The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (23 page)

There was an astonished silence, during which Brockley drew a sharp breath in through his teeth, and Mew stared at me anew. Mew’s tongue-tip appeared and licked his lips. “What an extraordinary question, Mistress Blanchard.”

“Is it?” I asked innocently, and noticed with satisfaction that although the room was not over-warm, there was a gleam of sweat on Mew’s pale forehead.

“I keep modest supplies of raw materials, but really very little. I buy them as requested by my customers, in the usual way. I am a clockmaker, not a metal dealer.” Mr. Mew attempted a patronising air.

“I’m afraid I know very little about these things,” I said, with a self-deprecating laugh. “I know little about anything, except dancing and embroidery. How are you now, Dale? Ah, you look much better. You’ll be quite well again by tomorrow, but I won’t hurry you. You’ll be at Lockhill before us, Master Mew, if you’re going there tomorrow.”

“Alas, I may not be able to do so after all.” Mew tried to sound important. “I have so much work on hand, and this very moment, when I went to the apothecary, I met a customer in the street who wishes me to attend on him in his home this afternoon. I shall gain a commission, I trust! But it will take up a good deal of time. There is never enough time. I fear I will have to defer the pleasure of seeing the Masons for a
while. I was expected, however, and I must send word. If you are not returning immediately, Mrs. Blanchard, I’ll send Wylie with a message. And now, Mrs. Blanchard,” said Mew, “shall I show you some silver casings?”

“If you would be so kind,” I said.

T
here was an inn in Peascod Street called the Antelope. We had stayed there briefly the previous autumn, and there, I knew, we would find good food and a comfortable parlour in which to eat it. Brockley, however, was quietly simmering, and over the meal, choosing his words with care but eyeing me grimly, he gave voice to his feelings.

“Madam, whatever possessed you to let Mew catch you with his ledger in your hands? And was that enquiry about tin and copper ingots really wise?”

“Roger . . .” said Dale, wanly protesting.

“It’s all right, Dale. I apologise, Brockley. I asked about the ingots because we hadn’t found an explanation and it might all have been quite innocent. If so, I hoped to draw an explanation out. As it was—well, did you see him sweating? It’s
not
innocent: there’s something out of order there, I’m sure of it, though God alone knows what it is.”

“But we know something is out of order, madam. That was obvious the moment I recognised Wylie.”

“We need all the confirmation we can find,” I said.
“I’m really very sorry about the ledger. It was the purchase ledger and there was no mention in it of copper or tin, but I was looking to see if they were there in disguise, as it were. I heard Mew come in, but I thought he’d paused to give orders to someone. I just wasn’t quick enough.”

“And did you see any disguised items, madam?” enquired Brockley, managing to convey icy reproof without for one moment ceasing to be the deferential manservant.

“No, I didn’t, but I’m sure no harm was done,” I said soothingly. “He just thinks that I’m a silly, nosy woman, who knows nothing about anything except dancing and embroidery, to repeat my own words.”

Brockley and Dale greeted this with a silence which was more effective than any amount of polite contradiction.

“Well,” said Brockley, at length, “what now? We are to stay away overnight, are we not, madam? You intended that from the beginning. Have we other business to conduct?”

“I had thought of taking a trip down the river to Thamesbank,” I said, “to see Meg. We can hire a craft from here and leave the horses in the inn stables. We’ll come back for them tomorrow.”

“I think you miss your little girl,” said Brockley, in a kindlier tone.

I nodded. He was quite right. I was glad of an extra opportunity to be with her.

I would not let myself repine, because in making that opportunity, I had an ulterior motive. I lived now in a world where nothing, ever, was wholly unsullied.
Everything, even affection, even goodness, had another face.

Even a visit to a child not yet six.

• • •

It was a happy visit, although the Hendersons and all their household gazed in some astonishment at Brockley in his outsize hat and doublet. On our earlier visit, he had worn more ordinary garments. No one was rude enough to comment, however, and Meg’s joy at my unheralded reappearance moved me deeply. She was undoubtedly happy with the Hendersons and her nurse Bridget, but she always ran to me when I came to see her. She must wonder sometimes why her mother, who so obviously loved her, could not be with her for longer, or more often. Well, one day, when she was older, I might be able to explain to her that without my long absences, she might not have had the shelter of Thamesbank, or even clothes for her back.

Perhaps I would even be able to explain that because of those absences, the world she lived in, the world of Queen Elizabeth, was that much safer.

It was a pleasant idea, said a cynical little voice in my head, although if the Queen’s world were truly in danger, my efforts so far had done precious little to preserve it.

• • •

We spent the night at Thamesbank and travelled back up river in the morning. Rob lent us his barge and we returned in style. We ate, once again, at the inn, rested for an hour and then took horse for home, through breezy weather with sunlight and occasional showers. The road was good, and although Brockley
and Dale were still subdued with each other, the atmosphere wasn’t so marked as before.

I didn’t this time suggest that we sang. In any case, I had too much on my mind. I did, however, make trivial conversation: about the weather; an overloaded ox-wagon which we overtook and which was surely going to become bogged before long; the promising buds on the apple trees in an orchard; the deplorable slackness of some parish councils, which were no longer keeping the bushes cut back for a bowshot on either side of the road.

My companions responded amiably enough: Dale agreed that the ox-cart was heading for trouble; Brockley said that a few words in the Queen’s ear about casual parish councils wouldn’t come amiss. Dale said that he was quite right and she for one couldn’t abide laziness in any form, and she hoped we wouldn’t meet any footpads. Whereupon, Brockley smiled at her quite kindly and patted the hilt of his sword in reassuring fashion.

If I kept at it, I thought, if I went on for long enough, anointing their sores with soothing commonplaces, they might recover altogether.

Three miles or so from home, my efforts were rewarded. We had reached a stretch of road where the trees and scrub had in fact been properly cut back, and there were broad grass verges between the track and the edge of tangled woodlands. Here, we could ride three abreast with ease. As we settled into this companionable formation, Brockley for the first time raised a topic of his own accord.

“I wonder how far Mr. Mason’s got with making a
gliding engine big enough to put himself in? Mrs. Mason’s frightened, and no wonder. If she’s wise, she’ll creep out at night and do a bit of stealthy damage so that the wings fall off as soon as he tries to hoist the thing up the tower.”

“Brockley!” I said. “That’s outrageous!”

“Not at all. Just good sense, madam.”

“He’d never forgive her!”

“If she were clever enough, he needn’t know anyone had deliberately done anything,” Brockley pointed out.

“But she isn’t clever,” I said. “I believe she’s stronger of mind than she seems, but she’s not a woman of intellect and she’s terrified of that glider.”

“And no wonder,” said Dale. “It’s not right, a man risking his life like that when he has a wife and such a big family.”

“That’s not always so,” Brockley said slowly. “It depends on how important the thing is that you risk your life for. Men have to go to war and fight at times, and they’d be shamed if they refused. Even the wives and families agree. And then there are matters of principle. I was fifteen when Sir Thomas More was beheaded—it would be before your time, madam, but you’ll have heard of him?”

“Yes.” Sir Thomas More had died when I was a year old, but Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha had held him up to me as a martyr for their faith, and in Gresham’s house in Antwerp I had not only seen but had read More’s
Utopia.
“He was executed,” I said, “because he wouldn’t agree that old King Henry had the right to declare himself supreme head of the
Church in England and divorce himself from his first queen, Catherine of Aragon.”

“That’s right, madam. Well, I mind what my father said about it: that it was hard on More’s family, but that he was defending a principle. More didn’t think even a king could override the laws of God, and he felt he’d lose his integrity if he’d pretended otherwise. Integrity matters, my father said. But making a machine that glides, and gambling with your life in it—that’s hardly a principle. Integrity doesn’t seem to come into it.”

“Well, how could it?” said Dale with energy.

“I think Mr. Mason would call it a scientific principle,” I said, pleased to note that they were now both so interested, that they had forgotten to be stiff with each other.

Bay Star, sensing that her stable was not far distant, tossed her head and lengthened her stride. I patted her. The breeze had turned colder and the woods were drawing closer to the track again. The light was fading. We would all be glad to reach Lockhill.

“At supper this evening,” I remarked, “I’ve half a mind to raise the question—are scientific principles as important, as much worth risking your life for, as moral ones? It might intrigue Mr. Mason, although I hope his wife won’t guess what’s behind it. Perhaps—”

Something swished past my head, so close that I saw the flicker of its passing and felt the wind of it. It struck Brockley’s hat and clanged on the helmet beneath. I saw it bounce on the ground—a three-foot longbow shaft. A second shaft came after it, missed us, and stuck in the ground just ahead.

“Crouch! Spurs!”
yelled Brockley.
“Madam!”

I had done so already, hunching down and driving my spurred left heel into Bay Star’s side. Ears flattened, the mare shot forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brockley grab Dale’s reins and follow, dragging his wife’s horse with him. Another arrow hit Brockley’s hat, and this time stuck there, and one skimmed Bay Star’s haunch and sent her squealing into redoubled efforts at flight. The three of us, all bent low to offer the poorest possible targets, hurtled together along the track.

If there were any more arrows, we didn’t see them. We went like a cavalry charge for nearly a mile, until we were clear of the woods and out among open pastures. Snorting, eyes rolling, foam flying from their bits, the horses slowed down and stopped. My breath came in jolts. Dale’s face was all huge blue eyes and Brockley’s mouth was set in a hard line. He put up a hand to remove his hat, with the shaft still sticking in it.

“Whoever was shooting had a very poor eye,” he said, “and they weren’t quite in range. Thank God there was still some sort of gap between the woods and the path. A longbow shaft from a skilled archer can go clean through a breastplate. Or a helmet.”

“Dear God,” I said in a low voice. Twisting in the saddle, I looked at the thin line of blood across Bay Star’s haunch, just above her tail. I fraction of an inch lower and the arrow would have shattered her spine, leaving a good horse crippled and dying and bewildered, and her rider thrown to the ground and exposed to the enemy.

Brockley was pursuing his own line of thought.
“They were keeping out of sight, and bare trees are poor cover—that would have kept them well back, too. It may have saved all our lives.” He jerked the shaft free of the hat, and held it out to me. “If that had stuck itself in any of us . . .”

I looked at it and shuddered. The arrowhead was no smooth V-shaped point, but had sharp barbs pointing backwards from the flanges. If such a shaft went into you, it could not be pulled out without tearing the wound wider.

“R-robbers!” whispered Dale, looking back towards the woods. “Can’t we get away? They might come after us.”

“They can’t cross the meadows without us seeing them,” said Brockley soothingly. “Don’t be afraid, Fran. But you’re right: we should get on to Lockhill.”

We all gathered up our reins and moved off, but I kept us to a walk. I had something to say. “It may not have been robbers,” I told them.

I must speak now. I knew it. After this, it would be unforgivable not to do so, and it would be better to tell them out here. Whatever words had to be said, could be spoken away from other people, and we could have time to don our normal faces again before we rode into Lockhill.

“I thought I would be the only one in danger,” I said, “I never intended . . .”

“Madam,” said Brockley. “What do you mean?”

“That I intended Mew to catch me looking at his ledger. I did it deliberately, Brockley. My question about the ingots of copper and tin was also deliberate. And I made sure he knew I wasn’t starting home until
the next day. We visited Meg so as to give him time to think . . . and plan.”

“You mean—Mr. Mew?” said Dale blankly. “Roger, you thought his man Wylie was the boatman, the one that kidnapped Mrs. Blanchard. But this . . . this is . . . different!
Worse!
”

“The fact is,” I said, “that my enquiries are getting nowhere, but if there really is a plot, then I cannot go on wasting day after day, beating the covert for a quarry that won’t run. In Barnabas Mew’s shop yesterday, I did my best to flush him out, and it looks as though I may have succeeded.”

“You mean,” said Brockley, evidently intent on getting things quite clear, “that since Wylie quite certainly abducted you in London, and you suspect that he and Mew had something to do with the deaths of Dawson and Paul Fenn, you hoped they might attack again? with a full-scale attempt at murder?”

“M-murder?” Dale was grappling with the implications of this. “Fenn? But who’s Dawson? Ma’am, what is this all about?” She was so pale that her pockmarks stood out like the stippling of raindrops on snow.