The Flower Reader (19 page)

“It is my delight to oblige you, madame,” Nicolas de Clerac said. Whatever he had wished to tell me would have to wait. “Mistress Rinette, you will excuse me, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

They went off to form the dance. I withdrew to the shadows along the wall, and slowly made my way to the west end of the gallery, where I could slip out the door and go back to my own apartments, where my dear Màiri would be sleeping, warm and soft and smelling of milk and soap. The queen would never miss me at the bedding, or when she decided to retire to her own bed. Nicolas de
Clerac would certainly not come looking for me as a partner again, with the queen begging him so prettily to dance
la volte
with her.

I reached the door. The music had begun again. No one saw me.

I ran down the maze of west passageways. The darkness and cold were salutary after the light and heat and scents of sweat and perfumes and lust in the gallery. Narrow windows cast pale oblongs of moonlight over the stones. Halfway to the end I ran straight into some drunken fellow sprawled on the floor. I stumbled and barely caught my balance; there was something wet and sticky on the wall above the spot where the man lay.

I looked at my hand. It was dark and shiny. It looked black in the faint silver moonlight, but I could smell the salty, rusty smell I would never forget.

Blood.

I went to my knees and ran my hands over the man’s face. A low forehead and thick sleekit hair, brushed back. No neck—

I jerked back with a cry. Master Richard Wetheral may have had no neck to speak of, but he now had a single deep cut under his chin from ear to ear.

T
HE
E
NGLISH AGENT
T
HOMAS
R
ANDOLPH
was called at once, of course, and directed the queen’s guards in the removal of Master Richard’s body. A cadre of the queen’s servants scrubbed the stones of the passageway. I was given a basin of water to wash my hands. The wedding party was warned, apparently, to take a different corridor when they escorted the new Earl of Mar and his countess to the rooms set aside for their ceremonial bedding. I could hear music and laughter, far off, like a procession from Elfland making its way into the heart of a green hill.

Master Thomas asked me one or two cursory questions but clearly did not suspect I knew anything of value. I did, of course, although I had the wit not to say so and further entangle myself. I
had seen a cut like that before, deep and sure, ear to ear. Across Alexander’s throat.

Was this the same assassin? If so, why?

Who would be next?

One of the guards took me back to my own rooms. By then the shock had begun to overtake me; I felt icy cold and my hands were shaking. Jennet, Tante-Mar, and Màiri were abed, and I did not want to wake them. There was no way to lock the door. I sat on one of the chairs in the main chamber, facing the door, staring into the darkness.

Was I expecting the quiet scratch on the door? I was not sure.

Nicolas de Clerac stepped in and closed the door noiselessly behind him.

“Rinette,” he said.

He pulled me up from the chair and put his arms around me. I did not resist him; in fact, I pressed my face against his shoulder to muffle the sound and sobbed, once, twice, three times. I was so shocked and so frightened, and in some way I could not understand his presence made me feel safe again. The scents of bitter orange and myrrh—I knew I would never smell them again, for as long as I lived, without thinking of him.

Then I realized what I was doing, and pulled away. He stepped away at the same time. We looked at each other. I am not sure which one of us was the more surprised.

“You are not hurt?” he said.

“I am not hurt. Only shocked, and sorry for Master Wetheral’s death.”

“Tell me.”

I went back to my chair and sat down again. He crouched in front of me, just far enough away so he was not touching me. The room was too dark for me to see his expression clearly.

“There is not much to tell. I was walking—I was running. I wanted to be away from the bedding. I wanted to be here with Màiri.
I ran straight into him—he was lying in the corridor. I think he was standing when…when his throat…when the assassin attacked him. There was blood on the wall.”

“You believe it was the same man?”

“The wound was the same.”

He rocked back on his heels. “It was the shortest way,” he said. “For you to walk from the long gallery to your rooms here. The obvious way. I believe the assassin guessed you would walk there, and left Master Wetheral’s body for you to find.”

“But how did he know I was there, at the wedding?” It was becoming more and more difficult to keep my voice to a whisper.

“Because he was there as well.”

I swallowed hard and breathed for a moment before trying to speak again. “If he was there, he must be attached to the court in some way.”

“It was a great celebration, with a large attendance—he could have slipped in. But he knows Holyrood well enough to know the passageway you would take, and he carries the jeweled dagger. Yes, I believe he is attached to the court, or at least on its periphery.”

“Nico,” I said. “Why? Why did he kill poor Master Wetheral, and leave him for me to find?”

I heard someone stirring in the other room. Màiri began to whimper.

“He cannot have believed that killing Wetheral would stop the English effort to obtain the casket—Randolph will find someone else quickly enough, or step into the negotiations himself. I think it was a warning to you, Rinette. He is telling you he does not want you speaking with anyone else about the casket.”

“Holy Saint Ninian. Nico, everyone speaks with me about the casket. He cannot kill them all.”

“We shall hope not.” He turned his head, listening to Tante-Mar’s voice in the other room, comforting Màiri. “I cannot stay, Rinette. I beg you to take every care—there are a dozen conspiracies afoot, and you are the one person at the center of them all. And I also
meant to tell you, before the queen called me away—I am going to France for a little while. I do not know how long. But I will come back, I promise you.”

“Going to France?” I repeated. “Why?”

I could see the corner of his mouth curl down. It was a strange expression, half-sorrowful, half a wry smile. “A family matter,” he said. “I would tell you to do nothing more but keep yourself safe until I return, but I suspect it would do no good.”

“No,” I said. “It would do no good.”

I
t was not easy to search for a murderer when one was a queen’s lady.

Every moment was accounted for. Queen Mary was wooing the English queen with letters and gifts—she said she wanted to be recognized as the heir to the English throne, but of course in Catholic eyes she was already the rightful queen of England. She sent Elizabeth Tudor a ring with a heart-shaped diamond, some verses, and a fine portrait of herself, and even told us all that if the queen of England were a man, she would marry him forthwith. When she said that, she laughed and laughed. At the same time, secretly, she was negotiating with the king of Spain to marry his poor mad son and declaring she felt it was her destiny to be queen of Spain and wrest England from Elizabeth Tudor with Spanish gunships.

She went so far as to plan a meeting with the queen of England for the summer, at York, and we were all given new dresses for the occasion—mine was blue sarcenet trimmed with silver and tiny crystals, and I also received new velvet trimming to cover the mended place on my green dress. Who knows how different all our
lives might have been if this great meeting had taken place? But it did not.

In March the Duke of Guise, the queen’s favorite uncle, attacked—or was attacked by?—a congregation of Huguenots at a French town near Joinville called Vassy. So many conflicting stories were told that no one knew the truth of the matter, but it was like a spark on dry tinder. France went up in flames of open war between Catholics and Huguenots, and the queen of England decided she had best remain in London to see what advantage she could gain from the conflict. Our queen took to her bed in tears, and once again the whole court lurched from sunny anticipation to the blackest gloom. I wondered where in France Nicolas de Clerac was, and whether his mysterious family matter had taken him into danger.

I stumbled over no more bodies. I danced with the gentlemen of the court—
he knows Holyrood well enough to know the passageway you would take, and he carries the jeweled dagger
—and made a list of the ones who did not have daggers with faceted rubies. It was a long list. As often as I dared I asked the queen about the royal inquiry into Alexander’s death, and each time she assured me sweetly—too sweetly—that it was continuing.

In July there was a new scandal. Handsome young Sir John Gordon, he who had danced so blithely with the queen at Lord James’s wedding in February, wounded a member of the queen’s personal household in a street brawl. The queen was furious. She was looking for a scapegoat, I think, someone upon whom to take out her anger and frustration over the collapse of her meeting with the English queen, and her fears for her Guise relations in France. Sir John’s defiance of her royal authority was a spark, and Lord James, who hated the powerful Catholic Earl of Huntly and his Gordons, energetically fanned the flames.

So by August we were off on a progress to the north, to confront the Earl of Huntly once and for all. We would pass by Granmuir on our way to Aberdeen, and I decided to take Màiri and all my household with us and settle them at Granmuir castle. With its high walls
and narrow causeway to the mainland, it was a hundred times more secure than Edinburgh, and however much it would break my heart to be separated from them all, they would be safer there.

I was so tired. I was more than a little afraid. The Frenchman Blaise Laurentin had tried once to force his way into my chambers and gotten a beating from Wat Cairnie for his pains. The Earl of Rothes spoke to me often, asking me if I was well in a way that implied he expected me not to be, and Rannoch Hamilton lurked behind him like a black-haired, black-eyed wolf. Lady Margaret Erskine missed no chance to speak publicly of flower-witchcraft and the power of a husband—any husband—to control a wife.

We left Edinburgh on the eleventh of August, and made our way first to Stirling—
I was burned here!
the queen cried, and told us the story over and over again—then to Perth and Glamis. When we rode out of Glamis northeast toward Granmuir, I left the progress with my little party. The queen had not only agreed to my riding ahead—the long train of the progress was slow, and would catch us up in a day or two—but graciously allotted me two royal men-at-arms to accompany us. She also reluctantly allotted me Monsieur Nicolas de Clerac, who had reappeared at court as mysteriously as he had disappeared. It was obviously Nico’s own idea. Perhaps he had something to tell me.

All I could think of, though, was home. For the first time in over a year, I turned Lilidh’s head toward the sea. I could smell it, taste it, the tang of salt, the briny scent of minuscule sea creatures living and dying, of ancient rocks and sea plants and seabirds. The fields were intensely green—it had been a wet, cool summer—and there were flowers everywhere, white and purple heather, wild roses, thistles and sweetbriar and sops-in-wine. Jennet rode beside me with Màiri in her arms; the baby was laughing with delight and reaching out her tiny hands as if she could catch the flowers out of the air. She had never seen Granmuir. My own heart welled up with joy and I knew I was doing the right thing to take her there.

We reached the castle rock in the early evening. I had sent one of the queen’s
men ahead, and so when we trotted out onto the causeway I saw Norman More and the boys at the top of the gatehouse flying Granmuir’s blue-and-gold colors to greet us. We had no colors, but Lilidh was as good as any pennon, white as the crest of a sea wave, her mane and tail touched with rose and gold by the setting sun.

“My lady, my lady!” Bessie More cried as we drew rein in the courtyard. “And your precious bairnie! And Jennet, my girl! Thanks be to Our Lady for bringing you home.”

They crowded around, Bessie and Norman and the boys, old Robinet Loury, even Père Guillaume, frailer than ever but radiant with holy joy. Jennet and Tante-Mar and the wet nurse Annis Cairnie handed Màiri around, and to my amazement she did not fuss or cry but happily embraced them all. The queen’s men had the good sense to see to the horses and leave us alone; I caught only a glimpse of Nico de Clerac, stroking Lilidh’s neck and looking as if he wished he himself could be the next to be handed the laughing baby. It was so unlike Nico that I stopped and looked again; he had turned away to lead Lilidh to the stable block. I was gathered up into Bessie More’s capacious arms and the moment was gone.

Home. We were home.

How could I help but think of Alexander, of how hopefully we had set off for Edinburgh the year before, and everything that had happened between then and now. He would never come home. His tomb was at Glenlithie, so I could not even lay flowers over his grave.