In a Treacherous Court (13 page)

“Even with the beatin’, this is still the best me ’n’ Eric ever had it.” Peter Jack watched her, his right eye steady and clear,
making the swollen red and purple of the left even more shocking.

“And, tell the truth, I’m glad we got into the thick. I was the one tryin’ to kill you two nights ago. I feel like I earned me right to stay now. I fought for you, and I will again, mistress.”

Tears, sharp as rose thorns against the backs of her eyes, threatened and then spilled out.

She could not answer him. If she did, she would sob. She had to breathe in deeply to stop herself as it was. He seemed to understand, because when she blinked her eyes clear, the door was closing behind him and he was gone.

She composed herself and turned to find Parker staring at her from the doorway.

“You inspire loyalty, my lady.” His eyes held some emotion that seized her throat and grabbed at her heart.

“No more than you.” Her voice trembled.

“Nay. I inspire fear. Or envy. But seldom loyalty.”

“You inspire it in me.” The way he was leaning against the door, his eyes intense in his lean face, his posture alert and poised, inspired more than loyalty. Her hand reached for her satchel, closed around air, and she remembered it was in her room. She would paint him just like this as soon as she could. She tried to imprint the picture he made in her memory.

“You honor me.” As he straightened up, his expression was unreadable.

She felt a tingle at her nape. John Parker was beyond anything she’d dealt with before. A life spent in her father’s atelier had not prepared her for him.

“Let us talk before Peter Jack returns from the privy.” He gestured down the passageway and she followed him, her mind no longer on the secret. She wanted nothing more than a day of quiet, her paints, and enough light to paint by. And the company of her model.

“Are you sure you wish to know this?” Parker sat again in the right-hand chair, leaving her the left. They were beginning to have their own chairs by the fire, little rituals of comfort and accommodation. Some sort of shared life.

Susanna paused. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she had changed her mind, she did not want to hear the secret. But not hearing it would make none of this go away.

“I wish only for an end to this, and hearing the secret may help us. It certainly cannot harm us.”

“It could harm you, if the Tower got hold of you.” His voice was grim.

“If the Tower called for me in this matter, I would be harmed whether I know the secret or not. And the more I swore I didn’t know, the more harm would befall me.”

He nodded tersely in agreement, then turned to face the fire.

“I was a dock rat of gentle birth. The oldest son of a second son. My father was cast out from his family because of a disagreement with his father, and when he died, my younger brother and I worked the docks to help my mother put food on the table.”

Susanna tried to picture him as he had been, as ragged and sharp as Peter Jack.

“One day I was working at unloading a shipment of lace from France, and a Frenchman off the ship asked me the way to the palace. The King was in Westminster in those days, just a few short years after he’d been crowned.”

Parker crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “The Frenchman was a mercenary, by the look of him. Hard, cruel. He was the type to rob bodies on the battlefield. I didn’t know what he was up to, and not wanting trouble, I told him the way.”

Susanna watched as Parker turned his thumbs around and around each other, seeming to be in another place. “Go on.”

He started, and flashed her a rueful look. “That night I was skulking around one of the taverns, hoping for some food from the kitchens, and I saw him returning to his ship. As he walked into the deep shadow of a warehouse, he was set upon by two men.”

Parker sat straighter. “I was torn. It was two against one, yet I had no liking for the man. I went forward with no clear idea what action I would take. Suddenly two other men leaped into the fray, on the mercenary’s side. It seemed to me they must have been following him on his orders, in case he was set upon. It was a deeper game than I’d first thought.”

“What happened?” Susanna realized she’d lowered her voice.

“I continued to approach, though my instincts told me to walk away. I heard a shout from one of the two who had first set upon the Frenchman, and it was as if my blood turned to winter rain.”

He shook his head, and it seemed to Susanna he was reliving his disbelief at another’s stupidity. “It was a particular battle cry often used at the royal jousting tournaments, and in the days when my father was alive I had been to more than a few. I knew immediately whose call it was.”

“Whose?” Susanna asked.

“The King’s. The King of England and a courtier were attacking the Frenchman on the docks.”

Susanna gasped. “Why would he be so bold?”

“So careless, you mean?” Parker raised his eyebrows. “He often went out in disguise to mingle with the commoners, I discovered afterward. But this time it was in deadly earnest. He’d been approached by the Frenchman at court as he went out to hunt earlier that day, and it was clear the mercenary had a letter Henry could not allow to be made public. He decided to get it back himself, with only Brandon at his side, to keep all knowledge of it secret from others at court.”

“What did you do?” Susanna asked.

“What could I do?” Parker sounded resigned. “I leaped in on the King’s behalf, although I had no weapon but the knife I always carried.” He smiled faintly. “The King and Brandon were pleased to have me, as they were used to courtly games of mock battle and set rules of engagement—not the street fighting of a mercenary and his dockhand helpers.

“With my help, the King managed to take the Frenchman down and cut his purse from his belt. As soon as he had it in hand, Brandon grabbed him, and both the King and I noticed
then what only Brandon had seen: that a crowd had drifted over from the taverns to watch the fight.”

Again, Parker shook his head. “The King was in even graver danger. Danger of his life, and danger of discovery. Brandon urged him away, and they ran off.”

“Leaving you to face the crowd?” Shock made her voice tremble.

“It was my duty to keep the men the Frenchman had hired away from the King. And it helped that they were uncertain what to do—their paymaster was dead or injured, and some of the fight had gone out of them. They carried on because they thought they could take me and win. But I had a stroke of fortune. One of the men in the crowd recognized me and called out my name. Thinking the balance of numbers was about to turn against them, they ran off.”

“Were you hurt?”

“A cut on my arm, some bruises.” Parker waved the question off as of no concern. “I knelt at the Frenchman’s side, and could feel there was faint life in him. He was bleeding and unconscious. I checked his coat and his shirt to see if there was any way to identify him, and deep inside his cloak, cleverly hidden in the lining, was a deep pocket with a letter in it.”

“The letter the King was looking for?”

“Aye.” Parker steepled his fingers. “The mercenary had taken the letter out of his pouch when he’d approached the King earlier, but must have decided it wasn’t safe enough there.”

“So now you had the letter.” Susanna wondered what the King had done when he’d realized the letter was not in the pouch he’d risked his life and reputation to get.

“I had the letter,” Parker agreed. “And from what I could see, that was as good as having a price on my head.”

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
To play upon the Vyole, and all other instruments with freates.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To be seene in the most necessarie languages.

W
hat was written in that letter?” Susanna hugged her arms close to stop herself trembling. Parker hesitated, as if he truly believed he should not tell her this.

“The year before old King Henry died, he locked our present King away for many months. The Prince was not allowed to speak unless spoken to. He took his lessons mostly from his father, and did not speak to any tutors brought in. They lectured him, and he listened in silence. He could speak to no other courtiers, and if he wished to go outside, he had to leave by a side door into the park. He took all his meals in his room, and on one occasion the King almost killed him, beating him until his courtiers intervened.”

“What happened?” Susanna realized she was leaning forward, her body tense.

“No one knew. Some said that with his oldest son dead, the King was taking pains to protect his only remaining heir. Some said he was keeping the prince close, and teaching him the ways of kingship.”

“But the truth of it was …?”

“The truth of it was that the prince had become obsessed with Cesare Borgia. Borgia had just been killed in battle in Navarre, fighting against the French King at his brother-in-law’s side. His story was one of daring, courage, and bravery. He was larger than life, irresistible to the young Prince.”

“What harm was there in that?”

Parker sighed, rubbed his forehead. “There would have been none, had the Prince not decided he would like a similar life. He was close to his brother Arthur’s widow, now our Queen, and he wrote to her father, Ferdinand of Spain, asking for a small army and a cause to fight against the French on the Continent.”

Susanna gasped at the implications. “He did not ask his father’s permission?”

“Nay. You can only imagine what the King would have said to that. The Prince planned to sneak away with the help of his closest friend, Charles Brandon, now Duke of Suffolk.”

There was a creak at the door, and Parker was on his feet, knife in hand, before Susanna had even turned to look.

It was Peter Jack.

“Wait a moment in the kitchen, please. I will call you
when we are ready.” Parker relaxed his stance but remained standing as Peter Jack limped away down the passage. It was a testament to the story’s grip that neither had heard his approach.

“A messenger handed Henry’s missive to the old King before it was sent, and his rage was boundless. He came to blows with the Prince. He believed that Ferdinand would have taken the Prince’s defiance and poor sense as a mark against the whole royal family. He put the Prince under constant watch.”

“How did you discover all this?”

“It so happened there was another missive—one that was never intercepted. The Prince had sent it to Borgia’s brother-in-law, D’Albret, declaring his admiration for Borgia and his contempt for the Pope, the French King, and even the Spanish, who had imprisoned Borgia for two years before he escaped.”

“The letter was truly insulting?” Susanna was finally beginning to see the reason for the desperation behind the attacks. The Pope, the French King, and the Spanish King were powerful people to insult.

“All three had stuck a knife in Borgia’s back.” Parker spoke not with contempt, exactly, but with an edge to his tone. She knew that, even as a young man, he would not have idolized anyone to the extent that Henry had idolized Borgia. Parker lived by his own rules; while she was sure he held some men in respect, he would never follow their path. He would always forge his own.

Parker turned from the door and paced toward the fire. “Somehow, that letter fell out of D’Albret’s hands and into
those of a Frenchman who found passage to London as a sailor.”

“The mercenary?”

“Aye. After I found the letter, I went to find Maggie to see to the Frenchman’s wounds. When we returned, he had bled to death.”

“What did he want for the letter? Money?”

“I can only assume he thought it would make him his fortune.”

“And now you held something you could not keep.” Susanna wondered what she would have done in Parker’s place. Destroyed it, most likely.

Parker returned to his chair, his body turned toward her.

“I begged a favor. Since my father’s death, it had been a point of pride for my brother and me not to beg for help. But my father’s family had land and was well-regarded, and my father had studied with some who were in elevated positions. I called on one of them, and convinced him to get me before the King.”

“Did he recognize you? From the night you helped him?”

Parker shook his head, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “But when I mentioned the fight, I suddenly had his full attention and the private audience I’d requested. I presented him with the letter and told him all I knew. Threw myself on his mercy.”

Susanna recalled the King’s cold eyes when he’d realized she knew something dangerous to him, and shivered. “What did he do?”

Parker took her hand, as if reading her mind. “He was grateful. And for some reason, he saw something in me. He liked the way I’d fought. Liked that I’d joined him in the fray unasked. Either that, or he had a mind to keep his potential enemies close.” Parker gave a laugh. “He offered me a position within the Privy Chamber. He said my coming to him with the letter and offering it up with no request for a boon spoke to my character.”

Parker’s eyes looked past her out the darkening window, his hold on her hand firm. “I think he must have ordered someone to look into my background, because shortly thereafter I learned that my father’s older brother and all his family had died of the sweating sickness, and as my father’s eldest son, I was the heir.”