An alarming crunch behind me turned out to be the approaching boots of Doctor Norris. “Your Majesty,” he said with a bow. “You may wish to be informed that, moments past, the queen’s lady, Mistress Lucinda Parker, succumbed to death. The minister shall make preparations in haste, so the queen may return to her chambers.”
“What?” I cried, tears obscuring my vision. “Mistress Parker died?”
The doctor’s reply was an apologetic bow.
I should’ve gone to my chambers to comfort Alice and Bridget, but my feet burst into a stride toward the blackness of the Privy Garden—as far away from the death scene as I could get. It didn’t matter that I was racing into ice-cold darkness; I couldn’t get what the witch had told me out of my head. Her warning blazed through my brain, burning away every other thought.
“This be the devil’s work…He shall come for thee… Thee hast been up to nay good…changing things that should not be hath changed. Lex talionis.”
“Emmie!” Nick called behind me, but I kept going, chased by the bouncing light of his lantern.
When I reached the dragon fountain, I dropped onto the stone bench, searching for an end to the nausea choking my insides. My fingers were like icicles, but the blue-diamond ring burned hot on my thumb. I’d had no idea what saving Kit’s life would do to this world, not to mention marrying its king, otherwise destined to wed Henriette of France. Now, because of my decisions, a kindhearted girl with a baby daughter would never open her eyes again and little Ellie would grow up without a mom.
“Why must you be out here in the chill?” Nick scolded when he caught up to me.
“It’s an eye for an eye,” I muttered, rocking back and forth to keep myself from freezing. “Lex talionis.”
He sat beside me and wrapped an arm around my back. “Again?” he said, short of breath.
“Mistress Parker’s death,” I stammered. “It’s payback for saving Kit’s life when she was meant to die—or for me being here; I don’t know. Maybe both.”
“Payback?”
I searched for an older word. “Retribution.”
Nick’s arm slid off my back. “How can you speak of saving the life of Kit with regret?”
“I don’t regret it,” I said, tears dribbling down my cheeks. “The truth is, I’d make the same decisions all over again. But that doesn’t mean what we did was right.” I gripped my neck, feeling like I was choking, needing air. “You know as well as I do that none of this has been right.”
Nick jumped up and crouched to face me. He collected my hands in his, desperate eyes finding mine. “Emmie, no. No, you cannot do this. You cannot lose heart now. We have come too far.”
I looked down at him through my swelling shame. How could I have ever believed that loving him this much would justify changing the path of history? How could I have been so selfish?
“I need to tell you something,” I said to his stricken face. “I visited a soothsayer while you were in the north. There’s one who lives near Robin House. She’s poor and harmless; please don’t do anything to hurt her. But I showed her the blue-diamond ring, and she recognized her cousin’s work in the ring’s magic. Her cousin was called Joanie—she worked for you once at Whitehall Palace as a maidservant.” It didn’t shock me that Nick demonstrated no recollection of the chambermaid, but his eyes hung on my every word. “This maid then went on to work for Mary, Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned. You know that Mary wants the English throne, and she made the witch Joanie curse the ring to get rid of you. What Joanie did, though, was curse the ring to take you far away from this world—not to kill you, but to save your life. She enchanted this ring to send you somewhere far away from here, where you’d not only be safe but happy. Do you get it? You would’ve been happy there…in my time…with me.”
A flush drifted into his cheeks. I wished there wasn’t more of this story I had to tell.
“But Nick, the witch also said that we’d been up to no good…changing things that shouldn’t have been changed. She said the phrase: Lex—”
“Oh Christ, may we have not a moment alone!” Nick interrupted, spinning to where Francis Beaumont drew closer with four guards.
Beads of sweat gleamed from the earl’s forehead, even though it had to be zero degrees. “Your Grace, the-the palace is...under siege,” Francis stammered like he couldn’t quite believe it. Nick and I gasped in unison. Francis continued his explanation, his voice dazed. “There is arrow fire beyond the west gatehouse. Horsemen in the hundreds have mounted an assault. They are armed with all manner of force and say hundreds more are at the ready. Henry Howard is leading them.”
Nick’s jaw hung open before he lurched up at Francis and grabbed his collar with both hands. “Are you damn certain?”
Francis nodded, his body rigid with fear.
Nick released the earl and pressed his palms together at his chin. “Go now and arrest every traitor that dares rebel against their king.”
“But the numbers of m-men, Majesty. There are beyond—”
“Make haste!” Nick spat, and Francis hurried back toward the palace, trailed by the guards. I got up and leaned on my tiptoes to see over the hedges. The glow of the lanterns had drawn nearer, and the air hummed with distant voices. Enraged men were attacking the palace, like something out of the French Revolution. I was shaking like a tree in a hurricane.
“You must be hidden,” Nick said faintly, spinning in all directions like a cave might magically appear before us. “Perhaps in some place within the kitchens.”
He went on, muttering about hiding spots and priest holes, but his voice drowned beneath the volume of my realization. The nobles’ uprising was no longer against me; it was against the King of England himself and the Tudor dynasty as I knew it.
“No,” I stated, my heart drumming through my ears. “Hiding isn’t going to solve this.”
“Only until it is over,” Nick said, tugging me toward the path that wound past the sunken fishponds toward the kitchens.
I wrestled free. “This will never be over!” My breath was wild…jagged…but I kept speaking. “This is the end of the road, Nick.” I couldn’t see through my escalating tears. “I’ve loved being with you, and even here in Tudor England—believe me, I have loved you more than I ever thought possible—but we can’t do this to the world anymore. I have to leave and never come back.”
He shuffled back a step like my words were bullets. He shook his head with a slow dread, his startled eyes pinned to mine. “No, Emmie.”
“The world doesn’t want me here,” I pleaded, tears spilling from my eyes. “I don’t belong in this time, and the world knows it. It’s like it’s spitting me back out. People are dying.”
“I will die without you!”
I stretched out a shaky hand, the blue-diamond ring like a lightbulb on my thumb. “Then come with me. It’s what the curse wanted. I was never meant to be here; you were meant to come to my world. That’s what was meant to happen.” I gestured at the palace’s stifling redbrick walls. “I know you want to escape all this pressure you constantly feel…it’s why you love going to Robin House, where life feels safe and simple. It’s why you chose to get married there!”
“Enough!” he hissed, folding an arm around his back like I might physically yank him into the future against his will. “You will not do this to me. We made our choice.”
A cannon blast made us both jump. Nick gaped up at the palace wall, his forehead creased with distress. But when he stared back at me, his expression had hardened with resolve.
“You will not dare give up on us, Emmie. You know I can never abandon my kingdom, leaving my sister to civil war and bloodshed. When I asked for your hand in marriage, you made a vow that you would never take leave of me again. I have wagered all I have for you and given you everything in return…I made you a queen! God willing, you will be the mother to a king—why is it not enough?”
“You still don’t get it!” I implored. “I don’t want the kingdom, the riches
, the pressures. I didn’t want to be a queen…I only came here for you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted out of this.”
“So, it is I who is now not enough,” he observed, tears clouding his eyes.
“Nick, look at what’s happening here!” I pointed toward the screams and shouts floating from the palace. The way he was looking at me—the absolute heartbreak in his face—hacked me to pieces. “Nothing lasts forever,” I said, the agony in my chest making me curl forward.
“We do,” Nick said, struggling to speak. “We last forever.” He gripped the sleeve over my wrist, finding my bare skin with his fingers. “Do not let go,” he pleaded. “Ne dimittas.”
I plucked the gold wedding band off my finger and slapped it into Nick’s palm. I knew he loved me, but not enough to trade his kingdom for it. He’d beg me to stay, but he’d never come with me and leave Tudor England…and every moment I stayed, I put him further in danger.
I wanted to freeze time so I could memorize every speck of him—a man I couldn’t imagine living without—but he’d become a fuzzy silhouette through my weeping eyes.
When Nick lurched forward, begging me once again to hide with him, I exhaled with frustration and pressed my hands to his silky doublet, physically shoving him toward the court.
“If you’re not going to come with me, then go away,” I ordered. “Go home. This is over now, do you understand? We tried, we really tried, but it’s done, okay? Pretend I died…pretend I drowned in the river. You’ll be free to marry again. Someone the people accept; someone right for you. Maybe you can still have Henriette.”
I couldn’t look at him but heard him crying—a sound I never wanted to hear again. I couldn’t listen—I needed to leave before he broke my resolve.
“Just get away from me!” I screamed.
Nick jerked back a step, shaking his head like he was flicking away flies. He then cleared his throat, his tear-stained voice barely his own.
“If you wish to take leave of my heart so resolutely, then so it shall be. May God be with you, Emmeline.”
With those abrupt words, he spun and disappeared toward the palace like he’d only ever been a figment of my imagination.
I sank to the gravel and shuddered with sobs, hating myself for every mistake I’d made. How could I have ever thought I could be the fierce girl who became a queen and ruled the world like a badass. If only this was a fairytale instead of the real world, where girls like me didn’t get to become Tudor queens.
I stepped over the knot gardens until I reached a patch of earth concealed by a row of manicured hedges. Grateful to be protected from the bitter wind, I lay on the freezing soil and shut my eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, curling up into a fetal position. I lay there in a quivering ball, repeating my apology to Nick, Alice, Bridget, Kit, Lucinda—and everyone who meant something to me here. I begged for the oblivion of sleep to free me from my pain before it carried me home to where I truly belonged.
When footsteps neared, I froze, unable to breathe. Multiple pairs of boots were marching along the path nearest to where I lay.
“She hides here!” shouted a commanding voice that I knew too well.
My terrified gaze rolled upward to recognize Nick’s broad silhouette through the glimmer of a lantern. The wobble of light moved, revealing a massive, familiar figure beside the king. I scrambled up, trying to edge away. Henry Howard stood beside Nick, a swarm of unkempt men gathered behind them waving pitchforks and hammers. My chest tightened with so much fear that it hurt to breathe.
Howard lifted his lamp to see me better. I crouched to escape it, but the light followed me. I was a mouse in a cage. Why was Nick just standing next to him like the two were old mates? Why weren’t they tearing each other to shreds? Why wasn’t Nick protecting me?
“Let the king speak!” spat Howard in his bullish tone. “Majesty, what say you? Will you persist in your offense of our gracious God by once more naming this heretic as our queen?”
My gaze flew to Nick, who looked down at me with a face absent of life. For the first time, he looked like the man in the terrifying portrait with the dead eyes and the cruel mouth. He was the embodiment of Nicholas the Ironheart.
“My lords,” he said loudly, “I swear on my soul that this girl before me, who once bewitched your devoted king in a manner most vile and depraved, is a monstrous traitor to both king and God.”
My head shook wildly, gratified men smirking down at me from all directions. Henry Howard glowed with smug victory, baring his teeth at me like the animal he was.
“By order of the king, bring her to the Tower to await trial on charges of heresy and high treason against the King’s Majesty,” the former duke bellowed.
“God save the king!” the men called in response.
“Nick, please!” I said.
The sky blurred as my husband bent over me, the scent of fresh roses finding my nose. I searched for love in his eyes but found only storms of anger. He took hold of my thumb and yanked the blue-diamond ring right off it.
“No!” I shrieked.
“Take her to the Tower,” Nick snarled without looking at me. “This witch dares enchant and humiliate the King of England. She has attempted to consort with the devil and extort from His Majesty a bastard child. She will stand trial to suffer a traitor’s death.”
“God save the king!” the orchestra of voices repeated. “God save His Grace!”
Their cries overwhelmed my screams as a hundred filthy fingers dug into my skin, stripping me of the rest of my jewelry and lifting me to the raven sky.
21
The fury tearing through my veins obliterated any physical pain as I was manhandled back across the gardens, through the snaking redbrick corridors, and into the gusty west courtyard. The shadowy square teemed with raging men brandishing homemade weapons, their shouts of treason striking me like gunfire from all directions. A subhuman scream cut through the noise, and when my throat burned from the pressure, I realized the roar was mine.
Nobody tried to help me as brutal hands shoved me through the battered gatehouse, across the windy moat bridge, and down the grassy slope leading to the River Thames.
“How could you do this to me!” I howled at the palace wall in the absurd hope that Nick might hear me.
Silence.
My teeth ground together, and my hands balled into fists. Was it possible that his public condemnation of me was just a trick? But it couldn’t be. The chances of Nick openly accusing me of treason and heresy as part of some secret plan left me empty. If he cared about my safety, he would’ve just let me go back to my time. No, it was obvious to me what was happening here: Nick had aligned himself with Norfolk—allowing violent men to haul me away—because I’d wanted to end our relationship for good and leave him. He was never going to let me just walk away, leaving him brokenhearted and humiliated. I’d rejected the vengeful Nicholas the Ironheart one too many times, and now he wanted me to suffer for it. I’d been so stupid to think I was immune to his notoriously unforgiving nature.
“I hate you!” I screamed into the infuriatingly silent sky of stars.
The tides were too low for a barge to dock at the pier, so the rioters pushed me right onto the slippery mudflats. I covered my nose as they marched me across slimy mud soaked in sewage to reach the deeper water.
Somewhere inside the palace, Nick was probably sharing a flask of warmed wine with Henry Howard before an open fire, brown-nosing the former duke to win back the trust of the nobles. I’d been told how dangerous a dissenting duke can be to a king—especially when that duke had won the support of other aristocrats. Despite the risks he had taken for our relationship, Nick had always put his kingdom first, and now he’d handed me over to his enemies to save himself from being dethroned and dishonored. I hoped the guilt of that chewed holes in his insides for the rest of his life.
Another cry of anger burst from my lips as I lost my footing on the slick dirt and face-planted into the putrid sludge.
>
Two guards hoisted me up by my shoulders and threw me over the barge’s edge, my legs tangling in my skirts caked in mud. As I clung to a bench seat, the barge glided away from the sparkling lanterns of Hampton Court Palace.
Away from Nick, and any hope I had of him intervening in my arrest.
Two guards sat between the oarsmen and me, gripping their swords with both hands. They shivered within their fur wraps. My adrenalin rush was fading, and the freezing air began to pierce through Nick’s filthy coat.
“Ugh!” I grunted as I shook it off my shoulders like it was woven from the webs of spiders. I hurtled the slash of midnight velvet out into the middle of the river. Black water swallowed the costly fabric in seconds.
“Christ in heaven!” spat one of the guards. He reached out and smacked me on the back of my head. I swore at him, using all the modern curse words I could think of.
“Let her freeze,” snarled the other one.
A guard wouldn’t dare strike a queen unless he was sure her fate was already sealed. Whatever Henry Howard had done to poison the country against me was beyond repair, and now I didn’t even have the blue-diamond ring so I could disappear. If only I’d told Nick what the witch had said about the enchanted ring losing all its power. Maybe then he wouldn’t have bothered jerking it off my thumb, and I’d still have been able to escape.
I wrapped myself into a tight ball and shivered into my knees, praying that the journey would pass quickly. When the temperature dropped, the men on the boat ceased their chatter, leaving only the eerie soundtrack of oars cutting through the frosty river flow. My mind doubled back to the last time I’d been imprisoned at the Tower of London—the lecherous jailers and threats of torture—and I pushed each terrifying memory away.
One minute at a time, Emmie. Just live through this next minute.
I was so cold that I considered begging the guards for one of their furs. But determined to hold on to any dignity I had left, I instead refocused my mind by picturing a sun-swept beach speckled with palm trees. It got me through the time it took to reach the onion-shaped turrets of the Tower that dominated the skyscape. As if waiting for us, the Traitor’s Gate portcullis stretched open its sharp teeth to swallow us whole. A single pigeon flew low, swooping past my ear. I envied the bird’s freedom, its uncomplicated life. It’d never dream of trying to live four hundred years back in time with a capricious Tudor king predestined to become a tyrant. Nicholas the Ironheart—it wasn’t like I’d never been warned about his vindictive nature.
Emmie and the Tudor Queen Page 26