“Bess, what are you about? I never see you down here.” Tom’s voice was friendly.
“We need to get fresh bedding to the nobleman on the south passage,” she said.
“Tonight?”
“His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk,
will be questioning him tomorrow. He doesn’t like it when the lords and ladies reek, you know that.”
Tom didn’t say anything. My heart pounded even faster. I stayed fixed on the empty chair; I didn’t want to meet his eyes.
“By dogfish, is that Susanna?” he burst out, his voice excited.
I could not breathe nor move a muscle.
Bess’s voice sounded strained now. “I didn’t know you were friend to Susanna.”
“I haven’t seen you in more than a year; you keep yourself close at Beauchamp, don’t you, woman?”
Still I said and did nothing. I felt frozen.
“Why won’t you speak to me?” Tom took a heavy step toward me. “Are you still angry over May Day?”
I lowered my bundle. The warmth from the torch’s flame danced on my cheeks.
“No,” I said in a low voice.
I looked into his face, felt his brown eyes boring into mine. I moved my lips into a smile.
Remarkably, he smiled back. Two teeth were missing. “You’re looking bonny, Susanna.”
Bess said, her voice turning shrill, “We have our work to do, Tom.”
“Yes, I’ll take you down to the cell myself,” he said, picking up a set of keys.
“No,” Bess said quickly. “Just give me that key.”
“It’s dark down there,” he said. “I haven’t lit the torches. Why shouldn’t you want my help?”
There was nothing I could think of to say, nor Bess. Silently, we followed him down a series of passageways. His red-and-gold uniform was stained and even slightly ripped, I saw when he paused to light the first torch. He was more unkempt than other warders I’d seen. I wondered if the men assigned to nights at the Tower were of lesser stuff.
Tom hummed a song as he walked to my father’s cell, turning around every so often to smile at me, as if I’d recognize the tune. I would always nod back. I was braced for him to squint a little harder, to realize I wasn’t the woman he thought. But he did not.
After what seemed like
an eternity, Tom stopped and lit a torch fixed to the wall with his own. He pounded on the wooden door next to it. “Prisoner, attend!” he thundered. “You have company.”
Tom opened the door with his key. It yawned open into a black space. Bess nudged in behind me with her short candle. I could make out a bed in the corner with a long inert body on top.
“You’re right, it does reek in here,” Tom said. “You need help?”
“This is woman’s work,” Bess said firmly. “Leave us with him. It will take but ten minutes.”
Tom grunted. “Right. I shouldn’t leave my post for that long.” He backed away and closed the door. I heard the key turn.
Bess placed her candle on the floor next to the door and grabbed my sheets. “I’ll do the work while you talk,” she said.
I sprinted across the room. “Father, wake up, it’s me. Joanna. Please, wake up.”
He lay facedown under a blanket, and I shook his shoulder. It felt sharp and bony; he’d lost weight.
He didn’t awaken, and fear surged through me. Had my father died in his cell? I reached up and felt for his thick hair; I could hardly see him in the faint candlelight. His head stirred at last under my fingers; he turned and opened his eyes.
The man was not my father.
“No!” I howled. “This can’t be.”
Bess flew to my side. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s not my father.”
“But he has to be,” she insisted. “Unless . . .”
“What?”
“We didn’t say ‘Stafford.’ There must be a second nobleman on this passageway, and he assumed this was the man we meant would be questioned by Norfolk. Oh,
no
.”
I pounded my thigh with my fist. “We have to get Tom to take us to my father.”
“No, no, mistress.” Bess shook her head. “We can’t. It will seem too strange. I fear he’s half suspected something’s amiss already.”
A croaking sound interrupted us. With a start, we realized it was the man on the bed, listening while we talked.
“I know you,” he said hoarsely. “Joanna. Stafford. What are you doing here?”
I looked down. There
was nothing familiar about him: a pair of huge dark eyes in a gaunt face. His cheekbones stuck out of his face; his lips were cracked and white. “It’s Charles.” His voice was broken, gasping. “Charles Howard.”
Bess gasped. “The man who tried to marry Lady Margaret Douglas!”
I couldn’t believe it. The rash, swaggering young Howard who’d mocked me years ago at Stafford Castle bore no resemblance to this skeleton.
“Charles, was it you? You wooed the king’s niece?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and nodded.
“Does your brother know you are this ill? Has the Duke of Norfolk been informed?”
He shuddered, and I feared he was convulsing. But he was laughing. The way his mouth twisted, I finally recognized him as Charles.
“Stop,” I patted his quaking shoulder. “You’ll make yourself worse.”
“I am dying of lung rot, Joanna. It’s what my brother wants. It’s what everyone wants. Best way to solve it.”
“Solve what?”
“My treason.” He struggled to gain his breath. “Our treason. But how she loved
me.
The poems she wrote . . .” His voice dissolved into sputtering coughs.
Bess stirred next to me. “And she loves you, too, sir. I know. I’ve waited on her.” I wondered at that. Bess had told me stories only of a peevish girl, raging against her royal uncle’s punishment. But I silently thanked her for her kindness.
Indeed, Charles seemed to draw strength from what Bess said. “Does she love me still?” His words came faster now. “I’ve thought she wanted me dead, too. Then she could marry someone else with the king’s permission.” He blinked, looked us over with more alertness. “But why are you here?”
Bess said, “You tell him, mistress, while I change the bedding. We’ll have to lift him out first.”
The two of us lifted his poor body out of the bed, an easy task as he had wasted away almost to nothing. We settled him in the room’s chair, and I told him of Margaret’s burning, our arrests, the Duke of Norfolk’s questioning, and the
news Bess had heard that led us mistakenly to his cell.
“A man my brother pays heed to besides the king?” Charles wondered. “He thinks everyone’s a fool.”
I shook my head. “I was hoping my father would know.”
Bess asked, “Could it be Archbishop Cranmer? Or Cromwell? They’ve both been here to question prisoners.”
Charles thought about it. “Aye, those are the two most important men in the land. But my brother hates the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Privy Seal with all his soul. He pays no heed to them, nor ever would.”
“He hates them?” I asked, surprised.
“His Grace, my loving brother, despises men of common birth raised up by the king. And they are both enemies of the old faith. So he is not aligned with them.”
“But the duke doesn’t care for the old faith—he led the armies against the rebellion.” I said, confused. “He had every rebel hanged.”
“My brother would never say no to the king’s commission, but he prefers the old ways.” Charles shrugged. “He’s like Gardiner.”
“The Bishop of Winchester?” Bess asked.
“Aye, that’s the one. Wily Winchester. If there’s any man my brother pays heed to, it’s him. But he’s in France. King got angry with him and made him permanent ambassador. Couldn’t be Gardiner coming to see you.” He started coughing again, a horrible ripping noise. When he took his hand away from his mouth, I saw fresh blood on it.
There was a pounding on the door. “Are you ready?” Tom called from the passageway.
“Give us a minute,” Bess shouted. To Charles Howard, she said, “Sir, we need to get you back into bed.”
He nodded. “Good luck to you,” he whispered as we laid him back on his fresh sheets.
I kissed his frail, hot cheek. “Good-bye.”
Bess was by the door, waiting. I grabbed her sleeve. “Let me try to persuade Tom to take me to my father,” I pleaded. “We can say he needs his bedding changed as well. We’ve come all this way.”
She shook her head. “Mistress, it won’t work. I feel it. We will be revealed when—”
The door swung open,
and Tom stuck his head in. “All finished?”
“Yes,” Bess said. “We have only to take the old sheets to be burned.”
“Leave them in the passageway,” he said. “I’ll see it’s done.”
We shuffled out; he closed the door behind us, locked it, and then stood there. He didn’t lead us away. I opened my mouth to make my plea, but closed it. There was something odd in Tom’s eyes when he looked down at me. And I didn’t have my bundle to hide behind anymore.
“I checked with the officer of the watch,” he said slowly. “He knew of no orders to clean Lord Howard’s cell or anyone else’s this late at night. It can always be done in the morning. I didn’t think that made much sense.”
My throat tightened.
“We had the orders,” Bess said. “You’ll see.”
Tom sneered at her. “Perhaps you took him a love letter from Lady Douglas?”
“Of course not,” Bess said indignantly. “Check the cell yourself.”
“I don’t think I will,” Tom said, his eyes lingering on me.
I heard a faint rushing in my ears.
He jerked his head forward. “Let’s go.”
We followed him down the passageway. I glanced at the wooden doors along the way. Was my father behind one of them? I’d lost all in my gamble to find him. And not only that. I’d brought Bess down with me. Frantically, I tried to think of some way to save her, to excuse her involvement, but nothing seemed plausible.
We reached Tom’s station. I expected him to call for a fellow warder and march us to our fate.
He did not.
Tom grabbed my arm and pulled me close. His rough beard scratched my forehead. “Come with me, Susanna.” I tried to pull away but couldn’t.
Bess demanded: “What are you doing, Tom?”
“You two lasses are up to no good, but I won’t say a word. All that’s required is a bit of time alone with Susanna, and then I’ll take you both to maids’ quarters for the night, and no one’s the wiser.”
“No,” I said.
“Come, Susanna, it’s not like we haven’t done it before. Course I was sore drunk that night. But I
remember your sweet mouth. And I’m dead sober now, sweetheart.”
“I won’t let you take her away from me,” Bess howled.
“You can watch if you like, Bess, I don’t mind,” Tom said.
It happened in a flash. Bess stomped on the inside of Tom’s right foot. He let go of me, yelping and hunched over in pain, and then Bess made her two fists into a club and hit him on the back of the neck. His stomach hit the floor, hard.
“Run!” Bess grabbed me, and we sprinted into the darkness of the White Tower.
11
B
ess
and I ran back through the vaulted rooms. We went so fast that my lungs burned. I’d never run like that in my life. We had no candle now, but there was enough moonlight from the windows to guide us. And Bess, thank the Lord, knew this castle keep well.
We hurtled around a corner. Bess flew up against the stone wall, grabbing bricks with both hands to cling there. At first I thought her winded, stopping to catch her breath, but she shook her head at me to be silent.
I bent over, a pain clawing at my side.
“Do you hear?” she mouthed at me.
After a few seconds, there it was: heavy steps, coming quickly. Frightened, I nodded.
She grimaced.
“Chapel,” she whispered.
We crept quietly now, looking behind us, braced for the tall, fearful shadow of Tom. Was he coming after us alone? I wondered why he hadn’t alerted anyone else, or called out to us to stop.
In a few minutes we’d reached an arched doorway, and Bess pulled me in after her.
This was a place of aching beauty: the graceful stone columns bordering the long pews, the soaring ceiling, the three stained-glass windows filtering the sweetly colored moonlight. It had been so long since I had heard Mass; I almost swooned as I gripped the first pew we reached. We crept to the middle of a pew halfway to the altar and knelt on the floor, next to each other. I could see Bess gnawing her lip, and I knew she was trying to think of what to do as we hid.
I heard something. It was so faint that I wasn’t sure of my senses. I looked over at Bess; she seemed unaware. It must have been my own nervousness.
Another minute crawled
by; I peered up at the nearest stained-glass window. I could see only a face of a beautiful blond young woman. The Virgin Mary, I was sure of that. Yet this woman had a proud, vain tilt to her head. She looked like someone whose portrait I’d admired. A fresh young Plantagenet queen, who’d served as the artist’s inspiration.
I heard the noise again. This time Bess reacted. She grabbed my wrist and held it tight. Her nails dug into the flesh, but I endured it without flinching.
“Susanna? Bess?” Tom’s voice was no more than a loud whisper, coming from behind us, just outside the chapel.
I closed my eyes.
“You’re in there, aren’t you, girls?”
Bess stiffened.
“I’m sorry, I know I frightened you,” Tom said, his voice conciliatory. “I was wrong. Lost my head. Come out and nothing more will be said.”
Bess’s nails eased out of my arm as if she were getting ready to stand up, and my eyes flew open.
“Bess, no!” I mouthed at her.
I felt something cold on my hand. It was her ring of keys.
She pressed her mouth to my ear to whisper. “Mistress, I’ll go out and draw him away from you. I’ll say you went ahead of me, but I wanted to pray. He’ll take me back to maids’ quarters and look for you on the way. He’d never expect you to go to Beauchamp now. It’s the opposite direction.”
I shook my head violently. “I can’t make it back to my cell without you.”
“Yes, you can. Use the tunnel; you won’t be able to get into Beauchamp from the outside, this time of night.” She pushed the keys harder into my hand. “Leave these in your cell, under your bed. I’ll find a way to get there tomorrow.”
Before I could say anything else or pull her back down, Bess had shot to her feet and hurried to the end of the pew.