Uneasy Lies the Crown Read online

  We combed every inch of the structure but unearthed nothing we could consider a clue. I was about to suggest interviewing the wives and children of the guards who lived in the Tower—they might have noticed something out of the ordinary their husbands had not considered significant, like an unfamiliar tradesman delivering goods—but was stopped by the arrival of a humorless man from Scotland Yard. He introduced himself as Inspector Gale and ordered me from the room with little ceremony, explaining in cursory fashion that the interference of a lady would not be welcomed by His Majesty.

  Rather than engage in a fruitless argument, I retreated with uncharacteristic silence; I saw no sense in antagonizing Inspector Gale. At least not yet. Outside of the fortress, I marched to the banks of the Thames. Obviously, the crime had not taken place in the chapel, and I suspected the murderer had brought his victim’s body from outside the Tower. Unless he was one of the guards—a possibility I could not eliminate—but as I could not investigate inside, I was forced to explore other options. I followed the river until I found a man, rather scruffy, with a rowboat and offered him a not quite princely sum to take me for a little excursion on the river. He hesitated at first when I told him my destination, but, as I had hoped, the money was too good to ignore.

  The boat bobbed as I stepped off the dingy pier to which he had tied it, but I managed to steady myself and avoid falling into the filthy-looking water. Our journey was a short one, to the most notorious of all entrances to the Tower, Traitors’ Gate, through which had passed countless prisoners on their way to execution at Tower Green. I thought of Thomas More and Anne Boleyn coming this way, beneath London Bridge with its severed heads on pikes serving as reminders of what lay in store for them. I considered the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the sixteen-year-old queen, whose reign lasted a mere nine days, and whose execution led many to consider her a martyr.

  But once again, the Tower was leading me astray. I could not allow myself to become mired in history, however tempting it might be. Today another man had died, and I suspected that he, too, had entered the Tower through Traitors’ Gate. The boat churned in the water, fighting the rising tide. I asked the man to row closer, until I realized my mistake. Although the words “Entry to the Traitors’ Gate” were painted clearly above the arch marking the space, the gate itself had been bricked up, probably in the middle of the previous century during the construction of the Thames Embankment. It was a blow. I had never noticed the alteration during previous visits to the Tower, where Beefeater tour guides always pointed out the notorious place. From the inside, it was not so easy to tell there was no access to the river.

  A voice cut through the cold air and I looked up to see Inspector Gale standing on the rampart above. “Lady Emily, I must insist that you stop meddling. This investigation will be treated with the utmost sensitivity and I shall not tolerate any interference. Return home at once or the king will have words with your husband.”

  Frowning, I ignored him, continuing my study of the brickwork near the top of the arch. Traitors’ Gate might no longer be an easy way into the Tower, but the fortress held many secrets, not to mention many entrances. Some might now be sealed, but were there any, long forgotten, that might provide a vicious criminal with a path into this place that once protected kings?

  1415

  2

  Cecily Bristow—or Hargrave, as she now was—could not recall a single detail of her wedding. The ceremony had passed in a blur of incense and candles. Yet she could not deny it had occurred, for here she was, sitting at the high table next to her husband, William, a splendid feast before them. The gold and silver plate on the cup board gleamed, and Lord Burgeys’s magnificent saltcellar, made from French porcelain and depicting scenes from the life of Hercules, was barely five feet from her. She and William spoke very little during the meal, but he took her hand three times and squeezed it, which she found reassuring.

  “You play the part of anxious bride well,” Adeline, Lord Burgeys’s granddaughter said, leaning close as she spoke. “I wonder if your groom believes the act.”

  “You ought not speak in such a manner,” Cecily said. “He won’t know you’re teasing.”

  “He knows you’re as good and as boring as you seem.” Adeline scowled. “Yet he agreed to the marriage nonetheless. I’m only trying to make things more interesting for you.”

  Cecily had no need for interesting. Was she anxious? Yes, but not because of what lay in store for her that night. Adeline, whose own marriage had taken place only six months ago, had done her best to instill terror in her, but Cecily knew better than to listen to her harsh words. She did not fear William; she feared France. France, where he would be off to in less than a fortnight, to fight with the king to secure his rightful place on the throne of that country. Henry V, King of the Britons, was brave and good and would lead his men well. Yet battle was full of uncertainty, and although William had won tournament after tournament, this would be his first time at war. He might not return.

  Could she bear the loss with equanimity? Perhaps. He wrote her pretty poems and sang to her, but she had not spent enough time with him to come to rely upon his presence. And as his wife, she ought not expect to. A knight was gone from home more often than not, and her role would be to manage their estate. Except that for now, there was no estate to manage.

  William served under the king’s youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and lived on the duke’s estate rather than in the manor house he had inherited upon his father’s death. That house, William had given to his own brother, who had married before him. Cecily was to stay with Adeline while her husband was in France, and upon William’s return, the couple would set up housekeeping together. Everyone agreed it was an excellent plan, particularly Lord Burgeys, who hoped Cecily would prove a tempering influence on his granddaughter, assuming, as did the rest of his household, that the girls were great friends and would be delighted to continue living together.

  Except that he was wrong. Cecily and Adeline had never been friends. Tenuous rivals for Lord Burgeys’s attention, perhaps, when they were children, but from the moment they reached adulthood, the differences between them could not have grown more pronounced.

  On the surface, one could be excused for thinking they had more in common than they did, but only because they were unaware of Cecily’s true feelings about her mother, whom, at the age of two years, Lord Burgeys had found wandering alone on the road more than thirty miles from his estate. He brought her to the nearest village, thinking to reunite her with her family, but found it shuttered and silent. The child seemed to recognize the place, and rushed into a house near the green. Burgeys followed, pulling her out the instant he saw the bodies inside. The most terrible of the plagues that devastated England had ended the decade before, but the disease still recurred from time to time, and now it had wreaked havoc on the girl’s home. She was the only one in the village who had not fallen victim to it.

  Burgeys arranged for the burial of the dead and then had the buildings burned, lest any bit of the pestilence remained. But the girl who had so miraculously escaped death he adopted as his own, calling her Beatrix, explaining to her when she was old enough to understand that it came from the Latin word that meant traveler and that, later, Christians changed the spelling to reflect the word for blessed. Beatrix certainly was a blessed traveler.

  As the solitary survivor of such a deadly outbreak of the plague, Beatrix was revered in the household. God had chosen her to live, and everyone viewed her with respectful awe. But the girl cared only for the spiritual side of life, eschewing all worldly pleasures and spending her free time in prayer. She blossomed under the direction of Lady Burgeys’s confessor and soon gained a reputation as a lady of impeccable holiness. Visitors came with sick children, asking her to heal them, and before long, she was known in three shires as someone who could perform miracles.

  Beatrix might have lived out her days lost in contemplative prayer and meditation had Geoffrey Bristow never com
e to the estate. He fell in love with the quiet girl the moment he set eyes on her, and begged Lord Burgeys to let him marry her. Bristow’s fortune and position at court both recommended him, but neither mattered to Beatrix, who resisted her adopted father’s decision, pleading with him to allow her to enter the convent instead. She wanted nothing more than to dedicate her life to God. Lord Burgeys refused, and the wedding took place a few weeks later. By the end of the year, Beatrix, who took no pleasure in her new life, was heavy with child. She fasted and prayed and begged God to remove her from the chains that bound her to the earth. She wanted only to serve Him.

  God must have listened, because Beatrix died the moment her daughter was born. Geoffrey shunned the child, whose thick hair and dark eyes were the image of her mother’s. He believed her to be cursed, and sent her back to Lord Burgeys, who named her Cecily and once more raised a child who was not his own. He insisted that Beatrix be buried on his estate, and her tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage, the desperate and unfortunate coming to pray to this woman who had miraculously escaped the plague.

  Most pilgrims viewed Cecily with dubious caution. Was not she the result of a forced marriage, the daughter of a woman denied her true religious calling? But Cecily rejected the image of her mother as some sort of saint. To her, Beatrix was a flawed mortal who, not caring to bring up her child, died instead. Cecily hated being paraded in front of the pilgrims, hated tending to her mother’s tomb, and of all the instruction she received in Lord Burgeys’s household, she liked religious teaching the least. Not because she doubted the truth of her faith or because she was not devout, but because she always felt as if she were being judged as the instrument of her mother’s death. How did one atone for such a sin? She heard mass every day and prayed with a fervor unusual in one so young, leading everyone to consider her a fine example of piety. But that, Cecily knew, was only because they were ignorant of the depth of her sin. She had killed her mother.

  Adeline, so far as everyone on the estate was concerned, was equally pious. Admittedly, she had mastered the art of appearing so at an early age, a skill she practiced because she found it exceedingly useful. She pretended to go to chapel when in fact she was sneaking to the barns to visit the horses. When she got older, she discovered she preferred the company of the stableboys to their charges. She was careful to avoid any truly licentious behavior, but relished what she considered her safe rebellion, all the while maintaining a reputation for sincere religious devotion.

  The two girls did nearly everything together, but not by choice. Neither could tolerate the other’s true nature. Adeline loved toying with Cecily and did all she could to heap trouble upon her. Cecily, always feeling like a guest in the Burgeys household, never dared speak a word against Adeline. Cecily had rejoiced when Adeline married and left home, never suspecting that her own marriage would lead her to become a companion to the nemesis of her youth.

  The scent of resin from the flickering torches hanging on the walls of Lord Burgeys’s great hall brought Cecily back to the present. She had hardly noticed the spectacular subtlety, a swan fashioned from sugar, when it was paraded in front of her. Mummers had started to perform now that the feast had ended, but Cecily did not give much attention to their act. She chewed on her lower lip and watched Adeline flirt with the gentleman seated next to her. A gentleman who was not her husband. She flashed Cecily a knowing look when William pulled his wife to her feet when the mummers had finished, but Cecily felt nothing but relief when he led her upstairs to the bridal chamber Lady Burgeys had organized for the couple. The guests cheered and her husband smiled at her.

  “I knew the moment you gave me your favor that you would be my bride,” he said. They had met at a tournament—one of the many he had won—and he had paid court to her ever after, until Lord Burgeys agreed to their betrothal. Cecily fingered the gold and emerald ring on her hand, the one William had placed there to mark the occasion. “I know you will desire your ladies to help prepare you for bed, but I asked that we be left alone, just for a moment, as I have a gift for you. Come.”

  He opened the door to their room. Once inside, he handed her a small package carefully wrapped in soft linen and tied with a red silk ribbon. She tugged at the bow and it fell away with ease, revealing a small wooden diptych. Covering the surface facing her was William’s coat of arms. On the other, his badge, a griffin rampant. She unfolded the hinge to reveal the interior panels, both gloriously painted. On the right, Mary held the infant Jesus, a chorus of angels surrounding them, their gilded halos glowing. On the left, a scene of the crucifixion.

  “I had two made,” William said, “so that when we are apart we can both pray in front of the same images. And when I return, victorious, from France, I will commission a third, large enough for the chapel I will build for us.” She looked up at him as he spoke, her dark eyes scared. “Do not worry that I won’t come back. I shall never abandon you.” He took the diptych from her, laid it on a table, and raised his hand to her cheek. “There is no silk so soft as your skin.” He kissed her, gently, first on the cheek and then on her lips.

  She could hear Alys, her old nurse, shushing the laughter of ladies outside the door. William took his leave, promising to return when she was ready. Hours later, when she lay in his arms, afraid to move lest she disturb his sleep, she prayed that she would be able to recall every detail of him when he left and prayed that he would be returned safely to her. Finally, she prayed that life in Adeline’s household would not be so dreadful as she feared. Guilt consumed her over this last, selfish request. One more sin to plague her.

  1901

  3

  After my lackluster adventure on the Thames, I returned to our house in Park Lane and retreated to the library, where, comfortably ensconced in my favorite chair near the large fire roaring in the hearth, I opened The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival, the latest novel from sensationalist author Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Her work never failed to distract me, and I laughed aloud when she referred to Madame de Pompadour—The existence of such women is, of course, a disgrace to civilization, but while their wicked reign lasts persons of quality must dress like them—who would not adore a writer capable of such wit and insight when describing society? Delightfully buried in my reading, I was aware of nothing around me until I felt Colin’s hand on my shoulder. I had not even heard him open the door.

  “Bent on pleasure again, my dear?” he asked, a wicked smile on his handsome face as he looked at the book and leaned over to kiss me. I’d known him for more than a decade, and the man only grew handsomer as he aged.

  “I have grave concerns about the fate of Antonia Thornton, our intrepid heroine, a devotee of Voltaire,” I said, closing the novel and placing it in my lap. “I fear she will come to a tragic end.”

  “I’m confident Mrs. Braddon would have it no other way,” Colin said, dropping into the chair across from mine. “You’ll be glad to know you’ve succeeded in traumatizing poor Inspector Gale. I had to all but physically restrain him to keep him from running off to the king to report your appearance at Traitors’ Gate.”

  “However did you manage that?”

  “I reminded him that His Majesty was most likely at that very moment kneeling before his mother’s coffin and wouldn’t like to be disturbed.” He pulled a cigar from his pocket and clipped the end before lighting it.

  “Why would he think Bertie—I should say the king, but I shall never get used to someone other than his mother being the monarch—would be interested in any of my activities?”

  “It’s down to the nature of the murder at hand, manufactured to look like the death of Henry VI. The timing of the crime has raised a great deal of concern in the palace.”

  I nodded. The queen is dead, long live the king! For someone to choose the day of Victoria’s funeral to stage a death to look like the heinous murder of an earlier sovereign was bound to raise the alarm with the new monarch’s protection detail, but I did not see how that pertained to me.

&nb
sp; “Have you any clue as to where the murder took place?” I asked. “And, have you identified the victim?”

  “We believe him to be Edmund Grummidge, a shopkeeper in the East End. His wife reported him missing and is going to confirm his identity after viewing the body today.”

  “His wife? Not on her own, I hope. Perhaps she would appreciate the comfort of having another woman present at such a difficult moment.” Do not think, Dear Reader, that my motives were altogether selfish, for although I did want my part in investigating the crime, more important at this moment was to offer whatever assistance I could to the widow left behind.

  “Gale will not let you near the morgue,” Colin said. “As for location, we’ve nothing as of yet. The body was posed before rigor mortis set in. We believe he was killed this morning.”

  He appeared more tired than usual, but as I have already explained, he had not had much sleep since the queen’s death. There was something else, though. Something that had etched worry onto his noble brow. I leaned forward and brushed a tumbled curl from his forehead. “What’s troubling you?”

  He sighed. “This murder, obviously. The manner in which the corpse was displayed.”

  “I know you well enough to realize that is not all.”

  “When I met with the queen at Osborne, she gave me a note.” He reached for his cigar, took a drag, held the smoke in his mouth, and slowly exhaled. “I was to tell no one of this, you understand.”