Plenty.
Sooner or later, someone would talk and it would come out, and they would all look guilty. And the likelihood was they would be exiled, or sent to the Tower.
And in one swoop, at the King’s expense and trouble, de la Pole’s supporters would have rid themselves of the King’s men.
To work properly, to create the right atmosphere of distrust and tension, the King would have to learn of the secret treaty from a trusted source.
And that trusted source might well be the devisor of the plot.
“You have a safe place to stay tonight?”
Bryan had sunk into his misery, but looked up at Parker’s question. He nodded. “I have a mistress no one knows about. I can stay with her.”
“Good. Be off.”
Bryan stumbled to his feet. “You will help me?”
“As much as I can. But only if you truly are innocent in this.”
“Thank you, Parker.” Bryan’s bow was deep, and Parker noticed the man’s step was lighter as he showed him the door.
The cold winter wind swirled around them, and then Bryan was gone.
Susanna sat where he’d left her, deep in thought.
Parker knelt at her side. “Who was on deck with you when Harvey leaped aboard?”
She started. “Almost all of us,” she said after a moment. “Doctor Pettigrew and I were watching the quay, and called out to the captain that Harvey wanted to leap aboard. It was then we noticed he was being pursued.”
“Who helped Harvey aboard?”
“Pettigrew. He leaned across and grabbed Harvey’s hand, then hauled him up. For someone of Pettigrew’s age, it was a great feat.”
“Do you remember what that archer said, the one who attacked us coming from Dover?”
Susanna shook her head. She could recall only the bolts deep in flesh, and the circling birds. All else was hazy.
“He said the man who paid him had old hands. And it has always seemed to me amazing that the archer who shot at you in the captain’s cabin knew you were there.”
“You think Pettigrew paid for those attacks?” She sounded stunned, as if the doctor had deeply betrayed her.
“I am convinced of it.”
“Then you are saying Pettigrew knew Harvey. Was there to make sure Harvey never made it across the Channel. And it was he who was standing behind me when Harvey gave me that cryptic message for his wife.”
“Aye.” It was the only thing that made sense. “And once we accept that, then there has to be a close connection between Harvey’s intelligence and Pettigrew.” Parker rose to his feet.
“What will you do?” Susanna took the hand he offered and rose from the chair.
He began leading her toward the stairs, and their bed-chambers.
“I will have to send someone to Dover to investigate. Simon, if he can go.”
She opened her mouth to answer, and he put his fingers to her lips. “But we have better things to do now.”
20
The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier: To confesse his ignorance, whan he seeth time and place therto, in suche qualities as he knoweth him selfe to have no maner skill in.
Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman: Not to be haughtie, envious, yl-tunged, lyght, contentious nor untowardlye.
She stood in the center of her room and wondered why she felt shy. Half an hour ago, this man had been inside her, thrusting. … She clenched her legs together at the sudden throb between them, and lowered her eyes.
When Parker followed and closed the door behind him, some instinct screamed for her to run.
She felt too much. She had given herself with relish, with joy downstairs; but the illicit way they had taken each other, on a chair in the study with Bryan pounding on the door, seemed more lust than love.
Parker was ridding himself of his doublet, pushing the buttons out one by one, his eyes on her steady and warm, and she knew he had nothing but intimacy in mind now. It made her knees weak and her heart thunder with panic.
“Come here.” He shrugged the doublet off and draped it over the chair next to her bed.
She grasped her hands together, wavering. Parker cocked his head to one side, and she watched him relax, hands at his sides, palms out. She could turn him away, and he would not force her or rail against it.
She did not want to turn him away.
She stepped forward, and he took her hand in his, drawing it to his chest.
Beneath her palm, his heart pounded, and she felt the rhythm matched by her own blood. His skin was hot, the warmth radiating through his thin cambric shirt and heating her hand.
She sighed.
He stepped in closer, then put his arms around her to work the laces of her gown. The rub of fabric on her shoulders, across her breasts, as he fiddled and tugged was exquisite. With shaking hands she pulled at the drawstring that held the front of his shirt together. Then she pushed the fine fabric aside and leaned forward to touch her tongue to his skin.
“Gods.” He jerked back. As he stepped away, her dress slipped off her shoulders, all the laces undone. It held for a moment on her elbows, and then fluttered to the floor.
He grinned wickedly, and the flame of the single candle on her dresser stuttered in an eddy of air, throwing shadow and light on his face. Strong, intense, and … happy.
She was awestruck at how Parker never affected his blank stare when he was with her. He gave himself, his feelings, into her care.
With a wriggle, she rid herself of her underskirt and then hauled her chemise over her head, standing naked in his sight.
His smile had gone. He reached out a hand and drew her closer, bent to delicately nuzzle her ear.
“I never stayed much in this house before,” he whispered. “It never felt like home. Nowhere did.”
“And now?” She swallowed hard, suddenly close to tears.
“Now I realize anywhere will do, as long as you are with me.”
You was followed yesterday.” Harry stamped his feet to warm them.
Parker rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin and watched the boy trying to warm himself before the kitchen fire.
He’d thrown stones at Parker’s window until Parker had heard the rattle from deep under the covers in Susanna’s chamber and went down to let him in.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night?” Not that he’d have been able to do any more about it than he could now, at four in the morning.
“Tried to.” Harry shivered and edged closer to the flames. He took another piece of cold lamb from the plate Parker had given him, and chewed with relish. “George was following your follower. He waited hereabouts for a chance to tell you, but then you turned straight around and went out again with someone.”
“He did well to hang back.” Though he trusted Simon, Parker wasn’t prepared to reveal his little band of eyes and ears to anyone.
“Yeah?” Harry nodded. “He waited awhile, but you were too long coming back, for such a cold evening.”
“Mistress Gould do right by you last night?” Parker asked.
“Aye. Gave us a couple of rooms, pallets, and blankets.” Harry rubbed his hands up the arms of his new coat. “I’m just used to waking early in this weather. Under the pier, if you don’t, you might not wake up at all.” He was silent for a moment, then shook himself back to the present. “I couldn’t get back to sleep and thought I might as well come round and tell you the news ’fore there’s more eyes on the street.”
Parker gave him an approving look. He’d have liked a couple more hours in bed, but he couldn’t fault Harry’s logic.
Harry obviously felt warm enough at last, because he took a chair at the table, ripping into the piece of bread Parker’d put out for him.
“Give me the other news first. We can get back to what George saw.” Parker sat as well and stretched his legs out. Gods, he was tired. He yawned, covering his mouth with both hands. He wondered whether Susanna had woken yet.
�
�Busy night?”
Harry was laughing at him, the little bastard. With a look in his eyes way too adult for his years.
Parker gave him a halfhearted glare. “What do you have for me?”
“The cove who was following Bryan on the stairs of the palace, the one Will saw at Blackfriars, works for someone who works for someone on the Privy Council.”
He’d expected that, but it still felt like a punch to the gut. This could bring down a noble line. “Who?”
Harry shrugged. “Dunno. He met with a man, whispered something to him, and we decided to follow the new man—looked like he was the big cheese. He was allowed through some doors, and when we tried to follow, we were told only servants of Privy Council members could go through.”
“The messenger-boy disguise is working, then?”
“They don’t hardly notice us,” Harry said with glee. “An’ they give us food.”
As Parker had been paying their new landlady for meals, he assumed Harry’s delight was more in scoring an extra meal free than because he was going without. And by the look of him, he could double up on lunch for quite a time before it showed on his frame.
“Did George see who followed me?”
“No. Just saw he was behind you when you visited those courtiers’ rooms near the palace, and then followed you back here. The spy seemed to think you was done for the day, and maybe it was too cold or summat, ’cause George says he disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Parker sat up straight.
“Aye. One moment he was dodging from house to house behind your cart, and then he just vanished. George said he was watching the whole lane, that the only place the cove could have gone was your own courtyard. But then you came out not long after with that other fellow, and George was too tired and hungry to keep it up.”
Dread clamped a cold hand around Parker’s neck.
He and Simon had always enjoyed an easy friendship. Whether Simon had followed them or not, that camaraderie would be lost the moment Parker asked him if he had. And the loss would be felt.
Parker stood.
“Where are you going?” The meal, warmth, and early hour had finally taken their toll on Harry. He was eyeing the thick rug before the fireplace with a look he usually reserved for food.
“To ruin a friendship.”
For the first time since they’d met, they were not in accord.
Susanna felt it as keenly as the wind through her clothes. She sat behind Parker on his horse and leaned into his rigid back, despite the tension between them.
The horse stumbled in the dark, knee-deep in snow. The going would be treacherous this morning—the snow lay so thick it had been impossible to take the cart, and she couldn’t help but feel glad. Parker couldn’t easily cut her off when she had to cling to him like a limpet.
Simon would not have betrayed them. She refused to believe it. Parker seemed to think it a foregone conclusion.
But despite their difference of opinion, there was a fragile thread between them. The beauty and comfort of last night could not be snapped so easily. As she pressed against him and tightened her arms about his waist, she felt Parker relax.
He sighed.
Her lips curved at the sound: the resigned admittance of defeat.
“Do my sighs still amuse you?” There was a glimmer of laughter in his voice.
“You know they do.”
“He could have done it, you know.” His words were as resigned as his sigh.
“I understand he could have done it. He may even have done it. But I do not think it was to betray us, Parker. I cannot believe that of Simon. Not after the longbow attack in the forest.”
“I am hard-pressed to lose any friend. Simon was a particular ally.”
His voice was even, but she’d long since learned that Parker could talk of the most terrible things in the same manner as the weather. He was bitterly, deeply sorry that he had to confront Simon.
There had to be a way out of this. She refused to let Parker isolate himself even more for her sake.
“Where does Simon live?”
“Over the stables at Bridewell. He has his own room, given his position.” Parker turned the horse out of Crooked Lane and into Fish Street Hill, his voice low in the hush of the early morning.
“What is his position?”
“He moves the King’s important goods where the King wants them to go. Sometimes that means picking up a special delivery at Dover, sometimes moving things around the city. He is not merely a cartman, more a yeoman guard disguised as a cartman.”
Susanna closed her eyes and buried her nose in Parker’s back, content to half-doze as he navigated through the drifts.
The streets were almost empty. The city of London stirred awake later than usual today, under the pressing dark and the dead quiet of the snow.
They skirted Blackfriars and crossed the Fleet River in eerie silence, but when they turned into Bridewell, it was as if the world of London was a reality apart.
The courtyard bustled, men shouting to each other as they loaded carts in the lantern-light, children dashing and weaving between them with pieces of furniture, pots, and food wrapped in cloth or stored in clay jars.
“I cannot believe I forgot.” Parker’s voice was a hush of surprise. “I … I would never have …”
Despite the horror she heard in his tone, Susanna smiled. “Never would have forgotten whatever this is, before you met me?”
She felt his chest expand under her hands and he twisted in the saddle to look over his shoulder. There was a grin on his face and a light in his eyes. “You have ruined me, my lady.”
“Perhaps we have ruined each other.” She smiled back, and for a moment the courtyard faded away.
A boy shouted out as he darted past them, and the horse’s jerk of surprise brought them back to the muddy snow and noise of Bridewell.
“What is it you have forgotten?” Her voice was breathless.
“The King has moved to Greenwich. He wants to hunt in the parks for a few days.”
“These servants are moving the royal household?” It could be nothing else. Susanna had never seen such chaos.
“The King would have gone ahead late last night. It is safer for him.”
“So Simon is likely with the King?”
“Aye.” Parker scanned the courtyard. “He’ll stay at Greenwich.” His gaze lifted to a window above the stables, and lingered.
“Do you see something?” In the weak light given off by the courtyard lanterns and the few lit windows of the palace, she could barely see Parker’s face.
“Probably nothing.” He turned the horse around. “We may as well get breakfast and decide who else we can send to Dover.”
“Simon could still do it,” she said quietly, but he shook his head.
“No. He can’t.”
“Why not?” She clutched him tightly as he urged the horse a little faster through the entrance gates.
“Because he’s following us right now.”
21
The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier: To delite and refresh the hearers mindes in being pleasant, feat conceited, and a meerie talker, applyed to time and place.
Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman: Not to use over much familyaritie without measure and bridle.
Where is he?” Susanna’s breath tickled his frozen ear with warmth.
“A few buildings back.” Parker steered the horse up to Fleet Street, then toward the bridge and home.
The sharp click of the horse’s hooves on the cobbles of the bridge reminded him of all the times he’d ridden with Simon. Reminded him how much he stood to lose. Parker stopped the horse. The swish of the Fleet below and the horse’s soft expulsion of breath were the only sounds.
“What is it?” Susanna leaned out from behind him to look up Ludgate Hill, sloping up before them.
They were only a few paces from the end of the bridge, and Parker turned the horse around. Then waited.
A minute ticked by. Then another. Parker flexed his hand, amazed at his reluctance to flick out his knife.
Of course he will not step out. He is not the man you thought he was.
He gave it ten more beats. As he began to turn the horse around, Simon appeared. He wore black and kept to the edge of the deepest shadows. But he came forward.
They stared at each other. It was dark enough and they were far enough apart that he could not read Simon’s expression. But Parker could see the tension in him, in the way he held himself.
Simon began to walk across the bridge, and Parker lifted his leg over the horse’s neck and dismounted. His knife was in his hand without him thinking of it as his boots crunched into the crystalline snow.
Susanna put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she slid off the saddle, using his body to help her balance. It was the easy, unconscious action of a lover or close friend. It made the moment easier.
Simon stopped just in front of them.
“Why shouldn’t I cut you down right here?” Parker had meant to play it cooler, was surprised as the words seem to leap from him.
Simon tugged off his glove, then lifted his hand so Parker could see the ring gleaming on his right hand.
Parker stared at it.
“You understand why I could say nothing,” Simon said, at last breaking his silence.
“Come home with us.” Parker’s mind was a jumbled whirl of questions. “We’re going to have breakfast.”
Susanna looked from him to Simon with amazement. “What was that?” She checked Simon’s attempt to pull his glove back on and frowned at the ring, peering at it closely in the dark.
“It is the King’s ring,” Simon explained.
“That ring could save a man condemned to die for treason, even if he were being led to the chopping block when he received it.” Parker spoke with respect.
Simon grinned. “Yes, but the King felt my chances were likely worse than a condemned man’s if Parker should suspect me of wrongdoing.” He pulled the glove back on. “This was my insurance, should I need it. I take you gladly as a friend, Parker, but I would give nothing for my chances as your enemy.”
In a Treacherous Court Page 13