In Defense of the Queen (22 page)

“Yes, she is. And if I fail to return her, my place at court is gone and her life is forfeit. You could have no better guard for her than I.”

Kingston was silent and in the heavy pause, Parker heard the faintest shift of cloth from above. Jean biding his time, waiting for his moment to escape without notice.

“What you say is true, but if you fear her life is forfeit anyway, that there is a chance of her guilt, then you could just as easily escape with her. And I would be held accountable.” Kingston lifted his head and looked Parker in the eyes.

“True. If you want Kilburne to take her, then that is your prerogative.” Parker dipped his head.

“I would feel better about it. I am sorry, Parker.”

“I will take her to Kilburne immediately.” Parker held out his arm to her, but as she took it, Kingston coughed.

“I would feel more at ease if one of my guards accompanied you—”

“I will take them, if you will, my lord.” Jean swooped down the stairs, and stood in the half-shadows.

Kingston started, and recovered when he saw the uniform. “Aye. That would be most useful.”

Parker held himself still. Having a guard who was not a guard escort them would be most useful, indeed.

Even if it that guard was a murdering bastard.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The Utopians have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and precious stones, and who account it a degree of happiness next to a divine one if they can purchase one that is very extraordinary, especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then in greatest request, for the same sort is not at all times universally of the same value, nor will men buy it unless it be dismounted and taken out of the gold.

Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)

“F
or once our interests are aligned, courtier.” Jean leaned forward from behind them as they descended the stairs, his voice soft. Smug. “Well, perhaps not for the first time.”

She felt the whisper of air as his fingertips danced just short of touching her. Parker’s hand came up, grasping Jean’s fingers and pulling him down, so he almost toppled between them.

“Beware our mutual interest is not overwhelmed by my need to see you dead, Frenchman.”

Susanna stepped away, giving Parker room, and she saw his dagger was in his hand, had probably been in his hand from the moment Jean appeared. It was pressed against Jean’s neck.

Jean lifted his one free hand in surrender. “I have no wish for anything but a quick exit, courtier. Something I think you wish for just as much. Why don’t we help each other?”

“Once we are out of here, there will be no further mutual interest.” Parker waited a beat. “Do you understand?”

“Only too well. Which ever one of us sees the other first, is the one who has the pleasure of the kill.”

“Just so.” Parker released him, and Jean stepped back, a gleam in his eye.

He looked too pleased with himself not to have found the Mirror. Susanna hoped it meant she would never see him again.

As if he sensed the direction of her thoughts, he turned to her and gave a cramped half-bow in the narrow confines of the staircase. “My apologies for what happened in the chapel,
madame
. I am usually not so short-tempered, but when it comes to you . . .” He shrugged.

“Were you going to kill me or leave me to be discovered?” She watched him as he straightened his doublet, twisted in the scuffle with Parker.

“Leave you to raise the alarm against me, knowing you had nothing more to lose? I will be honest. I was going to kill you.”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose, just as they had earlier. She had had the tiger by the tail, but she had only thought she’d let it go. If she had stayed in the chapel, she’d have died with a bolt through her eye.

Parker’s eyes were on Jean’s face and when the assassin straightened, he stared straight back.

“Ready?” Parker’s hand was clenched around his sword hilt, and, impossibly, she saw it tighten more when Jean gave an unhurried nod.

They continued down the stairs, past the guard on the first floor and through the door to the outside stairs.

“What now?” Jean whispered.

Susanna flinched at the nearness of his lips to her ear.

“We keep walking. Straight out the front gate.” Parker started them on a course past the Lieutenant’s Lodgings.

“Parker.” Kilburne hailed them from the entrance, and Jean went stiff at her back.

“He has seen me before.”

“Then you had best disappear.” Parker lifted a hand in greeting and stopped.

Susanna looked towards Kilburne herself. He was walking fast, his eyes fixed on them, and her gut clenched at the thought of explaining Jean’s presence. There would be only one explanation when the Mirror was found missing.

And Parker was with her now. There would be no escape for him, either. He would be as implicated as she.

“You are unharmed?” Kilburne’s gaze focused beyond them, his eyes narrowed.

Susanna turned, and saw Jean’s back as he climbed the stairs to the White Tower. She hadn’t even heard him go. She felt a twist of fierce satisfaction that he was forced to go back into the heart of the Tower, tempt the fates for a little while longer.

Parker did not turn. He drew her close, blocking Kilburne’s view of Jean. “The assassin took her into the White Tower.”

Kilburne frowned. “Why did he do that? What did he want?”

Susanna kept her eyes on the White Tower a moment longer, and then faced Kilburne. She was prepared to lie, to dissemble and invent to keep Parker and herself safe, and she would partly use the truth to do it. Weave a pattern so tight between what was and was not, even the Cardinal himself would falter at trying to separate it.

“He wanted revenge. But he found trying to exact it here too difficult. He intended . . .” She drew a deep breath, and had no need to fake the shiver that ran through her. Kilburne shifted uncomfortably. “He didn’t have the time or the privacy he needed to kill me the way he wanted to. And when Merden sought him out, interrupted him—”

Kilburne swore softly at the mention of his dead guard. “Merden knew him?”

“It seemed to me that he did.” She felt no shred of remorse about implicating the dead guard. The look on his face when he’d found her earlier was imprinted on her memory. “If I were to guess, Merden helped him get inside, and gave him the uniform of your guards. Perhaps he was in the assassin’s pay?” Susanna lifted her hands. “But they argued. I didn’t hear why, but the assassin killed Merden, and took me as a prisoner to the Tower, to find the Cardinal. It was as if they had a deal, and Merden and the Cardinal had reneged on it.”

She glanced up at Kilburne, but he flinched away from her gaze. She was outlining treason and deceit at the highest level and as she’d hoped, he wanted no part in it. “He left me in the chapel, and then never returned. I’m not sure if he met with the Cardinal or not. I eventually found the courage to leave. Parker found me on the stairs coming down.” She laced her fingers together, head down. “I would guess he is long gone.”

Kilburne exchanged an agonized look with Parker. “Tell her not to speak of the Cardinal and the assassin as if they have some tie, I beg you, Parker. Or Merden.” He turned to her. “My lady, it will serve to do nothing but make more trouble for you.”

“I will say nothing. It was simply an impression I had, that there was some connection there. When he had me prisoner, he said a few other things that gave the strong impression . . .”

“No more.” Kilburne lifted a hand, his eyes scanning the Green to make sure there was no one nearby to hear.

“Very well.” She dropped her gaze, her aim achieved. Wolsey had once been in league with Jean, but they had long since fallen out with each other. He would find any association with the assassin hard to explain. If it was discovered the Mirror had gone missing while she had been with Jean in the White Tower, it would be impossible not to mention the Cardinal had been there too. And he had once promised the jewel to the Frenchman in return for favours from France.

No. If Wolsey had anything to say about it, all evidence of Jean being in the Tower would be suppressed. And if Jean was to be left out it, so would she and Parker.

Parker stretched out a hand and took her fingers in his. Lifted them to his mouth. As his lips brushed them, there was barely concealed laughter in his eyes.

Then he glanced back at the White Tower, and his face hardened. “We spoke with Kingston and Wolsey while we were in there. I suggested to Kingston I take Mistress Horenbout to Durham House in your stead, given Merden’s death—”

“Durham House.” Kilburne’s face lost all its colour. “I’d forgotten.” He squinted up to the sky. “My lady was to be there after the midday repast.”

“If I am still to go, I’ll need my satchel.” Susanna took a step towards the Lodgings.

“What did Kingston say, about your going in my stead?” Kilburne’s words stopped her, and she looked back at Parker.

“He told me he would be happier if you accompanied her.” Parker did not hesitate to answer truthfully.

Kilburne grimaced, his eyes on the White Tower again. “Aye. No doubt he is right. If anything happened . . .”

“I’m coming anyway. I will not let my lady leave my sight until she is released this evening on the King’s orders. She will ride with me.”

Kilburne gave a nod. “I wish we could use a barge, but the tide is still too low. I’ll organize a horse and meet you in the Lodgings shortly.” He turned away from them, to the stables.

Parker watched him go, then held his arm again, to walk her to the Lodgings. “He is a good man.”

“Yes.” She flicked a glance at him. “I am guilty of manipulating him. Saying what I did . . .”

Parker shook his head, and the grin he sent her made her catch her breath and stumble. “That was a master-stroke. Remind me never to cross you, my lady. If you were to put your mind to it, you could have the court tied in knots.”

A shout sounded from near the main gate, and Susanna’s gut clenched, her fingers tightened on Parker’s arm. But it was not the guards, or any new threat, it was Harry and Eric.

And as they raced across to her, as she held her arms out to them—part of her family too, who also needed protection—the last trace of her guilt evaporated into the blue, blue sky.

Chapter Thirty

Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs.

Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)

P
arker did not want Susanna to go back to the Tower again.

As its imposing walls disappeared behind the roofs of the houses in Hart Lane, satisfaction gripped him, and he tightened his hold on Susanna, sitting before him on his horse.

They turned onto Lower Thames, moving as fast as the crowds would allow, weaving their way through the throngs coming and going from the madness of Belin’s Gate docks.

As they passed the docks, he looked into the mass of traders and merchants, to the place where he’d had to fight for his life, and wondered what had become of the bodies.

Knowing Belin’s Gate, they had been picked clean of every useful item and either left in the gutter or tossed into the river.

He knew none here would speak against him. If he did not want the tedium and paperwork of the magistrates, he could avoid it. The men had been Wolsey’s, and as such, Wolsey would want the matter dropped.

But two men had died, and he found himself unable to leave that thought alone.

No death was meaningless. He had never taken a life lightly, and since he’d met Susanna, killing weighed even heavier on him.

“What is it?” Susanna turned her head, her eyes solemn.

He cut a final glance at Belin’s Gate. “Wolsey’s men tried to stop me getting to the Tower with my writ.”

“You had to fight them.” She spoke quietly, and stroked her fingers over his own, gripping the reins. “Did you kill any?”

He nodded, a quick dip of his head. “Two of them. The rest fled.”

She leant back into him, ran a light, comforting hand down his forearm.

They both had to do things they did not like in this affair. She as much as him.

She said nothing more, just continued to stroke him, like a mother soothes a child, and a heaviness he had not realized he’d been carrying lifted off him.

They were falling behind Kilburne, and he urged his horse faster, skirting carts and wagons struggling with the pitted, slick street.

At this rate, Harry and Peter Jack, and Harry’s lads, would be at Durham House before they were.