A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) by Fiona Buckley

dignity. What he had to say, though, was hardly helpful. He identified himself as Adam Ericks, son of Johann Ericks, a soldier domiciled in Scotland but born in Norway, and Jessie Ericks, who had been born Jessie Gordon and was actually a distantcousin of the current head of the Gordon clan. Adam was a skilled practitioner with the claymore—I gathered that this was the form of broadsword used in Scotland—and made his living as one of the retainers of a nobleman called Patrick Lord Lindsay, who was a Protestant and an associate of James Stewart, the Earl of Moray.
    Around the court, heads nodded, mine included, as I recognized the name that Helene had mentioned, that of Queen Mary’s powerful Protestant half brother by one of her father’s many mistresses. That he was his sister’s chief aide, and that she had other ardently Protestant nobles in her entourage, was certainly one of the more piquant features of the Scottish court.
    “I ought to have gone with the Progress to Fife, but I was sick and couldn’t,” Ericks said. On shaking off his illness, however, he had celebrated his return to health with an evening in Master Furness’s tavern. While he was there, Edward Faldene had come in and Ericks had noticed that Edward wore a cross.
    “I’m of the Reformed persuasion, sir, like my master. I follow the preacher John Knox, whose house is close to this very building. I have often heard him speak . . .”
    “Aye!” broke in a loud, harsh voice from the back of the room. “And so the man has, for he is often among my congregation here in this verra Kirrk of St. Giles and I am here today at his plea!”
    The voice had an astonishing resonance. Everyone turned around. At the back of the court, a thickset, dark-clad, pale-faced man in middle age had risen to his feet. He now launched into a harangue.
    “I’ve spoken with this man Erricks!” The r ’s rolled like thunder. “Many a time he has asked me godly questions. He is passionate for the Prrrotestant faith but he is honest and in my hearing, none shall say he is a murrrderer of men in the night and not be challenged!”
    The provost, his pursed lips jutting out, was bristling with indignation. Clearly he considered that after defeating the Burgh Court, interference from any other quarter was the last thing he had expected.
    “Master Knox! If you wish to testify, then you may do so, but after we have finished with Master Ericks, if you please!”
    So the famous John Knox, the virtual founder of the present Protestant movement in Scotland, had agreed to interest himself in this matter, on behalf of Adam Ericks. I peered across the room at him, intrigued, for this was the man against whom the Bycrofts’ chaplain had railed, the preacher who had caused the Bycrofts to refer to Queen Mary as a poor beleaguered lassie.
    With a sense of depression, I recognized his breed. This was a bigot or I had never seen one. I had to my own discomfort crossed the path of a similar individual in the rival encampment, so to speak. Matthew had once had a passionately, not to say murderously, Catholic acquaintance called Dr. Wilkins. Knox, the ardent Protestant, was remarkably like Wilkins. Even their voices, thick and deep, were similar.
    “Continue with your testimony,” said the provost, in a steely voice, to Adam Ericks.
    Heads reluctantly turned again, away from thefamous Knox to the possibly infamous Adam Ericks. “Aye. Well, I don’t like these popish symbols. If folk want to follow the pope, they ought to be a bit decent and discreet about it, to my mind. Or better still, not follow him at all.”
    Once more, an officer spoke up, this time to inform the court that just after Her Majesty Queen Mary first arrived in Scotland, Ericks’s employer, Patrick Lord Lindsay, had led a violent protest when she attempted to hold a mass at Holyrood House. Master Ericks had been one of the crowd trying to storm the chapel, shouting and brandishing weapons. Only a determined stand