In Defense of the Queen (26 page)

The closer they got to Bridewell, the more Parker sensed Jules pushing to gain ground. He would assume they were headed to the King’s residence, and know he would lose them the moment they rode through the gate.

It was time to draw the Frenchman off north or west—as it was, they were running parallel to the alleys. It was too close to Susanna for comfort.

At the Fleet Conduit, Parker veered left and took Shoe Lane, out to Old Bourne Rd and the fields north of London.

He risked a quick glance back, and saw Jules slow a little, drawing on his reins while he tried to understand why Parker would head for the open fields, rather than the safety of Bridewell.

But Parker was all he had—the only lead—and when Parker looked back again, he was coming at a gallop.

Shoe Lane ended in an orchard with an arched gate at the far corner, and Parker raced through it, the smell of ripe apples crushed under hooves tickling his nose. He came out onto Old Bourne, and took the way left.

The road rose and fell as it followed the canal running beside it, and without warning Parker took a rise and came down amongst a dense herd of cows.

They were packed tight, caught between the canal and the wall and Parker’s curses served only to distress them. They shuffled closer to each other than before.

He couldn’t get through. Not before Jules was upon him.

Parker looked back, saw Jules taking the rise, and turned his mount to face him, his sword drawn.

Jules pulled hard on the reins, taking in the scene and they eyed each other while their horses blew, sides heaving from the pace.

“Why did you take the boy out here?” Jules eyes were on the bundle tucked beneath his cloak, and Parker looked down at it, too.

He’s almost forgotten about it, but saw he’d kept Harry’s rolled cloak carefully the whole way, as if it really were a child.

The subterfuge would not last long, however.

He would milk it while he could.

“There are just as many enemies in Bridewell as on the streets. I do not know who commissioned you to kill the boy. But I do know he will be at Bridewell. I would have brought the boy into the presence of the one who wished him dead.” Behind him, cows lowed and bumped his horse’s haunches, and he felt his mount’s vicious backward kick, felt the muscles bunching beneath him in distress. There was an overwhelming stink of mud and cow dung in the air.

“No one would try anything there, under the nose of the King.” Jules turned his head and spat on the ground.

“You tried in Fitzroy’s own home.”

“You know that is different.” Without a pause, Jules’s hand went to his belt and he grabbed hold of his crossbow, lifted it in one smooth move, eye going to the sight.

Parker threw the bundled cloak, and in reflex, Jules swung with the throw, shot the bolt. It made the sound of a spade biting into mud as it pinned the bundle to the ground.

Jules stared at the cloak, mud-soaked and loose on the path, lifting at the corners in the mild breeze, the bolt through the middle, and then up at Parker, eyes hard.

He reached back for another bolt, fury making his hand shake, but Parker had his knife ready. Threw.

Even though Jules flinched left, he was too late. The knife didn’t go through his throat, as Parker intended, but buried itself just above his right collarbone.

His cry of pain echoed off the water in the canal, off the high wall on their other side, and his bolts dropped with a thud into the damp earth of the path.

Jules turned his horse, dancing it around to face the other way, urging it back down the path they had come. His face was white with pain, the knife still sticking from his shoulder.

Parker drew his sword and charged after him. He could not allow Jules too much distance, in case he somehow found out which way Susanna had gone.

There was a shout beside him, making his horse rear again, and Parker caught sight of the open-mouthed astonishment of the cowherd before at last they surged forward.

They were coming back to the entrance to Shoe Lane, and Parker’s hope that Jules would ignore it, would continue along Old Bourne, keeping to the outskirts of London, died as he turned his mount through the arch.

Whatever happened, Parker could only follow now, and keep Jules in sight. As helpless to determine the route they travelled as Jules had been before.

* * *

Gladys looked straight ahead at the causeway to the Middle Tower, with its soaring height and arched entrance, and vibrated with fear.

“Our thanks, Mistress Goodnight, for your help.” It felt wrong addressing her from atop Kilburne’s horse, but Susanna was sure any sudden move to dismount would send Gladys skittering into the shadows.

“Our sincere thanks.” It was Fitzroy’s first words since the alley, and it was well done, humble and honest.

“Aye. You saved us.” Harry turned to her and gave her a nod.

The woman dipped her head, her eyes darting, and Susanna withdrew a coin from her pouch. “For your trouble.” She held it out, and Gladys took it so fast and light, one moment it lay on her palm, the next it was gone.

And then, in the blink of an eye, so was Gladys herself.

They all looked toward the Tower, white and soaring. The dusk sky seemed huge, endless, after so long in the dark, narrow passages of the back alleys.

The stink of the King’s menagerie drifted across the causeway to her, musky and rank, and Susanna heard the low, throbbing growl of a lion, like a warning to stay away.

She was not surprised they were all unwilling to move forward. It felt wrong, completely wrong, to be returning to the one place she would like never to go again. And they would need to move soon. The curfew hour within the Tower was surely approaching.

“I hope Master Croke is safe.” Fitzroy’s voice was small, more like that of the child he was.

“I hope so, too.” It was the most honest thing she could say. She thought of Parker, and was suddenly in need of a deep breath.

“State your business.”

Susanna realized two guards had noticed them blocking the way to the causeway, and were watching them from the other end of it.

“Captain Kilburne sent us.” It was the truth, and she could not think of anything less complicated than that. She nudged the horse with her knees, and it began walking forward. Harry exchanged a quick look with her and took hold of the bridle again.

They crossed without any hurry, as reluctantly as condemned prisoners.

The guards moved back, letting them step off the causeway, and in the last sliver of daylight, Susanna recognized one of them as Kilburne’s second-in-command, Lewis, now demoted, it seemed, to gate duty.

Because of her.

He stepped closer, and looked up at her, his face hard. Fitzroy shrank closer to her within the cloak, sensing his hostility.

“I would speak urgently to the Constable.” She looked down at Lewis, relishing the advantage of height. “Your captain sent me with a message for him.”

Another two guards had joined Lewis and his companion, and Lewis looked sidelong at them, agitated. “How can we be sure of that?”

She caught his gaze, and she flinched at the anger in his eyes. This man would bring her down if he could. He blamed her for his fall.

“You can be sure that in letting me in, you will for once be serving the wishes of both your masters.”

Lewis flinched at her direct mention of his betrayal of Kilburne, and the other guards shifted uneasily. “You go too far.”

Harry, tired of waiting, tried their luck by simply walking forward, and Lewis blocked their way with his hand to his sword.

As Harry was forced to a halt, Susanna fingered the King’s ring, still within her sleeve. She may need its power yet.

She would never have believed she would be fighting to get within the Tower. That instead of forcing her in, the guards were denying her access. The irony pressed down on her, like the shadows from the Tower wall.

“We are pursued by assassins,” Susanna was loathe to say even this much, the words scratching her throat as she spoke them. “We need the safety of the Tower.”

Lewis’s eyes darted behind her, to the darkening road and buildings behind them. “Assassins?” At last he moved aside as if to let them pass.

“At long bloody last,” Harry muttered as he started forward. “They could have shot us six times over, in the time you took—”

Lewis raised a hand and struck out at Harry’s head, but Harry’s arm came up to block. They stood poised against each other, Harry’s forearm raised high, Lewis’s mouth twisted in temper.

Susanna reached her hand into her sleeve, and began to work the King’s ring loose.

* * *

They had come to a parting of ways.

Parker could tell Jules was merely trying to stay ahead of him. He had no clear destination in mind. He did not want to lead Parker to his home, and he had no way of knowing where Susanna had taken Fitzroy.

Two carts had crashed together up ahead, just past St. Paul’s Church Yard, and the chaos and blockage to the traffic forced Jules to turn up a narrow side street, or turn back to face Parker.

Parker followed him, suddenly weary to his bones. The lives of Wolsey’s two men weighed heavy on him again, as he faced what he might have to do up ahead.

He knew these streets well. Jules had trapped himself in a dead-end.

“Are you laughing to yourself, Englishman?” Jules had taken the alley all the way to the wall that ended it, and turned his horse to face Parker. He held his crossbow like a club. The place where Parker’s knife had struck him was dark and crusted with blood through his clothes, and his lips were thin with pain.

“No.” The stark truth of his answer stripped some of the bravado from Jules’s face.

“You don’t give up. Why don’t you give up?” Jules did not seem to expect an answer, but Parker gave it to him, anyway.

“You threatened my betrothed. If you had not shot at her, had her imprisoned, hounded her, I would have left you alone.”

“This is because of the woman?” Jules’s mouth gaped. “The artist?”

Parker met his gaze and did not look away.

“
Encroyable. La femme.
” Jules closed his eyes. “I promise to leave her alone now.”

“You seem to have moved on to other, more lucrative pursuits. Does the Emperor not pay you enough?”

Jules gripped his saddle. “No. He hasn’t paid us at all since de Praet was kicked out of England. When de Praet was here, he made sure we got our money, but these new ambassadors?” Jules spat on the ground. “They couldn’t find their arse with both hands. And that de la Sauch, he looked at us as if we were something unpleasant under his boot. This private job was just what we needed to stay afloat.”

“Why are you still working for the Emperor, then?” Parker asked.

“We had a letter from de Praet, promising he would get de la Sauch to pay us. And then your woman’s brother arrived. He has too many loyalties, that one. Margaret of Austria, de Praet, his sister. He was supposed to meet us at the docks with details of the letter the Emperor’s aunt had given him, but we missed him, and then Jan Heyman wasn’t in his rooms when Horenbout came calling on his way to his sister. By the time he’d seen her, he’d taken fright and given her the missive. We had no choice but to try to shut him down anyway we could.”

“He took fright because you tried to kill her through the window of my study.”

Jules stared at him. “He hadn’t given it to her, yet? Before I shot?”

So many things fell into place for Parker. “Shooting at her forced him to give it to her. He would have done what you asked, said nothing, betrayed Margaret in favour of the Emperor, but once he thought you were double-crossing him, trying to kill him and his sister anyway, he did the only thing he could think of to save her. He gave her the missive so she could tell the Queen. He thought once the damage was done you would no longer have a reason to see her dead.”

“I wasn’t shooting at her,” Jules said. “I was shooting at him.”

Parker let a smile twist his lips. “No. You were shooting at me.”

Jules swore. “I wondered why Renard looked guilty. He was supposed to tell me if anyone else came into the house after Horenbout. That’s probably why I haven’t seen the bastard for two days.”

Parker titled his head to the side. “You haven’t seen Renard for a few days because an assassin, sent by the French king, killed him.”

Now Jules truly went white. “Jean? Jean knows we are in de Praet’s pay? The king knows?”

Parker said nothing, and Jules lowered the crossbow to the saddle, his head bowed. “I saw Jean just a few days ago. He couldn’t have known then that I was reporting to de Praet. I told him—” He lifted his head sharply.

“Yes, Jean was kind enough to pass on that someone was looking for an assassin to kill the King’s son.”

“This is how you knew? Jean . . .” He could not get the words out, forced himself to take a deep breath. “And how is it the assassin for the French crown tells you these things?”

Parker said nothing.

“It does not matter. I’m finished in London. If you know my secrets, I’m sure the Cardinal will know soon enough, too, and it won’t be safe for me here any more. I will truly leave your woman alone, sir.”