Falling For Henry (3 page)

“We're both afraid,” Kate said softly, “but neither of us is going to get hurt. You'll be okay. Your mama will be back soon.”

She remembered with bitterness that someone had told her that once, too, a long time ago. And she was still waiting. Then she heard a low growl coming from the tunnel's opening and turned quickly, catching a glimpse of stone gray eyes and a fanged snarl. These were no dogs! She threw herself headlong into the shaft of the tunnel, desperate to get away.

The floor moved under her feet and she was once again moving out of control, a scream locked in her throat. As the force once again flattened her like dough, she heard a bone-chilling howl and her last thought before oblivion was: Wolves!

Later—and she didn't know if what had passed were minutes, hours, or some other quantity of time she couldn't measure—she found herself stumbling shakily toward the light. She made it to the original entrance of the tunnel and tumbled out into the sunshine, chest burning, hands and feet numb with dust particles pebbling her ankles like magnetic filings. The world around her seemed to be moving and she couldn't keep her balance. Falling to the grass, she lay there disoriented and sick to her stomach. Above the tree line, she could see the top of the Royal Observatory, signaling that she was once again in Greenwich Park, and the purring of nearby pigeons was oddly comforting, but her mind brimmed with a confusing mix of questions and images that had nothing to do with the sights and sounds nearby.

Finally she got her thoughts in order. Where had she been? What exactly had she seen there? Images flashed disjointedly through her head and she rubbed at her icy hands. The wolves sorted themselves from the other already fading memories, eerily tangible. She was lucky to be alive! She got dizzily to her feet and began to make her way back along the footpath, stumbling as the ground sloped upwards toward the museum. She saw her tracks on the grass, and, on the side of the hill, her navy jacket. She headed over and snatched it up. Damp from the rain, it was still a welcome weight upon her shoulders.

“Katherine Allen,” a voice growled, “where have you been!” Up ahead stood Fenwick and the class. Fenwick's dark eyes gleamed from beneath the thatch of light hair, making her look more like a greyhound than ever. Kate stared at the teacher and took a big gulp of air.

“I … um … I had to go to the bathroom,” she stuttered, brushing her hands against her wool skirt just as she remembered she hadn't used the proper British term. “I mean,
lavatory
,” she amended. Laughter rippled from her classmates, but she steadfastly went on. “And then I thought I'd just … um … run around for a bit until you all came out.”

Fenwick's gaze never wavered from Kate's face although the teacher moved her narrow head from side to side, as if searching a scent on the breeze.

“We scoured the museum, worried that we'd left you behind,” Fenwick snapped, her nostrils flaring. “Have some consideration for others the next time you decide to go for a jog. Now fall into place.”

Fenwick skillfully herded the students into threes, and as they took the path again, Kate drew herself away from Tiffany and ratty Cynthia, who still had a smirk on her face as if contemplating some smart remark. For a moment, Kate thought she saw a dark shape slinking among the bushes on the other side of the path, but she blinked and the illusion—for it must have been just her imagination—was replaced by the mottled blend of autumn colors.

“Where were you?” asked Tiffany in a voice that Kate thought was intended to sound pleasant but under which she could hear the scratch of sharply manicured nails.

“Nowhere,” said Kate, and looked stonily ahead, again imagining herself as Humpty Dumpty. But she wouldn't be scrambled. Boiled, that's how she wanted to act among these kids. Hard-boiled. Tiffany rolled her eyes at Cynthia, who tossed her blonde pony tail in disgust.

“
Foreigners
,” she mouthed, and Kate turned away.

“Note the geodesic domes on the rotundas housing the elevator,” Fenwick was directing. Kate looked with surprise at the brick building ahead. So this was the elevator. She'd apparently gone in the wrong direction and headed down toward the Thames when she should have remained on higher ground. Perhaps what she'd discovered was an old entranceway to the footpath where she'd taken a wrong turn and stumbled onto a movie set. It had to have been a movie. In her panic, she must have imagined the blood.

Kate thought again of the wolves. They had not been imagined, nor were they part of any film. She wondered, with a sharp sense of duty, if the elevator ahead accessed the same footpath where she'd encountered the wolf and her cub. Should she tell the teacher about the possible danger? She couldn't let anyone go underground if there was a mother wolf, waiting to attack. Even if its prey was Cynthia, whom she truly despised. The teacher herded them onto the large elevator and Kate caught her breath. She hated elevators. The descent, however, was mercifully swift, and, just as spots of panic began floating behind her eyes, the elevator opened onto an expanse of white tile. This, obviously, was the footpath under the Thames, although perhaps the dirt tunnel she'd been in earlier was somehow adjoining. Kate knew she had to speak up.

“The … uh … the tunnel might not be safe at the moment,” she began, weakly.

“What do you mean?” said Fenwick, her liquid eyes fixed on Kate.

“When … when I was down here before, I heard something. You know, there … there might be a wolf den in here or something.”

“When were you down here? You mean, just now?” Fenwick bristled, as if the idea of a student alone in the tunnel was alarming.

“Oh, no,” Kate said, hurriedly. “One other time, with … with my sister. We thought we heard wolves in the tunnel, and so I'm wondering if it's safe …”

“Nonsense,” said Fenwick. “Likely some kids having you on. You Americans certainly like to sensationalize things. There haven't been wolves in London for ages.”

“But—” started Kate, and then the teacher cut her off.

“Hurry, now, let's move along,” Fenwick commanded.

Well, she can go first,
thought Kate. If she becomes pâté for some wild animal, it serves her right. Then we'd have to have a sub.
Supply teacher
, she mused, absently, and then, more ominously, with a rising sense of hysteria:
Don't say I didn't warn you.

“Forward,” said Fenwick, her narrow head turning one way, then the other. “Towards the City!”

“Please, Miss Fenwick, I have to use the lavatory,” Amandella called out, her nasal voice echoing against the tile walls of the footpath.

“Not now, Miss Hingenbottom,” answered the teacher. “You must wait until we reach the tube stop at the other side of the Thames.”

Kate moved unsteadily along the flagstones of the immense walkway that was to take them back to the City of London. She knew the sounds she'd heard were not the result of kids playing tricks. She had seen and heard real wolves, although this part of the tunnel certainly seemed safe enough.

“Only in England,” she mused, staring at the glazed white tile surrounding them. Clearly it was lavatory material, and she could see it stretching ahead for what looked like miles and miles. Rather than a transit tunnel, it looked like a gargantuan bathroom. Or some kind of morgue. Kate took a long, shaky breath. A strong scent of disinfectant completed the impression and she wrinkled her nostrils, stealing glances at the other girls, none of whom seemed the slightest bit uncomfortable about the possibility of being pickled alive.

Cynthia and Tiffany whispered to each other and stole glances at Kate, while Tiffany at the same time applied tulip-red lipstick to her own puckered lips. Amandella blew her nose on a long string of toilet paper she'd obviously had balled up in her pocket for quite some time. Parvana and Navjiit giggled about something. One of the quieter students—a pretty girl named Hannah—furiously scribbled in a notebook as she walked along, halting every now and then to complete a sentence.

But as Kate moved further into the walkway, she wasn't thinking of the other girls. Instead, the children's rhyme beat a steady staccato against her temples:
All the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again.

3
William

YOUNG WILLIAM FITZROY stopped and leaned his lanky frame against the cool stones for a moment before opening the gate in the wall. Although the morning was cool, the burden he carried in his cloak was making him sweat just a little. He entered the garden and then used his hip to push the gate shut. There. He had done it. So far his little bundle was safe and sound. If he could just get it into the shed at the far end of the garden, things might be all right.

William was tired, a thick, aching exhaustion that filled the very marrow of his bones. He had not been resting well, worries thrumming in his brain until the darkness was all but consumed by dawn, before sleep came to the rescue. Yawning, he headed past old raspberry canes and rhubarb stalks, wondering at his own courage in defying the Crown. Wolves had been outlawed long ago. Was he really going to disobey his King and try to save this small creature? Warmth from the cub seeped through the cloth into his arms. Perhaps it was the last of its kind in England. He strengthened his resolve. I am obliged to do what is right, he told himself. In spite of the consequences.

William knew no one entered this little garden, abandoned for so long. Across the road from the Friars' Church, it was a solitary spot surrounded by the low stone wall half hidden by thick, gleaming holly and tendrils of climbing ivy. It had rained earlier that day and the pale green ivy leaves gave off such a scent that he stopped for a minute just to breathe the heavenly sweetness. The garden had once been tended by Princess Margaret, but four years ago she had married King James and gone to Scotland. He supposed that since then the place had become overgrown and forgotten, the tools in the shed untouched, judging by the brambles that stretched over the doorstep of the shed and the cobwebs strung across the frame.

He'd come across the garden in one of the fitful, wandering moods that overcame him now and then as he pondered his state here in the royal court, haunted by his responsibilities to young Prince Henry, the Duke of York, as well as his dual allegiance to Father, locked up in the Tower by King Henry VII on suspicion of treason. Not that Father had done anything wrong. Somehow, if it took forever, William was determined to find a way to prove his father's innocence and set him free.

Quickly, in case someone discovered him and confiscated the little animal, he kicked away the weeds and thrust open the door of the shed, depositing the cub on an empty sack in a corner where it quickly stirred and came gingerly awake. The interior of the shed smelled musty, but at least it was dry. As William went about finding a bowl, he muttered comfort to the creature and, when he brought back fresh water from the stream that ran alongside the garden, the poor thing lifted its head and managed a brief drink. Without the strength to stand, it soon fell back onto the straw and sank into a restless sleep.

It reminded him of the orphan lambs he'd tended by the dozen every spring. Mothers dead or reluctant to care for their babies, and the young ones weak, yet so desperate for nourishment, they'd push themselves to stay alert for the goat's milk he'd squeeze into their mouths. You could usually tell from the eyes whether they had the spark to hang onto life, and that made you work harder to save them. Once they'd learned to take the milk from a pail, things got much easier. He wondered who would be caring for them next spring. Maybe Charlotte? He hoped his little sister wasn't worked too much in his absence. He also hoped his mother had time to encourage Charlotte's reading. Charlotte was quick, even quicker than he had been at that age. Before he'd left home, she'd already learned all the psalms in Latin.

William sat beside the cub in deep contemplation, feeling his own courage slipping away. What good was he in court? A palace was no setting for a farmer, which was his calling just as it was the calling of his father and brothers. “Farm Boy,” Prince Henry called him in jest. He missed the plain meals, the fresh air, and, most of all, he missed his family. Yet his duty, he knew, was here at Placentia. At least in this location he was close to his father. When the royal household moved on from Greenwich to a new residence, opening the Palace of Placentia for cleaning, he wasn't sure what he'd do. At any rate, it was useless sitting here worrying, when he should be studying Latin. He got to his feet. Time waited for no man.

“Get some rest, laddie,” William whispered to the cub. “It'll do you a great bit of good. I'll be back at dusk with bread and milk for your supper.” He shivered in the cool damp air as he left the hut, crossed the garden, and opened the wooden gate. Then, as an afterthought, he ducked back into the garden, quickly returning to the hut and arranging his cloak over the sleeping form. It was the best he could do. The rest of the day would be taken up with lessons, beginning with Latin, a subject he detested. But soon he would return.

“Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amunt,” William muttered, fastening the door behind him. Or was the correct plural form
amant
? Perhaps the prince would assist him. Prince Henry excelled at Latin, and, more often than not, deftly corrected William's conjugations before their tutor detected the errors. God bless the Prince, for there was nothing their tutor despised more than vocabulary mistakes.
Charlotte would do better
, William thought, wondering, as he had often wondered, why girls weren't given the formal education that boys were.

Three notes of a dove rang mournfully in the garden. William stopped to listen for any sound from the shed, but all was silent. The cub would sleep and then perhaps later it could be persuaded to eat and drink more substantially. The front leg was the problem; perhaps William could borrow some of the salve they used on the horses to see if it would help. The dove called again and sadness welled up in William's throat. He swallowed hard and headed through the gate and down the lane. Life wasn't fair, but you had to do what you could.
The Lord ruleth me
, he thought, the words of the psalm rising in a distant memory of Charlotte's clear voice.
The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want
nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment. He hath converted my soul.