Assassin (14 page)

“What happened to Stevens?” I asked.

Sir Charles looked away. “Honour is satisfied for the blows he gave me. He is dead.”

“Oh.” That was all I could manage to say. It was hard to imagine plump, jolly Sir Charles, who took me riding and sang “Greensleeves” for me, killing someone with his own hands. Even with good reason.

“Good,” said Ellie. “Serves ’im right.”

I looked at the sky and saw it was nearly dawn. My heart went into my boots. We’d rescued Sir Charles but, oh, I was going to be in so much trouble.

Sir Charles saw my face and said very kindly,
“Never fear, Lady Grace, Her Majesty will be delighted with you presently. Let me but speak to her and she shall be reconciled.” Then his face went back to being rather bleak.

Nobody said anything more as we struggled back up to Whitehall, with all of us paddling eventually against the tide. We reached the steps and climbed up them to find a bemused Yeoman of the Guard barring our path.

Kersey let us off and then rowed away to the kitchen steps as fast as he could.

I recognized the Yeoman, who sometimes guarded the Queen. “Good morning, Mitchell,” I said. “Will you send to Her Majesty to say that I have rescued the real Sir Charles Amesbury from imprisonment by his brother and brought him back to her?” I did my best to sound as imperious and commanding as the Queen, though I fear my stained, green-wool, third-best kirtle did not help.

That put the cat among the pigeons! What a lot of fuss and flurrying around, while Her Majesty was awoken and prepared for an audience. Eventually we were all brought into the Presence Chamber, where the Queen was sitting on her throne looking absolutely furious, Lord Worthy at her side. Mary Shelton and Lady Sarah were peeping round the side
of the dais, faces alight with curiosity. They must have come in to arrange the Queen’s train and then managed not to be dismissed by pretending to be very intent on their embroidery.

The Queen didn’t even look at me. I just hoped her fury was for the benefit of appearances. If she had truly tired of my adventures, I really was in trouble! Sir Charles stepped forwards, kneeled, and told her what he had told us on the boat. The Queen listened silently. Then, without comment, she sent for the man calling himself Sir Charles.

Hector Amesbury arrived, looking nervous. Sir Charles stood to face him, his hand on the poignard. At first glance, they were like two peas in a pod, save for Sir Charles being half-dressed and unshaven. But side by side I could see that Hector was an inch or so taller.

“I see my poor mad brother Hector Amesbury has escaped,” sneered the pretend Sir Charles. “The poor fellow believes that he is really me. He’s very convincing, I grant you.”

“How could you do this, Hector?” said the real Sir Charles, sounding very sad. “I gave you a good income, I helped you to go to France—how could you do it?”

Hector shrugged. “His insanity is flamboyant, as
you see, Your Majesty. It is not surprising that your innocent Maid of Honour, Lady Grace, has been fooled by it.”

The Queen looked from the real Sir Charles to the false one and back, then frowned. “How shall this be resolved, gentlemen?” she asked.

I was too excited to remember to kneel. I just burst out with: “Your Majesty, I know a way!”

After I’d said that there was a nasty silence.

“Well?” the Queen enquired. She didn’t sound at all encouraging.

I swallowed and curtsied again. “We could ask one of Sir Charles’s best friends,” I said. “Doucette!”

And so we all went in a very odd sort of procession to the loose box where Doucette was stabled. Sir Charles smiled for the first time as he heard Doucette nicker.

“Here, horsey,” said Hector Amesbury, looking scared. “Here!”

Doucette was led out of her loose box by one of the stableboys. As she approached Hector, she looked sulky, her head down. Then her head came up when she smelled Sir Charles and she whickered happily. She dragged her stableboy straight over to the real Sir Charles, who patted her neck and let her
nuzzle him. For the first time his battered face relaxed and he looked like the jolly person I knew.

“See?” I said. “Have you ever known any horse that didn’t love Sir Charles?”

Hector advanced on Doucette, looking very tense. “Now then, horsey, you know me,” he said sternly, reaching for her bridle.

Doucette turned her head, put her ears back, made a disapproving snort, and nipped his arm where he’d stuck it out towards her.

He jerked it back, looked desperately from the horse to his brother to the Queen. By now everybody was scowling at him.

That was when he realized he was as good as dead. Suddenly he punched the man standing next to him and started running for the Court Gate.

Two of the Queen’s Guard went after him and one made a huge flying leap onto his back, while the other grabbed his doublet and swung him down. He went over, yelling that it wasn’t fair, in a pile of crimson velvet and fists, and all the padding came out of his doublet.

The guards brought him back to where the Queen was standing, with Sir Charles by her side. She stared at Hector with her eyes like chips of ice and
her lips so tight they had almost disappeared. She looked terrifying.

“Mr. Amesbury, you have one minute to avoid a trial for high treason by confessing everything.” Her voice was like ice, too.

Hector had lost his nerve. He fell to his knees and put his face in his hands. “It’s not my fault—you can’t blame me for trying to do something to better my life, when that maggot stole my rightful inheritance. He struts around claiming to be the elder but it’s me:
I’m
the elder twin,
I
should have inherited the estates and lived in luxury while he should have gone to France to fight for starveling Huguenots!”

Since half the stableboys and dog-pages in the place were leaning out of loose boxes and windows to eavesdrop on this, the Queen announced that we would return to her Presence Chamber and so back we all processed, Hector surrounded by the Queen’s Guard and Sir Charles gallantly offering the Queen his arm—which she politely refused. (I don’t blame her. A most unpleasant smell surrounded Sir Charles due to his having been imprisoned for days.)

In the Presence Chamber, Masou, Ellie, and I all sat by the wall while the Queen sent for a clerk to
take everything down, and my uncle, Dr. Cavendish. Mary Shelton and Lady Sarah had picked up their embroidery again and were sitting quietly in the corner, hoping the Queen wouldn’t notice them and send them away.

Sir Charles stood and told of his and Hector’s dramatic birth, so long ago it was before the Queen was born! There had been twin sons born to the Amesbury household and a scarlet thread was tied about the wrist of the first-born twin. But it was the depths of winter and Mother Corbett, the midwife, had built up the fire in the lying-in chamber.

“Alas, some swaddling bands, hung before the fire to warm, caught alight,” said Sir Charles. “In seconds the whole lying-in chamber, with all the hangings, was roaring with flame. My father ran in and carried my mother out. The midwife caught up the babies and saved them. All the men from the village came up to make a bucket-chain and out the flames, and at last the fire was stopped, though that part of the house was almost destroyed. But in all the confusion the scarlet thread upon my wrist was lost. Only Mother Corbett said I was the elder twin because she remembered carrying the first-born on her right arm and the younger one on her left.”

Hector snorted. “The word of a drunken old witch…”

“She remembered clearly and never wavered—” began Sir Charles.

“How dare you!” shrieked Hector, who seemed to have taken all leave of his senses. “It was
I
who was the elder twin and
you
the pretender. I have known it ever since old Mother Corbett told me the tale when I was nine. I have known it and you have always denied it.”

“I deny it because it is not true,” said Sir Charles levelly.

“And so,” said the Queen, “what did you do to right what you conceived as an injustice, Mr. Amesbury?”

Hector looked at the rush matting, his face working, and I noticed that there was spittle on his chin. “I was near enough blown to pieces on a French battlefield,” he said. “I took my survival as a sign. Wherefore should I struggle through war and bloodshed when my rightful inheritance waited in England? I had my commander write to my brother to say I was dead, and then I returned, in secrecy, to England.” He looked up, his broad Charles-ish face sour and ugly with spite. “Sir Charles’s pageboy
took a shilling to put laudanum in his wine and I smuggled him unconscious out of the Court in one of the carts bringing hay for the horses. I had already rented the abandoned cottages at St. Mary Rounceval. I took my brother’s place—I only needed to have new footwear made that fitted me, and wear his clothes with a little padding stuffed inside. And so I fooled everyone.”

He laughed and wagged a finger. “You were all so blind, it was almost laughable. All you see are the clothes. I decided I must marry the Cavendish girl to secure a fortune of my own. And to do it, I first needed to—”

“Kill Sir Gerald?” asked the Queen flintily.

“Yes,” Hector agreed enthusiastically. “And likewise be sure that Lord Robert was accused of the murder, so I would be the last suitor and could be sure of marrying the girl. That way, no matter if someone discovered my true identity, I would still be her husband and still have her estates.”

He laughed more loudly, sounding slightly hysterical now. “I fooled you all again with my genius and cunning! I simply went to Lord Robert’s chamber and cut an aiglet from one of his doublets; then I hurried to Sir Gerald’s chamber, where I found him so sottish with drink that he made no stir when I crept in.

And so I took the dagger that lay on the chest, stabbed it into Sir Gerald’s back where he lay, and left Lord Robert’s aiglet on the pillow. Thus I rid myself of all competition at a single stroke!”

“And then you came back to the Banqueting House to dance and feign kindness to Lord Robert?” demanded the Queen.

Hector nodded, looking very proud of himself.

“Was it so light a thing for you then, to kill a man who was helpless?” The Queen’s voice was soft but cut like steel.

Hector shrugged.

“But Hector, for God’s sake,” broke in Sir Charles. “Why in God’s name did you think such a mad plan would work?”

“Of course it would have worked. Why shouldn’t it? Nobody would suspect dear old Charles Amesbury of killing Sir Gerald—he’s got plenty of enemies, especially Lord Robert…. And once I was married to the Cavendish heiress, none of that would have mattered anyway. I would have been safe—rich like you. No more struggling to find a living, no more fighting in France…” Hector seemed to have forgotten completely that there were other people listening, especially the Queen. He pointed his finger at me. “Nothing went wrong
until that interfering girl poked her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.”

I sniffed. I dare say he would have called anyone who found him out “interfering.”

“
Lady
Grace,” Sir Charles said severely to Hector, “was good enough to rescue me from the vile dungeon you put me in.”

“Well, Lord Robert should think twice about marrying some girl who might take it into her head to run off one night and rescue somebody!”

The Queen’s eyebrows went right up her forehead at this. Hector saw her and stopped talking, his face twitching.

After a long and impressive silence, the Queen spoke. “Mr. Hector Amesbury, you shall be committed to the Fleet, and of course my Lord Robert shall be released. We shall then see to it that you are arraigned for the murder of Sir Gerald Worthy—”

I coughed. I had to. You’re not supposed to interrupt the Queen.

She looked in my direction and sighed. “Yes, Lady Grace. What have you to add?” she asked.

I stood up, wishing that I didn’t have big stains all over my poor hunting kirtle. I had to say it, though, because somebody who has once killed with poison might do it again … and again.

“Well, you see, Your Majesty, I don’t think Hector Amesbury
did
kill Sir Gerald, even if he thought he did. He was so anxious to get rid of him, he didn’t realize that Sir Gerald was already dead.”

“What?”
exclaimed Hector, whose eyes looked as though they might pop out of his head.

“What are you talking about, Grace?” the Queen enquired patiently.

“Someone had been there before, Your Majesty. You see, my uncle, Dr. Cavendish, noticed that the wound in Sir Gerald’s back hadn’t bled, and he deduced that this must be because Sir Gerald was already dead when he was stabbed,” I explained.

My uncle threw me a grateful look.

“And then, when I … um … when I went to visit Sir Gerald in the chapel, I noticed that he had a sulphur-yellow staining on his lips and there was a nasty bitter smell.”

The Queen’s expression hardened. Clearly, she knew what I was talking about. “Darkwort,” she said grimly.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Dr. Cavendish, sounding dolefully hung over again, “I’m afraid so. It is my intention to obtain a Court order to open the body. I suspect we shall find that the liver is quite blackened.”

Lord Worthy went grey at this talk of opening his nephew’s body. I felt quite sorry for him. Looking pale and drawn, he leaned forward to speak to the Queen. “Your Majesty,” he said, hoarsely, “I find myself rather overcome. Would you be so good as to allow me to withdraw?”

The Queen looked at him with concern. “Of course, my Lord Worthy,” she replied kindly. “Do you require the services of Dr. Cavendish?”

“No, no, not at all,” Lord Worthy said hurriedly. “Dr. Cavendish is needed here. A brief rest and I am sure I shall be quite recovered.” He hurried from the Presence Chamber and the Queen turned back to the doctor.

“So when Mr. Amesbury stabbed Sir Gerald, he was stabbing a corpse!” she declared.

Hector was giggling like a small child. “That’s not murder, is it? Tell her, Charles!” he pleaded, and Charles shook his head. “You can’t hang me for stabbing a corpse, can you?” Hector pursued.

“It was attempted murder,” said the Queen coldly, “and shall be tried as such. You shall also be tried for kidnapping and false imprisonment of your own brother, and the
wicked
imposture you attempted on ourselves. And if the jury does not decide you should hang, then I should think it’s likely you shall
spend the rest of your days in Bedlam, since it seems you are quite mad.”