by Trish Morey
She pushed as hard as she could against his chest, until his hold on her broke at last and he stumbled back from her.
‘Anna,’ he gasped, looking shocked by his own actions. His face flushed a deep red. ‘I am sorry …’
She shook her head as she rubbed her fingers across her damp lips. ‘I must go inside now, Henry. I know this will not happen again when next we meet.’
She spun round and ran back up the garden path before he could say anything else or kiss her again. As she turned to shut the door she glimpsed him still standing there by the gate, watching her. Waiting for—something. Something from her. Something she almost wished she could give.
But she felt hollow and tired. There had been entirely too much passion for one day.
Her father still sat by the fire, staring into its flickering glow as he puffed on his pipe. Anna dropped down onto the chair across from his and rubbed at her throbbing temples.
‘Henry Ennis seems a fine young man,’ her father said, not looking away from the fire. ‘Ambitious and hard-working. He tells me he has a house in the country he intends to retire to one day.’
‘Aye. Where his mother and sister live now,’ Anna said.
‘It sounds as if he is looking for a wife to add to the household.’
She laughed. ‘Players should never marry.’
‘Some should not, of a certes. As a lot they tend to be hot-tempered and impulsive, and they lose their coin as soon as they earn it. But Henry seems a different sort. A lady might do well to consider him.’
Did her father know about Henry’s attentions to her? Anna studied him carefully, but he gave not a hint of what he was thinking, what he really wanted for her. He just chewed on that pipe.
‘The right lady, perhaps,’ she said. ‘Are you going out tonight, Father, or should I send Madge to the tavern for some supper? I bought some apples at the market for our pudding. They’re small and rather hard, but might make a fine pie.’
‘Aye, my dear, if you are hungry. I will just take a little wine now, and sit by the fire awhile longer.’
‘Not too much wine, Father. Not on an empty stomach. Or I shall be calling for a physick.’ Anna went to kiss his cheek before she left the room. ‘I must go tidy myself now. It has been a very long day.’
He caught her hand in his as she turned to go. ‘You work too hard, dearest daughter. I tell you, you should consider Master Ennis. He could take care of you as you deserve.’
‘Never fear. I can take care of myself quite well enough—and you, too.’ Anna gave her father a confident smile and another kiss, but inside she was just not so very sure any longer.
Rob tossed the tiny scraps of parchment into the fire, watching intently as they turned to black flakes of ash and melted away. If only the words could be so easily erased from his mind, so easily cast out of the world.
Behind him, the main room of the Three Bells was crowded with its usual denizens, getting drunk either loudly or morosely, losing money at cards, grabbing the serving maids who slapped them down. The smells of fried onions and cheap beef, spilled ale and damp wool blended thickly with the acrid smoke of the fire.
But Rob didn’t see any of it. It was as distant as birdsong in the sky and as removed from him. He braced his fists on the arms of his chair and stared at the charred bits of Walsingham’s note.
The Secretary had new information on the traitor among Lord Henshaw’s Men—the one who hoped to profit from Spanish information passed under the disguise of the theatre. It was Tom Alwick.
Anna’s own father. And Rob was assigned to find the evidence that would bring him down forever, ruin him and bring him a traitor’s death.
Rob sat back in the chair and stretched his long, booted legs towards the fire, as if its heat could melt the ice forming around his heart. He thought of Tom, always so affable, yet so shrewd about the plays he could sell and what the audience wanted. Tom, who almost always seemed at best half-drunk, and lately more apt to leave business affairs to Anna. Could he really be such a good actor himself as to hide treason behind such a façade of jokes and drink?
Rob rubbed his hand hard over his jaw. Of course, Tom could be acting—anyone caught in Walsingham’s web had to be a good liar or he would be dead in an instant. Yet Rob had learned hard lessons ever since he was a child—lessons on seeing beyond what people presented to the world and into the very heart of the matter. He had to be observant to write his characters, and to do his job for Walsingham. It was how he stayed alive in the face of daily danger.
Tom seemed to be no actor, no deceiver. A ruthless businessman, aye, but one who was fair to his tenants and employees. A man getting on in years and seeking solace in wine and ale for a too-long life.
Rob didn’t believe he was the spy. Surely it had to be someone around him? Someone in his business …?
Someone like Anna?
‘Nay,’ he muttered. His remembered the sweetness of her kiss, the wonder in her eyes as she found pleasure in his arms. The softness she hid under her sharp tongue and stern grey garments. Anna wasn’t a traitor.
Yet doubt, once planted, lingered. She was clever and she had access to all her father’s business concerns. It was said around Southwark that her husband’s death had left her penniless, forcing her to return to her father’s house.
He had to consider all possibilities in this conundrum. It was often the least likely one that proved true. Even if it was not Anna, she could be helping the villain—whether wittingly or not. He had to discover the truth, and take care of the matter before Walsingham could.
He had become very good at taking care of matters over the years, ridding the Queen of her enemies any way he could. He couldn’t let Anna Barrett cloud his judgement or stand in his way. Too much depended on this one task.
He heard a footfall behind him—the tap of a boot’s sole on the sticky floor more purposeful than the general cacophony of the room—and he reached for the hilt of his dagger.
‘What visions do you see in those flames, Robert?’ Edward Hartley asked.
Rob relaxed, no longer preparing to do battle, and looked back at his friend. Edward stood out from the usual Three Bells crowd in his bright green satin Court clothes, but as usual no one dared assault him—even to steal his finery.
‘I was merely seeking a quiet moment to myself,’ Rob said.
Edward arched his brow as he took the chair across from Rob. ‘Here?’
‘I do my best thinking in the midst of a crowd.’
‘Then you must have something brilliant indeed in mind. It’s even noisier than usual here tonight, not to mention noisome.’
‘And you’re far from home for such a late hour. Is the beauteous Lady Elizabeth gone from London now?’
‘Not as yet. We’re to meet later tonight.’ Edward took a long drink from the goblet in his hand. ‘I heard you were at Seething Lane this morning.’
‘So I was.’
‘Any progress?’
Rob shrugged. ‘Perhaps. None I care for, though.’
‘Ah. Well, I may be able to help you in your task, my friend. I’ve had word that Sir Thomas Sheldon is back in London, penniless again and even more careless than usual.’
‘Is that so?’ Rob sat up in interest. Sir Thomas Sheldon had long been an enemy to Edward, as Edward blamed the man for his brother’s untimely death. Edward had been seeking a way to ruin him, and lately Rob had learned Sheldon’s loyalty could definitely be for sale to the highest bidder. He was possibly even involved in this threatened treason in Southwark, though likely not as the main mover. He seemed too clumsy for that.
‘We may have him now,’ Edward said. ‘I have a plan to set a trap that could benefit us both, and I need your help.’
‘Of course you have it. What are you thinking of?’
‘Elizabeth and I are having a party at Hart Castle next week. We have invited Sheldon and some of his friends, as I have heard he looks to sell his estate next to mine and considers me a possible buyer
. Once we have them trapped on our own ground, they won’t be able to wriggle free so easily.’ Sheldon was a rich, thieving, Court-toadying man, who had recently attempted to marry Edward’s love Elizabeth’s young niece. She ran away with Elizabeth’s help—and inadvertently brought Edward and his Elizabeth together.
‘And Sheldon has agreed to come?’
‘Oh, aye. He is always seeking his own advancement—not to mention the sale of his estate. And I have also dangled the promise of some young heiresses before him. He has been seeking a wealthy wife ever since Elizabeth’s niece got away from him. He took the bait quick enough.’
‘And you want me to help reel him in?’
‘No one is better at that than you, my friend. And you must invite anyone who can help us to this little gathering.’ Edward grinned. ‘It should be a most rewarding few days.’
‘Anyone?’ Rob stared back at the fire, as if there truly were visions to be found there. Could he lure Anna to Hart Castle? Perhaps once she was away from London, from her father and his friends, he could find out more from her. He could discover if she or her father were involved in this scheme.
Then he would know what to do.
‘I will be there,’ he promised. He had to be. The game was afoot and he had to see it to its end, even as his guilt over hurting Anna pricked at him in a most inconvenient and painful way. He had set his course long ago. He had to finish it.
CHAPTER NINE
THE clash of steel blades rang out with a metallic clang in the morning air. Men shouted insults at each other, and laughed when their opponents responded with angry volleys of futile blows. It was the final, decisive battle between two warring clans.
Anna watched it all from her perch in the upper gallery, between stitches on a torn costume. She called out lines when an actor faltered, and noted repairs that needed to be made to the stage. The morning light, bright and golden for once, clear of the grey clouds, showed chips in the painted finish of the columns and faded spots on the mural of Zeus and the gods emblazoned below the musicians’ balcony.
One of the fighters tumbled off the stage into the rush-strewn yard and rolled nimbly back to his feet. If only all battles were so easy as that, Anna thought. A whirl of colourful insults and blows that hurt no one, and then everyone went to the tavern for tankards of ale.
But Walsingham and men of his high ilk didn’t work as simply as that. There were no shouts—just a dagger in a dark alley or a hidden room and it was as if nothing had happened at all.
She looked up from her needle to find Rob on the stage. He held no sword, only the pages of the play he had written, and he directed the men in their battle. The seemingly chaotic brawl was carefully choreographed for maximum effect as seen from the level of the audience, and Rob leaped nimbly among the action, shouting out encouragement. Sometimes he would clamber atop the base of one of the columns to direct the movement.
He waved up at Anna and gave her a merry grin, and despite everything she found herself smiling back. Rob was in his element on that stage, burning with raw, wondrous life. He was a different man from the passionate, intense lover, or the darkly brooding man who had left Walsingham’s house. Which was the real Robert Alden? It was too enticing a riddle.
Anna laughed and waved back at him. He swung lightly around the column and dropped back onto the stage.
‘Nay, Ethan, hold the sword thus,’ she heard him say. ‘It’s not a sow you’re herding to market. Rapiers are delicate and changeable, perfect for both cutting and thrusting attacks, and they need a light touch—like a woman. You can’t bash it around and expect it to go where you please.’
He took a stage blade from one of the apprentice actors and twirled the hilt in his palm. He swung it around, as if the heavy weapon weighed no more than a feather, and lunged forward with perfect control. ‘In stage combat you must make it look real and fearsome, not comical. Take advantage of space, as you would in a true fight. Back your opponent into a pillar or a door. Use the element of surprise.’
Anna slowly lowered the costume she was mending to the bench and watched in fascination as Rob twisted and turned, as nimble as any Court acrobat, the blade singing through the air as he made its movements dance. Where had he learned such things? His movements were as graceful and beautiful as they were fatal. She couldn’t turn her eyes from him.
One by one the other players stepped up to challenge him, and one by one he dispatched them. He laughed, as if having a merry time, as if fighting them off was no effort at all. His strongly muscled shoulders and back flexed beneath his thin shirt, the fabric growing damp with the exercise. He shook his hair back from his brow and with one flick of the sword sent another opponent tumbling from the stage.
No one else stepped forward. They all sat in collapsed heaps at the edge of the stage in their half costumes, defeated.
Rob laughed and tossed the gilded hilt from hand to hand. His own movements were slower now, yet still he leaped about the scenery as if defeating five men was as nothing. Only a fine morning’s exercise.
‘What? No one else?’ he said. ‘How will you endure a stage fight, my friends, let alone a street brawl?’
‘We leave such things to you, Rob,’ one of the others shouted. ‘You are so good at it!’
‘No thanks to my allies here at the White Heron,’ Rob said. ‘Come on—one more try.’
‘I will take that challenge, Master Alden,’ came a voice from the musicians’ balcony at the back of the stage.
Rob’s attention flew to the shadowed gallery. A man’s bright hair emerged from the gloom, and he stepped to the carved railing.
It was Henry Ennis, and unlike the other laughing, teasing players he looked in solemn earnest. Anna slowly stood up and braced her palms on the gallery balustrade. Something new was suddenly in the cool morning air—something that seemed to crackle and snap like a whip. The other actors seemed to notice this, too, as they pulled themselves to their feet and reached for their discarded blades. Despite Rob’s taunting words about his useless allies, Anna knew they were all well able to acquit themselves in a fight. They got into them often enough.
But she did not want to see one now, here at the White Heron. She thought of Rob’s shoulder wound. It didn’t seem to slow him at all, but surely he must feel it.
Yet he stood back, his arms held wide with the rapier dangling from one hand, and gave a low bow.
‘The field is yours, Ennis,’ he said.
As Anna watched in slowly dawning horror Rob raised his rapier, the greyish light from the sky beyond the open roof catching on the dull-coloured blade. She watched him assess his opponent with a strange half smile on his face. The two men circled each other warily, and then Henry let out a shout and lunged forward, with his blade arcing towards Rob’s chest. Even from where she stood Anna could see the palpable, panicked fury in Henry’s face and his movements. Why did he hate Robert so very much? This seemed no ordinary jealousy between players, but she could not fathom it.
Rob parried Henry’s blade, his own sword arcing down to block the advance. The two blades clashed, scraping against each other in a harsh clatter as they tangled, parted, attacked again.
Henry’s anger made him ruthless in his drive forward, and as an actor he was a practised swordsman. Rob managed to stay ahead of him, but Henry’s fury only seemed to grow rather than burn out. The sharp side-tip of his blade caught Rob on the upper arm, drawing blood.
Anna pressed her hand to her mouth to hold back a scream. Even the gathered actors, who had at first shouted encouragement, grew terribly silent. No one intervened in the fight.
As she watched, Henry gave a strangled shout and raised his sword, as if to thrust at Rob’s neck. Rob ducked nimbly under the attack and dropped down to deliver a counter-thrust. His blade cut Henry’s thigh—a shallow wound that sent Henry crashing to the stage.
Henry tried to stab at him again, but Rob kicked him back down and pressed the tip of his blade to his opponent’s chest.
‘You care nothing for her,’ Henry shouted. ‘You are a hedge-pig, a heartless swine.’
‘Mayhap I am,’ Rob answered. ‘But I won’t fight a man so out of his wits.’ He tossed down his blade and turned away, stumbling suddenly as he pressed his hand to his wounded side.
His fingers came away stained crimson.
Some of the other men fell on Henry to restrain him as Rob’s friends caught him before he could fall. Anna ran down the narrow wooden stairwell and emerged into the pit as the scene broke into noise and confusion. ‘Follow me,’ she ordered them, and led the way backstage.
‘Bring him in here,’ Anna said, clearing piles of costumes from the crates and chests. ‘I will see to him while you take Henry to the physick.’
Once they were all gone, and everything was quiet in the little room, Anna felt the tense fear of those few, flashing moments of violence drain away and found she was shaking. Even Rob was quiet. He had said nothing since his fall to the stage, with his head bleeding and Henry Ennis left to shout from the wound to his leg.
Anna took a deep breath to steady herself, and leaned over to study the trickle of blood on Rob’s forehead. He watched her closely in that heavy silence.
‘This seems to be becoming a terrible habit of yours,’ she said. She carefully dabbed with a handkerchief at the gash, only to find it was luckily more blood than wound. ‘You were fortunate again. I don’t think this will need any stitches.’
‘I’m better off than Ennis, then.’
‘I should think so. That leg wound was beyond my meagre nursing skills.’
‘The fool shouldn’t have challenged me.’
‘True. Though I don’t think my father will see the distinction. He will only know you have robbed him for the time being of one of his chief players.’ She wiped away the last of the blood. ‘Why does Henry hate you so? I have never seen him like that.’ Except for that one flash of fury when she had turned down his offer. But that had been quickly gone.