Feud (13 page)

“I … I took orpiment from the painters' and stainers' Workroom,” Lady Horsley said quietly.

“How?” the Queen demanded.

Lady Horsley didn't seem able to speak.

“She was pretending to help poor, old, blind Ned by bringing him tisanes for his eyes, and he couldn't see what she was taking when Mrs. Teerlinc was busy,” I explained. Everyone knew I had been spending time in the Workroom, so I did not think that it would provoke too much comment that I had figured this out.

“Is that true?” asked the Queen.

Lady Horsley nodded once. “And I ground it and put it on the apricots and gave them to the Willoughby girl.”

“Lady Horsley,” said the Queen in a terrible voice, “tell me why in God's name you would do such an evil thing as to poison Carmina, a maid who trusted you and had done you no harm?”

“Why should Piers Willoughby have a child when my son is dead?” hissed Lady Horsley, with her face
screwed up in sudden rage. “Why should
he
get away with continuing his feud by killing my son and cunningly making it seem like an accident? Two can play at that game, and I will even the score myself so my poor son can rest in peace.”

Carmina was cowering back in the bed with her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. “But I thought you were looking after me!” she gasped to Lady Horsley.

Lady Horsley ignored her. “There must be return for evil; if a man strikes me, why I must strike him back,” she snarled. “The Willoughbys murdered my only child, and so—”

“But it was an
accident
,” wept Carmina.

“A likely story! A very well-planned and careful accident, methinks, since Piers Willoughby was all but unscathed and my son was dead!” shouted Lady Horsley.

“
Enough,
madam!” shouted the Queen right back—and my Lord, she can bellow when she wants. Lady Horsley flinched as if she had been struck. “How dare you bully my Maid of Honour in mine own face! How
dare
you seek to murder her by secret poison with a cover of kindness! It is an outrage, by God!”

Now Lady Horsley was pale as death, and staring
at the Queen who had her hands on her hips, fire in her eyes, and the most terrifying expression on her face. Slowly Lady Horsley sank to her knees.

“But were you not even afraid of being discovered and burned at the stake?” whispered Mrs. Champernowne in horror.

“I knew I would not be discovered, because God favours my cause as it is only justice,” said Lady Horsley, now in a strange sing-song voice. “And my dear son, John, told me all would go well. He appears to me and tells me to avenge him. So you see, I had to do it.” And she turned to the Queen and held on to the Queen's gown and said, with tears in her eyes, “You do see it, Your Majesty? You do understand that I had to take revenge for my son when he told me to?”

There was complete silence, except for Carmina's crying. I was staring at Lady Horsley. A moment ago, I had felt triumphant and clever at having solved the mystery successfully and in the nick of time. Now I just felt sick, because it was clear that even though Lady Horsley seemed normal, she must be completely Bedlam mad. Would the Queen send her to Bedlam hospital? It's supposed to be a horrible place where they chain and beat the poor mad people whose families send them there.

The Queen stared thoughtfully, and then beckoned over the gentleman, who was still holding the fork with the poisoned apricot as if it were an adder. She took it from him and laid it on a clean dish.

“Mr. Ormond,” she said. “Escort my Lady Horsley to her own chamber and set a guard on the door. We shall consider what is to be done with her, since it seems her motherly grief for her dead son has utterly stripped her of reason. I am not sure she is sufficiently
compos mentis
to stand trial. It may be she must simply be confined; I do not know. And call Dr. Cavendish so we may see to it that Carmina has the right treatment for poisoning.”

So Mr. Ormond took Lady Horsley's arm and helped her up, and led her out. She seemed to be talking to someone invisible as she went, reassuring him that all would be well and that she would succeed in avenging him after all.

The Queen sat down next to Carmina and stroked her hand to calm her, while a Chamberer came and carefully swept up the sugared apricots from the floor to take them away as evidence.

Later, my Uncle Cavendish examined them, and he said there was so much orpiment on them that if
Carmina had eaten even one, she would have been dead for sure!

Now my uncle knows what ails her, he can treat Carmina properly—though the treatment is very nasty for her. First she has to purge—to empty her stomach and bowel as quickly as possible—and then she has to drink wine with bezoar stone boiled up in it. Bezoar stone is very rare, and it's said to be the best cure there is for poison, but I've heard it comes from the stomach of sick goats, so I think it sounds absolutely disgusting. Once she has drunk the wine with the bezoar stone, Carmina has to eat charcoal biscuits to soak up any poison that might be left. And then, my uncle says with any luck—and no more poisoned sweetmeats—Carmina should recover.

I know Lady Horsley has been terribly wicked, but I still can't help feeling sorry for her. I know how terrible it is to lose your mother and father, but it must be even worse to lose a child. And it's bad enough when ladies at court lose babies—which happens to everyone, I think—but to lose a child once he has grown into a man … It makes tears come to my eyes just thinking about it. If one's mind wasn't very strong to begin with, I can see how one might well run Bedlam at it.

As I was writing in my daybooke this afternoon, Mrs. Champernowne came in to say that the Queen wanted to speak to me immediately, so I hurried to her Privy Chamber. When I went in and knelt she was alone. She made me get up and sat me down on her own stool. “Now, Grace,” she said, “I am pleased with your investigation, especially because you managed it so discreetly and with no mad escapades. You have done very well indeed, but I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”

“Oh, Your Majesty, is Carmina going to die?” I asked fearfully.

“No, no, Dr. Cavendish tells me she is young and strong and did not eat too much poison. She should make a complete recovery provided she eats plenty of charcoal in the next few days, which she has promised to do. But Lady Horsley, I'm afraid …”

She paused and shook her head.

“What happened?” I asked, with a sudden sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Lady Horsley had some pure orpiment hidden in her room, and when she was alone there under guard, in a fit of madness, she ate all of it.”

“Oh no!” I gasped. “Poor lady.”

“Sadly, your uncle was too late to help her. But before she died, she managed to say that she was sorry for hurting Carmina.”

I pressed my hands over my mouth and tried not to cry.

The Queen put her arm around my shoulders. “Now, Grace, I have told you this so you would not be upset by tittle tattle. But you must not blame yourself at all. You prevented a terrible wrong by your alertness and quick thinking, and Lady Horsley committed self-murder while her mind was deranged. You, Dr. Cavendish, and I are the only ones who know what really happened. So as not to shame her family, we shall give out that she died of a stroke brought on by regret at what she had tried to do to Carmina—which is near enough true—and she will have a proper burial.”

I was glad of that, for it would be horrible for Lady Horsley's body to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart—which is what you're supposed to do with a self-murderer in case their ghost walks.

“Do you think she will go to hell?” I asked the Queen.

“She must face God's judgement,” she replied thoughtfully. “As we all must. But God is infinitely
merciful and knows all hearts, so nobody can say. I only want you to understand that by your investigation you did a great good, and saved Carmina's life.”

I nodded. I am very glad that Carmina is saved, though it is sad that Lady Horsley is dead.

“Grace, you know the comedy play is tonight?” said the Queen. “If you have no stomach to watch it, simply tell Mrs. Champernowne you have a megrim and you are excused.”

So I came slowly back to our chamber. Everyone else is flurrying around, exclaiming about Lady Horsley while they get changed and ready to watch the players' last performance for us. Lady Sarah is putting on her face paint an inch thick, while I am just sitting and writing this. I think I will not go to the play.

It was Carmina asked me to go with her to the comedy play, for she wanted something to cheer her up after having to take so much horrible medicine. I gave her the packet of Turkey sweetmeats from Sampson Childs—after I had brushed the bits of charcoal and fluff off the box, which came from it
having been in my petticoat pocket. She said she had not the stomach for sweetmeats yet and wasn't sure she would ever eat them again—especially not apricots.

Mrs. Champernowne helped her dress in a loose velvet gown, and the Queen sent her own litter to carry Carmina down to the hall. I went with her, to keep her company, and we had the best view of the players apart from the Queen. Every one of the household who could be there was crowded into the back of the hall. I even caught sight of Ellie, in the corner, under one of the piled-up tables.

Then the trumpets sounded, the players leaped onto the stage, and I do not think I have ever laughed so much in all my life. The play told a tale of twins getting confused for each other—only the two twins were played by Richard Fitzgrey, who is so tall, and one of the boy players, who normally plays women and so is quite short and small. The twins had many adventures trying to escape their wicked stepfather, who wanted to steal their magic jewel. They disguised themselves as all kinds of things such as Moors, Maids of Honour—a kirtle didn't suit Richard at all, though the boy player looked quite pretty—dogs, horses, beggars, and Irishmen as their stepfather chased after them.

At one point they made the human pyramid with their friends, in order to steal back the magic jewel from an upstairs balcony. The pyramid fell down again and again, in a different funny way each time! Once it was because a boy player, in a red wig and a dress, wiggled across the dais with his bodice full of cushions. That made all the Maids of Honour simply shriek with laughter, even Lady Sarah, who went quite pink but still laughed. Not even Lady Jane could carry on looking haughty, when Masou came in, dressed as a hairy dog, and pretended to chase rats in and out of the legs of the men supporting the pyramid—making the whole thing fall down again. Finally, the wicked stepfather caught up and there was a big battle, but all ended happily.

Carmina soon forgot her sore stomach and was laughing along with everyone else. I'm sure it did her good, because her face had at last got a little colour in it and her eyes were sparkling. “You know, Grace,” she said to me, leaning over the side of the litter, in the break between the two acts, “I have been thinking about Sampson Childs. He really was a very good clerk—look how neatly this letter was written.”

She showed it to me and it was indeed very tidy.

“I'll show it to my mother when she arrives the day
after tomorrow, and perhaps she will talk to my father and they can find a place for Sampson.”

At the end the players danced a wild Bergomask and sang a song of farewell, praising the Queen as the Goddess Artemis and Queen of the Fairies, and all of us as her attendant spirits. And then Masou stole the show again, by bouncing through the dance as the dog, while juggling little toy rats.

I am so pleased. The Queen ordered Mrs. Teerlinc to come and see her, with some designs for her new bedhead, which is to be very elaborate. I was in the Presence Chamber when Mrs. Teerlinc arrived. It was strange to see her out of her Workroom and looking so worried. Nick Hilliard was with her, also looking rather pale and anxious. Mrs. Teerlinc knelt to the Queen at first, along with Nick, but Her Majesty told her to rise.

“I am appalled and shocked, that anything from my Workroom could have come near to harming Your Majesty's people,” said Mrs. Teerlinc, shaking her head and sounding more Dutch than usual. “I am come to ask your mercy for old Ned Steyner,
who is utterly distraught that Lady Horsley stole orpiment from his easel and nearly poisoned a Maid of Honour with it.”

“Lord above, Mrs. Teerlinc, I do not blame him in the least,” said the Queen. “My Lady Grace has told me he is near to blind and had no idea what was happening. Lady Horsley was pretending kindness to him, just as she did to Carmina. She fooled us all, including me, so I can hardly be angry with Ned.”

Mrs. Teerlinc glanced cautiously at me. “Had you not heard of our problems with all the paints?”

“Why, no,” said the Queen, smiling at me. “But then Lady Grace is discreet quite beyond her years.”

Mrs. Teerlinc smiled, too. “So I see. Well, Your Majesty, I am completely reorganising stocks of our paint ingredients, which shall be much better controlled than before. A great deal went missing, and has now been found again in the wrong cupboard, but in all the confusion we did not realise that the orpiment had been stolen; that is a thing that will not happen again.”

Nick Hilliard was looking modestly at the ground, very relieved. I realised that he had expected me to tell the Queen about his thieving, and so must have confessed all to Mrs. Teerlinc and replaced the
paint. I guessed he had come to beg the Queen not to dismiss him.

“A very good idea,” said the Queen, being very tactful.

“Mr. Hilliard here has brought you a gift of his own making,” added Mrs. Teerlinc, sounding much happier.

Nick brought out a little package wrapped in silk, held it out to the Queen, and then backed away as she took it.

Her Majesty unwrapped it greedily; she loves getting presents, no matter how many she may have received in the past. “Why, how lovely!” she cried. “Look here, Lady Grace, it is a most tiny portrait of me.”