In a Treacherous Court (20 page)

F
or the first time since they’d met, they were not in accord.

Susanna felt it as keenly as the wind through her clothes. She sat behind Parker on his horse and leaned into his rigid back, despite the tension between them.

The horse stumbled in the dark, knee-deep in snow. The going would be treacherous this morning—the snow lay so thick it had been impossible to take the cart, and she couldn’t help but feel glad. Parker couldn’t easily cut her off when she had to cling to him like a limpet.

Simon would not have betrayed them. She refused to believe it. Parker seemed to think it a foregone conclusion.

But despite their difference of opinion, there was a fragile thread between them. The beauty and comfort of last night could not be snapped so easily. As she pressed against him and tightened her arms about his waist, she felt Parker relax.

He sighed.

Her lips curved at the sound: the resigned admittance of defeat.

“Do my sighs still amuse you?” There was a glimmer of laughter in his voice.

“You know they do.”

“He could have done it, you know.” His words were as resigned as his sigh.

“I understand he could have done it. He may even
have
done it. But I do not think it was to betray us, Parker. I cannot believe that of Simon. Not after the longbow attack in the forest.”

“I am hard-pressed to lose any friend. Simon was a particular ally.”

His voice was even, but she’d long since learned that Parker could talk of the most terrible things in the same manner as the weather. He was bitterly, deeply sorry that he had to confront Simon.

There had to be a way out of this. She refused to let Parker isolate himself even more for her sake.

“Where does Simon live?”

“Over the stables at Bridewell. He has his own room, given his position.” Parker turned the horse out of Crooked Lane and into Fish Street Hill, his voice low in the hush of the early morning.

“What is his position?”

“He moves the King’s important goods where the King wants them to go. Sometimes that means picking up a special delivery at Dover, sometimes moving things around the city. He is not merely a cartman, more a yeoman guard disguised as a cartman.”

Susanna closed her eyes and buried her nose in Parker’s back, content to half-doze as he navigated through the drifts.

The streets were almost empty. The city of London stirred awake later than usual today, under the pressing dark and the dead quiet of the snow.

They skirted Blackfriars and crossed the Fleet River in eerie silence, but when they turned into Bridewell, it was as if the world of London was a reality apart.

The courtyard bustled, men shouting to each other as they loaded carts in the lantern-light, children dashing and weaving between them with pieces of furniture, pots, and food wrapped in cloth or stored in clay jars.

“I cannot believe I forgot.” Parker’s voice was a hush of surprise. “I … I would never have …”

Despite the horror she heard in his tone, Susanna smiled. “Never would have forgotten whatever this is, before you met me?”

She felt his chest expand under her hands and he twisted in the saddle to look over his shoulder. There was a grin on his face and a light in his eyes. “You have ruined me, my lady.”

“Perhaps we have ruined each other.” She smiled back, and for a moment the courtyard faded away.

A boy shouted out as he darted past them, and the horse’s jerk of surprise brought them back to the muddy snow and noise of Bridewell.

“What is it you have forgotten?” Her voice was breathless.

“The King has moved to Greenwich. He wants to hunt in the parks for a few days.”

“These servants are moving the royal household?” It could be nothing else. Susanna had never seen such chaos.

“The King would have gone ahead late last night. It is safer for him.”

“So Simon is likely with the King?”

“Aye.” Parker scanned the courtyard. “He’ll stay at Greenwich.” His gaze lifted to a window above the stables, and lingered.

“Do you see something?” In the weak light given off by the courtyard lanterns and the few lit windows of the palace, she could barely see Parker’s face.

“Probably nothing.” He turned the horse around. “We may as well get breakfast and decide who else we can send to Dover.”

“Simon could still do it,” she said quietly, but he shook his head.

“No. He can’t.”

“Why not?” She clutched him tightly as he urged the horse a little faster through the entrance gates.

“Because he’s following us right now.”

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
To delite and refresh the hearers mindes in being pleasant, feat conceited, and a meerie talker, applyed to time and place.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
Not to use over much familyaritie without measure and bridle.

W
here is he?” Susanna’s breath tickled his frozen ear with warmth.

“A few buildings back.” Parker steered the horse up to Fleet Street, then toward the bridge and home.

The sharp click of the horse’s hooves on the cobbles of the bridge reminded him of all the times he’d ridden with Simon. Reminded him how much he stood to lose. Parker stopped the horse. The swish of the Fleet below and the horse’s soft expulsion of breath were the only sounds.

“What is it?” Susanna leaned out from behind him to look up Ludgate Hill, sloping up before them.

They were only a few paces from the end of the bridge, and Parker turned the horse around. Then waited.

A minute ticked by. Then another. Parker flexed his hand, amazed at his reluctance to flick out his knife.

Of course he will not step out. He is not the man you thought he was.

He gave it ten more beats. As he began to turn the horse around, Simon appeared. He wore black and kept to the edge of the deepest shadows. But he came forward.

They stared at each other. It was dark enough and they were far enough apart that he could not read Simon’s expression. But Parker could see the tension in him, in the way he held himself.

Simon began to walk across the bridge, and Parker lifted his leg over the horse’s neck and dismounted. His knife was in his hand without him thinking of it as his boots crunched into the crystalline snow.

Susanna put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she slid off the saddle, using his body to help her balance. It was the easy, unconscious action of a lover or close friend. It made the moment easier.

Simon stopped just in front of them.

“Why shouldn’t I cut you down right here?” Parker had meant to play it cooler, was surprised as the words seem to leap from him.

Simon tugged off his glove, then lifted his hand so Parker could see the ring gleaming on his right hand.

Parker stared at it.

“You understand why I could say nothing,” Simon said, at last breaking his silence.

“Come home with us.” Parker’s mind was a jumbled whirl of questions. “We’re going to have breakfast.”

Susanna looked from him to Simon with amazement. “What was that?” She checked Simon’s attempt to pull his glove back on and frowned at the ring, peering at it closely in the dark.

“It is the King’s ring,” Simon explained.

“That ring could save a man condemned to die for treason, even if he were being led to the chopping block when he received it.” Parker spoke with respect.

Simon grinned. “Yes, but the King felt my chances were likely worse than a condemned man’s if Parker should suspect me of wrongdoing.” He pulled the glove back on. “This was my insurance, should I need it. I take you gladly as a friend, Parker, but I would give nothing for my chances as your enemy.”

“How sensible.” Parker lifted Susanna onto the horse; as she swung her leg over the saddle, he saw a quick movement in the shadows on Ludgate Hill. Pretending to tighten the saddle, he flicked a glance to the other side of the street. Yes, one on each side. Directly on their path home.

“I need to know,” he said to Simon as he adjusted the stirrups for Susanna’s shorter legs, “did you bring any friends with you?”

Simon’s eyes widened but he didn’t so much as look up at the street. “No.”

“Then it seems there are some not quite as sensible as you.”

S
usanna frowned. There was something wrong. Parker was clearly shortening the stirrups for her, as if he meant her to ride alone, and she caught the ghost of a whisper between him and Simon. The way his face hardened, the intensity of his eyes, was like yesterday in Bryan’s rooms when the door had slammed open. He was getting ready to fight. She looked down, and as if on cue, his left arm flicked and his knife dropped into his palm.

There was something very disturbing about how attuned she was to him. She had not thought of a lover and partner, a man she could share with. She had thought only of someone she could walk away from when the time came. When he could no longer accept her long days and longer nights working at her craft.

That would be impossible for her now. There would be no getting out of this without a broken heart. She pushed the desolation somewhere deep inside.

“Where are they?” she asked, and saw him jerk in surprise.

“Just up ahead, on either side of the road.” He spoke quietly, as if murmuring to the horse. “Come,” he said aloud. “Let us get home.” He began leading the horse forward, sticking to the right flank.

“Do you think they will attack, now there are two of us?” Simon took the left side. “And is it wise to take Mistress Horenbout into the fray?”

“I would rather she be anywhere but here, but if there are two up ahead, there could be more behind us.”

“True enough.” Simon patted the horse and looked up at her. “Quite like old times, eh?”

Susanna shuddered. “I hope not.” But it was clear Simon and Parker did not share her feelings. Anticipation swirled in them even as they kept their strides and their faces steady.

“Ride ahead when we engage,” Parker told her. “Not too far; I want to see where you are. But ride out of their reach.”

She nodded, hoping she could. She wasn’t used to riding a horse, but this was a placid gelding, a steady cart horse. Her worry was for watching and not being able to help.

The shadows stirred on either side of the street, and two figures detached themselves like dark wraiths.

“Here we go.” Simon’s voice was a mix of tension and excitement as he leaped to meet the man springing from the shadows.

Parker’s sword was out so fast, it seemed to Susanna it simply appeared in his hand. He gave no shout as he stepped forward to meet the attacker who sprang at him. They met with a grunt and the hiss of steel, up close to each other.

As they broke away and lifted their swords for the next blow, she suddenly realized she needed to move. She urged the horse forward, the sinister ring of steel enough to force him into a trot.

She turned him around a little way up the hill, her heart thundering in her chest, and saw Parker and Simon fighting back to back.

A candle flared in a room above the road, and a man in a white nightshirt stuck his torso out. “What in heaven’s name is going on down there?”

His shout acted like a cock’s crow. More lights flickered to life behind more windows, and Susanna saw the attackers step out of Parker’s and Simon’s reach. They turned up the hill and began to run—straight for her.

She leaned forward on the saddle. “Come on, boy.” Digging her knees into his sides and flicking the reins, she forced the horse forward, but he wouldn’t go faster than a walk.

“Susanna!” Parker’s shout was fierce as he chased down their assailants, and hearing him so close on their heels startled them. One stumbled in his panic just abreast of her and scooped something off the ground, then threw it straight at her.

She cried out, her arm lifting a second too late as cold, wet snow came hurling at her.

She blinked it out of her eyes and wiped it off her face as Parker reached her.

“Just snow?” His eyes searched her face.

She nodded. “Just snow.” She shivered.

His hand came up and his fingers curled around her neck, then he tugged her down to kiss her forehead.