Free To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court by Fiona Buckley

for you. You could get word to us in a day if you needed us. I’ve already made opportunity to speak to Rob, and he agrees.”
    “But … what do you mean? What is it that’s wrong here? You’d better tell me, Mattie. It might have a bearing on the mystery I’ve come to solve.”
    “I don’t think so. And it’s difficult to discuss. You’ll see for yourself presently. Let me put it this way. Our home at Thamesbank is very orderly, as you know. There’s no laxness among our servants. I may sometimes giggle like a girl,” said Mattie, “but I know right from wrong and how to run a household. If I were runningthis one, there would be some drastic changes. Sooner or later, Meg will have to learn about the world but as yet she’s too young. Now that you’ve come …”
    “Now that the donkey has caught up with the carrot, yes. Mattie, what on earth are you talking about?”
    “I’m simply saying,” Mattie informed me, “that I want to take Meg away from here as soon as I possibly can.”

5
Lady Thomasine
    At eight o’clock next morning, a handsome and well-dressed youth, with smoothly combed dark hair, presented himself at the guest lodgings and inquired for me.
    “Lady Thomasine asked me to show you the way to her room, Mistress Blanchard.” His bow was most courtly. “The castle is confusing until you know it. You are breaking your fast with her this morning, I believe.”
    “Yes, that’s so.” I had dressed in readiness, complete with a fresh ruff and a farthingale, and had been waiting for a servant to collect me. This young man, though, did not give the impression of being a servant. His full brown eyes were too direct, his voice too frank, and his clothes too good. He wasn’t Welsh, either, and most of the castle servants were, except for the Raghorns, whom I had now met (and didn’t much like, as they were dour, middle-aged, and far from clean).
    In the days when Wales was a likely source of attack, I wondered if the border castellans had had to forbid the Welsh language in their castles. How undignified it would be to learn, too late, that the serving men you thought were just gossiping in their own speech were blandly discussing, in your presence and in your hearing, how best to take your fortress.
    “And your name is … ?” I said to the young man as we set off across the courtyard.
    “I’m Rafe Northcote, Sir Philip’s ward. Until next year, when I shall be twenty-one, that is. My father and Sir Philip were good friends. Father died a couple of years ago and left me a manor in Shropshire, but he took the view that a young man should not have to shoulder full responsibility for an estate until he had turned twenty-one. He himself inherited at nineteen, and found it difficult. For myself,” Rafe confided, “I wish things were otherwise. I am not even allowed to live there until I take over though I know Rowans is being well administered by its present steward. Sir Philip takes me there often and we look into everything.”
    “I didn’t see you yesterday,” I observed.
    “No. I was out moving sheep.”
    “Ah, sheep. The wealth of the Marches?”
    “Well, so they are,” said Rafe. “And I need to learn to manage them. Yesterday, I was helping to shift the Vetch flock to higher ground in case we had more rain.”
    “Tewkesbury was full of sheep when we came through it,” I said, interested. “They were being moved off the river meadows in case the Severn flooded.”
    Rafe glanced up at the sky. The sun was out, but wisps of cloud were blowing from the west. “It wellmay. It often does. There’s more rain on the way, the shepherds say.”
    “Tell me about the castle,” I said. “Where are Lady Thomasine’s rooms—where we’re going now?”
    “All the family’s bedchambers are in the Mortimer Tower.” He pointed to where the battlements of the tower in the northeast corner of the courtyard were just visible above the red-brick building. “The servants mostly live in