Gilt (4 page)

W
ORDS CAN KILL
. A
S SURELY AS SWORD OR AX OR DAGGER
. T
HEY CAN
prostrate the subject and render the speaker voiceless. Words may not fracture bone, but they can wound with devastating precision.

“Me?”

“She’ll never know,” Cat said.

“She’ll never know because I’ll never do it.” I couldn’t let Cat convince me. It was suicide. And I was the last person who should be doing it. Tall, gawky, slightly clumsy, I was a questionable covert agent.

“But Kitty, don’t you see? You are the perfect candidate.”

“How so?”

“You have no suitor,” she said with a sticky smile.

“Thanks for reminding me.” My sarcasm fell flat. “But how does that help?”

“You have no motive. No one will suspect you.”

She had a point. I had no reason to keep the midnight revelries going. No reason except it alleviated the boredom of the day-to-day existence in Lambeth. It gave us a taste of what real court life might be, with the wine and delicacies stolen from the
duchess’s kitchen. With whispered songs and barefoot dancing across the lavender-and-rosemary-strewn floor. Even if my only partner was Alice.

If I stole the key and got caught, I could be sent home, a godforsaken hole on the far side of nowhere. My parents had leapt at the chance to disencumber themselves of their unwanted youngest daughter when I was eight. Cat discovered me on my first day, crying alone in the garden and told me they weren’t worth my tears. I’d never looked back.

“Also,” Cat continued, “you have little family and no one who really wants you. You have no motive, but you have everything to lose.”

The words cut like thin blades. Cat understood the grief and terror lodged deep within me. She knew my fear that ultimately, the rest of the world would treat me as my parents had and abandon me to my own inept facilities.

If I didn’t steal the key, I would forfeit my place at Cat’s side, as forsaken and friendless as if I had gone home. Because Cat’s favor was everything at Norfolk House—more important than money, men, or family influence. She was the one who set the standard, guided the aimless, and judged the unworthy.

But stealing?

“I can’t.” I hadn’t the breath to speak louder than a whisper.

Cat narrowed her eyes.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

Refusing Cat was like refusing the king. No one did it. No one knew where it could lead. To disfavor? Or beheading? But
the panic-inducing thought of returning to the frigid bosom of my family forced me to risk it.

“Won’t.”

Cat stiffened into silence, and I felt the breath quake in my chest.

“Joan?” Cat said sweetly.

Surely I couldn’t get off that lightly? Joan couldn’t say no to anyone.

“Joan, darling, you’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course, Cat,” Joan said, her glance flicking from me to Cat and back again. Jittery. She could feel it, too. The same disquiet that wouldn’t leave my limbs.

“Anything for the good of all the girls here, right?” Cat said.

She aimed all her words directly at me. I knew that she wouldn’t ask Joan to steal from the duchess’s coffer.

“Of course, Cat,” Joan repeated. “You girls are my family.”

I wanted to close my ears to her toadying. Didn’t she know when to be quiet?

Cat linked her arm with Joan’s. They were almost the same height, but where Cat was all curves, like a perfectly proportioned miniature, Joan was round, almost doughy.

“And without our family of girls, what are we?” Cat asked me.

I squirmed. She no longer expected an answer. She expected submission. And with a hopeless surge of self-loathing, I knew she would get it.

Joan stared, open-mouthed, unable to participate in this
one-sided conversation. Alice remained silent and invisible.

“Nobody,” Cat said. I hated her at that moment, with a white-hot rage. I hated her almost as much as I hated myself. “Unwanted and unloved.”

Misery swept through me, scouring away all resistance. I sank down onto the bed, a glacial emptiness yawning in my heart. She was right. Without the girls, without Cat, I was . . .

“Nothing.”

F
OUR DAYS LATER, A BLACK PAWN FROM
A
LICE’S CHESS SET LAY WRAPPED
in the piece of lace in the wood-and-leather coffer. I tucked it beneath the papers and jewels of the duchess’s shifting wealth. The key lay in Cat’s smooth, open palm, a pale pink ribbon dangling from it.

“Oh, Cat!” Joan cried. “You got it!”

“Aren’t you clever?” one of the other girls murmured.

“We’ll have wine and dancing again!”

“And boys!”

News traveled quickly in Norfolk House. The maidens’ chamber was full, in the middle of the day. It was a wonder the entire household didn’t grind to a halt with no one to tend the duchess’s fire or fetch her spiced wine.

Cat smiled. I waited for her to say it was me. I hadn’t wanted to do it. I hadn’t wanted any part of it. The least I could get was the credit.

She opened her mouth, and all around her quieted.

“Tonight,” she said.

The cheer that arose rattled the shutters on the windows.

I couldn’t breathe, stifled by Cat’s treachery, and by Joan’s
willingness to accept it. Only Alice observed me through lowered lashes, pity or contempt on her lips. My heart contracted with the realization that I probably deserved both.

The dancing and cheering stirred the dust and mites from the reeking rushes littering the floor, and nettled my eyes to tears.

I stumbled from the room. No one noticed. They were too busy congratulating Cat, who lapped it all up.

The top two stairs complained bitterly at the weight of the wretchedness I carried with me. I moved to the far left of the stairwell and crept unheard down the more secure runners near the wall. Cat had taught me that little trick when we were ten and raided the buttery at night.

I slipped through the oak gallery, which ran the full length of the house. Autumn sunlight fell heavily on the carved paneling, the duchess’s allegiances spelled out in oak. I passed an ancient pomegranate carved in 1509 for King Henry’s first queen, Catherine of Aragon. A Tudor rose carved for Henry himself. A falcon—abraded and indistinct—for Cat’s cousin, Anne Boleyn, the king’s ill-fated second wife. The third, Jane Seymour, hadn’t lived long enough for the duchess to change any of the panels for her, having died quickly after giving birth to England’s only prince.

The door at the end of the gallery squeaked a little when I opened it and I paused, breath held, before escaping into the garden.

Finally, my lungs functioned again. The sun angled over
the haphazardly shaped hedges. One may have been a griffin, another, a lion. The duchess wanted to keep up with social trends, but had no interest in paying a decent gardener, so the shrubbery grew wild and bizarre. Few people ventured outside, anyway. The duchess cultivated a very
indoor
household, so I often had the outdoors to myself. In the house, I was always surrounded by others, their noise and odors tangible. Outside, I could breathe.

I quickly passed through the garden and exited the grounds. The duchess forbade us to go out alone. She warned us of the murderers, scavengers, and vagrants who hid in the woods. Highwaymen waiting to prey on vulnerable young girls. The only things she didn’t mention were harpies, trolls, and the descendants of Gog the giant.

I never went far—just through the narrow apple orchard on the southeastern edge of the duchess’s garden, up a slight rise to the wooded area the duchess called the “park.” Because Lambeth consisted primarily of marsh and mansions, the duchess coveted the little forest, owned by some long-feuding neighbor who was never willing to sell.

An arch between two oaks led into a clearing made by a huge fallen beech. The tree itself created a sort of bench, albeit one with arse-poking branches at regular intervals. It was the one, magical place where I could be alone. Not even Cat knew about it. My trips to the forest were my secret.

I hoisted myself onto the tree, gathering my skirts around me to avoid snagging. I held myself still, listening to the night-loving forest dwellers rising from their beds, and watching the
sky above me transfigure from white to gold. The trees exhaled the tired scent of autumn. All quieted, and my head sang with the silence.

My seething anger left me, replaced by a dull, familiar ache. Cat served herself well. It was remiss of me to expect anything different. Befriending me was one of the few selfless things she’d ever done. She’d found me, homesick and melancholy, saved me a place next to her at dinner, made room for me in her bed. Gave me my name. That first night, she’d wrapped an arm around me and said, “So, Kitty, would you like to come to court?” and the next day we entered the palace of her imagination, playing a game that never really ended.

Cat was still queen.

I sighed and lay back on the tree. It wasn’t comfortable. Prickly. Awkward. But it allowed me full view of the crumbling leaves and the sky.

A squawk shattered the stillness. Three ravens, grumbling and croaking, bolted from the branches of a tree far to my right and flapped blackly across my view.

The sight of them felt like an omen. A chill crept over my skin like a million tiny feet, and I sat up. A noise froze me. Like an animal, large and clumsy. Or so big it didn’t require stealth. It crashed through the underbrush, through the carpets of fallen leaves crusty from the lack of summer rains. Distant, but approaching quickly.

I pressed my hands against the rough bark of the fallen tree. My fingernails dug into it until flakes came off beneath them. I
couldn’t decide if I should run or stay still. My limbs made the choice for me. I couldn’t move. I hoped whatever it was would think me part of the forest itself.

I strained to look between the spindles and barrels of the bare tree trunks, feeling grievously exposed. A whip of white on the far side of a scramble of hawthorn caught my eye. A flash of gold.

The crashing stopped, cut off by a cry of anguish and replaced by a hungered grunting. It had caught whatever prey it chased.

And then something that sounded like laughter. Not the ravens. More like a man.

My skirt tore with a hoarse whisper as I slid from my bench. I ignored it and crept forward to the low, hedgelike hawthorn. The leaves were just beginning to fall, the berries blood-red against them. I hid, camouflaged in my moss-green gown and heavy brown sleeves, silently thanking Cat for making Wednesday green.

The leaves and branches obscured my vision. I saw one figure. Two. Movement. Leaves. Cobwebs. I used one hand to pry open an eyelet.

Not far away, a man fell to the ground in a patch of dappled late-day sun. He didn’t live at Norfolk House, but obviously came from privilege, judging by the gold braid on his doublet. He was long and lean with blond hair, dark eyes, a straight nose, and a jutting jaw. His beauty was surprising, down near the forest duff.

He held himself up on his hands. His hose slipped down to reveal pale buttocks glowing in the fading light. Something swathed in dirty white writhed beneath him. A woman.

He crushed his face to hers, and a growl escaped him.

“I know you want this.”

For one startling instant of intense clarity, I felt the woman’s pain, the man’s lust. My heart kicked me in the chest. Pummeled me. Screamed at me to flee. But my stomach sank right down to the roots beneath me and locked me where I knelt.

Two more men stood beyond, grimacing like the disembodied heads of traitors on London Bridge.

One looked down, his head bent at the angle of a supplicant. He watched the spectacle, one foot planted firmly on the woman’s left wrist.

Her right hand dug spasmodically at the earth.

The other man was really a boy. Not much older than me. A swag of rich golden hair framed a round face and wide-set brown eyes. He stared out into the forest.

And found me.

He squinted. Bewilderment clouded his features. Then comprehension cleared them.

I recovered my feet and ran. Crashes and snaps echoed in my wake. Thin fingers of tree limbs yanked at my skirts and wrists. My legs leadened. My breath came in choking gasps. It was like fleeing pursuit in a nightmare, but knowing I couldn’t wake.

I strained to hear a shout of alarm. A cry to give chase. I heard none. Just an exultant howl of satisfaction.

I reached the arch of the oak trees, crossed into the light of civilization. I ran back to the house with the visions I had seen streaming out behind me like a veil, twisting and unwrapping but never tearing completely free.