Mistress of Mourning (36 page)

“Fear not for her safety,” he continued, as if he’d read my mind. “I wish to help her, but not only would she not see me if I asked for an audience, but it would endanger me.”

“I could take her a note in exchange for the return of my son. I cannot do aught else,” I insisted. Did he actually think I would trust him not to harm the queen?

“Are you so foolish to refuse me or order me about? God as my witness, I only wish to tell the queen in person who really murdered her brothers in the Tower.”

I gasped. “But Tyrell—”

He gave a sharp laugh that chilled me. “Heed me carefully, Mistress Varina Westcott, for I have your son tucked away in a distant place only I know well, all safe and sound—for now.”

My mind raced. Did he know Nick and I had discovered he had poisoned Prince Arthur? And that Nick would soon be looking for him at Minster Lovell? Though the wretch stood before me now, could he have had Arthur sent to Minster Lovell? A distant, safe, and sound place only he knew well, he’d just said. If his boyhood castle, which he must know inside and out, felt safe to Lovell, and he appeared and disappeared in that area, could he not make my boy disappear there too?

I told him, “Although I have access to the queen’s chambers, I must pass by guards. They would never let me take someone with me whom they did not know.”

“You will tell them I am the new artist to replace
Signor
Roberto Firenze, the one she favored to paint your pretty wax effigies. Sadly, she, like you, suffered his loss sorely.”

He knew about my waxwork and Firenze’s painting of them! He was gloating over Firenze’s death! My voice broke as I fought for control. “Did you know the artist?” I dared to ask.

“Indeed, he once did a portrait of a king for me—the king who should be on England’s throne even now.”

Signor
Firenze had painted King Richard for this obsessed loyalist? Then perhaps my artist friend had not panicked or suspected danger when Lovell first approached him in the crypt. Or perhaps Firenze had refused to help him gain access to the queen, and so…he had killed him. For two reasons now—my son’s safety and my own—I must at least pretend to help this blackguard.

To make everything worse, there must be a palace informant who had told him about what Firenze and I did for the queen and how I had access to her. Surely Firenze had not given that away. Nor Nick. Sibil?

I nearly fell to my knees at that thought: The woman Maud had described, who had distracted her so that someone could take Arthur, could have been Sibil! That man whom Nick said Sibil was madly in love with, Nigel something, had once been a Tudor enemy. Could he be an enemy yet, and Sibil too? And in league with Lovell?

I pressed my arms tight to my midriff and felt the carving knife I’d secreted there, but I dared not use it. I couldn’t disobey or betray this man. I could only say, “Yes, I can try to pass you off as a new artist. But I must go to the queen to arrange that, so there will be no snags when we try to enter. If I go to see her yet this afternoon, you must trust that I am not giving anything away to her.”

“Arrange it for me then, and I shall contact you soon to learn the timing.”

“We can meet back here to discuss it.”

“No. You will hear from me about the next time and place. Comfort your heart that you will have your boy back and you will be helping to serve the cause of justice—God’s justice, not this upstart Tudor king’s version of it. Tyrell did not murder the queen’s brothers, the princes. But I know who did and, more important, at whose command, and Elizabeth of York must know it too. And keep your guard away, or I’ll dispatch him as I did that other poor bastard who was supposedly protecting you in the bog.”

I was astounded he had confessed even to that, but he was desperate too. “And poor old Fey?” I blurted.

“Poor old Fey? I’ll have no one else, besides me, working magic in Wales, changing appearances, telling me what I should do.”

The man was mad. I was dealing with not only a demon but a crazed one. I could have plunged my knife into his chest if I were not desperate to protect my Arthur.

“Why did you not kill me in the bog?” I dared.

He gave a derisive snort. “If I had wanted to put an arrow through your pretty neck, I would have done so. The arrows I shot at you were a warning to stop, but you did not heed them. I wanted to have this talk then as well as in the crypt, but you eluded me and disappeared. Bright girl that you are, perhaps you have learned that imitation is a form of flattery, for everyone knows I can vanish on a whim. Now, we have tarried here long enough,” he added with a scowl and a glance at the gate.

“Will you speak your name?” I asked, just to make him think I did not know his identity.

He swept me a mock bow. “A worker of justice and right, and Henry Tudor’s worst and most recurrent nightmare.”

He started away, then spun back with a swirl of cape. “Find a way to make it all happen soon,” he said, pointing at me, “or I swear there will be another lost lad named Arthur, also buried in a very special tomb.”

I agonized each step I took toward the palace, going directly from the graveyard and hiring a common river barge. Ah, I recalled the happier times when Nick and I—and Sibil, who might be a spy and traitor—had taken the royal barge to Westminster.

Staring into the murky Thames, I agonized over what to tell the queen. The truth? Should I beg her for help in seizing the man who must be Lord Lovell? But then how would I be sure my son was safe? I was no doubt expendable too, yet I had no choice but to abet his plans—did I? Or perhaps they could put the madman on the rack as they had Tyrell and let Silas torture him until he told where to find my boy so he could be rescued. Maybe Arthur was at Minster Lovell, and Nick would find him. If only I could send for Nick to come back, let him know the man he sought was here in London and would contact me again.

And above all, did Lovell really mean to merely talk to the queen or did he mean to kill her? I felt torn asunder. Hot tears coursed down my face, blinding me. I gripped my hands so tightly together that my fingers went stark white. Leaning over the side of the boat, I feared I would be sick to
my stomach—to my very soul. It would be easier to cast myself into the swirling Thames than to betray the queen or lose my dear son. If Lovell harmed her, it would be my fault. If I lost my dear boy, I could never bear it. I now faced the greatest dilemma of my life: risk the queen or risk my Arthur and myself?

I was admitted by the guards. How easy it would be to get Lovell access to her. I waited briefly in a withdrawing room for Her Majesty. My hands shook as I heard her familiar quick footsteps, the swish of her gown.

My stomach in knots, tears in my eyes, I turned, expecting to see her stoic, sad face. But Her Majesty Elizabeth of York looked radiant, smiling as I had not seen for days—ever. I blinked back my tears and curtsied.

“My joyous news may have preceded me if you spoke to anyone in the palace today,” the queen told me, pulling me quickly up. She clapped her hands, then pressed them between her breasts as if she were praying. “I am with child!” she announced. “The Virgin of miracles has blessed His Majesty and me with a great gift for the Tudor dynasty! Of course, that joy cannot heal my heart from other losses, but here I am, with the hope of a new child, one to be born next February, almost on my thirty-eighth birthday!”

“Your Majesty, I am so happy for you, for His Majesty too.”

She grasped my hands. I said naught of all I had rehearsed. To risk the queen’s life was terrible enough, but now that she carried a child in her womb—two lives and so much in the balance, perhaps an heir to back up Prince Henry—I could not risk their futures, the very future of the realm. So
then I must indeed risk my own life, and Arthur’s too. Silently, I begged the Virgin of miracles to help me find another way to save my Arthur and to outsmart Lord Lovell.

“But why are you here, Varina?” she asked, sitting on a padded bench by the window and patting a place beside her. My knees were quaking. I dared to sit down as if we were equals. “Are you not to ride to Minster Lovell early on the morrow?”

“I—I came to warn you to keep a good eye on Sibil Wynn, Your Majesty. I believe she might be in league with Yorkists who do not wish you well. And that she might have told some of them about our effigies—for I swear it was not me!”

She seized my hands. “I believe it was not you, and I have had suspicions of that girl. But if the king’s enemies know of your carvings, they may try to sow discord between the king and me. I must tell him before someone else does, perhaps someone close to me.”

“Close to you? Do you mean Sibil might dare?”

“Prince Henry has discovered our secret and admired your work, my dear, bright lad that he is.”

Our eyes met and held. Now was the time I should follow Lovell’s commands to somehow gain him access to the queen, but I had made up my mind. Before daylight on the morrow, Jamie and I would be out the back door of our stables and heading for Minster Lovell, even without the king’s guard, for Lovell, if he was watching my house, would notice that. At least Nick would be at Minster Lovell to help me, and he must be informed of Lovell’s latest ploy to harm the Tudors.

I had wild hopes that not only Nick but also my Arthur might be there. Snatching at straws I might be, but I had naught else but this: Lovell had let slip that my son was being held somewhere distant, someplace Lovell considered safe and knew well. And if I disobeyed—as I intended—my Arthur, like the poisoned prince, would be buried in a very special tomb.

Swearing Gil and Maud to secrecy about where I was headed, and warning them to be wary of strangers, I dressed as a lad and set out with Jamie before dawn for Minster Lovell. I had told Gil that when the king’s men arrived to escort us, he was to say I was indisposed and would go at a later time. Hopefully that would throw Lovell off. Yet I shuddered to think that he was a man of surprises. More than once, it seemed as if he had read my mind.

At least I had finally filled Jamie in, and he claimed he knew the way. We went by the Great North Road toward a part of England where I had never been. I prayed every mile of the way that Nick would still be there, and if Arthur were there, Nick could help me find him. Women’s intuition? A great gamble. When Lovell realized I had crossed him, what if he headed back to his family’s estate? Once a ravenous beast realized it had been deceived by its prey, where else would it run but to its lair?

Despite my harried state, I thought the area called the Cotswolds was as gentle and peaceful as Wales had been rough and wild. Surely nothing dire could happen in such a calm, pretty place. But late afternoon on the second day we took a
wrong turn and got lost. So Jamie hired a local lad named Hal to guide us through the thatch-roofed village of Witney and the last three miles toward the smaller village of Minster Lovell. The lad reminded me of Rhys, talkative and proud of his home area.

Beyond the cottages and marketplace, I could make out the sprawling, bone-white stone estate, Minster Lovell Hall, on the River Windrush. How could such an evil soul as Francis Lovell have been bred amidst this beauty of gentle hills and spring fields dotted with sheep? How he must have cherished the home of his ancestors and become even more bitter when the new king gave it to his uncle Jasper Tudor, who had helped him win the crown from King Richard.

I asked Hal to tell us about the manor, so we would know its basic layout. He said he had two uncles who had once worked in the kitchens of Minster Lovell Hall. According to the lad, the Lovells had built the manor house at least two centuries ago and had passed it down from lord to lord, this viscount, Lord Lovell, being the ninth.

“A family home,” I had murmured, thinking how dear my home and shop were to me, and I’d not even lived there two decades. Yes, I could believe even a vile wretch like Lovell could cherish his home.

“Aye, Minster Lovell’s big and grand, right on the river where me and my friends swim,” Hal said. I wondered if they hid underwater, breathing through hollow reeds to snatch at ducks, but I needed to get more information.

“But you feel no loyalty to the Lovells for all that, no soft feelings?” I asked, for well I recalled loyalists to the Yorkist cause in Wales.

The big-shouldered lad drew himself up even straighter in the saddle behind Jamie. “I be loyal to my master, King Henry!” he declared. “The Lovells done wrong and went wrong. My uncles worked in the kitchen when Jasper Tudor held the estate too, see, and a good master he was too.”

And yet, despite the tranquillity of the place, I swear I felt the wind shift and a chill set in as we approached the open fields surrounding the estate. I reined in, and Jamie pulled up beside me, with Hal sitting behind him.

“What then, mistress?” Jamie asked.

“Despite that Nick Sutton and other men loyal to the king should be here, we cannot be seen riding directly in. If our quarry left London, it’s possible he has beaten us here and could notice us, at least as strangers. See that man herding sheep?” I asked, pointing. “I think we should make him an offer to let two of us on foot help herd them close to the entrance so we can slip in, while Hal holds the horses here and comes in through the main entry with them after nightfall. There’s a pretty penny in it for you, lad.”

“All right,” Hal said, “but ’tis said that it’s not Lord Lovell here’bouts, if that’s who you be seeking. It’s only his ghost comes and goes.”

With a shudder, feeling I was caught in a whirlpool of time back in Wales, I dismounted. It was no ghost who had accosted me more than once or who had killed the queen’s Arthur and taken mine.