by Donna Hosie
“Harm’s already come to him!” I cried. “Just do it.”
Alice opened Alex’s mouth and poured the whiskey into it. He coughed, spluttered, and tried to shake us off, but Bewsey and I now had a tight grip on him. Fiennes passed Alice a wooden block, which she immediately placed between Alex’s teeth. The surgeon had the poker gripped tightly in his right hand. He pulled back the bloodstained wadding…
Alex arched his body and cried a primal scream of pain that was only slightly muffled by the wooden block. The sickly sweet smell of burning flesh filled the room.
* * *
—
I hated this time.
I hated time travel.
I hated The 48.
* * *
—
“I’ll stay with him, Charlie,” said Alice. She looked at Alex, who had fallen into a pain- and whiskey-induced unconsciousness. “The queen won’t notice if I’m not there to put a warming pan between her sheets. You go clean yourself up.”
“I wouldn’t count on the queen not noticing you aren’t there,” said Bewsey. “And if she does, the queen will see it as a personal affront. I need to be gone too. I’ve more rounds to complete, and the chief yeoman will have my entrails on a plate if I’m any later.”
“Thank you for your help,” I said, shaking the surprised guard’s hand. “If I can do anything for you…”
“Aye, well, try not throwing me next time,” replied Bewsey. “I’ll have a fair bruise on my arse…” He stopped suddenly and gasped. “Miladies, humblest apologies for my language.”
Lady Margaret scowled and slipped out of the door into the still night air. Jane dipped her head and smiled.
“Alice, if you stay with Alex, just until I get back, then I’ll escort Lady Jane and Lady Margaret back to their lodgings,” I said.
Jane didn’t protest, but I knew she still hadn’t forgiven me for my earlier comment. I wished she hadn’t misconstrued my meaning.
“Have a care,” said Fiennes the surgeon, grabbing my arm. “Even in the dead of night, this castle has many eyes.”
“Thank you for saving my brother tonight,” I replied. “I won’t forget.”
“I’ll check on him tomorrow in the morn to change his dressings. If he takes a fever, send a yeoman to find me.”
The motley crew of saviors dispersed into the darkness. Alice was left alone with Alex. I knew she wouldn’t fall asleep. Alice had stayed awake for three days and nights straight before.
“Please accept my apologies, Lady Jane,” I said as the three of us walked back up the Lower Ward toward the imposing Round Tower. “It was not my intention to imply any impropriety in your behavior.”
Jane had her hand placed on mine for balance. The urge to stroke her skin was overwhelming. I wanted her to forgive me. I wanted to show her that I respected her very much. Lady Margaret was four steps ahead of us; I could hear her muttering, but it was so rapid, I couldn’t catch it. She seemed to be asking for forgiveness.
Jane and I continued walking in silence for several minutes. My apology hung in the air, a heavy weight on my shoulders that was adding to the horrendous grief I felt for putting my twin brother in danger.
“The serving girl called Alice,” said Jane. “You have a peculiar manner of speaking when you converse.”
“I know her very well,” I replied, flashing back to twenty-first-century words I might have said in my blind panic. “She arrived in England with my brother and father also.”
“You seem very familiar with her,” said Jane. “There was tenderness in your eyes when you spoke to her.”
“It was probably the heat from the fire making my eyes water,” I mumbled. “And my upset at my brother’s condition.”
“I may not be a woman of the world, Charles of Cleves. Yet I know when a man is in love.”
“I do not love Alice,” I lied. “She is…she is like a sister to me. No more.”
“Do you love another?” asked Jane as we passed through the twin-turreted Norman Gate.
“I do not seek love,” I replied.
“That is not what I asked,” replied Jane. I could feel her fingers trembling.
“I do not love,” I lied again. “But what of you? You are an exceptional woman.”
“I am a possession of the men of Wulfhall,” replied Jane quietly. “I will love whomever they require me to love.”
“The king?”
“The king is married. And to speak otherwise would be treasonous.”
We had reached the Quadrangle of the Upper Ward. To my left, the State Apartments. Straight ahead were the private lodgings, including my own. It suddenly occurred to me that I had offered to walk Jane Seymour back without knowing where she was staying.
Lady Margaret continued up a set of steps and disappeared from view without so much as a backward glance, quickly slipping into the shadows with her black cloak wrapped around her body and the hood lowered over half of her face.
“I will leave you now, Charles of Cleves,” said Jane. “If we part now, in the open, then no harm may be done to either of our reputations.”
She curtsied; I bowed. Jane entered the apartments via the same set of steps as Lady Margaret. I followed her movements, wanting to ensure her safety, but as my eyes traveled up the Gothic building and away from Jane, I saw a huge figure illuminated by a large candelabra.
Henry VIII had been watching us.
I had been overjoyed to be reunited with Lady Jane in our bedchamber after the decampment to Windsor, yet I could barely bring myself to speak with her as we undressed and climbed into the large bed we now shared. We should not have been out this night. My dearest friend had made her decision; was she now going to cause turmoil for me as I tried to make my choice?
Our chambers in Windsor Castle were west-facing, and even though it was well into the night, our room was still stifling hot and oppressive.
My entire existence was suffocating. I had to remind myself to breathe.
The king had seen us. Seen me.
Tomorrow would come the questions.
Questions to which I had no answers.
By the time I got back to the shabby lodgings where Alex had been treated by the surgeon Fiennes, he had been moved from the table onto a pallet. Alex was so tall his feet hung over the edge.
Fiennes and Bewsey were gone and Alice was now alone, sitting on a threadbare rug with her legs crossed. My brother’s sleeping face loomed just over her right shoulder. She was leafing through a leather-bound book.
“If he pukes, you know it’s going all over your head,” I said.
“Trying to defuse a stressful situation with ill-timed humor is merely situation avoidance,” she replied imperiously, not bothering to look up.
“When I find out who did this to my brother, it won’t be situation avoidance,” I replied. “It’ll be situation contained and exterminated.” I exhaled slowly, trying to release the tension in my chest. I was so relieved to have Alex back, even if he was battered and broken. But my relief ended there. I had been poisoned, a bloody carcass had been left as a warning on Alex’s bed, and now someone had done their best to make Alex resemble it.
“Did he say anything while I was gone?” I asked.
“He’s mumbled, but it’s been incoherent.”
“Alex was trying to say something, before his leg was…”
Alice finally looked up. She closed the book and placed it on her lap.
“Why did you let him go with Seymour?” she asked.
“I had no choice—and neither did he. The king ordered it.”
“Alex would follow you to the ends of the world and beyond,” said Alice quietly. “He would have found a way to stay with you if you asked it. And you should have found a way. You’ve been a mess without him.”
I knew Alice was right.
“Do you trust Lady Jane?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you trust Lady Margaret?”
The reply came just as easily.
“No.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. Just as with Alex and me, there were times when Alice and I didn’t need words.
“She’s scared for her life, you know.” Alice looked sad. “Practically all the maids of honor and ladies-in-waiting in Anne’s court are. And frightened people make mistakes, get desperate. I don’t know exactly what her deal is, but she does seem to be trying to lie low, which is hard in a toxic court. I admire her for it, but I have a feeling you, and especially Alex, might be collateral damage if she loses whatever tenuous control she has on her life.”
I tried to pour myself some water from a silver pitcher, but my hands were shaking so badly, I couldn’t fill the goblet. Two fat tears dripped down each side of my nose. I put down the pitcher and wiped up the spilled water with my sleeve.
“It’s not your fault, Charlie,” said Alice. I felt one of her hands flat against my back. The crook of her finger wiped away a tear that was clinging to my eyelashes. The tears were starting to blind me. The world was swimming in them. I was so tired, it was beyond exhaustion. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep back to the future before any of this had happened.
“What if we can’t complete this assignment?” The words were choking me. “We’re already halfway through our time. What will happen to us—to Alex? To you?”
I sat down on the carpet. A freezing fear was draining my entire body, and the only thing that moved was the tears.
I had nothing left.
* * *
—
In the nightmare that followed, I saw my brother kneeling on a wooden stage. A bloodstained block was positioned in front of him. He bent forward and placed his neck on the curved base. Piermont was there. He wasn’t dressed in Tudor clothes; he was wearing gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt. Piermont’s head was shaved to the scalp, and a pale pink scar ran from his ear to his throat.
He was blindfolded. My brother wasn’t.
But Piermont was the one with the sword.
* * *
—
I woke to the sound of Alex crying out.
“Alex. It’s okay…you’re safe…”
Alice had jerked awake too. She was on her feet with the poker that had cauterized Alex’s leg wound raised high above her head.
“Charlie…Charlie…”
“I’m here.”
“I’m on fire!” yelled Alex, arching his back.
“Alex, you need to calm down,” I said. “I know it’s hard, I know you’re in a world of hurt, but if you don’t calm down you’re going to reopen your wounds.”
Alex was panting through the pain, but at the sound of my voice he stopped twitching and instead screwed up his face with a suffering grimace.
“You’ve been badly hurt,” I said. “Can you remember anything? Can you remember who did this to you?”
Alex bit down on his knuckles and attempted to muffle a guttural cry. “Damn, what I wouldn’t give…for the Quickening now,” he said, gasping. “I stayed…stayed at Seymour’s place for two nights. Then we heard…heard that the court…had moved on to Windsor. Seymour freaked out because…because he didn’t want his sister left to her own devices with the king…but then…but then we heard the queen was still in residence…at Hampton…” Alex trailed off, arching his back in pain. His hand was rubbing at the skin above the wound to his thigh. “I hurt, Charlie…please help me.”
Useless was the only word adequate to describe how I felt. If I could have absorbed his pain, I would have done so in a second. I grabbed his hand.
“Squeeze it,” I said. “As hard as you can. Break my fingers if you have to. Channel your pain into me.”
“The surgeon said he would be back this morning,” said Alice. She handed Alex the remnants of the whiskey from the night before. “This will have to do for now. It’ll take the edge off.”
Alex took three swigs, made a face like a baby sucking lemons for the first time, and grabbed my hand in a viselike grip.
“We went back to Hampton Court.” His face was screwed up in a mixture of pain and concentration as he spoke. “And then Seymour left me. I traveled with the remainder of the queen’s court yesterday…or the day before…I can’t remember now. We stopped overnight at a house belonging to some nobleman…Sir…Sir Robert of something. He was having a banquet in honor of the queen…but it was pathetic. No one wanted her there. Everyone is distancing themselves. I felt sorry for her. Anne was crying one minute…enraged the next. Some of her…ladies-in-waiting were trying to calm her down…tell her that all is well…but they have no real importance or influence over what’s happening. I was walking through the house…when I heard someone call my name. And it was…Aramis.”
“Aramis?” Alice and I cried.
“I know!” said Alex, his breathing starting to steady as the whiskey kicked in. “Aramis was shocked out of his mind to see me, because he called me…Alex instead of Alexander. Everyone thought it was just a term of…endearment from a father to a son, but I could tell he was seriously pissed.”
“Are you saying it was Aramis who attacked you?” I asked.
“I think it was,” replied Alex. “I didn’t see him, but I’m sure it was. Aramis has that mint smell that a lot of the older Assets have, you know? To cover up the sulfur odor from so many years of taking radiation pills?”
“So you smelled the mint on him,” I said. My heart was pounding at this news.
“And there were others, too.”
“Did you see them?” asked Alice.
Alex shook his head. “No. I didn’t see any of the attackers because someone put a cloth bag over my head. I had my knife, and I think I got a couple of them in the struggle, but I got myself, too.” He gingerly pointed to his thigh.
“You did that to yourself?” I cried.
“I didn’t mean to! I was fighting for my life, Charlie.”
Alice stood up and walked over to the large fireplace. She placed her hands on the stone surround and lowered her head, resting it against her forearms.
“I was strung up and whipped,” continued Alex. “I lost consciousness several times. They would throw water over me. I kept being told that I was involved in the Rewriting.”
“What’s the Rewriting?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound like a Tudor saying.”
“I know,” replied Alex. “I swear, Charlie. The people who did this to me weren’t sixteenth-century people. And even if it wasn’t Aramis, they were from our time.”
My mind was starting to get fuzzy. It was like I had a head cold. But Alex was starting to fade fast. The color was draining from his face. Sharing his story had taken every last piece of him.
I was trying so hard to manage the pain, but I was losing the battle. My hands were gripping the fabric of the chaise so tightly it was starting to tear beneath my nails. My back had been torn to shreds. I had a knife wound that had been cauterized to seal the bleeding, and nothing more than rosemary water and balm had apparently been used to treat it all.
“I’m going to find Fiennes. I won’t be long, Alex.” Charlie was trying so hard not to panic, but I could see it in his eyes.
“Charlie, before you go, we need a plan,” said Alice. “This is now completely out of control. People from The 48 attacked Alex—”
“We don’t know that, not for sure, and right now, my brother needs proper treatment!” cried Charlie. “And the best I can do for him is find him a butcher from a time where the average person is dead before middle age!”
“Will you listen to yourself?” shouted Alice. “What do you care about dead before middle age? The 48 are all dead before middle age!”
But Charlie had already run from the room.
I s
printed from the room and back out into Horseshoe Cloister. The castle grounds were bustling. The sun was already beating down from a cloudless, cornflower-blue sky. Yeomen guards were walking in twos, their boots stomping on the cobbles in time with their spears, which were being slammed into the ground like walking staffs. A thickset man with a stained apron was jangling a set of keys, trying to find the correct one to open a large door to my right. The smell of freshly baked bread lingered momentarily in the air before being completely displaced as a strong gust of wind brought the rancid smell of the Thames into the courtyard. Flags with Henry’s coat of arms flapped furiously, seeming desperate to fly away over the battlements and beyond.
I didn’t know where to even begin searching for Fiennes, or the apothecaries of the court. Would I even be allowed to request the use of one?
Blue pills.
The Death Tenet screamed in my head. Every voice of every Asset was with me. Death was drilled into us.
For it comes to all in the end!
And yet it was only now that I truly appreciated how utterly final it was.
“Charles,” called a man’s voice. “Charles of Cleves. You are ailing. Come, sit down.”
It was Marlon. I grabbed the shoulder of his red-and-gold doublet.
“I need to find the surgeon called Fiennes, or one of the king’s apothecaries if he isn’t around. It’s my brother. He has returned to the court and he’s been gravely hurt, Marlon. You have to help me.”
“Where is he?” asked Marlon quickly.
“In one of the rooms down in Horseshoe Cloister. It’s through the second door on your left as you enter the courtyard. Alexander was brought there last night.”
“Fiennes is not a surgeon to trust,” replied Marlon. “His methods are not those of the king’s surgeon.”
“I don’t care who we bring, as long as they have something to stop his pain,” I begged. “Please, Marlon. My brother was stabbed and whipped.”