The Tudor Plot: A Cotton Malone Novella (3 page)

One panel depicted death.

At the end was a narrative.

This vessel was found by a man cutting peat in Yorkshire sometime around 1857. The soil had preserved the silver remarkably well, along with the artistic depictions. Its purpose was surely ritual, hardly suitable for holding liquid, and the elaborate internal decoration on the plates would discount drinking as one of its preferred uses. It would seem illogical to craft something with such care only to expose it to caustic liquids. Investigation reveals the bowl to be Celtic. The serpent with ram’s horns, the torcs worn by deities, and the stags and boar were all regular components of Celtic art. The depiction of the sea creatures and other oddities confirms that this was an accounting of a great event, memorialized in the only permanent way for the 5th to 6th century CE, which is an accurate dating for the vessel’s creation
.

This bowl remained with a private collector until recently, when Nigel Yourstone purchased it. We believe this occurred because of a discovery, happened on by chance, at the National Museum in Reykjavik, where Yourstone found the missing panel from the cauldron. It was displayed with an assortment of objects that had been unearthed in Iceland over the past 300 to 400 years. The curator of the museum attached no special significance to the etched silver panel other than to note that it helped establish a 6th-century connection among Ireland, England, and Iceland. The curator thought nothing of that connection since historians have long known Irish monks routinely ventured across the northern Atlantic to Iceland on religious retreat during the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries. Yourstone visited the museum and photographed the panel extensively. With all of the panels in hand, our experts note that he now may be able to complete the message the cauldron was designed to convey
.

Malone recalled what had been said at Buckingham Palace about the dead publisher who’d requested an audience with the queen.

He spoke of Arthur
.

But how did that fit with this cauldron?

His next move was clear.

Time to pay a visit to Lord Nigel Yourstone.

Yourstone dialed the phone resting on the corner of his desk. The line on the other end was answered after the third ring and he said, “We have a problem.”

The gravelly voice seemed unsurprised.

Over the course of the last decade they’d routinely communicated, the voice supplying otherwise unobtainable information—Yourstone ensuring that the resulting scathing stories about the Prince of Wales appeared in the media. The story about Richard’s presence at Lauder Place with the daughter of Lord Bryce had come to light thanks to the man on the other end of the phone.

“My and Lord Bryce’s comments on the monarchy will make an excellent story for tomorrow,” Yourstone said. “Buckingham Palace will have to make some sort of statement, and there’s the next day’s story. The media can then rerun the tryst photos with a comment from the darling-daughter-Bryce the following day.”

“I do believe you’ve come to both understand and appreciate this sordid business.”

“All I want is for that bloody peckerhead to be as welcome as yesterday’s coffee.”

“Such resentment for our future king Richard.”

“I hope such a title is never attached to that man’s name.”

“Based on the latest polls, you’re not alone in that sentiment.”

He’d read the same statistics. “I’ve always possessed a great deal of faith in the English people.”

There had been four Saxe-Coburg monarchs. The line was created in 1840 when Victoria I married a German prince of the Saxe-Coburg line. Edward VII, Victoria I’s eldest son, became the first Saxe-Coburg ruler. His son, George V, toyed with the idea during World War I of changing the family name to Windsor—a way to distance the royals from marauding Germans—but never did. The next son was Victoria’s father. But his sympathy to Germany in World War II, while Hitler’s bombs exploded over London, made him extremely unpopular. Victoria II was actually the first of the Saxe-Coburg line to rule with both popular support and no cloud of scandal.

Richard, though, had clearly inherited his grandfather’s weakness for women and a political ineptness.

His public gaffes were legendary.

Once he characterized the greenhouse effect as
poppycock
. He then recommended that all of the old terrace houses and Georgian buildings of London be razed and replaced with
more modern structures
. He openly criticized the gentry for driving
gas guzzlers
while being chauffeured about in a Bentley that offered less than ten miles per gallon. He regularly consulted a psychiatrist and gulped down antidepressants, neither fact he thought private enough to ever refuse comment upon.

But his most offensive and alarming statements concerned Catholicism.

Since the 1701 Act of Settlement, no Catholic, nor anyone married to a Catholic, could succeed to the throne. Richard had made no secret of his fondness for the faith. He’d made several trips to Rome for audiences with the Pope. He’d been photographed attending mass and courted the disfavor of the Archbishop of Canterbury by recommending a full reconciliation between England and Rome, forever ending the schism Henry VIII created in the 16th century. Britain was a Protestant nation, and the sovereign was the symbolic head of the Church of England. The coronation oath called for absolute loyalty to the Anglican faith. For a monarch-to-be to doubt the validity of the national religion bordered on treason, and editorials in major newspapers had many times hinted at that conclusion.

Richard was surely a disappointment to Victoria, but in her customary manner never had she publicly commented. Yourstone recalled what George V was known to have said regarding his son—
after I am dead the boy will ruin himself in twelve months
. More than likely Victoria had privately repeated that same prediction about her eldest. Which was why Richard could not be in a position to inherit the throne once the queen died. So, for nearly a decade, he’d made sure Richard Saxe-Coburg stayed in the news.

London’s tabloid press had blossomed thanks to the heir apparent’s exploits. Photographs of him in various parts of the world with a variety of women kept the British people talking. He was a weak soul who could not appreciate the good fortune life had bestowed upon him. Nor did he seem to mind that he was a nearly constant source of ridicule.

Which made him excellent prey.

“There’s a new problem,” Yourstone said.

And he told his accomplice what he knew about Cotton Malone and the Magellan Billet.

“I’ll investigate,” the voice said. “And report back.”

A knock on the study door interrupted his call. “I have to go,” he said. “Let me hear from you soon.”

He ended the call.

The door opened and Eleanor entered the room.

He stood from the desk and approached his daughter-in-law. She was wearing a full-length silk charmeuse gown that tightly gripped her shapely frame. The bodice was trimmed in cream-colored lace, and her bare legs slipped in and out of a seductive slit cut high on her thigh. A kimono-style robe covered her shoulders, open in front. Its gold coloring matched her hair.

“Strange attire for the middle of the day,” he said.

She approached his desk.

He stepped toward a red lacquer cabinet that housed a bar, dropped a couple of ice cubes into a crystal tumbler, and splashed vodka over them.

“Anything for you?”

She came close and nodded.

He took in her perfume as he poured her a vodka with no ice. Aragon was truly one of the world’s great scents.

He handed her the glass.

She always drank her liquor straight and behind closed doors, and he caught the swell of her breasts as she savored a sip.

“You haven’t answered my question about the gown,” he said.

“I was lonely.”

“Where is your husband?”

“Your son is out. At the races today, I believe. He so enjoys his life of leisure.”

He knew better. “You accept your husband’s infidelities with great patience.”

She sipped her drink and appeared unaffected by his crude declaration. She was like that. Able to misdirect her emotions with the skill of a parlor magician.

“My only concern is that he be discreet,” she said. “I assure you, his sexual prowess is not worth fighting for.”

He chuckled. “You do your family proud.”

“I do what is necessary. As do you, my loving father-in-law.” She finished off her vodka. “How is your plan progressing?”

The Act of Settlement proclaimed that a male heir always inherited the throne first, which meant Richard and Albert stood in Eleanor’s way. Shortly before her marriage to his son, he’d explained what he had in mind and was gratified to learn that she, too, wanted to be queen of England.

And she’d proven herself invaluable.

She was the link to Richard.

The hapless fool cherished his sister and regularly sought her counsel. Through her, Yourstone possessed a direct line into the prince’s innermost thoughts and fears, and it had been easy to manipulate both.

“We are less than twelve hours from completion,” he said in a hushed tone, though there was no one who could possibly overhear them. His town house was empty, save for them. He employed a house staff, but only during certain hours, and none lived on the premises.

“My precious mother could die at any time. The bloody doctors can’t say anything for sure. If that happens and we are still where we are now, this whole thing is over.”

“I’m aware of the risks.”

“So has the deal been made?”

He nodded. “Our South African friend has assured me it will be done.”

She moved closer to the hearth. The fire he’d started earlier had burned down. The charmeuse of her gown shimmered with every step. He wondered what possessed his son to leave a woman of such beauty alone.

She noticed his gaze on her.

“Can the father succeed where the son is lacking?”

Wisps of light hair draped her forehead like fringes from a shawl. This woman knew how to arouse him. It had been that way since the beginning of their association. His son was sterile, a fact only he knew since he’d paid the doctor who’d administered the test to lie about the results. Then he’d had the doctor killed. The same fate had found the publisher of the
Globe
, who’d somehow pieced together what was happening and made contact with the palace. Thankfully, another spy had alerted him and that problem had been quickly solved. For his plan to work, not only must Eleanor assume the throne as queen, but there had to be an heir to follow.

Normandy. Blois. Plantagenet. Lancaster. York. Tudor. Stuart. Hanover. Saxe-Coburg.

Each family had ruled.

The next royal house would be named Yourstone.

“I assure you, I can accomplish the required task.” He did not use her title with any measure of respect, but that did not seem to faze her.

“I wonder how the son wholly failed to acquire what the father clearly possesses. Nature can be so cruel.”

He tabled his empty glass.

“I assume the country will soon be reading more about Richard and the perky Lady Bryce,” she said.

“For the next several days.”

“I watched Lord Bryce and you earlier on the television and I have to ask. Your comments to the press. Were they needed? Surely Mum and Father are now questioning your loyalty.”

Which might explain the presence of a certain American agent named Cotton Malone. “Let them.”

“Maybe the stress will finally claim Mum’s heart.”

“Not yet, my dear. We need another day.”

“That’s the problem, Nigel. We have no idea how much time she has left.”

“This can only move so fast. Timing is everything.”

She returned her empty glass to the cabinet and headed for the door. “Thankfully, this is
your
problem. I have enough to handle with Mum and Dickie. Are you coming up?”

Her lack of clothing had, of course, been an invitation. Eleanor and his son usually resided at the royal Clarence House while in London. But they also, on occasion, made use of Yourstone’s London flat. Yourstone’s wife had been dead five years, so the opportunities this woman presented were irresistible. But he wasn’t going to let her know it was that easy.

“Leave the latch open. If I decide to come up.”

She stopped at the door and turned, a cunning grin on her lips.

“Don’t take too long.”

Yourstone rose from the bed, stepped into his trousers, then donned his shirt. He slipped his arms through the braces and adjusted their silken lengths. Eleanor lay naked atop pearl-colored sheets. It pleased him that he was able to satisfy such a beautiful woman.

“It’s my time,” she said. “I’ve become quite apt at predicting ovulation.”

“Hopefully, what just happened will be sufficient to produce a Yourstone heir.”

He zipped his pants and cuffed his shirtsleeves.

Supposedly, she’d been a virgin when married, but he wondered. A woman of such passion could hardly have learned all she knew from someone so inept as his son. Yourstone had taken many mistresses. They’d come from all stations of life and varied in race and color. Eleanor was every bit their equal, more so in some respects.

She rolled over on her side.

Except for her short blond mane and eyebrows, there was not a hair on her body. Her skin had the look and feel of polished alabaster. No blemish disturbed its sheen. It was said that her mother, Victoria, had once been blessed with the same creamy patina. A Saxe-Coburg trait he actually admired.

“Doesn’t bother you at all, does it?” she said. “Sleeping with your son’s wife.”

He shrugged.

“You want this that bad?”

“As badly as you.” His eyes were drawn to her body, and he fought another rising urge within him with thoughts of business. “Tell me, do you know the Arthurian story?”

“I never cared for fiction.”

He grinned at her ignorance. “It’s actually quite colorful, and who knows if it’s true.” He sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Then by all means, tell me a bedtime story.”