains on my conscience. Is there is anything I can do to make amends, Lady Margaret?’

  ‘Amends?’

  ‘Some service I can do for you, a matter which needs attention?’

  I spoke before I could change my mind. ‘Yes, Lord Edmund, there is something you can do for me.’

  He frowned. It was obvious he’d thought a quick apology and a meaningless offer of service would be all he’d have to suffer. But I had remembered my neighbour’s children at Loxton near Sherwood and realised the king’s brother could discover things I could not.

  ‘Well?’ He was clearly anxious to be gone from this humiliating encounter. ‘What is it you want done?’

  ‘I had a friend whose husband rode with the earl of Lancaster. She died last summer leaving seven children behind. I would like to know if their father is alive or dead.’

  He looked horrified. ‘You expect me to trawl through stinking dungeons looking for your friend’s husband?’

  ‘No, Lord Edmund,’ I said, thinking how transparent his thoughts were. ‘I’m sure you have a man to do that for you, some menial who can dirty his feet on your behalf; someone who will happily travel from one castle to the next inspecting their rat-holes for signs of vermin. You need not even get straw on your boots.’

  He looked relieved. ‘What is this husband’s name?’

  ‘Everingham. Lord Everingham. He has a manor at Loxton, near Sherwood.’

  ‘And what is he to you, this Everingham man?’

  I lowered my head, not wishing him to see the slight flush which I was certain had stained my cheeks. ‘Nothing. He is nothing to me. I was a friend of his wife. They were neighbours. That is all.’

  ‘Everingham,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Very well I shall see what I can discover.’

  As he walked away, I sighed. I knew he would disappoint, like all men. He would forget Lord Everingham’s name before he had reached the foot of the stairs and once back with his friends would not give a second thought to what he had just promised.

  We left Pontefract with its hideous memories and seven weeks passed before I saw him again. If I thought of him during that time it was to acknowledge that he had forgotten me and my awkward request. I’d hoped he would remember but why should he? I was no-one of importance, merely an impoverished widow who had the good fortune to serve the queen.

  One afternoon, as I hurried across the inner courtyard of our lodgings in the friary at York, a man approached me with a note. There was only the slightest of breezes to cool the heat in my cheeks and the note was very short.

  ‘You may thank your master,’ I said politely.

  ‘Is there no reply?’ He seemed genuinely surprised.

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  Once he was gone I swiftly unfolded the note again. It was nothing, just a few lines in the neat crabbed writing of a clerk. A space left at the top for a formal flowery greeting, which had been omitted, and no indication as to where the letter had been written or from whom it had been sent, nothing but a scrawled signature at the bottom.

  “He is alive and well, but four hundred marks the poorer in exchange for his liberty. And my boots are still clean.”

  I smiled with pleasure. He had not forgotten his promise. And he had remembered our conversation. I tucked the note in my purse telling myself to forget him because nothing could come of it. He was the king’s brother.

  But at the back of my mind hovered the image of the pretty little coroner’s daughter from Norfolk. She had lived in a house with a curtained-off area at the end of the hall for the bed she shared with her sisters. Pewter cups sat on her family’s board and there were only a handful of servants. But with the help of her wily father she had danced and flirted her way to a countess’s coronet.

  Now she sat at the queen’s table and graced the castles of her husband, the king’s dark-haired half-brother, the earl of Norfolk, eating off his silver plates and sleeping in his great high bed. She had exchanged rough wool and plain linen for the finest brocades and richest of velvets, and her sensible workaday caps had given way to swathes of embroidered silk and golden cauls.

  If such a thing could happen to her, it could happen to anyone. And if it could happen to anyone, it could even happen to me.

  Two days later he found me in the gardens watching a group of boys play a game which involved balls and sticks and a great deal of noise. He came and stood beside me. For a long time he said nothing, he just stood there.

  ‘You didn’t reply.’ His tone was peremptory. He wasn’t looking at me, he was gazing at one of the boys swinging a bat.

  ‘I presumed our dealings were at an end, Lord Edmund,’ I replied. ‘You had done as I asked and the debt was repaid.’

  ‘You could have written to say thank-you.’

  ‘I saw no need.’

  ‘Had you no desire to prolong our correspondence?’

  ‘Lord Edmund, I am a virtuous woman.’

  I glanced sideways but he was still watching the boys.

  ‘I don’t know many virtuous women.’ I thought of the tales I’d heard and was surprised he acknowledged the truth. ’As Everingham is alive,’ he continued, ‘and doubtless trying the merchants this day for a loan, you’d better tell me what he is to you.’

  I knew I was blushing. ‘He is nothing, my lord. As I told you, he was my friend’s husband.’

  There followed an uneasy silence and I wondered why he didn’t go.

  ‘Is he a good man?’

  ‘Yes, I belie
ve so.’

  He hesitated. This was like no ordinary conversation. There were pauses and I sensed too much was being left unsaid. He wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

  ‘In my experience of women, Lady Margaret,’ he began slowly, ‘good husbands are dead husbands. Wives complain about their lords and it isn’t until a man is safely in his tomb that he becomes a saint. So the remedy is this - a good man should never marry. If he does, he will become feckless, faithless and a cross to be borne, or else be doomed to an early death.’

  I bent my head so that he shouldn’t see me smile.

  ‘Was your husband a good man?’ he enquired.

  John’s face was fading in the summer haze, the blue of the sky so bright I could no longer see the warmth of his dark brown eyes.

  ‘Yes. he was; he was a very good man.’ I was aware how unsteady the ground beneath my feet had become.

  ‘And has Everingham asked you to marry him?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, he has.’

  ‘It is all arranged?’

  ‘No, my lord. The earl of Lancaster called him to arms before I could agree to the match.’

  ‘But he will pursue you, now that he is free?’

  ‘I think under his present circumstances, my lord, he will seek a woman with more wealth than I possess.’

  ‘But you are the widow of Sir John Comyn who was heir to the lordship of Badenoch.’

  ‘True, but I have only two small manors, and thirty pounds a year which I haven’t yet seen.’

  He looked shocked. ‘Surely your husband left you better provided for?’

  ‘My husband had not come into his inheritance, my lord, and most of his lands lay beyond the border. The king has been generous but I am merely one of many widows.’

  ‘And have you no brothers or cousins to plead for you?’

  ‘I have one brother, my lord, but he is married and has troubles of his own.’

  ‘And cousins?’

  I hesitated, wondering how much he knew about me and how much I should tell him. In these dangerous times it could be unwise to acknowledge one’s kin.

  ‘I have a cousin,’ I said slowly. ‘Lord Mortimer of Wigmore. I am sure you know him, my lord?’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘I do. You’ll get no help there.’

  Of course I wouldn’t. Roger Mortimer, the son of my mother’s sister, had been taken at Shrewsbury, accused of leading the lords of the Welsh Marches in rebellion against the king. He was currently languishing in the Tower awaiting judgement and with the king in his present vindictive mood I didn’t hold out much hope for my cousin.

  He grunted and looked away. ‘I too am dependent upon the king’s generosity, Lady Margaret.’

  ‘You? But you’re an earl.’ I took in at one glance the costly cloth of his tunic, the fineness of his linen and the jewels he wore.

  ‘An empty title.’

  I murmured that I was sorry.

  ‘Shall I tell you what the reward is for loyalty, Lady Margaret? The reward for a faithful brother who has done everything that was asked of him, a brother who has endangered his very soul - do you know what he gets?’

  I shook my head, not daring to say anything.

  ‘Three miserable castles. Three! And in Wales! And do you know what the king’s chamberlain receives? Half the bloody country!’

  He was furiously angry. I hadn’t realised. What I’d taken for impatience was anger simmering beneath the surface.

  ‘I have a charter, Lady Margaret, drawn up by my father and locked in my treasury box. It says I am to receive lands to the value of seven thousand marks. But what do I get? Three miserable Welsh castles!’

  Three Welsh castles would have pleased me greatly but then I was not an earl. And seven thousand marks was a vast sum, enough to equip a king’s army and keep a wife in fine style. No wonder he was bitter.

  ‘My brother, the king, does not see fit to give me my inheritance but considers it perfectly acceptable to heap rewards on that … that turd!’

  He kicked at a loose stone, sending it skittering across the path. ‘I did everything he asked of me. I even condemned my own cousin to death. Yet still he won’t give me what I am owed. His chamberlain gets whatever he wants while I must wait for my inheritance.’

  With that he left me standing in the garden and strode off to vent his anger elsewhere.

  There was nothing in it but I should have been more careful. He’d said he was unused to virtuous women and his interest in me was obviously not honourable. Doubtless he’d make his intentions clear before long and then I could refuse him and that would be an end to our acquaintance.

  Even if he liked me the king would not allow him to make the same mistake as his brother and reject an important marriage alliance to pursue a woman of no worth. I would do well to forget him because soon he’d be safely married to a foreign prince’s daughter and I’d never see him again.

  I told myself not to be foolish.

  Next morning he stopped me on my way back from mass. He was loitering in the shadows of the porch, unseen by the others, and pulled me in beside him before I had time to protest.

  ‘Hush!’ He put his finger to my lips. ‘My brother’s army is leaving for Scotland tomorrow and I wanted to see you before I went.’

  I pushed his hands away, trying to stop myself from trembling. ‘I cannot see why, my lord. I am responsible neither for your armour nor for your provisioning. And I don’t ask for your attentions. I am not the kind of woman you seem to think I am so please leave me alone.’

  It wasn’t true. Even as I said the words I knew I didn’t wish him to leave me alone.

  ‘What have you heard about me?’

  ‘Nothing you’d want to hear.’

  ‘Oh but I can imagine: the drunkenness, the fighting, the women. What did you expect, Lady Margaret?’

  How could I tell him what I wanted him to be when I couldn’t even admit to myself that it mattered.

  ‘Do you know what the good folk of the towns do when they know I am coming?’

  ‘Lock up their daughters, I should think,’ I muttered.

  ‘Far from it. A man decks his daughter in her finery and sends her off to church, eyes demurely down, a flash of ankle, a bare wrist, hair alluringly unpinned as if by accident. She flaunts her charms before me until the father is sure the hound has caught the scent. Then he shuts her away in a back room with a couple of grizzled old women for company.’

  ‘What happens after that?’ I was amused by his air of injured innocence.

  ‘The father sets out his stall in front of his door and waits. If he receives no offer he repeats the performance the following day.’

  I smothered a laugh.

  ‘You may well laugh,’ he protested, ‘But my brother has a lot to answer for. I like his pretty wife but my life would be easier if he’d taken Dona Maria as the king wanted.’

  ‘The queen says it was the lady herself who refused the match.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh Lady Margaret, what young lady would be so foolish as to refuse the attentions of a brother of the king of England?’

  I smiled at him. ‘Perhaps if the lady is virtuous?’

  ‘As are you?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Edmund. As you have observed, I value my virtue.’

  I managed to detach myself from the shadows of the archway and walk calmly away, half-wishing I didn’t have to, half-wishing my position was different, half-wishing I had something to offer a man which would not simply involve an inevitable fumbling in the dark and a short spell of sweetness with someone who made my pulses race.

  It was time for the Nativity celebrations. There was a king and a queen, as there always was in these matters, and a handsome young knight riding through the greenwood - a real greenwood with branches of laurel and holly which got tangled in th
e silks of the knight’s garments much to everyone’s delight. This was our first Christmas entertainment, although there’d been a rumour that two naked men had danced on a table in the king’s private rooms the previous night.

  After the failure of the Scottish campaign and the queen’s ignominious flight from Tynmouth in the face of threats from the advancing Scots, not even the bishops could object to an evening of secular entertainment. And it was well known that the king loved mummers and playacting.

  The side tables in the hall were stacked against the walls, and the benches pushed back to make space for the players. I had Lady Abernethy beside me, raised up on her toes to get a better view, and my shoulder was hard up against one of the king’s hangings. Every time I rested my head against Queen Guinivere’s elegantly shod feet, the coloured wools scratched my cheek and I breathed in the scent of long-forgotten fleeces.

  The play concerned a knight’s quest and involved much fighting with the forces of evil who were dressed in black.

  ‘Did you think I had deserted you?’

  The sudden whisper in my ear made me jump with fright, but the hand on my waist caused me even more alarm. The voice was low but unmistakeable.

  ‘No, Lord Edmund,’ I whispered, half-turning my head. ‘You are usually to be found somewhere.’

  I couldn’t see him, just feel the warmth of his presence and hear the familiar sound of his voice. He kept his hand where it was, pressing against my waist. He didn’t say anything else but I found breathing difficult knowing he was standing behind me.

  The minstrels struck up a tune and from the players there was a lot of leaping about amidst gales of laughter from the audience. Nobody could see us, as the torches at the rear of the hall had been doused on the instructions of the steward. Lady Abernethy had her back to me and was too involved in the entertainment to notice what I was doing.

  ‘Do you think virtue will win the day, Lady Margaret?’

  I smiled to myself. ‘Virtue has its own rewards, Lord Edmund. Good will always triumph over evil.’