The Tudor Conspiracy

by C. W. Gortner

  Over Kate’s head, Elizabeth lifted her gaze to me. She couldn’t know that I had betrayed Kate and taken another woman to my bed, but in that moment it was though she saw into the darkest part of me. In her regard I found the acceptance that I had denied myself, the understanding that she, too, had been prey to illicit desire. Yet her gaze also warned that those we loved must not suffer for it. There was no reason they should know how far we had trespassed.

  “I must go.” My voice was raw. Kate turned from the princess, a trembling hand at her mouth. I made myself return her frightened look, putting my hand on my chest over the inner pocket of my doublet, where I had hidden the jeweled leaf.

  “The tide will soon turn,” I told Elizabeth as she blew on the letter, drying the ink as best she could before folding it. I took it from her, stashed it in my cloak. “They can’t take you by barge to the Tower then. Do whatever it takes to ensure you stay here overnight.”

  She nodded. “I will. God be with you, my friend.”

  Bowing low, I walked out, feeling Kate’s gaze on me. I did not look back.

  I did not deserve her, not anymore.

  Nevertheless, I’d lay down my life to keep her and Elizabeth from further harm.

  * * *

  The palace was dark, torches sputtering on its facade scarcely illuminating the heavy winter night. Huddled in my cloak, I hurried along the courtyard, keeping to the pockets of shadow by the walls. Elizabeth’s arrival could not have gone unnoticed. I had to evade detection for as long as I could.

  Taking a side staircase to a gallery, I paused, looking about. The offices I sought must be near the queen’s apartments. A discreet inquiry of a passing page set me in the right direction. I encountered more sentries than I’d seen in the palace before, but none displayed interest in me. I walked with purpose, adopting the gait of a menial with an important task to complete. Courtiers idled in alcoves, with a distinct lack of merriment. I assumed anyone with the means had fled London for the relative safety of the countryside, but I still saw evidence that the oiled machinery of the court remained in full motion, with secretaries and pages hurrying to assignations, bearing satchels and portfolios. No doubt the council would be up all night, debating a strategy for contending with the queen’s sister.

  I found Rochester directing a clerk as he hovered over a desk heaped with ledgers.

  “My apologies if I disturb,” I said from the threshold.

  He looked up sharply, glowering at the interruption. He appeared exhausted, his habitual florid color drained. The events of the past days must have tired him beyond measure, leaving little time for wine or food, and less for sleep. When I tilted my hood back far enough for the candlelight to reveal my face, he barked at his clerk—“Go! Fetch those papers from the archives!”—and pretended to examine the open ledger before him as the clerk sidled out, with a glance at me. As soon as he was gone, Rochester breathed, “By the saints, are you insane? You’re no longer welcome here. If they find out you’ve returned, you’ll be arrested and thrown into a cell to rot.”

  I closed the door. The room was stifling from a lit brazier in the corner. “I must speak to her.”

  “Her?” he echoed, and then, as he realized my intent, he shook his head. “Out of the question. She will not see you. She refuses to see anyone, but she’ll especially refuse you.”

  I removed the folded letter from my cloak. “I must deliver this to her. The princess’s life depends on it. You care about Elizabeth, too. I know you don’t want to see Renard win.”

  He swallowed. “What—what do you mean by that?”

  “You know. Just as you knew from the moment I arrived why I had come. You were expecting me. You knew Cecil would send someone because you had warned him.”

  His aghast expression confirmed it: The anonymous informant at court was none other than Rochester, the queen’s trusted comptroller. The warnings of the peril Elizabeth faced from Renard and the impending betrothal to Prince Philip—they had come from him. It must have tormented his conscience. He loved the queen; he’d stayed at Mary’s side in her darkest hours, when Northumberland had the kingdom in his grip and no one believed she’d win the throne. Still, like many who served her, he also must believe she was about to commit a terrible mistake. English to his core, he couldn’t stomach the thought of a foreign power coming upon these shores or the terror that would follow in its wake.

  “I am Her Majesty’s loyal servant,” he quavered. “You cannot prove anything against me. And if you try, I’ll deny it. All of it.”

  “You don’t understand. I do not seek to—”

  He came at me, seizing my wrist. “It is you who do not understand. Nothing can save her now. It is over. Finished. We have lost.” His voice shook. “The queen will not be dissuaded. She had Lady Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley executed today. I was there; I had to bear official witness to their deaths.”

  Pain slashed through me. Jane and Guilford had been pawns in other’s designs; now, both were dead. Yet Robert Dudley lived. The man I had come to loathe and mistrust more than any other on this earth, who’d been behind the entire conspiracy, who had, by his very actions, compelled Elizabeth and me into this impasse—he was still alive.

  So much for justice, I should have killed him when I had the chance.

  “God assoil them,” I murmured. “I pray Lady Jane did not suffer.”

  “It curdled my blood,” Rochester said. “The poor lass couldn’t find the block after they blindfolded her. She groped her way to it, begging those around her for help. I tell you, I’ll never forget it, not as long as I live.” He turned from me, wiping his sleeve across his face. “You must go. I cannot help you. It is over. Now every man must shift for himself.”

  “You do not believe that. You never believed that. You’re one of the good men, remember? You must do as your heart dictates or you’ll regret it the rest of your days. You’ll always wonder, if you’d done as I asked, could you have saved the princess?”

  He went still, his back to me, his shoulders hunched about his ears.

  “Are you willing to let that devil Renard take her down?” I added. “Because I am not. I’ll see him in hell first.”

  “Hell,” said Rochester, “is where you’ll undoubtedly end up. And I’ll be there with you.” He lumbered to his desk, yanked a ring of keys from its top, and took up one of the candles. Cupping the flame with his hand, he turned to me. “I can’t very well parade you about court. You’re a wanted man. I’ll not risk my life for you. I have a wife and children. I need to keep my head on my shoulders.” He jangled the keys, turning to the wainscoting. With a press of his hand on a decorative panel, he swung it open, revealing a narrow opening. “This passage leads to her apartments. I’ll see you inside, but I warn you, that is as far as I go. After that, you are on your own.”

  “Fair enough.” I ducked down, squeezing through the opening. The passage must be part of the older, underlying structure of the palace—a stone tunnel that scarcely accommodated Rochester’s bulk, dark as a wolf’s mouth, so that his candle cast a mere feeble circle of light.

  I made myself take steady breaths. After deep water, there was nothing I liked less than enclosed spaces. I felt as if I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, my palms turning slick with sweat. The passage seemed to go on forever, a purgatory. Just as I feared I might have to turn back, Rochester rounded a corner, fumbling at his keys. He unlocked a mold-stained door and pushed it open on surprisingly well oiled hinges; as I gratefully stepped from the tunnel, I found myself in the royal chapel, close to the altar.

  “Convenient,” I remarked, trying to make light of the matter, even as sweat dripped from under my cap. “In case one is late for worship.”

  “An escape route,” he said. “It’s a secret passed down among a select few who serve the royal person, from the old days, when Cromwell sowed terror in every heart. Times past, this chapel used to be part of the monastery of York. This part of the palace is full of tunnels, some
supposedly leading to the river.” He sniffed. “The good friars must have liked a little contraband together with their communion wafers.”

  I took in the beatific silence of this jewel-box place, where I’d last heard the requiem mass for Peregrine. The stained-glass windows emitted a peculiar muted glow, catching the reflection of the outside torches and a hint of moon. As I inhaled the frigid smell of marble and fragrant wood impregnated by incense, I was struck again by how familiar, how intimate, it felt to me, as if I had been a Catholic once.

  “You stay here.” Rochester blew out the candle. “Renard has spies watching every nook and cranny; if it’s not safe, we go back the way we came. No argument.”

  As he started to move down the aisle, I said, “Wait,” and handed him the princess’s letter.

  He recoiled. “I’m not getting any more involved than I already am. If she agrees to see you, you can give it to her yourself.”

  I removed the jeweled leaf from my doublet, enfolded in a scrap of cloth I’d torn from the hem of my shirt before leaving Ashridge. “Then show her this.”

  “What is it?” He eyed me suspiciously. “A bribe? She’ll not like it, I assure you.”

  “Just show it to her. Once she sees it, she will receive me.”

  He snorted. “Yes, trust and a groat will get me a tankard at Satan’s table.” But he pocketed the leaf and went on, grumbling under his breath.

  I had to smile. If I ever needed a friend at my side, I’d want Lord Rochester.

  * * *

  I sat upon a pew and waited, the silence draping over me like velvet. I hadn’t realized until this moment how frenetic my life had been, how driven; my entire existence, my every waking hour, had been subsumed by the struggle to safeguard Elizabeth. Now, in the solitude of this chapel, where by all rights I should not be, I suddenly felt the weight of the change that these past days had wrought in me.

  I had crossed an invisible threshold. Come what may, I would never be the man I had been. Alone, without any more reason for pretense, I had to finally acknowledge that after all my denials, my painstaking efforts to lead a normal life, I had been deluding myself. I thought to escape the secret of my past, bury it deep within, and be a man like any other. I’d wanted so earnestly to believe it, I convinced myself that if only I married Kate and created a new existence with her, a refuge that was ours alone, where nothing and no one could touch us, I would find peace.

  I had been wrong. Peace, it seemed, was not my destiny.

  You have a flair for this work … You are a born intelligencer.

  Cecil had been right. He had known all along what I had refused to see: I was fated for a different, far more dangerous path than the one I envisioned.

  The susurration of skirts brought me to my feet. Turning to the chapel doorway, I saw Lady Clarencieux coming toward me. Her face was cold.

  “Some would say you’re too bold for your own good,” she said without preamble. “Others would claim you’re merely a man bent on finding his own death.”

  I inclined my head. “And others, that they are one and the same.”

  “For your sake, we pray not.” She beckoned. “I don’t know what Rochester said to her, but after an entire day in which she’s not let any of us near her, she agrees to see you.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I followed her into the royal apartments. The queen’s other women had retired; though a fire burned in the large fireplace, and candles flickered high in sconces on the walls, there was no one else present.

  The door to the study was closed. Lady Clarencieux started toward it, then came to an abrupt halt. “You mustn’t think that because of your past endeavors on her behalf, she is inclined to mercy. Don Renard has been at her every hour since the revolt, assiduous in his advice, particularly concerning you. If you do this, you may regret it.”

  “I understand,” I said. “But there are truths she must know.”

  “Must she? Sometimes, it’s best to let the lie stand.” She met my eyes before she knocked on the door. There was no reply. She moved aside anyway. “She’s waiting for you.”

  My throat knotted as I turned the door latch and stepped inside.

  The study was almost as dark as the tunnel I’d just traversed. I had to blink to adjust my vision, and then it swam into muted focus—the gilded desk, heaped with books and stacks of paper; the table where she met with her council; the upholstered chairs and large, mullioned bay of the far wall, its drapery drawn, turning the room into a cocoon that smelled of old smoke. A lone candle melted in a golden candelabrum.

  I stood still, my heart banging against my ribs. I did not see her anywhere.

  Her voice came at me from the shadows. “You dare show yourself to me?”

  “Majesty.” I dropped to one knee. A figure in the corner by the desk drew upright from its crouch. Laughter, brief and harsh, came at me. “Rather late for humility, is it not?”

  I looked up. Mary Tudor’s hair was unraveled about her face, its sandy white strands coiling to her shoulders. She wore the same purple gown I’d seen her in when she saw Elizabeth off to Ashridge, but it was crumpled now, misshapen somehow, as if she’d torn at it; the bodice gaped at her breast, revealing collarbones incised under her skin. Her fingers were bare; she appeared to have something coiled in one hand, but it was her face—her stark, hollowed face, in which her eyes burned like embers—that riveted me.

  I could not look away. I could barely draw a breath.

  She had also crossed a threshold, but whereas my passage would in time bring me to acceptance, for her there was only heartache and fear ahead.

  “Majesty,” I began, “I came to you because I know that you—”

  “No.” She flung up her hand. “I will not hear it. You always bring disaster.”

  Had Rochester failed to show her the leaf? I started to reach to my cloak, to remove Elizabeth’s letter, when she opened her palm and revealed what she held—my ruby-tipped gold leaf, hanging from its chain.

  “Where did you get this?” Her eyes bore into me. “How can you have it?”

  The room swayed. For an instant, I saw and heard nothing. Then I said in a quiet voice, “It belonged to my mother.”

  “You have the effrontery to call a princess of my blood your mother?”

  I felt as if I fled outside myself, watching from a safe distance as the world collapsed.

  “Why would I lie?” I asked, and she moved so quickly, I did not have time to react. Her hand whipped out, striking me. The leaf cut into my cheek; I felt it draw blood.

  “Who are you?”

  Her rage spread a dark pool around us. I half-expected Lady Clarencieux to come rushing in, but as the hush returned, fraught with splintered echoes, I said, “I want you to know the truth. Your aunt Mary of Suffolk, sister of your father, King Henry—she gave birth to me. She had a gold artichoke, a gift from the French king upon her marriage to your father’s friend, Brandon. Before her death, she ordered that artichoke broken apart, its leaves given to four women. You were one. You have a leaf just like it.”

  I could hear her breath coming in stifled pants through her teeth.

  “The Suffolk steward who brought it to you,” I went on, “later took up service in the Dudley household.” I paused. “He did it for me. His name was Archie Shelton. He watched over me. He tried to keep the secret of my birth hidden, but he failed. Finally, during Northumberland’s bid to steal your throne, I discovered it.”

  “Your secret?” Mary’s voice trembled. “You come to me with this—this monstrous fabrication, this monumental lie, after what you’ve done? You don’t want me to know the truth. You seek only to save my sister, whom you’ve protected all this time.”

  “Yes.” I did not take my eyes from her. “But I never ceased to protect you as well. Trust this, even if you believe nothing else. I would never betray my own blood.”

  Her jaw clenched, the struggle against some terrible emotion distorting her features. I had the premonition it
wouldn’t be long before she lost her struggle, before the demon Renard had cultivated and unleashed, which had driven her to take Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley’s lives, consumed her.

  “What else?” she asked. “Best tell me now before I decide your fate.”

  “That is all I know, except that I … I do not believe I am legitimate. I think that is the reason my mother ordered me hidden away.” My voice fractured as I fought against a dread I’d never admitted aloud. “I must have been a shame to her.”

  “In other words, you are a bastard.” Her face set like stone. “Does Elizabeth know?”

  “No. But she gave me refuge when I had nowhere else to turn.”

  She lifted her chin. “If she so cares for you, why did you not tell her?”

  “I only have that jewel. Your Majesty has the other one. I saw no reason.”

  “Oh? Surely you must be aware that some claim Elizabeth is a bastard as well, yet she is considered my heir. Who’s to say you’d not be granted the same, if you chose it?”

  I had made a grave mistake. It would cost me my life. I should never have told her. By breaking my own vow, I had unleashed the unthinkable.

  “I swear to you on my life,” I said, “I only tell you this now because your sister’s life is at stake. She, too, shares our blood. I thought that if I revealed my true self to you, you would see I have no desire other than to serve my queen and my princess.”

  “No desire?” she retorted. “Or no proof?”

  Even as my breath froze in my lungs, the intransigence in her expression faded. All of a sudden, she became the woman I had first met, the valiant queen who had not let years of bitter antagonism destroy her. Somewhere in her heart, she understood. Like me, she knew what it meant to doubt who she was.

  She twined the chain of my leaf around her fingers. “This means nothing. It’s a fragment of a forgotten past, which you could have stolen to support your preposterous story.” She paused. “But should you ever choose to act differently, you should know that I will not tolerate it. I will see you dead.” She thrust the leaf into her skirt pocket and extended her hand. “Now, give me this letter Rochester told me you bring.”