by Galaxy Craze
But it was too late. My voice was lost in the sound of horses galloping across the creaking drawbridge. Turning back was no longer an option.
“Caligula, forward.” I tapped her with my feet. She sensed my fear of crossing the bridge, but she moved forward, walking gingerly.
Suddenly the bridge began to move beneath our feet. Inside the Tower, alarms echoed, signaling the raising of the bridge. Caligula tried to regain her footing, but the bridge was rising rapidly, and she slipped backward.
I let go of the reins, clasping my arms around her neck instead, trusting her completely. She lowered her forelegs into a crouch and took off, her back legs lurching forward as she jumped across the widening gap. She landed heavily on her front legs and slid down the slope of the other side of the bridge.
We rode through the open gates, past the bell tower, the White Tower, and into the Green Tower, the walled inner garden where throughout history the aristocracy had been executed. I heard a loud clanking sound. Looking behind me, I saw the gates, known as the Traitor Gates, closing shut behind us. We were trapped inside the walls.
I rode up to General Wallace. He was looking frantically back and forth from the Tower to the closed gates. I knew what he was thinking. We needed more troops to win, and to get out alive we’d need an escape route. Without warning, Hollister’s men charged from every direction.
I pulled my sword from its sheath as a masked and armored girl on horseback charged at me. She didn’t have a sevil, but she raised a long sword, swinging the blade just inches from my neck. Caligula turned and shot past her. There was a violent crack of thunder, and a sudden downpour turned the courtyard into churning mud. The rain fell like a veil, making it difficult to distinguish friends from enemies.
The wounded fell from their horses and ran for cover inside the walls of the Tower. It was a fatal mistake—they would never be able to escape from there. I heard someone yelling on my right and looked to see the girl in armor charging me again, her blonde hair falling loose under her helmet. Portia. I raised my sword above my head, holding it with both hands. Caligula spun around, and as she reared up on her back legs, I stood in the stirrups and brought my sword down hard on Portia’s shoulder. The blow barely fazed her; she recovered, raised her sword, and came at me once more.
Polly appeared by my side, knocking into Portia. Her small brown mare was hardly a match for Portia’s warhorse, but she had the element of surprise and threw Portia off balance. Portia’s eyes opened in shock as she swerved, falling sideways off her horse.
“Polly!” I cried out. She smiled at me, her whole face lighting up with pleasure. She turned to rejoin the battle just as a dagger flew through the air and sank into her back. Pain and shock blossomed on her face. She reached slowly behind her to feel the dagger with her hand. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she slid to the ground.
I saw the triumphant smile on Portia’s face from where she crouched on the muddy ground. I didn’t stop to think. There was a loud ringing in my ears, or maybe it was the sound of Caligula’s roar as she ploughed forward, charging straight at Portia. I slashed at her with my sword, unsure if I had made contact, my vision red with rage. With a cry of pain, Portia retreated, scrambling backward like a crab. She glared at me when she reached cover.
I didn’t have time to pursue her. I jumped off Caligula and ran to Polly’s side. She lay in the mud at the edge of the battlefield, her eyes still closed, the color drained from her face and lips. I knelt and lifted her head to my lap. Her skin felt cold and wet from the rain. The dagger had pierced her ribs on the right side. Carefully I withdrew it. Blood seeped out, turning to red water as the rain washed it away.
“Keep breathing,” I said, holding her hands in mine. “Keep breathing, Polly, please!”
I yelled for help, screaming into the rain, into the sea of horses and bodies, splattering mud, swords and chains hurtling through the air. But no one came. The rain fell harder now, driving into the ground like bullets. I pulled Polly away from the stampede to a dark corner.
She made a rasping noise as she breathed. I could not let her go. I could not let her die.
“Polly.” I tried to warm her hands in mine. “Please, try… please try to breathe. I know it’s painful. I’m going to get you help.” I ran out into the muddy rain-soaked field, searching for one of our soldiers.
“Eliza!” Eoghan raced between me and a soldier wielding a spiked chain. The chain missed me but whipped against Eoghan’s back, flinging him forward. He gripped his horse’s mane and shot his rifle with the other hand.
“Polly’s been badly hurt! We need to get her out of here.” Eoghan turned at my words and followed me to the alcove where Polly lay. She was still breathing, but the rasping sound had worsened. I looked out across the battlefield, relieved to see the gates had been broken open.
“Help me lift her onto Caligula,” I said.
“I’ll take her.” Eoghan pulled her onto the front of his saddle and sat behind her. “You follow us.”
Across the field, the general was calling to our troops to retreat. Anyone who could escape ran back through the gates. The ground was covered with the bodies of men and women, their uniforms drenched with rain and splattered with mud. It was impossible to tell our troops from the enemy’s. Lying mangled and helpless on the ground, we all looked the same.
I hurried after Eoghan toward the gates. Caligula trudged through the mud, her dark mane soaked through. I felt her shiver and knew she was cold and tired, but I pressed my heels into her sides, urging her forward. “Come on, girl,” I murmured. Any minute now they would raise the drawbridge.
Bullets and spears flew past us in the surrounding rain, and I heard the telltale clanking that meant the bridge was being lifted.
“Hurry, Caligula!” I shouted. We were so close, only a few yards away. Caligula tensed to jump, but her left hind leg was moving strangely. I looked back and saw a long gash along her flank. I knew Clara could treat the wound when we got back to camp, so I kept forcing Caligula forward.
But just as she leapt to make the crossing, a rider flew out of the rain toward us, knocking us backward into the Tower. Caligula let out a roar. I looked to see a spear embedded in her flank.
The rider came toward me. I saw the blond hair, the straight teeth, and raised my sword to swing at him. He blocked my attack, then twisted his wrist, somehow wrenching my sword from my grasp. The next thing I knew I was on the ground, his blade at my throat.
“I want you alive,” Cornelius Hollister gasped through gleaming white teeth.
31
“LOCK HER IN THE DUNGEON,” HOLLISTER ORDERED HIS MEN. THE guards grabbed me roughly, cuffing my hands behind my back and shackling my feet with chains. They dragged me across the battlefield in the pouring rain. The last thing I saw as they pushed me into the White Tower was Caligula galloping through the closing gates, the spear still protruding from her flank.
The hatchway closed, and the iron grids slammed against the damp stone floor. I was alone in the dungeon, a stone room with a twenty-foot ceiling and no windows.
“She won’t be able to get away this time,” one of the guards said to another as the sound of their footsteps retreated down the hallway.
I clutched at the bars and shook them in desperation, screaming until my throat was hoarse, but the iron bars were solid, and no one came. Finally, I slid to the damp ground, exhausted. I felt too hollow, too empty to even cry. Mary and Jamie would die soon. The knowledge that I had failed them yet again hit me like a physical blow. All I wanted at this point was to say good-bye.
I curled up on my side, shivering in the cold, and took my locket from around my neck. As I stared at my mother’s photograph, I thought about what Eoghan had been trying to tell me about faith. He wanted me to believe in something. I believe in plenty of things, I thought with a bitter smile. I believed that I was going to die tomorrow. I believed that Cornelius Hollister was evil. I believed that I would never see my siblings again.
> I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I heard the jangling of keys and the pounding of footsteps approaching my cell. I stood up quickly, pressing my face against the bars to peer through the darkness. The small yellow flame of a candle was bobbing down the hallway, growing closer and closer.
“Hello?” I called. “Hello?” I didn’t care who it was. I didn’t care if they were coming to kill me. I just felt relief knowing that I would see another person before the very end.
The face of a guard appeared in front of the bars, illuminated by the dim light of the candle. He was an older man with gray hair and a leathery face riddled with wrinkles. Without speaking, he unlocked a tiny slot between the grates to pass me a tray of bread and a glass of water.
Then he cleared his throat and, keeping his eyes downcast, read aloud from a piece of paper.
“I come as the official envoy of Cornelius Hollister to inform you that tomorrow morning, you will be executed alongside Mary Windsor and James Windsor. I have come to ask for any last requests.” The candle shone on his face.
“Rupert?” I said hesitantly. “Is that you?”
He said nothing, keeping his eyes trained on the paper in his hands. “Rupert,” I said again, positive now that it was our butler, a man I had known all my life, “don’t you recognize me?”
“I am so sorry,” he finally said, raising his eyes to meet mine. “The night they raided the palace they killed my youngest son in front of me. They said if I resisted they would kill my daughter too.”
“They killed Spencer?” He was just a child, even younger than Jamie. The two of them had played together in the palace gardens, digging up worms and holding snail races in the shaded grove.
“Your family was so good to me. I wish… I wish I could…” He shook his head, his voice breaking.
“Rupert, can you bring me to my brother and sister? Please? I just want to say good-bye to them.”
Rupert looked at me through the bars. The candlelight flickered against the gray stone walls. He shook his head and started to turn away.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. I stared at his back. “I’m sorry that helping my family has cost you yours.”
He paused, and then he turned around. “I can try, Princess,” he said finally. “I can’t promise anything, but there are others like me, who remain loyal to the king, and to the free government.”
“Please, yes, please try,” I begged, my voice breaking. “Thank you, Rupert.”
He unlocked the door and led me through the damp, mazelike tunnel that led to the White Tower, through the Cradle Tower, and finally into the Steel Tower, where three armed wardens watched the entranceway. They looked at me in surprise.
“Sirs,” Rupert said, as we approached the men, “I must speak with you for a moment.” The two younger guards looked to the older warden, who seemed to be in charge. He nodded, and Rupert leaned in to murmur something in his ear. He nodded again, slowly. I thought I saw pity in his eyes. “Eliza Windsor will come with me.” His voice was shaky with age, and kind.
The other two backed away as the guard led me up the staircase to the top of the tower. I thought of the last time I had been up these stairs, when I sneaked up here after the girl with Mary’s teacup. I was full of hope, so very certain that I would rescue Mary and Jamie and that we would all be free. How foolish I had been to think a girl like me could outwit a sadistic dictator and his army of thousands.
Our footsteps echoed on the metal stairway as we made our way up and up and upward still. All the other cells that we passed, cells that had been full to bursting, were empty now. Cornelius Hollister had already executed the other prisoners. He was saving us for last. Grimly, I imagined how he would kill Jamie first, then me, then as his grand finale, he would kill Mary, England’s true queen.
Then he would climb Tower Green and place the royal crown upon his head, the crown that I had helped steal. Wearing my family’s crown, he would raise his arms, proclaiming himself king of England, while our royal blood dripped down the scaffold onto Tower Green.
32
THE GUARD’S CANDLE HAD BURNED DOWN ALMOST TO THE WICK BY the time we finally reached Mary and Jamie’s cell. They sat huddled together at the small table, a plate of food in front of them, but they were not eating. In an act of ironic generosity, the plate was filled with luxuries: cheese and fruit and soft bread. This was their last meal.
I paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, watching them in disbelief. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Jamie looked… healthy. His cheeks, which just a few weeks ago had been sunken and hollow, now appeared round and full. His hair had grown thick and shining. He sat up straight at the table, talking animatedly with Mary.
“Remember when Dad took us fishing to try to catch dinner and all we caught were minnows?” Jamie laughed.
Mary looked up, her eyes glistening. She looked better, too, like she had been sleeping. “And what about the time when you wanted the toy car for Christmas, and Eliza and I wrapped it in about twenty boxes so you kept unwrapping one after another?”
“That car is still on the shelf in my room….” Jamie’s voice trailed off. “What do you think happened to our house? Do you think the whole palace burned?”
“Good memories, good memories only,” Mary said, like a teacher to a student, squeezing his hand.
I couldn’t help but smile. Even on the last night of our lives, Mary was still the protective, bossy, loving older sister, always determined to make good from the bad. This was why she would have been a great queen. In her reign she would have found a way to restore the crops, to rebuild the cities—to fix what was broken.
When I turned to the guard, I could see him wiping away a tear. He unlocked the cell to let me in.
Mary and Jamie looked up, their eyes wide with surprise. “Eliza?”
“I’ll let you have some time to yourselves. God bless you all.” The guard looked like he might say something else. He hesitated, as though considering whether to leave the lock open, giving us a chance to escape. But then he turned the key with a sigh, and the bolt slid into place.
Mary stared at me, stunned. “We thought you were dead.”
Jamie ran into my arms, knocking me backward so that we fell together in a heap on the floor. Mary came over and hugged us both.
“Mary, Jamie.” My eyes moved back and forth between them. “What happened?” I reached out to touch Jamie’s face, his hair, in wonder. His skin felt warm, not cold and clammy as it usually did. “You look so healthy!”
Mary and Jamie shared a silent look. “What?” I asked. “What is it?”
Mary put her fingers over her lips, indicating that I should be quiet. She went to the door of the cell and peered out through the bars. The guard wasn’t far off, but his back was to us.
“We promised we would never tell.”
“He said he would be killed if anyone found out,” Jamie said.
“Who would be killed?”
Jamie went over to the thin mattress on the floor and pulled back the piece of muslin he had been given for a blanket. He put his hand beneath it and pulled out an amber-colored glass vial, full of small white pills.
He pressed the vial into my hand. “It’s an antidote for dark-star poisoning.”
Dark star. It was what poisoned my mother when she was pregnant with Jamie. I stared at the bottle in disbelief. All these years there had been a remedy and we hadn’t known. On the label in tiny pinpoint letters was written C. H. LABORATORIES. Of course Cornelius Hollister, the man who invented dark star, had also invented a cure for it.
“Who gave this to you?” I asked.
“One of the soldiers.”
“Which one?”
“He never told us his name,” Mary said. “He wasn’t one of the regular soldiers. He came just once, to give us the medicine.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“It was too dark to see. He left it in the night while we were sleeping. I just heard some
thing drop through the door slot.”
I stared at the bottle. “Why would he have given you the cure when he knew we were going to die anyway?” I said aloud, then immediately regretted it.
“Eliza!” Mary said in a harsh whisper. Her eyes went to Jamie, healthy at last, but unable to live to enjoy it.
“Well, it’s true,” I said helplessly, pressing my face into my hands. For the first time in his life, Jamie was healthy. We were all three together. And in the morning we would all die together.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “It just seems so unfair. So cruel.” I stopped myself from saying anything else.
Mary bit her top lip, a habit of hers when she was nervous or trying to make a decision. “Eliza, what happened? We overheard one of the soldiers say that you escaped the Tower, and then they said you were dead.”
I sat between them on the bed, all of us holding hands. They listened intently as I told them of diving off the top of the Tower—Mary cried out at that—of riding north on Caligula, of raising the Resistance army and marching back to London. Finally I told them about our failed attack on the Tower that morning.
“The last thing I saw was Caligula escaping just as the gates shut. I hope Polly makes it,” I said, squeezing Mary’s hand.
The candle flame sputtered out and the cell went dark. From far away came the echoing sounds of footsteps patrolling the Tower. Jamie laid his head on my shoulder and I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of his hair. I felt my lip quiver, my eyes blur with tears, but I forced myself to think of happy things.
“Do you think there really is a Heaven?” Jamie asked, his small voice floating up into the darkness.
I lay still, afraid to answer, because I wasn’t sure.
“Yes, Jamie,” Mary said. “And tomorrow we’ll see Mum and Dad.”
“And Bella,” I added. “She’ll bark the second she sees you.”
Jamie giggled. To laugh at our own death seemed strange, but it was all we could do. I turned over on my side. Jamie’s hand lay across my back, and I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest. I looked over to see if Mary was asleep. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open as she breathed softly. Even in sleep she had a composed, dignified look on her face.
