Forest of secrets, p.1
Forest of Secrets, page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Also by Fiona Buckley
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: One Thing After Another
Chapter Two: A Mule Can’t Breed
Chapter Three: A Thorn in the Finger
Chapter Four: A Toy Bow and Two Rabbits
Chapter Five: Reconnoitre
Chapter Six: The Vicar of Chenston
Chapter Seven: The Secret Clearing
Chapter Eight: Outcome of a Downpour
Chapter Nine: Deceiving Brockley
Chapter Ten: Midsummer
Chapter Eleven: In Sickness and in Love
Chapter Twelve: Old Roots Are Wrenched
Chapter Thirteen: A Civilized Dinner
Chapter Fourteen: Linseed Oil and Beeswax
Chapter Fifteen: The Madness of Fools
Chapter Sixteen: Lammas
Chapter Seventeen: Royal Terrors
Chapter Eighteen: Be My Witness
Chapter Nineteen: Tantrum in a Chapel
Chapter Twenty: There Is no Time
Chapter Twenty-One: Halloween
Chapter Twenty-Two: Anathema
Chapter Twenty-Three: Death of a Queen
Also by Fiona Buckley
The Ursula Blanchard mysteries
THE ROBSART MYSTERY
THE DOUBLET AFFAIR
QUEEN’S RANSOM
TO RUIN A QUEEN
QUEEN OF AMBITION
A PAWN FOR THE QUEEN
THE FUGITIVE QUEEN
THE SIREN QUEEN
QUEEN WITHOUT A CROWN *
QUEEN’S BOUNTY *
A RESCUE FOR A QUEEN *
A TRAITOR’S TEARS *
A PERILOUS ALLIANCE *
THE HERETIC’S CREED *
A DEADLY BETROTHAL *
THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN *
A WEB OF SILK *
THE SCENT OF DANGER *
* available from Severn House
FOREST OF SECRETS
Fiona Buckley
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2021
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2021
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House,
an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
severnhouse.com
Copyright © Fiona Buckley, 2021
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Fiona Buckley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-5050-8 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-774-3 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0512-4 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described
for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are
fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
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To my dear friends Susan and Jean
ONE
One Thing After Another
The year was 1586, the date, the 22nd of May. We had been on the road for over three weeks, journeying from south Devon to my Surrey home of Hawkswood, and springtime had burgeoned while we travelled. We had had fair weather and dry roads, but we had all had enough of travelling: myself, my excellent manservant Roger Brockley, his wife Frances, who was my maid and still answered to her maiden name of Dale (which I used out of habit), and my gentlewoman companion Mildred Gresham.
In addition, there was Eddie Hale, the cheery young groom who was driving our little carriage, and the two new maidservants I had found during my time away: Bess Hethercott and Hannah Durley. I had been glad to find them because Hawkswood was in sore need of extra hands. We had brought my small carriage for the luggage and for Dale and now it also accommodated Bess and Hannah, neither of whom had ever ridden, even on someone’s pillion. Though the carriage jolted so much when the road was rough that it was hardly more comfortable than a horse.
We were all glad when we came through the woods around Hawkswood, and saw its gate ahead of us and heard the dogs already barking a welcome. If the dogs had scented us, my bay gelding, Jaunty, had scented his home stable too. He pricked his ears and pulled a little, eager for his own familiar stall, a rub down and a bran mash. He broke into a trot I hadn’t asked for, pulled away from the rest of the party and then without the slightest warning, squealed, plunged and reared up on his hindlegs.
He would have unseated me, except that my side saddle was very safe. It was made to the pattern that Queen Catherine de Medici of France had invented, and I had improved the design for myself, having my saddles made with high cantles to support my back and a roll of leather in front of my left knee, a safeguard against slipping forward. Jaunty came down again on to all fours but then started to buck, upsetting the other horses, who sidled and snorted. Even placid old Rusty in the shafts of the carriage, laid back his ears and balked.
I held on, pulling Jaunty’s head up and talking to him, aware from the corner of my left eye, that Brockley had sprung from his horse, flung his reins to Mildred and plunged into the woods. As Jaunty finally quietened down, Brockley reappeared, dragging a terrified looking urchin with him.
‘Brockley, what on earth …?’
‘Madam, you may well ask. This brat’ – here Brockley shook his captive savagely – ‘has been fooling about with a bow and arrows! This bow!’ With his spare hand he brandished a small bow at me and at the same moment I saw the little quiver on the boy’s shoulder, with the tops of the arrows poking out of it. ‘Meant to be toys but mighty dangerous toys!’ Brockley thundered. ‘And I know who you are, you stupid mumphead!’ He shook his prisoner again, and the boy, who could only have been about nine, and looked faintly familiar, began to sob. ‘Dear little Tommy Reed from Hawkswood village, that’s who you are,’ said Brockley, ‘Marge Reed’s lastborn; arrived after his father died and never had a man’s hand to guide him. His tribe of brothers don’t bother, well, that’s what you’d expect from that family. What have you got to say for yourself, you murderous little wantwit?’
‘They’re only toys! I were aiming at a sparrow!’ yelled Tommy, unconvincingly. ‘Horse jumped forward of a sudden and got in the way.’
Brockley said: ‘Huh!’ and dragged Tommy towards me. He used the bow to point with. ‘There’s where the arrow hit and it was sharp. There’s a wound on your Jaunty’s haunch, madam. Get it seen to as soon as you’re in. He’s got metal tips on his dear little toy arrows. Been making use of the brother that works in the smithy, I dare say. I’ll be talking to him as well. Meanwhile, I’ll take this brat home.’
He pulled the quiver off Tommy’s shoulder, thrust it and the little bow down into one of his saddlebags, tossed Tommy up on to his own mount’s withers, and then mounted behind him. ‘Where be you taking me?’ Tommy wailed.
‘Home,’ said Brockley in a menacing voice. ‘To the village, to see if your eldest brother is there. Best thing I can do, madam.’ I nodded, technically giving him permission, and perfectly aware that he wasn’t actually asking for it. Brockley always was a law unto himself. ‘I’ll hand you over to him,’ said Brockley into Tommy’s ear. ‘No doubt he’ll know what to do with you, once he understands it’s our orders. Pity he didn’t take you in hand much sooner. No use expecting Marge to do it.’
The threat of his eldest brother seemed to terrify Tommy even more than Brockley did. He burst into tearful protests, which Brockley ignored, as he put his big dark chestnut, Firefly, into a canter along a right-hand track that branched off just ahead. Firefly, like Jaunty, had sensed the nearness of his home stable and didn’t want to be deflected from it, but Brockley, standing no nonsense, used his spurs and in a moment, he was out of sight, and Tommy’s wails were receding into the distance.
Soberly, the rest of us went on. We found most of my household in the courtyard, full of alarm. Someone had apparently witnessed the drama from an upper window. My steward, grey-haired Adam Wilder, came anxiously to meet us, with my two cooks, John Hawthorn, as big and burly as ever, and his assistant Ben Flood, short and stocky and bald, just behind him. Phoebe, my head housemaid, who had run the house in my absence, was with them, her lined face full of conce rn, and behind her came her under-maids: Margery, Tessie and Netta. On their heels came aged Gladys Morgan, hobbling badly, leaning on a stick, mouth open in a smile full of brown teeth with gaps in them.
Gladys was gifted with potions and had twice escaped being executed for witchcraft. We had rescued her on both occasions and after the first time, she had attached herself determinedly to me. I had never invited her into my household but here she was and always would be. If she had been present when Brockley apprehended Tommy Reed, she would probably have cursed the lad. Gladys’s curses were both lurid and famous.
Hard behind them all but now pushing to the fore came my elderly head groom, Arthur Watts, and his two assistants, Simon Alder and Joseph Henty.
‘Madam, Phoebe says she saw Jaunty plunging – he never does that – what ailed him …?’ Arthur gasped.
‘A silly boy from the village with a bow and arrows ailed him,’ I said, as Joseph helped me dismount. ‘With a metal-tipped arrow, so Brockley said. He says there’s a wound on Jaunty’s haunch, the offside one, I think …’ I walked round Jaunty to see for myself. ‘Yes, there it is. It wants tending.’
‘I’ll see to it.’ Arthur came beside me and looked keenly at the damage. ‘It could be worse. It came in at a shallow angle. It’s a long cut but not too deep. Done with an arrow, then, was it? Dear God! Even with a small bow you can kill a man if you have a sharp metal tip. No wonder Jaunty went wild. You leave him to me now, madam. Joseph, lead him inside and get some warm water and find my pot of salve.’
Jaunty was in safe hands. I didn’t know what went into Arthur’s salve for injured equines; I only knew that it smelt nasty and always worked and that he had got it originally from Gladys.
My son Harry, fourteen and leggy as a colt, now came running from the house, with his tutor, Peter Dickson, following after. Dickson was at least seventy and couldn’t move fast. Harry bowed to me as a son should when greeting his mother, and then ran to hold me and kiss me in welcome, and I saw that his fingers had fresh ink stains on them. ‘Have we interrupted a lesson?’ I asked.
‘A most important one. Double entry book-keeping,’ said Dickson, and smiled. ‘Always difficult for him, but he is learning, Mistress Stannard.’
The maids were emptying the carriage and taking the luggage indoors. Dickson, insistent on finishing his lesson, led Harry away and the rest of us trooped into the great hall. Adam Wilder talked to me as we went.
‘You sent couriers ahead, madam, to say you were on your way home, and warn us of the new maidservants and we are well prepared for you all. I will have a sheep on the spit tonight. I’ll instruct Hawthorn …’
His voice trailed away. We were now in the hall and the happy bustle of homecoming was all around me, but it suddenly struck me that it wasn’t as happy as it ought to be. Phoebe, who had followed us in, still looked anxious, even though I was now safely down from Jaunty’s saddle, while Wilder seemed as though his mind were half on something else. I shook myself. I was imagining things. I introduced Bess and Hannah to Phoebe who at once summoned Margery and told her to take them to the servants’ quarters. Then, with more ceremony, I introduced Mildred to Phoebe and Wilder.
‘I have had a room prepared for you, madam,’ Wilder said to Mildred and to me: ‘It is the one your ward Mistress Frost used to have, madam, a very pleasant room. I wish her great happiness now that she is married in Devonshire.’
‘My thanks on her behalf, Wilder,’ I said, and noticed that his eyes were not meeting mine. No, I wasn’t imagining it. Something was amiss, but what? Meanwhile, Mildred, anxious to help, was offering to find her way upstairs and unpack for me while Dale was shaking a vehement head and saying that that was her task. ‘Tired I might be, but I know my duty and I can’t abide interference,’ she said. Mildred looked quelled and I gave her a reassuring smile.
Of us all, poor Dale probably had the best right to be tired. She was no longer young and in my service she had endured gruelling journeys and frightening dangers, a state of affairs to which she was not at all suited. Dale was marked with a childhood bout of smallpox, the same disease that had killed my first husband, and when she was frightened or weary, they seemed to become more prominent, as did her round blue eyes. They were noticeable now. But she removed my riding boots for me and then departed determinedly to do the unpacking. I stayed where I was, not having the energy to change my dress just yet, and since Wilder seemed to be hovering, I asked him to bring some wine.
I had to ask twice, for it was as though he hadn’t heard me the first time. He turned to me with a start. ‘It’s being made ready, madam,’ he said, and if that wasn’t a distracted tone of voice, I had never heard one. I stared after him in surprise as he hurried away. He returned a moment later with a tray of wine and small chicken pies, warm from the oven, and set them down on the big hall table. He still looked worried, for no apparent reason.
He left us again and Phoebe went with him and I heard them whispering about something just outside in the lobby. I half rose, meaning to go after them, but at that moment, the door to the courtyard opened and Brockley came in. I sat down again, raising my eyebrows at him in a questioning fashion.
He was carrying Tommy’s bow and quiver. He put them on the table, pulled off his riding cloak, unbuckled the sword he always carried when we were travelling and threw them on to the table as well. I signalled to him to be seated. He did so, with a sigh. He too had had enough toil for the time being, I thought.
‘You took Tommy Reed home?’ I asked.
‘Aye. I found that eldest brother of his there, bit of luck, that. He was furious when I told him about the so-called toy bow and arrows. As you see, I haven’t given them back. And I told the brother, Abel, his name is, to see Tommy never gets his hands on another such toy, though he probably will. Most lads can make them. I could, at his age. In the village where I grew up, the boys were encouraged to make bows and arrows and encouraged to practise at the butts. Of course, we weren’t supposed just to wander about, shooting at any old mark, though we did!’
Brockley suddenly grinned, reminiscently. ‘I killed a spaniel once, by mistake, of course, but its owner half-killed me. I had a pretty good eye, and I was aiming at a tree stump, but the spaniel came out of nowhere and got in the way.’
He sounded as though he had softened towards young Tommy. ‘I hope you weren’t too hard on the boy,’ I said.
‘Not up to me. I told Abel Reed what had happened and he was angry, as he should be. I pushed Tommy at him and then left them. But as I rode off, I heard Tommy start to howl. If ever he does make another set of bow and arrows, I hope he’ll be more careful with it. I went to the forge to have a few words with the Reed boy, Sim, that’s an apprentice there, and I found him at work with the blacksmith, Rob Jackson.’
‘Ah. Jackson,’ I said with some relish. ‘What did he have to say?’ Jackson was a respectable craftsman with powerful muscles and a powerful voice to match.
‘He clouted Sim on the ear and swore that if he ever caught him tipping toy arrows with iron again, Sim would be out of work and out of Hawkswood as well and begging his bread from door to door. Sim was down on the floor and sobbing, poor little brute. He’s only sixteen. I don’t think there’ll be much more trouble from that quarter.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘For both Tommy and Sim. I have never allowed Harry to be beaten, as you know.’
‘Harry has sense,’ said Brockley. ‘He doesn’t need beating. Where is he now?’
‘Dickson has marched him off, back to a lesson on double entry book-keeping. Brockley, what is going on? Have you noticed it? Everyone looks worried and Wilder has something on his mind, I know he has. What’s wrong?’
‘I’ve only just arrived,’ Brockley said. ‘I haven’t had time to notice anything.’ I nodded to Mildred to pour wine for him and he accepted it gratefully. ‘The best thing to do,’ he said, ‘is ask Wilder what’s happening, if anything. Here he is! Wilder …’
