Feud (12 page)

“Why?” I asked, forgetting I ought not to question to the Mistress of the Maids. “I just wanted to ask—”

“For heaven's sake, Lady Grace!” scolded Mrs. Champernowne. “Can you never stop chattering and asking and gossiping?”

Well! I did stop talking but I think that is most unfair. I
don't
chatter, and I certainly
don't
gossip— or not half as much as everybody else at Court does, anyway.

After an age of more tedious wool-winding, Mrs. Champernowne finally finished. I have made haste to write down all I have learned, but I must say I think Mrs. Champernowne is a nasty old—

Lord above! That was close. And while Mrs. Champernowne is sometimes very unreasonable, this time I have to admit she wasn't at fault. But I had to shut my daybooke quickly, and some of the ink has smudged badly so I can hardly read what I wrote— which might be as well, for Mrs. Champernowne almost saw my words!

Well, not long after she had snapped at me, she actually apologised! I nearly fainted dead away on the spot, like Lady Jane at a spider or something. Lady Horsley was called to attend the Queen by fetching a flagon of wine for her. After she had left the room, Mrs. Champernowne leaned forwards and said, “I am sorry I had to scold you so sharply, Grace, but it would not do to be discussing her son's death in front of Lady Horsley.”

I was confused. “But I thought you said his name was Harrington?”

“So it was, child,” Mrs. Champernowne confirmed. “Do you not remember that Lady Horsley was first wed to my Lord Harrington the elder, look you? And then, when her husband died and her son inherited the title, she was married again, to Lord Horsley.”

“Oh, my goodness!” I gasped. “I didn't know.”

Mrs. Champernowne patted my hand. “It's a sad tale,” she said. “But don't be upsetting yourself, my dear, for it is all past and gone now.”

Only it isn't, of course! My mind is racing along so fast I can hardly keep up. But I think I just
might
have solved the puzzle at last!

The young Lord Harrington was Lady Horsley's son, and Carmina's father caused his death. It was a tragic accident, of course, but what if Lady Horsley didn't believe that? What if she believed the nasty rumours that Piers Willoughby had killed her son in a revival of the old feud? That might give her a good reason to want to hurt Carmina, perhaps even murder her!

I must stop now. I can't sit scribbling. If I am right and Lady Horsley is poisoning Carmina, I must do something to stop her immediately!

Who would have thought that anyone who seems so kind could be so evil? I was trying to think of how I could get permission to leave the Queen's presence and go to Carmina, but my mind kept racing along, finding more and more connections between Lady Horsley and the poisoning. She is marvellously skilled at making sweetmeats, of course, and Carmina has eaten almost nothing but sweetmeats since she first fell sick. The sugared apricots are her favourite, and Lady Horsley has brought her hundreds of those. How convenient that they are yellow, so the fragments of poisonous orpiment don't show up.

And I suddenly realised where she had been getting the poison, too! I have often seen her visiting old Ned in the painters' Workroom. I thought she was being kind, but more likely she was using Ned to gain access to the poisonous paint. It would have been easy, for Ned would never see what she took.

Just as my thoughts were scrambling over themselves, like players trying to build a human pyramid, Lady Horsley herself knelt to the Queen and asked
permission to visit Carmina. With more poisoned comfits, no doubt! The Queen nodded and she hurried away.

I jumped to my feet. “Oh no!” I gasped.

Mrs. Champernowne tutted at me and frowned, and the Queen looked up from a very long report.

“What is it, Lady Grace?” she asked severely.

“Um, er, p-please may I have Your Majesty's leave to go and visit Carmina, right away?” I stammered.

“You can see her this afternoon,” replied the Queen. “My Lady Horsley is with her now.”

I didn't want to burst out with all my suspicions in front of everyone, especially when the Queen had particularly asked me to be discreet. So I went on my knees and said, “Oh, please, Your Majesty. It's
vitally
important I go right now, before, um …”

The Queen was going to tell me off for arguing, I could see it on the tip of her tongue. But then she looked at me again. “Very well,” she said, putting the report back in the box, “but we shall all go. I had meant to visit my dear Maid of Honour myself, but the press of business has kept me from it. Now we shall all visit Carmina.”

It took a terribly long while to organise, because first Lady Sarah and Penelope were sent to fetch
ingredients, so the Queen could make a nice posset for Carmina with her very own hands. Then one of the gentlemen had to go and fetch a chafing dish and some hot coals from the nearest kitchen. And then we all had to gather together and form a proper escort for Her Majesty. If I were the Queen it would drive me quite mad with impatience.

We went through the archway to the passage where the chambers of the Maids of Honour are, and I was having terrible trouble not rushing ahead to see what was happening to Carmina.

When we finally arrived, it all looked quite peaceful. Lady Horsley was sitting quietly next to Carmina's bed, with a pretty enamelled bowl on the table next to her. The tawny damask bed curtains were part pulled back, and we could see that Carmina was sleeping. She looked awfully pale and ill and thin.

Lady Horsley stood and curtseyed to the Queen, looking puzzled and even a little concerned. I noticed that she quietly draped a napkin over the enamel bowl of sweetmeats next to her. I felt sure that the sweetmeats within must be poisoned, but I couldn't just say so. It's a terrible thing to accuse anyone of poisoning. Why, if a wife should poison her husband, it's called petty treason and she may burn at
the stake for it! I needed proof before I could tell the Queen what I suspected and I wracked my brains to think of a way to get it.

“My Lady Horsley,” said the Queen, “I have decided that I have been neglecting my dear Maid of Honour, and so we have all come to visit. I will make her a posset to help keep her strength up.”

That provoked a tremendous bustle as the gentleman brought up the chafing dish, filled with whitehot coals. Lady Horsley reached to move her enamelled bowl off the table, to make room for the chafing dish to stand there on its little legs, but somehow I got there first, and picked it up myself— being very helpful, of course.

I lifted the napkin for a peek and, as I suspected, it was full of sugared apricots. I wasn't sure but it seemed there were flecks of brighter yellow on them. That gave me an idea for how to get proof of the poisoning. I would ask Lady Horsley to eat one of her own sugared apricots. If my suspicions were correct, she would say no, of course.

Lady Helen put a nice, new earthenware dish full of milk on the grill over the coals, and Mrs. Champernowne carefully broke and separated two new eggs. The Queen snapped her fingers, and Penelope brought a jar of pounded sugar loaf and a
dish of cinnamon and cardamom pods. The Queen carefully dropped the cinnamon and cardamom into the milk as it started to warm through, and Lady Sarah brought a clean, lace-trimmed apron to go over the Queen's gown. Mary Shelton gave the Queen a spoon, and she started stirring the milk so vigorously that the chafing dish wobbled slightly.

All the fuss and movement woke Carmina. She blinked and shifted and then struggled to sit up in alarm. “Oh my goodness, Your Majesty!” she gasped faintly. “I didn't know you were here.”

The Queen smiled, and stopped stirring to put her hand on Carmina's poor, thin arm. “Now, my dear,” she said. “I have come to visit you and see how you fare. I am going to make you a lovely eggnog to help keep your strength up.”

All the ladies were watching the unstirred milk nervously, as it started rising up the sides of the bowl. Mrs. Champernowne reached delicately behind the Queen to stir it quickly and move it to a cooler part of the grill. The Queen didn't notice.

“You are so kind, Your Majesty,” whispered Carmina. “I'm sorry, but I can't curtsey.”

“Don't be silly,” said the Queen, smiling fondly and still ignoring the milk. “I do not expect you to carry on with all that Court courtesy when you are
ill. Now, then …” She turned back to the posset— so Mrs. Champernowne had to snatch her hand away—and started stirring vigorously again.

“Let us see, I remember Queen Catherine used to … ah, yes.”

The Queen dropped the egg yolks straight into the boiling milk and stirred. Unfortunately, it was too hot and the mixture started to curdle. She snapped her fingers at Mrs. Champernowne, who brought up a flask, and Her Majesty poured in aqua vitae and stirred again. That made the curdling even worse, and the coals were too hot now, so we could all smell burning. For all the Queen's stirring, the whole custard had turned into a sort of boozy scrambled eggs!

Mrs. Champernowne tried to rescue it by picking up the bowl with a cloth and pouring it into a silver cup held by Penelope.

The Queen looked at it and prodded it with a spoon. “Well, it looks a little thick,” she said doubtfully. “Perhaps I should add more sugar?” The Queen has a very sweet tooth.

“No, it looks lovely,” said Carmina, being gallantly tactful. She took the cup and a silver spoon and started eating a little of the egg-nog. She even managed to swallow some and smile, which made
the Queen smile back. I really don't know how Carmina could, because the Queen's posset was a curdled mess of eggs and aqua vitae and burnt milk— and all the stirring had broken up the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick, which Her Majesty had forgotten to strain out, so there were black seeds and bits of cinnamon in it as well.

The Queen smiled proudly. She doesn't do much cooking, of course, and nobody ever dares tell her the truth about what she makes, so I'm afraid this was quite normal.

Carmina struggled to drink some more and went even paler.

Well, I decided I had to do something, Carmina couldn't go on like this. I took the napkin off the enamelled bowl and held it out to Lady Horsley. “Why don't you have one of these lovely apricots, my lady?” I said.

“No, thank you, child,” she replied, “they're for Carmina.”

“But Carmina can't eat them all, and you wouldn't want them to go to waste,” I pressed. “Carmina always says how delicious they are.” I picked one out with the sweetmeat fork that was in the bowl, and held it out to Lady Horsley.

“I never eat my own sweetmeats,” said Lady
Horsley coldly. “I take my pleasure from seeing others enjoy them.”

“But really, since you've gone to so much trouble to make them, it's only fair that you should have at least one,” I insisted.

At that exact moment, Carmina squawked and put her hand to her mouth. Lady Horsley pushed past me, grabbed the bowl the Queen had used to make the posset, and held it under Carmina's head so she could be sick.

And it was not an accident that as Lady Horsley pushed me out of the way, she banged my hand so that the enamel bowl went flying, and all the sugared apricots fell to the floor—except the one I had speared on the silver sweetmeat fork.

“I'm so sorry, Your Majesty!” gasped poor Carmina. “I couldn't help it.…”

You might have thought the Queen would be annoyed at this ungrateful treatment of her posset, but she wasn't. In fact, she was looking very thoughtfully at me.

I, on the other hand, was absolutely furious with Lady Horsley's clever attempt to avoid eating the apricots, which I was now certain were poisoned. “Lady Horsley, ma'am,” I demanded. “Why don't
you want to eat your own sugared apricots? Are you afraid?”

“I don't know
what
you're talking about!” snapped Lady Horsley. “Calm down and behave yourself, child.”

Amidst all the fuss, the Queen stood up and stared, gimlet-eyed, from me to Carmina, who had stopped vomiting. Then the Queen turned to Lady Horsley and stared narrowly at her, too.

At a sign from Mrs. Champernowne, the gentleman approached quietly, and took the bowl and the chafing dish away.

“Perhaps it would be better to dismiss all these girls so we can sit quietly with Carmina, Your Majesty,” suggested Lady Horsley, in that kind soft, voice of hers. “I think some of them are becoming a little hysterical.”

“No,” said the Queen judiciously. “I was rather hoping you would answer Lady Grace's question.”

Lady Horsley turned white and blinked at the Queen. “I'm s-sorry, Your Majesty. What do you mean?” she stammered.

The Queen beckoned me to stand next to her. “Give me the sweetmeat, Grace,” she ordered.

I curtseyed and gave it to her, my heart sinking
into my shoes. The Queen didn't believe me, either. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Lady Horsley was another false lead.

“Now, Lady Horsley,” said the Queen pleasantly. “Shall I try your sweetmeat?”

Lady Horsley's face was now as white as Carmina's. She licked her lips nervously as she answered, “Well, I … It might not be to Your Majesty's taste.”

“No, no,” said the Queen, smiling coolly. “I love sugared apricots.” She actually opened her mouth and brought the sweetmeat fork towards it.

I nearly screamed. Attempting to poison the Queen is, of course, treason—you get hanged, drawn, and quartered for that. Lady Horsley looked old and ill and her mouth worked as she stared in horror. Then something seemed to give way inside her.

She gulped convulsively and put out her hand. “Please don't eat it, Your Majesty,” she whispered. “It is … it is poisoned.”

Everyone gasped at that, even the gentleman who had brought the chafing dish. Lady Sarah uttered a little scream, but Mrs. Champernowne gave her a reproving look and she settled down at once. Poor Carmina just stared at Lady Horsley in wonder, as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening, and I
felt an overwhelming sense of relief that the truth was out at last.

“
Is
it?” said the Queen grimly, immediately giving the poisoned apricot on its fork to the gentleman. “Tell us everything.”