The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (17 page)

But I found nothing of note. The month of May came and went. At Hawkswood, Meg’s fourteenth birthday was drawing near and I sent her a crimson damask gown and a gold necklace. June arrived. I knew that investigations had continued into the deaths of Gale and Walt, and when I or the Brockleys encountered anyone from Norfolk’s household, we asked about them, but so far, it seemed, the mysteries remained unsolved.

I could do nothing toward solving them myself. I stayed where I was, wrote harmless letters to Hugh and to Meg, missed them both to an extreme degree, and got nowhere. If Ridolfi were up to any mischief, he was keeping it well concealed.

When he was at home, I did my best to watch his movements and take note of his visitors, but I didn’t see any more money change hands. I felt I was plowing a very stony field, but I kept at
it. In my experience, if there were anything at all to find, traces would ultimately appear, probably when one least expected them.

 • • • 

“How foolish of me,” Donna murmured. “I have left my lute music downstairs. I was playing for my husband after supper yesterday. He is fond of music, you know, Ursula.”

“Yes.” I looked around from arranging my own music at the spinet in the upstairs parlor. “I remember how good the music was that was played when I dined here, with my husband and the Duke of Norfolk.”

“Indeed, yes. Roberto is so cultured.” One of Donna’s charms was her obvious admiration for Ridolfi, who, in her eyes, was a prince who could do no wrong. I hoped I wouldn’t one day shatter her trust in him.

Dinner was over and Donna wanted to spend the afternoon practicing her music. Fran Dale was with us, quietly stitching, but Donna’s maid was not there. Brockley had gone out to buy physic for an ailing horse and Gladys was in the garden, talking to Arthur Johnson as she often did. Hillman had duly spoken to him and Johnson had behaved better since. I worried far more about Gladys upsetting him than the other way about, and I had told him that she was a little odd at times, but harmless. He chuckled and assured me that he wouldn’t take her amiss. They seemed to get on together and while she was with him, I didn’t think she would get into trouble.

Donna, meanwhile, was asking permission to send Dale in search of her music. I smiled and shook my head. “I’ll go,” I said, getting up from the spinet. “I know where it is, I think. You were in the downstairs parlor yesterday evening, were you not? I will be quicker, and Dale has already run dozens of errands for me today.”

Dale caught my eye and smiled. She had run hardly any errands that day but she knew that every time I had a chance to move about the house, I seized it, just in case I came on something of interest.

I left the room, crossed the dining chamber, and went down the wide stairs. A few moments ago, I thought I had heard someone knock at the front door and be admitted. Ridolfi had dined in his study as usual and had not yet left to go back to the City. The caller might be with him now.

The wide stairs led down to a vestibule at the back of the house, equivalent in size to the reception hall at the front. This rear hall had dark paneling, and was as shadowy as the other was light. Doors led off to various ground floor rooms, one of them the parlor where the music had been left. Another was Ridolfi’s study. As I reached the vestibule, I heard voices from behind the study door.

No one was about. I was wearing soft slippers, a considered choice. On silent feet, I stepped up to the door and put my ear against it.

I had done this kind of thing before, as well. It was distasteful but often necessary and if it made me feel like a prying maidservant, it couldn’t be helped. It was nerve-racking, too, just as searching other people’s papers always was, because of the risk of being caught. When I had one ear to a door, the other was always alert for approaching steps.

In the Ridolfi house, I had nearly been caught twice already and all for nothing, since I never heard anything more interesting than Ridolfi commissioning a miniature painting of Donna or warning someone away from a foolish investment. I didn’t expect anything better this time. I simply tried my luck.

One of the voices belonged to Ridolfi. He was speaking English, though, and whoever was with him sounded like a London man. I thought his voice was faintly familiar but I couldn’t put a name to him. Listening intently, I thought his tone was strained, uncertain.

“. . . expect to have it ready tomorrow morning, and I can bring it when you like . . . ”

“I am most grateful, though I knew I could rely on you.”

“I hope I’m doing right. The scheme should placate the Spanish administration and that can only benefit merchants like myself, who have let too much of our trade become dependent
on Antwerp, but this is the first time I have been involved in politics and I’m not sure . . . ”

“A modest contribution to a respectable cause can’t be called getting involved in politics, my friend. Some more wine? It really is a respectable cause, you know. Mary Stuart is the rightful queen of Scotland and there is nothing wrong in wanting to see her wisely married and restored to her place in the world. Even if it does mean buying support here and there. Men are so venal,” said Ridolfi regretfully.

“There will be opposition. Unless she is willing to become an Anglican . . . ”

“That will never be, nor should it!” There was unmistakable passion in Ridolfi’s voice. “She would lose my support at once and my support counts for something, believe me!”

“Ah, well. I have no strong feelings on the matter myself . . . ”

“I am sorry to hear it. You English are so . . . so phlegmatic in these matters. It troubles me. Your immortal souls are in peril and you seem unconcerned!”

“I . . . er . . . don’t think we altogether agree there,” said the visitor’s voice mildly.

“Well, well, we will not argue about it. You said earlier that you didn’t wish to bring the money to the house . . . ”

They were moving away, turning their backs on the door. I pressed my ear harder against the paneling. I heard the other man say something about discretion, and then Ridolfi laughed.

“You mean that if something went wrong, it wouldn’t do if you were known to have visited me more than once. You’d rather not have come here at all. Ah well, you’re not the only one who’s timid!” Ridolfi’s voice was resonant. I could still hear him, at least. “. . . for those who wish to be discreet, I can make other arrangements. Your house is on the river, like mine, is it not? Some way from here, but still, if you wish to visit me secretly, come by water! I can arrange for us to meet out of sight of the house, just after nightfall. I often do so, for people who have no real excuse for visiting me. Tomorrow evening would be convenient. See now—come over to the window. You can see from here that . . . ”

Annoyingly, Ridolfi too moved out of earshot. However, he must have turned back a moment later, for then I heard him say: “. . . de Spes has met me there once or twice. In his whimsical way, he calls it
where the swans are.
He refers to it thus because he says, if we should be overheard, no one will know what it means. He is always afraid of listening ears. The government is so suspicious, he says!”

“He clearly has a poetic mind,” said the other voice, dryly this time. Whoever owned it wasn’t a nonentity, I thought, and wished I could fit a face to it.

“De Spes is ever poetic,” said Ridolfi. “He can hardly see a tree without indulging in flights of fancy about dryads. Until tomorrow, then . . . ”

I retreated, tiptoeing rapidly away from the study door and into the parlor. I found the sheets of music and picked them up. I stood for a moment thinking and then made my way quickly out of a door on the far side of the parlor, through a short passage and out to the stable yard. I looked for a groom and presently found two of them in the harness room, polishing saddles.

“When Roger Brockley comes back, will you tell him that Mistress Stannard wishes to see him at once?”

Incuriously, they assured me that they would. I made my way back indoors and upstairs to where Donna was waiting. I heard and saw nothing of Ridolfi or his guest on the way. Donna was strumming the spinet, somewhat restively.

“I was about to send Dale to find you,” she said. “You were so long!”

“I went to see if Brockley had come back yet,” I said. “He wasn’t there, so I left a message that I wanted to see him when he returned. I want to ask about the ailing horse. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. Let’s begin without delay!”

 • • • 

Word was brought about an hour later that Brockley was back. Donna excused me, though with a trace of a pout, as usual. I went straight down to the stable yard and found him insisting that the horse—it was the packhorse that had brought my
belongings—should be separated from the rest because it was coughing and the other horses might catch it. There was an overflow stable block for use when the Ridolfis had a crowd of visitors, but at the moment it was empty. “It would be best to put the packhorse there,” Brockley was saying.

“If you’ll put some bedding down for him, I’ll lead him across,” I said to Brockley. In a low voice, I added: “I want to talk to you . . . ”

“This is like old times,” I said the following evening, as Brockley and I made our way toward the river, by way of the topiary garden, to avoid being seen from the windows. “Do you remember how we set out in the dark to investigate a document box in that castle on the Welsh border?”

Brockley said: “I remember it well, madam. You found a dead man lying on a study floor and we spent the rest of the night in a dungeon.”

The topiary garden was itself a little menacing at dusk. As we hurried through its shadowy paths, I wished I hadn’t reminded us of Vetch Castle. We had been in grave danger then.

Danger of more than one kind, too. That was the time when Brockley and I had come closer to each other than was proper for a lady and her manservant. The most perilous moment in our friendship had taken place in that castle dungeon.

I think Brockley was remembering the same things. Smoothly changing the subject, he now said: “How did you account to Madame Ridolfi for leaving her this evening?”

“It was difficult. That’s why I’m later than I meant to be. Master Ridolfi shut himself in his study after supper and then Madame wanted me with her while the chaplain read to us again. In the end I pretended I had a headache and asked to go to my room. I waited there long enough to let Father Fernando get
under way with his reading, and then slipped downstairs and into the garden and found you among the yew trees.”

“I was wondering whether you would manage to come at all,” Brockley said. We reached the far end of the yew garden and emerged by the river. “Well,” he remarked inquiringly, “what next?”

It was chilly. June, the midsummer month, had this year brought cold winds and overcast skies. We both had stout cloaks but even so, we hardly felt warm. “From what I overheard,” I said, “Ridolfi’s tryst should be soon and it’s ‘where the swans are.’ Well, there they are, swimming by the bank. I thought,” I said doubtfully, “that we could hide in those alders. I looked at them earlier and there’s a little clearing in the middle.”

“There’s nowhere else to hide,” Brockley agreed. “If they meet on that miniature headland, we just might be able to hear what’s said, though it’s windy, and that won’t help. But we should be able to see who Ridolfi meets—that’s something. Hush!” He stiffened. “There’s a boat coming. I can hear the oars and there’s a lantern on board. Look!”

“We’d better hide ourselves now,” I whispered. “And hope for the best.”

We pushed our way into the clump of alders. There was indeed a clear space in the center and we could peer out between the heart-shaped leaves and watch the lantern light move slowly toward us across the water. Meanwhile, we could still talk, in whispers.

To reminisce was mischievous but once again, I was tempted. “Do you remember,” I whispered, “the time we had to hide in a cupboard—at Lockhill Manor. In 1561, it must have been. I thought we’d be caught, that time. It was a very near thing.”

“I’ve always hoped,” Brockley muttered, “that the frights you’ve had would one day cure you of plunging into danger. I sometimes fear, madam, that your quiet domestic life bores you a little.”

That bordered on impertinence but I had invited it. After a pause, I said: “I like my everyday life. I like being married to
Hugh. It’s just that sometimes . . . I still hear the call of the wild geese. Do you know what I mean? Did you know that Mattie’s husband, Rob Henderson, once said that of me?”

“Yes, madam. I overheard when he said it.” My excellent manservant heaved a sigh. “I pray, madam, that for all our sakes, you will one day cease to hear it! I most truly wish . . . ”

He stopped, and his hand closed on my forearm, gripping it hard and dispassionately. “The boat’s almost here,” he whispered.

We fell silent. The sound of the oars was close at hand now. There was a light scrape as a dinghy came to rest alongside the stage. I squinted through the foliage, and in the twilight, mingled with the gleam of the lantern, I saw a hand toss a loop of rope over a mooring bollard.

Someone climbed out of the boat. Brockley moved to see better, but drew back sharply, rubbing his nose, having scraped it on a branch. “I can’t make out who it is!” he breathed.

“He’s got his back to us,” I whispered back. “Wait. He’s turning round to moor the boat properly. He’s picking up the lamp. Oh!”

“What is it?”

“I know him!” I muttered it into Brockley’s ear. “Well, more or less. I thought I’d heard his voice before somewhere. He’s a merchant. His name’s Paige—he deals in tapestries and fine fabrics. I took Madame Ridolfi to his warehouse to buy taffeta from him only two days ago.”

“Indeed? Where’s he going now?”

Carefully, trying not to rustle the leaves, we moved to see better. The fabric merchant was walking off the standing stage. He paused on the bank, looking about him, holding up the lamp, which showed him clearly. He was a big man with an auburn beard and beneath the heavy cloak which had protected him from the cold river winds, I glimpsed tawny velvet and a gold chain. Paige was the kind of man who normally went about with several attendants to brush the crowd out of the way. Furtiveness didn’t suit him.