William wished he were an Old Testament ruler just now so he could smite the man for his impudence. Forcing conditions upon the king? But he knew when to channel his fury into something more useful. “Lead the way,” he snapped.
He and Dominic and Robert dismounted at the base of the motte, leaving their horses and their guards surrounded by Northumberland men. Dominic kept a warning grip on Robert’s arm, but Robert didn’t appear ready to bolt. He looked like he was ready to negotiate, but then the Dudleys always had that look.
Northumberland waited for them under the outermost arch of the Triple Gate. He stood alone, torchlight alternately revealing and then concealing his face. His eyes flicked over his son, ignored Dominic completely, and focused on William.
“Your Majesty.”
“What do you want, Northumberland?”
“No wasting time in pleasantries, I respect that. I want Guildford out of the Tower. Banish him to the Continent—I’ll ensure he keeps far away from the Clifford girl and their babe.”
“And in return?”
“I’ll submit myself to answer any questions you care to put to me. Other than love my son, I swear I have done nothing against Your Majesty’s honour or the kingdom’s safety.”
“You don’t count it against my honour to hold my sister against her will?” William allowed his voice to be deceptively mild.
“A desperate action by a desperate father. I had to ensure you would listen to me.”
“You make no plea for your other son?”
Northumberland faltered. “Robert is nothing to do with this. Any of it.”
“What will you give me for Robert?”
Dominic moved in protest, but William raised a hand to keep him silent. He knew what he was doing.
“You want the two women, Your Majesty. I will exchange—your sister for my son.”
“And Mistress Wyatt?” Dominic intervened sharply.
William nearly cursed him for breaking the intensity of the exchange. “It’s a deal,” he said. “We’ll wait here while you fetch the princess to me.”
Dominic waited just long enough for Northumberland to disappear before breaking into a furious whisper. “What are you thinking, leaving Minuette in there alone? The duke cares nothing for her, he’s only keeping her as a threat and he’s much more likely to harm her than he ever would be to touch Elizabeth—”
“Breathe, Dominic.” It was Robert’s half-mocking voice that interrupted the tirade. “Our gracious majesty is about to propose a deal, if only you will shut up long enough for him to speak.”
For his impudence, William struck Robert once with the back of his hand. Then he said, “Your father is going to die a traitor’s death, Robert Dudley. Nothing can stop that now. If you would like to live long enough to speak for your own life at a fair and open trial, you will do one of two things. You will either persuade your father to surrender unconditionally or you will smuggle Minuette out safely. Lord Rochford is less than a week behind me with a muster of five thousand men. You have until then. Once my troops arrive, I attack the castle and, when it falls, your entire family—women and children included—will be locked in the Tower at my pleasure.”
He gripped Robert’s close-fitting jerkin and pulled him close. “Do we have a deal?”
Robert held very still in his grasp, and William felt a moment’s satisfaction at having wiped the smug smile off his face.
“I thought royalty didn’t strike deals,” Robert said softly.
“Would you like me to rescind the offer and kill you now?”
With a bitter huff of laughter, Robert said, “I’ll take the deal.”
The look Dominic gave him assured William that he would hear plenty from his friend later, but he held his tongue for the endless minutes they waited until Northumberland returned with Elizabeth at his side. William swept his eyes across his sister. She wore a wool gown dyed deep amber gold that brought out her brown eyes and made her red hair gleam deeply. The simplicity of her hairstyle, a single plait pinned in a coil at the back of her head, made her look younger than William could remember seeing her for a long time. Her composure was the same—elegant and reserved—until she saw Robert. Her steps faltered for one moment.
William nodded to Dominic to let Robert step forward. He and Elizabeth walked toward each other. When she drew near enough, Elizabeth slapped him, on the same cheek William had struck minutes earlier.
Robert rocked back and stared at her. “I had nothing to do with this,” he told her. “If I had known what my father intended—”
“That was for Alyce de Clare,” Elizabeth hissed.
She stepped around Robert and walked on to William. “Shall we go?” she asked. “I am eager to hear your plans for smashing the Dudley family to pieces.”
Minuette had never been confined to one suite of rooms for so long in her life, and she found herself pacing in sympathy with Elizabeth and William’s tendencies. Did they pace because they always felt so confined? Of course, in their cases, confinement came because of who they were, not the size of the room they were in.
She cursed herself for not having forced Elizabeth to let her bring Carrie along. She would have been good company and even better counsel. If she had to depend on anyone she knew for counsel, it would be Dominic first, followed closely by Carrie. Of course, Carrie had given her counsel before she had left Hatfield. She’d said, “Don’t go.”
But she had gone—and Minuette still failed to see how she could have in good conscience not come with Elizabeth—so there was no point dwelling on the past. The urgency now lay in figuring out where Northumberland had taken Elizabeth and what her own next move should be. Pretend to be ill? Faint? Throw a tantrum? She had lots of memories of Queen Anne, and figured she could throw a royal-class tantrum if she had to.
But she hadn’t gotten further than examining the breakables in the room to determine what to start throwing first when the door swung open. She turned, hoping for Elizabeth’s return, or possibly Northumberland with an explanation.
She did not expect Robert.
“Going to chuck that at my head?” As always, he had words at the ready. He indicated the candelabra she held in her right hand. “You won’t be the first today.”
“I can see that.” His left cheek bore faint marks that looked as though they might turn into a bruise. “So you’ve seen Elizabeth. I’m surprised she didn’t scratch your eyes out.”
“The princess is too well-bred for something so vulgar.”
“I’m not,” Minuette warned. But she lowered the candelabra and studied him. “Why is it that every time I’m somewhere I don’t want to be, caught in the midst of forces I don’t entirely understand, you unexpectedly appear?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
Minuette returned the candelabra to its place and sat. Robert perched on the edge of a facing seat. “Where’s Elizabeth?” she asked after a moment.
“On her way back to William’s camp.”
“And William just let you in here?”
“In exchange for his sister, yes. Don’t fret yourself, I am well and truly arrested, Minuette. Dominic saw to that. I am only here on sufferance, to persuade my father to surrender and to get you out of here untouched.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
He grinned, but his heart wasn’t in it. There was real strain in his eyes. “This is my home, remember? Getting you out won’t be the problem. Persuading my father to surrender will be.”
“How has it come to this, Robert? I know you love your family, but betraying Elizabeth and William—”
He turned sharp in an instant. “Don’t play at politics, Minuette. You’re not as clever as you think you are. All you need to know is to be ready to trust me when the moment arises. I will get you safely back to your men.”
“Trust you? Why should I trust a man who meant to kill me?”
“I don’t … What the devil are you talking about?”
If she didn’t know bett
er, she would have thought he was genuinely confused. “While you lectured me about William, your confederate smeared monkshood on my pendant. If it weren’t for Dominic’s quick thinking, I would be dead. And you wouldn’t have to trouble about getting me out of here.”
Robert dropped his head into his hands. She let the silence stretch between them, and began to doubt. That doubt intensified when he raised his face to hers once more. His expression was stripped bare, and for once, Minuette saw straight through the cultivated mask of intelligence and amusement and remembered the boy she had known since she was a child: bright and irrepressible and, always, generous of heart. “I did not know, Minuette. I had nothing to do with poison. If I’d had any idea … you were ill, that was all anyone said. I would never have plotted to harm you.”
“You harmed Alyce de Clare quick enough.”
Seriousness flared into forbidding. “I told you to stay out of political games. I meant it.”
“You know what I think? I think you, too, are not as clever at this game as you thought. Perhaps you are a masterful deceiver … or perhaps you are in dangerously over your head. What foolishness have you committed merely because your father asked it of you?”
He stood, eyes blazing and arrogance returned. “I’ll come for you after dark. If my father is feeling particularly trusting, tonight. If not, then tomorrow night. Be ready.”
It wasn’t that night, or the next night, either. Only on the third night did Robert Dudley come for her, long after midnight. She didn’t know exactly what “be ready” meant, but she’d gone to bed in her dress and heard the murmur of voices outside her door moments before Robert slipped inside. “Put those on,” he commanded, tossing her a bundle.
It was women’s clothing of the lowest classes: a none-too-clean smock and a square-necked kirtle that was muddy brown in colour. The sleeves were pinned rather than tied to the bodice, and there was a heavy shawl to wrap around it all. “Where did you get these?” she asked dubiously.
“I’ve a gift for talking women out of their clothes.”
Minuette ducked behind the bed curtains, fumbling to get out of her more elaborate dress and into the simpler shapes. She could hear Robert’s impatience. “Do you need help?”
“No,” she snapped. “How did you get rid of the guard?”
“I told him I wished to be private with you and no one need overhear what we were up to.”
“Lovely.” That’s what she needed—Dudley servants speculating about how loud she and Robert might become in an intimate encounter.
“He won’t expect me to take all night about it, so hurry up.”
She stepped out from the privacy of the curtains. “Will I do?” The skirts were meant for a fuller figure and were several inches too short, but in the dark she should be able to pass.
“Put this on.” Robert handed her a linen coif, beneath which she inexpertly bundled up her hair. Only royalty and single women at court were allowed to wear their hair loose and Minuette didn’t like the confinement of the coif.
“It will have to do,” Robert said critically. “Keep your head down and don’t say a word. Pretend you’re poor and oppressed.”
“I am poor.” But then she remembered the pinched and hungry faces of those on her estate farms and the beggars she passed in the London streets and felt a pang of guilt. Poor was relative.
Irritation with Robert wasn’t enough to keep away fear, and her heart pounded in her ears as she followed him through parts of Dudley Castle she hadn’t seen during her too brief time as a guest. He couldn’t take her out through the Triple Gate, of course, so they wound past the chapel to a postern gate in the outer wall. Once through it, a narrow path circled the motte tightly against the castle. He led her down this treacherous path with remarkable speed, the lantern he carried almost the only illumination. The moon was a quarter, waning into wistfulness. And it was bitterly cold, winds hinting at the winter to come. Minuette shivered but kept her head down, looking only at Robert’s feet, until she heard the sounds of sleeping men looming.
“This is the tricky part,” Robert whispered into her ear. “But only if a soldier decides they want a few moments alone with you. They’ll take any woman at this point, but for heaven’s sake don’t let them look at your face or I’ll never get you out of there.”
Her heart ready to leap out of her mouth, Minuette realized wryly that she was far more terrified now that at any point during her imprisonment. It was as though only on the brink of freedom could she allow herself to feel the tension of the last three days in an enemy’s house without even Elizabeth for company. She’d told herself that Northumberland would be a fool to harm her—but that hadn’t stopped him arranging for someone to poison her in the very heart of William’s court. What might he do when she was alone and completely at his mercy?
Robert passed easily through the camp, though not quite without comment. The encampment was orderly and sentries were posted to challenge. Robert got them through it all, making vulgar comments about camp women and laundry maids.
They slid sideways through the camp to the least populated area, where the tents and men thinned out and the sentries were far between. Robert pulled her close and murmured, “Now I go back, rather loudly and possibly drunkenly, while you slip into the night. Follow the edge of the village until you can’t see the lights from this camp any longer, then you’ll find the road leading out from between the old priory ruins. William’s camp is two miles east of here. Once you’re safely out of sight, take that coif off your head so William’s guards can see your hair. He’d be miffed if his own men shot you on your way to him.”
“Do you have a message for the king?”
“Of surrender, you mean? Tell him that if I have not brought my father to open surrender by nightfall tomorrow, I will leave Dudley badges in the priory ruins that will get him and Dominic and a handful of others through the camp the way we just came. I will leave the postern door unbarred to them if I must.”
“I’ll tell him.”
He nodded and turned away.
“Robert,” she called softly. “Have you any message for Elizabeth?”
“I think the time has long passed for that, don’t you? Get on your way, Minuette.”
It took forever to creep her way along the edges of the village and then to find the road. She gladly discarded the coif as soon as she could, hoping Robert was right and the wan moonlight would be enough to gleam on her bright hair. She was starting to panic, almost certain that she had gotten turned round and headed off on some other road (perhaps leading to Wales) when she heard the whicker of horses before her.
The first sentries were upon her before she knew it. They were wary, of course, for what were they to make of a solitary woman wandering into the king’s camp? She gladly gave herself into the charge of one of them, who escorted her the remainder of the way. They passed a dozen more sentries before she saw firelight illuminating the gold lions on William’s standard.
Before they could pass her along the chain of command, to more men who might not know her, she said, “My name is Genevieve Wyatt. If you could wake Lord Exeter, he will confirm my identity.”
The sentry shot her a sharp look, but one of the guards outside William’s tent intervened. “I’ll watch her,” he told the sentry. “Fetch Lord Exeter.”
She was glad no one wanted to question her just yet, and equally glad they didn’t insist on waking William first. And when she saw Dominic break into a run when he saw her, she was glad she had the excuse of being a weak female escaped from a horrid situation so that she might break down in tears and let him enfold her in his arms.
Robert was prepared for nearly anything when he slipped back into Dudley Castle through the postern door: from the best case, in which the guard had taken advantage of Robert’s dismissal and was still absent from Minuette’s now empty room, to the worst case, in which the Sharrington range was ablaze with lights and men searching top to bottom for their missing prisoner.
<
br /> As with most things in life, the truth was somewhere in the middle. Robert went directly to his father’s study and was not surprised to find his father waiting for him.
“You let her go,” his father said. Robert was surprised at the lack of anger in his father’s voice; if anything, he sounded sorrowful. “What else have you promised the king you would do?”
“Get you to surrender.”
Northumberland snorted, but Robert could not miss the new hollows in his cheeks and the dark smudges beneath his eyes. The study was icy despite the blazing fire, and the Duke of Northumberland resembled a warhorse approaching the limit of his strength. “I suppose you think surrender is the only option left now that my last hostage is flown.”
He had been trying to persuade his father to reason for three days without success. Now Robert would have to be blunt. “No hostage could have given you what you wished, Father. I had word at Kenilworth just before Lord Exeter arrested me—Guildford is dead. He was executed the day after the trial.”
Robert knew he was often careless of other people’s feelings—women, especially—but he had never been deliberately cruel. As he watched the light go out of his father’s eyes, he wished he could get his hands on the man behind all this pain. His father had been reckless and angry and intemperate—but George Boleyn had taken every careless act by the Duke of Northumberland and twisted it back upon him fourfold.
If he hadn’t thought it would break what little remained of his father’s heart, Robert would have told him all that he himself had done at Lord Rochford’s bidding. But though Robert had disappointed his father before this, he could not damn himself fully.
The best he could do was get his father to surrender into the king’s hands without bloodshed. As long as Dominic stood with William, there would be someone with wisdom and balance to get at the whole truth. Robert would not let his father condemn himself utterly without at least attempting to ease the blow.
The Boleyn Deceit: A Novel (Ann Boleyn Trilogy) Page 29