Perfect Shadows (45 page)

“If the Earl of Southampton will so humble himself as to
publicly confess his wrongdoing, admit his unworthiness, and beg my mercy and
forgiveness, he will not go to the block. But he will spend the rest of his
life in the Tower, and much joy may it bring him.” She turned on her heel and
stalked away, stiff as a Nuremberg mechanical doll. Cecil shot a glance in my
direction before following her. I watched her go, with Cecil a misshapen shadow
at her side, then made my way through the passages and galleries of Whitehall
to the stables. It was only later, on my way to the Tower, that I realized that
I had had the blood of a queen on my tongue without even tasting it. And that
this time she had not returned the ring.

Hal lounged restlessly in his narrow bed. The chamber he had
been given was comfortable enough, well above ground and with windows and a
fireplace, but it was still a cell and the sound of the bolt sliding home hit
him in the pit of his stomach every time. He had a table and two stools, and
Diabolus had even allowed him some books. He didn’t sleep well at night, due to
the idleness of his days, and the fears of his future that would come nibbling
around the edges of his thoughts. It was nearly as bright as day in the room,
due to the full moon reflecting on the snow, but not quite bright enough to
read, and he had already used up his day’s allowance of candles, even though
the smell of the tallow made him ill. His allowance would afford the more
expensive wax candles, but all the gaolers brought were tallow. He wondered if
that was by the orders of the Queen, who was, he mused, adept at indulging her
parsimony to vent her spleen. He scratched his unkempt beard absently; he had
seen neither bath nor comb since the day of the arrest and was filthy and
verminous.

The trial was set for the nineteenth, three days from now,
though they might as well have held it immediately for all the defense he would
be able to make. Hal started at the sound of the bolt, drawing himself up into
a crouch at the head of the narrow bed. He had daily been expecting them to
drag him down to the cellars for questioning, and every day that they did not
only made him the more certain that they would do so the next. He was no longer
so naive as to think that his rank would protect him. His jaw dropped as he
recognized the figure in the doorway, even half turned as he was, to speak with
the guard who let him in.

“Kit! How did you—I haven’t been allowed visitors,” he
heard himself babbling and shut his mouth with a snap.

I laughed and set the candle on the table, drawing a stool
closer to the bed, and Hal slid into a more comfortable position. I could see
him biting his lip to keep his teeth from chattering audibly. I smiled without
humor, and held up a limp purse. Hal nodded, saying simply, “I’m glad you’ve
come,” reaching out his hands to me, to pull me to rest at his side on the bed,
then abruptly pushing me away.

“No! I’m louse-ridden and filthy; you mustn’t touch me.” He
flushed with the humiliation of being seen in such a state, but I only chuckled
low in my throat and sat beside him on the bed. I recalled how Mephistophilis
had embraced me when I was in a state far worse than Hal’s was now, and leant
into a kiss. As my arms slid around him he lost his fragile control and began
to weep, clinging to me like a child. I let him cry until the sobs receded,
then offered my handkerchief, which Hal took gratefully, embarrassed by his
outburst.

Hal gazed at me abstractedly for a moment then blurted, “You
have been Libby’s lover, too, haven’t you? No, I need to know, for if I am to
die, I want you to look after her. God knows that I do not blame either of you,
the way that I neglected you both.” He rested his head on my shoulder, waiting
for an answer.

“I have been Libby’s lover,” I answered slowly. “She is like a
bright flame, like the sun. I did not mean to hurt you, either of you.”

“I know,” he said quietly, reaching up to stroke my hair, dark
hair so like his own. “I’m not about to run horn-mad, although I suppose that
is what Penny, Lady Rich that is, had in mind when she told me, trying to rouse
my wrath at you. She and Robin feared that you would persuade me to abandon
their cause. Would to God you had! I was only relieved to think that you had
reason to care for her if things went awry.” He was silent for a moment,
picking at the lint on his draggled finery, before continuing.

“And so they did, of course, from the start. The lowest prentice
could have told Robin that we should ride to Whitehall and seize the person of
the Queen. But Robin must needs secure the city and the armory at the Tower
first, the fool! Then we sat at meat for almost two hours while Robin fretted
and faltered and the Crown rallied its forces. The more fool I for following
him! You tried to warn me. Will it be the block? I think I could face a clean
death, Kit, but not . . . the other.”

“I’ve been to see the queen,” I told him gently. “There is a
good chance that you will be spared,” I added, and told him the terms. Hal
nodded solemnly.

“Kit, I am afraid to die,” he whispered. I felt a chill at this
unconscious echoing of Richard’s words, and silenced Hal with a kiss. My mouth
moved to his throat, and the painfully sweet pleasure washed over us both as my
teeth sank into the throbbing vein. Hal moaned softly, then dragged my hand to
his groin, moaning again at the touch, his release overtaking him even as he
slipped his other hand into my clothing. The sound of the bolt jolted us apart
and I drew back, licking the blood from my lips as the door opened. Cecil stood
there, the light of his candle throwing a large and twisted shadow behind him
on the wall.

“The Earl of Southampton is not permitted visitors, your
highness,” he said quietly, and motioned me to follow him from the room as he
turned to go.

“Might I have a bath, my Lord Secretary?” Hal called after us,
but in tones of arrogant indifference rather than the entreaty one might
expect. Cecil turned back and raised the candle to look at the prisoner, taking
in the rumpled clothing and matted hair. He clucked his tongue at the sight and
set the candle back on the table.

“I had left orders that you were to be so accommodated, if you
asked, my lord, and had naturally assumed that some sort of false pride or
defiant despair was the reason for your squalor. I will look into it, that, and
other matters of discipline among the Tower guard,” he added with a hard look
at me, then picked up his candle and left the room. I paused to grin at Hal,
flying back for a parting kiss, only the merest feather touch on his lips,
before leaving him alone again. I had noticed the burnt-out stubs of the tallow
candles, and purposely left my candle of good hard wax behind, so that he might
at least read for as long as its light lasted.

In a small room near the Royal apartments and furnished as an
office Cecil offered the prince the room’s only chair, although he was himself
trembling with fatigue, and almost too tired to think. He had had an exhausting
interview with Essex that day, as well as overseeing the confessions of several
of the other conspirators. A painful meeting with Essex’s mother, the strident
and aging Lettice Knollys (now Blount), had followed, and it had taken all his
strength to sit through the torrents of mixed invective and supplication she
poured over him. He passed a weary handover his eyes, and was startled to feel
the touch of a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, but was firmly guided to the
chair and gently pushed into it. The thought that the man could easily murder
him floated idly through his mind for a moment and he found with a sort of
distant surprise that he was too tired to care. He sat looking at the prince’s
back as words were exchanged with the man-at-arms outside the office, and
realized with a start that he had actually nodded off for a time as Prince
Kryštof turned back to face him with a small black bottle in his hands, which
he set on the desk before turning to search about in the cupboard. Cecil
cleared his throat and the prince turned to face him, two small cups in his
hands and a smile which, though rendered slightly sinister by the eye patch,
seemed genuine enough. He poured them each a dollop of brandy, putting the cup
into Cecil’s hand and raising his own to drink first. That I might not think he
is trying to poison me, Cecil thought muzzily, and downed his own before the
cup had left the prince’s lips. Being an abstemious man by nature, he rarely
took brandy, and drank even his wine well watered. The fiery liquor burned into
his belly, and he promptly choked. He wiped his streaming eyes and held out his
cup to the prince for another dose, answering the sympathetic smile with a wry
one of his own. Kryštof ’s teeth flashed in the candlelight as he poured, and
then thumped the cork back into the bottle.

“How did you get in to see Southampton, your grace?” Cecil asked
carefully, sipping at the second cup. He would regret the liquor soon, he knew,
but just now it was enabling him to get through one more bit of work, and he
was grateful to the foreigner for thinking of it. Kryštof, half sitting on the
table, considered for a time before he spoke.

“Bribery, my lord,” he answered levelly, and
Cecil nodded.

“I do not suppose you would be able to point out to me the men
who accepted your bribes?”

“I fear that one Englishman in livery is very like another,”
Kryštof replied with a shrug.

“Just so. And I would suppose that the earl said nothing about
the rebellion?”

“Only that he would I had persuaded him to stay by me instead of
jaunting about London that day,” Kryštof answered carefully, framing his words
so as not to be of use to Cecil in his prosecution. The Secretary felt his head
sinking to rest on his arms and was distantly aware that his breathing had
become faint snores. When he woke some time later he found that the prince had
taken up a cloak from the chest near the door and covered him as he slept,
before taking leave.

A hand shot from the shadows pooling the narrow street, grasping
my ankle and nearly tripping me. I jerked away, kicking once at the prostrate
form before I realized that the man was begging. I reached into the shadow and
hauled the beggar into the moonlight to have a look at him. The man was small
and ragged, and from the smell of him, drunk as well as dirty. The head tilted
back as he raised his uncaring eyes, and I gasped as I recognized him: Thomas
Nashe. I dragged him, half-conscious, to the inn where I had left my horse, and
rode on to Chelsey with my unfortunate former colleague slung over and tied
like a meal-sack to the saddle of a hired packhorse.

Sylvana suppressed a cry of outrage as the pile of rags and dirt
was dumped onto her scrubbed kitchen floor, with the terse command, “Wash him,”
but her heart went out to the thin and battered little man she found when she
peeled the rags away. She popped him into a tub of hot water as soon as the
kettles boiled, speaking soothingly to quell his protests, and when he
understood at last that they weren’t going to kill him, Nashe gave a sigh of
great content and let her scrub him clean. She tried to comb his hair, but it
was so matted that she ended up cutting it off close to his skull, then
lathering it firmly twice before checking the stubble for nits. She dragged a
worn shirt belonging to Jehan over his head and bundled him onto a pallet near
the fireplace, where he sank into a thankful slumber that lasted until late the
next afternoon.

When Nashe woke he was bewildered to find that his pleasant
dream was a reality. There was a large kettle of soup bubbling on the hob, and
the kitchen, seen through an open door, was filled with the heavenly scent of
new bread. He had been moved while he slept to a small room off the kitchen
that had a tiny window, and a grate that shared the kitchen flue. A woman
entered and bent over him, and he drank in the sight of her like wine. She was
no tavern trull or debauched and raddled harlot, but a buxom and beautiful
matron, neatly dressed and blessedly clean. She smiled at him, and he returned
the grin, his gapped teeth giving him the air of a mischievous boy. He tried to
rise from the pallet, but realized that his knees were shaking so that he would
not be able to stand.

“No, Master Nashe, you must rest. Abundant wine and scanty food
make for but a poor living,” she admonished him, and though as a rule he shared
his countrymen’s rabid xenophobia, he found the faint foreign lilt in her
speech marvelously attractive.

“Mistress, you know my name, but I do not know yours, nor yet
where I am, nor why.” The sound of his own voice shocked him, hoarse as a Tower
raven, and a wracking cough shook him. The woman knelt beside him, holding a
cloth to his lips until the paroxysm subsided, then quickly tossed it away, but
not before he saw the blood staining it. He lay back on the pillows she
provided and swallowed the bread sopped in broth that she fed to him while she
answered his questions.

“This is the house of the Prince Kryštof of Sybria, who is
staying here in England for a time, and I am his housekeeper, Sylvana. He had
some business at the Tower last night and recognized you when you asked his
aid, and then, taking pity on your plight, he brought you here to his house. He
will see you later. Rest now,” and she slipped a mug of mulled wine, well laced
with honey and horehound, into his hands and returned to her work.