Free Queen's Ransom by Fiona Buckley Page B

Blanchard and wished to have their dinner there, and could they please have it early?
    “You Anglaises make work,” the black-haired woman told me when Arnold had gone. “That man Sweetapple eats as if he’s been starved since he was a baby. Oh well, it will all go on the bill at the end.”
    I was sure it would. My father-in-law must somehow be got fit enough to leave this inn, or quite apart from the delay to the queen’s correspondence, Charpentier was the type to hand us a bill that would bankrupt us.
    As soon as it was ready, I asked, very politely, for the loan of a jar with a stopper and put my infusion into it. Then we went upstairs to give Master Blanchard a dose. Harvey and Sweetapple were there and Harvey at once asked suspiciously what was in the potion. When I recited the ingredients, however, Sweetapple spoke up and declared that his mother had used the same things for digestive ailments. “It’ll do you no harm, sir, anyway,” he said encouragingly to Blanchard.
    Master Blanchard consented to try it, diluted with water. He made a face and said it tasted horrible, but he drank it down. I could only hope that it would benefit him.
    Most of us dined downstairs, for last night’s guests had either left or gone out and the inn was quiet once more. Dale and I went up again after the meal, but presently Harvey tapped on my door to say that a messenger had come asking for me. It turned out to be Lejeune’s boy, bringing the promised medicine. It was a murky brew in a small glass bottle and it smelled appalling, far worse than my own concoction. We had paid a high consultation fee, however, and I supposed I should at least offer it to Blanchard. I found him still in bed, his face set in lines of depression. Sweetapple and Harvey and the remains of their dinner were still there. So was a lingering aroma of fish.
    “You should get those used platters out of here,” I said. “The smell of food may make him feel worse. Master Blanchard, this has come for you from the physician. You can try it if you will.”
    “I’m no better,” he said dismally. “But I daresay you’re trying to help me. I’ll swallow this if you wish.”
    It was a short attempt, however. One mouthful of Lejeune’s potion made him gag and clutch at his stomach muscles again. “Yours wasn’t very palatable but
this
!” he said disgustedly. “I can’t get it down. Take it away!”
    The visit to Lejeune had been wasted. He would have to recover with the help of my homely remedies or not at all. Clicking my tongue, I fetched Dale and said that we would sit with him while the men stretched their legs and removed their dinner dishes. Sweetapple and Harvey departed, taking the used platters with them, and we stayed with Blanchard for the next couple of hours. After a time, he fell asleep. Then Arnold knocked on the door and came in to take over. “I’ll bring him another dose of my potion in the evening,” I said. “Perhaps by tomorrow there’ll be some result.”
    Dale and I went back to our room. Evening was coming. The inn was quiet, but I could hear Brockley’s voice in the stableyard below. I strolled over to the window to look. Brockley was down there with another of Blanchard’s men, the redheaded Searle, examining the feet of one of our hired horses. My own left shoe touched something and I glanced down. Most of our things had been unpacked, but not quite everything, and a few items still remained in the hampers and saddlebags, which were all piled together in the corner next to the window. I had just kicked a saddlebag.
    As I looked at it, a small cold worm moved in my guts.
    I had a clear picture in my mind of how those bags and hampers had been arranged when I last glanced at them, just after dinner. Everything then had been neatly piled but now, the topmost hamper was tilting perilously, while the saddlebags, which had been compactly placed side by side, were lying apart, one of them right under the window and also under