The Tudor Conspiracy (19 page)

As I beheld the small wood coffin on its chipped dais, a lump filled my throat.

“Her Majesty paid for everything,” the priest said with evident pride. “Though I understand the boy had no rank to commend him, she’s insisted he be put to rest here until the ground thaws. A plot is set aside for him in the churchyard, away from the pit where common traitors go, all at her expense. She’s been most generous to pay such honor to-”

I lifted my hand. “Please. Might I have a moment alone?”

With an offended pout, he nodded and retreated.

I stared upon Peregrine’s waxen face, the only visible part of his body in its winding sheet. I had never seen him so still; as I reached out a trembling hand to touch the lifeless curls on his brow, I half-expected him to laugh and sit up. The faint tang of the herbs with which his body had been washed was the only sign of life in this place of stone. As I finally took it in and let myself accept that Peregrine was truly gone, a choked sob escaped me.

I stood over him for what seemed an eternity before I heard the priest shuffle in. He cleared his throat with begrudging respect. “The hour grows late; I must close my doors soon. If there is nothing more, the coffin will be sealed shut and left here till spring.”

I nodded and made myself step aside, thinking I should have brought something to put in with him, some memento for him to have in the dark.

“Good-bye, sweet friend,” I whispered. “I will avenge you.”

Dusk hung over the city. I rode in silence back to Whitehall, stabled Cinnabar, and paid the groom extra to watch over him and Peregrine’s horse. I tarried a while, trying to take comfort in the animals’ tacit company, the horses sniffing at me as they sensed the bottomless well that had opened inside me.

That night, I could not sleep. I sat cross-legged on the floor of my room as the tallow guttered low in its oil, honing my sword with my whetstone until my fingers bled and every muscle ached, but I found no reprieve in the punishment of my body.

I could no longer control the stranger I was becoming.

Courtenay’s manservant was waiting outside the postern gate when I rode out on Cinnabar at the stroke of one-a hulking figure seated on an enormous gray destrier, his black cloak enveloping him, its cowl drawn over his head to hide his ravaged face.

“Right on time,” he said gruffly before he swerved onto the road that led to the Tower. Ice-hardened snow crunched under our horses’ hooves. The day was clear, though a bracing wind made me glad of my layers of doublet and cloak, my scarf pulled up about my nose and mouth, and my cap shoved down about my ears.

I noted equal discomfort on the scowling faces of passing Londoners, the goodwives, merchants, and other citizens trudging over makeshift planks sunk in mires of slush, while vagabonds and beggars skulked, shivering, in doorways. I looked away from a cadaver, stripped naked and tossed on a midden, its limbs frozen solid, only to catch sight of a mange-ridden bitch herding four skeletal pups out of the way of an approaching cart. As the carter flayed his whip, the bitch yelped, grabbing two of the pups in her jaws and leaving the others to race into a nearby rookery of ramshackle edifices. I yanked Cinnabar aside to avoid trampling the cowering pups and was relieved when I looked over my shoulder and saw them darting, unharmed, after their mother.

“Lucky curs.” The manservant swiveled his head in my direction. “By all accounts, they should be in somebody’s stew pot by now.”

I stared stonily at him. I had no doubt he’d have eaten those pups, too, straight out of the pot. I could see why Courtenay had hired him; with this beast at his side, the earl could prowl the most unsavory places in London and not fear for his life.

Though it was not the earl’s life I was most concerned about.

Not forty-eight hours ago, this man had stalked me. I’d threatened him in the brothel and was blackmailing his master. Now we rode through the city, and while he’d kept his distance thus far, I was fully aware he might yet turn on me. Courtenay could have ordered him to make sure I never reached my destination.

He surprised me by grunting, “My name’s Scarcliff. Hope you brought coin.”

I nodded, resisting an urge to laugh.
That
was his name? I almost pitied the ugly oaf.

As if he read my thoughts, he gave me a disparaging grimace, his front teeth blackened and jagged. “You needn’t worry. I have my orders. But you’ll need to pay the yeomen at the gate and guards inside.” He gestured to his saddlebag. “You’ll take this in with you. Those who pay enough are allowed certain privileges, and the Dudleys get fresh linens every week, courtesy of his lordship. You’ll deliver the bag to their quarters. I’ll wait till the gates close at dusk. If you don’t return by then, I’ll see your horse back to the stables, but you’re on your own.”

His speech was less slurred than it had been at the brothel, no doubt because he was sober, but he still sounded as if he spat out pebbles instead of words. Nevertheless, I was slightly comforted that he did not harbor murderous intent. Of course, he might not need to. I was about to walk voluntarily into the most notorious and well-guarded prison in the realm, where countless men vanished, never to be seen again. If I didn’t get out in time, it might do the job just as well as a blade between my ribs.

We approached the main causeway over the Tower moat. The Tower loomed before me, an enormous, forbidding sight, the domed turrets of its keep thrusting like the calcified fingers of a moribund giant from a surrounding warren of gatehouses, lesser towers, and impregnable walls.

My skin crawled. I’d never thought to set foot in this dreadful place again.

“I’d take off the scarf if I were you. Yeomen don’t like visitors who hide their faces.” As he spoke, Scarcliff shrugged back his own cowl, exposing his hideous, one-eyed visage. Seeing the destruction in daylight, I thought he must have survived some awful fiery battle.

I tore my gaze from him, unraveling the ice-flecked wool from my face. My cheeks were numb from the biting wind blowing off the river, though here the Thames ran deeper and had even started to thaw in parts, with chunks of broken ice bobbing in the dark water.

Various persons stood in line outside the gate, waiting to enter, their subdued chatter punctuated by an occasional mournful roar drifting from inside the crenellated barbican.

“Henry’s old lions,” said Scarcliff. “They don’t much like being caged.”

I shuddered. I couldn’t imagine keeping a wild creature behind bars, though far worse happened every day in this city. I braced myself as we drew our horses to a halt. Scarcliff dismounted, trudged over the drawbridge with his lopsided gait, ignoring the startled glances in his direction from those in line. He reached the warder yeoman guarding the entrance. Two others checked the credentials of those seeking entrance; the warder appeared to recognize Scarcliff, heeding him attentively before giving a curt nod.

Scarcliff came back to me and unhooked the saddlebag. “You’re the earl’s man now, remember, so best act like it. The Dudleys are in the Beauchamp Tower off the inner ward. They like to take their exercise on the leads around this hour, but Lord Robert will be advised he has a visitor. I’ll wait at the Griffin Tavern on Tower Street. Remember, I leave at dusk when the gates close-with or without you.”

I clicked my tongue reassuringly as Scarcliff took my reins. I found it curious that while usually wary of strangers, Cinnabar did not seem averse to letting this particular stranger handle him. Then I hoisted the bag on my shoulder and moved to the portcullis, assaulted by a vivid memory of the last time I had seen it, slamming down like a fanged mouth on a crowd of frantic men. The Dudley steward Shelton had disappeared here that night, struggling in the crush, as guards galloped toward him, swinging maces and pikes …

I forced aside my ruminations, opening the bag for the yeoman to inspect. The scent of lavender rose from the wrapped parcel of linens. The yeoman stared at me. I thought he was going to question me before I remembered. As I fished coins from the purse at my belt, he said, “Through the Bell Tower and to your left into the ward.” He let me pass. Behind me the waiting queue raised angry protest at my preferential treatment.

My boot heels struck hollow echoes upon the flagstones. Sentinels dressed in green uniforms sporting Tudor-rose badges, black-clad secretaries, and other official-looking persons moved around me, carving purposeful paths to various assignations. I recalled that the Tower was more than just a prison; within these walls were an armory, a treasury, a menagerie, and royal apartments. Like every royal fortress, it was governed by a strict bureaucracy, much like Whitehall itself, but as I passed the water gate through which the condemned entered by the river, I felt the walls close in on me, as if I were a rat in a maze.

I hurried up a flight of stairs to the inner ward. The massive White Keep stood to my right. Before me lay a cobblestone space hemmed in by towers and walls but open to the sky and festooned with stalls-an improvised marketplace where guild tradesmen took orders and vendors plied food, the air warmed by the odor of cooking fires. Livestock lowed in pens; everyone went about their business with brisk efficiency, circumventing an empty scaffold situated paces from the chapel, a grim reminder of the Tower’s ultimate purpose.

I stopped in my tracks. Elizabeth’s mother had died on that spot. Though there was no block, no hay to soak up the blood, in my imagination I saw it all, flashing in a tableau before me-Anne Boleyn’s slim figure as she was blindfolded, the slow drop to her knees, and the swift, inescapable arc of the French executioner’s sword …

Tearing my eyes away, I hastened to the Beauchamp Tower.

The guard at the entrance regarded me with the slovenly indifference of someone who needn’t do much to earn his wage. His potbelly hung over his wide, studded belt as he slumped on a stool, a halberd propped against the wall. On the rickety table before him were the ruins of a meat pie and an open ledger. Inking a pruned quill, he said in a toneless mumble, “Name. Occupation. Purpose.”

Name. I hadn’t thought of a name.

“Are ye daft?” He glared at me. “Name. Occupation. Purpose.”

“Beecham,” I said quickly, for it hardly mattered if I used another alias. “Body servant to his lordship, Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon. By my lord’s command, I bring linens for the prisoners.”

“Oh. More linens, eh?” The guard snorted as he scrawled my information in the ledger. “Them Dudleys have the devil’s own luck. We’ve got a hundred poor bastards rottin’ underground and in the Ease, eaten by rats and drinking their own piss, but this lot dine like kings on the earl’s purse, no matter that their father took the ax.” He rummaged cursorily through the saddlebag, his fingers oily with pie grease. I suspected he did it on purpose, to soil the linens. He pushed the bag to me. “Their quarters are up the staircase,” he said, but he didn’t move out of my way until I doled out the requisite bribe.

As I climbed the stairs, the hilt of my hidden poniard dug into my calf. The Dudleys certainly enjoyed both privileges and risks, if this was all it took to get inside their quarters. I might have been a paid assassin, for all the guard knew. No wonder Courtenay found it easy to smuggle in books and letters. I could have carried a dozen on my person alone.

I also might have entered the hall in a manor, I thought, as I walked through a door on the landing into a vaulted room. The walls were adorned with thick, albeit faded, wool tapestries; there were carpets underfoot instead of the ubiquitous lousy rushes, and a fire crackled in the recessed hearth, staving off the chill. A low archway to the left led to sleeping chambers and a garderobe. Several chipped, high-backed chairs, stools, a reading lectern, and a long central table added to the illusion of domestic comfort, while a large mullioned embrasure admitted dusty light. Piles of books on the floor and a furry indent on a cushion by the hearth indicated the Dudleys had the means to keep boredom at bay; evidently it paid to be born on the right side of the blanket, even if one’s family had a tendency to end up with their heads on spikes.

The room was empty. Unclasping my cloak, I draped it across a chair and set the bag on the table, eyeing the pile of books. I resisted the urge to search them for the one Elizabeth had given Courtenay. By now, her letter must have been taken.

I paced to the embrasure. Below me on a protected rampart, stretching between this tower and the next, moved a group of cloaked figures. I went still, recognizing Guilford Dudley’s fair mop and the ginger coloring of his shorter and far less amiable brother Henry. Behind them trailed muscular Ambrose and the eldest of the Dudley brood, John, who bore the closest resemblance to their late father. Only Robert was missing, but I scarcely marked his absence, riveted by the unexpected sight of a slim female figure, her hood slipping from her head to reveal coiled gold-red tresses plaited about her head, a shade paler than her cousin Elizabeth’s.

Lady Jane Grey, Guilford’s wife, was with the four brothers.

John stumbled. As Jane put her hand to his back to steady him, a nearby servant holding a terrier on leash hurried to them. John leaned on the servant gratefully while Jane took the dog. Of the five boys, I knew John Dudley the least. The firstborn, he’d been educated at court, far from the castle where I’d been raised. I’d therefore rarely seen him and now recalled overhearing he was prone to fever, his lungs weakened from a bout of-

“Who are you?”

I spun around. Standing in the doorway was Lord Robert.

“Don’t you recognize me, my lord?” I cast back my hood. “It hasn’t been that long.”

He paused, staring. Then he let out a hiss through his teeth, “Prescott!” and kicked the door shut behind him. He took a step toward me. The sight of him-taller than I recalled and much leaner, his raven-wing’s hair shorn to his skull, accentuating the striking Dudley cheekbones and liquid black eyes-plunged me into the past, when I’d been an insignificant squire, unaware of my royal blood, dependent on him for my very survival.