The Tudor Conspiracy - Gortner Christopher W. - Страница 25

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“I know you are not who you seem,” she said. “I knew it from the moment I saw you.” Her hand slid the cloth downward, over my throat, past my collarbones to my chest. She was so close I could feel the heat of her breath on my skin. “Let me help you.”

My hand came up, catching her wrist. “If you want to help me,” I said, “we can talk later. But now, my lady, I fear I have an urgent appointment I must keep.”

Her mouth parted, showing a hint of teeth. Then she dropped the washcloth in the basin and wiped her hands on her skirts. The moisture left damp stains on the silk.

“You mustn’t let rage overcome your reason,” she said. “Many a man has failed because he let his emotion get the better of him. Revenge is only satisfying if it is wielded with the full understanding of the havoc it will wreak.”

I smiled coldly. “I’ll take that into account, my lady.”

As she turned to the door, I said, “Mistress Darrier,” and she paused. “See that he is cared for.” My voice caught. “See that he is veiled properly until I can say good-bye. Promise me. He-he was my friend. He did not deserve such a fate.”

“No one does,” she said, and she clicked the door shut as she left. I went to my mirror, took out my razor, and worked on my beard until it was trimmed close to my face. Then I buckled on my sword, thrust my poniard into my belt, and flung on my cloak.

A black flame smoldered in my heart.

Havoc or not, I would have my revenge.

I stalked through London like a specter. The cold congealed my breath, emptying the streets of its habitual vagrants, pickpockets, and vermin. While curfew was supposed to secure the city and protect the citizenry, as I traversed the maze of tenements and taverns downriver from the palace, I knew the gates’ closure only signaled the onset of a different sort of activity, most of it criminal.

But not tonight. Tonight, it was as if London itself mourned my dead squire.

I was heedless of my safety, taking shadowy alleyways as I made my way to the water steps, my hand on my sword. I would have welcomed an assault; I wanted to shed blood, to satiate the rage and disbelief I already knew would haunt me forever.

Soon I was standing at the river’s edge, gazing upon a vast expanse of rippled viridian. The moon was veiled in the overcast sky, but its icy glow wasn’t needed. The frozen Thames emitted its own luminescence, an eerie nimbus that captured tendrils of mist drifting like tattered silk over its motionless surface. On the far bank, I discerned errant firelight.

I forgot you’re like a cat when it comes to water …

I spun about, with a stifled gasp. I had heard him so clearly, I expected to find him behind me, grinning, my faithful scamp who had refused to stay put in our room.

No one was there.

Returning my eyes to the embankment, resisting a surge of helpless tears, I gleaned rows of forlorn wherries, all useless now, the boatmen left to fend for themselves as best they could until the river thawed. Peregrine had assured me this way would be safest, faster, and I had no time to waste. As I stood there, though, I was gripped by a horrifying vision of getting halfway across and hearing a spidery crack, looking down to see the ice give way under my feet. I knew the river still flowed under its cold shield; its embrace would be swift, inescapable. I’d plunged into the Thames before. I had no desire to do it again, though death felt like a merciful respite at this moment.

I looked down at my boots. Taking my knife, I lightly scored the soles and took up handfuls of snow, rubbing them into the grooves. It might help stop me from slipping.

I sidled out onto the frosted edge. Fear cut off my breath. I told myself to focus, take slow steps, one foot in front of the next, as if I moved across a newly polished floor. As I progressed, the city disappeared behind me in the mist, but the noise of the south bank ahead did not yet intrude. The clouds parted for a glimpse of the moon; her silver halo dazzled, scattering diamond fragments across the river. With the black sky above me, embroidered with a thousand brilliant stars, and the Thames like a fantastical sea, bewitched in midmotion, I came to a halt. It struck me how cruel the world was; even as a child died in agony, nature could clothe herself with such majestic indifference.

Then I moved forward again, almost losing my balance, slipping and scrambling toward the shore. The cold I’d ceased to feel only moments earlier returned with vicious suddenness. I drew the hood of my cloak further over my head, my feet like blocks of ice in my boots as I clambered up the Southwark bank.

Sidestepping discarded drift nets, I stared at an odd tableau ahead: fire pits tossing sizzling embers into the air and the smell of bacon thick. I could see crowds; as I approached, to my amazement a night fair burgeoned before me.

Divided by meandering narrow dirt lanes were tables under sagging tarps held up by ropes, laden with piles of tarnished platters, pyramids of goblets, threadbare carpets, faded tapestries, splintered knives, and old cloths. In the tarry light of the fire pits, street vendors and alewives circulated offering meat pies, pastries, and other foods while crowds mingled-mostly men, from what I could discern under their layers of clothing, but also some women, bold and strutting, all perusing the displays. The vendors hawked their wares with tireless enthusiasm, though in subdued tones more suited to a graveyard than a market site. It seemed no one wanted to alert the authorities.

I was careful to not draw attention, keeping my head lowered as I blended with the crowd. At first I mistook the jumbled silver pieces on a nearby stall for looted goods, though it struck me that surely such wealth could not have gone unreported, much less unconfiscated. Then I saw an upholstered prayer bench, complete with gilded angels on its carved frontispiece and worn velvet cushion for the knees. I paused. Beside it were heaps of torn book clasps, many of which had chipped enamel iconography, and a wood trough such as pigs might use, filled to the rim with coiled rosaries.

The fair was selling rapine from the monasteries.

The stall owner lumbered up to me-a potbellied, bearded man with pitted skin. He babbled at me in an incomprehensible language; it wasn’t until he was jabbing his finger at my chest and repeating his words that I suddenly understood he spoke English.

“Buy or go,” he said. “You no look here.”

For a moment, I couldn’t move. As I met the man’s yellowed eyes I had an unbidden recollection of a time now gone, a time I had never witnessed but had only heard about, when these holy refuges for the sick, weary, and poor once dominated the realm, until they fell prey to King Henry and his break with Rome.

I felt a sudden rush of heat, a searing desire to grab this man by the scruff of his jerkin and remind him that what he so callously sold as scrap had once been revered by hundreds of monks and nuns, who’d been turned out of their ancestral homes. I knew in some remote part of me that it was my grief and I mustn’t let it get the better of me. I could not indulge a meaningless altercation now, not when my real target lay ahead. Yet even as I fought to stay focused, I wrestled with my compassion for the queen. Mary had clung to her faith against all odds, unaware that what she sought to salvage had already been forsaken.

The man’s hand dropped to his belt. Before he could draw his weapon, I strode off, leaving the fair behind for the rows of hovels clustered together like moldering mushrooms. The barking of dogs and agonized roar of a bear being taunted in a pit curdled the chill; on the thresholds I now passed lurked figures in tattered gowns, some no older than girls, their gaunt faces painted in a mockery of enticement. A lewd invitation floated to me, a cocked bony hip and beckoning finger …

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