Blood Ties (13 page)

He fell onto the floor, a shadow passing before his eyes, as if some black bird had squatted over the hole in the roof and blotted out the sun. His voice had just such a carrion croak.

‘Jesus save me.’

Only one man there said, ‘Amen.’ Hitherto silent, he sat at the table. Gianni Rombaud jerked the chain, catching the locket in his hand, and looked up, triumph in his eyes.

It was no bird that had shut away the sun. Erik had hidden in the street when he’d found the soldiers there, had watched the Fugger taken into the house. Not knowing if his Maria was within as well, he’d scrambled onto the roof from the adjoining building. As stealthy as any big cat, he’d worked his way around shattered tiles and exposed beams to the largest hole, wedging himself into the chimney breast just beside it. He had not been able to hear, what with the noise of the fallen city all around him, the wailing and drums and bells. But he had seen the Fugger kneeling before the hooded figure, had seen something tiny glitter between them, had caught the upsurge of despair that came from the man he’d known all his life. Then he’d seen him fall down, and he’d moved across the hole as the man who had just been the crown of a hood before, now looked up. Erik had frozen, both because movement would betray him and because he recognized another face he had known all his life. The boy he’d grown up with, the boy he’d learned to loathe, was below him, and no longer a boy. And he did not need the Fugger’s despair to tell him that if Gianni Rombaud was involved, something bad had just begun.

Elizabeth had never been in this part of the palace, not when she’d visited her father in the easy days of childhood, not now when her movements were restricted to the west suite and its little walled garden on the river. If she had more liberty she would not have come here anyway, for you had to walk through the kitchens, where scullions stopped their business to point and mutter, then on through a disused stable yard, her escort’s one torch failing to disperse the night gloom. Up a narrow stair, through a low doorway. The oak-panelled room itself was comfortable enough, if spare; the door by which she’d entered was seamless within the panels, no handle, no keyhole, though she had heard the key turned in the lock by the silent, hooded man who had led her there. A table stood at its centre, two high-backed chairs behind it, one stool before, a lamp the only light in the windowless space, leaving the corners of the room to the shadows. Beside the lamp was an inkwell, three quills, a penknife and a sheaf of blank parchment.

She might never have been there before, but she knew the room at a glance. Rooms of interrogation were always the same. She had been in enough of them to know.

There was one difference here. She discovered it on her first turn about, on the back wall, behind the interrogators’ chairs. It was a mirror, circular, slightly concave, its age showing in the flaking gold frame. The glass was exquisite though; even in such poor light it revealed her to herself clearly. It was not meant for this room, but for some richer place and she wondered how it had made the journey here to confront her with her own imperfections. Wondered, as she always did with mirrors, at the faces that it must have held and lost before. Faces she would recognize instantly, others she would half-remember. Her father had certainly looked in it, never a man to pass a mirror, and she saw him now reflected in her own strong jaw, in the high forehead and its framing of thick red-gold hair. Her mother was such a faded memory and the few portraits that had survived her failed to do her justice, it was said. However, what little she knew and remembered she saw now, in the sharp cheekbones, the arrow straight nose, mostly in the deep caverns of her eyes. Hers were not the fathomless pools, which, it was said, her mother had used to lure and tantalize, but they were considered as fine in their setting. Those, and her delicate hands, her inheritance from the woman she’d never truly known. She raised one now, held the palm to the side of her face, then the back. Recalling the difference between her hand and her mother’s, she swiftly lowered it. It had looked strange to her anyway, even without the extra finger so-called friends teased her about; bony fingers, not fine, the skin as sallow as her face, both drawn by the long years of watchfulness, of suspicion, of …
waiting in rooms like this!

She did not know who had summoned her to this midnight meeting, her first since they’d brought her from Woodstock the week before, to the Queen’s palace if not her presence. Her sister would still not see her, despite Elizabeth’s entreaties to be seen. She had hoped that the summons to Hampton Court would mean her imprisonment was coming to an end, but even if the chains were looser here, she was still not free of them. Meetings like this could be preliminaries to journeys she did not want to take. Back to the boredom, the petty tyrannies of Sir Henry Bedingfield, at Woodstock. Or back to something far worse, the river journey that had begun from this place a year and a month before, downstream to the Tower.

No! It would not, could not lead there. They had tried to trip her, catch her in conspiracies and lies before and they had failed. She had survived that black prison, survived the attempts to link her to those who would harm the Queen and overthrow her Church, to Wyatt and the rest. She would survive still, as long as her nerve held, as long as she could outface whoever walked through the door now. It was intolerable that they kept her waiting in this gloomy chamber and they would know her displeasure; if she had inherited her father’s colouring and jaw-line, she had his temper too.

And the room was hers. Disdaining the stool, she sat on a high-backed chair, focusing her attention on the door before her and the unknown opponent who would walk through it. It was as if her concentration was a summons, because almost instantly she heard the scrape of metal in metal. The door unfolded from the panelling.

‘Princess Elizabeth.’

The tall figure stooped in the entrance, a gesture of a bow with the head.

Renard! Of course it would be him, could be no one else. Only the Fox does his scavenging at night
.

Elizabeth laid her arms out along the chair’s, relaxed them, aiming her anger forward.

‘Ambassador. Do you consider this an appropriate hour for an interview?’

‘Alas!’ He turned and pushed the door to, an unseen hand beyond fitting key to lock. ‘My labours suck away my daylight hours. It’s late in the day when can I look to my own pleasure.’

‘Pleasure?’

‘Oh yes, my lady. For this is more in the nature of a personal visit. To welcome you back to court from your exile. To hope that this is the beginning of happier times for you, as they are happier for the kingdom and all its subjects.’

Elizabeth bit back the retort that surged within her – that the martyrs who were being burnt by the score for their Protestant faith were hardly happy. But she had spent the better part of two years trying to convince this man, among others, that she was a loyal daughter of the Catholic Church and rejoiced in its glorious restoration. This man had tried everything within his considerable means to have her condemned as a heretic or a traitor and killed as either by flame or axe. She would not give him anything that might help him pursue that cause anew. So she said nothing, gripped the arms of the chair, waited.

Renard eyed the seating arrangements with amusement and instead of taking the stool, he walked forward and placed a package, wrapped in red velvet, on the table beside the lamp.

‘A present, for you, my lady. To welcome you back.’

Elizabeth made no move toward the object. ‘What is this kindness, my lord?’

‘You will have to open it to see.’

‘I would prefer if you opened it for me.’

Another smile. ‘As my lady wishes.’

Long fingers untied the loose cord, slipping a small wooden box from out the velvet cover. It was slightly larger than the width, and of the length, of one hand, the depth of two hands joined in prayer. Designs were carved into the walnut – the coat of arms of the Emperor. When Elizabeth still did not move, Renard lifted the lid off, placed it to the side, stood back, clasping his hands before him.

Lamplight glowed on a chess set, tiny figures exquisitely carved, ivory white facing ebony black. Bending forward, Elizabeth lifted a knight past its initial resistance, to reveal the little peg that had held it.

‘It is beautiful.’

‘The craftsmen of Modena have excelled themselves indeed. You do play?’

‘I am a novice in the art, but yes, I play.’

‘I believe my lady is being modest. I hear you surpass your tutors in this as you do in most of your studies.’

‘And I have heard you are unmatched in Europe.’

There was no denial, merely an incline of the head, another slight smile. ‘Would you play with me?’

‘Is it not a little late for games?’

‘It is never too late for games. Or for chess. Indulge me.’

The Princess glanced away from those sharp dark eyes, back to the board. The pieces waited, but not in their opening ranks.

‘But this game is already advanced.’

‘I have taken the liberty.’ Renard’s voice was gentle. ‘Between skilled players, the opening stages of any game are so predictable. We have played them often, you and I. It’s the endgame that intrigues, do you not think? You may choose either colour.’

‘I do not like my moves being made for me.’

‘But there are certain moves you are powerless to make otherwise.’

Elizabeth allowed a smile to come. ‘Are we still talking about chess, my lord?’

There was a shrug, a hint of hardness now in the voice. ‘Choose – white or black?’

The game was seven moves in and white had already seized the middle ground. Black was in a good defensive position though and, despite a sudden urge to carry the attack to the enemy, Elizabeth knew that her survival depended, as always, on caution. Especially against an opponent such as Renard.

‘I will play black.’

‘A wise choice. You have the next move. My last was there, my knight to the centre.’ Renard moved away from the table. ‘You will not mind if I do not sit. Hard stools do not agree with me.’

Resisting the impulse to give up her own, leather-cushioned chair – she had gained that position and would not surrender it – Elizabeth concentrated on the board. Her own knight was under threat. Should she move up her queen or bishop? As she studied, she was aware of Renard drifting up to the mirror, aware of his reflected eyes upon her. She rolled her shoulders, planned her move, awaited his. It came.

‘Have you seen Her Majesty, your sister yet?’

‘I am sure you know I have not. My entreaties to be allowed into her presence have been denied. So far.’

‘Ah yes. Sad that sisters should be so sundered. Especially at this time.’

‘This time?’

He had turned to her now. ‘To succour her in her pregnancy. You know she is not far from her term.’

Elizabeth kept her voice even. ‘I had heard, my lord, and I rejoice in it.’

‘You … rejoice?’

‘Of course, my lord. I know how my sister longs for a child.’

‘“Rejoice” – a curious word.’ Renard had moved, was still behind her but to the other side. ‘You rejoice at a birth that will deprive you of the crown? That will guarantee the Catholic succession you deplore? Wouldn’t you rather rejoice if the Queen was to die in childbirth and the Spanish brat with her?’

It was a sudden attack and she swivelled in her chair to meet it. ‘I desire no such thing. And you are a brute and a slanderer to suggest I do. The Queen will hear of this.’

Instead of meeting her anger with anger, Renard laughed, a sound devoid of any humour.

‘Come, Elizabeth. The Queen will hear nothing of you, save what is ill. Last week she called you, when I and others stood by … let me see, oh yes, it was a bastard, a heretic and a hypocrite. And she prayed again for the fruit of her womb to deliver the country from you.’

Elizabeth rose slowly, the anger tight in her chest. ‘It is by listening to men like you that my loving sister has been poisoned against me. Yet she is the Queen and may call me what she likes, however false those titles may be. You, Ambassador, may not call me anything but “Your grace” or “My lady”. And I will not stay to be so abused.’

She moved to the door, waited there, her back a barrier to the man who began now to applaud.

‘I had heard that you delight in masques and revels. I did not know you had absorbed so much of the player’s skill.’ Receiving no reply, no turn of her body he went on. ‘Come, my lady. Shall we stop this game?’

‘Isn’t that why we are here – to play?’

‘Perhaps. But I have a proposition for you, a secret to tell you, better than any game. Would you hear it? Come, return to your seat. Come. Let me share a secret known to maybe five people in this whole kingdom.’

The door would not open until he commanded it. She had made her point, won it even. She sat again, as Renard moved around before the table.

‘
You
would share a secret, my lord?’

The Ambassador leaned forward, fingertips resting on the table edge, his eyes beneath the heavy veil of his lashes fixed upon her.

‘The Queen’s pregnancy is false. Her desire for Philip’s child, for the heir to a Catholic throne, for the sign of God’s Blessing so long withheld in her years of hardship, this desire is so strong that she has conjured herself a phantom baby – a shade so powerful it brings her a swollen belly and milk to her dugs.’

Elizabeth’s first thought, heaved with sadness into her heart, was,
Oh, poor Mary
. But she would not reveal that emotion to this man.

‘And how do you know this? How do you know for false what so many others believe to be true?’

‘Her closest lady-in-waiting is my … confidant, herself the mother of three. Her doctor tells the Queen what she wants to hear and then tells me the truth.’

‘And what of this? If it is true my sister will learn the sadness of it eventually. Within two months it is said.’

‘What of it, indeed. That is where my proposition comes in. Though now I think on it, maybe “ultimatum” is the better word.’