Emmie and the Tudor Queen

by Natalie Murray

  “I need water,” I grunted as the boatmen tossed the ropes over the wooden posts. Ignoring my request, the guards shoved me onto the rotting deck that did little to improve the rancid, decomposing stink of the river.

  I gazed up at the impossibly tall fortress of the Tower of London with its stone battlements, menacing slit windows, and double defensive walls. The death site of three sixteenth-century Queens of England.

  You’re not leaving here alive, Emmie.

  The crippling terror in my body glued my short heels to the cobblestones, and the guards had to drag my weakened legs up the jagged slope. At the base of the stone stairs leading to the gardens, a man waited in a cap and black cloak with silver buttons. It was Master Carey, the Constable of the Tower, who’d handled my imprisonment here last time—back when this time-traveling mess began.

  “Hello again,” I said to him, followed by an abrupt chuckle. I was becoming delirious, which was probably a symptom of hypothermia.

  Master Carey said little as he gravely escorted me upstairs to the royal lodgings inside the tower of St. Thomas, where I’d stayed the night before my coronation. I hid my surprise—and relief—that I wasn’t being led downstairs to a cell. For a second, I thought Nick might be waiting in the royal apartments for me, ready to reveal that this was nothing more than an off-color joke—the worst prank ever played. But then I berated myself for giving him that much credit: the chambers were devoid of any kingly splendor, the priceless furnishings and wall tapestries stripped away, leaving only a barren, drafty space.

  Instead of the spacious bedchamber I’d slept in last time, I was steered into a smaller room and left alone, the stark clang of an iron lock bolting shut behind me. Tugging on the rigid handle assured me that I was a prisoner here. I marked the length of the space with thirteen short paces along the tiled floor that reached a small fireplace. The rest of the modest room held only a single bed, an oak desk, and a standing candelabrum that I momentarily considered stabbing a guard with in an effort to escape.

  I tugged the woolen blanket off the bed and wrapped it around me, crossing the tiles to peer through the two narrow stained-glass windows. So much had happened since I’d last seen this view of the Thames from the neighboring bedchamber. The jumble of turreted buildings looked so short compared with twenty-first-century London—like a top layer had been sliced off the city. Despite the darkness of nightfall, ships and cargo vessels sat waiting for moorings near the north bank of the river. I opened the window for some fresh air, but a freezing gust of wind slapped me in the face, bringing the fetid stench of the castle moat directly below, and I wrenched the windowpane shut again.

  I wished for a fire, but there was no wood.

  A memory of Nick and I wrapped up in silk sheets at Robin House drifted into my vision, and I forced the image away. As I lay down on the hard bed, my thoughts turned to the monster Henry Howard. During our first meeting at Hampton Court, he’d reminded me of the fate of Anne Boleyn—the girl that King Henry the Eighth had married for love, only to execute her when she upset him one too many times. My stomach twisted into a sickening knot. As hideous as Howard was, he’d seen this coming before anyone. I was ending up just like Anne Boleyn, except I’d been a Tudor queen less than a year.

  I crawled beneath the blanket and tossed fitfully. Did Nick really have the stomach to put me through a grueling trial—let alone a beheading—out of pure anger and spite? Or was this all part of a terrible plan to scare me, to force me into following his command and staying in this century? He’d sprung our wedding day on me without so much as a conversation—that was proof of his tyrannical nature that I’d willingly overlooked. Or else, perhaps my arrest was a symbolic gesture to appease the raging Duke of Norfolk and his army, and Nick planned to release me once things had cooled down. If that were so, though, why wouldn’t he have just let me escape using the blue-diamond ring? If he wanted me safe, why would he publicly condemn me and risk my life? There was no coming back from a king’s damnation in a place like this.

  The endless questions chased themselves through my mind until, in the early hours of the morning, I drifted off to sleep, but it was shallow. I jerked awake at every small sound, my terrified mind convinced that each one was the executioner coming for me.

  Counting blood-red sunsets told me that I spent an agonizing eleven days locked in that silent chamber with zero visitors or word from the king. At every waking moment, I was ready to fight in case someone burst in with a torture device or an executioner’s axe. Meager bits of food were brought to me, but nothing else. There was too much time to think, too much time to cut open every moment of my relationship with Nick and dig through the tender wounds to unearth the mistakes I’d made.

  Our love had exploded like a meteor that had fused us together so fast that I still hadn’t caught my breath. He’d felt like home—like my person in the world—so incredibly quickly that it had colored every decision I’d made, even the one to try to save him from his dreadful fate as Nicholas the Ironheart. Before we met, I knew him only as the sixteenth-century king who ruthlessly ruled his nation. When I figured out that was because his little sister Kit had been murdered by one of his most trusted subjects, I’d had only one goal: to save Kit and to stop the boy I loved from becoming that tyrant.

  Sunlight on the leaded windowpane reflected my stricken face like a mirror as I faced one truth after another: I adored Kit, but saving her life was perhaps the biggest mistake of all. I’d tried to change the path of history, Lucinda’s life had been taken in exchange, and then I’d pushed Nick toward his hideous destiny anyway. I had been such an idiot to believe that I could insert myself into the past and live in it as a queen. It had proved almost impossible to convince the most accomplished people in the land that a twenty-first-century girl had the makings of a Tudor queen. Maybe the only chance Nick and I ever had was if he’d chosen to stay with me in my time and disappeared from the Tudor world. Surely life could’ve gone on here with Kit as the rightful new queen. For all this time, we’d been fighting an unwinnable battle, and while Kit may have been saved, Nick had been lost to darkness the way the books had always said.

  I was still brooding over the timeline when, on the fifteenth day of my imprisonment, an unexpected tap sounded on the wooden door. I froze with fear as it opened slowly with an unnerving creak. Alice Grey looked so pasty and gaunt in the doorway that I almost didn’t recognize her. She gaped at me, and I realized I must look as awful to her. When we both recovered from our shock, we fell into each other, hugging, and I stifled the urge to sob into her soft hair, which smelled like cinnamon cake.

  “I was not permitted to come before now,” she said, helping me to sit on the bed, treating me as if I was fragile. Tears pooled in her molten brown eyes as she searched my face. “My lady, are you greatly sore of heart?”

  “I’m terrible,” I replied honestly. “I’ve lost everything.” Speaking the words aloud shattered my soul. It wasn’t just my life here that was over. Unless Nick freed me, I’d never see the twenty-first century again: my mom, my friends—even Dad, with his stuffy Camry and boring public radio programs.

  Alice was rubbing my shoulder, her other hand catching her escaping tears.

  “What’s happening at court?” I said faintly. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about Nick.

  She settled herself with a deep exhale. “The palace has calmed. The king has reformed his council, and Francis speaks in a manner most heartening. There have been feasts, and merriments, and the courtiers are making ready for the Easter celebrations.”

  I nodded, staring at my lap. Now that I’d been booted from the palace, the Tudor court was thriving again. I was right, I’d been nothing more than a parasite here, a plague. An alien from an incompatible world who did nothing but delay the king’s malevolent, self-serving temperament by a year at best.

  “Where’s Bridget?” I said.

  Alice sighed. “Mistress Nightingale has taken leave to Buckinghamshire. I fear her hea
rt has become much troubled these past weeks.”

  Shame crawled up my throat. When I’d met Bridget, she’d been so chirpy, so excited about becoming a maid of honour and meeting a rich husband. Another thing that had been lost because of me.

  Alice placed a hand over mine, a cold band of polished gold surprising my skin.

  “Francis and I are married,” she said.

  “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!” I hadn’t smiled in so long that it nearly hurt my cheeks. “Where did you do it?”

  “At court.” The flush in her cheeks exposed the happiness that she was trying to hide. “My lady, that you could not be there has caused me much sorrow. After everything, Francis wished to wait not.”

  “No, of course not, it’s brilliant news.” I managed another smile of encouragement. At least Alice’s life was falling into place, even if mine was crumbling to pieces.

  The conversation dropped to silence before I summoned the courage to ask Alice if she knew anything about my fate.

  Her lips trembled, her eyes meeting her lap. “Your trial will take place on the morrow.”

  All the blood fled my face. A sort of darkness overcame the room, and I lost all sense of myself, like I might pass out. Alice steadied me with both hands, and I could tell that she was fighting not to break down. “I wish I could help you,” she stammered through more tears.

  “I know,” I said, leaning into her. The urge to tell her the truth about me—about where I came from—was so intense that it crawled onto my tongue, begging to be set free. This could be my last chance. But if I told Alice Grey that I was from the future, it’d put her at risk of being complicit in my alleged sorcery. I wanted her to enjoy her wedded bliss with Francis, not to have to testify against me at my trial. I had endangered too many people in this world already. So I sat there and clung to her hands, blessing her over and over in my heart for having been my one rock in this place.

  She glanced up at me, sensing something.

  “I love you, Alice,” was all I managed through my choked voice. “You might be the best thing in this entire world. I will never forget you.”

  Her words were breathless whispers. “You are my queen and lady most dear, and I will love you forevermore.”

  The depth of her sobs as we hugged one last time made clear that she believed I didn’t stand a chance at tomorrow’s trial. I’d admired Alice Grey for so many things: because she was spirited, feminist—for a Tudor, anyway—sharp as a tack…and almost always right.

  I really was doomed.

  With no hope of sleep that night, I lay awake, piecing together a plan. Surely Nick would be at the trial and would see how weak I’d become in just two weeks. He was a vengeful and merciless man—I knew that now better than anyone—but I still believed he’d loved me as completely as I’d loved him. It made me sick to my stomach to think that I could still imagine kissing him deeply—and even hunger for it. It was beyond shameful, like doting on a serial killer or the devil himself, but I guessed that love just didn’t switch off that fast. And maybe I could use any feelings still between us to my advantage: at the trial, I would do whatever I could to convince Nick Tudor to set me free. I’d mouth the words “I love you” to him—even scream them if I had to.

  I wasn’t too proud to beg him for my life.

  22

  At first light, I was marched downstairs to the Tower of London’s aging Great Hall, where hundreds of men jostled for space in their flat caps and showiest coats. I braced myself for the appearance of Nick, but I couldn’t catch sight of him anywhere.

  The guards ushered me up a short ladder and onto a wooden platform. On a table before me sat my three judges in somber black cloaks—the Baron of Wharton, the Earl of Dorset, and Henry freaking Howard. I wanted to hurl all over his infuriating smirk and dumbass ostrich-feather hat. He’d launched a rebellion against the king and queen—how was he judging me and not the other way around? However, Howard’s presence confirmed that he and Nick had officially kissed and made up. Bile pooled in the back of my throat.

  Late-arriving spectators shuffled in from the sides of the hall to watch the proceedings. I searched for Alice, but there wasn’t a single female in the room apart from me. And still no sign of Nick.

  Coward.

  Lord Wharton’s grating voice flooded the cavernous space. “Queen Emmeline, you are arraigned before this commission on charges of conspiring to procure the death and destruction of His Majesty, the King of England, through means of malice, witchcraft, and adulterous incitations. How do you answer the charges?”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to decide what to say. I’d been given no legal counsel or preparation of any kind.

  “Not guilty,” I said, clearing my hoarse throat. “I am innocent of the charges.”

  The baron then launched into a ridiculous story about me pursuing an adulterous affair with the Earl of Warwick—purely because I’d made a joke about him being in the king’s disguise at the masquerade feast. It was the first of countless testimonies about how I’d bewitched the king without genuine love in my heart while secretly plotting against him. Hilariously, I was even accused of trying to seduce Mister Andrea Bon Compagni behind closed doors in my workshop, which was also the place where I apparently experimented with recipes of witchcraft. The young maidservant Clemence from Robin House was summoned as a witness and stood shaking before the jury. Unable to look at me, she testified that I’d regularly met with a village witch, and appalled cries exploded from the sidelines. I had no idea how she’d known about my visit to the witch in the hamlet, but I didn’t blame her for her testimony. For all I knew, Clemence had been forced to speak out against me; plus, she was right—I had met with the witch, even if it was only once. More outrageous lies were outlined in excruciating and humiliating detail before the accusations turned to my family origins. With nobody able to verify the existence of the Grace family from Worthing, and Henry Howard arguing that I wasn’t his niece and that I’d bewitched him to believe it so, the deceit became overwhelming. At no point was Nick implicated in anything; the all-powerful King of England was evidently so unimpeachable that he didn’t even have to bother showing up for the trial. So much for begging him for my life.

  I clenched my eyes until they were dry. There was no way these men would see me cry.

  My thighs were aching after standing for so long before Lord Wharton finally called for silence. While his voice was grave, his eyes twinkled beside the equally as smug Henry Howard.

  “This day, Queen Emmeline has made a plea of not guilty to the lords stood here as councilors to our sovereign lord and king, Nicholas of England, and the peers of the realm. After being examined here, each lord has said, one and all, that Queen Emmeline is guilty of all the charges brought against her.”

  An icy gust of wind blew through me, and I thought I might topple over.

  Lord Wharton focused his fierce eyes on me. “Madam, as you have been found guilty, I shall proceed in judgment. You are hereby sentenced to die. From here, you will be taken to your prison in the tower of St. Thomas, and on the morrow at the strike of dawn, you will be executed by beheading, burning, or hanging as shall please His Majesty the King. Your marriage to King Nicholas of England is now null and void. You have no crown, no land or title, and you shall henceforth be known as Mistress Emmeline Grace.”

  A cough—or perhaps a chortle—burst from Henry Howard’s haughty mouth. I wanted to drive my fist through his heart. Fortunately for him, I was swiftly escorted from the hall and back upstairs to my locked chamber. A stale cheese tart sat waiting for me on the table, but I could hardly breathe, let alone eat.

  Nick didn’t even come to the trial.

  He couldn’t pay me the freaking courtesy of turning up.

  I smacked the pewter plate holding the cheese tart off the table, covering my ears at the brassy clanging. My fingertips slipped into my hair, and I grabbed the dirty clumps and tugged hard, wishing the pain would overwhelm my thoughts until I couldn
’t hear them anymore.

  Why couldn’t he have just let me go? Neither Nick nor I had to go through any of this—if he’d just let me travel back to my time and pretended that I’d drowned in the river, we’d both be safe. Did he really prefer the option of slicing off my head?

  I fell onto the bed, lying flat and motionless like a corpse.

  No matter how I tried to make sense of it all, my thoughts always circled back to the same place: this was my fault. Nick couldn’t let me go because he believed that I’d abandoned him. I’d known about his monstrous vengeful streak since the beginning—what he was capable of if he felt betrayed—and I’d willingly walked right into the firing line.

  Way to go, Emmeline Eleanor WTF-have-you-gotten-yourself-into Grace.

  Now, because of my mistakes—and my deluded, naïve belief in love—the wrath of Nicholas the Ironheart would make sure that I wouldn’t leave Tudor England alive.

  Nightmares invaded any sleep I managed that night, filled with horrific sounds and images of wild spectators howling for my head at Tower Hill. If only it was still winter with a delayed sunrise to bless me with a few more hours of life. But spring had arrived and dawn would come quickly, bringing with it my execution.

  As soon as the inky-black sky through the stained-glass window began to lighten, there was zero chance of more sleep. Frail with terror but determined not to be dragged outside in the nude, I tied on my plain, mint-colored kirtle and sat on the end of the bed. I lowered my head into a meditative position and tried to switch off my mind. I’d seen movies where criminals were in such a numb daze by the time they climbed the gallows that they didn’t look afraid anymore.