The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (34 page)

“Well, Ursula,” he said, turning to me, “it seems that you have run into peril of your own choice, and brought your manservant into peril with you. You and Brockley are safe now, however. We shall soon be on our way to France. Wilkins, I shall leave you with full power to make sure that my orders are carried out.”

I saw with despair that although he now detested the others, he still regarded them as his men. He, too, accepted his place as their leader. The wedge hadn’t gone in far enough. I glanced again at the window. Its blackness was no longer absolute but tinged with blue. Time was running out.

My ploy had failed, yet it had dne something: Matthew’s distaste, his wish to be away from his fellow conspirators, was evident. A new way of exploiting it sprang into my mind.

“Matthew!” I said. “I hate being in this house, in this room, with these men. I’d like to leave for France at once, within the hour, for preference. I’ll write the letters for Dale while the horses are being saddled. Are there horses for me and Brockley? Ours are at the Antelope.” If I were once in the saddle and we were on our way, I hoped my head would get better. It would have to!

“Horses are the least of our problems,” Matthew said. “We’ve got all the horseflesh we need in a paddock at the back, and it’s had a night’s rest. I agree that this place and this company are not for you. We’ll be off at daybreak. We’ll take my bay gelding, Ignatius’s mare for you, Urusla—sorry, Ignatius, but it can’t be helped—and your roan cob, Mr. Mew, will do for Brockley. By the way, Mew, I asked for pen and ink about a hundred years ago. Where are they? Wylie, go and saddle up. Now! I’ve friends between here and the coast, Ursula—they will supply a messenger to take the letters to your tirewoman.”

Wilkins began to argue, not about his mare but because he said Brockley couldn’t be trusted not to break away and raise a hue and cry.

“Brockley will do as I bid him!” I snapped, and applied another warning elbow to Brockley’s ribs as I spoke.

Wylie disappeared and Mew brought the writing materials. Matthew gave me details of where Dale was to bring my daughter. I moved to a table and sat down to write.

I was going to win, I thought. God willing, I would flee with Matthew. The others would be taken; Matthew would not. And I would be off to a new life with my husband.

I hoped that Cecil and the Queen would understand and forgive me, and that they would let Meg come to me. I hoped, too, that Dale would not be blamed for remaining faithful to me, and that she, too, would join us soon. Maybe Brockley would forgive me for dragging her into all this.

My pen pressed on across the paper, writing the words Matthew expected me to write, preparing the two useless letters, which were only for show. I was signing my name to the first when Wylie came back.

“The horses are ready. They’re in a shed across the alley.”

“Good,” said Matthew. “Are you done, Ursula?”

“Yes.” I signed the second letter, picked up the sander and shook it over the wet ink.

“You’ll want sealing wax,” Mew said. His insignificant features still had that crumpled look of misery, and his voice, though less hoarse by now, was subdued. “I’ve got some in a cupboard here. You—”

He stopped short, staring at me, his face disgusted, as though he had just found a caterpillar in his salad. I
was that caterpillar. “She’s lying!” he said. “About her woman not knowing anything! That woman was in my office with her, when I caught Mrs. Blanchard looking through my ledgers. They were only in there because the woman—Dale, is it?—was conveniently ill! Rather too conveniently! She knows all about it, mark my words.”

“What? Ursula?” said Matthew.

I licked my lips. My headache crescendoed, a nightmare drumbeat. I was about to embark on a back-to-the-wall denial, however unconvincing it might sound, when we heard the hoofbeats thundering through the main street. They were coming fast, and there were so many horses that even here at the back of the house they were clearly audible. They clattered to a halt outside. Feet descended to the ground and someone pounded at the door.

Pretence was at an end. I looked sadly at Matthew. “Did you really suppose I would not take precautions? I sent Dale for help, but I didn’t think it would come so soon. I hoped you and I could get away.”

“Leaving these others to their fate?” Matthew demanded.

“They tried to kill me,” I said. “They nearly did kill Dale.”

Mew ran to the window and peered round the curtain. He let out a squeal. “There’re men in the garden!”

In lifting the curtain, he had let a glimpse of candlelight escape. A series of whistles echoed and a familiar voice outside bellowed, “Open up, Mew! Open up or we’ll make you!” Someone started attacking the front door and the shuttered shop window with axes.
We could hear neighbours, no doubt enraged at such a rough awakening, shouting in protest.

My note to Dr. Forrest had been brief, and I could remember the wording as though the sheet of paper were before me:

Dr. Forrest, I am short of time, but please, I beg you, do what I now ask you. I have the right to ask: I was in Lockhill on the orders of Sir William Cecil. Please send urgently to Mr. Rob Henderson of Thamesbank, near Hampton, and ask him to bring armed men to Barnabas Mew’s shop in Windsor. Brockley has gone there and may be in danger. I am going to see if I can help him. Please do this, Dr. Forrest. Dale will answer any questions.

Yours in haste, Ursula Blanchard.

It had worked. Dr. Forrest had moved swiftly, and at Thamesbank, so had Rob Henderson. He and his men must have ridden throught the night to reach us.

I
was by now feeling very ill. Nothing seemed real, and my mind was skidding as though it had lost its footing on ice. I remember that as Matthew sprang to the parlour door and opened it to see what was happening, I tried, for no good reason, to invent a stupid pun about lock-picks and pick axes. Then the street window fell inwards and my rescuers started clambering through.

“
Fight!
” roared Wilkins, and rising massively to his feet, snatched up a stool and dashed past Matthew, out into the shop. Through the open door, by the faint light of dawn as it came through the smashed window, I saw him drive the legs of the stool at the first man over the sill. He had guts in a way, I thought hazily.

Wilkins, however, was thrust back, and a split second later, the parlour emptied as Wylie, Mew and Matthew also rushed out to fight. Brockley went after them, unhindered, shouting to Rob Henderson. I stumbled to the door. Beside it hung a heavy curtain, used, I suppose, to keep out draughts. Clinging to this, I watched the shop disintegrate in a storm of violence.

It was noisy: shouts, gasps, cries; Wylie cursing obscenely as he laid about him with his cudgel; the clash of swordblades; the scuffling of feet; the tinkle and crash of destruction. A clock which had been taken apart and laid out in pieces on the counter, was swept to the floor in a shower of glass splinters and little metal wheels and rods, which were instantly crunched to shards beneath furious booted feet. A careless sword-slash glanced off the pale blue face of the big ornate clock by the staircase, giving it a dent like a silly grin. Another blade caught the machinery below, setting it a-jangle and starting the clock chimes off to add to the uproar.

I couldn’t tell how many men Rob had, but there seemed to be hordes of them, all helmeted, all wielding swords. The conspirators were outnumbered, but they fought with a rage which was astounding. Wilkins, who despite weight and age was remarkably agile, tried to escape through what seemed to be the door to the kitchen. He came out again almost at once, backwards, with two men after him, presumably the ones who had been in the garden and had now forced an entry through the back door. Wilkins had made good use of his few seconds in the kitchen, however: he had dropped his stool and now held a knife in one hand and a broken glass tumbler in the other, its jagged edges as lethal as a handful of daggers.

Brockley had got hold of a sword, and was trying to get at Wylie with it. I saw Wylie’s cudgel smash the jaw of one of Rob’s men, laying him flat on the littered floor. Splashes of blood joined the bits of broken clock underfoot.

Mew, whose name now seemed weirdly appropriate, since he was uttering strange, shrill noises like the cries of a distressed cat, had got behind the counter and was attempting to keep the enemy off with his dagger. He seemed as upset about the danger to his stock as to himself, and when one of Rob’s retainers bounded over the counter, swiped at Mew with his sword, missed and swept a row of clocks off a shelf instead, Barnabas yowled as loudly as though the sword had bitten into his own body. He also closed with his adversary, stabbing with the dagger, and it was the retainer who suddenly dropped his weapon and doubled up and then slid to the floor.

Wilkins attacked someone, horribly, in the face with the jagged glass. I heard the scream and saw the blood spurt and then saw Wilkins’ knife go home. The scream crescendoed and then faded as the victim slumped. Wilkins stooped and grabbed the man’s sword. Brockley appeared from the mêlée, and attacked Wilkins, but was driven back. The detestable Ignatius had obviously been trained in the arts of war.

Then, from the midst of the confusion, Rob and Matthew appeared, engaged in a one-to-one duel. I cried out in fear for them both and they heard me.

“Get back! Out of harm’s way!” Rob shouted, and in a weird moment of agreement with his enemy, Matthew echoed him. A sword hissed frighteningly close to me, proving their point, and I jumped back, just as someone barged into Rob and knocked him aside, away from Matthew. Matthew seized the brief respite to swing round and slam the parlour door, leaving me inside.

My head was red hot. Suddenly, my stomach heaved. I staggered across the room, wrenched back the window curtains and opened the window, and was sick over the sill. I leant there for a few seconds, and then, forcing my leaden legs to work, I reeled back to the door and opened it again.

The scene had changed: Mew had been seized and two of Rob’s men were binding his hands, and Wylie was dead, lying on his back on the floor, eyes glassily fixed. Wilkins, backed against a nearby wall, was still holding off attack, using his sword like a veteran, and Matthew and Rob were still locked into their duel. Matthew shouted at me once again to get out of the way, back into the parlour.

“Come in here, Matthew!” I shouted back. “Come this way! Quickly!” I opened the door wider and flattened myself against it. “It’s your only chance! Hurry,
hurry!
”

He understood what I meant, shifted ground, and jumped through into the parlour, but Rob was too hot after him, and when I tried to shut the door between them, Rob’s foot struck out and knocked it wide again. They were both in there, swords striking this way and that in a space much too confined for them, points scraping the low ceiling and scoring the panelling, feet tripping on rugs.

I snatched a triple candlestick off the table just before they overturned it, and blew out the candles. It made no difference to the light, for now the dawn was growing strongly. There were other candles in wall sconces, and a second triple candlestick on a shelf, all alight but with their flames growing faint in
the daybreak. So far, the swords had missed them. They had also, so far, missed me, and as I ducked away from them, I could only hope my luck would last. I tried to reach the doorway, but was pushed back as Wilkins, scarlet faced, gasping and streaming with sweat, came in crabwise, holding off a swordsman. He crashed the door shut in his enemy’s face. It had a bolt on the inside and he shot it. He leant against the door, gulping for air and rubbing a sleeve across his soaked forehead. His knife and broken glass were both gone, but his sword was smeared with blood.

Crouched by the wall, I shouted to Rob and Matthew to stop, but they couldn’t hear me, or if they did they ignored me. Black spots danced before my aching eyes and I knew that I was crying. Matthew was my husband and Rob was my friend and rescuer; I didn’t want either of them killed, but there was nothing I could do.

At least, there was, but I didn’t think of it. Ignatius Wilkins, however, did. Though still gasping for breath, he caught hold of the heavy curtain beside the door and used his sword to hack it free. Then he stepped forward, threw the curtain over Rob’s head and neatly tripped him up.

“
No!
” I screamed, as Rob crashed to the ground and Wilkins raised his sword. I threw myself forward and landed on top of Rob. “Leave him alone!”

“Ursula, get up!” Matthew caught my arm and tried to drag me to my feet.

I resisted, holding on to Rob with all my strength. “You’ll kill him and I won’t let you!”

“I don’t kill helpless men wrapped up in curtains!” barked Matthew. “Get up and let him up as well.”

“No! I don’t want either of you hurt!” I shrieked into Matthew’s face, and jerked my arm away.

“I’m your husband! Do as I say!”

“This man came to save me! Don’t you understand?”

“Drag her off,” said Wilkins angrily. “I’ll finish him if you won’t, Matthew! I’ve no time for chivalrous airs.”

“You had no right to interfere in my fight!” Matthew snapped. “You interfere too much! Stand back!”

Someone was beating on the door. Brockley’s voice demanded to know what was happening in there.

“I’m safe, Brockley, I’m safe!” I shouted. “Leave me be! Don’t try to come in!” I heard an argument break out on the other side of the door as I got shakily to my feet, trying to fight off another wave of nausea. “Matthew,” I said urgently, “the window’s open and I don’t see anyone in the garden. Can’t we get away? If we go now, quickly . . .”

“Help me tie him!” Matthew said brusquely to Wilkins. “
Tie
him, not kill him. Do as I say!” Rob, cursing in muffled tones, had almost struggled free of the curtain. They knelt on him together, turning him on to his face, while Matthew, producing a belt knife, slashed at the curtain and then used his teeth to tear a couple of strips from it.

Rob, resisting furiously but vainly as they secured his hands and feet, saw me and demanded, “Is this your husband—is this de la Roche?”