Keeper of the King's Secrets (22 page)

He had heard it, too.

Their pace slowed, and Jean unclipped his crossbow from his belt and held it awkwardly in his right hand.

Susanna shook her right arm, and felt her knife hilt nudge her palm.

The banging was louder now, and more erratic. Not the steady rhythm of a hammer, more like the thump of a body against a solid object. Like someone throwing themselves against a door.

“Parker.” Her cry echoed down the tunnel, bounding and rebounding, and Jean looked back at her with horror.

“Are you mad?” He lifted the crossbow in a sharp, furious movement, pointing it straight down the tunnel, and moved faster.

The noise stopped, too abruptly to be coincidence.

Her cry had been heard by someone.

“Parker!” It hurt so much to shout, it was as if someone had run a knife tip down the inside of her throat. It brought tears to her eyes.

She heard a shout in return, muffled but audible. Then a sound like a fist pounding.

Susanna ran, the torch flickering wildly as she sprinted down the passageway. She pushed Jean aside and could sense him at her shoulder, his silence cold and angry.

The tunnel opened up suddenly without warning, and Susanna stumbled to a halt. The short, wide section contained
three doors on each side before it narrowed again and disappeared toward the Fleet.

The walls were of natural stone; she guessed the tunnel diggers had come across a natural chamber and decided to make use of it.

“Parker?”

There was a bang against the middle right door, and she ran to it and banged back. “Where is your lock pick?” Her voice broke as she called to Jean. She grabbed hold of the door handle and tugged. It rattled a little. Parker had weakened it.

Jean said nothing, and she turned, frowning. He was standing with his crossbow held loosely away from his body, but in a way that told her he could lift it and fire at any moment.

“I think now is a good time to negotiate, hmm?”

W
hen Parker first heard her call, he thought he was hearing things. The pain in his body from every smash of his shoulder against the door made him light-headed, and he was sure, even though he stopped to listen, that it could not be her.

When her shout came again, his legs collapsed under him. He raised a fist and banged it on the door, too exhausted to call out.

The answering bang gave him the strength he needed to pull himself up.

He heard Susanna demanding something of someone, and then silence.

There was a sound in the lock, the snick and grind of metal on metal, and Parker realized someone was picking it.

The movements were quick and efficient, and as the door swung outward he pushed himself through, so unsteady on his feet, he knocked whoever had opened it to one side.

He came to an abrupt halt. Susanna stood in the middle of the room dressed as a monk, with a torch in one hand. He blinked to clear his vision, trying to make sense of what he saw.

The man he’d pushed aside moved directly in front of him, and for a long moment, Parker and the French assassin stared at each other.

Parker could see amusement and arrogance in the Frenchman’s eyes; there was only shock in his.

The Frenchman’s lips curled up, and his eyes moved to Susanna. He lunged for her, but she thrust the torch in his face and he leaped back, cursing.

Parker moved in an arc, each step an effort to stay upright. He kept the Frenchman in view and reached Susanna’s side. She said nothing, her gaze going to him, eyes glittering in the torchlight. She switched the torch to her left hand and flicked her right, then held out the knife that landed in her palm.

His eyes still on the Frenchman, he kissed the top of her head as he took it. Not that he could best a crossbow with a knife.

Both of his arms felt encased in scorching lead. It would be almost impossible to lift one and throw the knife accurately against the aim of a bolt pointed at his heart.

“You do not look well.” The Frenchman moved, shifting his bow, and Parker remembered he’d injured him. It was only mild consolation as the bolt tip leveled with his chest again.

“I am well enough.” It was a lie, and they all knew it.

There was the clang of a gate from deeper down the tunnel, and all three froze, listening.

“Mistress Horenbout has made me certain promises, and perhaps, now that I have you trapped between whoever is coming from the other side and my crossbow, I can ask that you both come with me now to fulfil them.”

Parker glanced at Susanna and saw her lips thin and her eyes narrow. She blew out a breath.

The Frenchman raised an eyebrow, looked over Susanna’s shoulder to the passage beyond, and then back to both of them, the question clear.

They could all hear the heavy tread of footsteps, and someone began to whistle tunelessly.

Susanna lifted her cowl to cover her face.

The steps came closer.

“What have you promised him?” Parker asked her.

She gave him a sidelong look. “He wants me to retrieve the Mirror of Naples for him, from where Jens left it.” Her voice was husky, faint.

He absorbed her words with difficulty, unable to take his eyes off her, but her attention was already back on the Frenchman.

The assassin took a step toward the tunnel. “They are almost upon us. Let’s go.” His agitation was clear. He would
not like to be caught down here by the wardens of the Fleet any more than they would.

Parker didn’t know how fast he could run, even as he readied himself for whatever Susanna had in mind.

He sensed the Frenchman tensing as the footsteps sounded closer.

“We will not go with you.” Susanna’s voice was hoarse, as if her throat had been injured. He could no longer see her face, shadowed by the deep cowl, but her grip on the torch tightened.

“You are merely delaying the inevitable.” The Frenchman couldn’t control the anger in his tone. Parker sensed there was something between him and Susanna, some conflict he knew nothing about.

She shook her head and lifted her hands, the movement unhurried and dismissive, and he cursed.

“I’ll be waiting for you farther down the tunnel when you come to your senses and run. If you try to escape past me without honoring your promise, I
will
shoot.”

He backed away, disappearing into the darkness, the tip of the bolt the last thing to be swallowed by the shadows.

Parker turned to Susanna and stood swaying, beyond words, as she loosened the rope belt of her monk’s robe and lifted it up.

Beneath it, there was something tied around her waist—another monk’s robe. She pulled it loose and handed it to him, along with the belt that had held it around her midriff.

Parker couldn’t put them on. He could not lift his arms.

Susanna tied the rope belt around her again, and then looked up sharply when she realized he was not dressing.

“I can’t lift—”

The footsteps sounded as if they were just around the corner.

She lunged forward and grabbed the robe and rope, snatching the knife from his hand. In its place she handed him the torch.

As the world tilted and dipped around him, Parker felt as if everything happened at half speed.

Susanna spun into the dark corner where the tunnel opened into the natural chamber, and as she pressed herself against the wall, a man stepped through and tripped over his feet at the sight of Parker standing with a flickering torch in his hand.

“What …” The word was whispered, then he took a deep breath as if to shout.

Susanna leaped out, robe in hand, and brought the brown wool over the man’s eyes. He crumpled as if she’d knocked the back of his legs to unbalance him, and as he hit the ground with his knees, hands out to save himself, she looped the rope around his head and tied it tight, turning the robe into a hood.

She brought the knife up to his throat and let him feel the tip through the wool.

He flinched.

“Stay very still.” Her words were whispered, the sound eerie in the echoing chamber. She kept the knife pressed
against his skin and tugged at the belt around his waist. “Undo your belt.”

The man’s fingers fumbled with the task, and a moment later the belt—heavy with jangling keys—was in Susanna’s hands.

“Now move. On your hands and knees, move forward.” The man moved awkwardly, and with the knife still pricking him, Susanna walked beside him, nudging him in the direction of Parker’s cell.

When he crossed the threshold she slammed the door shut and flipped through the keys, working fast as the man hammered at the door.

She found the right key and turned it in the lock with an audible click, and for a heartbeat there was silence.

Then the man began to pound the door again and shout, the sound muffled.

“Come.” She walked to Parker and took his arm, as gentle now as she had been ferocious a moment before.

His skin was hot and tight, yet he was cold to his core and shivering. He tried to focus, to concentrate, but his mind would not settle.

Susanna gave his arm a tug. “I am tired of this, Parker. I want it to end. And if I have to behave a little like you to do it, then I will.” She took the torch from him and towed him behind her, her stride steady and sure.

They came to an iron gate blocking the tunnel from floor to ceiling. Susanna tried two keys before she opened it. She did not close and lock it behind her.

There was a stench here, a smell that seemed ingrained in the very stone around them. Parker sensed the darkness, the despair, from a long way off. He was apart from his body, content to allow Susanna to lead him where she would.

Their steps elicited cries and calls all around them, and Parker squinted to focus. There were cells on either side of them now, and Susanna stopped at each one, unlocking the doors.

“Is this Bartholomew Fair?” Her whisper echoed through the passage.

He heard a few cries of assent, and she continued down the tunnel, unlocking as she went.

A small group of men emerged from their holes, twitchy and nervous. They began to follow her as though she were a fairy-tale piper.

“Go the other way.” She pointed in the direction they had just come. “There is a man down there with a crossbow, but if you call out who you are, he will not harm you. It is only us he wants to kill.”

“Where does the tunnel lead?” A man stepped out of a cell, filthy and wild, his hair standing in stiff tufts, his face a blackened mess with white, staring eyes.

With a vague sense of recognition, Parker tilted his head to look more closely; he thought the man might be some minor figure from court.

“St. Sepulchre’s.” Susanna turned away and moved on, tugging Parker along.

“Is that you, Parker?” The man moved away from his cell cautiously, as if expecting the world to dissolve around him.

Speaking was too much effort, so Parker merely raised a hand. It bothered him he did not know the man’s name, but if this was the Fleet, then most of these prisoners would be men who had annoyed the nobles in power, or Wolsey.

He stumbled as they reached a staircase, blocked by another gate, and Susanna did lock this one behind them before helping him up each step as if he were a small child.

“Eh?” A man blocked the way at the top of the stairs. Susanna’s face was in deep shadow, and she had somehow tucked his cloak back so his chain of office was in full view.

“Out of the way.” She spoke in a clipped whisper, and the man obliged, too surprised to do anything else.

Parker tried to draw himself up, to tower over the shorter man, but he had no sense of whether he had managed to or not. He had a curious floating sensation, and kept having to juggle his feet to keep from staggering sideways.

There was another strong door ahead.

“Where’d you come from?” The warden’s voice was neutral. He wasn’t sure whether to be respectful or not.

Parker saw he was torn between going down the stairs to see what they had been up to below, and following them. They were a priest and a king’s officer, and he was obliged to obey them, but they shouldn’t be here.

Susanna took advantage of his uncertainty, searching through the keys and trying one with a shaking hand. “One of your men is injured below.” She spoke matter-of-factly, her voice rough and low, and Parker turned his head to the man and saw him frown.

“I think a prisoner harmed him.”

The warden kept his gaze on them but took the first few steps down the stairs, and Parker heard the click as a key turned the lock. Susanna fumbled a little as she drew the key out and swung open the door, pulled him through, and slammed it behind them, locking it in one deft movement.

They were in a large open yard, surrounded by the crenellated walls of the Fleet Prison. The massive doors to the outside were straight ahead, and Susanna walked directly toward them. Parker had the sense of being very small in a massive space, of having some terrible power hovering just over them, ready to crush them on a whim.

“Stop.” A man waddled out of a side building, his belly hanging over his belt, his face unwashed and unshaven. His eyes seemed unusually small in his face, but they gleamed bright.