Blood Between Queens (13 page)

It left the great hall to Justine and Isabel, just as they planned. They sat together in the middle of the long table as though holding court session. In a way they were; they were calling in all the household people, one by one, to question them about Alice’s last days.

“Is it really necessary to put them through all that again?” Isabel had asked at first when Justine proposed it. “Our steward questioned everyone weeks ago, right after the murder. It will only distress everyone to relive it.”

“Someone might have forgotten a detail,” Justine had insisted. “It can’t hurt to offer them another chance to come forward.”

Isabel had seemed unconvinced. Though horrified by the murder and saddened by the loss of such a vital young woman, she said that the evil was done and the killer long gone and that Justine should let her friend rest in peace. Justine could not do that. There was no peace for her while a chance remained, however slight, of tracking down the killer. “People,” she said with some warmth, “do not vanish. He is
somewhere
.”

“All right,” Isabel had said with sigh of acceptance. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do a thorough job.”

And so they had cleared the table of books, backgammon board, a rag doll, a basket of string beans, and a toy warship and sent word through the house and round to the outbuildings, from bakehouse and brewhouse, stable and barn, for all the manor folk to appear, one by one. The people had gathered outside, chatting on benches in the shade under the porch vines, their voices low in speaking of Alice, but no one complaining about the respite from their chores.

“We’ll see old Liza Gordon next,” Isabel said, ticking off the name on her list with a flick of her quill pen.

“The laundress?” Justine asked. “My, she must be getting on.” It felt strange seeing servants who had worked in the house when she was a child.

“She’s a good soul.” Isabel added with a wink, “When she’s not downing a tankard of ale.”

They shared a smile. It suddenly struck Justine as unseemly, sharing a jest when their business was about Alice, but she was grateful for Isabel’s good humor at their unsettling task.

They heard from twenty-one people—housemaids, brewers, milkmaids, butchers, scullery boys, grooms, gardeners, the children’s tutor, a teenage carpenter, and the cook—and still Justine had no better picture of Alice’s last day on earth than when they had started. Several people had seen her go off to the Wooler market on the mule. Three of them had gone to the market later and assumed that Alice had returned home early. No one had seen her there, let alone seen a stranger accosting her. None had noticed anything strange as they had passed the Kirknewton church.

Now the stooped old laundress shuffled in.

“Kirknewton?” she said in response to Isabel’s question, looking confused. “Bless me, Lady Isabel, what business would I be having in Kirknewton?”

“You didn’t know Alice Boyer was going there?” Justine asked. The old servant hadn’t recognized her as the grown-up daughter of the old master.

“Boyer?”

“Lady Isabel’s seamstress?” Isabel prompted.

The old laundress blinked in bewilderment. Justine was losing heart. “There’s a gardener name of Boyer. He’s a good ’un with roses and irises and gillyflowers, but he don’t grow the right lavender for me soap. I tell him again and again, but he just laughs and dances a jig. Why do you ask, my lady? Has he run off?”

It was hopeless. The old woman’s mind was trapped in the past. Alice’s father hadn’t been gardener here for over fifteen years. Visiting the ailing parents in their rough cottage behind the stables had been the hardest thing Justine had ever done. They were numb with grief.

Outside there was a sudden swelling of voices. A child’s wail cut through it.

“Mama!” Little Nell burst into the great hall. Grass stains streaked her smock. Her hair was a bird’s nest. Tears ran down her cheeks, red from crying. She ran to Isabel. “Mama!”

Isabel stretched out her arms. “What is it, my little? Have you hurt yourself?”

Nell bawled, “Andrew! He fell out of the tree! He’s not moving!”

“Lady Isabel,” a gardener called, rushing in. “Your lad’s fallen. Knocked senseless. You best come see.”

Isabel jumped up and hurried out. Justine ran after her. They dashed across the terrace and down the steps. The entrance to the formal garden was shaded by a massive old beech tree, and a dozen anxious servants stood at its base. Two men among them were crouched over Andrew lying on his back in the grass. Above, in a crook of the boughs, the tree fort’s raw boards gleamed white as bone. The people made way for Isabel. Justine held back a gasp at the sight of the boy’s still body, pale face, closed eyes.

Isabel dropped to her knees at his side. She took his face between her hands, searching for signs of life.

“He’s breathing!” someone cried.

Andrew’s eyelids trembled. He moaned in pain and his eyes opened.

“It’s his hand,” Justine said. The left wrist was bent at a disturbing angle.

“Aye,” said one of the men. “Wrist is broke, looks like, m’lady.”

“Oh, you foolish boy,” Isabel scolded her son, which brought smiles, for everyone knew her anger was a whiplash of relief.

“Best we get him inside, m’lady.”

“Yes, yes,” Isabel said, beckoning them to lift the boy. “Gently, Ralph. Gently.”

“No”—Andrew pushed the man’s hands away with sudden vigor—“I’m no baby.” He was struggling to his feet, a difficult task with only one good hand, and he still looked dizzy.

“Are you sure?” Isabel asked in concern.

He looked mortified. “I am very well, Mother.” He swayed on his feet, in pain, but proud. Everyone’s spirits seemed lightened by the young master’s pluck.

“Inside with you, then,” she said with a grudging smile at his stoicism, “and we’ll have Mistress Thwaite bind that wrist.” She thanked the men for seeing to her son, then let Andrew walk ahead, keeping a close step behind him should he collapse. The small crowd dispersed, a couple of the men chuckling, the women chattering the details of the mishap, a fireside tale in the making.

Justine noticed a young man hanging back. A thin frame, pale eyes, freckles. He stood in the shadows under the leafy beech tree, but she saw his face clearly enough to read deep distress. She recognized him. Not from when she had lived here, for he was too young, about seventeen she guessed, but from the questioning in the hall. He was a carpenter. A hammer was tucked into a loop in his thick belt from which a nail pouch hung. He had been singularly unforthcoming in the hall. A terribly shy soul, she had judged.

She looked up at the fort in the branches. “Were you helping Master Andrew?”

He toed the grass, looking pained. “Yes, mistress.” The words were so faint she could barely hear them. She felt sorry for him.

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” she said. “The lad’s intrepid. I dare say he was climbing too high.”

He turned away. But not before Justine noticed the red rims of his eyes. She thought, startled,
He’s been crying.

“Will that be all, mistress?” He stood at the base of the ladder to the tree fort, one foot on the bottom rung, clearly wanting to climb up it and be gone.

“Yes, of course. And thank you again for answering our questions about Alice.”

A strangled sound came from him, and he hurried up the ladder. Suddenly, she understood. It wasn’t Andrew he was upset about.
He’s been crying about Alice
.

She had to talk to him! She called after him, “May I see the children’s fort?”

No answer. He had disappeared in the foliage. She climbed the ladder. “I loved hiding in trees when I was little,” she said, making her voice cheerful. She didn’t dare unsettle him.

The top of the ladder rested on the fort’s platform, and as she reached it she saw the most fanciful little dwelling she had ever beheld. Though the underside of the platform was raw lumber, above it was a small, finished wonderland. Before her looped graceful arches of polished wood as balustrades. Willow latticework formed three walls, but with spaces through which the leafy branches swept. There was a bench whose legs were carved all over with birds, and a broad beech bough was its back. A birdhouse with a roof of tidy rye thatch hung at one end as though in lieu of a chimney. At the other end, three narrow steps rose to a loft wide enough only for a child to lie and dream among the foliage.

“How wonderful,” Justine said, stepping off the ladder. It felt like stepping aboard a fairyland ship.

He eyed her, uneasy. She sensed that he didn’t like her invading the space, but of course he could not order her out, a member of the Thornleigh family.

“Jeremy’s your name, isn’t it?” He nodded, looking trapped. “You do beautiful work, Jeremy.” She sat down on the platform edge, her legs dangling over the side. Looking out through the branches at the garden, she said, “Alice was beautiful, too.” She heard him let out a tight breath. “She was my friend,” Justine said. “I used to live here, you know. When Alice and I were children we used to climb out on the roof and lie down on the leads. You could see the river snaking all the way to Kirknewton.”

Silence. She could see the stable roof through the leaves. A memory jolted her. Her father on horseback bursting out the stable door that night, his clothes pocked with cinders, the side of his face burned. She closed her eyes tight, shook it off. It was Alice she was here for.

“I want to find the man who killed her.” She looked up at Jeremy. “I want justice for her.”

He came silently to the edge. She gave him a sad smile. “Sit down, if you like.”

He did, slowly, looking torn between a desire to speak and a need to stay silent.

It touched Justine. She said very simply, “I loved Alice.”

It broke a dam in him. He lowered his head, and his shoulders shook in silent misery.

“You did, too, didn’t you?” she said. It was pitifully clear. “Everyone did.”

His head shot up. “And so did one that shouldn’t,” he said, swiping away his tears. The hostility in his voice startled Justine. The bitterness of jealousy.

“Shouldn’t . . . have loved her?”

His face closed, as though anxious he’d said too much. But Justine understood. Men had always been drawn to Alice, and Alice had often reciprocated. “Jeremy, was there a man?”

He let out a sound, half groan, half sigh.

“You saw this man with her? Where? Kirknewton? Wooler?”

“Wooler. Market square.” He looked away, reluctant to say more.

“Who was it?” She put authority in her voice, a lady ordering a servant. “Tell me.”

Callous though she felt at commanding him, it worked. Commands he understood. He looked at her. “I don’t know. I never saw him before. A lord.”

Justine could not have been more surprised. She had expected some lowborn wastrel. “Are you sure? You say you’d never seen him before.”

“I know a lord when I see one. This one was trying to hide it. Plain garb, he wore, like a clerk, his breeches dust all over from the road, but he had a swagger, like he owned the world.”

Maybe it
was
just a clerk,
she thought. Clerks were educated, and to a rustic young carpenter all men above his station might look like lords.

He seemed to read her skepticism. “That’s not all, mistress. He had gold. He paid the ribbon man with a fistful of coins. Dropped ’em like they meant no more to him than stones.”

“The ribbon man! You mean you saw this gentleman buy ribbons?”

“Aye, ribbons and scarves, all the peddler had. He stuffed them in a satchel. I followed him. Saw him stop Alice as she stood sorting goods into her donkey’s pack. He chatted her up and took her hand, all smiling like he could do what he wanted.”

“And Alice? Did she seem frightened by him?”

Jeremy looked wretched. He shook his head. “Surprised a little, but she was smiling, too. She left the market on her donkey. I watched her go. When I looked back, the lord was gone in the crowd.”

It wasn’t much to go on. The gentleman and Alice might never have met again. Yet the ribbons had ended up in the belfry of Kirknewton church. Why had Alice gone there? A sick feeling crept over Justine. Something had passed between Alice and the stranger. Jeremy’s jealousy had not sprung from nothing.

“What did he look like? His face.”

“Couldn’t rightly see, mistress, what with his hair to his chin. And so many market folk milling between us.”

Justine itched to know more. She resolved to go back to Wooler, and Kirknewton, too, and ask if anyone remembered seeing this elusive gentleman-clerk. It was a start.

“Justine!” Isabel’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Justine, are you up there? There’s someone to see you.”

“Coming,” she said. She glanced at the carpenter, the two of them screened from Isabel by the leaves, and said quietly, “I mean to find out who killed her, Jeremy. I swear.”

She was halfway down the ladder when Isabel said, with some awe in her voice, “It’s Lord Scrope of Carlisle. He’s come himself to escort you back.”

Justine hopped off the last rung, astonished. “What?”

“He says he’s come at the request of the Queen of Scots. She has asked for you to return.”

 

Lord Scrope’s soldiers opened the Carlisle Castle gates for him to enter with his men-at-arms. Scrope had insisted that Justine ride in pride of place at his side as though she were a princess he was escorting to a meeting of royalty. Justine found it unnervingly odd. Why had Mary changed her mind and called her back? And why this show of respect for a mere lady-in-waiting?

In the blue sky the sun shone down like part of the courteous welcome for the small procession, and Justine felt nervous excitement rise in her. Perhaps Mary had decided that a lady-in-waiting she could comfortably converse with in French was a good thing after all. Or perhaps it was a gesture to mitigate her previous affront to Lord Thornleigh. Whatever the reason, Justine knew that her mission had now truly begun. It was daunting. She was on her own; Lord Thornleigh was on his way back to London. There would be no one to turn to if she were in difficulty. Or worse, if Mary should suspect her real purpose.