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 Page B
Authors: Fiona Buckley
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fisticuffs until the tavern keeper pushed his way through the crowd to yank the pair apart and tell them to go and settle their quarrel outside.
“But the mincing white-livered craven gave me the slip and dodged off into the night,” said Ericks in disgust.
He had tried to pursue his quarry, but not for long, because he was still a wee bit short of breath after his illness. No, he had not followed Edward home and had no notion where he was staying. He had given up the chase and been back in the tavern within a few minutes, and there were those there who knew him and could say so. The tavern keeper, recalled, bore this out. He also said that he had heard most of the exchange between the two men and no, Edward had not said where he was lodged.
“So I don’t think Ericks could have known. Besides, it makes no sense. It was just a squabble. They’re always happening, especially with Ericks. I’ve had to order him out a couple of times before. That sort of thing doesn’t lead to this. ”
By this, he meant assassins who crept in at windows in the small hours of the morning, more than twenty-four hours after an argument in a tavern, and stabbed people in their sleep, and he was right. Everyone knew it, and if they hadn’t known it, John Knox, interrupting the proceedings for the third time, and this time wresting control from the provost so forcefully that even though he was not in the pulpit, he nevertheless became to all intents and purposes the presiding authority, proceeded to tell them.
Ericks, he declared resoundingly, was a good man, zealous for the Reformed faith, and he, Knox, would testify to Ericks’s charrracter at any time and in any fashion it pleased the prrovost or any other authorrity to require. To suppose that Ericks had gone on to spendthe day after the argument in creating a tangled scheme of stealthy murrder, and one, at that, which most likely needed at least one accomplice, was madness, and to believe it was to believe the whispering of demons. If Ericks had encountered Edward again, likely enough he would have offered rrighteous blows but as for crrreeping in at windows with a blade in his hand . . . !
“If this poor honest man Adam Erricks is named as the murrderer?” roared Knox, “it will be over my dead body and so I tell you!”
Loud cheers broke out from the people around him, and standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, I realized that, in fact, quite a number of men were gathered around him now and that some of them, judging from their rich furred cloaks, were some of his Lords of the Congregation.
And no doubt they had retainers with them.
Whether or not Knox and his supporters swayed the verdict, I can’t be sure, but I would wager that they did. Confronted with the possibility of mayhem and further bloodshed, the provost and his jury did what Knox plainly wanted them to do and eliminated Ericks as a suspect. The provost was visibly simmering with anger but he was helpless, his court’s verdict decided by outside influence just as the Burgh Court’s verdict had been on an earlier occasion.
Not that the verdict was itself unfair. I did not myself think that Adam Ericks was guilty. It was true enough, I thought, that as the verdict said, Edward Faldene, visitor on unknown business from England, had been murdered by a person or persons unknown.
Then I realized with infinite relief that it was over andwe were free to go. Thankfully, we made our way out through a crowd of townsfolk, hindered only by a crippled lady who was being carried in a chair, and who gave us a sweet, apologetic smile as we stopped to let her be borne out of the hall ahead of us.
The Macnabs had not had room for us—unless we used the attic, which we certainly didn’t want to do. We had taken the lodgings recommended by the Keiths. They were not far from the Macnabs’ house, in another narrow, timber-fronted building, and they were chilly, cramped, and poor.
Our landlady, who had a plump face and a
“But the mincing white-livered craven gave me the slip and dodged off into the night,” said Ericks in disgust.
He had tried to pursue his quarry, but not for long, because he was still a wee bit short of breath after his illness. No, he had not followed Edward home and had no notion where he was staying. He had given up the chase and been back in the tavern within a few minutes, and there were those there who knew him and could say so. The tavern keeper, recalled, bore this out. He also said that he had heard most of the exchange between the two men and no, Edward had not said where he was lodged.
“So I don’t think Ericks could have known. Besides, it makes no sense. It was just a squabble. They’re always happening, especially with Ericks. I’ve had to order him out a couple of times before. That sort of thing doesn’t lead to this. ”
By this, he meant assassins who crept in at windows in the small hours of the morning, more than twenty-four hours after an argument in a tavern, and stabbed people in their sleep, and he was right. Everyone knew it, and if they hadn’t known it, John Knox, interrupting the proceedings for the third time, and this time wresting control from the provost so forcefully that even though he was not in the pulpit, he nevertheless became to all intents and purposes the presiding authority, proceeded to tell them.
Ericks, he declared resoundingly, was a good man, zealous for the Reformed faith, and he, Knox, would testify to Ericks’s charrracter at any time and in any fashion it pleased the prrovost or any other authorrity to require. To suppose that Ericks had gone on to spendthe day after the argument in creating a tangled scheme of stealthy murrder, and one, at that, which most likely needed at least one accomplice, was madness, and to believe it was to believe the whispering of demons. If Ericks had encountered Edward again, likely enough he would have offered rrighteous blows but as for crrreeping in at windows with a blade in his hand . . . !
“If this poor honest man Adam Erricks is named as the murrderer?” roared Knox, “it will be over my dead body and so I tell you!”
Loud cheers broke out from the people around him, and standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, I realized that, in fact, quite a number of men were gathered around him now and that some of them, judging from their rich furred cloaks, were some of his Lords of the Congregation.
And no doubt they had retainers with them.
Whether or not Knox and his supporters swayed the verdict, I can’t be sure, but I would wager that they did. Confronted with the possibility of mayhem and further bloodshed, the provost and his jury did what Knox plainly wanted them to do and eliminated Ericks as a suspect. The provost was visibly simmering with anger but he was helpless, his court’s verdict decided by outside influence just as the Burgh Court’s verdict had been on an earlier occasion.
Not that the verdict was itself unfair. I did not myself think that Adam Ericks was guilty. It was true enough, I thought, that as the verdict said, Edward Faldene, visitor on unknown business from England, had been murdered by a person or persons unknown.
Then I realized with infinite relief that it was over andwe were free to go. Thankfully, we made our way out through a crowd of townsfolk, hindered only by a crippled lady who was being carried in a chair, and who gave us a sweet, apologetic smile as we stopped to let her be borne out of the hall ahead of us.
The Macnabs had not had room for us—unless we used the attic, which we certainly didn’t want to do. We had taken the lodgings recommended by the Keiths. They were not far from the Macnabs’ house, in another narrow, timber-fronted building, and they were chilly, cramped, and poor.
Our landlady, who had a plump face and a
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