Sir Christopher was attending on the queen, and it was near the end of the afternoon before he left her and I managed to accost him in one of the wide galleries between her quarters and his. It was not a successful meeting. He was courteous, because he was always so; Hatton was a gentleman. But even when I had given him all my reasons for suspecting Antoine de Lacey, he refused to be helpful.
‘Look, Ursula, the food-poisoning story has been accepted and may well be the truth. And …’
‘The keg was tampered with,’ I insisted. ‘And de Lacey, in that moment of panic, called out in Spanish. And the glass of wine that Lady Margaret drank was originally Leicester’s.’
‘You can’t be sure of that. You could be wrong about which glass was pushed back to which place. The keg may have been tampered with, or may not. There could be other reasons for making a hole in the lid and then sealing it again …’
‘Such as?’
‘To check on the contents; to make sure the vintners hadn’t cheated, something like that. As for de Lacey’s exclamation; are you sure you heard it correctly?’
‘Yes, I am!’ I looked at him in exasperation. ‘You mean, there’s to be no scandal! But what if a further attempt is made on Leicester’s life? What if it succeeds?’
‘Leicester is no fool. What you are suggesting has occurred to him already – even though he doesn’t know how it was done, and knows nothing of these pieces of evidence you describe. He is taking precautions.’
‘How much does the queen know?’
‘Everything that Leicester and I have thought of. But she of all people wants to avoid scandal! If the people of England came to suspect that Alençon or his henchman de Simier were trying to dispose of the Earl of Leicester because he objects to Alençon’s suit, there would be a terrible outcry against them and therefore against the marriage. Dear Mistress Stannard, leave it alone.’
It was useless to argue with him. ‘Very well,’ I said, and turned resentfully away. It was too late to do any more that day, but tomorrow, I told myself, I would go to Wanstead.
I left early, mainly so as to be out of Richmond Palace and therefore out of reach before, as was quite likely, the queen could send for me to play the spinet for her dancing practice again. I took Brockley as my escort but not Dale, who was tired and complained that she couldn’t abide all this disturbance and didn’t feel up to travelling to Wanstead again. For once, she was willing for me to go alone with Brockley.
I really would have to take more care of Dale, I thought. Life with me had never been easy for her and she wasn’t getting any younger.
The Earl of Leicester was at home and as hospitable as ever, summoning someone to take my cloak, ushering me into a parlour, asking for news of the court and the queen, sending for refreshments, calling to Lettice to join us. But when I broached the reason for my visit and asked if he had seen de Lacey do anything suspicious, his face darkened.
‘Mistress Stannard, you were present when Hatton and I put it to all of you that the best thing we could do was to accept that we had been the accidental victims of food poisoning. Because it is very important that—’
‘There should be no scandal.’ I interrupted him in a peremptory fashion, which sent his eyebrows up, but I was so very weary of that phrase. The whole subject of that dreadful dinner was becoming like an old song, with a repeated refrain that jarred more whenever it was repeated.
‘Quite,’ said Leicester. ‘Scandal must be avoided at all costs. You must not think, Mistress Stannard, that it hasn’t occurred to me that I could have been the target, and that the scheme somehow went amiss … yes?’
I had opened my mouth again and with an air of gracious consideration towards someone who was being a nuisance, he paused to let me speak. ‘I am quite sure,’ I said, ‘that when Lady Margaret jolted the table and sent wineglasses sliding and I pushed them, I accidentally exchanged two of them. You got Lady Margaret’s glass and she received yours.’
‘You may be right. I am not saying that you aren’t. But I am saying that it would be wiser to keep silence, to stop public feeling from developing. In France there are those who don’t want the marriage to take place, but there is also a strong faction here who object to the idea of the queen wedding a Catholic prince.’
I thought of the things we had heard on the journey back from Cornwall, and was silent.
‘Believe me,’ said Leicester, with feeling, ‘I realize that I could be in danger. I am safeguarding myself. I have men here; there is someone on watch all the time, including all through the night. I am not attending functions or accepting invitations; nor am I now angling for a summons back to court. When I ride out, I take an escort and I never go in the same direction twice running, or return by the same route as I used when setting out. My kitchen staff have all been with me for years and Lettice herself oversees their work, anyway. Do you not, Lettice, my love?’
‘Yes.’ His countess had been sitting quietly, bestirring herself only to pour wine for us and offer us cinnamon cakes. ‘I am constantly in and out of the kitchen,’ she said now. ‘And the cooks are all obliged to taste the food they prepare, before serving it.’
‘As for your question about how de Lacey could have contaminated the wine that day,’ said Leicester, ‘I certainly didn’t see him do anything even remotely suspicious.’
It was no use. I thanked him for his time and his hospitality, declined an invitation to dine and prepared to leave. ‘Your cloak is hanging up in the entrance vestibule,’ Lettice said, very much the gracious hostess. ‘We will fetch it on the way out. I will see Mistress Stannard to her horse,’ she added smilingly to Leicester. ‘You haven’t finished your wine. At least our wine supplies are safe! Come, Mistress Stannard.’
Once we were in the vestibule, she lifted my cloak from the hook where it was hanging, and said: ‘I think I know how de Lacey could have poisoned one of the wineglasses and now that we know how my lord’s glass was exchanged for Lady Margaret’s, it all hangs together. My husband wouldn’t want me to tell you what I think. He knows, of course, from me. Only I think you should know. I am not so disturbed by the thought of scandal as my lord is. In my view, anything that could stop the Alençon marriage is a good thing. It’s not safe for the queen or for the country. My husband can talk solemnly about the queen being the only one who can decide, but the rest of us would have to live with the results.’
She scanned my face anxiously, as if seeking permission to go on. Her eyes, which were indeed the matt blue of sloe berries and so often looked both sleepy and come-hither, were now sharp with intelligence instead.
‘Tell me quickly,’ I said. ‘Before we’re interrupted. Your husband might wonder what we’re lingering to gossip about!’
‘At that awful dinner,’ said Lettice, dropping her voice, ‘I was sitting opposite Robin. You were beside him. When the wine flagon was brought to the table and de Lacey refilled everyone’s glasses, he didn’t walk round the table to do it, or even reach round him. He leant forward from his place, which was roughly opposite you and Sir Christopher and sideways on to me, and he filled the glasses one at a time, drawing them towards him, each in turn. He was quite quick about it, but I thought at the time that he’d positioned himself rather oddly, though I didn’t then attach much importance to it. Do you remember?’
‘No, I can’t say that I do. How do you mean?’
‘I mean that I don’t think any of us could see exactly what he was doing. He had those big sleeves, puffed from shoulder to elbow, if you recall. His right sleeve completely blocked my view. He was also slightly turned, so that my husband and Lady Margaret must have been looking at his left shoulder. And neither you nor Sir Christopher could have seen exactly what he was doing either because somehow, he curved his left arm round and the sleeve of that one hid the glasses from you as well. It did look awkward. But since then, I’ve wondered if it was deliberate, so that no one could see his hands. Well, could you?’
‘I … I can’t remember.’ I thought about it, casting my mind back. ‘No, perhaps not.’
‘And do you recall,’ said Lettice, ‘that de Lacey spilt some of the wine when he was pouring it, and swore?’
‘Yes, I remember that! I thought he was being a little unjust when he complained that he couldn’t see why the servants should be upset by the storm.’
Lettice smiled. ‘Well, I think that when he spilt that wine – it was on to the wrist of his left sleeve – it may have been on purpose. He put the jug down, and pulled out a handkerchief to mop his wrist with. I saw that much though not clearly, because he was so very quick about it. Then he put the handkerchief away and pulled another glass towards him to attend to it, and I think that one was my husband’s. He filled it but I couldn’t see him do it because then, his right sleeve was completely in the way. I am wondering if he could have palmed something that he had picked from his sleeve – from inside his cuff – when he mopped it. Something he could have dropped into my lord’s glass.’
‘But what?’ I said. I tried to think it out. ‘It must have been powder or liquid and it would need a container. Paper or glass.’
‘It need only have been small,’ Lettice said. ‘A little paper packet or a tiny phial with a stopper, I should think, and powder inside. That would be the easiest. He would have opened it and used it while his hands were hidden. It would all need some sleight of hand. But, Mistress Stannard, M’sieu de Lacey is clever with conjuring tricks.’
‘God’s teeth! Yes, he is! He calls it dabbling but I’ve seen him give a display and I would say that he was quite skilled though he claims that he isn’t. Have you told your husband all this?’
‘Yes, but until now, we couldn’t see how Lady Margaret could have got the wrong glass. I thought perhaps de Lacey had somehow confused the glasses, but my lord kept on saying nonsense, and I am not to start foolish rumours.’
‘Or cause scandal,’ I said bitterly.
‘Yes. But what you say explains it. Only de Lacey could have contaminated the keg and whoever doctored the keg must also have doctored that glass. It was doctored. Poor Lady Margaret died! The rest of us recovered quite quickly. I don’t believe for a moment that it was all an accident. And the real target must have been my husband. No one else is likely.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I agree!’
‘I see,’ said Cecil. ‘You have certainly found out a great deal, Ursula. We have wondered, as you have, if Leicester was the target of a plot but thundery weather and the accidental contamination of food did seem a reasonable explanation. I suppose we should congratulate you.’ But he looked grave. Even stern, I thought.
‘Accident was a very reasonable explanation. But now,’ said Walsingham, none too pleasantly, ‘along comes Mistress Stannard with what sounds like genuine evidence.’ He didn’t sound delighted.
I had requested an interview with Walsingham and been granted it, but when the page brought me to his office, I found Cecil there as well. I was pleased at first, since I felt that both of them ought to know of the information that I was bringing. Except that now it was clear that neither I nor the information were welcome.
‘I am sorry,’ I said, ‘if you would have preferred this whole miserable affair just to sink into oblivion, but I was a victim too. Of course it is for you to say what shall be done with any discoveries I have made. But I felt it right to make them if I could and to inform you of the result.’
‘You say,’ said Walsingham, ‘that when the glasses started sliding about, you think you pushed them back to the wrong places and that the glass Lady Margaret drank from thereafter was really Leicester’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if that idea were to get about,’ said Cecil, ‘so that the public came to think the Duke of Alençon and de Simier attempted the life of an English earl, it would probably mean a mob in the street on the wedding day, wanting to assassinate the bridegroom!’
‘We don’t like this marriage any more than Leicester does,’ Walsingham said. ‘But we cannot have it said that the queen is involved with – even in love with – a man who sends his minions to murder her servants. You should trust us, Ursula. At the moment, the situation in the Netherlands, which demands Alençon’s attention, is working for us. It will delay the ceremony and a sufficient delay could protect her majesty’s safety, by reducing or even cutting out the hope of an heir. Every birthday that she has brings that moment nearer.’
He smiled. Walsingham’s smile could be, and on this occasion was, sinister enough to frighten a demon, or any legendary hero. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, might both have quailed before it.
Cecil said: ‘All the same, I agree that we can’t simply ignore your news, Ursula. As you know, there are factions in France, and assuredly in Spain as well, who wish to prevent the marriage and may be scheming to do so. If de Lacey does have Spanish origins, then he may be part of such a scheme and not a dutiful servant of Alençon and de Simier after all.’
He ruminated. ‘Janus is investigating those rumours and will report to us. Meanwhile, in the light of what you have told us, we will enquire into de Lacey’s background, if we can. I think we must.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘We will go that far.’
‘My department already has,’ said Walsingham. Both Cecil and I looked at him in surprise.
‘I do have the backgrounds of foreign visitors investigated,’ said Walsingham. ‘Ambassadors, envoys, their secretaries, grooms and valets. My department is thorough, believe me. De Lacey’s father was French but his mother was Spanish and as a child, he made occasional visits to Spain, staying with his maternal grandmother and playing with Spanish cousins.’
‘But …’ I said.
Cecil said: ‘I could wish your department were less discreet, Walsingham. That piece of information should have been shared with me.’
‘It proved nothing,’ said Walsingham. ‘The man had been accepted by the Duke of Alençon and Jean de Simier, had apparently behaved as a loyal and competent employee, was in fact pursuing a well-paid and successful career in his father’s country. Now, after all, it seems that all may not be as it seems. His outburst at the masque suggests that there could have been more Spanish influence in his childhood than anyone has realized. Even Alençon may not realize it. But still …’ he frowned, obviously thinking ‘… we must keep the matter from spreading round the country in the form of garbled theories.’
‘So, what do you recommend?’ enquired Cecil. ‘Ursula’s evidence is disquieting. We must avoid scandal but nor can things be left as they are. If the man is guilty, he may try again.’
‘The Earl of Leicester is taking precautions,’ I said.
‘There is still one thing that I want to get clear.’ Walsingham stopped suddenly, grunted, and sank down onto a stool. I remembered that he suffered from a bowel complaint that caused him to have gripes and sometimes attacks of diarrhoea. After my own recent experience, I could sympathize. For a moment, I pitied him. He worked loyally and competently for an exacting mistress, who trusted him but didn’t like him, and he had to toil on, and deal with crises, while suffering poor health. His couldn’t be an easy furrow to plough.
‘I am all right,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Just a twinge. I want to be sure that I have the details right. Your idea, I think, Ursula, is that the venom in the wine was intended not to kill but to cause illness in everyone at that dinner, and therefore act as a cloak, under which more serious poison could be introduced into just one glass, and take the life of just one person. It would presumably be hoped that he was just unlucky – that there was bad food or wine at the table and that he had ingested more of it than the rest of you, or was more sensitive to it.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It would have needed craftiness but de Lacey is a clever conjuror. He might well have managed to doctor Leicester’s wine undetected.’
‘I think,’ said Walsingham, ‘that in view of your information, Ursula, and in the interests of protecting my lord of Leicester and the good name of her majesty, we must get de Lacey out of England. I recommend that he be unobtrusively removed under escort, taken to the coast and put aboard a ship bound for France – accompanied by a very watchful escort. Meanwhile, we must send a messenger ahead, to tell the Duke of Alençon when to expect de Lacey and why he is being sent home. What the French do about him when he lands will be very instructive. Meanwhile, as far as the public in England know, the guests at the Castle Inn all still had a most unfortunate and quite accidental experience of food poisoning.’
I let out my breath in a long sigh of relief. It was out of my hands now. I had done my duty. The rest was up to Cecil and Walsingham. I could go to the queen and ask permission to go home. Only, there was one thing still on my mind.
‘I hope to return to Hawkswood soon,’ I said. ‘With her majesty’s consent, of course. But whether I am here or there, there is still this unhappy business of the murders of Thomas Harrison and Eric Lake. I am almost sure that Robert and George Harrison were responsible and …’
‘Ursula …’ said Cecil.
I stopped. Cecil smiled and his smile was not sinister but kindly and also patient. ‘Christmas is not so very far away,’ he said gently. ‘We are into autumn now. Not too soon, perhaps to think of Christmas gifts. Mine to you, dear Ursula, will I think take the form of a very large wooden spoon.’
‘A … a what?’
‘You really do enjoy stirring events up,’ said Cecil. ‘Like a cook with a mixing bowl full of eggs and sugar, or a witch with a cauldron full of newts’ eyes and chopped-up snakes and deadly nightshade. But we must ask you – no, command you – not to stir this particular cauldron.’
‘But why not?’
‘Leave it!’ said Walsingham. ‘We mean it, Mistress Stannard. You don’t know as much as you think you know. You are trying to meddle in things you don’t understand. Leave it alone!’