Adrian quickly crossed to the door and stood facing his uncle. “This is absurd. I know no one of that name, innocent encounter or otherwise. Now, I’m off to my bedchamber, whoever else may be in it. Do you intend to stop me forcibly, uncle?”
The door opened suddenly, but it was not Adrian who opened it. The earl stood in the passageway, glaring from the shadows into the low candlelight within the parlour. He glowered at Adrian. “So you’re back. Good. I’ve questions, and every intention of getting answers.” He pushed past, his large hand heavy on Adrian’s shoulder. “So we’ll sit together, we’ll talk together, we’ll drink together, and we’ll settle this business before any more time is wasted or sleep interrupted.” He noticed the two flagons of wine and nodded. “Some civilised attempt already made, I see. Well, come on, come on. No nonsense now. A discussion, quiet and friendly, that’s what we’ll have.” Adrian was still hovering, Jerrid still blocking the only way out. “We’re family,” announced the earl, taking the full cup Nicholas handed him, “and we’ll behave like family.”
Reluctantly Adrian returned to the table and sat. Jerrid sat to his other side, keeping Adrian tight wedged between himself and the earl. Adrian sighed, and drank.
“Urswick,” persisted Jerrid. “We all know who he is. So tell us why you’ve befriended a known traitor to the crown, my boy.”
Two candles had been lit. One, tall sepia tallow, sat in its squat and solid stand, its flame undisturbed, smoke rising in a smudge of grey. The other candle was already half gone, a stub of wet tallow. Through smoke and flicker, Adrian’s face was pale and lined with tiredness. “After five hours in the saddle, you accuse me of treason? Of a crime worthy of execution? What family gathering is this, to surround me at this hour, keep me from my rest, and talk of things I know nothing of?”
Four faces illuminated in fading light and flashing shadow. Adrian hunched over the table between his two uncles. Nicholas faced him. “You persist then, in denying knowledge of Christopher Urswick?”
Adrian looked up, anger controlled. “I’ve heard of no such person. I’m acquainted with no such person. And if this man is some petty traitor, what would you, of all people, know of him, Nicholas? You want recognition, perhaps, after all this time sheltering behind your brother’s reputation? You pretend some special knowledge to make yourself important in your new wife’s eyes?”
Nicholas leaned back, staring without expression at his cousin. Jerrid grunted. “We’ve angered you, it seems, Adrian? You expected never to be discovered, perhaps? You thought your family too unconcerned or simply too ignorant to notice your secret dealings?”
“Secret dealings?” Adrian stood abruptly, forcibly pushing his stool back and almost toppling the small rickety table. “How dare you sir. May I remind you that of all the family, I am the one knighted for services to the crown.”
The earl shook his head. “Best face the worst and sort the accusations now, lad. Insults and denials won’t do it, you know. Too serious.”
Adrian was white faced. “No, sir. I’ll not take accusations from this party of fools and drunkards.”
“An innocent man accused, takes the time to explain and clear his name.” Jerrid stood once again, sauntering a second time over to the doorway. “As your family, we’ll be easier to convince, perhaps. You’ll not leave this room, my boy, until we’re satisfied with your answers. Best deal with those questions now, rather than later at a trial.”
“A trial?” Adrian reached past Jerrid for the handle of the door. “You’re all mad. I’m leaving, and you can keep your beds and your vile thoughts, for I’ll find another hostelry along the road. I won’t stay here and I’ve no desire to answer the questions of cowards and madmen.”
Jerrid moved further to block the doorway, standing wide legged, arms crossed. Nicholas remained seated, but the earl stood in a hurry, turning from one to the other. “Is this necessary? I’ll not take up arms against my own flesh and blood, but there’s no escape, m’boy. You’ll stay here until I know what’s going on.”
“Feeling trapped, Adrian? You could leap from the window,” suggested Nicholas. “Or you could come back, sit down, and listen to sense.” He regarded his cousin for some moments, then said, “Do you know that I have the letter?”
The pause echoed. Adrian’s pale face flushed slowly scarlet, a blush that spread up from his neck like the dying of chicken feathers. He slumped, and sat. “What – what does that mean?” he whispered.
“You know exactly what it means,” Nicholas sighed. “I intercepted a messenger riding full tilt for the north, and took from him a letter which I now hold, and will take immediately to the king on my return to Westminster. Two nights later your henchmen tumbled over mine in the local inn’s stables. Apparently fearing recognition, they knocked out one, and knifed another. Just a boy, poor child, who had seen and recognised one of yours so had to be silenced. Your henchmen told you of this, no doubt but presumably you thought it an unfortunate coincidence that I was staying at the same inn. Once warned, you were able to avoid me. Believing me a wastrel, it never occurred to you that I was at Weymouth for reasons concerning the same business, as yourself, and in particular concerning your friend Urswick.”
Adrian gaped. Jerrid smiled. “Your cowardly cousin has been following the king’s orders for nigh on five years, boy. I have helped occasionally, when the matter at hand was urgent. So, well trusted by kings, but foolish we truly were perhaps – never to suspect you, nor understand your treachery.”
“What was your job, then, cousin?” Nicholas asked. “To take Tudor’s letter from Urswick, and deliver it to Northumberland while Urswick returned safe to France?”
“Treachery,” spat Jerrid. “What act more vile?”
“Or murder.” The door had opened again. Lady Wrotham stood in the doorway. In one hand she held a candle. In the other she held a small folded paper. “So Mister Frye, tell me,” she asked as everyone else stopped speaking. Her voice echoed a little up the corridor and stairs behind her. “Why did you murder my husband?”
The earl stood again in a hurry, his stool clattering back behind him. “Is this true? Not only – but this too? And Peter?”
“What madness,’ Adrian exclaimed, staring around him as the baroness entered and Jerrid shut the door behind her. “Madam – sir – what do you think of me? I had no hand in either – nor even barely knew the baron –”
“But you know Urswick,” said Nicholas quietly.
“And perhaps you also knew your sister was shamed and sullied by your cousin Peter,” said the baroness quietly. She placed the paper she had been clasping on the table. “Your sister’s confession,” she said softly. “Although she claims you never knew of it. Is she right? Or did you know, and defended her honour by murdering the man who got her pregnant when she was barely out of the nursery, and then forced her to a back street abortionist? And after killing one immoral bastard, did you decide to slaughter another? So finding my husband in the arms of his mistress, killed them too, and set fire to the evidence?”
“Oh, dear God,” Adrian said, and leaning his arms on the table, closed his eyes and rested his head down on his arms in surrender,
Chapter Forty-Eight
Speechless, the Earl of Chatwyn stared at the baroness, tried to sit, discovered his fallen stool, and resettled himself with a deep sigh. Then after a moment he stood again and leaning over his nephew, shouted at the back of his head, “Did you know this about your sister, boy? Is it true? Is it you the coward, then – and the killer?”