The Tudor Secret Part 24

The yeoman Tom said, "I'll take you to him."

Chapter Thirty.

I climbed worn stone flags to the uppermost story, Tom ahead of me. Despite my icy bravura, I dreaded the upcoming moment more than I'd admit.

We came to a narrow door. As Tom spoke with the guards there, I almost turned and fled. I could still catch up with Cecil, who was another kind of monster, yes, but one I'd prefer to deal with any day. I could meet Peregrine in the fields; by tonight I could be with Kate and Elizabeth in the safety of the princess's manor. I could live out the rest of my days in ignorance and most likely be the better for it. Whatever lay beyond that door would only bring me more suffering.

Even as I thought this, my fingers strayed to the inner pocket in my cloak, seeking the almost intangible object I'd secreted there. The feel of it strengthened my faltering resolve. I had to do this, for Mistress Alice, if nothing else.

"Five minutes." Tom handed me his weapon. "Be careful. She's rabid as a dog, that one."

He unbolted and pulled open the door. Shoving the pistol in my belt, I stepped inside.

A large leather coffer was in the middle of the room, heaped with clothing. Upon the floor were piled papers and books. Two figures labored in a corner, hauling a wooden chest from the wall. Near-identical shades of fair hair mingled damply, the lean bodies under sweat-stained clothing molded of the same rib and bone.

At the sound of the door opening, she reared around to face the intruder. At her side Guilford likewise looked up. He froze.

"It's about time you deigned to-" she began. She stiffened. "Who are you? How dare you intrude on us!" She meant to sound commanding, but her voice was strained, her appearance so unlike the impeccable unforgiving matron I'd always known that I couldn't formulate a word.

Then I remembered. I had a beard. I wore a cap.

I removed the cap. "I thought you'd recognize me, of all people, my lady."

Guilford yelped. Hissing breath through her bared teeth, Lady Dudley stalked to me, her unbound hair showing streaks of silver, framing her gaunt, infuriated features.

"You. You are supposed to be dead."

I met her empty eyes. I could see now that she was ill. She'd been ill for years, both in mind and spirit. She'd kept it hidden under her glacial facade, against which nothing had seemed to penetrate, but all the while it had consumed her, her husband's betrayal after years of dutiful marriage exposing the raw, desperate creature she had become. Faced with abandonment after a lifetime of self-sacrifice, she had lashed out with all the cunning at her disposal. Lethal as she was, in the final say she had acted out of unbearable grief. And grief was something I understood, even if the realization brought no comfort.

"I'm glad to disappoint you," I said.

Her mouth twisted. "You always did enjoy making a nuisance out of yourself." She reached up a hand in a phantom echo of her previous elegance, pushed back tendrils of hair from her brow. "How tedious. I'd thought myself well rid of you by now."

"Oh, you will be-as soon as you answer my questions."

She paused. Behind her Guilford cried, "You-you stay away from us!"

"Be quiet." She did not take her gaze from me. "Let him ask whatever he likes. It costs us nothing to hear him waste his breath."

I flipped back my cloak, revealing Tom's dag. Her eyes widened. "I may not be the best shot," I said, "but in such a small room I'm bound to hit something. Or someone."

She stepped before me. "Leave my son alone. He knows nothing. Ask your miserable questions and be gone. I've more pressing matters to attend to."

For once she spoke the truth. When the bells had begun to toll, she'd been in the middle of packing valuables. Like Jane, she understood what those bells signified; she knew the end approached. So she and Guilford had started dragging that coffer to the door in a futile attempt to block it, to gain time before they were both officially declared prisoners. She knew the council would soon come to put him under arrest-Guilford, her most beloved child, the only one she'd ever cared for. Her hunger for revenge was equaled only by her feral devotion to the one soul she had molded entirely to her will.

She was human, after all. She could love. And hate.

"You cannot save him," I told her. "Those bells ring for Queen Mary. You've lost. Guilford Dudley will never wear a crown. In fact, he'll be lucky to keep his head."

"I'll tear you to pieces, b.l.o.o.d.y cur," snarled Guilford.

Lady Dudley's laugh was a blade ripping through skin. "You're still not nearly as clever as you think. I never wanted a crown for him. It's my husband who will lose his head for this, not Guilford. I will save him, even if I have to beg for his life on my knees. Mary is a woman; she knows what loss is. She will understand that no child should pay for his father's crimes."

She took a step closer to me, her breath acrid. "But you you-you have lost everything. Mistress Alice is dead, and you'll get nothing more from me. You don't exist. You never did."

I took her measure. "I know about Master Shelton."

She went utterly still.

"Archibald Shelton," I went on, "your devoted steward. I know he was the one who shot at me that night in Greenwich. I thought he displayed rather poor aim for a man considered an expert marksman during the Scottish wars. But now I know he wasn't really trying to kill me. He was trying to spare me when he aimed at the wall. The ball just happened to ricochet."

"Fool," she spat. "Shelton took the gun, yes, but it was dark. He couldn't see. Had there been better light he would killed you. He despises you for everything you've done."

"Oh, I don't believe that," I said, and then I paused, suddenly realizing what had eluded me. "But you didn't know, did you? He never told you. You never knew he was the one Mistress Alice had confided in. You only knew someone else had been told, someone who could reveal who I was if you ever harmed me or her-as eventually you did when you killed Mistress Alice. Master Shelton thought she'd died on the way to the fair; he believed the lie you told, just as I did, but then he came into the king's room that night with your sons and he saw her. He knew how far you had gone. You thought he'd do anything to serve you, but in truth his ultimate loyalty lay in protecting me-the son of his former master, Charles of Suffolk."

She threw herself at me, keening like an animal. Her attack threw me off balance. As I fended her nails from my face, the door flung open and the guards charged in. They grabbed hold of her, hauled her off me as she flailed and screamed obscenities.

"No!" I yelled. "Wait. Leave her. I have to..."

It was too late. Two of the guards dragged her away, her shrieks rebounding against the walls. I knew then, as I'd known little else, that it would be a long time before I stopped hearing that unearthly sound in my nightmares.

The echo faded to silence. Tom stood on the threshold. "It's time you left. They're shutting the gates by the council's order. You don't want to spend the night in here."

I nodded numbly, moving toward the door, when I heard a m.u.f.fled sob. I looked over my shoulder. Guilford sat crumpled on the floor, his face in his hands. I tried to feel some compa.s.sion. It saddened me that all I could muster was disgust.

"Where is he?" I asked.

Guilford raised tear-filled eyes. "Who?" he quavered.

"Master Shelton. Where is he?"

Fresh tears choked Guilford's voice. "He-he went to fetch our horses."

Wheeling about, I bolted from the room.

Night had fallen. In the bailey, torches exuded smoky light, limning the stone walls. Bells rang out in discordant spontaneity, as more than one local pastor took to his steeple in an excess of joy. Outside the Tower walls, all of London had emerged in celebration for their rightful queen, while inside, pandemonium erupted, as those still loyal to the duke recognized their folly and sought to escape, even as ramparts were manned and gates bolted shut.

Rushing down the stairs out of the keep, I came to a halt. My heart pounded in my ears. I could scarcely draw breath as I scanned the crowded bailey for that figure I'd seen earlier, which I now knew had not been a figment of my overwrought imagination.

It had been Master Shelton in a black cloak. Master Shelton: who'd been abetting Lady Dudley and Guilford in their escape and saw Cecil and me going into the keep. He had to be near. Lady Dudley was expecting him, and he wouldn't abandon her until he determined there was nothing more he could do. Master Shelton was nothing if not reliable; he fulfilled his duty, no matter what.

But I now knew he had been doing something more. He had served Charles of Suffolk before he came to the Dudley household, and Mistress Alice must have known him from that time; unbeknownst to Lady Dudley, she'd entrusted him with the truth of my birth. I knew he had mourned my mother, brought the piece of her broken jewel to Mary Tudor. I knew he had spared my life at Greenwich. What I did not know was how deep his bond with my mother ran, if he was in fact the very reason she had hid her pregnancy. I had called myself Suffolk's son to disarm Lady Dudley, but deep inside something was still missing, an elusive key I did not possess, which, if found, would unlock the final secret.

He held that key. Only he could tell me if he was my father.

I cursed, peering into a flickering darkness in which cloaked figures rushed about like shades. I'd never find him in this mess. I should give up, make my escape while I still could, before they locked the gates and I was trapped inside.

I started to turn toward where the majority of those in the bailey headed. As I did, I caught sight of a shadow at the wall opposite me, where the night crept thick as ink.

A hood shielded its face. It stood still as a column. I paused, every nerve on alert; it lifted its head. For an electrifying instant our eyes met. I sprang to him, just as Master Shelton whirled about and ran, pounding on powerful legs, into the crowd that plunged like stampeding cattle from the ward.

I crashed headlong into the onslaught, wedging my way forward. Master Shelton was ahead, distinguished by the bullish width of his shoulders. The cobbled causeway narrowed, forcing the fleeing officials and menials into a bottleneck. The portcullis was shut, a maw of teeth impeding escape. From behind us, the clangor of hooves signaled the arrival of mounted patrols on steeds, accompanied by scores of guards in helmets and breastplates.

I watched in horror as the soldiers began pulling men with apparent randomness from the throng, their staccato question-"Whom do you serve? Queen or duke?"-accompanied by the sickening thrust of pikes rupturing skin. Within seconds, the stench of urine and blood thickened the air. At the portcullis, men clawed at each other in frenzy, scrambling over heads, shoulders, ribs, breaking and crushing flesh and bone.

Master Shelton was trying to pull back, to fight his way out of the panic that had erupted. If a guard or someone else identified him as a Dudley servant, in this madness he'd be killed.

A blood-flecked guard on a ma.s.sive bay approached, forcing the crowd to part. Several unfortunates flew off the causeway into the churning moat, where others swam or drowned. I rammed forward with my shoulders, as hard as I could, pushing those behind Master Shelton. The steward whipped his head about, the puckered scar across his face starkly visible.

He glared when he saw the guard coming toward him. I started to shout a warning just as the crowd lurched into motion, swallowing him from view. The portcullis had been forced up. There was chaos, men tearing up hands and knees as they sought to crawl under it, desperate to escape certain arrest or death.

Master Shelton had vanished. I started shoving and elbowing, battling to stay standing. I staggered over the inert bodies of those who'd fallen underfoot and been trampled. As I was dislodged along with the rest of the horde onto a landing quay, I looked about.

No sign of him anywhere.

Behind me I could hear the charge of the guards on horseback, followed by those with pikes. Scattering in terror, many of the men began leaping off the quay into the river, preferring to risk the tide than be caught and skewered alive.

"NO!" I roared, even as I too ran forward. "NOOO!"

I kept roaring as I plunged into the tide-swollen Thames.

Hours later, dripping and reeking of sewage, I reached the fields outside the city. Above me a bonfire-lit sky blazed. Behind me London reverberated with clanging bells.

I had managed to paddle my way to a set of crumbling water steps on the south side, avoiding the river depths, where whirlpools churned the surface. I also avoided the sight of those sucked under by the pools' vortexes and those clambering back onto the quay like drenched cats, only to find the soldiers waiting. I could only wonder how many would die tonight for having served the duke, even in the most minor capacity, and if Cecil had gotten out. No doubt, he had. The master secretary possessed a knack for survival.

I tried not to think of Shelton, whom I doubted had ever learned to swim.

Even more painful was the thought of Jane Grey, who as of this hour had become a captive of the state, dependent on the queen's mercy. Instead, I focused on putting one sloshing foot in front of the next, dragging the sodden length of my cloak behind me as I slogged to the road. I had no idea how far it was to Hatfield. Maybe I could hitch a ride on a pa.s.sing cart after I dried off enough to not resemble a vagabond.

When I thought I'd reached a safe enough distance, I sank to the ground to search my cloak. I extracted the gold leaf in its drenched cloth, moved it to my jerkin. I was squeezing the excess water from my cloak and rolling it into a bundle to carry on my back when hoofbeats sounded, galloping toward me.

I crouched near a hawthorn bush, which of course offered little cover. Fortunately the night was dark, moonless. Maybe whoever it was would be too intent on their own escape to notice me. I huddled as close to the ground as I could get, holding my breath as two hors.e.m.e.n neared, both in caps and cloaks. When one came to a halt, I cursed my luck.

"It's about time," said a familiar voice.

With a weary smile, I stood.

Cecil looked me up and down. He rode Deacon. At his side, on Cinnabar, was Peregrine. The boy exclaimed, "Finally! We've been searching for you for over an hour, wondering what kind of trouble you'd gotten yourself into this time." He chuckled. "Looks like another dip in the river. Are you quite sure you're not part fish?"

I gave him a sullen stare.

Cecil said quietly: "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Almost." Tying my half-bundled cloak to the saddle, I swung up in front of Peregrine. "It wasn't a pleasant experience."

"I never thought it would be." Cecil followed my gaze back to the silhouette of the Tower. "The rabble's gone wild," he said. "They clamor in the streets for Northumberland's blood. Let us pray Queen Mary proves worthy of it." He returned his regard to me. I met his eyes in tacit understanding. Enemies we should have been; indeed, should have remained. But the times demanded more of us.

"To Hatfield, then," said Cecil.

We parted ways many hours later, as dawn spilled over the horizon. Cecil's manor lay a few miles away. He gave me detailed directions to Hatfield; there was an awkward moment when I uttered my grat.i.tude that he'd stayed behind to help Peregrine. "Though I did tell the rascal not to wait for me," I admonished.

Cecil inclined his head. "I was happy to oblige. It's a relief to know there is still something to be redeemed in me. Please, give my regards to Her Grace and to Mistress Stafford, of course." He jolted me with a knowing sparkle in his cool eyes before he cantered off.

I looked after him. Too much had gone between us for friendship to ever develop, but if Elizabeth must have an amoral champion, she'd find none better than William Cecil.

Peregrine slouched behind me, half asleep. "Hold tight," I said. "We're not stopping till we get there."

I spurred forth under a lightening sheet of a sky, over summer meadows and through copses of beech, until we came upon the red-brick manor nestled amidst towering oaks, the floury scent of baking bread rising warm in the morning air.

I slowed Cinnabar to an amble. As we neared, I saw that Hatfield was a working manor, with an enclosed pasture for livestock, fruit trees, orchards, dairies, and other outbuildings. I knew, without seeing them, that the gardens would be lovely yet slightly wild, like their mistress.

Solace stole over me. This looked like a place where I might heal.

When I saw the figure running from the house onto the road, her auburn hair tumbling about her shoulders, I lifted my hand to wave, in joy and relief.

I was home, at long last.

HATFIELD.

Chapter Thirty-one.

I did not dream.

Awakening to the chamber where Kate had brought me in a state of mind-emptying exhaustion, I lay under rumpled linen, absorbing the scent of lavender coming from a wreath on the wall, which mingled with the linseed polish of the chair, the clothes press, and the table.

I stretched my aching bruised limbs and rose. Stepping past a pewter pitcher and basin, I looked out the mullioned window to the parkland surrounding the manor. I did not know how long I had slept, but I felt refreshed, almost whole. I turned back to the room and began searching for my clothes, which I seemed to recall Kate peeling off my inert body as I dropped into bed.

Without so much as a knock, the door banged open.