The Twylight Tower

by Karen Harper

  “I told you before, milady, your Lord Robert regrets some of what he’s done. Not enough to change his ways or come back again, though he’ll no doubt try to ease his conscience with gifts like pearls and notes—and these songs. But I do know how you feel,” she said, and sang,

  My thoughts hold mortal strife:

  I do detest my life,

  And with lamenting cries,

  Peace to my soul to bring.

  “Did she send you, and not my lord?” Amy asked, as if emerging from a fog again. Felicia had thought about drugging her, maybe with her own medicine, but she felt she wouldn’t have to now.

  “What does it really matter who sent me?” Felicia asked, just picking out the sad tune now. “They both want the same thing—each other—and you alone have the power to stop that.”

  “Stop that? I?” Amy said, sitting up straighter. “Haven’t you been hinting just the opposite? I am ill and cannot abide the court. Did someone who hates them pay you to take me to court to stop or shame them? But—who sent you then?”

  “Someone rich and powerful, but it doesn’t really matter. It might as well have been Robert—maybe it was Robert. Only your ability to fight back matters. No, I have not come to take you back to court. There is a better way, a supreme gesture of defiance you can make. Why, if something happened to you, something suspicious, everyone would blame them, and could the queen then ever follow her heart’s desire at the expense of her honor? It would forever ruin them and his plans to rule with her as counselor or consort. And, of course, solve your problems too.”

  “So you cannot come from him,” Amy reasoned aloud, getting to her feet. “He did not mean those cruel songs for me. Are you here to abduct me and blame them for it?” she cried. She didn’t flee as Felicia suddenly feared, but put both hands on the table to steady herself.

  Felicia knew the woman had drunk far too much wine after she’d said the doctor had told her not to when she took her medicine. Mayhap Amy really knew what was coming, what had to be done, and would cooperate. It must be done cleanly, cleverly, with no scuffle, and time was flying. Someone could get ill at the fair and return early. The old widow down the hall could awaken or emerge from her chamber.

  Felicia stood and washed her pewter mug in the water from the ewer. She shoved her chair back under the table and wiped her plate before putting it and the mug back on the sideboard from which she’d seen Amy take it.

  “Whatever are you doing?” Amy cried. “Are you leaving?”

  “I must and so must you, but you know that,” Felicia said, trying to keep her hands and voice steady. “You do realize you can strike at them here and now, don’t you, that you needn’t go to court or be abducted? You can save them from their sin if you want to look at it that way—or you can save yourself from coming pain and lingering, lonely death from your illness.”

  Amy gaped at her, then nodded. The girl might be as dull as the queen was sharp, but Felicia thought Amy understood what she meant at last. But had that look meant mere knowledge, or acceptance and agreement too?

  “Let me close with the most recent song Robert wrote for his love, the queen—at least a few lines,” Felicia said, not making a move to take up the lute again as she sang,

  If my foot slips the fall is long

  And yet it pulls me on, this song

  Of lovers’ tryst high in the tower,

  Of union in this glimmering hour.

  “But really, Amy, I know he wrote that song for you,” Felicia went on, her voice soft and calm. “It’s called ‘At Twilight Time, I Climb the Stairs.’ ”

  “I have thought of throwing myself off the tower out back. It’s all ruined. The steps are dangerous. And I’ve heard their song there.”

  Felicia frowned but didn’t ask whose song. “Would you like to ruin them, but just can’t find the strength anymore, Amy?” she asked.

  “I have loved him long and love him still,” she whispered, then choked back a sob. “Any woman would—love Robert.”

  “Then do it to save him from her. If the queen of England weds him, either with you put away or gone for good, will it not ruin her as it has you?”

  “I don’t know, don’t know anything anymore,” Amy said, pressing her hands to her face. Her voice came muffled. “Your songs and mind are too twisted for me. I am so weary. Should I walk to the tower out back?” she whispered, dropping her hands as her eyes darted around the room. She cocked her head and seemed to be listening again, to someone or something else.

  A pox on the people of this house if they came back early and ruined everything, Felicia thought. No more stalling. This must be done now.

  “I must leave,” she told Amy. “Will you not walk me to the downstairs door?”

  “Yes, we must be going,” Amy agreed, her countenance suddenly so white she seemed a wraith or ghost.

  Felicia began to shake. Amy, like poor Hester Harington, had simply had her life ruined by those she loved. But it was the queen’s fall—the queen’s coming death—that this was all about now.

  They went together down the first flight of stairs to the landing. There, at the top of the lower staircase, unfortunately, Amy turned back and looked Felicia full in the face. “But you’ve left your lute behind,” she said.

  “I’ll go right back to get it. Oh, look,” she added quickly, desperate to have the wretched woman glance away, “they must be coming home already.”

  “Back from the fair and singing. Is that what I hear?” Amy murmured, tipping her head. She stooped slightly as if trying to glimpse the front door. Felicia glanced up at the banister running along the hallway above to be sure the old woman had not emerged from her chamber. She strained her ears to be sure she heard no sound. Then she slid one leg in front of Amy’s ankles and shoved her shoulders hard. The slender woman did an almost perfect cartwheel forward, striking her head on one of the stairs, then tumbling the rest of the way down. She landed almost daintily, as if she’d floated. She lay blessedly still, sprawled at the bottom, face to the floor, one arm flung out.

  Felicia ran back into the room, seized her lute, and looked around. It seemed that only one woman had been here, eaten here, but she did take Amy’s fruit knife and stick it up her sleeve.

  She ran down the stairs and knelt beside the woman. Her head lay at a strange—a wrong—angle. Felicia pictured again the drawing she had done to mock the queen with a crooked, scrawny neck. Amy had not made a sound and seemed not to breathe. Was it so easy to embrace death? Felicia wanted great violence and tumult when the queen and kinswoman who had betrayed her died.

  She sucked in a sob as she listened and looked longer for movement, for she’d been told to be sure the deed was done right. Nothing, no motion, no sound. She smoothed Amy’s skirts down over her legs and straightened her cap, which had pulled awry.

  Felicia Dove stepped outside and carefully closed the front door behind her. Such thick clouds had sprung up in midday that it almost seemed like twilight. She walked around the cemetery and tower to the thicket where Fletcher held his horse. She fixed her eyes on it, not him, staring at his mount’s unique, nearly striped mane.

  “Deed done?” Fletcher asked.

  She only nodded before he pulled her up behind him.

  “Then let’s rub out the camp and be on our way. Don’t want to talk about it but to him, eh?” he prodded.

  She still could not speak of it. And she certainly wasn’t warning this man who must be next so that she could get to the one who had the farthest to fall.

  THE BLUE VELVET, ERMINE-LINED ROBES WORN FOR THE annual Order of the Garter ceremony at Windsor felt heavy on the queen’s slender shoulders. They made her feel she bore a great burden and would stumble at any moment.

  “No doubt these robes were made for men,” she complained to Robin, noting how fine he looked in his. “I’ll tell you one thing about King Edward III, who began this nearly six centuries ago. He thought he had to have these designed for men in full battle armor.”


  “So was the throne made for men, my queen, but you carry everything off perfectly,” he assured her as they led the procession of new garter knights from St. George’s Chapel across the middle ward to the royal apartments.

  Elizabeth nodded and waved to courtiers and townsfolk alike lining the castle walkways to catch a glimpse of their queen. But, if truth were told, she admitted to herself, sometimes she didn’t feel she was carrying anything off perfectly. No one had located Hester Harington, and without Cecil, paperwork was likely to bury her. Kat and Meg were ailing and that wore on her. The continued wild rumors about herself and Robin were a burden too, and she could no longer laugh them off or ignore them. How she would like to simply escape from all this, even if for a moment.

  “We have a good two hours before the banquet begins, I believe, Sir Garter Knight and Lord Lieutenant of Windsor Castle,” she addressed Robin. “Come cheer me then, and we’ll give the others some time to themselves.”

  He seemed to glow as he escorted her into her withdrawing room and closed the door behind them, even on Kat Ashley. “Allow me, my queen,” he said, and unhooked and lifted the heavy robe from her, placing its ermine side up on the big pile of bolsters before the broad oriel window where her ladies often sat. The sun slanted in to nearly blind them as he added his own pristine-hued robe to hers.

  “A fur-lined nest for us to rest,” he said, and gently pulled her down to sit beside him.

  “For a moment I thought you would break into song,” she said, leaning luxuriously back on her elbows despite the crush of her golden gown. She heaved a huge sigh and flopped all the way back, half closing her heavy-lidded eyes in the splash of sun.

  “You haven’t hired another lutenist,” he observed matter-of-factly.

  “I don’t have the heart until that girl is found and stopped.”

  He leaned closer on one elbow, hovering over her, shading her so she could see him without squinting. “Despite what she’s done—or may have done,” he whispered, “you have a soft spot for her.”

  “Do I? Not if she’s deadly dangerous.”

  “But I am here to protect you, so let’s not think of anything unpleasant,” he whispered, his gaze slowly sliding down then up her tight bodice.

  At that mere look, the familiar flutters low in her belly began. She had intended to tell Robin he must go to London to seek intelligence about de Quadra’s plans for Katherine Grey. While there, he could deliver her ultimatum to Cecil to return at once and do his duty or be shamefully dismissed. But suddenly she could not ruin this precious moment with either of those pressing issues.

  “Elizabeth, let’s only think of us,” he pleaded as if he’d read her mind.

  “Of us? Is there really an us, Robin?”

  “If it were up to me, that would be all there is. Us together riding, us at table—for breakfast, supper—and the council table. And us in bed at night, all night.”

  “Then would you be my master?”

  “Never of your spirit and mind, but only your body and heart.” He looked and sounded so impassioned. His hand caressed her waist, and he kissed her hotly until the whole room spun. “Let them all go to hell who would stop us,” he breathed against her throat as he trailed wet kisses there, lower and lower down her flesh above her square-cut bodice. “Let them heed the Garter motto, ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense.’ ”

  Evil to him who evil thinks. The translation danced through Elizabeth’s thoughts, though they were getting slower. Something so tight inside her began to uncoil, to yearn to surrender to this man alone.

  Somehow Robin dared to ruffle up her petticoat hems, but she did not protest. He squeezed her ankle and heavily, slowly, slid his free hand higher. She thought to trap his intruding touch but she only sighed.

  “As a Knight of the Garter, may I not claim at least one of your garters?” he murmured, nibbling her lower lip. “It was a lady’s garter that began the order—it should have been disorder of the garter—hundreds of years ago. I would sue for the right to touch and take this one.”

  She felt him untie the silken ribbon above her knee, then the one above that. When her stocking loosed, he skimmed it down past her knee to bare her thigh. She could feel his calloused thumb against her flesh, stroking her, stroking. Picturing his hands on her, she moaned and reached to embrace his neck and pull him down hard to her.

  “Sit up and let me unlace your bodice,” he whispered hotly, but she held on tight. Her pulse began to pound, screaming at her to pull him even closer, to surrender at last and become his alone.

  “Who in hellfire is that?” Robin muttered, going stone still just above her.

  Elizabeth’s senses surfaced from a deep, swirling pool. Someone was pounding on the door, shouting too.

  “We must answer,” she said, and tried to push him off. He didn’t budge at first, then sat up to let her rearrange her petticoats.

  “Send them away,” he hissed.

  “It’s Harry, much distraught. Open the door.”

  Yes, it was her cousin’s voice, she realized as she tried to stand, only to have her stocking cascade to her ankle. Her heart fell to her feet too. Harry sounded desperate, but then mayhap they had found Hester. If anything had happened to Kat again …

  Elizabeth stood her ground before the window as Robin straightened himself and walked across the room to open the door.

  “What news, Harry?” she asked, her voice far too shrill.

  “For Lord Robert—a messenger named Bowes from Cumnor, sent by his lordship’s steward, Forster,” he said, and stepped aside to let a mud-spattered man step into the queen’s privy rooms.

  “Your lady wife, Lord Robert,” Bowes, a ruddy man, choked out from where he stood. “She’s dead of a fall down the manor house stairs.”

  “Amy?” Robert said, as if he had many wives. He staggered two steps back and leaned against the table near the door. “But how—just fell? And dead?”

  Elizabeth took the blow of all that meant. People would say … they would believe the worst.… They would accuse not only Robin but her too of Amy’s death.

  Bowes was rattling off a disjointed story of Amy mysteriously sending everyone to a town fair, of being nearly alone in the house, of taking a tumble down stairs she’d walked a hundred times. Her neck was broken but her skirts and cap were not even slightly mussed.

  Robin recovered enough to ask Bowes to wait outside with Harry. Elizabeth stood facing him across the table and the width of sunny room that might as well now be the span of the western ocean.

  “They will s-say vile things of me—unt-true things,” the usually glib man stammered, his big frame trembling. “I have m-many enemies and—”

  The queen held up her hand. “You must leave me now.”

  “Leave you? Do not desert me, my love! I admit I wanted it to happen—at least for her to be gone so that—”

  “Wanted what to happen?” Elizabeth cracked out, stepping forward and seizing the back of a chair to keep herself upright. “What did happen to her? Mere happenstance? I reckon suicide a possibility, but they will say we and not her disease drove her to it. Or worst of all, folks will claim foul murder and where will we—I—be then?”

  Her words raced, her mind too, but she said again, “Robin, you must leave me.”

  “I—where will I go?”

  “To your house at Kew, nearby but under restraint.”

  “Under restraint? They will say I am under arrest! If you send me away, they will say you think I am guilty.”

  “ ’S blood and bones, I will say that they know anyone suspected of a crime must be removed from the presence of the sovereign. And—they will say what they will, but we must weather it out.”

  “But I was not there! I could not have done it.”

  “You? You? What of me now? I see I am not like my father to do as he wishes with lovers and face down all the world. Besides, rumors will fly that we hired someone to do the deed.” She panicked even more when she realized Robin would run to her
and, if he touched her, she might be lost again.

  “Harry!” she shouted.

  Her cousin burst in the door as if he’d had his ear to the keyhole. “Your Grace.”

  She looked only at him, not into Robin’s wild eyes again. “Escort my Lord Dudley to his house at Kew and stay with him while he writes to his wife’s family. Not only condolences but a demand for a full coroner’s inquest—that a jury must be called to look into this dreadful occurrence completely and truthfully.”

  “Yes,” Robin said. He raised his voice as if the commands were his to give when she was telling him what he must do. “One of her half brothers is a magistrate and another, John Appleyard, has been High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. Her brother Arthur Robsart could also attend.”

  “Go now, Robin,” the queen said, relieved he seemed to be thinking as well as reacting now. Her face felt as hard and cold as marble, but marble that would crack and shatter. Behind Harry and the messenger Bowes, courtiers crowded into the outer room.

  “Do not desert me to the wolves, my queen,” he begged, merely mouthing his words now the way Gil sometimes did. With a quick turn, holding his shoulders back and his head erect, he followed Harry out through the crowd.

  Elizabeth locked her knees and continued to stand as Kat and her ladies hurried in. Everyone began to talk at once around her, and she heard nothing. Had her good sense deserted her that she had loved Robin so blindly? They would all whisper he had hired his wife murdered, perhaps that the queen of England had led him to it or herself sent someone to dispatch Amy.

  “Lovey,” Kat’s voice finally pierced her darting thoughts, “won’t you come sit, at least, or lie down? What can we do for you?”

  “Send for Cecil,” she said, her voice cold and clipped. “A dreadful deed may have been done to a lady of my realm, and I must see to it as I do to all court and country business.”