Holding Court (5 page)

Chapter Seven

Well, This Is Awkward

K
ing Henry holds his sword at the ready with one hand as he pushes the ax down with the other. He’s so huge he barely fits on the stone circle with the suit of armor. “By Saint George, how did I not know of this?” he says as it begins to spin, and then he disappears into the secret passageway beyond.

Grayson, Drew, and I exchange looks.

“Do you think we should follow him?” Drew asks.

“
I’m
not going back in there,” I say. “I don’t have a sword.” Not that I would go back in if I did have one.

“I’m pretty sure he can take care of himself,” Grayson says.

There are no panicked screams from King Henry, but then
he
was expecting to see a dead body. We wait in silence, all eyes on the wall where the suit of armor has been replaced with a curved section of stone. If I didn’t know about the revolving alcove, I would’ve never noticed the very faint outline between the stones.

After what seems like endless hours later, the wall begins to move and King Henry reappears.

He gives me a strange look and re-sheaths his sword.

“Nothing in there but cobwebs,” he says.

“What?” I ask, certain I must have misheard him.

“There is no body,” King Henry says. “Nothing but an empty passageway with a staircase at either end.”

“But that’s impossible,” I protest. “She was right there on the other side of the wall. I saw her.”

King Henry shakes his head. “I do not know what you saw, but there is nothing there now, Mistress Verity.”

“I swear there was a dead girl in there. Why would I make something like that up?” I take a step toward the alcove and stop. I don’t want to go back in there, but I can’t believe the body is gone. There’s no way I hallucinated a dead girl. Is there? “She was lying in the middle of the passageway, to the left of the suit of armor? Brown hair, dark eyes. She had a thick gold chain wrapped around her neck?”

“I assure you, Mistress Verity, the passageway is quite empty. Perhaps you were mistaken about the”—he pauses as if searching for the right word—“
vitality
of the girl you saw.”

“There’s no way she was alive. I think someone strangled her. Her eyes were bulging out of her head and her face was all purple and—”

King Henry holds up a hand. “You are welcome to check the passageway yourself, Mistress Verity.”

I look at King Henry and then the alcove. “You didn’t hear anyone else in there? What if they’re hiding? What if I go in there and…”

“I’ll go with you,” Grayson says, looking at King Henry for approval.

King Henry nods and Grayson steps onto the stone circle and holds out his hand. “It’ll be a tight squeeze but I think we can both fit.”

I take his hand and join him on the stone circle. We stand with our faces inches apart, our bodies pressed together. I bite my lip and reach for the ax, fear and uncertainty over what I saw in the passageway distracting me from the thrill of being this close to Grayson Chandler.

He puts one hand on my shoulder and the other on his sword hilt. “Ready.”

I push the ax and we spin into the passageway beyond.

There is no girl, dead or otherwise.

“She was right there.” I point at the bare stone floor. “I swear, Grayson. She was lying there with her eyes open and the chain wrapped around her throat and she was dead. Absolutely and completely dead.”

“I believe you, Jules,” he says, but I can’t tell if he means it. He looks up and down the passageway. “I wonder where the staircases lead.”

Before I can stop him he takes off down the passageway. I hurry after him and we come to a stop at a set of stairs that spirals upward.

“These look like they go to the second floor. Do you know what’s above us?” I ask.

“I’d guess King Henry’s private rooms. They’re off-limits to the staff. Let’s see where the other set goes.”

We walk to the other end of the passageway where we find a narrow set of stairs leading down into the dark.

“What do you think is down there?” Grayson asks.

“The Pit of Despair?” I suggest.

Grayson gives a nervous laugh. “There must be a light switch somewhere,” he says, running his hand along the wall at the top of the stairs.

“I’m not going down there.”

“Yeah, we definitely need a light.”

“Or a lobotomy.” I look back down the secret passageway toward the suit of armor. “If there are stairs leading to other parts of the castle, that means there are probably other entrances to the passageway, right? So there definitely could have been someone else in here with me when I found the body.”

“On second thought,” Grayson says, looking down the dark staircase. “Maybe we should finish this conversation back in the main hall?”

“Good plan,” I say. “You believe me, don’t you? I swear I didn’t hallucinate a dead girl.”

“I believe you,” he says, but avoids looking at me.

We step back onto the stone circle and his face is once again inches from my own. He smells like peppermint soap, fresh hay, and boy. If I leaned forward a little bit and he tilted his chin…

“Well, this is awkward,” Grayson says, grinning down at me.

“The cuckoo favors another nest!” I blurt, and want to pull my wimple over my face.

Grayson looks like he’s considering cuckoo things, too, as he reaches out and tilts the ax.

Once we’re back in the hallway I’m expecting Grayson to tell King Henry what a nutjob I am, but all he says is, “You’re right, Your Majesty. There’s no sign of a body in there.”

King Henry looks pissed. “Mistress Verity, please report to the Great Wardrobe to turn in your costume. And get that arm taken care of. When you are finished please come to my study.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

“I will deal with this,” he says to Grayson and Drew, then he reaches out and yanks the ax out of the armored glove. “In the meantime, this passageway is off-limits. Understood?”

We all nod, and King Henry waves the ax at us. “Off with you now. And not a word of this to anyone.”

Everyone nods again, but if King Henry thinks no one’s going to hear about my dead body hallucination, he’s crazier than the Mad Maid of Kent.

A
s I round the corner to the Great Wardrobe I run smack into Floyd “the Keeper” Bean.

“Well, hullo, Mistress Verity,” he says, “or should I say, Sister Elizabeth?”

“Uh, hi,” I say and try to step around him.

“I hear you’re the new psychic nun. Have you a premonition for the Keeper?”

“What? No. Sorry. Listen, I need to get changed and—”

“Why so hot and bothered, Sister?”

Um, ew. “You know, you’re really good at that leering thing. Is that part of your character description or is that your own personal touch? It’s very charming in an I’m-a-voyeuristic-taxidermist-loner kind of way,” I say because it’s much easier to be irritated by Floyd at the moment than it is to think about the dead body I may or may not have just imagined.

“Ah, a feisty one. I like it.”

Oh, please. “Yeah, well, don’t get too attached. I’m probably about to get fired. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I push past him and make a break for the door of the Great Wardrobe.

“I’ll be watching you, Sister. That’s the Keeper’s job, you know,” Floyd calls after me as I duck through the door.

Geoffrey looks up as I enter the shop. “Is everything all right out there?” he asks, “I thought I heard some sort of commotion in the hallway.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I thought I saw something but it was nothing. Everything’s fine.” I grab my clothes from my cubby and make a beeline for one of the dressing rooms.

“What did you think you saw?” Geoffrey asks as he follows me over to the dressing room.

“I wish I knew,” I say as I pull the curtain shut in his face.

I wrestle with the pins holding on my veil, then strip off the rest of my Maid of Kent outfit and pull on my polka-dot dress, careful not to get any blood on my clothes. When I come back out Geoffrey is still standing right outside the dressing room.

“Uh, hi,” I say.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, do you have any Band-Aids?”

Geoffrey retrieves a first aid kit from one of the cupboards and hands it to me. “Blood is very difficult to remove from linen,” he says.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I hand him the wad of nun clothes. “Hopefully it’s only on the sleeve of the nightgown thingy and not the dress, too.”

“Habit.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s called a habit. The garment worn by the Holy Maid of Kent. There’s the habit, and attached to that is the scapular. Underneath it you wear a shift and on your head you wear a wimple and a veil.”

“Good to know,” I say, but he just stands there looking down at the wad of clothes in his arms while I clean the blood off my arm and slap a giant Band-Aid on my elbow.

“King Henry is very particular about these things. Everything must be historically accurate down to the smallest detail.”

“Yeah, well, right now King Henry is waiting for me in his study, so I’d better get a move on.”

“Yes, of course. Mustn’t keep His Majesty waiting. You know what happens to those who displease Henry VIII.” He smiles, so I’m pretty sure it’s meant as a joke, but I’m too fresh from my dead body experience to find it the least bit amusing.

As I’m climbing the stairs to the second floor, I think about the fact that King Henry went into the passageway by himself. And I realize he was probably in there long enough to get rid of a dead body. He could have hauled it up the stairs to his private rooms or tossed it down the stairs or…

I stop outside the door to King Henry’s study, suddenly nervous about losing more than my job as a psychic nun at a cheesy tourist attraction. Just how far was Hank Bacon, Tudor superfan, willing to go to get into character as Henry VIII, a guy who hanged or beheaded anyone who pissed him off?

As a precautionary measure, I pull out my cell phone and dial Gran’s number. When her voicemail picks up I whisper into the phone, “Gran, it’s Jules. Just so you know, I’m about to go into a meeting with Hank Bacon, aka King Henry. If I don’t come home tonight tell the police to look in the secret passageway. There’s an entrance behind the suit of armor in the main hallway on the ground floor. I love you. Bye.”

I stick the phone back in my backpack, take a deep breath, and knock on the heavy wooden door.

Chapter Eight

Should Have Seen That Coming

“
H
ave a seat, Mistress Verity,” King Henry says when I enter the room. He’s sitting behind his desk, still in costume. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m about to be beheaded for treason? I’m not really sure how to answer that question.”

“Nervous? Confused? Scared? I would think one or all of those would apply. Mistress Verity, I will be honest. This is a new one for me. I have never had an employee, psychic or otherwise, claim to see a dead body that then disappeared before anyone else could verify its existence. I hardly know how to proceed. What does one do under these circumstances? Call the police? Close the castle and have it thoroughly searched? Take a head count and make sure all of my employees are accounted for? Contact all of the visitors who came to the castle today and make sure they left with the same number in their party that they came with? Do you see the quandary I’m in? I do not wish to alarm anyone, but at the same time the safety of my employees and that of the castle guests is of the utmost importance to me. As I am sure you understand.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“The whole affair is somewhat complicated by your, shall we say, unique gift?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, as someone with the gift of visions you are privy to information that we lesser mortals are not. Therefore it is difficult to know what you saw, versus what you might have…intuited.”

“There’s no way that girl was some sort of vision. I touched her. I promise you, she was real.”

“In the end,” King Henry continues as if I haven’t said anything, “I decided upon the simplest course of action.” He stands up, and I’m pretty sure this is the part where he’s going to go all Henry VIII on me and either lop my head off or order one of his minions to do it. “I called your mother.”

“
What?
” So not what I was expecting.

“I said, I called your mother. She was kind enough to give me her phone number when I visited your family’s antique shop. I told her what occurred here tonight and asked her what conclusions she might draw from the episode—if it’s possible that what you saw in the secret passageway is somehow a manifestation of your gift. I understand these kinds of things run in your family and I thought she might be able to shed some light on the situation.”

“Awesome. I bet that was an enlightening conversation.” My mom’s gift is completely different from mine, and completely different from Gran’s. And while Gran has chosen to share her gift with the world in the most obnoxious way possible, my mom has chosen the incognito route. No one except Gran and I, and my dad, know the specifics of her gift. And while she’d never fire me for having an involuntary blurting episode in her shop, I know she thinks there are things I could be doing to control my gift instead of arbitrarily spewing premonitions, or whatever the hell you want to call what I do. So I’m sure she loved getting a phone call from King Henry essentially asking her if I was as batshit crazy as the character I’m supposed to be portraying. Not to mention, she was at the airport, about to board a plane for Paris.

“Actually, she suggested I speak with your grandmother. Who is on her way here now.”

I groan. “Super. That should be helpful.” Not. “Why don’t you just fire me and be done with it?”

“Mistress Verity, there may or may not be a dead body somewhere on my property. If there is, I need to find it. If what you saw was a vision of some sort, I would like to keep it from coming true. And I don’t think firing you will help me accomplish either of those things.”

There’s a knock at the door, and Gran comes bursting in. She looks from me to King Henry and back again.

“So, you’ve got retrocognition now, too? Guess we should have seen that coming,” she says to me. “No pun intended.”

“Mistress Gilbert, thank you for joining us,” King Henry says. “Please, have a seat.”

Gran sits down and takes my hand. “The same thing happened to your Great Aunt Dorcas, you know. Of course, she wasn’t always trying to avoid using her gift like you do, so she recognized the visions for what they were.”

“This wasn’t a vision, Gran. I swear—”

“Don’t worry, kiddo, we’ll work this out. In the meantime, I think you’ve given poor Mr. Bacon here quite the scare.”

“Gran, I’m telling you, I didn’t—”

“I assure you, Mr. Bacon—do you prefer Mr. Bacon or King Henry? Or perhaps Your Majesty? Was I supposed to curtsy? I’m not used to being in the presence of royalty. How about if I call you Hank? I feel like we’re friends already, don’t you?”

Hank is starting to get that glazed look he had in the antique shop when first confronted with my fruitcake family.

“Certainly, but could we—”

“You can call me Viv. Although I do like the sound of Mistress Gilbert. Anyway, Hank, I assure you that my granddaughter is perfectly sane and surely a wonderful addition to your staff here at Tudor Times. We’ve been encouraging her for years to seek out a mentor who could help her with her gifts. The addition of retrocognition to her psychic abilities could be the perfect impetus.”

“Retrocognition? I’m not familiar with the term,” King Henry says.

“In its simplest terms it means being able to see past events. Which is, I’m sure, what must have happened here tonight. You do know that Lunewood Castle is an authentic sixteenth-century castle brought over stone by stone from England? Of course you do. Well, there’s no telling how many people died in this place over the centuries, and no doubt some of them met a rather unfortunate end.”

I’m about to protest, but Gran squeezes my hand. Hard.

“Was the girl you saw wearing modern clothes, dear?” she asks me.

“No, but—”

“Well, there you go. It was obviously a flashback from the past.”

“You are certain of this?” King Henry asks Gran.

“No one’s been reported missing, have they? Juliet’s vision was no doubt just a new facet of her psychic ability. One that I’m sure she’ll master in no time and use to every advantage here in her position as the Psychic Maid, or whatever she’s called. Won’t you, dear?” She gives me the look that means do-exactly-what-I-say-or-pay-the-consequences-and-they-will-suck.

I nod.

King Henry considers us both for a long moment.

“Well then, Mistress Verity, please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you, er, adjust. Perhaps Angelique has some tips she could share?”

“Sure,” I say. “Good idea.” Angelique should be really helpful. I’ll get right on asking the fake psychic about my new fake psychic power.

“In the meantime, if you should have any more visions of dead bodies on the premises, I ask that you inform me immediately.”

“Understood, Your Majesty.”

Gran stands up and pulls me with her. “Thank you, Hank. You have a magnificent place here. I’m sure Juliet will greatly enjoy working at Tudor Times. So sorry to have worried you. We’ll be on our way.”

King Henry stands as well. “Good night, Mistress Gilbert. Thank you for…elucidating things.” He gives us a little bow. “I’ll expect you here at one o’clock tomorrow, Mistress Verity. And we’ll try this again.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. See you tomorrow.”

“Give my regards to Lady Anna. I hope my call did not distress her overmuch.”

I hear Gran stifle a snort as she pulls open the study door. “I’m sure she’s very grateful for your concern, Hank,” she says, and I’m not sure which of us is the bigger liar.