C. Gortner - The Tudor Conspiracy

John Dudley shifted his gaze to Robert. I could see he was unwell, his face sunken and complexion sallow, like an invalid’s. His voice was slow, measured, as if it cost him to formulate words. “Letters? Is this true, Robert?”

Robert tried to raise protest; I cut him off. “It’s true, though he’ll lie to his last breath if he can. Where are they? Where are the letters?”

John looked bewildered. “I don’t-” Jane had already moved past him, evading her husband, Guilford, who stood clenching and unclenching his fists. Henry ripped the dog’s lead from him and unleashed the terrier; it bounded at me, baring its teeth.

“Sirius, sit!” Jane snapped. The dog went to its haunches at once, a low growl in its throat as she proceeded to the hearth, groping under the lip of the chimney. She extracted a cylindrical oil-skin tube, which she held pensively before she turned around.

Guilford gasped. “How did you know?”

She gave him a bitter smile. “Do you still think me a complete fool? I’ve been coming here every week to walk and dine with you; I have eyes. I saw books arrive. I saw others leave. I counted them every day. I even tried to read one. But they are useless. The pages have been cut out.” She kicked with her diminutive foot at the pile of books near the dog’s cushion by the hearth, toppling them. “Your brother Robert would see us dead to satisfy his ambition. Even now, he refuses to recognize that our fate has always lain in God’s hands.”

“A pox on God!” snarled Henry Dudley. “And a pox on you, too, you righteous Grey bitch!” He started to lunge at Jane. John stepped in front of her with his hand held up.

“No.” Though he was frail, in his voice reverberated an echo of that unquestionable authority his father had once commanded. “That is enough.” He looked at me. “Let Robert go. You have my word you will not be harmed.”

I hesitated. A room full of Dudleys and one exit: It was my worst nightmare come to life, but it was a risk I had to take. I released Robert, rising quickly to my feet and stepping away. He drew in gulps of air, his face a mass of contusions, his lip split and bleeding. I still couldn’t feel anything, but I knew I would later. I must look almost as bad as he did.

“You can’t let him leave,” Henry was saying. “He knows everything now. He’ll tell the queen. The bastard foundling will be the one who sends us all to the scaffold!”

John glared at him before he turned to me. “You once served our family. But you deceived us and, according to Robert, helped the queen put us in here. Will you now send us all to our deaths?”

I shook my head, trying not to look at Jane’s thin figure behind him, the tube in her hands. “I want only to help my mistress, Princess Elizabeth.”

Robert croaked from behind me, “Don’t believe him. He’s a liar. He wants revenge. Give him those letters and he will use them against us. He’ll take us down, every last one.”

John hesitated. All of a sudden, fear seized me. I might not make it out of here alive.

“I promise on my own life,” I said to John. “I will not use the letters against you.” I clutched my knife tighter, sensing his brothers watching, waiting for his word to tear into me like hungry wolves.

Then John stepped aside. “Give him the letters.”

Jane held out the tube. As I took it, I saw the stoic resignation in her blue-gray eyes. I had to resist the urge to clasp her to me, to gather her up and take her far from this awful place. She was so short she barely reached my chin, fragile as a child; the toll of her confinement showed in the hollows of her cheeks and in her shadowed, haunted gaze.

“I believe you to be a man of honor,” she said. “I trust you’ll honor your word.”

“My lady,” I whispered. “I would rather die than see you harmed.” I bent over her hand. Then I tucked the tube into the saddlebag, grabbed it and my cloak off the table, and started for the door.

“Prescott!”

I paused, glancing over my shoulder. Robert had staggered to his feet with John’s help. Leaning on his older brother’s thin shoulder, he flung his words at me like a gauntlet.

“It’s not over,” he said. “Nothing you say or do can stop it. You may have won this day, but in the end I’ll triumph. I will restore my name if it’s the last thing I do. And remember this: On the day Elizabeth takes her throne, I will be at her side. I will be the one she turns to, in all things. And then, Prescott-then you’ll regret this day. Her hour of glory will be your doom.”

I didn’t answer. I did not give him the satisfaction. I turned and walked out and left him there in his prison, where, if there was any justice left in the world, he would remain for the rest of his days.

It was the only way Elizabeth would ever be safe from him.

Outside, a cacophony of distant bells rang. It was late afternoon, and the winter sky had begun to darken. Pulling my cloak about me I hastened back through the ward, pausing briefly at a horse trough to wet my cloak and wash the blood from my face. The gates would close at dusk; I must be out before they did. Transferring the tube from my cloak to the safety of my doublet, I tried to look impervious as I made my way to the gatehouse.

The yeomen gave me a curious look. I yanked up my cloak’s cowl, hurrying out. Only as I gained distance from the Tower did the knot in my chest start to dissolve.

I had done it. I had Dudley’s letters. Renard couldn’t use these against Elizabeth: The proof he required was now in my hands. All I had to do was to report whatever lies I must to keep him at bay, long enough to send word to her and-

I paused. And do what? Confront her? Demand to know why she’d acted so recklessly, why she had lied to me when she knew what Robert planned? Or should I simply destroy the letters and never mention that I had discovered she’d taken a stance against her sister, pretend she was as guiltless as she had feigned? As I considered this, though, I abruptly recalled with a jolt what she’d said to me in the stables. I warn you now: You, too, could be in grave danger if you persist in this pursuit. I’ll not have you risk yourself for my sake, not this time. Regardless of your loyalty, this is not your fight.

I came to a stop in the middle of the road. She had warned me. In my zeal to protect her, I’d failed to hear her actual message. It was not my fight, she had said, and she meant it.

She had walked into Dudley’s web willingly.

Around me, the light faded, lengthening the shadows. Veering into Tower Street, I began searching the painted signs hanging above doorways for the Griffin. People hustled about their errands, bundled to their ears and eager to finish with their day so they could get indoors before the night took hold. Everyone steered clear of me. I would have steered clear, too. My left cheek felt grossly swollen and was starting to throb. I had a wound on my temple and, no doubt, several nasty bruises on my face. Nevertheless, a burden of years had been lifted from my shoulders. I had stood up to Robert Dudley. No longer did I have to cower from my past, for this time I’d given as good as I got. Some might say I’d given better.

I espied the sign ahead, depicting a black-winged griffin. I pushed past the doorway inside, stamping my boots to get the blood back into my ice-numb feet. The tavern was choked with the smell of greasy food, cheap ale, and hearth and tallow smoke, and raucous with voices; it was also blessedly warm. I’d never been so happy to find myself among ordinary men doing ordinary things in my entire life. No one gave me a second glance as I weaved past the serving hutch and the crowded booths and tables. Apparently a bruised eye or two was common enough in taverns like these, close to the rough-and-tumble dockyards and riverside gaming houses.

Scarcliff lounged in apparent content by the smoking hearth, his legs stretched out before him, a tankard on the low table and a battered white mastiff at his feet. His chin drooped against his chest; he looked deep in slumber. I noticed his right boot had a wedged sole, as if he compensated for a disparity in the length of his legs, perhaps an old injury that had made one shorter than the other. I inched closer, transfixed by the sight of him in repose, but before I got within ten paces his head suddenly shot up, swerving to me with that uncanny precision he’d shown in the brothel, as if he could smell my approach.

He peered at me. “Christ on the cross,” he muttered. “Looks like you had a time of it.”

I broke into an unexpected grin, inexplicably relieved to see him. He might be a villain, as apt to drive a blade into my ribs and tumble me into a ditch as to escort me back to Whitehall, but at least he was a villain I could understand-a man for hire, who worked for his coin, not some treacherous noble whose corruption had permeated his very soul.

“Lord Robert and I had a disagreement,” I said. “Guess who won?”

He snorted and hailed a passing tavern maid. “Nan, bring more ale!” Taking the flagon from her, he filled a tankard to its rim and shoved it, sloshing, at me. “Drink. You need it.”

The ale was vile, a yeasty concoction that slid like wet flour down my throat, but the heat it generated helped clear my head. Scarcliff set his hand on the mastiff as it looked up at me with mild interest. He seemed quite familiar with the animal, which boasted nearly as many scars as he did-a fighting dog, no doubt, lucky enough to have survived the pit.

A survivor: like him.

“Thrashing aside, did you get what you wanted?” he asked, not sounding as if he much cared either way.