In a Treacherous Court (4 page)

“I do not know who …” The man choked, then turned his head to retch in the grass.

“Of course you do,” Parker said, his tone friendly. He reached forward and grasped the end of the bolt that protruded from the man’s shoulder, gave it a small twist.

The archer’s shriek cut through the air, causing crows to lift from the trees squawking, and Susanna’s heart to stop.

“No.” The man’s voice was a quiet sob when he could speak again. “No.”

“Yes and yes.” Parker reached out again, and it was on Susanna’s lips to scream “No!,” to leap forward and stay his hand.

“One thing! I know one thing.” The archer shivered uncontrollably.

Parker said nothing, his fingers a mere whisper from the bolt.

“His face was … cloaked. But his hands. Saw his hands as he gave over the coin.” The archer’s breath was labored and he closed his eyes a moment.

Parker’s fingers twitched.

“They were the hands of an old man. Not a laborer—they weren’t callused.” The archer choked again. “That is all I know.”

Parker leaned in closer. “How were you to let him know the job was done?”

The archer coughed, a rattling sound that made Susanna’s stomach heave. “Said … his master would know. When you did or did not return to court.”

Parker stood, impatience in every line of him, his eyes on Simon hooking the horses back into their harness.

Susanna stepped away from the archer, unsure what to do. Her gaze fell on the body of the other man and she jerked it away, shivering. He lay with his face in the wet earth, his hand outstretched, his bow flung from him.

Parker bent and gathered up the archer’s bow and arrows, and raised an eyebrow at Susanna’s gasp of shock.

“You’d rather I leave them here for some brigand to take and use against the innocent?” He stepped away, and gathered the bows of the other two men.

Susanna shook her head. She hadn’t thought of that. “What will we do about him?” She gestured to the wounded archer. He lay still, eyes closed.

Parker looked across at him, then walked back toward the cart, and Susanna trailed him reluctantly.

“Sir! What will we do?”

“He tried to kill us. Why should we do anything?”

Susanna stopped and half-turned back to where the man lay. She bit her lip as one of the crows hopped toward him, almost close enough to peck. She wrung her hands and met Parker’s steady gaze.

“Please. Let us take him in the cart.”

“We could repack the crossbows,” Simon said from behind Parker. “Make room for him in the back.”

Parker turned to look at his driver, and Susanna could see veiled amusement in Simon’s expression.

“Very well.” He flicked back the canvas, and his hand rested reverently on the polished crossbows beneath it. “If only because it will be interesting to see who at court tries to kill him when they realize who he is.”

L
ondon was a cesspit of mud and filth.

The hard rain stabbed cold needles into her shoulders and head, and a sour, putrid smell reached out at them from every alley they passed.

“Not long now,” Simon told her, and Susanna nodded, hunching as deep into her cloak as she could. Not that it made a difference; she was wet through.

She had never felt so strange. Out of sorts, exhausted, and distant from herself. The comforts and routine of Ghent were far behind.

She looked across at Parker, who must be exhausted himself—he’d been tense and alert since the attack yesterday morning. He hadn’t relaxed his posture for a moment, not even last night in the inn where they had snatched a few hours of sleep.

Now that they were in London, he was stiffer still.

Somewhere in the King’s palace sat a spider in his web, watching and waiting to see if his prey had escaped his trap.

Susanna wondered what Parker was going to do about that, but she was too miserable and cold to think it through herself.
She was on foreign soil, and he would know far better than she the best way to flush out a traitor.

Part of his plan lay shivering under the canvas at the back of the cart. Parker had insisted they not pull the bolt out of the archer’s shoulder until they had a physician to hand; the man would bleed to death otherwise. And he wanted to keep the man alive so he could watch who sought him out at court. Or tried to kill him.

Susanna shivered. She was an artist; she knew nothing of this kind of intrigue. Killing assassins. Finding traitors. Exposing spies.

She would happily leave that to Parker.

“We’re here.” Simon managed to sound cheerful, as if they’d had a pleasant, uneventful journey in good weather, rather than the opposite.

Susanna bit her tongue against her sarcastic rejoinder. She knew from other Ghent artists that it didn’t take much for the English to work up a grudge.

Some Englishmen felt threatened by the King’s penchant for European artists.

Klaas Groenewalt, a tapestry cartoonist who worked with her father occasionally and who had tutored her in English since her father made the decision to send her to London, had warned her to watch her back and be polite at all times. The knife wound scar on his forearm proved he spoke from experience.

His tale had almost made her father change his mind. She’d seen the struggle on his face, and then his eye had fallen
on Joost, shirtless and stoking the fire, and his expression had hardened again.

Susanna roused herself from her memories. It was time to take note of her surroundings. They were entering the gates of Bridewell Palace, and she would need all her wits about her.

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
To procure where ever he goeth that men may first conceive a good opinion of him before he commeth there.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To take hede that give none occasion to bee yll reported of.

S
usanna was the only woman.

Men stood or sat where they could in the antechamber in which Parker had left her, giving the impression of a flock of discontented crows in their black doublets and cloaks. Their thin black legs ended in wide-toed shoes that tapped impatiently as the minutes dragged by.

Parker had long since disappeared, and she had had ample time to sit and admire the workmanship in the flourishes of the room, the carvings and the furniture, the intricate silk paneling on the walls.

The guards at the entrance to the privy chamber had watched her with interest at first. Parker had murmured something in their ears before they’d let him into the King’s
innermost sanctum, and the curiosity in their eyes was blatant.

Susanna could only assume he’d told them to make sure no one tried to kill her. For the third time in three days.

But even potential murder victims lost their allure after time, and as others came and went, the guards’ attention shifted.

Some of the courtiers looked at her with curiosity, others with hostility. A few murmured greetings to each other or struck up quiet conversations in the corners of the room, but it seemed their eyes always came back to rest on her.

Furtive glances whirled around the room, and Susanna needed something to absorb her attention so she wouldn’t have to eye everyone back.

She was taken with the way the guards framed the door, the way they formed the focal point of the room. She took out a piece of paper and her charcoal and began to sketch.

Her training had been in illumination, and she saw each scene as a hundred small, intricate pictures, pieced together to form the whole. She did not balk at spending time on the pattern of the guards’ doublets. On the texture of the wall behind them. On the shadow cast by their halberds.

But there was no fun for her in producing a faithful rendition of the scene. She slipped in a tiny mouse, peeping from behind a guard’s shoe. A cat—plenty of those had slunk past her as she waited—crouched under a heavy chair, shoulders hunched, weight forward, its eyes steady in readiness to pounce.

From the patterned silk paneling, a small songbird broke
free of the fabric and fluttered up to perch on a wooden window frame.

She shaded the frown on one of the clerics waiting with her, considered giving him just the merest hint of devil’s horns peeping up from his straight brown hair.

“Mistress Horenbout.”

Parker’s voice jerked her back to the reality she was subverting.

He was before her, his boots almost touching hers, and she hadn’t noticed him.

“I see you’ve kept yourself busy.” His eyes were on the sketch, and he reached out a finger and touched a corner of the paper reverently. “The King will like this.”

“Then he shall have it.” Susanna regretted her offer the moment it was made. This had been done for her own amusement.

“I’m afraid the wait will be longer still. It is time for the King’s repast, but he shall see you directly after. I would have you wait in his privy chamber, though.”

Parker’s eyes did a quick scan of the room, and Susanna realized he’d been worried about her, hadn’t liked leaving her alone so long.

She stared up at him. If the courtiers waiting here were crows, he was a bird of prey. His power and strength caused a skip in her chest.

He bent down to her, and the atmosphere in the chamber finally penetrated her self-induced fog. Avid curiosity. And not a small helping of resentment.

“I am in no danger. The guards are nearby.” She spoke for his ear alone, her lips almost brushing his skin as she allowed him to take her hand and help her up.

“So is the man who paid those archers,” Parker reminded her, equally quiet. He did not move back to give her space as she stood, and his body brushed hers as he picked up her satchel. He hefted the weight of it with surprise.

“Come.” He turned back to the door, waiting for her to precede him past the guards, who had opened the door just enough to let them through.

One of the courtiers, who had been waiting at least as long as she, hissed in fury as they stepped across the threshold.

Susanna felt a skip of excitement and nerves in the pit of her stomach. She was about to come face to face with the King of England.

S
he and Parker had waited for the King through thirteen dishes, each one served with the ceremony of a state occasion, but the meal was at last at an end.

The King rose from the elevated, canopied table set for one, and the conversations of the courtiers who stood on either side and behind him quieted. Susanna was struck by the tableau they made, the dark colors of their robes strangely lit by the rain-muted light from the tall windows. The King, by contrast, shone brighter than a freshly drawn illumination in his scarlet and gold.

Susanna looked down at the charcoal drawing of the scene she’d made to spin out the time, and wished for her paints.

Henry looked directly at Parker and nodded, then turned and walked through the courtiers to the door leading to his privy lodgings. Moses could not have parted the Red Sea more efficiently than the King parted the crowd as he made his way across the room.

Parker stood, his frown lifting, and Susanna rose with him. He took her elbow and made to follow in the King’s wake.

But the Red Sea was merging again, determined to see nothing special about Moses’ followers. A wave of bodies surged back into place, set on being merry, loud, and unseeing.