A Pawn for a Queen by Fiona Buckley

Author:Fiona Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

16

Don’t Ask Who: Ask Why

Scotland was indeed a wild place. Even at Holyrood, the queen’s principal home, things occurred that on the whole did not happen at Elizabeth’s court. When the supper was over and I took my leave, I was not even out of earshot of Queen Mary, who was still talking to Janet Hepburn in the supper chamber, indeed had only walked down one short flight of stairs, before a pair of hands stretched suddenly out of a dark doorway at the foot of the staircase and grabbed me.

They jerked me out of the light of the flambeaux that lit the stairs and the hallway into which they led, dragged me through the doorway, and pushed me roughly up against a stretch of cold stone wall. I opened my mouth to cry out but a hand came down across it and the cry was muffled out of existence.

“That manservant of yourn has been snooping at Furness’s Tavern and asking questions,” said Ericks’s voice furiously in my ear. “I went in there tonight and Furness told me. Just what do ye think ye’re about, my lass? Tell me that!”

A lady leaving a private supper party held by Elizabeth could usually expect to get back to her own quarters without being attacked en route. I would have liked to say so but since Ericks’s hand was still over my mouth, I was in no position either to answer his question or tell him what I thought of the way he had asked it.

I waited. The hand, cautiously, eased its pressure. “I want an answer,” Ericks whispered. “But no caterwauling, now, or God help ye . . .”

I managed to grunt in an affirmative tone and the hand dropped to press against my left shoulder and keep me pinned against the wall, which ground into my back. His other hand had my right upper arm in a savage grip. “Verra well. Now, answer me. What’s that man o’ yours after?”

He was strong and he was causing me considerable discomfort but at least he wasn’t threatening me with a blade. I was dealing with an angry man but not, I thought, a murderous one. I could almost have sympathy for Adam Ericks. He might be innocent, after all, and if so, he had something to complain about. After Mary’s cloying simplicity, the Ericks rudeness even had something refreshing about it.

“Information,” I said quietly. “Anything that might lead me to the man who killed my cousin. Edward Faldene was my cousin. It is a matter of family feeling. Surely you can understand that?”

“Ye ask that of a Scot? We’ll hunt down ony man that offends one of our clan, hunt him across the world and through the ages if need be.”

“Then you do understand. I want to find out who killed my cousin. I have learned that Master Furness was fetched to the inquiry because someone laid anonymous information about the quarrel Edward had with you. I wanted to know who the informant was and I wondered if the tavern keeper knew—or could guess.

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