The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(15)
Next, Stephen found the steward. He gave a list of rapid orders that the man, though not a soldier, accepted without comment. One learned to do that in Renaud LeClerc’s household.
Then he found Kit and Felix in the chamber he’d so recently left, his unfinished letter to Maisie still sitting on the table by the fire. Kit prowled the perimeter of the room, while Felix had dropped into a chair and sat apparently memorizing the pattern of the Turkish carpet at his feet.
Stephen set the sword down and returned his dagger to its sheath. Kit stopped moving and Felix looked up.
“Well?” Kit asked.
“Looks clear, but…?” Stephen shrugged eloquently, and pulled out the letter from Murray’s jerkin. “Let’s see what message we’ve been left.”
“?‘An eye for an eye,’?” he read aloud. “?‘Nicolas LeClerc and Richard Laurent died martyrs in a righteous cause. Their blood demands recompense. This is the first.’?”
At his father’s name, Felix froze. Stephen felt the boy’s eyes on him, demanding an explanation.
“So,” Kit mused. “Someone Catholic. Maybe some of the Catholics Julien worked with have figured out he was never their man after all. Now they’re coming after Blanclair since they can’t reach him in England?”
“Maybe.” But Stephen didn’t believe it. This had a different feel. An overheated, manipulative, melodramatic feel. If he was right, then all of this was his fault.
Kit had learned to read him too well in the last months. “What?” he asked, eyes narrowing.
Stephen sighed, and darted a glance at Felix. But the boy had a right to know—to be honest, the most right. Blanclair was his home and he’d known Duncan Murray all his life.
“I would wager all of the property I no longer own that whoever killed Duncan was hired. And if we traced payment, I expect we’d find it in the form of Spanish gold.”
Kit choked. “Mary Stuart?”
“Mary Stuart.” Their eyes locked.
Felix looked between them. “The Spanish queen? Why?”
You have made an enemy, Mary Stuart had told Stephen.
I was always your enemy, lady. You just didn’t have the wit to see it until now.
“I spent some months with her during her final months of English captivity.” Stephen spoke carefully. “She was…unhappy when she learned that I had not been entirely honest with her.”
“She hates him,” Kit simplified. “Queen Mary thinks every man is hers to be charmed and those who resist must be punished for it.”
“?‘This is the first,’?” Felix quoted. “So who is the next?”
“I don’t know.” Stephen drew breath and let it out more shakily than he’d intended. “For tonight, we secure the house. All windows that can be are shuttered, all doors barred, and the remaining staff told not to go outdoors unless Kit or I are with them.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Give Kit and me an hour, and we’ll let you know.”
Felix stood up, and with a sarcastic intonation so like his Uncle Julien that Stephen shivered, said, “I suppose I should keep my dagger with me.”
“I suppose you should.”
Stephen just prayed the boy wouldn’t have to use it.
The last day of February, Pippa set out from the Princess of Wales’s court at Middleham to ride the short distance to Bolton Castle. Her visit was, officially, no more than social. Unofficially, she was Anabel’s ambassador to the Catholic recusants. In the last two years she had been over most of the northern landscape—from Hexham south to Sheffield, and all along the Scots border from Berwick to Carlisle. She often traveled with Madalena, whose Spanish Catholic credentials carried weight despite the fact that she had been known to attend Anglican services with the princess.
On this particular visit, however—as ordered by Anabel—her companion was Matthew Harrington.
To be fair, Anabel had only resorted to ordering when Pippa would not be persuaded by softer words.
“Why so opposed?” Anabel had asked. “You’re the one who wanted Matthew in my household in the first place!”
“For his abilities and his good sense,” Pippa said with considerable exasperation. “Not to flirt with.”
“That’s a relief, because he’s barely had more than ten words from you at a time since we came north. Why, Pippa?”
“Do not meddle with my privacy, Your Highness.”
At that, Anabel’s face had darkened with temper. But her eyes held a gleam of far-too-uncomfortable understanding. “The visit to Bolton Castle has nothing to do with your privacy. And as the Earl of Arundel is one of those likely to respond better to a man, then Matthew goes with you. Am I clear?”
So here they were, cantering uncomfortably across the frozen ground without a word exchanged until they reached Bolton Castle. The medieval structure was a perfect example of a rectangular castle and loomed over the surrounding landscape ominously. Inside the walls, though, all was warmth and welcome.The gatehouse guards drew back to allow Pippa, Matthew, and their eight men-at-arms to ride through the portcullis. They were met in the courtyard by grooms, one of whom Pippa allowed to hand her down from her mare.
“Lady Philippa!” It was Henry Scrope, tenth Baron Scrope of Bolton Castle, striding across the yard to greet them. “Such a pleasure to have you grace my home again.” Pippa had always liked the baron, his humour and good sense a blessed counterpoint to the border violence he’d spent much of his life controlling. More than fifty years old, he was as vigorous as men twenty years younger, and still wore his hair long and swept straight back from his high forehead.