The Tudor Secret (14 page)

I motioned Barnaby to follow. “I’ll be right behind you.” Then I turned to Kate. “Are you sure you want to stay here?” I tried to keep my tone neutral, unwilling to admit the personal concern I felt for her, which only a few minutes earlier had driven me at the guard with the intent to kill. I didn’t want to leave her here alone. And I did not like that. I did not want to feel anything for her, not at this juncture.

She gave me a knowing smile. “Still suspicious, are we?” Before I could respond, she set a finger on my lips. “Be quiet. I know I owe you an explanation, but for now rest assured that I can use a blade for more than peeling apples.”

I had no doubt she could, but no matter how well she might wield a weapon, she’d be no match for these two should they decide to break their bonds.

“Don’t fight them.” I looked her in the eye. “They’re the duke’s men. The punishment would be … severe. If it comes to it, make your escape. Find Peregrine and meet us on the road. We’ll find another way to get her out.” I paused. “Promise me.”

“I’m moved that you would worry,” she replied, still with that ironic smile. “But this is hardly the time to start doubting your allies. Go. You’ve more important things to worry about.”

I did not argue. Turning away, I stepped into suffocating darkness.

The passage containing the secret staircase was impossibly narrow, the ceiling angled low, barely high enough to accommodate a man. With my knees bent and shoulders hunched, my hair brushing cold stone, I wondered how enormous Henry the Eighth had ever navigated it. An unwitting gasp escaped me as the sense of space behind me was cut off.

Kate had depressed the lever and closed the false wall.

It was like moving up a tunnel. My eyes gradually adjusted. Rats perched on the steps, eyeing me without fear. Elizabeth and Barnaby climbed ahead, single file; I lost sight of them at each turn in the pike. The clammy air was wringing sweat from my brow.

Suddenly the staircase ended at a wooden door. Barnaby paused. “Before we go in,” he said, “Your Grace should know that Edward … he isn’t the prince we knew. The illness and the treatments have taken a terrible toll on him.”

She edged closer to me as Barnaby rapped on the door. In the hush, I heard her draw in a quivering breath. Barnaby rapped again. I gripped my dagger.

The door cracked open. A sliver of light cut across our feet.

“Who goes there?” said a man’s low, frightened voice.

“Sidney, it’s me,” whispered Barnaby. “Quick. Open up.”

The door swung inward, a covert entry masked by the wainscoting of a small but well-appointed chamber. The first thing that struck me was the heat. It was stifling, emanating from scented braziers set in the corners, from a fire burning in the recessed hearth, and from the tripod of candelabra illuminating the scarlet and gold upholstery of the chairs, the curtains at the alcove, and the damask hangings shrouding a tester bed.

A young man with lank blond hair faced Barnaby, his fine features haggard. “What are you doing here? You know his lordship ordered you away. You must not…” His voice faded. His blue eyes widened. Elizabeth stepped around Barnaby, cast back her cowl.

I stood behind her. Beyond the breath-quenching heat I began to detect another smell in the air—something very faint but also fetid, barely masked by the herb fumes from the brazier.

Elizabeth noticed it, too. “God’s teeth,” she murmured, as Sidney dropped to his knees before her. She stepped past him. “There’s no time for that,” she said faintly, moving toward the bed. On a crosshatch a falcon watched, its ankle tethered to its gilded post; candle flames reflected in its opaque pupils.

“Edward?” she whispered. She reached out to the bed hangings. “Edward, it’s me, Elizabeth.” She drew back the hangings. She gasped, staggered back.

I rushed to her side. When I saw what she stared at, I went still.

The stench in the room came from a shrunken figure supine on the bed, the flesh of his emaciated legs and arms blackened, festering. Propped on the pillows like a decaying marionette, only the rise and fall of his chest indicated the young king’s heart still beat. I could not believe anyone in such a state could be conscious. I prayed he wasn’t.

Then Edward VI’s gray-blue eyes opened, and his anguished gaze, as it rested on us, showed he was fully aware of his torment and that his sister stood before him. He opened caked lips, struggled to mouth unintelligible words.

Sidney hastened to his side. “He can’t speak,” he told Elizabeth. She had not moved, her face pared to an alarming transparency.

“What … what is he trying to say?” she whispered.

Sidney leaned close to the king’s mouth. Edward’s talonlike fingers gripped his wrist. Sidney looked up sorrowfully. “He begs your forgiveness.”

“My forgiveness?” Her hand crept to her throat. “Blessed Jesus, it is I who should beg for his. I wasn’t here. I wasn’t here to stop them from doing this … this horror to him.”

“He is beyond such concerns. He needs you to forgive him. He had no power to gainsay the duke. I know. I have seen everything that has transpired between them, from the day Northumberland began to poison him.”

“Poison him?” Her voice turned hard, cold. I thought I would never want to be the recipient of the look she now cast. “What are you saying?”

“I’m talking of the choice, Your Grace, the terrible choice they forced on him. He was ill with fevers; he coughed up blood. Everyone knew that he could not live; he too knew his end was near and he’d made his peace with it. He’d also made his decision about who must succeed him. Then the duke transferred him here and ordered his physicians dismissed. He brought in the herbalist, who began treating him with some mixture of arsenic. He was told it would help him, and it did—for a little while. But then it got much worse.”

Sidney glanced at Edward, who lay there with his eyes distended in his appalling, skeletal face. “He began to rot from within. The pain became an unending torment. Northumberland was at him night and day, without respite. He signed in desperation, because he could take no more, because they had promised him relief and he was burning in a never-ending hell.”

“He … he was forced … to sign … something?” Elizabeth had trouble speaking; I could see the veins in her temples. “What was it? What did they make him sign?”

Sidney averted his eyes. “A device naming Jane Grey as his heir. The duke made him disavow your and the Lady Mary’s claims to the throne. He made him”—his voice lowered to a whisper—“declare you both illegitimate.”

Elizabeth stood perfectly still. I watched her countenance darken. Then she whirled about, took a furious step toward the apartments’ main door.

“Your Grace,” I said.

She paused. “Don’t,” she said to me. “Don’t say it.”

“Listen.” I moved in front of her.

A dragging sound grew steadily louder, coming closer and closer.

“It’s the herbalist,” Sidney said, as if surprised; and as Barnaby leapt to the wall by the door, I drew Elizabeth behind the alcove curtains. I shielded her with my body, the dagger in my hand feeling insignificant as a toy. I tightened my hold, watching the apartment door open.

A stunted woman limped in. Her ankles contorted inward, displaying livid scars.

She paused in the center of the room.

“I told you, it’s the herbalist,” Sidney said again. Barnaby sagged with relief against the wall.

I looked closer. My entire world keeled.

Slowly, I stepped out of hiding. I knew it without needing to say a single thing, like a nail driven in my heart. All the blood in my veins seemed to empty. I saw no recognition in the withered face framed by an old-fashioned wimple—a leathery face, almost unrecognizable, scored by suffering. Even as I paused, all of a sudden, beset by a horrible, almost hopeful doubt, the scent of rosemary, of childhood, overcame me. I remembered what Peregrine had said:

He has that old nurse of his to take care of him.… She came here once … to fetch one of Edward’s spaniels.

I looked at her for an endless moment. Her eyes were bovine, dull in their resignation. I raised a trembling hand to her cheek, my fingers poised over her desiccated flesh. I was terrified of touching her, as if she were a mirage that might turn to dust. My heart pounded in my ears. If I hadn’t known it was true, that I was seeing her, here, in front of me, I would never have believed this was happening.

Not after all these haunted, grief-stricken years.

Behind me Elizabeth said, “You know her.”

And I heard myself reply, “Yes. Her name is Mistress Alice. She cared for me when I was a child. I was told she was dead.”

Silence ensued. Barnaby shut the door, planted himself in front of it.

I couldn’t take my eyes from her, couldn’t reconcile this brittle, ancient figure with the quick-witted woman enshrined in my memory. She’d always been spry, fleet of word and gesture; her eyes had been discerning, bright and keen, not these sunken hollow orbs.

She had left on a trip to Stratford, as she did every year. A few days to come and go, she’d said. Don’t fret, my pet. I’ll be back before you know it. But she didn’t come back. Thieves had beset her on the road: That’s what Master Shelton told me. I didn’t weep, didn’t ask to see her body or where she was buried. The pain was too intense. It hadn’t mattered. All that mattered was that she was gone. She was gone and she would never return to me. That’s what I’d been told. That’s what I believed. I was twelve years old and bereft of the one person in the world who had loved me. Her loss became an incurable wound that I hid deep within.

Now the question boiled inside me, with the force of an eruption.

Why? Why did you leave me?

But as I took in her appearance, I knew.

The scars on her ankles—I’d seen the same on mules condemned by unfeeling masters to a lifetime of hobbling about manacled, forced to turn the churning wheels of mills. I let my hand trail to her jaw, as I might soothe a frightened mare. Like a mare she understood. She opened her lips. Her mouth was dark inside. Defiled.

They had cut out her tongue.

A scream curdled in my throat. I choked it back as I heard Elizabeth utter, “Is this the woman who has been poisoning my brother?”

From the bed Sidney replied, “Yes. Lady Dudley brought her here … She gave her instructions, to make the treatments. But … she … she…”

“What?” Elizabeth snapped. “Spit it out!”

“Mistress Alice is a master herbalist,” I said. “She cured me of many illnesses in my childhood. She would never have done this willingly.”

Elizabeth pointed at her brother. “You can say that after what she’s done?”

Mistress Alice’s misshapen hand tugged at my jerkin. I looked into her eyes. The lump in my chest turned molten. Barnaby acknowledged my warning glance as I turned to where Elizabeth stood. “She’d never do this to any living being, much less to a man—not unless she was forced to,” I said. “She has been hurt, tortured. The duke ordered this done.”

“Why?” Elizabeth’s voice caught. “Dear God in heaven, why do this to him?”

“To keep him alive. To gain time,” was my grim reply.

Elizabeth stared at me. “I can’t leave him here. We must get him out of that bed.”

“We can’t,” I said, and she took one look at my face and stiffened. “We must go. Now.”

She glanced at Barnaby. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.

I answered, “Neither do I. But Mistress Alice does. Look at her.”

Elizabeth did. Mistress Alice had shuffled to the secret door and was motioning to us with unmistakable agitation. Her hands were unbearably twisted, those of a hundred-year-old crone. What they had done to her had stolen years from her life. She was not yet fifty.

I had to fight back my rage, and returned to Elizabeth. She met my stare defiantly and then turned away and made for the door without a backward glance.

Barnaby followed. Sidney bolted to a coffer, flung open the lid. He yanked out a jewel-hilted sword sheathed in leather and tossed it to me. “Edward has no need of it anymore. It’s of Toledo steel, a gift from the imperial ambassador. I’ll try and delay them while you get away.”

I knew instantly from the feel that it had been fashioned for someone light of build, like me. Only I could never have afforded such a sword on my own.

Mistress Alice shuffled purposefully to the bed. “See that Her Grace gets out safely,” I ordered Barnaby, and I kicked the secret door shut in his face. Sidney was at the main door. He froze, gaping at me. “Where are you going? They’re almost here!”

I moved to where Mistress Alice stood at the bedside table, rummaging through a wooden chest—her medicine chest, which she’d stashed on the kitchen shelf, out of my reach. I felt a cold shock as I realized I’d never even noticed it was missing, though she never took it with her when she traveled. Whenever I’d tried to peek inside it, she’d said,

Nothing in there for a big-eyed curious lad; no secrets for him to see.…

She turned, gazing at me as if she saw me for the first time. Tears leapt in my eyes as she took my hand. With quivering gnarled fingers, she set something wrapped in oiled cloth in my palm. She folded my fingers over it. I was captivated by the look that came over her face then, as if she had finally found redemption.

Then the door opened. Sidney was thrust back.

With her gift in one fist and the sword in the other, I pivoted to meet my past.

The Tudor Secret

She wore a gown the color of armor. Of all those who might have entered through that door, she was the last person I expected to see—though it made perfect sense it should be her. Behind her was Archie Shelton, his scarred face impassive. At the sight of him, I had to stop myself from vaulting forward in fury.

I heard voices in the antechamber. “Wait until I call for you,” she said over her shoulder, and Master Shelton came in and closed the door. I registered Sidney’s retreat out of the corner of my eye. At my back I felt Mistress Alice go still. I outstretched an arm to shield her, even as I recognized the futility of it. Though she must have been surprised to see me, Lady Dudley’s expression was imperturbable.

“I see you’ve failed to heed the one unbreakable rule of every loyal servant,” she said. “You failed to recognize your proper place.” She glanced at the panel in the wainscoting concealing the secret door. “But, I do give you credit for finding that entrance.” Her voice hardened. “Where is she?”

Knowing Barnaby and Kate must be rushing Elizabeth to the gate where Peregrine waited with the horses at that very moment, I said, “I am alone. I wanted to find out for myself.”

“You’re not a very good liar,” she replied. “She’ll never get away, no matter what you think you can do. She’s going to lose that feckless head of hers, just like her whore of a mother.”

I ignored her threat. “Why have you done this?”

She arched one thin eyebrow. “I’m surprised you have to ask.” She motioned. “Move away from the bed. Oh, and drop that … sword, is it?” She smiled. “My son Henry and our retainers are outside, eager for better sport than toasting Guilford’s fortune between Jane Grey’s thighs. One word from me and they’ll flay you alive.”

I threw the sword onto the rug between us. I didn’t deign Master Shelton a glance. The steward stood in front of the door, in the same stance Barnaby had affected, powerful arms folded across his barrel chest.

Bastard. I hated him as I’d never hated anyone in my life, as if it were venom in my blood. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.

Lady Dudley said, “Mistress Alice, please mix His Majesty’s draught now.”

From the chest, Mistress Alice removed a pouch and sprinkled white powder into a goblet.

I found it almost impossible to maintain my stance. She had done this, all of it. She had mutilated Mistress Alice, set her to poison the king. She’d always been efficient, whether she was organizing her household or ordering the autumn slaughter of the pigs. Why should this have been any different? Understanding now what had been hidden from me all these years, I marveled at how I’d missed it, how I had failed to sense the deception.

It had been Lady Dudley who had plotted to provide an alternative heir to the two princesses. Implacable, she had aimed at exalting her favorite son, used everything she had at her disposal. She’d even divined a weakness in the duchess of Suffolk’s past and made a devil’s pact to one end and one end only—preserving the family power.

But her husband the duke had repaid her in false coin. He’d gone along with her plans, even as he contrived to take Elizabeth for himself. Somehow, Lady Dudley had found out. She had discovered the truth.

What else did she know? What else had she kept secret?

As if she could read my thoughts, her bloodless lips curved. “Twenty years. That’s how long it’s been since you came into our lives. You were always clever, too clever by far. Alice used to say she’d never seen a child so eager to grasp the world. Perhaps I should keep you alive a bit longer, in case our angry duchess reneges on her promise. She thinks you’re dead, but I still need her compliance until we have Jane declared queen. I could use you again.”

I felt sweat on my brow and in my fist clutching the cloth. Without betraying my spiraling fear, I replied, “I might prove more useful if your ladyship told me everything.”

“Everything?” She regarded me with a hint of mirth in her cold gray eyes.

“Yes.” My chest tightened, as if I were short of breath. “I was brought here for a purpose, wasn’t I? At Whitehall, your ladyship told the duchess about my … my birthmark.”

“So, you understood that. I wondered if you counted a fluency in French among your many hidden talents. How fascinating; you certainly have been busy.”

The sweat trickled down my face, pooled in the hollow of my throat. The salt stung the bruises on my cheeks. “I taught myself,” I said. “I am clever, yes. And if I knew who it is the duchess thinks I am, I could help you. I’m amenable to an arrangement that will serve us both.”

It was a pathetic deceit, born of desperation, and she responded with startling laughter.

“Would you, indeed? Then you’re not as clever as I’d supposed. Do you think I’d be stupid enough to trust you, now that I know you protect that Boleyn whore? However, you have solved my dilemma. Shelton, watch him while I see to His Majesty.”

She glided to the bed. I stealthily tucked the cloth into my jerkin pocket, pushing it down against the inside seam as I braved a glance at Master Shelton. He avoided all eye contact, his gaze fixed ahead, but I knew that if I made any move to escape he would leap into action. He had the reflexes of a soldier—which is why I found it disconcerting that he didn’t seem to notice Sidney shifting away from the alcove where he’d retreated.

In Sidney’s wake, the curtains stirred.

I turned my attention to the bed. Mistress Alice had finished mixing the powder in the goblet. Edward didn’t stir or protest as Lady Dudley reached down to smooth his coverlets and rearrange his pillows. He stared fixedly at her through his pain-laced eyes when she took the goblet from Mistress Alice and, placing one hand under his head, propped him up.

“Drink,” she said, and Edward did. She smiled. “Now rest. Rest and dream of angels.”

His eyes closed. He seemed to melt into his pillows. Turning away, Lady Dudley set the goblet on the table and reached into the medicine chest. She brought up something, made a sudden movement. Steel slashed. There was no sound. A gush of scarlet sprayed from Mistress Alice’s throat, splattering the carpet and the bed. Before my horrified eyes, she fell to her knees, looking straight at me, then crumpled onto the floor.

“NOOO!” My wail erupted from me like a wounded howl. I sprang forth. Master Shelton rushed at me, seizing my left arm to yank it behind my back. My cry was cut short, the pain searing through my torn shoulder muscles.

“I told you not to meddle,” he hissed in my ear. “Be still. You cannot stop this.”

I panted with helpless rage, watching Lady Dudley drop the bloodied knife and step over Mistress Alice’s convulsing body. Blood pumped out from under her, darkening the carpet.

“Kill him,” she told Master Shelton.

I kicked back with all my strength. I felt my heel slam into the steward’s shin, rammed my elbow simultaneously into his chest. It was like hitting granite; yet with a surprised grunt, Master Shelton released me.

Sidney scooped up the sword and thrust it at me as I dove for the alcove, where a draft now blew through the curtains. I heard Lady Dudley cry out, heard the door open, heard furious shouting; but I didn’t pause to see how many were entering the room to come after me.

Something whined and popped. I ducked as the ball flew past and embedded itself in the wall. Someone, perhaps one of the Dudley retainers with Henry, had a firearm. Such weapons were lethal but difficult to manage at close range. I knew it would take a good minute to reload and ignite the matchlock. It was all the time I had.

I leapt onto the windowsill, squeezing through the open window. With sword in hand, and my heart in my throat, I dropped into the night.

I hit the stone leads of the story below with teeth-rattling impact. The sword flew from my hand, clattering off the edge into the courtyard below. Sprawled, my head reeling, the agony was so intense I thought I had shattered both my legs. Then I realized I could move, despite the pain, and glanced up to the window through which I’d just leapt in time to see a long-nosed hand-pistol belch smoke.

I rolled. A ball struck the spot where I’d lain and ricocheted against the palace wall.

“A pox on it,” I heard Henry Dudley curse. “I missed him. Don’t worry. I’ll get him.”

The pistol disappeared for reloading. I forced myself upright. Standing as flat against the wall as I could, I looked to either side with a sickening drop in my bowels. The leads weren’t leads at all. Instead of a walkway there was an extended parapet with a decorative balustrade, punctuated by stucco nymphs and running parallel with an indoor gallery. At the far end I could see a mullioned casement and the turrets of a water gate. At any moment someone above me would realize the same and race downstairs to finish me off.

I had no escape.

Think. Don’t panic. Breathe. Forget everything else. Forget Mistress Alice. Forget her blood seeping into the floor.…

To the left rose the moldering roof of the tower housing the secret staircase. To the right stood the gate. I began edging in that direction, away from the light spilling from the window above. I didn’t know that much about firearms but Master Shelton did, for he had served in the Scottish wars. He once remarked to me that guns were a primitive weapon, infamous for not igniting when lit, missing targets despite perfect aim, or backfiring due to poorly packed powder. It was too much to hope that Henry might blow his own face off, and instinct urged me to put as much distance between me and that window as I could.

Instinct proved correct. I froze as the pistol fired again. This time Henry displayed remarkably improved marksmanship, the ball spraying grotesquerie right above my shoulder. Tiny shards of plaster flew into my face. It wasn’t until I felt the warm trickle of blood that I realized the ball had grazed me, as well.

“You got him!” Henry guffawed. Someone else had fired the shot. I continued my precarious advance. My escape must have addled their wits. I was surprised that whoever had the gun hadn’t realized they could far more effectively shoot at me from the gallery.

The pistol pulled back. I quickened my step, nearing a casement. I hoped there wouldn’t be shutters, locks, small leaded panes I couldn’t smash. Between the pain in my legs and the throbbing in my shoulder, I was feeling faint. Another pop came, the ball razing the air above my head.

I struggled forward, flat with the wall.

The casement swung open. I halted when I saw a figure step onto the parapet with feline stealth. It paused. Another shot rang out, sending plaster flying. It turned. In the moonlight, I caught the gleam of dark eyes.

Then the figure started moving. Toward me.

My entire being clamored an urgent warning, even as I stood transfixed by the sight of the man approaching me in complete disregard for his own safety.

Two distinct impressions went through me in those crucial seconds. The first was that he moved as if he’d been tripping over rooftops all his life. The second was that either he’d come to finish the job for the Dudleys or he sought to rescue me.

When I spied the curved blade in his gloved hand, I realized I shouldn’t wait to find out. Hopefully I had come close enough to the water gate. If not, I wasn’t likely to regret my error.

I sprang forth with all the strength I had left.

And leapt out into nothingness.

The Tudor Secret