To Ruin a Queen by FIONA BUCKLEY

Author:FIONA BUCKLEY
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

14

Isabel’s Tower

“That Lady Thomasine must be out of her mind,” Dale said. “And if that son of hers did know all about it, and I wouldn’t be surprised, then he’s out of his mind too! Shutting us up in that hut like that! Didn’t they think anyone would come asking after us? Master Henderson would.”

“I know,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s very strange. Lady Thomasine implied that they were somehow going to hide the fact that Rafe was murdered. He’ll have disappeared, though—that’s for sure—and I think we were meant to disappear as well. But—four people, just vanishing into thin air? Yes, I do wonder how the Mortimers meant to explain it.”

We were in the hermitage, pounding dough to make a supply of rye bread to take with us. We meant to carry a fair amount of food. “You don’t know what might go wrong,” Gladys had said in sibylline tones. “You might not find what you want straightaway like, and need to hide in the tower for a day and try again the next night. Best be ready.”

“We are not going to spend a day in Isabel’s Tower,” I protested. “We’ll search the study for … the evidence I’ve orders to find … and be away as fast as we can.”

“I’d say we should be off without even stopping to rest,” said Brockley, “except that we’ll all very likely be frazzled and in need of some sleep. I don’t want Fran getting ill. She’s been through enough as it is. And the mistress is right; the tower’s the only shelter.”

“No harm in being ready,” Gladys insisted, and set about making rye bread regardless. Dale and I were now helping her. We could hardly start out that day, after all. We needed to get hold of some ponies first.

Brockley, who had turned out to be carrying a fair amount of money on him, had set out to find mounts for us. Griff had taken him to the village which lay at the foot of the mountain, below the woods. I thumped the dough irritably, due to impatience at the delay, and Dale said again that the Mortimers must be crazed.

Gladys snorted. “They’re neither of them quite right in the head if you ask me. But they’re crafty enough in some ways. They wouldn’t have wanted your bodies anywhere near the castle, in case anyone did ask questions. They asked Evans’s advice, I expect, about some-where to put you. Evans’s ma came from the same village that I do and he’d know about that hut. It’s empty most of the year because the sheep only go up to the Mynydd Llyr for July and August. They’d all reckon you wouldn’t be found in time to save your lives.”

“Why on earth didn’t they kill us outright, I wonder, and take us away in sacks?”

“Maybe Mortimer didn’t much like killing Rafe,” said Gladys shrewdly. “Killing’s easy to say and nasty to do. Likely enough, he found that out. Evans and Pugh felt the same, I daresay.

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