In Defense of the Queen (12 page)

“And will it soon be in his hands?” Parker tuned out the birds calling to each other in the trees, the soft swish of leaves, the distant shouts and calls of Temple Bar and Fleet Street. Renard had his full concentration.

Renard shook his head. “We have nothing. We are simply buying time.”

“And who is ‘we’?”

Renard frowned at the question, and Jean laughed. “In Renard’s case, it is the Emperor Charles whose orders he follows, even though officially he is pledged to France,
n’est pas
?”

“Wolsey knows you’re working for the Emperor?” He felt a grudging respect for the Emperor Charles, swooping in when the French ambassador left London and bribing the remaining French spies to his side. It was a masterstroke.

Renard shook his head. “He thinks I carry word from France.”

“And why wouldn’t he? After all, you used to work for the Comte, and Wolsey thinks you still do.” Jean spoke with an edge. If he’d been holding his bow, he would have cocked the hammer.

So Jean was here to dispose of a French double-agent. Could that be the sole reason for his return? Not a personal vendetta to kill Susanna?

Parker had not wanted to say Susanna’s name. He didn’t know how Jean would react. But he had no choice now and a glimmer of hope Susanna had never been the assassin’s target. “The person you pretend to have proof of treason for, is it Mistress Horenbout?”

Jean went very still.

Renard turned his full attention to Parker, his eyes pleading. “Kill Jean, slit his throat, and I will tell you everything you want to know. Everything.”

“You will tell me everything right now, or Jean and I will fight over who has the pleasure of killing you.”

Renard flinched. “It is Susanna Horenbout. We had to stop her passing a message her brother gave her to the English queen. The Emperor needs more time before the English King learns of his new plans.”

“How did you know about Horenbout’s message?”

“All I know is Lucas Horenbout has some connection to the Emperor. He sent a note to the Emperor’s man in Ghent, telling him about the letter he’d been ordered to courier to his sister, just before he got on the ship to England.” Renard’s voice was matter-of-fact, and Parker had to close his eyes and breathe deeply. “He was supposed to arrive in London and come straight to us. We would have told him not to hand the message over, to keep it quiet, but he didn’t. We missed him at the appointed place, and he went to his sister’s before we could stop him.”

“That bolt through the window, that was you?”

Renard went white, as if he suddenly understood who he was talking to. “Not me, I’m no good with a bow. Jules did it. But yes, we tried to kill both the Horenbouts first. It was nothing personal, you understand, we simply had to keep the message from getting out.”

“And when you couldn’t kill her, you stopped her another way, by telling Wolsey you could prove she was a traitor. And tried to kill her brother again.”

Renard lifted his gaze to Parker’s face, and his eyes went wide. He nodded, a jerky movement. He would not look at Jean and Parker wondered what he saw in the assassin’s face that was even more frightening than in his own.

“How long had you planned to string Wolsey along with your non-existent proof?”

Renard lifted his shoulders and kept them up, in a hunched pose. “Indefinitely. Until it’s too late. He thinks French agents intercepted Lucas Horenbout, and stole the message from him.”

“And if Wolsey gets impatient, and decides to torture it out of her, rather than wait for your ‘proof’?”

Jean made a sound, like a growl, and Parker thought for a moment he should plunge the knife into his throat. Since Renard had admitted to trying to kill Susanna, to having her locked away, the assassin had been still and focused as a snake about to strike.

There was no other conclusion than he really was here to kill her and wanted no one else to cheat him to his prize. Renard must be a mere triviality, a small clean-up of the French king’s affairs he was doing on the side.

Renard was shaking his head. “We told Wolsey not to torture her. We told him to wait for the proof. For her to go under questioning—it is the last thing we wanted.”

“How unfortunate for you, and for Mistress Horenbout, the Cardinal does what he pleases, and certainly does not take advice from the French spies he confers with.” He had to clamp his teeth together to stop the howl that threatened to rip from his throat.

“Imperial spies.” Jean made the correction softly.

“It doesn’t matter whose side he takes, who Wolsey thinks he speaks for. The Cardinal has tried to torture my lady from the moment he laid hands on her.” A half-open jaw of fear held him by the neck, sharp teeth pricking him—like a dog carries its kill from the lake—at the thought of what Wolsey might be trying, even now.

“And has he succeeded?” Jean spoke in a voice that came from far away. Some icy plain where there was no shelter, nothing but relentless cold.

“To my knowledge, not yet.”

Renard lifted his hands, caked with mud, like some strange earth offering. “What will you do with me?”

“Who directs you?”

Parker sensed Jean was eager to learn this, too. The assassin was a statue beneath his hands. Hard, cold and still.

“Louis de Praet, the former Imperial ambassador to England.” Renard looked away. “He is no longer in the country. Wolsey had him arrested for treason in February and sent home soon after. I haven’t had time to receive orders from him—my letters on Horenbout missing a meeting with us and our decision to kill him and his sister to keep them quiet won’t even have reached de Praet yet. I had to act as I thought best.”

“And the new Imperial ambassador?”

Renard sneered. “Jehan de le Sauch? He is a merchant. He is Imperial ambassador by default, because there was no one else to take the job when de Praet was expelled.”

“And tell me, how many of you are there? Did Jan Heyman help you and your friend Jules attack Lucas Horenbout?”

“I don’t know who Jan Heyman is. Jules and I knocked Horenbout out. Would have killed him but for some boys who raised a fuss.” Renard looked away, and something in the shifty way his eyes darted to the side spoke of a lie, or only a partial truth. But time was running out. He could feel Jean bracing beneath his hands, feel his muscles bunching for a sudden move.

He must either kill Jean or let him go, and he cursed himself for his indecision. Why was it so hard to pull the knife across and end it?

Renard moved, diving away towards the gate they’d come through.

Parker watched, helpless, as he slipped and slid away. He must either let Jean go, and suffer the consequences, or see Renard go free.

A stick came from nowhere, whipped up by Jean from the mud. Even as it struck him on the side of the head, Parker cursed himself for his inattention. Renard had taken too much of his focus.

He fell, slicing the knife with a vicious movement. Jean jerked back and the knife bit into flesh, but only deep enough to score a red, oozing welt across the assassin throat.

The Frenchman rolled towards his bow.

Parker scrambled to his knees and stood, but Jean was on his feet already, running to the trees, out of range of Parker’s knife.

When he reached the first trunk, he turned and lifted the bow coolly to his shoulder and Parker braced for the bolt.

It sang out, with the familiar whistle, and Renard gave a scream as he went down, face first, the bolt sticking out of his neck. He flopped in the mud like a fish in a drying pond, and went still.

“You are lucky, Englishman, that was my last bolt. And I had a contract for his life.” Jean stepped between the trees and lifted a hand to his head in salute. Then he vanished.

Parker watched the shadows of the wood for long minutes, then turned to Renard’s body. The spy had taken his untold secrets with him and Parker would have to uncover them the hard way.

A chill rose up from the red earth, clammy, like the arms of death. He shivered.

Jean still seemed relentlessly determined to kill Susanna.

For the first time, Parker felt a sense of relief she was safe behind the impregnable walls of the Tower. Even so, he should have killed the bastard while he had the chance.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Chapter Eighteen

But such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, leave nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way;

Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)

T
hey travelled on the river, sailing upstream under the bridge and past Bridewell, past all the places Susanna had come to know and grow familiar with these last months.

Durham House stood proud and regal on the right bank, with high, crenulated walls and a tower on the downstream side.

The barge angled towards it, and Susanna noticed steep stairs cut into the bank which led from the river through an arched entrance. As they bumped to a stop, one of Kilburne’s men leapt off to tie them to the small pier.

Susanna gathered her things, but Harry insisted on taking them from her, and she accepted Kilburne’s offered hand as she stepped off the gently swaying boat.

The sun winked off the window at the top of the tower to her right, and Susanna lifted her gaze to it.

She thought she saw someone standing there, looking down at them.

“The little prince only has an hour to spare between his midday meal and his lessons.” Kilburne led her up the stairs, which were well-kept, scraped clean of moss and slime, and through an archway into a small hall.

A servant was waiting for them, and led the way up two flights of stairs to a large room on the top floor overlooking the Thames.

A small boy, with light hair and blue, blue eyes, stared at them from the centre of the room. He was sitting alone at a table, with the remains of a meal before him, and two servants waited on either side to take his plates.

“Your Highness.” Susanna was not sure of the proper address for the King’s bastard son. She dipped in curtsy.

She wondered if a six year old would feel insulted by an improper address.

He inclined his head, and pushed away his plate. “Are you the reason I cannot go out and play with my bow?” He eyed her with dislike.

“The King wishes me to paint you, Your Highness, so he has a picture of you always to hand. But I do not see why I cannot sit quietly by and draw my sketches while you practice.”

“You mean I can play with my bow?” He frowned.

“Today I need to sketch you, rough drawings that I can use later when I paint you. I can do that while I watch you practice your bow, just as well as if you were sitting still for me.”

“That is good.” The child stood, and seemed at last to notice Harry, Kilburne and the three guards he’d brought with him. “Why do you have so many guards about you?”

Susanna turned to Kilburne and raised an eyebrow. “To keep me safe.”

Henry Fitzroy laughed. “Well, you will be perfectly safe here. I have guards everywhere.” He clapped his hands. “Bring me my bow, let us not waste time before my lessons.”

A man came through the far door of the room, a frown on his face. He stopped short when he saw her and her entourage. “Mistress Horenbout?”

She nodded.

“Good day to you, I’m Richard Croke, the prince’s tutor. Did you not want him to sit for you?”

“He would rather play with his bows in his free time, sir, and I can sketch him just as well doing that. I have no doubt his expression will be happier than if I make him sit still for an hour.”

Croke looked at her sharply. “That is well thought of you, mistress. To be sure, I wondered how you would keep him still for an hour, anyway.”

“Will you fetch my bow?” Henry asked him.

“I will.” Croke smiled, and Susanna saw there was a genuine affection between them.

When he had the bow, and a quiver of arrows, Croke led them all down the stairs and into a garden that ran beside the river, but was walled off from it, with a stone wall at least 10 feet high. Trees grew along it, and they muted the sounds of the river and the calls of the boatmen, so Susanna could imagine they were not in the city at all, but some far country estate.

There were flower beds and a herb garden, as well as a beautiful stretch of lawn, on which sat a large hay bale with a target made of cloth pinned to it.

The prince ran to where a line of white stones had been laid, and stood behind them. He turned impatiently, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement.

Susanna found a seat on one of the extra bales of hay lying to one side, and got out her charcoal and parchment, and her pressing board. Kilburne stood, almost apologetically, behind her, and Harry stood beside him. Two guards with two very different agendas.

Susanna tried to forget they were there.

Henry Fitzroy’s excitement and eagerness leapt out at her, and she moved her charcoal in sweeping lines, caught in the thrill of the first mark on a fresh page, as she always was.