A Parliament of Spies (25 page)
Read A Parliament of Spies Online
Authors: Cassandra Clark
They observed the evening visit of the mayor and his aldermen to their French prisoner but this time there was no sign of the spy, Rivera, in the Tower precincts, so, with nothing more to discover, Thomas escorted them both to the ferry landing before, still limping, he made the short walk back to St Mary Graces.
Edwin disembarked at York Place, leaving Hildegard to alight at the Westminster steps. An autumn mist had followed on the incoming tide. Now it was rolling over the waterside, deadening distant sounds and muffling those near at hand. It was that time between vespers and compline when everyone was in the feast hall. The thought made her feel hungry herself so she set off towards the great dark bulk of the abbey, using the frail light near the river gate as a guide.
She had not even got as far as the main path, however, when a man stepped out of the shadows. The small flame from the cresset he carried glinted off his mail shirt where it was partly concealed under a dark tunic. He wore a woollen capuchon pulled up over his head and had a copious black beard bushing over his shirt front.
In the moment she glimpsed all this she noticed no blazon on his garments. She stepped hurriedly back. A cut-throat.
But she was wrong.
‘Domina, I carry a message from my master.’
Not a thief after her money pouch, then. She noted the
word ‘master’. Not lord. A commoner. ‘And who is your master, sir?’
word ‘master’. Not lord. A commoner. ‘And who is your master, sir?’
‘I think you know that. He instructed me to tell you that he is consulting his lawyer in the morning. You might wish to attend?’
‘Might I?’ So he came from Ravenscar.
‘And in order to ensure your attendance I was instructed to invite you to come with me.’
Before she could move he stepped forward, hooking one mailed arm round her neck and pulling her backwards off the path. Quickly trussing her arms behind her back with a rope that had been concealed under his cloak he grunted in her ear, ‘You can guess the need for silence.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ she hissed, struggling to free herself. ‘You must be from Ravenscar. Is he mad?’ Don’t answer that, she told herself. To my dolour he has always been mad.
‘Shut your mouth!’ the servant muttered, arm still round her throat but made suddenly nervous by her lack of fear. ‘Come on! Get moving!’
‘Why should I?’ she protested, still grappling to free herself.
He tightened his grip. ‘Don’t start any trouble or it’ll be the worse for you. I’ve got a knife here.’
‘It’ll be the worse for you if you harm me because then he won’t be able to make me sign whatever bit of parchment he wants my signature on.’
‘You think you’re clever,’ he snarled, losing his temper.
She kept her mouth shut. A malign brute with a knife and a bit of rope won’t best me, she thought, but there’s no point in provoking him.
Allowing him to bundle her down towards the shore where the river lay she was conscious of how wide and dark it was, like a roll of black velvet. The mist folded over the surface, opening now and then to reveal the blackness underneath then closing again as the wind played through it. Water lapped quietly against the sides of a boat secretly docked below the bank. When she caught sight of the sky it was a field of stars.
‘Get in the boat,’ her captor ordered.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Never you mind,’ he told her.
By now the ferryman who had brought her to Westminster had sculled back downriver. There was no sign of life on the waterfront. Wondering if it was worth giving a shout to the porter in his gatehouse, she decided against. He would be too far away and it was likely this brute would think nothing of slitting her throat if she annoyed him. She allowed him to push her towards the water’s edge and down the slippery bank into the boat.
The splash of a body falling into the water would alert no one. Sudden terror gripped her. Seen from the boat the bank lay in darkness. Further out in mid-river the mist was still rolling in. By the time the boat was only a few yards from shore not even the cresset light from the ferrymaster’s lodge was visible.
The water might have been ink as she went in except that it was numbingly cold. After the first shock passed, the water closed over her head and she had to force herself back up to the surface. Gasping for air she thrashed
about desperately trying to get her bearings.
about desperately trying to get her bearings.
Get back to the shore.
But she had no idea where it was and her boots were already filling, dragging her down, and she had to tear at the laces and kick out until they were grasped and drawn off by the current.
Somewhere out of the mist came a shout. Taking it as an indication of her abductor’s position, she began to strike out in the opposite direction but was then confused by the subtle splash of an oar from somewhere ahead. She circled, trying to make no ripples that would give her away, the freezing water beginning to numb her.
In terror of being recaptured she began to strike out again, and then the mist rolled over her and spread its wreaths on the dark waters, and the cold snatched her breath and turned it to stone in her lungs and night came down as she slid beneath the black waves.
Some creature was lying next to her. She moved closer to share its heat. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that she was unclothed. Spreading her hands over her breasts and down to her thighs she discovered that all her garments had disappeared, no shift, no breast band, no leggings, no belt with its pouch of herbs, and on top of her, pressing down heavily, was a fur of some kind.
Her fingers explored the edge where it covered her face. It felt like a wolfskin. Despite its warmth, and the heat coming from the creature beside her, she could not stop shivering. A deep coldness gripped her. Ice ached inside every part of her body. Only half conscious she moved closer to the source of heat.
Next time she woke up memories began to return to remind her how she had got here. At first disjointed, they were of water closing over her head, her determination to reach the bank and escape the brute sent by Ravenscar, the sinister creaking of the oars, the swirling mist. She remembered staring into a void, seeing nothing, fog on all sides, the river invisible, only its cold grip as evidence of its presence. She remembered the boat, water slapping against its sides, the oars again, as it drew nearer. A terrified phrase had hammered in her skull:
I can’t make it.
Then the fierce will that made her keep on swimming returned.
I can’t make it.
Then the fierce will that made her keep on swimming returned.
Memory, still fragmented, brought back a sensation of being hauled from the water. A confusion of falling. Something caught at her clothes and she cried out. She was being dragged, remembered half crawling up a bank. She fell to her knees when she felt solid ground beneath her. Mud oozed between her fingers.
She must have slept again, the memory of mud and the iron grip of the river’s reluctance to release her winding her dreams into nightmare.
Something was pressed to her lips and a warm liquid dribbled into her mouth. Honey. A deep tiredness overcame her and she surrendered to it.
When she came to herself again she forced her eyes open and watched the patterns dancing across an unfamiliar ceiling above her head. It was firelight. Without moving she watched the flickering red brilliance, the yellow, the gold, repetitive in essence but never entirely the same. It soothed her. She looked at it for a long time until she
thought to wonder where she was. Still shaken by spasms in the aftermath of the great chill she had suffered she moved towards the warmth radiating from the source beside her and her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep again.
thought to wonder where she was. Still shaken by spasms in the aftermath of the great chill she had suffered she moved towards the warmth radiating from the source beside her and her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep again.
Eventually the realisation came to her that it must be a person lying next to her. It must be the one who had saved her from the river, removed her wet garments, dried her naked body, covered her with the wolfskin and now – as she saw when she did eventually manage to lift her head – lay beside her.
She stared at the almost familiar mouth just inches away. The half-moon shape of eyelashes, black as jet, the sharp high cheekbones.
Her pupils dilated. Lips parted. She made an involuntary movement to escape and his eyes opened. He put out an arm to detain her. A dangerous smile swam above her as he raised himself on one elbow and studied her expression.
‘Awake?’
She dragged the fur over her breasts. She was shivering again.
The spy, Rivera, rolled off the couch and stood up. He was covered decently in a long night-shift but his arousal was obvious. He moved out of her range of vision and returned almost at once with a carafe and a sort of chalice. Figured silver glinted in the firelight. It had two handles like a loving cup.
Kneeling beside the couch he pushed one arm under her head to raise it and tilted the cup towards her lips. He must have done this before, she realised, tasting the
same honeyed drink. The sweet scent of herbs floated in the steam.
same honeyed drink. The sweet scent of herbs floated in the steam.
She jerked away, remembering to cover herself, and put out a hand to ward him off.
‘It’s not poison!’ he laughed softly. ‘It’ll be good for you. Drink it.’ He held it so she could take hold of the two handles herself.
Cautiously she took another sip. This time she did not drift off into oblivion but she felt disembodied. It was like a dream. The heat, the cold, the confusion. This man.
She drank some more then watched as he placed the cup on the floor. He went on kneeling at the side of the couch.
‘You were so cold when I dragged you from the water, I thought you were dead. I believe you were very close to it.’
He noticed that she was shivering again and slid in beside her under the wolfskin and put his arms round her. His body heat was like fire. She was drawn to it but, shocked, tried to hold herself away. He moved back and patted the wolfskin more closely round her until she was inside a hot cocoon.
‘The only way to bring you back from the dead was by sharing my body heat with you. This chamber’s like a furnace,’ he pointed out, ‘it’s a wonder the thatch isn’t alight and yet you’re still shivering. Here.’ He reached onto the floor beside him and poured some more of the herbal liquid into the cup. ‘Trust me. It’ll help.’
Her lips felt stiff but she managed to croak, ‘Did you pull me from the water?’
‘I heard the splash as you fell.’
‘Was I close to the bank?’
‘No.’
She still felt dazed and did not ask whether he was in a boat himself and if so how he had been able to see her in the layers of fog and the unlit nothingness of the water or, indeed, how he had come to be there in the first place, as if by some necromancy. Instead she murmured, ‘This is the second time you’ve saved my life. You seem to appear like a guardian angel when I most need you.’
The fiery heat from the drink surged through her body and her head sank back onto the pillows. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘All night. You fell in before compline and it’s now nearly tierce.’
‘As late as that? But I must go back to—’ She struggled from under the heavy coverings over them both, trying to remember why it was so urgent to leave, then remembering she was naked, then trying to pull the blanket round herself and then, after that, attempting to rise to her feet. The effort was too great. Her knees buckled. As she made a grab to save herself Rivera was beside her at once, catching her in his arms, the fur slipping down, and, struggling against him, she felt his fingers on her skin like flame.
‘Let me go, Rivera.’ She uttered his name without thinking. It changed something.
He laughed. ‘Rivera? Been checking on me?’
He stepped back, made no move to prevent her breaking free, but noticing that she was trembling again, pulled the wolfskin over her shoulders. He forced her back onto the couch.
‘You’re not well enough. Don’t be in such a hurry.
Your clothes are still wet. Your boots are at the bottom of the Thames. And besides all that, you nearly drowned. You’ve endured a profound physical shock. Rest a while. You can stay here as long as you need to.’
Your clothes are still wet. Your boots are at the bottom of the Thames. And besides all that, you nearly drowned. You’ve endured a profound physical shock. Rest a while. You can stay here as long as you need to.’
He went over to a shelf and took down a phial, unstoppered it and returned to the couch. ‘Lie still.’ He began to rub a fiery sweet-scented oil into her shoulders. She assumed he would stop there but he continued, methodically working the oil into her icy skin underneath the sheet with all the thoroughness of somebody who did it for a living until every inch of her body was glowing. When he finished he went to get an extra blanket from a chest and tucked her into it.
Knowing what she had been told, his tenderness disturbed her. He was a spy for Bolingbroke, an interrogator at the Tower, a man she had been warned against. He was an enemy of the King. She had been warned about him. And yet …
‘Does anyone know I’m here?’ she murmured from the depths of her cocoon when he had rewrapped her.
He shook his head. She noticed how his hair shone in the firelight. Long and untidy, black as night. When he looked at her his eyes seemed to drink her in as if he shared everything she had ever known. He came to sit on the edge of the couch.
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