Queen of Ambition by Fiona Buckley

recognize the signs of exasperation.
    “We were recommended to leave the horses at Radley’s Stables, madam, and I’m sorry to say that there was nowhere else to leave them but I only hope they’ll be all right. We’ve had to waste a lot of time over it.”
    “What’s wrong with Radley’s?” I asked him.
    “Wrong with it!” Brockley snorted. “When we got there, the owner was clouting a weedy under-groom all round the yard, shouting at him to do this and finish that and bellowing that they were all behind because the fellow had come in late in the morning
again
. The noise was upsetting the horses. I could hear them stamping and whinnying in their stable. We stopped at the gate and I left one of Henderson’s men to hold my Speckle, and slipped into the stable for alook round. Our respected Mr. Radley was too busy knocking the daylights out of the groom even to notice he’d got custom!
    “I found a young student in there, patting a nice-looking mare.
He
told me he’d come to explain that he couldn’t take her out for his usual early morning ride tomorrow, and wanted someone to exercise her, but he couldn’t get a hearing either and he wouldn’t recommend anyone to stable a horse there; he wouldn’t do it himself only the place is cheap and it was the only way he could afford to keep his horse in Cambridge at all. He said the hay was usually dusty and I had a look, and it was. He suggested the Eagle Inn in a place called Benet Street and told me where to find it. So I went back to the others and to the Eagle we went and the stabling there is all it should be, as a lot of people obviously know because it was full. So in the end we had to go back to Radley’s and this time we got some attention from the ostler. But I’ve taken it upon myself to pay him extra to buy good-quality hay. I hope I did right, madam, but your little mare is choosy about her food and won’t eat up unless it’s to her liking. I don’t want her losing condition.”
    “Nor do I. Yes, of course you did right.”
    “I also told Radley that if all our horses weren’t well cared for, I’d warm his lugs and his back for him, personally, and Master Henderson’s men all said they’d lend a hand. We’ve put the fear of God into him, I trust. But it’s not the kind of stable I’d choose if I could help it.”
    “I’m sure you did your best, Brockley, and with you to keep an eye on the horses, I’m also sure they’ll be allright,” I said briskly. “Now, I want a word with you. About tomorrow …”
    “We are to visit the pie shop?”
    “Yes.”
    “You are serious about this, madam?”
    “Brockley, you know I’m always serious about my schemes.” I turned to Dale, who was looking at us in a puzzled way. “Brockley and I had a discussion about this during the journey,” I said. “I daresay you noticed us talking together.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Dale agreed.
    “I also talked to Master Henderson. It was about these plans that Brockley has just mentioned. The journey has taken longer than I wanted. The queen will be here now in a fortnight. I must find a way to get near the heart of the arrangements for this confounded playlet. I’ve told you that it involves a pie shop in a place called Jackman’s Lane. Tomorrow, we are all three going to visit it. And after that …”
    Our lodgings were in a timbered four-story house only a few minutes’ walk from either Queens’ or King’s Colleges. Rob and I had asked to be in the same lodgings but we were decently separated, with my rooms at the top of the first flight of stairs, and Rob on the topmost floor, right under the roof. The arrangements could hardly have been otherwise, though, for we had as landlady a middle-aged widow, whose sparkling white ruff, apron, and cap, and cowed maidservants, were proof of her sublime respectability. After changing my clothes and taking some food, Iclimbed two flights of stairs in search of Master Henderson.
    We had left the other