In Defense of the Queen (17 page)

“And tomorrow? What do you plan to do?”

“I’ll get a stay from the King.” Parker dipped his head and kissed her cheek, warm and sweet as sunshine.

“Will he be amenable?”

“He wants you to paint. You will not be able to, if Wolsey has you in the dungeon. I think it will be easy to persuade him to sign a writ to keep you safe.”

“He has already. It will not stop Wolsey if he comes tomorrow with one of his own.”

“It will, if I deliver it myself.” Parker spoke between soft kisses, but despite the feather-light touch of his lips, his words were hard and cold as hailstones.

She reached for him, skimmed her fingers along his jaw. “Take care.” He closed a part of himself off when he was like this. Forced every soft corner, every gentleness in his soul, into another place. She knew it took its toll.

Another crime to lay at Lucas’s door.

“Enough of Wolsey.” Parker turned her face so he could kiss her mouth with soft, sweet brushes of his lips, as if he were tasting fine wine. “If Harry is half as bright as I think, we have a little time.”

Susanna hesitated again.

Parker pulled away a little and lifted his knife. The candlelight caught the gleam of its blade. “This goes through the eye of the first person who interrupts us.”

Susanna laughed, leaned in to kiss his neck. “Then I hope Harry is really, really bright.”

Chapter Twenty-three

None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons, for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons when they need most the tender care of their consort,

Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)

P
eter Jack and Eric were standing, stiff and turned away from each other, waiting for him, as Parker stepped through the gates of the Tower. The red sky of dawn had only just been burned away by the morning sun, and the pale stone looked pink in the light.

He smiled as Eric bowed his hello.

“I found Heyman.” Peter Jack looked up at the Bell Tower, his face drawn. Parker wondered if he had slept.

“Good.” Satisfaction curled through him. “Where?”

“Where Renard was staying. There is another man there, perhaps the Jules Renard spoke of. He took Heyman in.”

“They will be sweating by now, wondering what has happened to Renard.” He turned for a last look at the Tower. He would need to get home and get his horse. Be at Bridewell and see the King before Wolsey made his move.

“Eric, you need to go back inside. Find some way to watch this entrance from the inner wall, or from the Bell Tower. Make sure you’re able to see who is coming.”

“And if I see Wolsey coming?”

“Then I have failed.” He contemplated that possibility, but his mind refused to accept it, slipping away from the thought like an eel in the reeds. He heaved in a breath. “If you see Wolsey, my lady must hide, or escape. You have to run and warn her. You and Harry must try to get her away.”

“How goes it in there?” Peter Jack’s voice was low.

Eric refused to answer him, turning away a little more, so he only faced Parker. “May Fortune be with you.”

“And with you.” Parker clasped his arm, so thin and fragile, in a gesture of respect, and Eric gave a tight nod.

Then Eric ran to the entrance, calling a cheeky hello to the guards, who grumbled and laughed as they let him through.

“He thinks I have let my lady down. Refusing to guard her in the Tower.”

Parker shrugged, started to jog along the cobbled road. “You did well, finding Heyman. You are doing your share.”

“He is right.” Peter Jack sounded as if he would be happy to throw himself in front of the cart that was rumbling towards them, loaded with grain from the barges.

“You get any sleep last night?”

Peter Jack frowned. “No. I was watching Heyman. Wanted to see if anyone else came to the house.”

“Did they?”

“One man. One of Harry’s boys followed him when he left, but I haven’t spoken to him again. I don’t know where he went or who he was.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t sleep yet. You need to round up as many of Harry’s lads as you can and watch Wolsey’s house. At least it’s spring tide, so he can’t take a barge-it won’t go past the bridge. He has to take the roads. If he leaves for the Tower, stop him any way you can, and get one of the lads to call me.”

Peter Jack nodded, his back a little straighter. “Does my lady think ill of me?”

Parker looked at him in surprise. “No. She doesn’t.”

It was as if his words had toppled a huge weight from Peter Jack’s shoulders. He grinned. “I’ll get the lads.”

He peeled off up Fish Hill, and Parker turned at a run into Crooked Lane.

One of Harry’s boys was waiting for him near the house, and he forced himself even faster.

“Yes?” He was gasping for air as he drew near.

“Simon Carter saw me near Bridewell last night, following a cove for Peter Jack. Gave me a message.”

Parker heaved a deep breath, and bent, hands on his knees.

“He said to tell you, just after dinner last night the King had a fancy to be hunting, and away from London and more private. He packed up with a few friends and left straight away for one of his courtier’s homes near Epping Forest.”

Parker slowly lifted his head in horror. “Which estate?”

The boy said a name, and Parker tried to remember where exactly it was, and who owned it. Came up with a distance of at least an hour, at full gallop, just to the house. If the King was out hunting in the Forest, it would be near impossible to find him.

“Is Simon with the King?”

The boy nodded. “Found me just before he had to go.”

Parker went still. “Did you say he found you while you were following a cove for Peter Jack? Was this the man you saw going into Renard’s old house?”

“Don’t know ’bout anyone called Renard, but yes, we saw someone go in to the house we were watching and then go out ’bout ten minutes after. I followed him.”

“He returned to the palace?” Parker heard the blood pounding in his ears. It made the tick, tick, tick of a clock, wound too fast.

“Went to one of the houses next to the palace.”

“Whose house?”

“Duke o’ Norfolk, ’parently.”

Parker wondered when the bad news would stop coming.

* * *

He’d taken too long. Had ridden too far.

He had a hastily scrawled writ from Henry, smudged with the blood of the deer he had just brought down, in his pouch, but as Parker squinted up at the sun, now well past the midday mark, he tasted the bitterness of failure on his tongue.

If Wolsey knew of the King’s late night trip to Epping Forest, as he surely would, he would be crowing now, certain there was no chance of Parker stopping him.

He would see his chance, and grab it.

If Parker was too late, if Susanna was harmed, the Cardinal was dead.

He was
dead
.

Parker bent low over his horse and urged him on, and the familiar fields leading to Bishopsgate began to flash past.

He passed Hounds Ditch at a gallop, and as he thundered towards Bishopsgate he was thankful he’d worn his chain of office. The portcullis was raised but it was guarded, and when the watchmen saw his speed and the evidence of his rank, they stepped smartly aside.

His mount began to slide on the cobbles as soon as he passed under the arch and turned on to Grass Street and he was forced to slow down. He shouted himself hoarse at the milling crowds blocking his way, and carried on down Fish Hill with his sword drawn.

It had the desired effect of clearing the way.

He caught sight of a woman with a child, a brief glimpse, her face a mask of fear, her arms rising to protect her daughter as if from the Grim Reaper as he flashed past her.

He was so close to the savage within, the beast that he kept carefully fenced, and with every sharp strike of his horse’s hooves on the stone cobbles, he felt that wall crumble. Grow weaker.

He was shouting by the time he turned at Lower Thames Street towards the Tower, a long, continuous battle cry. He could hear himself, but he could not stop. His horse reacted under him, tossing, wild-eyed, trying to dislodge the maniac on its back, and Parker fought it under control.

Wolsey would come this way from Bridewell. If he were still on his way to the Tower, Parker would encounter him. Or at least run Peter Jack or one of Harry’s boys to ground.

The thought steadied him and he managed to clamp his mouth shut, weaving the horse through the carts and pedestrians on their way to the dock at Belin’s Gate with more restraint.

“Sir.” A voice cried out from the side of the road.

He pulled so hard on the reins, the horse lifted its forelegs and tried to unseat him, dancing sideways in alarm.

It had been one of Harry’s lads, Will, and Parker twisted on the saddle to see if he could find him again.

“Here.” Will dodged around a cart, and ran toward him.

“Wolsey?”

“We’ve been trying every trick to slow him.” The boy pointed to a cart overturned and half blocking the way up ahead, another cart abandoned next to it. Parker realized the overturned cart was from his own stable. “His men pushed that aside a few minutes ago. But they can’t get the Cardinal’s cart through. They’re walking the rest of the way.”

Parker swung down from the horse and threw the reins to Will. The crowds coming in and out of Belin’s Gate, hauling fish and grain, would make the going faster on foot. Something Wolsey had realized, as well.

He ran, sword still raised, and palmed the knife he kept in his sleeve as well.

He leapt over the front of his cart, and saw a flash of crimson a little way up the street.

The Cardinal, in full regalia. All the better to intimidate Kilburne with.

“Wolsey.” His shout echoed, bouncing off the water to his right and the houses to his left.

Even over the noise of the small port, he thought the crimson-clad figure heard him. Hesitated.

He pounded forward. “Wolsey.” He held the shout this time, drawing it out, and the crowds parted, people turning back to stare at him as he ran, moving out of his way when they saw his sword.

He didn’t see the men Wolsey had set on him until it was far too late.

His concentration had been on the Cardinal’s crimson robes, but Wolsey had brought his henchmen.

He missed them in the crowds, dressed as they were, not in the Cardinal’s colours, but as merchants and traders going about their business.

The first man slammed into him and they bounced against each other, Wolsey’s man losing his footing on cobbles slick with river water and fish scales. He gripped a nearby trader as he went down, trying to stay upright.

Parker dodged past him while he was still struggling with the passerby, but someone grabbed his arm, and pulled him back.

He staggered, and bent into a crouch, turning in a circle to see how many.

He was surrounded.

He didn’t hesitate. These men had thrown themselves into Wolsey’s service, and every second they delayed him, was a second longer Susanna would be in their master’s clutches.

With a roar, he lifted his sword and spun.

The men leapt back, standing on toes, elbowing the crowds as they tried to stay away from the honed blade.

There were mutterings from the traders, and Parker heard his name called.

He’d worked Belin’s Gate as a lad, hauling loads here, and he was known.

“Sir.” Peter Jack called from just outside the circle.

“What’s happening?” Parker lunged at one of the men and he countered, trying to jump back against the growing wall of people hemming them in.

“The Cardinal is nearly at Tower Gate.”

“Stop him any way you can.” A calm came over him, he felt it settle on him, like a cloak of feathers. Light, weightless.

He lifted his sword again and the man in front of him looked him in the face and turned, squealing like a pig, and tried to burrow his way through the crowd pressing in.

Parker spun away, his longsword angled for a neck hit, and connected with another of Wolsey’s men. The blood sprayed high, a rain of warm red, and the people closest screamed and turned away to avoid it.

He lunged in the same move as he pulled his sword free, thrusting his knife to take another of his attackers just under the breastbone and up.

The man fell screaming, hands clutching his stomach, trying to hold the blood in.

Parker stood back, blood dripping from both his blades, and the rest of Wolsey’s men tried to melt back into the crowds.

Parker saw the traders and docksmen bumping them, hitting the backs of their heads, watched them being tripped, as they tried to get away.

“Please let me through.” His voice was nearly gone from his shouting from before but a way opened up immediately and he ran, ran harder and faster than he could ever remember running.