Suzanne Robinson (17 page)

And he was a spy, a French spy. Those documents proved him an enemy of England and the queen. Tristan served the cardinal of Lorraine, the uncle of the Queen of Scots. And Mary Queen of Scots lusted after the English throne. Mary and her uncle were members of the rapacious de Guise family, who sought to rule not only France but Scotland and England as well.

Tristan, a French priest. A priest who had been in
England and Scotland at the behest of the cardinal of Lorraine. Pen knew little of the secret machinations of the powerful, but from what her cousin had written, she understood that the Queen of Scots had been plotting to get herself named Queen Elizabeth’s heir.

Elizabeth demurred, giving equivocal answers. Elizabeth knew better than to commit herself to such a course and, as she was fond of saying, set a winding sheet before her face. Declaring her cousin Mary her heir would be issuing her own writ of execution.

Pen could imagine the English queen balancing precariously between Catholic France and Catholic Spain, with the Catholic Mary Stuart lurking, always lurking, ready to pounce and disembowel should Elizabeth falter. Should Mary rule England, the kingdom would fall under the sway of the inquisition. And it was hapless fools like Nany Boggs and Dibbler, who had almost no formal learning, who fell victim to heretic-hunting priests, heretic-burning priests—like Tristan.

Her jaw quivered. Was it from the cold, or from grief? She’d fallen victim to her own confusion and thoughtlessness and made a laughingstock of herself. He never had loved her. She said this thought to herself with little more than a distant ache in response. She must have wept for hours, for she hadn’t the strength to weep anymore.

She thought she remembered having put Tristan in a cell beneath the keep. Yes, she had. And in a day or two, when the supply ship came, she would have to take him to England, to the queen’s minister, Cecil.

But what would Cecil do to him? The rack, the whip, the brand? Pen lifted her head and stared out to sea. She couldn’t turn him over to Cecil knowing what
would be done to him. But she had to. Such a spy could cost the lives of good Englishmen, or even the queen. Yet she couldn’t bear to think of him being hurt, no matter how terribly he’d hurt her.

“God,” she muttered to herself, “this choice will tip me into madness.”

Her body quivered as an icy breeze whipped around her. Hugging herself, she left the embrasure and went to her own chamber. After standing beside a chest in indecision, she finally opened it and donned a cloak she found within it.

She left the keep, refusing to glance at the stair that led to Tristan’s cell, and went to the kitchen. There she found Twistle and Nany presiding over preparations for the evening meal. Nany was rolling out dough for the crust of a pasty while Twistle made cabbage pottage.

She dropped onions, leeks, and cabbage into a stew cauldron. Then she spiced the mixture with saffron and salt. The vessel held enough stew to feed the whole castle and the village as well. It was suspended on an iron bar inside a fireplace that was almost a cave.

Pen took a stool beside its yawning mouth and noticed a much smaller pot simmering over white embers. From it came a peculiar smell that caused Pen to shift so as to avoid the fumes.

Nany Boggs punched a rounded lump of dough while staring at her charge. “How fare you, mistress?”

“Not well, Nany.”

Twistle hadn’t said anything. She went to a shelf, turned her back to Pen, and reached for a pepper pot. Nany sniffed and slapped flour on her dough.

“Foul bastard French priest,” she said. “Hiding here
in our midst while he spins his plots. You should have let the queen’s man have him, mistress. Sweep him out the door with the rest of the offal, that’s what I say.”

Hugging herself, Pen stared into the flames of the fire and shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Prithee, why not?” Nany said.

Pen sighed as Twistle removed a white ceramic pot from the back of the topmost shelf and brought it to the table. The pot was so large that it required two hands to hold it. She emptied dried lumps of root and leaves from it into a stone bowl and began mashing them with a pestle.

“He’s tricked you,” Nany was saying, “and there’s no remedy in marriage with a papist priest. He’s soiled and besmirched and degraded—”

“Please!” Pen covered her ears for a moment, then straightened her spine.

Nany had the sense to look contrite. “What’s the worst is he’s taken the happiness and mirth from you, mistress.”

“I should have remembered what young men are like, then I wouldn’t have gotten myself debauched,” Pen muttered.

Twistle rammed her pestle into the bowl, causing the table to shake. “I don’t see why we should give him to the queen’s man.”

At first Pen couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. Twistle clamped her lips together and said nothing else. She sealed the pot she’d used and placed it back on the topmost shelf. Pen watched her empty the ground contents of the stone bowl into the smaller of the two pots in the fireplace.

The mixture in the pot bubbled sluggishly as Twistle stirred it. Pen frowned while she watched the mess
roil and simmer. It was a grayish-brown and contained long, wormlike ingredients that surfaced occasionally and wiggled as if alive.

“Twistle, what is that foul concoction?”

The cook rubbed her hands on her apron without glancing at Pen. “Stew.”

“You’re making more stew? What about that in the larger pot?”

“You said to feed him,” Twistle said without smiling. “This is prisoner’s stew.”

Nany plopped her dough into a pasty pan. “Our pottage is too good for a spy.”

Pen glanced from Nany, whose grin made her resemble a vulture with a fresh carcass, to Twistle, who had yet to met her mistress’s gaze.

“What kind of stew?” she asked.

Twistle dropped pieces of cabbage into the prisoner’s stew without speaking.

Nany wiped her flour-covered hands, grasped a mug, and took a gulp of ale. She wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve and grinned at Pen.

“Rat stew,” she said.

Pen jumped up to peer into the pot. Rat tails, bits of hairy hide, and a paw floated on the top of the concoction. Pen swallowed against nausea and backed away as she caught a whiff of steam. Something in the smell made her whirl and stare at Twistle, who was calmly chopping more cabbage.

“Twistle,” Pen said.

The knife clicked rapidly on the table.

Pen knew the young woman too well to expect an answer without a fight. She went to the herb shelf and retrieved the white ceramic pot. Opening it, she sniffed the contents. She coughed, then shoved the pot back on the shelf with a clatter and slowly turned to
face Twistle. Undisturbed, the cook strewed cabbage into the large stew pot.

Pen marched up to Twistle, pointed at the rat stew, and said in a low voice, “You put wolfsbane in his stew.”

Twistle nodded as she stirred the cabbage into the castle stew.

“You’ll feel much better after he’s gone,” she said calmly.

“I told you not to put things in his food.”

“That was before,” Twistle said as she tasted a piece of stew meat.

Pen’s heart had begun to pound. “Twistle, didn’t you tell me that wolfsbane is deadly?”

“Oh, aye, mistress.” Twistle’s apple-round face took on a dreamy expression of enjoyment. “First he’ll feel this burning and tingling and his tongue and throat and his face will go numb. Then he’ll puke and he won’t be able to see anything but blurs, and he’ll have trouble breathing. Then his sight will dim and he’ll get chest pains.”

Twistle paused as she contemplated the prospect, and smiled. “Then he’ll get worse. He’ll get fits, and after than he’ll grow so cold he’ll feel like his flesh has become ice. And then the real pain starts, mistress. And the best part is that he’ll be awake to the end.”

“No!”

Pen heard herself shouting, but she didn’t care. Gone was her concern for the pain Twistle had suffered. Grabbing a poker from the fireplace, she tipped the pot and emptied the rat stew into the flames. The kitchen filled with the smell of burnt food and the hissing and sputtering of quenched flames. Pen shoved Twistle aside and marched to the herb shelf.

Blinking back tears, she snatched the white pot,
opened it, and emptied its contents into the fire. Dried leaves and roots crackled and burst into flames. Pen dropped the pot onto the worktable and faced Twistle.

“You’re not to touch him.” She glared at Nany. “No one is to harm him.”

Twistle swore. “But what he did to you—”

“I don’t care!” Pen felt as if her head would burst with pain. She pressed her palms to her temples.

“I don’t care, do you hear? I can’t bear to think of him suffering. And you’re not helping me. Do you understand that? There is more at peril here than my virtue and my happiness. This matter touches the queen, and no matter how much I wish it were otherwise, Tristan must go to England to confess whatever evil machinations he’s devised against her majesty.”

Nany settled down on a stool with her ale mug and regarded her mistress with a tear rolling down one plump cheek. “But we were happy before he came and wrought destruction upon you, mistress. He should pay for ruining our happiness.”

“If we don’t kill him, he’ll do more harm,” Twistle said quietly.

Pen rounded on her. “I’ll have your promise not to harm him, or I’ll send you out of the castle at once.”

Meeting Twistle’s defiance, Pen filled her own gaze with all dominance she could command—and won. Twistle muttered her acquiescence and curtsied.

“And to help you obey,” Pen said, “I’ll take Tristan’s meals to him myself.”

A few minutes later Pen carried a tray out of the kitchen, where Dibbler and Erbut waited with their pikes. They marched ahead of her to the keep with Nany following behind carrying blankets and Tristan’s
clothing. Down into darkness they went, until they reached the glow of a torch.

There Sniggs waited for them. Pen nodded to him. Dibbler and Erbut readied themselves and their pikes. Sniggs lifted the bar over the door, opened it, and jumped back, pike at the ready.

Tristan appeared at the threshold and scowled at them with bleary eyes as three pikes touched his chest. He spread his arms to indicate compliance. Pen stepped between two of the weapons. She hadn’t wanted ever to face him again. The sight of him called up her shame.

“Stand back,” she said.

He stepped deeper into the cell when Dibbler poked him. Pen darted forward, set the tray down, and retreated. Nany threw her bundle inside, and Sniggs shut the door with a bang as Tristan stalked toward them. Pen retreated as he began to pound on the door. She was almost at the stairs when she heard him.

“Penelope Fairfax, if you don’t come back here, I’m going to shout a description of what I did to you last night to my donkey’s arse of a jailer.”

Gasping, she whirled and marched back to the cell. Motioning for Sniggs and the rest to leave, she slammed back the cover of the grille in the door.

“You have more lies to tell me? Speak, sirrah, for I’m not accustomed to trotting about at the hests of spies.”

His face suddenly appeared at the window, and she started at the black glint in his eye.

“I’ve been thinking, trying to remember, but I can’t. All I know is that I can’t be a priest. Surely I would conduct myself differently, more—more like a priest.”

“That commission and your own body have condemned you,” Pen said. She began to close the window.

“No, wait!”

She paused as he ducked his head to meet her gaze. She couldn’t understand how his eyes could catch the torchlight when he was surrounded by so much darkness. Her glance strayed to his mouth. It had been thin with tension, but now his lips softened.

She remembered how he had placed them in the most unlikely places. Once, he had kissed the flesh at the back of her neck and nearly caused her to leap from the bed. Flushing, she drew herself upright.

“How can you deny such proofs?” she asked.

He came closer to the grille and glared at her. “What if that commission is false, a forgery? Even an antick like you must see that St. John might have twisted the tale around to suit his purpose. Calm your mad blood, Pen, and think. If he’s twisted the tale around to suit his desires, if he’s lied—”

Pen, furious at being called an antick, folded her arms over her chest and sneered.

“You can’t go on because you’ve realized that even an antick wouldn’t believe such driveling.”

She met his gaze, but it was as if he weren’t seeing her, and his voice was faint.

“If he’s twisted the tale …”

“Saints,” Pen said. “Being found out seems to have robbed you of your skill at lying.”

“If he’s twisted the truth, and tampered with those commissions, then … then it might be as I suggested, that it is he who is Jean-Paul.”

“In faith, it’s you who are the antick, not I.”

Tristan appeared to return from whatever reverie had overtaken him and looked at her again. “If he’s Jean-Paul, then—then mayhap I’m Morgan St. John. But the name means naught to me. And he mentioned someone named Derry, which means nothing to me as
well. Yet if I’m St. John, then this Derry is important to me in some way, and—and he might be dead.” He held her gaze, and his own softened.

“Incomparable Gratiana, my beautiful storm, I think I’ve found part of the truth. Listen to me.”

His tone lowered and grew intimate so that he was murmuring to her as he did when he’d found her alone in some corner of the castle. He’d done little more than look at her, and yet she’d grown hot. She eyed him warily, for she was beginning to realize how dangerous it had been to remain in his presence for so long. Blinking, she started as she found that she’d begun to lean close so that she could hear what he was saying, and that he had touched her face with the tips of his fingers. She jerked her head out of his reach.

“What vile sorceries are you trying to work upon me now?” she said on a cry.

His gentle, seductive expression vanished and he snapped at her. “Afore God, woman, try to use reason. Let us hence, find this man, and force him to tell the truth.”