by Deryn Lake
The tug at his sleeve in the moonlight frightened him rigid. ‘Sapphira, is that you?’
She stepped out of the shadows, smiling, and Joscelin saw that on the paper she usually carried with her the girl had already written, ‘I’ve got a good horse, fresh and ready to go.’
And she had. She might look frail as a flower but as his eyes adjusted to the light, Joscelin made out the shape of a mighty creature, many times the size of Sapphira, grazing calmly, attached to a nearby tree.
‘Oh, you witch!’ he said and laughed, with relief as much as anything else. He lifted her up and mounted behind her, swinging in the stirrup as he ascended the enormous creature.
‘Surely you didn’t saddle this thing?’
She shook her head and pointed to where a shape lay on the ground outside the stables. Joscelin, peering closely, saw that it was the ostler’s boy stretched out on his back, fast asleep.
‘He did it?’
Sapphira nodded. All the tensions of the last twenty-four hours slipped away and Joscelin smiled. ‘What have I let myself in for? Well, whatever it is, we must leave now. They’ll be after us soon.’ And with that the boy put his heels into his mount and went off at speed.
*
They had both been dreaming of danger, though not the same dream, yet at exactly the precise second Cloverella and Zachary woke together from a feverish sleep and clung to each other, gasping. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘Something is, I’ll swear it.’
‘Yes.’ Zachary sniffed like a hound. ‘I can smell it. There’s disaster somewhere.’
‘Is it for us?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
He got out of bed, pulling on his hose. ‘I think it’s the children.’
‘Oh no!’ said Cloverella, jumping out quickly and putting a night-rail over her bedclothes, making for the room where all the astrologer’s prophetic mediums lay.
But Zachary was already ahead of her, clambering up the spindly staircase which led to his attic and reaching out his hand to the place where the dark crystal lay on its velvet cloth.
‘Well?’ Cloverella crouched beside him, also trying to fathom its depths.
‘It isn’t reacting. There’s something terribly wrong.’
‘Let me see.’
Zachary’s wife took it from him, rubbing her hand over the sphere’s glassy surface before looking into it.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘quick, do you see?’
She passed it to him but the astrologer shook his dark head. ‘No, there’s nothing there.’
‘It was only for a second but I glimpsed Sapphira and a boy, a beautiful boy.’
‘And …’
‘And danger, Zachary. Great danger.’ Cloverella looked him straight in the eye. ‘I think it better that we start the journey to Norfolk now than sit here agonising.’
She hurried down the stairs to dress, leaving Zachary alone for a few moments. From the shadows his terrible one-orbed cat, an eye lost fighting long since, stirred and came out.
‘Sapphira is in peril,’ he said to it. ‘If I were a true master of magic I would send you forth now.’
It glared at him resentfully and shot down the stairs, Zachary following more slowly. Cloverella stood waiting at the bottom with his doublet and cloak already in her hands.
‘Put these on. I think we should make haste.’
Zachary looked at her. ‘I am afraid, Cloverella. By God’s passion, I am afraid.’
‘So am I,’ she answered sombrely. ‘But I fear inaction more.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, and together they left the house.
*
It was not easy, with the moon and stars so dim, to find one’s way in unknown countryside and Joscelin found it hard going even to plot a route to Bury St Edmunds. By following the River Thet he managed to proceed to Thet Ford. But this place he avoided for fear of being seen and instead went south-east so that by first light they were near a village called Wetherenden, picking his way through a maze of little brooks and rivers. In the saddle in front of him, cradled in the hollow of his shoulder, her mouth touching his throat in what seemed like an eternal kiss, Sapphira lay asleep, her pale blonde hair spread over his doublet like a veil.
Joscelin knew as he rode that she and he must always be together, that the great sense of belonging he now experienced must last for ever. Even though he was on horseback he somehow managed to cuddle her closer, holding the reins in one hand and wrapping his free arm tightly around her.
In a way it no longer seemed to matter exactly what direction they took. They were heading south, Joscelin knew that for sure, which seemed to be enough. If anyone from the castle had been on their trail they had certainly lost them long ago, for his route had been circuitous and not altogether logical. Yet soon he knew they must stop for food and take the risk of a party of horsemen catching them by chance.
He bought bread from a woman baking in a humble dwelling by the river and he and Sapphira, now firmly awake, sat not far from her door, consuming it hungrily, while she watched them covertly from inside.
‘Come a distance, Sir?’ she asked eventually, looking curiously at Joscelin’s fine clothes.
‘From Leicester,’ he said, just a little too quickly to her manner of thinking.
‘Then you’re well out of your way.’
‘We have friends here,’ Joscelin answered vaguely.
The woman eyed them. A pair of runaways, if she’d ever seen one, more than likely defying an arranged marriage. She took particular note of them, especially of the girl who, for all her beauty, was obviously dumb, conversing with her young lover by signs.
I reckon there’ll be a reward offered, she thought and went back in to fetch more food to delay them. But when she came out again the couple had gone, leaving her money for a loaf they had taken.
Half an hour later a group of horsemen, all wearing the livery of the Duke of Norfolk, thundered into view and the woman watched as they slowed down, their leader dismounting and approaching her.
‘Have you seen two young people, a boy and girl, pass this way?’
She put on a knowing face. ‘What if I have?’
The man snapped his fingers to the rider behind and a small bag of money was handed down.
‘Well?’
‘About half an hour ago, Sir. A dark young man and a fair girl with him.’
‘Anything odd about them?’
‘The girl couldn’t speak, Sir. She was dumb.’
He nodded, well satisfied, and the bag of money changed hands. ‘Did they say where they were going?’
‘No, Sir, but they went that way.’
She pointed out the couple’s route and the leader remounted. ‘That’s it, men. We should pick them up soon. It will all be over by dusk.’
‘God help the poor wretches,’ said someone at the back.
The leader glared fiercely. ‘We are not paid to moralise. We are paid to serve the Duke. Now come on.’
He held up his gauntleted hand and the troupe moved off at speed while the woman, taking her time about it, counted out the money, wishing that runaways crossed her path every day of the week.
*
At noon, with the spring sun high, Joscelin and Sapphira came to a pretty little brook which burst out of a small hill and went gushing away into the distance. The girl clapped her hands delightedly and both of them dismounted, giving the mighty horse a rest, and waded barefoot in the sunshine. Then they swam, naked and happy, made love sweetly, and finally dressed again and began to take the brook’s course. It grew stronger and soon became a handsome river flowing between steep embankments.
‘Shall we follow it further?’ asked Joscelin and Sapphira nodded.
They had no idea where they were until after journeying some while they saw, on the river’s right bank, a great priory and the name Kersey.
‘We’re still in Suffolk,’ said Joscelin. ‘I know that place. Shall we go and explore?’
They had almost forgotten that t
hey were running away, for now it seemed like a marvellous game, finding rivers and hills, seeing brightly coloured fields and flowers, and watching wild animals run about their business, with no thought of hindering or hurting them.
‘Yes,’ nodded Sapphira, and then saw Joscelin’s face change.
‘What is it?’ she asked, signalling with her hands.
He pointed to his ear, bidding her listen, and there could be no mistaking the sound. Not more than half a mile away, a group of horsemen rode behind them.
‘Oh God help us now,’ said Joscelin, a note of desperation in his voice as he once more kicked the powerful beast into action, so that it stopped its pleasant ambling and went off at a canter, its youthful passengers clinging on tightly.
‘We may yet get away,’ the boy said hopefully, but she shook her head. Peering over her shoulder, Sapphira had seen the front riders come into view.
In the flat Suffolk countryside the ground suddenly and unexpectedly started to rise, sloping on either side of the companionable river in the steepest embankments the young people had so far encountered. The horse reduced speed as it began to climb upwards and then hesitated when it reached the top and there was nothing before it but a drop of some twelve feet to the deep water below.
‘We’re trapped,’ said Joscelin desperately. ‘There’s no way out of here. We’re lost, Sapphira. Oh my darling, we’re finished.’
‘No,’ she cried, the sound floating out, clear and triumphant, ‘no. The water will carry us to where we can be together. Jump, horse, jump!’
And it wasn’t until they were plunging downwards, riders and mount all together in a terrible tangle of limbs, that Joscelin realised something; that finally, in the very last moments of her life, Sapphira’s voice had been restored to her.
*
They dived to rescue them, of course. The men stripped off their jerkins and went in, one after another. But it was too late. Though the great beast swam to the side and hauled itself out, the two young ones had gone forever.
They pulled them to the bank further downstream, where they had floated, still together, like water nymphs, their hair spread and their eyes open, hands open-fingered at their sides, as if in supplication. It was too late to get the water out of them, too late to pump their poor bodies, so they left them, their young faces staring at God, their delicate mouths curved in fragile smiles, two of His lost lambs come to pasture.
An hour later, brought back in closed litters, they lay just so, white but as yet uncorrupted, side by side in the castle’s mortuary. And this was how Dr Zachary saw them, together with the boy’s elder sister, Lady Margaret, who had come in haste.
‘Can there ever be reason for such a terrible end?’ he said eventually, having stared for an hour at the waxen doll that was once his beloved daughter. ‘How could two young lives be snuffed out like this?’
Then he broke his heart, weeping so desperately that neither Cloverella nor anyone else could do anything with him.
‘If only the Duke were here,’ said Elizabeth Howard, wringing her hands frantically.
Cloverella looked at her coldly. ‘Then the responsibility would not have been yours, would it? But it is, Madam. The Duke is not here and you are. What did you say to those two poor things to drive them so hard?’
‘They broke the rules,’ hissed the Duchess. ‘They were strangers and young, yet they made love.’
‘And look to what it has brought them. I do not envy your conscience, Madam. Good day to you.’
And with that she left Kenninghall, waiting beyond its walls until in the darkness Zachary and his two sons, in sombre, sad procession, brought Sapphira’s body down from the castle to take it back to Greenwich.
‘But where is the boy?’ said Cloverella, suddenly aware of forces at work stronger than she.
‘Still there. His sister is removing him.’
‘But that is wrong. That must not be. They must be buried side by side as they would want. Zachary, you cannot ignore Sapphira’s final wish.’
Jasper cleared his throat, speaking little above a whisper. ‘It is true Father. They loved each other very much.’
‘They did, Sir,’ confirmed Sylvanus, his rose face withered with sadness.
‘Then so be it. I must let her go.’
And that was how the youthful lovers came to be buried together, by consent of both Zachary and Lady Margaret, not in the Howard vault but in the churchyard at Kenninghall, where mild sheep and their lambs were let loose to graze in springtime, beneath the perfect blue of a peaceful Norfolk sky.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was, thought Thomas Seymour, one of the most sinister moments of his life. Outside, despite the fact it was May, the sky was leaden-grey, thunder rolled ominously overhead, and torrents of water fell in visible sheets from sky to earth. While within, in a Charterhouse mansion emptied of servants, white sheets over every piece of furniture except the chair on which Thomas sat, Katherine Parr was having hysterics.
‘No, no, no,’ she screamed, hurling books through the air. ‘I cannot endure it. I would rather be dead. Kill me, Thomas, I beg you. Put me out of my agony.’
‘Hush, sweetheart, hush,’ he murmured soothingly, his voice drowned by her shrieks, his tenderness dampened by the missiles flying past his ear. ‘Be calm, loved one.’
‘Calm!’ she yelled. ‘Calm! You ask that of me when my life is in ruins.’
‘Our lives are in ruins,’ Thomas reminded her patiently.
She ignored him. ‘You don’t know what this means to me. For years I have suffered, years I tell you. My mother sold me when I was thirteen to a mad old man who crushed me, body and soul. Then I married John Latymer, though that was my own choice. And now this …’ Katherine’s voice dropped and she flew into Thomas’s arms in a frenzy of tears. ‘I never want to see old flesh again as long as I live. The thought of aged hands pawing at my body makes me feel fit to vomit. I cannot endure to get into bed ever again beside an old man with a limp thing. Oh God, help me, Thomas darling, I can’t bear this terrible fate.’
‘No,’ he said, patting her gently and holding her close, ‘it is the most revolting circumstance I can imagine. And that it should happen to you, whom I love dearly, is beyond thinking.’
‘I daren’t say no, dare I?’ It was half a question, half a plea.
Thomas shook his head. ‘It would be too dangerous. We’ve discussed this before. As it is we are running risks.’
The act of attainder brought against Catherine Howard had made it treason for any unchaste woman to marry the King or for a prospective bride to conceal her past. And now, with the worst of Thomas’s and Katherine’s fears realised, a proposal of marriage having been made by Henry Tudor to Lady Latymer, they had much to worry about. To refuse the monarch would be an insult tantamount to treason and too dangerous with life so cheap these days — even Nicholas Carew, an old and respected favourite, having gone to the block suspected of conspiring against his sovereign. Katherine had no choice but to accept Henry’s offer and hide the fact that Thomas Seymour had been her lover.
‘Thank God we were discreet,’ he went on. ‘None of those servants would tell; Meg is almost senile and Jack’s faithful to death.’
‘What about the cook?’
‘The cook is frightened of Jack, who would kill him. I think we are very nearly safe.’
‘Very nearly?’ Katherine repeated nervously.
‘My darling, there is always an unknown factor. The chance that somebody, somewhere, knows something.’
‘I can’t bear it,’ she said, starting to sob again. ‘This terrible proposal puts me in mortal danger. Oh Thomas, help me, help me.’
‘I can’t while you weep,’ he said calmly. ‘Be quiet, pretty Kate, and then I will tell you my plan.’
Sad green eyes, very wet, looked at him with a small ray of hope. ‘You have a scheme?’
He laughed, rather bitterly. ‘As good a thing as I can think of in these vile circumstances.’
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‘Then tell me of it.’
They sat together, arms wrapped round each other, in the house that was supposed to be closed, at this, their very last secret meeting.
‘Now dry your tears,’ said Thomas and gently wiped her face with his handkerchief. He was an utter rogue and ruthless with every woman except this one with whom, for some extraordinary reason, he had fallen in love.
‘We must accept the truth. We have been outmanoeuvred. So first of all, to keep our spirits up, we have to take the long view. Simply look at my royal brother-in-law, Kate …’
With a flash of her old spirit, she said, ‘I would rather not!’ and was rewarded with a hug.
‘Indeed! But let facts be faced. He is vastly fat, limping, crippled by a varicose ulcer, oozing pus, and prone to blood clots. He is prematurely old, sweetheart, dying on his feet. Our separation cannot last longer than five years at most.’
‘Five years,’ echoed Katherine dismally.
‘And I will wait, sweetheart. Have no fear of that. When that old invalid dies and you are once more widowed, I will be the first man over your doorstep.’
They exchanged a deep, dangerous kiss.
‘But what of now, Tom? How will we content ourselves?’
‘By being practical. My appointment as English Ambassador to the Regent of the Netherlands has been confirmed. I plan to sail straight away. I want no Catherine Howard and Thomas Culpepper situation for us. I intend to stay out of the country until it is all over.’
‘And what of me? How will I bear it?’
‘By being a good stepmother to my nephew,’ answered Thomas simply. ‘Poor little boy, what has he had in the way of stability? His father hardly ever sees him, he never knew Jane, loved the Lady of Cleves, as did all the children, and then just as he gets to know pretty Cat, she is killed.’
‘And what if I am killed too?’ asked Katherine hollowly.
‘Sweetheart, why should you be? You are not going to be unfaithful — at least I hope not! — and there is a very simple rule for survival. Simply agree with every word Henry Tudor says.’