Free To Shield the Queen by Fiona Buckley

had arisen connected with the refurbishment of his house. He must leave at once and would be gone by the time I received the note. He would return in perhaps two weeks, and hoped to have the pleasure of seeing me then. I would be constantly in his thoughts.
    I would be in Oxfordshire long before the two weeks were up. There was nothing to do but write a reply which he could be given when he came back.
My letter thanked him for his, explained that I had gone, at the queen’s wish, to attend on Lady Dudley, who was ill, and civilly hoped that his business with the house had gone well. It was a pleasant, polite letter, but I was careful in what I wrote. This was not a love letter, just a few words to a friend. As yet, I could go no further.
    • • •
    Dudley presented me with generous funds, and said that he would provide an escort. When I was introduced to them, I found that they were the fair-haired, azure-clad young gallant and the quietly clad middle-aged man who had caught my eye on my first day.
    I remembered being told that they were connected in some way to Dudley. It seemed that they were not often at court but occasionally visited him there and sometimes took messages to his wife. The middle-aged man was called Thomas Blount, and was a cousin of Dudley’s by marriage. The fair-haired young fellow, who greeted me with an extravagant bow and a declaration that he was eternally at my service, and was now disporting himself in rose-pink instead of azure, turned out to be Lady Dudley’s half-brother, Arthur Robsart.
    For all his elegance, he, like Blount, had come without a servant. When this point arose, while we were all discussing how the party to Oxfordshire should be made up, he added that he normally lived in Norfolk, and smiled at me with raised brows, as if inviting a reply.
    “Ah yes. I believe I have heard of the Norfolk bylaws that forbid the inhabitants to travel with attendants,” I said solemnly.
    Arthur suddenly grinned and the young fop turned on the instant into an entirely masculine and somewhat mischievous young man. “Some parts of it are fairly rustic and it’s a good way from court. Plain living is more admired away from cities. My wife Margaret is Norfolk-born and her tastes are simple. So are mine, in many ways. I prefer to travel uncluttered and I only wear rose satin at court because it’s the thing to do. When in Rome imitate the Romans.”
“Or make fun of them,” said Blount, who though serious of face, was not humourless.
    “Exactly,” said Dudley. “Arthur makes fun of fashion, Mistress Blanchard. He puts on satins in pretty colours fit for a maid of honour, as a backhanded way of gibing at our peacocks and popinjays. Can we keep to the matter at hand? I’m sending a manservant of my own with you because I shall want him to bring back word of your safe arrival. His name is Martin Bristow and he knows the route. Now, Mistress Blanchard, you are a gentlewoman going to stay with another gentlewoman, so you had better take your maid. Can she ride? If she can’t, she’ll have to follow you. Pillion passengers slow everyone down and I want to get you there quickly.”
    No one who is perching sideways on a cushion behind the saddle, hanging on to the belt of the rider in front and without stirrups, can keep in place for long at anything faster than a dignified walk. I had ridden behind John on the way from Sussex, so that the spare horse could carry the luggage, and we had taken two and a half days over it.
    “I’ll ask her,” I said.
    Fran Dale was turning out my modest wardrobe and repairing things ready for the journey, and rather than call her from her work, I went to her. It turned out that although she disliked riding—“I can’t abide long journeys, and that’s the truth, ma’am, and it’s why I didn’t want to go traipsing up to the North with my last lady”—she could ride and was willing to put up with it if her employment depended on it.
“It does,” I