Текст книги "The Tudor Conspiracy"

Автор книги: Christopher Gortner

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Not many had turned out to see her departure, though I could glimpse semiconcealed figures converging at the surrounding gallery windows, courtiers observing from the safety of their perches, waiting with bated breath for the queen’s last-minute order for Elizabeth to return to her rooms, from which she’d emerge for the short trip to the Tower.

Mary stepped from among her ladies, the wind catching at her violet mantle. A jeweled rosary hung from her waist. She faced her sister as she might a combatant.

Elizabeth dropped practically to her knees, head bowed. She’d come to court as the queen’s cherished heir and sister; in less than six months she was leaving under a pall of hatred and suspicion. My heart went out to her as the queen extended her hand with its signet ring. There was no affection in the gesture, no sign of forgiveness or largesse; Mary was as remote as the clock tower looming above us.

In the silence broken only by the wind and sifting thaw of snow, with the queen’s little hand trapped in hers, Elizabeth lifted her voice and said, loudly enough for everyone present to hear, “I depart from Your Majesty’s presence with a heavy heart, though circumstances and my own delicate health require it. Yet I declare myself your most loyal subject, who loves you more than anyone. I beseech you not to believe those who spread evil reports about me without doing me the honor of letting me prove to you in person the malicious nature of such slanders, for on you alone do I depend for my honor.”

It was a perfect speech, stamped with Elizabeth’s signature flair for rhetoric. Mary reacted accordingly, her thin white lips seeming to disappear into the pressed crevice of her mouth. I held my own breath as everyone waited. Elizabeth glanced warily past her sister to Renard, who stood steps from the queen. Though his cap shaded his face, his eyes must have been directed at her with single-minded fervor. If he had had his way, this moment would have gone very differently.

Mary withdrew her hand. Something intangible, fleeting in its poignancy, moved across her face. Her attempt to smile came out as a bloodless grimace; she impulsively reached out without warning and clasped Elizabeth’s hand again, as if in regret.

Then she called to her women.

Lady Clarencieux stepped forth, bearing what looked like a small animal. As the princess unraveled it, a length of lustrous sable flooded her arms-a cloak with inset sleeves and hood, fashioned of supple velvet and the exquisite Russian fur.

“It is cold in Hertfordshire,” Mary said, “and, as you say, your health is delicate. We would not wish for you to take ill for lack of proper care.”

Elizabeth started to speak, her gaze bright with unshed tears; before she could, the queen motioned again, and a friar in a Franciscan habit and cape, the knotted cord of his order about his waist, appeared. At the sight of him, Elizabeth’s eyes dimmed.

“You assured us that you wished to become better acquainted with the ways of our true faith,” Mary said. “This friar will go with you to Ashridge to instruct you. He brings with him the articles of our true faith, so you may see them every day and learn their solace. We pray that you’ll soon realize that only by casting aside the heretic teachings of your youth can you prove this loyalty you so ardently declare.”

She took a step back. The sable overflowed in Elizabeth’s arms. Turning to Mistress Parry, she relieved herself of it and curtsied again before moving to her litter. She had a large entourage that included her women, an escort of men-at-arms, her Arabian jennet, Cantila, and Urian.

“We choose to believe you for now,” Mary called out, freezing her in midstep. “Live quietly at Ashridge with no further upset, and we’ll take note of your sincerity.”

Elizabeth paused, casting her gaze over the assembly. Though she couldn’t have seen me among the multitude, I hoped that somehow she felt my presence.

To the crack of whips and clangor of hooves, the procession rode out under the palace archway. The crowd dispersed, the courtiers rushing to join the watchers in the galleries, to examine and dissect, to again place bets on Elizabeth’s chances.

Shrouded in my cloak, I blended with them.

The time had come to embark on my own desperate gambit.

SOUTHWARK
Chapter Eighteen

I crossed the frosted gardens and tiltyard to the stables. Cinnabar whickered from his stall, happy to see me; I tarried a few moments, reassuring him. I did not want to risk riding over the bridge again or make myself too visible a target on horseback. If Renard was going to have me followed, this time let the chase be on foot.

After paying Toby a generous bribe, I gave him instructions as to what to do with Cinnabar if I did not return. “Send him to Ashridge, as a gift to Her Grace, Princess Elizabeth. She will reward you.” As I left the stables, Cinnabar neighed, and I fought off a pang of fear. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him or anyone I loved again.

Slipping into the frigid night, I headed for the river. Close to the water steps I suddenly heard someone behind me. I ducked into the nearest doorway, unsheathing my sword. The footsteps grew closer, an odd dragging sound that rasped in my ears. As I gripped my sword, ready to lunge, a beggar limped past the doorway, muttering to herself, her misshapen feet swathed in rags. She did not notice me lurking only inches away, my length of blade bared. Warily, I searched the environs and continued onward.

The ice in the Thames had begun to break apart, the tepid warmth of the past few days heaving it up in slabs. The river was still dangerous to navigate, but I reasoned that with so many boatmen facing starvation without their trade, a few must have returned to work by now. I located one by the water steps, rubbing gnarled hands together to stave off the chill.

He avidly pocketed my coin, and I cautiously stepped into his rickety skiff. Seated on the exposed bench, I repressed my lifelong fear of dark water as the skiff bumped into the river. Ice clunked against the sides; the wherry man maneuvered past it, pushing larger pieces aside with his oar. I couldn’t help but think that if one of those sharp fragments struck the hull, we’d sink like stone.

We made it across without incident, though I was frozen to my toes from the wind. After paying the wherry man extra to wait, I raced through the winding, filth-strewn streets to the Hawk’s Nest.

Its facade was shuttered against the inhospitable night. Looking at it, I felt as though a lifetime had passed since I’d first come to this place. I rapped on the door, thinking for no apparent reason that Scarcliff might be here.

“The earl’s man,” I said to the leering doorman, dumping the last of my pouch’s contents into his meaty paw. “Is he here?”

“Who?” He pocketed my coin. “No idea what you’re bleatin’ about, pretty man.”

They must have killed him on the road, dumped him somewhere he wouldn’t be found until dogs or kites unearthed his bones. Though he had done nothing to warrant my pity, I felt it anyway. No man deserved such an end.

I was moving purposefully forward when the doorman grasped me by the sleeve. “Not so fast. I still need the fee and yer weapon.”

My answer was to whirl about and slam my poniard’s hilt into his face. Blood spewed from his nose. I hit him again, then again, in the groin. He groaned and dropped to the floor, cupping his parts. “Bastard,” I heard him gasp. “You miserable arse-lickin’-”

I clubbed him again, silencing him. As I strode into the brothel, I hoped I hadn’t killed him.

The main room was practically deserted. Only a few masked customers sat drinking or playing dice, attended by desultory boys who didn’t even bother to sway their hips. Glancing at the booth near the staircase, where Scarcliff had his post, I found it empty.

Once up the staircase, I paused, listening for telltale sounds of customer entertainment. A few cats slinked into the shadows, but I heard nothing coming from behind the doors. Had news from the palace spread this far, so quickly?

I didn’t bother to knock on Courtenay’s door, kicking it open with my boot. He sat alone at the table, decanter and goblet before him. He looked up, startled; when he saw me, he scowled. “You faithless cur. You betrayed me.”

I shut the door behind me and leaned against it with my arms crossed. Though I wanted to grab him by his shirt and shake him until he spilled his guts, I needed his cooperation, preferably without duress.

“Actually,” I said, “I believe we’ve been both betrayed. Mistress Sybilla Darrier; she was the woman you’d been meeting here, wasn’t she?”

He reached for the decanter. I strode across the room, swiping it from his grasp. “Drink yourself to death for all I care, but not before you tell me what I need to know.”

Up close, I saw his eyes were bloodshot, rimmed in shadow. He was also halfway drunk by the looks of it, which wasn’t going to make this any easier.

“The queen has issued a warrant for your arrest,” I informed him. “They’re searching for you as we speak.”

He blanched. Staggering from his chair, he thrust his chin at me, his breath foul with wine. “Yes, and why is that? Because you lied! You promised to see me safe. You said, if I helped you, you’d not set their dogs on me. But you gave them those letters. Why should I trust anything you say now?”

“Because we’ve both been played false,” I said. “She planned this. She stole Dudley’s letters, only I didn’t know it was her at the time. Then she brought them back, claiming she’d taken them from Renard. I had to give the queen something before Renard moved against the princess. It was your head or hers. That is what I believed.”

The anger in his eyes faded. “She-she planned it?” he whispered.

I met his bewildered stare. “She made me believe she was helping me. But now I know she had something different in mind.” I leaned to him. “She has another master. I must know where she is.”

I was hoping for a revelation, but he turned away blindly, swaying. “She told me Renard had used her cruelly,” he said, as if the act of admitting her duplicity aloud would somehow make it less true. “She said she was English, that she supported our cause. I believed her. She was so beautiful, so convincing … I told her everything about the conspiracy and Dudley’s letters.”

“About me,” I said.

He nodded miserably. “She came to see me that same night. She must have seen you leaving the brothel. She asked who you were. I told her that you claimed to be working for Elizabeth and threatened me, so I had to help you get into the Tower. Later, when I saw you with her in the palace, I thought she would persuade you to see our point of view.” He came to a halt, his eyes widening as he recognized the full import of his credulity. “God help me, she lied. She used me to her own ends. What am I going to do now?”

“Tell me where she is. You can still escape. But she has Elizabeth’s letter; I have to get it back.”

Tears spilled down his cheeks. “They’ll torture me, won’t they? Break me on the rack, in the Little Ease. They’ll tear me apart with hooks; burn me with brands and whip my flesh from my bones, but nothing they do can stop it. The others will come. They will rise up against the queen. And Sybilla knows; she knows everything.”

I felt as if a pit had cracked under my feet. “Others? What others?”

He went silent, his jaw clenching. Then he said, “The nobles Dudley wrote to-they’re only the half of it. He didn’t trust anyone, not entirely, so he had me recruit others.”

“Who? When will they act?”

“When the queen’s betrothal is announced,” he muttered, lowering his gaze to his feet, “that will be their sign. Thomas Wyatt in Kent, he’s rallied his supporters; he plans to join with the Duke of Suffolk’s retainers to march on London.”

The Duke of Suffolk: Jane Grey’s father. God help her, Mary would kill her for it. She would end up paying for these men’s treachery. I couldn’t take any more. Seizing Courtenay by his chemise, I lifted him off the floor, ramming him against the wall. He moaned; glancing down, I saw his hose darken under his codpiece, the seep of piss trickling down his thigh.

“You fool,” I hissed. “Do you realize what you and Dudley have done? Elizabeth could die because of you! So could her cousin Jane Grey. Sybilla sought information for someone else, and now, because of you, she has all the information she needs.”

His eyes bulged. “I–I never meant to harm Elizabeth,” he gasped. “I swear it.”

My fist closed about his chemise, twisting the cloth, cutting off his very breath. “I need to find Sybilla. Now.”

“On the Strand.” His voice broke. “In the old Dudley manor. She’s there.”

As I let him loose, his knees buckled underneath him. He slid down the wall, crumpling at my feet. I took a deliberate step back. Much as I wanted to feel compassion for him, all I felt was disgust. His pride and foolish ambition had cost him everything. He’d brought England to the brink of disaster because of it.

He slumped in a heap. It was then that I discerned a cacophony downstairs-terrified shrieks, the smash of cutlery and overturned furniture, and the stamp of booted feet punctuated by authoritative shouts. The queen’s men were here.

Courtenay keened. I whirled about. There was nowhere to go, nowhere except-

I threw open the casement window and reached out my hand to him. “Come.”

He cringed. “No. I–I can’t. I’m … I’m afraid of heights.”

I wasn’t about to plead. Climbing onto the casement edge, I saw below me the stable yard and ramshackle stalls for horses. The commotion inside the brothel had roused an emaciated dog tied to a stump in the yard. It was barking, straining at its tether.

I looked to the left. Directly beyond the brothel lay a smaller dwelling, with a thatched roof that didn’t appear too steep; to my right, a direct fall into the street. I stepped onto the outer ledge, balancing precariously. My breath came fast. I made myself take a deep breath. I wasn’t fond of heights either, come to think of it.

Feeling with my foot past the ledge, I encountered a peeling beam that ran the length of the building, no wider than my hand. For a second, I froze. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t skitter along the ledge like some damn cat-

Shouts boomed in the corridor. I glanced over my shoulder. Courtenay sat huddled in the corner, petrified. I couldn’t wait anymore.

Step by step, I moved onto the ledge without looking down, gripping the outer wall, my hands splayed against moldering daub, my heels scraping icicles. In the room behind me, I heard Courtenay begin to pray, “Sweet Jesus, save me. Jesu, hear my plea,” and the splintering of doors in the passageway being kicked in.

I crept onward. The dog was baying now.

An enormous crash came from the room. Courtenay let out a horrible wail.

They had found him.

I kept moving to the building’s edge, assaulted by a vivid memory of the last time I’d found myself fleeing through a window in the dead of night …

I quickened my pace, just a little more to go.

The thatched rooftop was much farther down than I’d thought, slick with melted snow. I wondered if it would hold me or if I’d end up crashing through it.

“Someone’s out the window!” a voice cried from behind me.

Unbuckling my sword in its scabbard, I tossed it into the street.

“You!” yelled the guard at the window. “Halt, by Her Majesty’s command!”

I closed my eyes.

I leapt.

The fall felt eternal. Icy air whistled in my ears. Everything slowed to a crawl so that I had a dazzling, fleeting glimpse of the torch-lit maze of Southwark and heard the incredulous dismay of the guards leaning out the brothel window, watching me plummet to what they surely believed was my death.

I hit the thatch. Winter had frozen the bundled layers to mortarlike hardness. I tucked my knees, covering my head as I slid off the side. Sodden snow cushioned my fall; it was shorter in any event, a brief tumble, and then I sprawled on the ground.

Scrambling to my feet, too pummeled at this point to feel any pain, I grabbed up my sword. The stable-yard dog was yowling; any moment, the guards would come for me.

I ran as fast as I could into the labyrinth of clustered hovels and snaking back alleys. The guards’ first priority would be to arrest Courtenay; with any luck, they’d assume I was a frightened boy-whore who’d made an intrepid escape and, after a cursory search of the vicinity, get on with the business at hand. Crouching in a recessed doorway to catch my breath, I listened for sounds of pursuit. Nothing.

I thought it unlikely the boatman would still be waiting, but there he was, right where I’d left him. He tucked a leather flask into his pocket. “Did you see ’em?” he lisped eagerly, through a paucity of teeth. “Queen’s men, they were, searchin’ for traitors. Heads on spikes-we’ll be seein’ heads on spikes come sunrise.”

I muttered agreement as the inebriated sod angled the boat into the river, catching the current and swirling us round in a nauseating circle before he managed to direct us toward the city.

As the boat neared the steps, I unsheathed my sword. A dark shape stood on the quay, etched against inky night-large and cloaked, with a cowl over its head. Nearby was a massive gray destrier I recognized at once.

I half-rose off the bench, ignoring the boatman’s shout that I’d tip the skiff, riveted to that figure as he grasped the rope tossed by the boatman and yanked the boat against the steps. From under his cowl, Scarcliff growled, “Put the blade down, lad. I don’t bite.” He tossed a coin at the boatman, who cackled in glee.

I hesitated. He was alive. He had been following me. Could he be trusted, though?

As if he read my doubt on my face, he shook back his cowl, revealing his ravaged countenance. “In case you’re wondering, I’m a free man; I decide who I serve. I don’t fancy serving a traitor.”

“So you’ve come to help me out of the kindness of your heart?” I retorted, but much as I disliked it, I had to rely on him. The Strand was a distance away, and he had a horse, which meant I could gain time.

I thrust my sword into its scabbard. Scarcliff grunted, watching me approach his destrier. The horse stood nearly fourteen hands tall, with a thick neck and huge head, but when it whickered, nosing me gently, I took it as a good sign. A man who could keep a creature like this so even-tempered couldn’t be all bad.

I had started to reach for the saddle pommel to haul myself up when Scarcliff said, “Cerberus is all I have that’s worth anything. I expect to be compensated.”

I swung into the saddle. “My horse is at Whitehall. Tell the groom Toby you’ve come to take him to Ashridge. He’s yours until I return. Meet me at the Griffin.”

Then I kicked my heels into his horse and galloped off.

Chapter Nineteen

I told her what I knew-about the letters, the conspiracy …

Courtenay’s revelations tumbled in my mind as I rode at breakneck pace through the night-shrouded city. Sybilla knew about me; he had told her I was helping Elizabeth. She’d orchestrated our friendship so she could betray Courtenay to the queen with those letters and trounce Renard, but what did she want, ultimately? If she’d known the letters only exposed half of the plot, what did she achieve by hiding Elizabeth’s letter? She was playing a mysterious game, and I had the sinking feeling that it wasn’t to my benefit.

I couldn’t stop to consider that while I raced to find her, Wyatt’s rebels were arming themselves. As soon as the betrothal was announced, Courtenay had said, they would act. The betrothal wouldn’t be officially declared until the queen went to Hampton Court, so I reasoned there was still time to stop Sybilla and report the rest of what I had discovered to the queen. If Wyatt joined with Suffolk as planned, Jane Grey could die for it. Months ago, her father had helped Northumberland put Lady Jane on Mary’s throne, against Jane’s will. The queen had promised her clemency, but Renard would cite Suffolk’s treason as reason for her execution. If Jane, who shared Tudor blood, died, how long would it take before Renard convinced the queen to turn her wrath on Elizabeth?

I kicked the gray again. Skirting the city wall, I passed decrepit Ludgate and rode up the hill onto the graveled road of the Strand, which ran parallel with the Thames and was fronted by the nobility’s riverside manors. It was another world here, where the misery and filth of London dissipated into affluence. Even the air smelled fresher than inside the city walls, with only a slight acrid tang wafting from the river. Copses of skeletal trees pocketed the road; I imagined leafy foliage at the height of summer, shading ladies out for evening strolls with their children and servants.

A flock of indignant swans scattered from the road. Each manor I passed resembled the next-ornate bastions of brick and timber framing, with expensive window bays and elegant chimneys in the new fashion, made to funnel smoke directly out of hearths. All were enclosed by high walls and protected by gates; each must have its own quay. No one of means rode through London if they could take to the river in a private barge.

Then I came up to a gate and reined Cerberus to a halt.

Silence pressed in around me.

I’d never been here before, though I had served the Dudley family. Still, I couldn’t have mistaken the house. It exuded disgrace, clumps of dead vines festooning the gate, the courtyard beyond desolate. Above the doorway, stained by lichen and bird droppings, hung the Dudley badge: the bear and ragged staff. As I stared at it, a flood of memories threatened to engulf me. I’d seen that badge all my life, carved in wainscoting and window lintels, sewn into uniforms and cloaks. I’d worn it myself during my brief tenure as Robert’s squire. It had been a symbol of pride and power; now it was the meaningless icon of a fallen dynasty.

I dismounted, tethering Cerberus to an iron rung in the wall. Well exercised, he began to munch on brittle weeds while I circled the front of the manor, seeking access. The gate was bolted, too high to scale. The walls looked equally insurmountable. However, at the edge of the surrounding wall abutting the river, I located a small gap where the stone had caved in from damp and neglect.

I crouched down to peer through the gap. It offered a circumscribed view of what must have once been a lavish garden, now barren. A parched lawn led to a set of water steps; a canopied barge bobbed there, anchored to the pier.

Scraping at the mortar with my poniard, I managed to widen the gap. Lying flat on my belly, my cloak over my head so it would not tangle between my legs, I crawled through, scraping against cold, stony ground.

Tension built in me as I stood. The manor was a short distance away-an ostentatious hulk, its windows dark. I crossed the flagstone terrace to a back door. I tried the latch, expecting to find it locked. It wasn’t. Pushing the door open, I stepped inside and nearly tripped over something in the hallway. With one glance at the sprawled corpse, I recognized Renard’s henchman. A pool of blood about his midsection attested to a recent and very precise sword thrust. He’d taken it as he came in, no doubt sent by Renard to find Sybilla. I suddenly remembered her telling me Renard rented a manor on the Strand for a mistress, only in the turmoil of the past twenty-four hours I had failed to recall it.

She had lured me here. Just as she’d waited for Renard’s man to arrive, she was no doubt waiting for me.

Easing around the corpse, I proceeded warily into the manor. It was a ghost house, its vast emptiness returning the echo of my footsteps. The walls were bare.

When I caught sight of light flickering ahead, I gripped my sword. I half-anticipated Sybilla leaping from the shadows, but as I slowly approached I realized that the light was coming from a room, where a lantern sat on a side table before a reflective window.

Then I heard her. “You needn’t be afraid. I am alone.”

I stepped through a narrow door. The room before me might have been a private study or small library, perhaps, employed for personal business. The diamond-paned window overlooked the courtyard and front gate. On the floor under the window was a heap of old rushes, swept up with fragments of cloth. The air was dank, its mustiness tinged with an odd greasy smell I couldn’t quite place.

The only furniture was the side table holding the lantern and a chipped oak desk, behind which stood Sybilla. She wore a loose-sleeved black shirt, a fitted leather tunic, and belted breeches: her swordsman garb. The only thing missing was the mask.

She smiled. “You took your time. I did mention Renard rented a manor, did I not? Though I suppose under the circumstances, your forgetfulness can be excused.”

I had to make a conscious effort to resist her eyes-lustrous as moon-drenched violets, alluring as sin. My fist closed about my sword hilt, as though it were a talisman.

“You can put that away.” She spread her arms. “As you can see, I bear no weapon.”

“So you claim,” I replied. “Not that it would stop me. Weapon or not, if you weren’t a woman I’d kill you without hesitation.”

“So my gender finally protects me? Pray, what have I done to merit such hostility?”

I stared at her. “You deceived me from the start. You said you spied on the queen for Renard, but in truth he set you to spy on Courtenay. You seduced the earl, got him to tell you all his secrets, but you didn’t tell Renard what you discovered, about the conspiracy and about me. You knew I’d tracked the earl to that brothel and what I arranged with him. You made me think you were helping me, but all along you prepared a trap. Shall I go on?”

“Please do.” Her eyes glittered. “I find this all … fascinating.”

I took a menacing step toward her. “You left the poisoned note in my room. All this time, you led me to think Renard was the culprit when it was you, all along.”

She reached for a decanter on the desk and poured ale into two goblets. She extended one to me. I ignored it. With a sigh, she set the cup within my reach. “I never intended to kill the boy. I merely sought to warn you away. I didn’t expect you, you see; you were never part of the plan. I was at a loss as to how to contend with you. But I didn’t put enough poison on that seal to do more than sicken you. Your squire must not have weighed much, for it to have worked so quickly. It was an unfortunate accident.”

“Accident?” My voice rose in fury. “He died because of you!”

“I know. I … regret it.” She spoke as though the sentiment were unfamiliar, difficult to enunciate. She was the same woman who had wept in my arms, shown me such concern and taken me inside her, and yet she was not, as if she’d shed her skin to reveal an equally beautiful but far deadlier persona.

“This elaborate deception of yours must have a reason,” I went on. “You do not work for Renard, so whom do you serve?”

“Haven’t you guessed by now? You’ve pieced the rest of it together with remarkable facility.” She trailed her hand over the desk, forcing me to angle my blade to prevent her approach. She stopped at the edge of the desk, a few paces from where I stood. “Renard was always too unyielding,” she said. “And he serves an equally unyielding master. Charles V may be emperor, but he’s shackled to the past, much like Mary herself. He cannot forgive himself for what he did to Mary’s mother, his aunt Catherine of Aragon. He promised to assist Catherine against King Henry’s annulment of their marriage, but Catherine died alone in a remote manor, while Anne Boleyn, the witch-queen, assumed her place. For all his avowals, Charles did nothing.” She paused, looking at me. “His conscience must have plagued him for years. Then Mary took the throne, and he saw a way to redeem himself. He’d wed his son Philip to her; they would return England to the Catholic faith and kill all the heretics, and the past would be put to right. Only one thing stood in his way.”

“Elizabeth,” I breathed.

“Yes. The witch-queen’s daughter. She was dangerous. The heretics would fight for her; she had to be dealt with. The emperor sent Renard here with orders to negotiate the marriage and ensure Elizabeth did not survive it.” She went quiet again, her expression pensive. “As I said, they are unyielding. My master, on the other hand, understands the need for compromise. He sees no reason to dispose of a potential asset.”

“He…?” My skin crawled. She spoke so matter-of-factly, as though these were matters that people discussed every day. Perhaps they did. Perhaps where she came from, conversations about whether or not to destroy a princess were part of daily life.

She tilted back her head, her laughter sultry. “How can it be that you still refuse to see what is right before you? The emperor views the world through eyes that grow old before their time. But Philip of Spain does not. He is still young, virile. He will only sacrifice himself on the altar of his father’s guilt if he can reap the benefit.”

“You-you serve Philip?” I asked in horror. “He is your master?”

“He hired me to be his special agent. He’s known me for years; I grew up in his mother’s court. He also knew I had spied for Renard, and he promised me freedom-a noble marriage and my own household, a dowry for my sister, refuge for my mother. All I had to do was use Renard’s enmity to destroy Courtenay, a rival for Mary’s hand, as well as any others who opposed the Hapsburg alliance. But Philip insisted that he mustn’t be held responsible. Whatever blood is shed must be on Mary’s hands alone.”

“Dear God,” I whispered. “Why…?” Then, with sickening clarity, the final piece of the mystery slid into place. “It’s been about Elizabeth, all this time. Philip wants her.”

She smiled. “Does it surprise you? The prince is a modern man; he doesn’t care about the past. His father is weary. When Charles abdicates, Philip stands to inherit half the empire. Why suffer the older sister’s bed unless he has the assurance that in time, he can have the younger’s? But Elizabeth must be brought to heel; all those who support her heretical leanings must die. And once Mary fails to bear a child and succumbs, as she must, Elizabeth will be his. Through her, he will sire heirs to make all Europe tremble-a Tudor-Hapsburg dynasty to rule the world.”