The Tudor Conspiracy

Chapter Fifteen

Outside, a cacophony of distant bells rang. It was late afternoon, and the winter sky had begun to darken. Pulling my cloak about me I hastened back through the ward, pausing briefly at a horse trough to wet my cloak and wash the blood from my face. The gates would close at dusk; I must be out before they did. Transferring the tube from my cloak to the safety of my doublet, I tried to look impervious as I made my way to the gatehouse.

The yeomen gave me a curious look. I yanked up my cloak’s cowl, hurrying out. Only as I gained distance from the Tower did the knot in my chest start to dissolve.

I had done it. I had Dudley’s letters. Renard couldn’t use these against Elizabeth: The proof he required was now in my hands. All I had to do was to report whatever lies I must to keep him at bay, long enough to send word to her and-

I paused. And do what? Confront her? Demand to know why she’d acted so recklessly, why she had lied to me when she knew what Robert planned? Or should I simply destroy the letters and never mention that I had discovered she’d taken a stance against her sister, pretend she was as guiltless as she had feigned? As I considered this, though, I abruptly recalled with a jolt what she’d said to me in the stables. I warn you now: You, too, could be in grave danger if you persist in this pursuit. I’ll not have you risk yourself for my sake, not this time. Regardless of your loyalty, this is not your fight.

I came to a stop in the middle of the road. She had warned me. In my zeal to protect her, I’d failed to hear her actual message. It was not my fight, she had said, and she meant it.

She had walked into Dudley’s web willingly.

Around me, the light faded, lengthening the shadows. Veering into Tower Street, I began searching the painted signs hanging above doorways for the Griffin. People hustled about their errands, bundled to their ears and eager to finish with their day so they could get indoors before the night took hold. Everyone steered clear of me. I would have steered clear, too. My left cheek felt grossly swollen and was starting to throb. I had a wound on my temple and, no doubt, several nasty bruises on my face. Nevertheless, a burden of years had been lifted from my shoulders. I had stood up to Robert Dudley. No longer did I have to cower from my past, for this time I’d given as good as I got. Some might say I’d given better.

I espied the sign ahead, depicting a black-winged griffin. I pushed past the doorway inside, stamping my boots to get the blood back into my ice-numb feet. The tavern was choked with the smell of greasy food, cheap ale, and hearth and tallow smoke, and raucous with voices; it was also blessedly warm. I’d never been so happy to find myself among ordinary men doing ordinary things in my entire life. No one gave me a second glance as I weaved past the serving hutch and the crowded booths and tables. Apparently a bruised eye or two was common enough in taverns like these, close to the rough-and-tumble dockyards and riverside gaming houses.

Scarcliff lounged in apparent content by the smoking hearth, his legs stretched out before him, a tankard on the low table and a battered white mastiff at his feet. His chin drooped against his chest; he looked deep in slumber. I noticed his right boot had a wedged sole, as if he compensated for a disparity in the length of his legs, perhaps an old injury that had made one shorter than the other. I inched closer, transfixed by the sight of him in repose, but before I got within ten paces his head suddenly shot up, swerving to me with that uncanny precision he’d shown in the brothel, as if he could smell my approach.

He peered at me. “Christ on the cross,” he muttered. “Looks like you had a time of it.”

I broke into an unexpected grin, inexplicably relieved to see him. He might be a villain, as apt to drive a blade into my ribs and tumble me into a ditch as to escort me back to Whitehall, but at least he was a villain I could understand-a man for hire, who worked for his coin, not some treacherous noble whose corruption had permeated his very soul.

“Lord Robert and I had a disagreement,” I said. “Guess who won?”

He snorted and hailed a passing tavern maid. “Nan, bring more ale!” Taking the flagon from her, he filled a tankard to its rim and shoved it, sloshing, at me. “Drink. You need it.”

The ale was vile, a yeasty concoction that slid like wet flour down my throat, but the heat it generated helped clear my head. Scarcliff set his hand on the mastiff as it looked up at me with mild interest. He seemed quite familiar with the animal, which boasted nearly as many scars as he did-a fighting dog, no doubt, lucky enough to have survived the pit.

A survivor: like him.

“Thrashing aside, did you get what you wanted?” he asked, not sounding as if he much cared either way.

I nodded, downing the rest of my tankard. I couldn’t keep from staring at him. The flickering dim light of the tavern made him appear even more sinister, shadowing his graying patchwork beard and misshapen mouth, but somehow emphasizing his empty eye socket and the fused lattice of mutilated skin on his face. I thought him brave for not covering his missing eye with a patch; I wanted to ask him what had happened, how he’d ended up looking like this, but as if he anticipated my curiosity he muttered, “You ought to put some food in your belly before we ride back,” and he barked at Nan for pie and bread. He turned to me with sudden seriousness. “Few men leave the Tower unscathed. You’re a lucky one; your injuries will heal.” His chortle scraped my ears, like sand on cobblestone. “Unlike that Dudley lot, who I daresay can’t grow new heads.”

I was taken aback. The monster had a sense of humor. Who would have thought?

Nan arrived with the pie; it was steaming hot, with chunks of overcooked meat that I didn’t examine closely. I was too famished to care, digging in with my blade and hands.

Scarcliff leaned back in his chair. It was a big tattered thing, with dirty flattened cushions and squat legs, but he presided upon it like a lord in his castle. After taking several loud sniffs at my pie, the dog curled back at his feet. It was definitely his. This was his spot. He must come here often. He probably felt comfortable among the foreign sailors and dockside workers, the pox-scarred whores and local thugs; certainly, it was more his style than that bizarre scenario Courtenay favored in Southwark.

He gave me a jagged-toothed sneer as I wiped my mouth. “That good, eh?”

“The worst pie I’ve ever eaten,” I said. As the food settled in my belly, I began to feel the aftereffects of my encounter with Lord Robert; my every muscle was starting to ache. “I should get going before I’m too stiff to move,” I added.

“What’s the rush? Here, one more for the road. It’s bitter as an old snatch out there; man’s got to keep his bollocks warm.” He poured again from the flagon. He seemed to have a limitless capacity for the stuff; he’d drunk three full tankards in the short time it had taken me to finish the pie. I’d already had one and normally wouldn’t have indulged in more. The beverage was so fermented it guaranteed a temple-splitting headache, and the last thing I needed was to lose myself in drunkenness. We still had to ride together through the city at night; despite his genial manner, I wasn’t entirely convinced Scarcliff didn’t harbor nefarious motives. I wouldn’t put it past Courtenay to have ordered that if I made it out of the Tower in one piece he was to make certain I didn’t make it back to Whitehall. Nevertheless, I found myself clanking my tankard against his and joining him in four more rounds, until I felt the ale sloshing in my gut and the room whirled.

Finally I tossed some coin on the table for my share and he slapped his other half down. He gave Nan a pinch on her ample buttocks, and she slapped him playfully; then he threw on his cloak and oversized cap before he reached down to scratch the mastiff under its chin. I heard him mutter, “You be a good dog till I get back.” Then he lifted his one good eye and said, “Night’s not getting any warmer.”

I followed him outside into the backyard stalls. Cinnabar whinnied in greeting, nuzzling me. I used a mounting block-my thighs were raw, as if I’d ripped every tendon-and checked for my sword in its scabbard. It was still there, hanging from my saddle. Scarcliff paid the urchin who had tended the horses and swung up onto his massive bay.

We rode out under a fog-wreathed moon, the cold gnawing at every bit of exposed skin. I wrapped my scarf tighter about my nose and mouth. The chill dissipated some of the fumes of the drink; I felt pleasantly soused, though not to the point of inebriation. Scarcliff ambled ahead, impervious, as if he’d been imbibing water all night. He glanced over his shoulder at me; in that moment, the winter fog parted and a spear of moonlight slashed down across his creviced face, catching the gleam of his eye.

I returned his stare. I reached for my sword.

That was when the others burst upon us.

* * *

There were two of them, both cloaked and masked, astride black steeds that gouged the hardened ice from the road. Cinnabar threw back his head in alarm as they came crashing toward us from the darkness. I grappled with the reins, nearly sliding off my saddle. Scarcliff swerved his bay in an expert maneuver, fending off one of the attackers as he lunged for the destrier’s bridle. The horse proved impressively agile for its size. Then I heard shouting from the attacker riding toward me-“No, ése no! El joven! Agárrelo!”-and Scarcliff bellowed: “Go, lad! Now!”

I had thought he’d planned this, but as I heard him yank his sword from its scabbard-blades tended to stick in the cold, so he clearly kept his well oiled-I didn’t wait to find out. I slammed my heels into Cinnabar, knocking my arm across my pursuer, backhanding him in his saddle long enough for me to gain a head start.

Cinnabar didn’t need encouragement. He had been idling in a stable for days at Whitehall save for our occasional outings, and his eager bolt caught the man off guard, so that he barely had time to veer his own horse out of our way. Yet as I took flight down the road, I knew he would take up our pursuit, and I lifted my weight off the saddle to facilitate Cinnabar’s stride. “Faster, my friend,” I said in his flattened ear. “My life depends on it.”

As indeed it did. The men had spoken in Spanish; they must be in Renard’s employ and had no doubt been tracking me the entire time, waiting for the moment to seize what I had taken. I’d let my guard down, let myself get overly distracted by my suspicions of Scarcliff. I hadn’t considered that Renard would have me followed.

The striking of hooves on the road behind me grew louder. I looked over my shoulder. Both men were gaining on me; the one I had backhanded was ahead, slighter of build than his companion, his dark cloak billowing like outstretched wings, the half-moon in the sky above capturing random glints of metal on his person, including the unsheathed sword he gripped in one gloved hand while he steered his horse with the other.

I strained to see ahead. I couldn’t be too far away. A few more leagues at best and the torch-lit sprawl of Whitehall would appear before me. There would be sentries, courtiers, and officials; it wasn’t that late. No Spaniard would dare harm me in view of the palace. Renard had chosen this moment because of the late hour, this lone stretch of road. He knew that with Peregrine’s death, he could not afford to rouse the queen’s suspicions. It had to appear as if I’d fallen prey to an unfortunate but all too common accident, waylaid and murdered outside the palace while I went about the task he had assigned-

All of a sudden, Cinnabar balked and swerved, throwing me sideways. Yanking on the reins, my right foot tangling in my twisted stirrup, I tried to steady him, but he had plunged off the road and was running toward the open fields of St. James. As hard as I pulled at his reins I couldn’t get him to stop, and when I glanced over my shoulder I saw why.

The Spaniard was at our heels. As the moonlight caught a streak of dark wet on Cinnabar’s hindquarters, I saw the wound that the tip of his sword had made.

Rage filled me. I wanted to stop and fight, but Cinnabar, maddened by the stinging pain and urgency emanating from me, galloped faster than before, so that it felt as though we were about to take wing. I kept looking back over my shoulder to gauge the distance between me and the Spaniard. It was widening, despite his frenzied heel-kicks into his own horse. I looked ahead. A copse of trees neared. Past it, flickering light indicated the palace of St. James. If I could only get past that copse, I might be able to-

My body lifted completely off my saddle as Cinnabar jumped, skirting a fallen bough. Then a low-lying branch hit me full in the face.

I tumbled onto stony ground, my skull ringing from the impact. My teeth cut into my lip, hard enough that I tasted blood. Looking up in a daze, I saw the Spaniard heel his mount, spraying up clods of frozen turf. He leapt off his saddle, his sword at the ready, his companion riding up close behind.

Struggling to my feet, my head pounding from the fall and the last, lingering effects of my ill-advised bout at the alehouse, I met his approach with my own sword brandished.

* * *

The Spaniard held up a hand to detain his companion. He was a narrow silhouette in head-to-toe black, not tall, though his lack of physical stature offered no comfort. He regarded me impassively from behind a full black face mask, as if he had all the time in the world, before he assumed his stance. This was a man of experience, with no fear of failure. He lunged at me with blinding speed, his sword arcing. As I parried his thrust, the impact of our blades shuddering through my arm and into my very bowels, I understood he wanted to play with me. As he assailed me, his polished moves forcing me backward, step by clumsy step, into the weaker position of defense, I realized just how bad my situation was. Setting aside that just hours before I’d grappled with Dudley and one of my eyes was now a swollen slit, I had only a few painstaking months of practice in the controlled environment of Hatfield’s gallery to rely upon. I was an amateur; I didn’t stand a chance against someone this highly trained.

I was sweating within minutes, breathing hard and fast as he attacked with almost nonchalant precision. Staggering over brittle twigs, stones, and broken branches littering the field, evading his swipes as he pushed me toward the deeper pocket of darkness under the trees, I began to consider that I might die tonight. If he hadn’t delivered the fatal blow by now, it certainly wasn’t because he couldn’t. He was playing with me, biding his time and pushing me to my limits, until I either made a mistake that opened me to his killing thrust or surrendered voluntarily, in acknowledgment of his superiority. Either way, the outcome was bleak. The question was, did I want to die on my feet or on my knees?

Everything faded to insignificance. The knowledge that I still had the one thing that could save Elizabeth, and my fury that once again my own life was deemed forfeit by callous design, compelled me to fight as I had never fought before, even as my arm grew numb and my chest burned from deflecting his relentless assault. Only once did I catch him by surprise, nicking his sleeve with my sword tip.

His teeth gleamed as he smiled. Then he came at me with all his vigor, shedding any pretense of consideration for a savage display of professionalism. Before I knew it, the shocking smack of his blade on my wrist sent a flame of agony shooting up my arm, and my sword went flying as I desperately dodged his move to slice off my hand.

Panting like a winded foal, I scrambled to retrieve my sword. He leapt in front of me. I started to reach for the poniard stashed in my boot when I felt the tip of his sword at my throat, so close it pierced the matted wool of my scarf and bit into my flesh. I looked to where Cinnabar stood, quivering, his nostrils flared and reins dangling. I hoped that they wouldn’t hurt or take him, that he’d be canny enough to elude them and find his own way back to the palace. His riderless arrival would alert the stable hands. They’d inform their betters; at some point word would reach Rochester, who’d dispatch a party to look for me. With any luck, I’d be buried with Peregrine-if anything of me was left to be found.

At this thought, a gust of laughter exploded from me, surprising me with its force, considering how winded I felt. What a way to end my not-so-illustrious career as a spy, skewered by an anonymous assassin after a visit to my former master in the Tower! Here lies Brendan Prescott, also known as the inept and short-lived Daniel Beecham.

“Regístrele,” ordered the Spaniard in a deep, almost too forceful voice. He did not take his eyes from me. Or what little I could see of them; under the mask I could only glean the glimmer of whites in the eyeholes, not enough to discern any expression or color.

“Don’t move,” said his companion in broken English as he marched to me and twisted my hands behind my back. He wrapped a cord about my wrists, binding them. Then he began to search me. The tube hidden inside my doublet revealed itself within seconds under his probing hands; it was futile to even try to stop him as he tore off one of my sleeves and wormed the tube out.

He waved it aloft. “Aquí está,” he said to the swordsman. “Ahora mátale. Kill him.”

I braced myself, but the swordsman did not move, his stare intent, boring into me as he waved his companion back to his horse. He was clearly in charge; though the other man grumbled, he did as he was told. For what felt like an eternity, we faced each other, motionless. Then he took a step closer. I let out an unwilling gasp as he trailed his sword down my torso, slowly, until he poised it on my codpiece. Though I couldn’t see it under the mask I knew he was smiling. He made a gesture with his other hand, ordering me to kneel. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I shook my head.

“No,” I managed to whisper. “Not like this…”

He pushed on his blade. Fearing he’d emasculate me and leave me here to bleed to death, I dropped to my knees. He raised his sword. He’s going to decapitate me, I thought in a burst of blinding terror. I was going to die like Anne Boleyn, by a foreigner’s sword-

I closed my eyes. Urine leaked down my thigh. I felt a thud on the ground near me.

When I dared to look, I saw my sword lying a short distance away. The swordsman had turned away and was striding to his horse, his cloak swirling about him. After he leapt onto his saddle, he paused to look across the field at me. I was still kneeling, my hands behind my back, the sword a tantalizing glimmer, within reach.

With a kick of his heels, he galloped off with his companion.