The Tudor Vendetta (26 page)

Chapter Nineteen

I immediately had Vaughan search his study—a mess of documents and estate paperwork strewn everywhere in the chasm that had opened around him since his son’s death. Following several hours of futile exploration, he failed to unearth the cipher. He was deeply apologetic, almost distraught as he told me he had always stored it with the bundle of letters from his aunt. He showed me the letters, wrapped in faded ribbon and kept in the back of a desk drawer.

“It was here,” he said. “I swear to you; it’s been here for years, ever since Raff came to us. I used it various times to read the letters my aunt sent. I don’t understand how I could lose it.”

“You did not lose it,” I replied. “Godwin took it from you.”

His face blanched. I did not explain further, striding back into the hall to prepare my departure. Though I could not condone what Lord Vaughan had let happen, upon my return to court I would do everything I could to shield him from Elizabeth’s wrath. He was misguided and craven, enslaved to drink and his wife’s caprice, but he was not cruel. He had no doubt been the sole bulwark between Raff and Lady Vaughan. If only for that, he deserved mercy. He could not have known that in hiring Godwin, he had admitted a viper into his house. That cipher he believed lost was the key to the letter in the poisoned box. Godwin had stolen and used it. He was indeed the stranger behind Lady Parry’s abduction and the attempt on the queen; he was the man I hunted. I had to find him before he found me.

I departed Vaughan Hall under the cover of night. As I rode away, Bardolf stood at the gates and lifted a mournful howl.

As Cinnabar was eager to stretch his legs after too many days in the stable, I gave him rein, galloping through Withernsea with the promise that I would never see that dismal village again. In my cloak pocket, I carried Raff’s ring.

*   *   *

I barely stopped until I reached London, pausing only to rest for a few hours and fill both my belly and that of my horse in whatever ramshackle inn I found, before pushing onward, almost past endurance. Steady snowfall fell as I neared the city. Upon reaching the gates, the church bells tolled for evensong, a cacophony of sonorous clangs that warmed my icy feet and hands. Home, I thought. I was home at last; and with this thought, a smile cracked my dry lips. Not long ago, London had been a wasteland of terror and sorrow for me, but now as I rode through the crowded streets to Whitehall, I remembered that I had not yet visited the churchyard near the Tower, where Peregrine lay buried. I must go there once this assignation was over, to pay my respects and tell him that I would never stop mourning or missing him and I had found another boy who needed me—forsaken, often scared yet never defeated, a child like each of us had been.

I showed my safe conduct signed by the queen to sentinels posted outside the palace. Increased security was evident everywhere I looked, guards stationed at the foot of every staircase and by every exit. I led Cinnabar across the inner courtyard to the stable block, where I brushed him down and saw him safely in his stall, then paused at the water trough to gaze into the near-frozen water.

My reflection was dim but I saw enough of my appearance to realize I would never get past the guards encircling Elizabeth’s apartments. I should have made my way to my chamber in the palace and at least attempted to make myself more presentable.

I did not. Hurrying up the staircase, I strode through the tapestried labyrinth of passages where few courtiers lingered; it was that rare hour between royal appearances, if Elizabeth had even been making them—too late for her daily stroll in the gallery and too early for her repast in the hall. It suited me fine; I would prefer not to contend with anyone outside her immediate circle. With any luck, Cecil and her councilors would be at various tasks, scheming over their papers, so she and I could speak alone.

In my mind, I braced myself. I had thought of little else during the journey back, reciting words that varied between accusatory and reproachful. She had sent me to Vaughan Hall without the truth, as Kate had warned. Once again, she had relied on my loyalty to play on my emotion and see to it that I left without being fully aware of what lay at stake. I knew she could not have told me here, in this place of subterfuge, with every room infested with ear holes; but she still should have imparted more than she had. All I could reason was that she had feared telling me her secret. She must not have slept easy all these years, burdened by the sacrifice she had made, but she had still sent Lady Parry to Vaughan Hall. Only weeks on her throne, one of her first acts had centered on Raff. I must at least allow her an explanation.

I ran my hands over my soiled doublet, adjusting my belt and eyeing my mud-spattered boots as I neared the archway to her apartments. As I had anticipated, guards were there, sprawled in the alcove, caps at their sides as they played dice with the relaxed demeanors of men with too much time on their hands. The sight relieved me. Evidently, there had been no other attempts on the queen thus far or Cecil would never have tolerated such insouciance.

As they saw me approach they scrambled to their feet, grabbing for their pikes to face me. I was about to reach into my doublet for my safe conduct when a voice from behind me called, “Halt!” and I turned to see men striding toward me with grim visages.

At their head was Robert Dudley.

I cursed under my breath. I should have expected this. I made a pact with him only to vanish without a word; he had no doubt been seething. He would now harass me, try to impede my meeting with Elizabeth, but I would not allow it. I had had enough of his insufferable arrogance.

Lifting my chin as he came before me, his nostrils flared under his fine chiseled nose, I said, “My lord, I am honored by your welcome.”

His mouth curled; with a teeth-baring smile, he hissed, “Honored? You thieving cur: The honor is all mine.” Without removing his virulent stare from me, he ordered, “Take him,” and the men behind him—guards in breastplates and oiled cloaks—surrounded me.

I forced myself to remain calm. “You are about to make a grave mistake. I bring urgent news for Her Majesty and she will not be pleased—”

He leaned to me, exuding the costly scent of ambergris from his bejeweled damask. “You are correct. Her Majesty is indeed far from pleased. Dee deciphered the letter we found in the box. Do you know what it said?”

I went still. “I surely do not.”

His smile widened. “Oh, I think you do. I think you know very well. Royal blood, indeed.” As he started to step back, to lift his gloved hand to issue another command to the guards, I said angrily, “I am the queen’s man. You must free me at once. I must warn her. I demand to see Her Majesty this instant.”

Dudley shot out his fist, slamming it into my face and reeling me backward against the guards. “You will demand nothing, traitor. We now know what you have been about all along. You seek the queen’s demise for your own miserable ends. You shall never see or speak to her again.” He barked at the guards: “He is to be taken to the Tower.”

I started yelling as they dragged me down the gallery, kicking and struggling, blood from my split lip seeping into my mouth. My cries reverberated. “I must see her!
Elizabeth!
”

But as they hauled me away with Dudley at their heels, the wide-eyed sentinels at her door remained in place. No one emerged from her apartments, though I could hear Urian barking from behind her closed doors. No one came to see what was happening.

Elizabeth did not appear.

*   *   *

A barge waited at Whitehall’s water stairs. The tide ran low, and as they shoved me into the barge under the canopy, pikes aimed and ready to skewer if I attempted to escape, Dudley sat on the bench before me and instructed the wherry men to bring us to the Tower’s water gate.

Traitor’s Gate.

You seek the queen’s demise for your own miserable ends …

I found myself trembling, watching the city slip past as we sailed down the Thames, the streets bustling with pedestrians, the facades of taverns and inns and shops crowded against one another. Snow drifted down about us in swirling flurries; as we neared the Bridge, I tried to brace myself with my feet against the barge’s sides, as we gathered speed from the water funneling through the arches and careened through, jolting and swaying, pitched almost vertical in the foaming rush.

The wherry men were experienced, using their wide oars to maneuver past the whirlpools in the wake of the Bridge. Bile soured my mouth as I looked around at the stone span resting like a calcified dragon across the river with its cluster of painted buildings and massive opposing gates, their tops spiked with poles bearing the tar-boiled heads of traitors.

What had the letter in the box revealed? Whatever it was, I could have no doubt that I was in serious peril—called a traitor and sent to the Tower.

Royal blood, indeed.

Suddenly, I felt a sick drop in the pit of my stomach. It seemed impossible.
Who
could have known? Cecil knew about me, of course; he had known about the royal blood in my veins long before I did but he would never have confessed it after all this time, lest it roused Elizabeth’s fury that he had kept it from her and he too ended up imprisoned. No, Cecil would not have dared. Who else? Think, I told myself, as panic engulfed me. Who else?

I froze. I had told Queen Mary. During my last assignation at court, I had gone to her in desperation as she was about to send Elizabeth to her death, to protect the princess and prove my loyalty, citing that the same blood bound all three of us, my mother having been their father’s younger sister, after whom Mary herself was named. My revelation had stopped the queen from ordering Elizabeth’s execution, if not her imprisonment, but she must have confided my secret to someone else. I dreaded to think it but that someone could be no other than the man who had been at Mary’s side since the start of her reign, whispering venom in her ear: the Imperial ambassador, Renard. It explained why he had come after me once Mary ordered me from court, forcing me to flee abroad. I had never known how he knew where to find me, but now it seemed all too clear. Mary had told him of the threat I posed as a possible rival claimant to the throne, and he had decided to put an end to me. Who had he told in turn? He must have sent trusted agents, but had he gone so far as to inform them about me? Could Godwin be one of his agents? Had he enclosed the letter in the poisoned box, his abduction of Lady Parry a lure to bait my trap?

Yes, that had to be it. Nothing else made any sense. I had not been imagining it; the sin he wished to avenge was my own: the sin of my birth. With me in the Tower under suspicion of treason, Godwin could proceed to destroy Elizabeth with impunity, using her son as a pawn.

Though terror smothered my very breath, I forced my words out. “My lord, you must heed me. I tell you, the queen is in grave danger.”

Dudley glanced over his shoulder at me from under the shadow of his velvet cap. “I hear only a corpse talking,” he said. He turned away, directing the boatmen to bring our vessel into the wide pool lapping at the steps of the water gate. The Tower rose above us, hemmed by its weathered walls, the formidable White Keep looming up from within its center.

The guards secured the barge to the quay; Dudley disembarked and stood watching as the guards started to lift me out, one hand on his hip, snow powdering his broad cloaked shoulders. I shook the guards away, traversing on numb legs the flight of slimed steps and the cloistered passageway leading into the cobblestone courtyard at the heart of the Tower.

The last time I had been here, stalls had festooned this courtyard, vendors allowed inside during the day to sell food and other goods to those who oversaw the administration. There had been an old scaffold, as well; I now darted my gaze to where I remembered seeing it, situated a short walk from the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. Many of those who had died here, including Elizabeth’s mother, lay entombed before the altar.

The scaffold was gone, the courtyard offering only a view of the sky and no reprieve, devoid of stalls. I was marched to the Beauchamp Tower; as I suddenly recognized the macabre irony of it, I started to struggle until Dudley said, “You should best not fight. She might yet show mercy if you show some dignity. You might get the axe rather than the rope and cleaver, though you hardly deserve it. Besides,” he added coldly, “you should be grateful to share the very rooms I once had with my brothers under Queen Mary. Were it up to me, you’d be thrown into the Little Ease with the rats, but she insists you must reside here until she decides your fate.”

The room was as I recalled it. More like the inside of an impoverished manor than a cell in the realm’s most forbidding fortress, it was vaulted and airy, or as airy as any room in the Tower could be, with musty tapestries on the whitewashed walls, a recessed hearth, and mullioned embrasure offering a circumscribed view of the execution area beyond.

My heels struck echoes on the plank floor. Dudley ordered the guards to release me. After they retreated outside the door, he said, “I believe we left some of our books in the bedchamber, though of course they are not very useful when it comes to reading. As you know, we cut out most of the pages while imprisoned to convey our letters, but feel free to peruse at will. It is not as if you’ve much else to do.”

He turned heel to depart. Without raising my voice, I told him, “Whatever you think I have done, you will condemn her to certain death if I am not allowed to speak to her.”

He stiffened. “You are a liar. You have always been a liar. My family should have strangled you for the whelp you are, and spared us the misfortunes you have wrought. You should never have been allowed to live as long as you have.”

I did not move. “Tell her he is alive and at Hatfield.”

“Who is alive?” he spat. After years of dueling with me, he now believed he had secured my defeat and he sneered as I reached into my cloak. Though the guards had removed my belt with my poniard and sword, I had not otherwise been searched, an oversight in Dudley’s gleeful exercise of power. Removing the ring from its bag, I extended it to him. “Show this to her.”