Blood Between Queens (40 page)

He could not fight four men. He backed away. The guards made no move to stop him.

He considered running up to the servants’ quarters on the third floor and rousing the footmen from their beds. But Frances had hired new men while he’d been in the Indies, and they were strangers to him. He didn’t know if they could fight, or would.

The stable, then. He knew the grooms.

Down the passage he went and pushed out the back door. He was heading for the stable, trying to make sense of what he’d seen—why would thieves, even kidnappers, shut themselves up in the great hall?—when he heard a scraping and grunting. He stopped and made out a figure slowly dragging something across the courtyard. The darkness made it hard to see, but he could tell it was a woman, and she was struggling to pull a heavy sack that clanked over the flagstones. It was Frances.

He ran to her. “Frances, what’s happened?”

“Adam!” She froze.

“Where are the children?”

She gaped at him, still hunched over the sack. “No! No, you cannot
be
here!”

“Who are those men in the house?”

“No . . . no,” she gibbered. She looked almost terrorized, obsessively gripping the sack. He had to get her to speak rationally. He took hold of her shoulders, breaking her hold on the sack. Its contents shifted, clattering. “Tell me what’s happening.” He almost shook her. “Have they got Robert and Kate?”

“We must get away! Come, Adam. Come!” She was pointing at the door in the courtyard’s west wall. She lunged for the sack. “Away to the river!”

“What are you talking about?” Beyond that door was nothing but the marshy banks of the River Westbourne, which fed the Thames. “Frances,
where are the children?
”

“Come with me.” She began dragging the sack. “To safety!”

 

Will Croft had been at his mother’s house when the children arrived. His friend John Stubbs, the newly ordained vicar, was helping him pack his mother’s belongings, some things to go to friends, some to the poor in Stubbs’s parish. It was a heartbreaking business and Will was carrying it out mindlessly, like a sleepwalker. Having spiraled through shock, anger, and grief, he had reached a state of drained acceptance that left him almost numb. Stubbs was in the parlor packing candlesticks and Will was coming downstairs from his mother’s room with an armload of her books when the two children staggered in through the front door, out of breath and bedraggled. Will stopped on the staircase in surprise. His cousin Adam’s little girl Katherine and his son Robert. The last time he’d seen them was months ago, the night of his uncle’s fireworks for the Queen.

“Grandmamma!” Katherine called, looking around for her.

“She’s gone home,” Will said, coming down the steps. Lady Thornleigh had been helping him but had left about a half hour ago. The children’s pale, frightened faces alarmed him. They looked exhausted, as if they’d been running for hours. What were they doing out at night, all alone? “Katherine, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, Master Croft, it’s Justine!” the girl cried. Her little brother burst into tears.

The story gushed out of Katherine. They had gone in their mother’s boat with Justine, who had put them ashore at Blackfriars and told them to get to their grandfather’s house, but two strange men jumped into the boat and dragged her out and forced her along Fleet Street. The children had followed them. “They took her into the Savoy! We did not dare go in. Mama says it’s a wicked place. Oh, please, Master Croft, save her!” Katherine and her sobbing brother pressed against Will’s leg for comfort.

He laid his hand on their heaving, hot little backs, his mind lurching.
Justine
. The terrible things he had said to her over his mother’s body swarmed back, every vile word he had hurled at her in his shock at her confessing she was a Grenville. She had fled that morning in anguish, and Will, cruelly, had let her go. His uncle had tried to talk sense to him over his mother’s grave,
“She hid the truth because she loves you,”
but Will had been immovable, too wounded, too angry. It was as if he had shut down his heart, as if he were dead. Now these two sobbing children shook him back to life. Justine was in danger, abducted, a prisoner in the Savoy. Nothing mattered except saving her.

“Your betrothed, Will?” Stubbs asked gravely. He stood in the doorway to the parlor, candlesticks in his hands. He had heard the children’s tale.

“Can I take your horse, John?” Will was on his way to the front door.

“You can’t do this alone,” Stubbs said.

“I’m going to ask my neighbor if he’ll come.” The goldsmith’s son, Thomas, was a strapping fellow two years younger than Will. Will had tutored him. “You two,” he said to the children, “stay here.”

“The Savoy’s a rough place,” Stubbs said. “I’ll come, too.”

The three of them—Will, Stubbs, and Thomas Pierson—rode fast through the dark streets of London. Searching the echoing ruins of the Savoy, they skirted men in tatters slumped in corners asleep and dodged others squatting around puny fires who looked at them with dull, suspicious eyes. Will noticed the light of a large fire in a cauldron far down a columned passageway, and a murmur of chatter drew him toward it. When he was a stone’s throw from the cauldron, he caught a glimpse of Justine that horrified him. She lay on the floor surrounded by a gang of young cutpurses who were chattering and laughing, one big man with them. Will halted his friends with a gesture that said, “Quiet!” and motioned for them to duck behind the columns.

Will listened, his back pressed against a column, sweat chilling his back. The thieves were engrossed in a noisy, merry contest over who could get into Justine’s pockets the quickest and who could get her rings off. Will waited in agony, terrified their sport would end in rape, and then he knew he would charge them in blind rage and they would kill Justine, kill all of them. He didn’t even have a sword. He’d never had one. Like every English boy he had done his training in archery, as was the law of the land, and had brought his mind to bear on it, but never his heart. Now he wished he had studied every martial art, had a sword, and knew how to use it. The dagger in his belt would not help him overcome the big fellow, nor even the young thieves if they proved vicious. Most were mere lads, but there were nine of them, and each appeared to have a knife. The big man had a sword on one hip, a long knife on the other, and the look of a hardened brute. Will glanced at his friends. Pierson had come armed with a sword. Stubbs had a dagger.

Suddenly, the big man stopped the game, ordering, “Rings back on ’er now. And keep your peckers in your breeches. My master wants her whole.”

The boys dispersed, grumbling. Will heard them shuffling back to sit around the cauldron. He dared a glance around the pillar. The big man was guiding Justine to sit on a fallen pillar, shoving her down on it. How pale she looked! But defiant, too, sneering at the man. Her bravery snagged Will’s heart.

He looked at Stubbs and Pierson. They were watching him, waiting. He whispered, “Go for the big one.” They nodded. Will felt for the dagger at his belt. His fingers were cold as he slipped it from its sheath. He took a deep breath, then stepped out around the column, his heart banging. Pierson drew his sword. The three of them charged.

The big man spun around, his sword drawn in a heartbeat. Pierson attacked him, Will and Stubbs right beside him, daggers up. The big man was ferocious, hacking with his blade, but the three of them harried him and he backed away, slashing at them but on the defensive.

A few of the young thieves slunk forward, crouched like wolves, ready to pick off whichever of the three attackers might lag.

Stubbs turned to them, ran at them, and kicked over the cauldron. Flaming hunks of wood spilled. One thief wailed, his foot burned. The others froze. A blanket on the floor caught fire and flames leapt. The thieves scattered.

“Get the lady, Will!” Pierson shouted as he parried with the big man. “I’ve got this fellow!”

Will spun around and went straight for Justine. She was on her feet, her eyes wide in amazement, but she was alert, ready to run. With his dagger he sliced the leather tie binding her wrists. They shared a look of wonder—of joy—a look that lasted only a moment. No time! His two friends were keeping the big man at bay, blades clanging, feet scuffling, all three of them grunting. Will snatched Justine’s hand. They ran.

Out through the pillars and down the corridor they ran. They passed men lounging against walls, men sprawled asleep in corners, men cooking over puny fires. Justine knocked over a tin cookpot and men’s curses flew at their backs as she and Will ran on. He held her hand tightly, leading the way, around a corner, down a flight of stairs slippery with spilled ale. They reached a corridor, this one wider, darker, less crowded with people but more fetid. A stench of animals and dung and rubbish. A pig snorted in some far corner, rooting in the trash.

“There,” Will told Justine, pointing at a smudge of light at the end of the corridor. “That’s the street.” They hurried toward it, skirting a trough of scummy water, then a heap of firewood. A dog sprang at them and Justine’s hand flew free of Will’s. They both halted, their way barred by the dog. It crouched, growling, fangs bared. Will took a step toward the dog, his dagger ready. The dog sprang and sank its teeth into his boot at the ankle. He toppled, groaning in pain. The dog’s jaws around his ankle twisted. Will heard the bone snap. He gasped at the pain. Justine grabbed a chunk of firewood and hurled it at the dog, hitting its flank. It let go of Will’s ankle with a snarl. She pitched another chunk, hitting the dog’s head, and it yelped and slunk away.

“Will, can you walk?”

He struggled to his feet, but when he put his weight on the ankle, pain shot up his leg so fiercely it made him dizzy. He was afraid he would pass out.

“Lean on me,” she said. He limped, hanging on to her.

Muffled shouting sounded behind them, up the stairs. Then a bellowing voice. “It’s Gorm!” Justine cried. “The man you fought. Come, Will!”

He limped faster, his eyes watering at the excruciating pain.

“Almost there.” Justine was breathing hard at the effort of dragging him. They trod over stinking refuse and tripped over scattered firewood, straining to get to the light.

Footsteps thudded behind them, getting louder, faster. A hand snatched Will’s collar and yanked him backward. Will smelled Gorm’s foul breath. “No!” Justine cried.

Dragged along the ground, Will wrenched free of Gorm’s grip and fought to get to his feet. He made it, but his ankle would not hold him. In a surge of blinding pain he sank to his knees. Gorm loomed over him, his sword drawn. Will knew, in his fog of pain, that the sword could cut off his head. His fingers around his own dagger were slippery with sweat. He saw the massive black outline of the man, both hands on the sword hilt, twisting to position himself to scythe with the blade.

Will rammed his dagger up into the man’s groin. Gorm let out a howl of shock. His arms, as if independent, swung the sword to lop off Will’s head but Will twisted the blade inside the man’s gut and Gorm swung diagonally. The sword blade hacked the edge of Will’s shoulder. The force of it knocked him sideways.

“Will!” Justine cried.

He sprawled, dazed. He grabbed at the bleeding raw muscle of his shoulder.

Gorm shifted unsteadily on his feet, but bloodlust gleamed in his eyes and with a bellow he raised the sword again to hack Will. Justine snatched a hunk of firewood and hurled it at his face, striking his eye. Half-blinded, Gorm swung in wild confused slashes. He staggered, dropping the sword. He gripped the dagger hilt in his gut. He toppled.

Will felt the weight of the man thud onto his leg, crushing his broken ankle. White light blazed through his head. It dazzled his mind. His first thought was:
I’ll get up now and we’ll run
. But Justine’s face, so close to his, made him wonder if she was well enough, for tears glistened on her cheeks. Her lips were moving but, oddly, he could hear no words. Her hand was stroking his face but her fingers were wet with blood. Then he knew:
my blood
. Her face was so close he could have kissed the tears that slid down to her lips.

His eyes flicked to the shadows behind her. A growing pool of light. A torch, bobbing toward them, getting closer. Thieves? He jerked in fear for her. He tried to warn her, but his tongue would not move.
He
could not move. His last thought was:
Run, Justine . . . run!

J
ustine groped in the gloom for something to stanch Will’s blood. Kneeling over him, she was shaking. His eyes were closed and he lay as still as death, the gash in his shoulder dripping blood, his leg pinned beneath Gorm’s dead body.
Will, don’t die!
She snatched a rag from the floor, but flinched when she saw it was a filthy thing and flung it away. Use her clothes? She reached across him for his dagger in Gorm’s abdomen. She took hold of the handle. Her hand, slippery with Will’s blood, slid off. She wiped her hands on her skirt, gripped the dagger again, and yanked it out. With the blade she stabbed the hem of her cloak, ripping the wool until she had torn a wide strip. She bunched it and pressed it against Will’s wound. She cut another strip and wound it tightly around his shoulder, under his arm, keeping the bunched wad in place.
Don’t die . . . don’t die!

“Who’s there?” a man shouted.

She looked up. A torch was bobbing toward her. Two men, coming for her. She snatched the dagger and scrambled to her feet and held it high, ready to stab. “Keep away!” she cried. She was shaking, but she forced her legs to hold her steady beside Will to protect him. “Stay back!”

“Mistress Thornleigh, do not fear!”

They reached her, panting. Will’s friends! One was the vicar who had betrothed her and Will. She lowered the dagger and took breath again.

“Dear God,” the vicar said, seeing Will and the dead man.

“Will!” the other said. “Is he—”

“He’s alive,” Justine said. “But grievously wounded. Help me, please.” She dropped to her knees again and started to roll the dead man off Will’s leg.

His friends took over, dragging the corpse off Will. “Are you hurt, mistress?” the vicar asked, eyeing the blood on her hands and clothes.

“No.” She wiped her sweating forehead with the back of her arm. “Thank you. Both of you.” Still on her knees, she laid her hand on Will’s chest to make sure he was still breathing.
Yes, thank God!
The very fact that he had come here overwhelmed her.
He came for me
. She looked at his friends. “He needs help.”

“Yes,” the younger one said. “First we must get him out of this foul place.”

“Can you carry him?”

“Yes,” said the vicar. The two of them were already positioning themselves at Will’s head and feet. Justine stared at Will’s horrible wound, his blood soaking through the strips of her cloak wrapped around his shoulder.
So much blood
. It wrenched her mind to Chelsea.
Assassination
. She had come to get help to stop her father . . . and stop Lord Thornleigh from going there. Was she too late? Will’s friends were talking quickly, urgently, but she heard nothing but her own pulse thudding in her ears. She could not stay with Will.

“I must leave you.”

They stared at her. She felt their bewilderment, their eyes accusing her:
You’re leaving Will?
Tears stung her. Impossible to explain. Her father . . . Queen Elizabeth. If there was still time, she had to warn the Queen. She shuddered, looking down at Will. The thought of him dying almost crushed the heart within her. Her tears choked her as she bent and touched her lips to his.

She stood up, trembling, and tugged her ripped and bloodied cloak about her and looked toward the door that led to the street. She did not dare look again at Will for fear she would not be able to leave him. Her voice faltered as she told his friends, “Stay with him,” as she hurried away.

 

At first, Christopher had been jubilant that his plan was going so well. That was before he saw Adam Thornleigh.

Everything had been proceeding perfectly. He had watched in tense excitement from an upstairs window in the dark new wing as the fishing boat arrived at the jetty. Four of the “fishermen” marched up to the house—Elizabeth’s palace guards, obviously. They would sweep through the house as a security precaution before Elizabeth entered it. Christopher had expected that and had hidden everything behind a false wall in the cellar: the kegs of gunpowder and the reeds he had filled with gunpowder to lay as fuses. He watched the guards return to the boat, and only then did Elizabeth step out of it. She wore a plain gray cloak, and her guards quickly escorted her up to the house. She disappeared from Christopher’s view. He knew that Frances would greet her at the door, without fanfare as befitted the meeting’s secrecy, and bring her into the great hall to join Lord Herries. Frances would then leave the Queen and surreptitiously cross the courtyard and leave by the west gate. Christopher had felt a moment of exultation—everything was going as planned! All he had to do now was connect the fuses to the gunpowder kegs and run the reed fuses along the tunnel that connected the wing to the house. He had not felt nervous, just excited. Elizabeth’s meeting was in progress. He had time.

He went downstairs heading for the cellar and passed a window that fronted the river, and that’s when he saw Adam Thornleigh marching up the jetty to the house. Christopher froze. He had never met Richard Thornleigh’s son, but the man had an air about him as if he owned the place, and who else would be arriving so late but the lord of the manor coming home? He silently cursed Frances—why had she not kept her damn husband away? His mind churned. Would Thornleigh speak to Frances inside? Of course he would. What would she tell him? She was already so dangerously nervous. Surprised to see her husband, would she blurt the truth?

There was not a moment to lose. He ran down to the wing’s empty cellar, then through the tunnel that connected it to the house. Working in the dark—he had not dared bring even a rushlight with him, not with all the gunpowder here—he lifted from their hiding place the lengths of dried reeds he had previously packed with gunpowder. He left the three kegs of gunpowder behind the wall and connected a reed to each one. He glanced up at the ceiling. It was the floor of the great hall, and a faint sound touched him in the silence. Voices? Elizabeth’s?
Perfect
. Spurred by excitement, he joined the ends of the three feeder reeds to one reed and began laying more reeds along the floor toward the tunnel, carefully connecting them into one long fuse. His hands were slick with sweat as he worked, expecting at any moment to hear Elizabeth’s guards charging down upon him led by Adam Thornleigh. If they caught him, Elizabeth would live.
And I will hang
.

Fumbling the reeds, he spilled a little gunpowder. He clenched his fists, told himself to stay calm. He forced control of the tremble in his hand and continued connecting the reeds. It was painstaking work as he made his way backward, foot by foot, his boots scuffling over the stone, laying the thin fuse of reeds all the way along the tunnel. The sound of voices startled him, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He halted, sweating.
Fool,
he told himself. He’d only imagined voices. The sound was wind humming down the tunnel, a tuneless dirge rushing from the barren wing.

Finally, he reached the far cellar. It was a hollow space, dark as a grave, for he had not dared light any part of the wing lest an alert guard should spot the glow. Christopher was breathing hard from the spasm of work, but he felt excited. Everything was now ready. Going down on hands and knees in the darkness, he groped at the base of a pillar for the cylindrical tinderbox he had put there beneath a handful of straw. His fingers found the cold metal cylinder beneath. It contained a flint, a firesteel, and a charcloth, all he needed to create a tiny flame to light the straw. Had Frances got out yet? With her husband there, how could she? What excuse could she give him for leaving? She might not get out in time. Christopher was sorry about that, but his sister had served her purpose. And it was an unexpected bit of luck that her husband would die, too.

He turned back to the end of the reed fuse and opened the tinderbox.

 

“Tom, grab the pitchfork. Walter, the gelding shears. You other two see what’s in the shed for weapons.”

Adam gave these orders as he hurried down the stairs from the grooms’ loft in the stable. The grooms were right behind him, two experienced men and two younger ones, all blinking sleep out of their eyes. The last one held a lantern. “We’ll surprise them,” Adam said. “And we have five to their four. But they look alert, so keep your wits about you.” He didn’t mention the two in the boat. The odds were bad enough without frightening his men.

He drew his sword as he led them out into the stable yard. If the men in the house had his children hostage, Adam was ready to cut them down by himself. He had kept his voice steady for the men, but he was still reeling from his encounter with Frances. Mute to his questions, gibbering words that made no sense, she had staggered on across the courtyard dragging that sack. It was as if she had gone mad.

“Ho! Sir Adam!” a groom at the rear cried, pointing.

Adam spun around and his men halted. A horse clomped into the stable yard heaving bellows breaths, hooves clattering on the cobbles. Under the pale moonlight its slim rider was a mere shadow. Adam raised his sword, expecting more horsemen to follow. None appeared. The lone rider called out, “Sir Adam, is that you?”

A woman. Breathless. It was clear she had ridden hard. She drew rein beside Adam and he beckoned one of the grooms to hold the horse and help her down. She struggled to dismount, half sliding off the saddle in fatigue or fear, or both. “Have you stopped him?” she cried. “Please, tell me you have stopped him!”

“Justine?” He stared at her, utterly bewildered. The Grenville girl his father had taken in years ago. He had not seen her since he’d sailed for the Indies. What on earth had brought her to his house this night? Her haggard face and disheveled state told him it was something dire. “Stopped who?” Was that blood on her clothes? “Justine, what’s happened?”

She let out a thin cry of dismay. “So you do not
know!
” She looked at the house, clutching her side with a wince as she caught her breath. “At least I am not too late. Has your father come?”

“Father? Here?” What did she mean? “Too late for what? What in hell is going on?”

“Murder. Unless we can stop it.”

He tensed. “My children?”

“No, sir. They are not here, they are safe away. The target is Her Majesty the Queen.”

He listened, stunned, as the facts tumbled out of her. Elizabeth, lured to his house for a meeting. Her traitorous father, alive. The house, undermined with gunpowder. Her father’s plan: to assassinate Elizabeth. “Sir,” she finished, gulping air from the haste of her telling, “Her Majesty is in your great hall at this very moment!”

The grooms heard it all and instinctively shuffled back a step at the word
gunpowder
. Adam had not moved. His mind flew to Frances, so hell-bent on getting across the courtyard, a wild determination in her eyes . . . almost as if . . .

The truth surged over him.
Grenville is her brother . . . she hates Elizabeth . . . she knows!
It was a monster wave crashing down on him. He could only hang on, hold to his course.

He turned to his men and took in their frightened faces as they awaited his command. He was grateful for their loyalty; they had not run away. But if the house was primed to explode, he could not lead them into certain death. “Back to the stable with you,” he told them. “Take cover at the rear.” He turned for the house, sword in hand.

“I’ll come,” said Walter.

“And I,” said Tom. “There’s folk abed in the house, sir—”

Adam understood. They had friends among the servants. He nodded his heartfelt thanks. “All right. You two are with me.” He ordered the younger men back to the stable. “And take the lady with you.” He said to Tom and Walter, “The gunpowder is likely hidden. There’s no time to search. We have to get Her Majesty out. And the household folk.”

He started for the house at a run. Justine called something after him. Only when he and his two men pounded into the house did he realize the girl had said, “I’m coming!” and was right behind them.

 

A long line of black ash charred the tunnel’s stone floor as the fuse burned, slow but steady, the flame eating the gunpowder-packed dried reeds that stretched toward the house. Satisfied, Christopher turned and walked through the wing’s echoing cellar toward the stairs. He didn’t hurry. Sweat chilled his skin from his labor, but he felt newly calm. The thing was done. Nothing could stop it now.

It left an odd emptiness inside him. For months he had worked and planned and maneuvered for this supreme moment, and now that it was upon him he felt bereft. The excitement was gone, that tiny flame of tinder that had smoldered inside him, keeping his hopes alive through his wretched years as an outcast. He felt almost cheated as he climbed the steps to safety, reached the first floor, and closed the thick door behind him.

So it was with a deeply satisfying spark of new energy that he turned his thoughts to Richard Thornleigh. He had pushed that matter to the back of his mind during his labors, but now it leapt forward. Justine had sent Thornleigh her note yesterday, entreating him to come here tonight. Had Thornleigh taken the bait?
Is he already here?
Excitement surged afresh in Christopher and he picked up his pace as he crossed the long reception corridor, looking for a sign of his enemy. Moonlight shone through the cavernous unglazed windows. On the lofty ceiling, the gilt and blue paint of half-completed scenes of cherubs glimmered in a cloudless sky.

He heard voices and halted. Real voices this time. Men shouting. The sound was faint, coming from the direction opposite the grand window vista. It came from the area of stables and outbuildings. Christopher turned sharply down a passageway and reached a trio of modest, multipaned windows that overlooked the stable yard, and looked out. His heart slammed up in his throat at what he saw. Adam Thornleigh, sword drawn, was running across the stable yard toward the house. Two men followed at his heels. And a fourth figure. A woman. The floor of Christopher’s stomach plummeted.
Justine.