The Tudor Vendetta (27 page)

Dudley stared at the ring in my palm. If I had not known better, I would have thought he recognized it. Then he let out a cruel laugh. “Is this all you can think of to save your flea-ridden hide, another of your base tricks? I think not. She is no longer prey to your wiles.”

“Then you have no reason not to let her judge for herself. If she finds you kept this from her, she will have executed an innocent man who did only as she bade.”

I waited, knowing that if he left without taking the ring I would never leave this place alive. Then, to my overwhelming relief, he snatched the ring from me and strode out.

My legs gave way. I crumpled to my knees.

I had entrusted my only hope to my worst foe.

LONDON

Chapter Twenty

I spent the night curled up on the bed without sheets or coverlet, wrapped in my cloak, listening to the grumbling of the Tower at night: the occasional roar of the aging, wild beasts caged in the menagerie; the tromping of the night watch below the window; and the deafening, dread-filled silence in between.

When dawn’s light leaked through the panes, footsteps came at my door and a sullen guard delivered a meal. I regarded the trencher in disgust: moldering bread and a bowl of watery gruel I would not have tossed to a beggar on the street. A flare of irritation caused me to growl, “You call this sustenance? I demand fresh water. Or am I to satiate my thirst with my own piss?”

The guard, one of the many menials who greased the Tower’s inner workings, looked taken aback by this display of defiance by a royal prisoner. “I’m not permitted to—” he started to mumble, but I waved him out, furious, overturning the trencher and taking childish satisfaction in the splatter of gruel against the wall.

My fury ebbed as quickly as it had flared. Pacing to the embrasure, I pressed my face against the icy glass. I was trembling. The snow had stopped, leaving melting piles about the courtyard, indented with sodden footprints. As I watched guards and others engaged in the Tower’s business come and go, I wondered how long they would keep me here before they led me to my death. I had devoted my life to seeing Elizabeth safe, even when she had trodden a fine line between righteousness and treason herself. I had never questioned her motives—

A sudden gasp curdled my throat.

Elizabeth. She now knew the truth. She knew everything and she wanted me dead. I turned about, the opaque mystery shedding its final layers. The child she had borne and hidden, Lady Parry’s disappearance—it was all Elizabeth’s doing, because now she was queen and under no circumstances could she allow Raff to endanger her. Had she seized advantage of a terrifying situation to ensure her secret would remain unknown? Had I unwittingly walked into the very snare she had prepared, unaware that another agent, a Spanish agent, also stalked me? If so, if the letter in the poisoned box had indeed betrayed my secret, then like Mary before her, Elizabeth would now see me as a rival, a bastard but still a man, with Tudor blood in his veins.

She would never let me live.

She never tells the entire truth if she can avoid it, and what she does not say often ends up costing someone their life.

God help me, Kate had warned me. Elizabeth was a survivor. She had outlived numerous attempts on her life—tenacious and unrelenting, she had finally gained her throne after years of peril. I had no doubt she would see me dead to protect it.

I rushed to the door then, banging my fists against it, bloodying my knuckles as I shouted myself hoarse for the guard. My fear for Shelton, whom I had sent to Hatfield, and for Raff, too, who did not know who he was, overcame me. When the guard did not come, I reeled from the door to prowl the chamber, desperate now that I had finally uncovered the truth.

After hours of pacing like the caged lions above the Tower gatehouse, I exhausted myself. As dusk once again swallowed the light I fell onto the bed, trying to find some measure of reassurance in the fact that Elizabeth had not ordered me killed outright, grasping onto the faint hope that Cecil might yet intervene. Though I had left court without word, betraying his trust, he valued me enough to instill caution in her.

She might keep me alive. For now.

When the jangle of keys came at the door, turning the lock, I sprang to my feet, edging from the chamber with nothing but my fists to defend me. A cloaked figure appeared, removing her hood to let it crumple about her shoulders as she looked about the room in disbelief.

“Kate!” I had not reached her before she stepped aside and another figure entered, fully hooded and cloaked in black velvet.

Lifting a slim white hand to pull back her hood, Elizabeth revealed her icy countenance.

The moment extended between us, fraught with the memories of our past adventures, with my suspicion of the falsehood I now believed her capable of. She was visibly gaunt, cheekbones incised under her skin. I had been right that she did not rest easy. Already her burden had begun to age her before her time.

“Leave us,” she said. Kate retreated from the room. I was alone with the queen and a past we had both tried to conceal.

She did not hesitate. “Is it true?” she asked. “Are you who the letter claims you are?” She did not offer the letter in question and I debated for a moment if I should disabuse her of any notion that we shared the same blood. She had nothing to prove it, as it appeared Cecil had not told her what he knew. But, even as I considered it, I knew the time for lies was past. I would go to my death with the truth on my lips.

“I am.” I drew the unlaced edges of my shirt about my throat, feeling vulnerable before her in my sagging breeches and soiled hose, stripped of finery and pretense.

“Why did you not tell me?” She took a single step forward. “Why did you leave it to be discovered thus, in a letter concealed in a box of death intended for me?”

“Would you have believed me?” My question detained her advance. “I saw no reason to tell you. It made no difference. I would have served you, regardless. I have never wanted anything more.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she said, “given who you are.”

“Believe what you will, my lady. What right can I possibly claim?”

“But you—you are my aunt Mary of Suffolk’s son! You might have been…” Her incredulity faded into the unseen chasm between us. “You should never have kept it from me,” she said fiercely. “I gave you refuge. You had my trust yet you thought it wise to tell my own sister, who sought my death, while leaving me in ignorance. Did you not think I deserved to know?”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I did. It seems we both hid secrets we should never have kept.”

Her mouth pursed. Then she swept past me, her cloak parting over her plain black gown as she gazed out of the embrasure. “When Mary put me in here,” she said, “I thought I would die like my mother. I even made plans to summon the swordsman from Calais. And when I was freed, I vowed to never set foot in the Tower again.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Yet it seems I must lodge here for my coronation. It is the custom, I am told.” She paused. “
If
there is to be a coronation. As matters stand, nothing is certain anymore.”

I did not answer, remaining quiet as she composed herself, looking out toward the very site where her mother had perished. Her sigh was subtle, less an exhalation of surrender than one of forthcoming courage for the battle ahead. “What do you want of me?”

Her words took me aback. When I failed to respond, she turned to face me. “Well? That letter was in a cipher devised only for Lady Parry and me. No one else knew of it, yet somehow you discovered it. And you sent Robert to me with the ring. You must want something. Otherwise, why go through the expense of such an elaborate ruse?”

“You—you think
I
am responsible for all this?” I suddenly wanted to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it, when only hours before I had suspected the same of her. Then I saw her face tighten and I added, “I am no traitor. You must know that. Whatever else that letter claims, I never sought your ruin. The last thing I ever wanted is to be who I am.”

Her struggle to accept my declaration brought a deep crease to her brow. For her, being who she was superseded everything; she had been born to her destiny, believed in it with fervent single-mindedness. She must have found it nearly impossible to concede that I did not envy or desire it, even though she had now begun to recognize the immense weight it entailed.

“I did what was necessary to keep your sister from killing you,” I went on. “I had no choice; she had to know I was more than an intelligencer, that I had personal cause to serve both her and you. The only part I have in any of this is the ring. The boy gave it to me—”

She moved forward so swiftly, she cut off my voice. “Where is he? I will give you whatever you want—a title and castle, enough money to go abroad and live safely. I will see to it personally. You have my word. You can have anything if you only tell me where he is.”

Her anguish overpowered her; as I marked the fear she fought against with all her strength, I said quietly, “I told Lord Robert. He is at Hatfield, with the man I believe to be my father.”

“Liar!” Her hand flashed out, striking me across my cheek.
“Where is my son?”

As I stood there, the sting of her palm on my skin, I whispered, “I do not know.”

“You … you do not
know
?” she echoed, incredulous. “Did you not see him at Vaughan Hall? Did you not just confess you had him taken from there? If you do not know, who does?”

“He is … he is not there?” My dismay must have shown on my face, for Elizabeth reeled back, her hand at her mouth. “He—he is not,” she whispered, her voice fraying. “I sent a messenger to Hatfield as soon as Robert brought me the ring. Ashley returned word that no one had arrived there. It is the only reason you are not dead. Dear God in Heaven, if he is not at Hatfield where you sent him, where is he? He is an innocent. I only ever wanted to keep him safe! Who has my son?”

In that moment, the briars of deception became terrifyingly clear.

I moved quickly to her. “Elizabeth, you must heed me. If I am to save him, you have to trust that as I would give my life for you, so will I do so for him. This man who has him, who planned all of this—I am the only one who can stop him.”

“Man? What man?”

“I do not know him,” I said. “I know only his name: Simon Godwin. He served as tutor in the Vaughan household, but he is far more than they suspected. I think—no, I believe—that he is a hireling of Simon Renard’s, the Imperial ambassador at your sister’s court. Renard discovered the truth about me; your sister must have told him. This gambit Godwin plays is about me, too; he seeks to destroy us both.”

“But Renard is gone,” she said. “After my sister died, he was recalled to Spain.”

“He still could have instructed this man to stay behind to serve as his hound. Renard hunted me when you were under arrest. If your sister confided the truth about me, he would have wanted me dead. Mary was gravely ill; Renard must have feared that as her life weakened, I could emerge as a rival. He could not allow it. He wanted you, and you alone, to inherit the throne. It is part of the gambit.” I added grimly, “The vendetta.”

“Vendetta? You believe a Spanish agent took Hugh to destroy me?” She uttered her son’s real name, the one she had given him, and I ached to hear her despair. “But, why? How did he even know that Hugh existed?”

“He knew because of where you placed the boy,” I said, thinking back on the pieces of the mystery that until now I had not fitted into place. “Lady Vaughan’s family are papists, survivors of the Pilgrimage of Grace. They were acquainted with members of your sister’s court; and Renard knew them. He serves Spain. King Philip may have saved you before—but not to safeguard you. No, he has only ever wanted you in his debt. You told me he does not dare openly challenge you. That day we found the letter in the box, you said he feared the French more because should something befall you, France would champion Mary of Scots in your stead. Has he offered yet to marry you?”

She did not move, did not speak, but as I watched, I saw a tremor pass across her face.

“My lady,” I urged, “now is no time for secrecy. Enough we have had already. Has Philip of Spain submitted a proposal of marriage?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “He has, but I … I did not accept. I told his envoy Feria that I must consider it, that it is too early for such preoccupations.”

I nodded. “As Philip expected you would. Yet to counter the French and keep his grip on England, in the end he must have you. Yet now he knows you will eventually refuse, so he must find a way to force your hand. What if he had a secret to wield, something so powerful, so damning, it could destroy you? You are vulnerable; he could threaten you with your own past so you must choose between him or defend yourself at a time when your realm is weak, your rule opposed by papists who see you as a bastard queen. Elizabeth, what if he had your son?”

“Dear God.” She went ashen. “He could dethrone me before my reign has begun.”

“Precisely. This is Philip’s doing. He kept this agent Godwin here to do his bidding. Raff is in peril; Godwin will take him to Spain. You must send word at once to every port, forbidding the departure of any ships bound for the continent. And,” I added, “I must be set free.”

Her mouth quivered. For a paralyzing moment, I thought she would refuse. She had me captive, a grown man of her Tudor blood destined for the block. She could eliminate the threat I posed to her throne, while the son she’d hidden away remained a secret only a handful of her loyal intimates knew about. Despite all his power, Philip of Spain had no proof; he could never establish that Raff was truly hers. She might survive the storm Philip prepared to unleash; she would never see Raff again, but she still might rule. Only her love for Raff could sway her and I was not certain it would be enough.

She squared her thin shoulders. “Kate! Come at once. Bring his weapons.”

Running into the bedchamber, I seized my cloak. When I returned to Elizabeth, she had drawn up her hood. Kate was at her side; her hand briefly touched mine as she gave me my belt with my sword. “I need coin,” I said and she fumbled for the purse at her waist. “It’s not much,” she said.