“How was he killed?” the king asked.
“A knife, my liege, expertly placed between his ribs to pierce his heart,” was the answer. “The gatekeeper swears he heard no cry.”
“Who is responsible?” was the next royal query.
“It is not known, sire.”
“What was he doing outside of his own gates, then?” the king wondered. “It was night, I assume.”
“Lady Mary says he received a message, handwritten, just before they were to retire. The earl said he had some quick business to attend and should be back shortly. He told his wife to go to bed, which, being a dutiful woman, she did. When she awoke this morning she saw that her husband had not returned and sent to the gatekeeper to ask if he had seen his lordship. The gatekeeper remembered letting Lord Stokes out and watching him walk down the roadway around a bend. He saw nothing and heard nothing. He had fallen asleep awaiting his master’s return. After being questioned by his mistress, the gatekeeper went back outside and, passing through the gate, walked down the road. He found Lord Stokes dead just around the bend in the pathway,” was the explanation.
“And where is the note that drew the earl of Bartram from the safety of his house?” the king said. “Where is it?”
“It cannot be found, Your Majesty. Lady Mary does recall that he did not toss the missive in the fire. She thinks he tucked it in his pocket, but she is not certain. It was not, however, in his pocket.”
“It would appear,” the king said, “that Dickie hae an enemy, eh, gentlemen? Now, who should want the puir man dead?”
“Lady Lindley said she would kill any man who took her children from her, my lord,” the king’s page piped up. “I heard her say it!”
There was a general murmuring about the king’s bedchamber as his gentlemen helped their lord to dress. “Aye!” “I heard it, too!”
“Everyone at court heard it,” the king said with a chuckle. “She hae a fierce temper, Jasmine Lindley, but I dinna believe she was the person who lured puir Dickie to his death. She hae no reason, laddies.”
“The rumor was you were giving the duke of Lundy to the earl of Bartram to raise, my liege,” a gentleman said.
“The rumor was a false one,” the king told them. “When she left the hall she stormed into my privy chamber and demanded to know if it were so. I reassured her that it was nae so, and she need hae nae fear. Her bairns were hers to raise as long as they respected my royal authority. I hae finished my business wi Glenkirk by then, and so I instructed him to take her home, marry her, and gie her a few sons to keep her busy,” the king concluded with a small chuckle.
“Besides,” George Villiers said, “Lady Lindley is a slender woman, and does not, I suspect, have much strength. How could she divert poor Stokes long enough to murder him with a knife? She might have wounded him, but the report is that the knife was skillfully placed to cause instant death. What woman would know such a trick, gentlemen?”
“She is a foreigner,” one gentleman said. “And what about that turbaned servant of hers? He looks to me to be a dangerous fellow.”
“Lady Lindley is an Englishwoman no matter where she was born,” the king said. “I am England’s king, and yet, sirs, I am Scots-born. As for her servant, Adali, while he is devoted to her, he is nae a murderer. He is a eunuch, gentlemen, and we know a gelded man is nae a savage, but rather sweet, like a lass. Nah, nah, laddies, ‘twas nae Adali.”
“Then who was it?”
“Perhaps we should look for whoever had something to gain from Lord Stokes’s death,” Villiers suggested. “Or someone who thought he might gain if the earl of Bartram were no longer here.”
“Steenie,” the king said, “ye must go and speak wi poor Dickie’s widow and see if she can shed any light on this matter.”
But George Villiers could learn nothing from Mary Stokes that would aid them in their investigation of the murder. The poor woman had convinced herself, aided by the clergyman who was with her, that it was Jasmine Lindley who was responsible for Richard Stokes’s death. The king’s favorite carefully explained to the half-hysterical widow that the king was convinced it was not Jasmine, and told her the reasons why.
“Lady Lindley had no reason to harm your husband, madame,” he concluded. “She had no quarrel with him.”
“S-she threatened my Dickon because the king was to give us the duke of Lundy to raise decently,” Lady Mary wept.
“The king told Lady Lindley before she left court yesterday that rumor was not true, madame; and I, myself, was there when he told your husband that the boy was to remain with his mother and his stepfather. I tell you again that Lady Lindley had no reason to murder anyone. The king believes her and all connected with her innocent in this matter.”
“We must accept the king’s word, my good lady,” the clergyman said to Mary Stokes. “James Stuart, though misguided, is a good man.”
“But if that terrible woman did not kill my Dickon, Pastor Goodfellowe, then who did?” the widow wailed.
“I cannot answer you, madame, but God knows the miscreant, and will punish him with eternal hellfire! You must leave these matters to those more capable of handling them than you, yourself, madame. Now, you should concentrate on your own salvation, for death comes when we least expect it, as poor Lord Stokes found. You must be ready to meet your maker, Lady Mary,” the pastor thundered in stern tones.
A Puritan,George Villiers thought,and a dangerous one. I wonder if he might be responsible. I was there when Richard Stokes told His Majesty that he had sent his impressionable wife’s clergyman packing. Lord Stokes was not a liar. Now heis dead, however, and here is this trouble-making Puritan in his house as quick as a wink, and the body not even cold. Stokes had surely put aside a little something for his old age. Some of it will go to his widow, and wouldn’t this Puritan like to get his hands on the widow’s mite to further his own purposes. I think I must inform the king, and the new earl of Bartram must come with all haste up from the country to protect his mother.
Before the day was over Pastor Simon Goodfellowe was arrested and taken to the Tower to be questioned in the matter of the demise of the earl of Bartram. He denied any involvement in Richard Stokes’s death, was lightly racked, but continued to proclaim his innocence. His alibi was checked, and indeed he had spent the evening praying with a family whose only son was gravely ill. The child had died at dawn and the clergyman had departed, having been called to the countess of Bartram’s side by his servant. It was now obvious that he could not have had any part in the earl’s murder.
“Shall we release him?” the captain of the guard asked George Villiers, who was at the Tower at His Majesty’s request.
