The Flower Reader (12 page)

Silence.

I looked at the three of them and wondered whether the person who had ordered Alexander’s death was here in this luxuriously appointed chamber, looking back at me.

“I will have nothing to do with any such bargain,” Lord James said. “Sister, my advice to you is that you shut Mistress Rinette up in some suitable place—”

“How unfortunate that all the convents have been suppressed,” Nico de Clerac murmured.

Lord James narrowed his eyes. “In some suitable place,” he said again. “Put her child out for fostering, send her household away, and feed her bread and water until she decides to see reason.”

“I disagree,” Nico said. “Madame, I believe if you treat Mistress Rinette with harshness, it will only further harden her resolve. Am I not correct, mistress?”

He was. I said nothing.

“So we are back where we were, so many years ago in France,” the queen said. She looked directly at me with those heavy-lidded golden eyes—she had such power and she did not even seem to be aware of it. “
Reinette
and Rinette, at odds. You will find I am no longer a little queen, Marianette, a toy queen as I was then. I am here to rule, and rule I will.”

I lowered my eyes. I would not speak, but I would show her deference—that always pleased her.

“This, then, is my decision,” she went on. “I will put you in a place among my ladies, but you will be close to me and watched. You will not be compelled to marry and your estate will be protected while you are at court. However, I will not confirm you in full
possession of your estate and its revenues until you have given me this casket.”

She was cleverer than they gave her credit for. I said, “And my husband’s murderer?”

“I can make no promises. Surely you understand that. But I will order a royal inquiry to be commenced.”

I bowed my head to her and curtsied deeply, to make it appear as if it were I who was submitting to her will and not the other way round. “I agree with your decision, madame.”

“Now,” she said. How quickly she could change from one attitude to another. “Tomorrow I leave Edinburgh for a short progress to the north. All the court is to accompany me, but in your delicate state of health, Marianette, you must stay behind.”

“I will remain here, madame, and await your return.”

“See that you do. I will appoint men to accompany you if you go out.”

“I understand, madame.”

“I will not have you giving my mother’s silver casket to anyone else.”

“I will give it to you or to no one, madame,” I said. I meant it. It could molder under Saint Margaret’s forever, but for the power it gave me to get what I wanted. “I look forward to the day when I will place it in your hands.”

“T
here’s a gentleman asking to see you, Rinette,” Jennet said. “Don’t know who he is, but he’s a sleekit-looking fellow with fine clothes and an English manner of speaking.”

I was sitting in the middle of the bed playing catch-my-finger with Màiri. Her tiny, perfect fingers were astonishingly strong, and she curled them around my own forefinger with a will. I could actually lift her a little, with just her fingers clinging to mine. She was a month old today.

“Did he not give his name? Almost all the court is away on progress with the queen, and I know no one else in Edinburgh.”

“Wetheral, he said his name was. No title, just plain Master Wetheral.” She made it sound as if he were lying about it. Truth or lie, it was not a name I had ever heard before.

The last fortnight had been a quiet one. There were two equerries with royal badges on their sleeves who stood outside my door every day like thistles, stout and prickly, and I had seen no one else but Tante-Mar and Jennet and Wat Cairnie and my precious Màiri. I had not set foot out of Holyrood Palace other than to walk for an hour
each day in the gardens. Lilidh had been brought to Edinburgh and I longed to ride, even a sedate, well-cushioned walk down the High Street and back with Wat at Lilidh’s bridle. Tante-Mar forbade it; no riding for me till the New Year, she said, after such a difficult birth.

I was numb and listless with the unchanging round of my days. I longed to ask questions. I longed to look at every dagger at every man’s belt from one end of the city to the other, to see whether there was a missing ruby.

“The royal guards,” I said. “They did not stop this Master Wetheral?”

“Gave him a bit of a look-over, but no, they didn’t stop him.”

“Very well. I shall see him. Where is Tante-Mar?”

“In the chapel, same as always.”

“Will you stay here with Màiri, then?” I climbed down off the bed and shook out my skirt. The plain russet-colored Cambrai linen was creased and crumpled, but it hardly mattered if I was only to speak a few words with a stranger. An English stranger.

“Cry out if you need me,” Jennet said. “But he’s a soft-looking fellow, for all his breadth. One good whack with a stool, and he’ll be cold senseless on the floor.”

She was trying to coax me to smile, I knew. I tried; I truly did. Perhaps I succeeded, just a little.

In the outer room a gentleman of ordinary height and a blocky, thickset mien awaited me. Jennet had been right—he was sleekit, his thick silver hair pomaded and combed straight back from his low forehead, his clothing well tailored and pressed, his boots polished, his hands clean and soft. His head seemed to be set directly upon his shoulders, with no neck to speak of. He bowed with a courtier’s polish.

“Mistress Leslie? Please allow me to make myself known to you—I am Richard Wetheral, and I am a member of Master Thomas Randolph’s household. Master Thomas, as you may know, is with the queen on her progress, but he asked me to call upon you while he was away.”

Even his voice was smooth. He spoke Scots as if it were his native
tongue. Perhaps it was; enough Scotsmen had turned their coats and joined the English over the years. Thomas Randolph was the queen of England’s agent—supposedly her confidential agent, but everyone knew—and he’d pursued English interests in Scotland even in the days of Mary of Guise. He was an open Protestant and deep in the pockets of the Lords of the Congregation. Master Wetheral, then, would be a Protestant as well.

“Good day to you,” I said. I made my voice cool; I did not particularly want to talk with him, but at least he made a change. “I have little hospitality to offer, but please sit at least.” There were two chairs and a small table in the antechamber. No other furniture. No stools. I wondered whether I could lift the table. He waited until I was seated—sleekit manners as well—and then settled himself into the other chair.

“First, allow me to offer Sir Thomas’s condolences and my own, upon the death of your husband,” he said. “A terrible thing, and in the course of such joyous celebrations.”

Neither you nor your Sir Thomas knew Alexander at all, I thought. You certainly do not know me. What reason do you have to come here offering condolences?

I said nothing.

“You may be thinking Sir Thomas and I did not know your husband,” he said, as if he could see inside my thoughts. “But in a way, we did. Sir Thomas had been corresponding with him over the past few months. I carried the letters, and met your husband twice in Aberdeen.”

“You met him?” I remembered those days when Alexander rode from Granmuir to Aberdeen. He had said he was dealing with matters related to his estate at Glenlithie. It was after that, that he began to talk of courts and pleasures and prestige. “In Aberdeen?”

“Indeed I did. A very fine young gentleman, if I may be so bold as to say so.”

“Why? What did Alexander have to do with an ambassador of the English queen?”

Master Wetheral looked down at his soft white hands. He wore three rings, two on one hand, one on the other. One of them was a ruby, cut with facets. I wondered whether he owned a dagger.

“It is a matter of some delicacy,” he said. “Did you know, Mistress Leslie, that your husband was in possession of a…relic…of the late queen regent, Mary of Guise? He was a close and trusted friend to her; I am sure you know that much.”

“He was
what
?”

“He was one of her Scots equerries, and like a son to her. Her own sons had died, as of course you know. Your husband was exactly the age of Prince James, her eldest Stewart boy, born on the very same day—it was a bond between them.”

“That is not true, Master Wetheral.” I was so taken aback by the fanciful untruth of Alexander being born on the same day as poor ill-fated little Prince James that I could not quite absorb the greater lie: that Alexander had been an equerry to Mary of Guise. “Alexander would never have said such a thing, so I cannot believe you ever actually met him and spoke with him as you claim to have done.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. Most men would be angry to be called a liar so baldly. I wondered whether Master Wetheral even remembered how to be angry, or if he had been a diplomat—and probably a spy—for so long that ordinary feelings had been lost to him.

“I assure you, Mistress Leslie, I did meet your husband twice in Aberdeen,” he said. “But whether or not these meetings took place, and the truth or untruth of what he told me, are of secondary importance. What is most important is this relic he had, from the hands of the queen regent. He promised it to Sir Thomas, and through him, of course, to the queen of England herself, in exchange for a suitable recompense. My purpose here—aside from condoling with you as young Sir Alexander’s widow—is to find a way for that promised exchange to take place.”

I had never in my life heard so many elaborate and meaningless words in one speech. “Let me be plain, Master Wetheral,” I said.
“Whether or not Alexander met you in Aberdeen, I cannot say—he did ride into the city from time to time to deal with matters of business. But he was certainly not born on the same day as either of the little princes. He had nothing to do with Mary of Guise. He did not possess any relic, and if he did, he would not have sold it to the English. You have been misled.”

Master Wetheral ran one hand over his mane of gray hair, as if to smooth down strands that had risen with horror. “You claim, then,” he said, in his diplomat’s voice, “that your husband did not possess a silver letter-casket that once belonged to Mary of Guise? A casket filled with the queen regent’s own most private papers?”

…a silver letter-casket that once belonged to Mary of Guise…

Oh, Alexander. How does he know this? How many times did you betray me?

“Yes,” I said, with perfect truth. “I claim exactly that. My husband never possessed such a casket.”

“Is it possible he had it hidden away, and did not tell you?”

“No. It is not possible.”

I thought back to exactly who had been present at my own audience with Queen Mary, when I admitted to having the casket and made my own bargain to exchange it for—what had Master Wetheral said? A suitable recompense. Queen Mary herself, of course. Lord James and Monsieur Nicolas de Clerac. The two women, Mary Livingston and Mary Beaton—they had been sent away but could have been listening at the door. Had someone whispered a word to someone else that I was in possession of Mary of Guise’s silver casket? Was all this blather of Master Wetheral’s a fiction, because his master had learned I had the casket and wanted a way to make me feel obligated to sell it to him?

“It appears we are at an impasse,” Master Wetheral was saying. “Perhaps I should approach the matter somewhat differently, and tell you what we believe to be in this casket, and what Sir Thomas is willing to pay in exchange for it.”

“Perhaps you should not.” I rose, and of course Master No-Neck
Sleekit-Manners was required to rise as well. “Please tell Sir Thomas this—if such a silver casket exists, and if there are private papers inside it, Mary of Guise would have intended it for her own daughter and no one else.”

“It exists,” Richard Wetheral said. His mask of perfect polish slipped a bit and I saw a glint of the ruthlessness beneath. “And Mary of Guise is dead and gone. Your husband accepted an offer of one thousand gold sovereigns, an English barony, and a place at Queen Elizabeth’s court in exchange for the casket and its contents. A similar arrangement can be made for you, Mistress Leslie. Surely it would be better than to be kept here as you are, no better than a prisoner.”

“I am not a prisoner.” I was furious and sick with betrayal, and a little frightened to think such a price had been offered for the casket. “I am Queen Mary’s lady, here at Holyrood instead of on progress with her only because I am recovering from the birth of my daughter.”

“Ah, yes, your daughter,” Richard Wetheral said. “I have children of my own, in London, of course, and I miss them. Will you permit me to meet your little girl?”

“I will not,” I said. Children in London! I did not believe it for a moment, and I was certainly not going to allow him anywhere near Màiri. “Master Wetheral, you are a fool and so is your master if you think I would ever leave Scotland. I am a Leslie of Granmuir, and a Leslie of Granmuir I shall remain until the day I die. I have no need for English gold or English titles.”

“So you do have it,” he said.

“I do not.” Not entirely a lie, because I did not actually have the casket in my possession. Not that I cared whether or not I lied to him. “Good day to you, Master Wetheral.”