In Defense of the Queen (16 page)

“What was that? That Somers gave you.”

Harry waited for her at the foot of the stairs, and she took the arm he held out. “The King’s ring.”

He stopped, the movement jerking her back. “How do you know?”

“I’ve seen it once before. The King gave it to Simon, a while ago, and he showed it to me.”

“Do you think Somers stole it?”

Susanna urged him up the stairs. “What else can I think?”

“Why does he help you?” A frown etched deep in Harry’s forehead. “I do not like that we know nothing of his motives. He could be doing this for sport.”

“I don’t know why he does it. But it is not for sport. He risks a charge of theft if I use this ring unwisely. If I use it at all. Wolsey will have to let me go if I invoke its powers, and he will surely inform the King I had it in my possession.” She kept her voice soft, they were still in the open, although they had reached the top of the stairs now, and the door to her room was ahead. “I think it may be as simple as Will Somers likes me.”

“Theft from the King means death. He’s risked his life, if you’re right.”

Susanna shrugged. “Perhaps there are not many people he likes?”

They were in the last stretch of passageway, walking in near total darkness. A wall lantern shone from the top of the stairs behind them, but the one between the stairs and her door had gone out, and there was no light beyond to the stairs up the Bell Tower.

Harry put an arm out in front of her, forcing her to stop, and put a finger to his lips. Then he pointed.

Susanna saw a faint glow just beneath the door to her rooms, a slice of gold in the darkness.

Someone was in there.

Harry drew his knife from his boot, and she sensed him gathering himself, ready to leap.

He slammed open the door with a cry, knife raised, and came to a stumbling halt.

Susanna took a step in after him, hesitant but curious.

Parker’s eyes, warm and creased at the corners, glittered at her in the light of the candle he’d placed on the table.

“How . . .” She put a hand against the door post to steady herself.

He stood and she flung herself across the room to him, each breath a tight, painful joy.

“I had to come.” He whispered the words into her hair. “I can’t seem to sleep if you aren’t with me.”

Chapter Twenty-two

They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantage as far as the laws allow it, they account it piety to prefer the public good to one’s private concerns, but they think it unjust for a man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man’s pleasures from him;

Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)

“G
ertrude Courtenay
and
Will Somers have been here today?” Parker knew his mouth was agape, but he could not help it.

“We have been quite popular.” Harry slid another log on the fire, and then came to sit at the table with them.

Susanna held Parker’s hand in a vice grip, and Parker drummed the fingers of the other on the table. “I saw Somers follow Wolsey today. They had both vanished by the time I was able to go after them.”

“Do you think Somers speaks true? That Wolsey plans to force Kilburne to hand Susanna over for questioning?” Harry lifted a cup of mead to his lips and set it down beside his plate. Neither he, nor Parker, had eaten, and he had uncovered the tray of dishes he’d gathered earlier for dinner; game pie, bread, cheese and apples.

“I don’t know why Somers has involved himself in this. Or why he weaselled his way in here when he could have come to me.” Parker tore at a piece of bread with his teeth. Its earthy yeast flavour filled his nose, and he breathed it in deep, savoured the chewy texture.

Since Susanna had been taken to the Tower, he had barely eaten, and every mouthful he had taken had been flat and tasteless as gruel.

“Perhaps you aren’t easy to find. Whereas I do not go anywhere.” Susanna paused. “Except to Durham House.”

“That damn portrait.” Parker swore softly. “Henry’s obsessed with it. There must be something special about Fitzroy’s official induction into the Order of the Garter. The King is planning something. Some change of significance.”

“He is going to put Fitzroy forward as his heir apparent.” Susanna stood abruptly. Angrily. “The Queen feels he is going to abandon her. He has certainly abandoned all hope of her producing another child, let alone a boy.”

“He needs a son.” Parker thought of all the noblemen, carefully working their family lines back to the throne, waiting for their chance. “The nobility will not easily accept a daughter. And, after all, he has a son.”

“I have nothing against the boy. I like him.” Susanna hugged herself close. “The Queen has spent years falling pregnant and losing child after child. She has prayed and fasted and begged God for a son. She is old before her time because of all the energy and dedication she has given to trying to producing one. And now that she is used up, even though she has a beautiful daughter, she will be cast aside. Her daughter cast aside with her. His own child.” She spoke the last sentence in a whisper.

“He is a hard, cold man.” Parker chose his words with care. “He has cut down his enemies as ruthlessly as a tyrant. But he is also capable of great friendship, he can be generous, and he loves song and dance. To keep his hold on the throne, his royal line’s hold, he will do anything. Crush anyone. Cast anyone aside. Even his own daughter.”

Susanna sat down again. Leant into him, and he pulled his arm tight around her. “It is wrong.”

“I don’t care over-much who will take the throne now. I don’t care for the wrong or right of it. I just care that you are released.”

She said nothing, and a stillness filled the room, broken only by the breathy sigh and crackle of the fire.

“Have you ever met Louis de Praet?” Parker asked, thinking of his conversation with Jehan de la Sauch.

“I have.” She straightened in surprise. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that name.”

“He was Imperial ambassador in London until February. In fact, you would have almost passed each other on your way from Ghent to London.” Parker started to wonder at the timing of that. “Wolsey had him arrested and expelled for treason.”

Susanna’s eyes were wide. “Where is he now?”

“In France, on Imperial business. But he is still controlling the spies here. The men who were forced to take over his ambassadorial duties are only temporary. They know nothing about running spies.”

“And Uncle Louis does?” Susanna frowned.

“Uncle Louis knows a lot of things, it seems.” Parker did not hide the sour note in his voice. “It was his spy who went to Wolsey and gave you up to him. The spy doesn’t have any proof against you, we burned the only thing that would link you to their cause, but as long as you’re in the Tower, the Emperor thinks he has time to negotiate his marriage with Isabel. They don’t seem to know you’ve seen the Queen, or if they do, because you didn’t see her privately, they think no message was exchanged between you.”

“And Lucas? What is his role in this?”

Parker shook his head. “He’s involved. Up to his neck. But what his part is, I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”

“How is he?” Harry chewed a piece of apple.

“He was awake yesterday. Claimed Heyman couldn’t have hit him, but never saw who did. So I don’t count Heyman out. But he went back into a very deep sleep last night, and Maggie couldn’t wake him. I haven’t been back to the house today.”

“What about Peter Jack? Is he watching Wolsey?”

“He was.” Parker took some butter and slathered it on another piece of bread. “Since I followed de Praet’s spy and worked out Wolsey’s role in this, I’ve had him looking for Heyman.”

“I wonder what Heyman will do.” Susanna leant back in her chair, and her eyes never left his face, as if she wanted to commit every line of him to memory. “He could go back to the palace, but he has reason to be afraid you will say something to the Knights Provost about him. He may have to find a place in the city to hide.”

“I should think he’ll go to other Low Landers.” Harry bit into the game pie with a shower of crumbs. “What else can he do?”

“What about the spy who visited Wolsey? Would he take Heyman in?”

“Perhaps he would have, but he’s dead.” Parker realized with a deep sense of dread that he hadn’t told Susanna about Jean. “Jean killed him.”

She drew in a sharp breath, leaned forward. “Jean? What was he doing there?”

“He was following de Praet’s spy as well, he had a contract to kill him from the French king. The spy wasn’t a Low Lander, he was a Frenchman, turned by de Praet through his agents here when the French ambassador was out the way. Wolsey thinks he’s getting his information from the French.”

“So Jean is here to deal with a traitor.” Harry tripped over the last word, and it hung in the air for a moment.

Parker nodded. “I was able to stop Jean and question Renard first, but when he got free, Jean killed him with his last bolt. I’m lucky he chose to complete his contract, rather than use his bolt on me.”

“If it was a contracted kill, Jean wouldn’t have let Renard go for a personal vendetta.”

“I know.” Parker touched her hand. “But what worries me is Jean knows exactly where you are now.”

“Was he even back for me? If it was de Praet’s men shooting at us in Crooked Lane, and Jean is returned to take care of a double agent?”

“I think he’s only too happy to combine his revenge with carrying out his duties for the French crown.”

“He can’t get me in here, though.” Susanna smiled. “At last, I’m in the safest place you could think of.”

“Gertrude Courtenay and Will Somers had no trouble gaining entry. All I had to do was tell the guard I needed to look at the crossbows in the Armoury, even though I haven’t been King’s Yeoman of the Crossbows for over two months. And they let me in without a second look. Why not Jean?”

They were all quiet a moment, contemplating the truth of it.

She drew a deep breath and held her hands, palm down, before her. “I don’t feel as afraid of Jean anymore. I’m more afraid of Wolsey. I don’t want to lose the use of my hands.”

His throat closed at the thought, and he had to force the words out. “It won’t come to that.”

“It may.” Harry spoke quietly.

“Over my dead body.”

* * *

Harry left them. To take back the tray, he said, and to chat for a while with the other boys who served in the kitchens and gardens of the Tower.

Susanna knew it was to give them some time alone.

Parker had consumed the meal Harry had brought up with the zest and concentration of a man long starved, and as she closed the door behind Harry and turned back to him, she saw he was looking at her the same way he’d eyed the feast on his plate.

Ravenously.

Need flared within her like a winter solstice bonfire, but it was tempered with caution. She felt too exposed here, too vulnerable.

Kilburne, Lewis, anyone could storm the room and she did not want them to find her doing anything but work. She wanted no ideas in their heads of her naked, or with her clothing in disarray.

They must also not catch Parker. The rules were clear. He had to be out by curfew. Which had long since come and gone.

If he were caught in her chambers, he would be in serious trouble.

“You look afraid.” He stood, and walked towards her with deliberate steps. She shivered, felt the anticipation brush down her spine like a lover’s hand.

“You are as much at their mercy while you are in these rooms as I am.”

“Who are you afraid of? Wolsey can’t come here until tomorrow.” He reached her, pulled her close to him.

She let her cheek rest against the soft velvet of his doublet, and closed her eyes as his fingers curled around her waist. “Some of Kilburne’s men . . . wish me ill. They are working for Wolsey and they’ll be watching me closely. Especially if he plans on taking me tomorrow.”

“Which of Kilburne’s men?” He spoke quietly, and she lifted her head to look at him.

“His deputy, Lewis, and another man, Merden.” She didn’t mention the way they’d manhandled her on her first day. From the darkness she saw in his eyes, she would be forfeiting their lives. She needed nothing more on her conscience.

“I will deal with them.” He pulled her closer, rubbed her back. “You are so stiff.”

“I cannot be easy here.” The Bell Tower loomed over her, the White Tower lurked just outside her window, and all around her were those who would see her broken and crying for mercy.

Lucas had done this. Lucas, and her father.

“What did Lucas hope to achieve?” Her voice cracked on the last word. “Is he really playing spy for Uncle Louis?” She shook her head, and he buried his hands in her hair, forced her head up to look at him.

“Whatever the reason, there is more to this than we think. Lucas told me he had made sacrifices to try to get you out of trouble. I don’t know what he means, but when he’s awake again, I’ll find out.”