Blood Between Queens (36 page)

“I have some business to attend to. For Mary.” He lowered his voice, though there was not another soul in the entire deserted building. “Justine, Elizabeth comes here tomorrow.”

She brightened. “It’s arranged? She sent word to my aunt?”

“Yes, tomorrow night. The feast day of Saint Thomas à Becket.” He added, teasing, “You haven’t forgotten your saints’ days, I hope?”

“No, indeed.” She mustered a smile. “Saint Thomas. I am glad. Mary going to France is best for both queens.”

He wished he could tell her the truth. That the day after tomorrow one queen would be dead and the other would be awaiting Northumberland’s forces to restore a panicked country and crown her Queen Mary. But there was something he
could
share with Justine. In fact, he needed her. To settle his score with Thornleigh. “You shall not come with me to France,” he said.

She was about to protest, but he held up his hands to forestall her, though he was moved by the entreaty in her eyes. “Your place is in England, Justine. Your homeland. You should go back tomorrow morning to Thornleigh’s house. It is where you belong.”

“But why? They don’t trust me anymore. I told you, Father, there is nothing now to keep me here.”

“There is. A future. There is none for you in France. I cannot give you what Thornleigh can give you. A grand family name. A glittering match. You should marry an earl’s son.” It gave him pleasure to say so, for it was exactly what he intended for her. When Mary was queen of England she would raise Christopher to the peerage, and if he were made an earl his daughter deserved no lesser rank in her husband. But he could not tell her that. “No, I will not take you to France. You belong in England, and in England you shall stay.”

She slumped, dejectedly accepting it.

“But there is something I want you to do,” he said. “My name will always be a weight around your neck as long as the old feud festers between our families. I want to lift that weight.”

She looked curious despite her disappointment.

“Oh, I’ll admit, my kinfolk must bear their share of blame,” he went on. “Mind you, more Grenvilles died than Thornleighs. But the feud has gone on too long and has hurt too many people, including you. I want to end the lethal rancor, once and for all. Will you help me? Will you be the peacemaker?”

Her look was full of wonder. “I? How?”

“By bringing me and Thornleigh together. I will make an apology to him. I will grovel, if that’s what he wants. Whatever it takes I will do if it’s in my power. I want peace between us, finally. For your sake, Justine. For your future.”

“But he might hand you over to be hanged.”

“I think he will not. He has raised you like a daughter, hiding your name, which a scandal about me might unmask. Clearly he, too, wants an unblemished future for you. Let us hope he also wants peace.”

Her eyes brimmed. “You are such a good and generous man, Father. Tell me what I can do.”

 

Morning mist drifted over Cripplegate Ward where mourners threaded into St. Olave’s churchyard behind six pallbearers. Richard Thornleigh walked hand in hand with Honor at the head of the procession, preceded only by Will. Richard’s eyes, scratchy with grief, were fixed on his sister’s coffin. Poor, deranged Joan. He had never imagined her despair so deep that she would take her own life! To steady himself he wrapped his other hand around the hilt of his sword in its sheath. A memory flooded him of Joan as a child romping in their father’s barley field, laughing as she stuck a feather in the cap of the scarecrow. She was younger than Richard.
She should not have died first
. The plodding group turned as they passed through the church gate, and it seemed to him the coffin floated, barely touching the pallbearers’ shoulders.
An illusion,
he told himself.
Stay rational.

His eyes fell again on Will ahead of him, Will’s back rigid with anguish. And with wrath at Justine, Richard knew. Will held her responsible for Joan’s death. That cut into Richard. What a tragic breach his sister had wrought between the two young people. What a heartbreaking, senseless tragedy. He heard a small sound of pain from Honor and suddenly realized he was crushing her hand. He let it go, the word
sorry
rising in him but not making it through his dry mouth. She took his hand again with a look of desolate but ardent solidarity. It moved him. He wanted to say
thank you
but could only nod, a feeble substitute.

He looked ahead down the path, and it pained him to see the freshly mounded earth beside the grave. Yet he was relieved that the procession was almost over. The walk from the house on Silver Street had been a trial, his right foot numb again. It occurred to him, with a pin-prick of bleak awareness, that no one noticed, since everyone was shuffling like him.

The black-robed vicar stood waiting at the grave.
Like a vulture,
was Richard’s thought. The vicar opened his prayer book, looking sour.
My bribe should have sweetened him,
Richard thought. The churchman had pocketed the gold and agreed to allow the cause of death to be entered in the parish register as “a sickly heart,” yet now he was barely hiding his disgust at a suicide being interred in hallowed ground. Richard didn’t give a damn. Nothing and no one would stop him from burying Joan beside her husband.

Everyone grouped around the grave, then halted. For a moment, silence. The morning was unseasonably warm, humid. Melting snow dripped off the church eaves. It felt oddly like spring, Richard thought. But it was winter. No green buds on the barren branches. No birdsong. Just the damp silence of death. Wasn’t this the feast day of Saint Thomas à Becket? He remembered Joan as a child asking in amazement how a king could order soldiers to murder an archbishop in his cathedral. She had whispered in awe, “That king must be in hell.”

Will stood like a headstone, so rigid it seemed to Richard he was not even breathing.
Poor boy,
he thought.
Grief cannot be borne alone. Justine should be beside you.

Where was the girl? They had not seen her since yesterday. His first thought was that she had gone to Adam’s house in Chelsea, but Adam was in Portsmouth and Richard knew Justine had never warmed to Frances, so it seemed an unlikely place for her to seek comfort. He hoped she had gone to see a sympathetic friend. The Langly girl’s house, perhaps. Or the Fosters. But why not send him word? Too shaken, he supposed. No wonder. It rocked him, remembering the awful scene he had found at Joan’s house. Her manservant, Joseph, said he saw Justine stumbling out of the house soon after finding the body.

“She found Joan . . . hanging?”

“Aye, my lord.” Joseph had shaken his head, overwhelmed. “I were in my bed in the attic and I heard her and Master Will exchange words. Couldn’t tell what they said, just voices, edgy-like and fast speaking. Then a scream from Susan. I hurried down to see what was amiss, and there was Susan keening over the mistress’s body where they’d laid on her bed, and Master Will staring at Mistress Thornleigh like she’d killed his mother with her bare hands.”

Later, when Richard could get Will, still in shock, to talk, Will had told him about Justine’s confession. Her deceit, as he put it. “A Grenville,” he had said in a voice as tight as wire. “She’s a
Grenville
.”

Sorrow had swept Richard. The feud had claimed another victim. Joan had laid up her hate for years, like so much kindling, until it finally blazed and consumed her. Justine was only the spark.

And now, where was the girl?
What hell must she be suffering? She is paying for our feud,
he thought.
Another victim.

The prayers drifted past his ears, an indistinct drone. The coffin was lowered into the grave. Will took a shovel and cast on the first earth. The pebbled dirt pattered on the coffin lid. Richard swallowed a choke of grief and closed his eyes to say a silent farewell to his sister. He heard the mourners shuffle away. When he looked up, he was alone with Will. Honor was leading Joan’s weeping servant, Susan, toward a bench by the church wall, Honor’s arm around her. Two gravediggers slowly came forward, giving Richard an apologetic look that said the job had to be done. They began shoveling earth into the grave.

Richard turned to Will. “I don’t know what’s happened to Justine. We have to find her. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

“No.” He watched the earth thudding onto the coffin. “Nor do I care.”

“Will, she must be in a terrible state. She could be wandering somewhere. She could be hurt.”

“What’s that to me?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You love the girl.”

“I loved
someone
. Not her. That’s over.”

Such exasperating self-pity. It lit a spark of fury in Richard. “Oh no, this feud isn’t done with you yet, boy. Why not speed up its work? Cut your own throat and jump into that grave with your mother.” He unsheathed his sword and said to the gravediggers, “Stop your work. Let him jump in.”

They halted, stunned, their shovels stilled in midair. Will gaped at Richard.

“Go on, do it,” Richard said, prodding him with the flat of his sword. “You’re just a walking dead man. You might as well get it over with. Tumble right in beside Joan. There’s plenty of room.”

They all looked at him like he was a lunatic.

Richard sighed, his anger spent. He jerked his chin in a command to the gravediggers to leave them. They backed off, mumbling, “Yes, my lord,” then turned and quickly walked away.

Richard raised the sword, touching the tip to Will’s throat. “Hate kills, as surely as does this blade. Kills the spirit, Will. If you keep stoking your hate, the feud just claims another victim. You. Is that what you want? To let this thing kill you as it has killed your mother?”

“I’ll live,” he growled.

“No, you won’t. There’s only one way to save yourself. Forgive Justine.”

“Forgive?” Rage flashed in Will’s eyes. “She’s a
liar
. Everything about her is a lie.” He chopped the blade away with his arm. “And so are you. You knew about her. All these years.”

Richard steadied the sword. “She didn’t lie about her love for you. That’s why she was so afraid of telling you.”

“With good reason!”

“To reject love is to be a killer. So the damnable feud kills Justine, too. Listen to me, Will. Bury this madness along with your mother. Pardon Justine. And let yourself live.”

 

The welfare of England was no respecter of Richard’s grief. That very afternoon, back at his house, he was preparing to ride to Baynard’s Castle for a meeting with the Earl of Pembroke about carrying out Elizabeth’s orders to fortify the Cinque Ports. The threat of war with Spain was very real. Heading for the stable, dragging his numb foot, he felt weighted with weariness, almost despair. Joan was dead. Justine missing. Will intractable. Elizabeth faced the fury of Spain.
And this leg will soon drag me to my own grave
.

“My lord, a message for you.” The footman had come from the house.

Richard unfolded the page. It read:

“Gone?” Justine asked in dismay. She stood at the open door of Rigaud’s room in the Martin’s le Grand tenement, the pouch of money in her hand. The woman at the door, skinny but for the huge mound of her pregnancy, scowled.

“Gone.” She started to shut the door.

“Wait!” Justine pushed it to keep it open. “Gone where?”

“To hell, for all I care. The poxy churchmen took him. Good riddance, say I. Now slog off.” She slammed the door.

Justine turned away, trying to think. From dark cracks in doorways eyes peered at her. She slipped the purse she carried, bulging with the money, back into the folds of her cloak. Someone upstairs bawled a drunken song. Churchmen . . . did that mean the elders of the French Church? They had chastised Rigaud for his lechery and his chronic absence from services. They had warned him . . . of what? What was the punishment?

The moment the answer came to her, she hurried down the stairs. Her route took her straight across the city, eastward on Cheapside, then south on Gracechurch Street as it led to London Bridge. The seaweedy smell of the river rolled to meet her, and just before the bridge she turned onto Thames Street. She hastened past the Billingsgate fishmongers hawking their catches to housewives and kept on east to the Custom House Quay. The church bells of All-Hallows-by-the-Tower were clanging, and the Tower itself rose above the rooftops, its gray stone walls and turrets glaring over the city and its river traffic.

She was almost out of breath from hurrying as she made her way through the throng on the quay. Was she too late? The quay was a noisy mass of merchants and their agents, pie sellers and pamphleteers, sailors and whores. Reaching the water’s edge, she felt a rush of panic. So many ships! Only low-masted vessels could go west beyond the bridge, so here the big ships lay at anchor, crammed together in the Pool. Galleons, carracks, galleasses, caravels, all with bright flags and pennons fluttering from their shrouds, the flags of France, Portugal, Sweden, Poland. Seagulls wheeled and swooped, screeching their impatient cries. She spotted a French ship with several wherries nudging its side. Men in the wherries were loading crates, barrels, and sacks aboard the ship, and the French crew were taking on the cargo and readying canvas and lines as though preparing to embark. Justine pushed through to a spot where busy clusters of men were carting and sorting more cargo to go out to the ship. A man sat slumped on a barrel, his back to her, his hands bound at his back. A prisoner. Justine’s spirit soared. It was Rigaud. She’d been right. He was being deported home to France. She shouldered through to him.