Queen Without a Crown Read Online Free PDF Page B

to hand over power to her. James Stewart of Moray is her half-brother, and even Mary can’t bewitch a brother as she apparently bewitches other men. I wonder what plans the rebels and Mary have for him?’
    ‘That woman!’ Hugh snorted. ‘A fine queen of Scotland she made! She picked a dissolute boy like Darnley as a husband, was almost certainly a party to his murder and then married the noble who was assuredly the ringleader in it. The Scots turn on her and she flees to England, and now we’ve got her as a hybrid between a prisoner and a guest and she’s become a focus for plots to put her back on the Scottish throne and then snatch Elizabeth’s! Someone ought to chop her head off and be done with it!’
    ‘Tutbury is secure, surely.’
    ‘I dare say, but there’s more than one way of taking a fortress than knocking down the walls with cannon. There’s treachery – or alternatively, there’s the option of just marching straight past Tutbury and coming directly south to see if they can seize the Tower and Windsor and the person of Elizabeth instead. Or put her to flight. Either would do, I fancy.’
    ‘Hugh!’
    ‘I dreamt of it last night,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ve been dreaming of Hawkswood on most nights, but this time I dreamt I was here, at this window, looking out at those hills, and I saw the banners and lances of the rebel force coming towards us, over the skyline there.’
    That was a thought so frightening that if it hadn’t been for the need to redeem Hawkswood, I don’t think I could have undertaken Easton’s commission because I just wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on Peter Hoxton. As things were, however, I knew I must pick up the gauntlet. ‘Your ideas on how to investigate Mark’s mystery,’ I said. ‘What are they?’
    ‘My Little Bear!’ said Hugh, and he smiled. Little Bear was his nickname for me, because my name, Ursula, meant a she-bear. Matthew had called me Saltspoon. In a way, my two nicknames said similar things about me. Matthew said my conversation always had salt on it; Hugh’s pet name implied, gently, that I possessed a fierce side. But the smile drew us together.
    ‘Well?’ I said.
    ‘There’s an obvious place to start,’ said Hugh. ‘But . . .’
    He paused, head cocked, and then peered out of the window again. I moved to see what he was looking at. The rain had stopped by now, and the queen had emerged on to the terrace again, amid her usual cloud of courtiers and ladies, cloaks billowing in the chill air but hoods pushed back so that we could see who was who.
    Senior ladies walked close to the queen, but bringing up the rear were the maids of honour and a handful of their friends, chattering among themselves. Among them was my daughter Meg. Sybil had joined the group too, but was walking a little way behind Meg. Hugh undid the window latch and pushed the casement ajar, and Meg’s voice floated briefly up to us. ‘Ooh, you didn’t!’ The girl beside her giggled. Then they were past and going away from us.
    ‘Damnation,’ said Hugh.
    ‘I know. I feel the same, and I hardly know why. Girls are always giggling over things, especially things they shouldn’t have done. Mostly, there’s no harm in it, but somehow, for Meg, it seems wrong. She’s more grown-up than those other girls in some ways, but in others – she’s too young to be in their company. I don’t feel they’re good for her.’
    ‘Ursula, I know I’m not Meg’s father. She’s Gerald Blanchard’s child, and from all I’ve heard of him, it was a tragedy that you lost him to the smallpox while you were still so young and Meg so little. I have tried to look after you both. I don’t feel,’ said Hugh with bitterness, ‘that I’ve distinguished myself lately. But I do want to do right by the two of you. I am wondering whether, once we are allowed to leave the court, Meg need ever return to it. Need she ever be a maid of honour? Most of these girls are sent here by their families