Blood Ties

by C. C. Humphreys

  FIFTEEN

  ENDGAME

  In this hour before the dawn, mist rose from the river and frigid vapour fingers pushed beneath his insubstantial clothes. Yet he knew that his shivering did not come solely from the morning’s chill. For he was stood where the wherryman had dropped him, on the dock beneath the Traitor’s Gate.

  The guard had been reluctant to wake his officer, had only gone to do so under threat of the consequences should he not. The producing of the ring had made his decision for him, sending him off grumbling. Jean had not wanted to let it out of his keep but he’d been given little choice. Now, as the minutes lengthened and the faintest hint of light reached into the sky downriver, he began to fear that he would never see it again.

  ‘Where is this man who disturbs my rest?’

  The voice made him jump, echoing loudly through the vaulted dock.

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Then come up, fellow.’

  He climbed the slippery steps carefully. A tall man stood alone in the darkness at the top of them. Jean could not see his face but words came in a whisper from the shadows.

  ‘How came you by this ring, sir?’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘I know it. And I wonder that you have it. Did you steal it?’

  ‘I did not. I was given it from … the lady’s hand.’

  ‘Were you indeed?’ The suspicious voice lowered still further. ‘This … lady told me she would never send this to me except in her direst need.’

  Jean kept his silence. After a long pause the man spoke again. ‘What is your name, sir?’

  There didn’t seem any point in lying now. ‘My name is Jean Rombaud.’

  A whispered obscenity, a snatching of a torch from the wall. The man brought it close, lighting both their faces. Jean saw someone maybe a little younger than himself, though as grey of beard and hair, strong features creased now in wonder. And rage.

  ‘Rombaud! A curse of a name.’ The torch moved up and down as the man surveyed him. ‘It is you, indeed. We have met before. Do you not remember me … Executioner?’

  ‘I am sorry, I …’

  ‘Tucknell.’ He pushed his face closer. ‘I was there when you killed her. I raised her bloodied head, may God forgive me.’

  Jean could see the power of the memory take the man. It came back to him now, a little. This man had loved her. One of many.

  ‘I remember you, sir.’

  ‘Then maybe you remember … sir,’ Tucknell was struggling to control his temper, ‘that I had no reason to love you. You butchered her.’

  ‘I rendered her a service.’

  ‘A service?’ The laugh was strained, false. ‘And do you offer the same service to my Queen’s daughter? Are you measuring the Princess’s neck for your sword, as has so long been threatened?’

  Tucknell’s voice had grown loud with his anger. One of the guards drew nearer from his place in the tower above. Jean stepped closer to Tucknell, looking up into the taller man’s face, forcing his voice to calmness.

  ‘Sir, I think you know that the Princess would not have given me that ring for such a purpose. The service I rendered her mother was greater than you witnessed. Far greater. The Princess understands that. That’s why she sends me to you now.’

  He saw the deep suspicion still there on the Englishman’s face.

  ‘Come, man,’ he said. ‘I loved Anne Boleyn as much as you. I only seek to show that love to her daughter now.’

  Tucknell stared at him, shaking his head. Finally, he said, ‘And how will you show it, Rombaud?’

  Jean drew breath. Now he had to be most careful. ‘There is a prisoner here, a young woman. She has … information that the Imperial Ambassador desires. He has a warrant to examine her this morning. If he gets the information, it will not just harm the Princess. It will condemn her.’

  ‘So you are here to end that threat? To add “assassin” to your list of honourable titles?’

  ‘No. I am here to free the girl. To get her away from here. Out of the kingdom.’

  Tucknell studied Jean who stared back, his face betraying nothing. At last the Englishman spoke. ‘What you ask is nearly impossible. If she is to wed the rack then she will be closely watched. It will be a great danger to me to help you.’

  ‘It is not me you help. It is the owner of that ring. And it is the last hour of the night. Even watchful guards grow weary.’

  Tucknell pulled the ring from his pocket, stared at it for a long moment. ‘I swore a vow to her, when she was imprisoned here last year, that I would do everything in my power for her, and for the love I bore her mother.’ He put the ring back in his pocket. ‘It seems I have no choice.’

  He turned and walked rapidly away from Jean, who stood for a moment, uttering a short prayer of thanks to the love that princesses inspired. Then he followed.

  Though dawn barely glimmered in the east, enough light showed Jean the Green, bare of people yet crowded still with the vestiges of execution. The reek of burnt flesh clung to the walls of the towers. Circular scorched patches showed where the martyrs had been burnt, two at the site before the chapel, one further on, where the giant heretic had rushed and flamed and died. Ravens hopped about, seeking bits of flesh unconsumed by fire, squabbling when one was discovered with cries like the wails of the damned. Shuddering, Jean fixed his gaze on the cloak ahead of him, willing the man to move faster. It was not merely the danger to his daughter that urged him on; all his ghosts gathered on that scrap of grass.

  They passed close to the eastern wall of the chapel and soon stood before a squat, battlemented tower.

  ‘The Flint,’ muttered Tucknell. Taking Jean’s arm, he twisted it up behind his back, feigning little. ‘You are my prisoner. Do not speak.’

  The first guard merely nodded at the officer; the next, at an iron-studded door, was pacified with the watchword. Bolts were thrown, they entered and immediately began to descend the steps in a circular stair, winding deep into the earth. The torches guttering in brackets on the walls were spaced far apart. At last they halted before a door, a rusted grille set in its centre. Three raps upon it brought a face, bearded and bleary-eyed to the gap.

  ‘Prisoner!’ Tucknell barked. ‘Another cursed traitor to her Majesty.’

  ‘It’s damned early, Tucknell,’ grunted the guard, stooping to his bolts. The door creaked open.

  ‘Aye, man,’ said Tucknell, stepping past. ‘But treason never sleeps. No, William,’ he added as the man tried to move by, ‘I’ll take him. A few questions to ask, if you know what I mean. You go back to your cot.’

  Grumbling still, the man did as he was bid, first handing the officer a bunch of his keys.

  ‘Now, Rombaud, we must be swift. This way!’

  If the stairwell above had been dank and dark, it was as nothing to these catacombs below. Tucknell led him down the twisting corridors, the only light now the paltry one from his lantern, spilling over the straw-strewn floor that tilted and caught at Jean’s feet with unexpected projections, his hand saving himself from falling against walls rough and wet. It sloped downwards and every few paces his fingers ran over the roughness of a door. He touched one and something stirred the other side. He heard a muffled cry, a body thumping against thick wood, a sob.

  At last, deep down, they stood before the lowest doorway yet. A rusted key slid into a lock and after much twisting the lock gave. With his boot, Tucknell pushed the door open. Stale air released outwards and Jean almost choked. At a nod from Tucknell, Jean thrust his head into the foul darkness.

  ‘Anne?’

  Held in dreams she moaned, hit out, resisting the grip that would drag her to her doom. Then she heard the voice, the voice from a dream, and she fell into her father’s arms.

  ‘I knew you would come.’

  ‘Hush! Hush! No words.’

  Tucknell shook the lantern from the doorway. ‘And if you would leave, you must go now and swiftly.’

  Outside the cell, Tucknell led them the opposite
way to the one they had come, deeper into the labyrinth.

  At Jean’s first question, Tucknell said roughly, ‘I cannot take you back, or I am ruined in your escape. There is another way. Here!’

  They halted. Above them, Jean and Anne felt a flow of fresher air. The lantern raised to the ceiling revealed a grille.

  ‘Your hands.’

  Jean intertwined his fingers and the Englishman stepped up, grabbing the bars above, twisting them hard. The grille loosened and he forced it up into the opening.

  Stepping down, he said, ‘This vent winds to the surface. You brace yourself to the top. It can be done, because a prisoner once did it. It comes up beside the Martin Tower, flush to the inner wall at Brass Mount. The tower is in bad repair and little guarded, for few stay there. Can you swim?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘A stair to the side of the tower leads down to the moat. Swim straight across. A hawthorn hides a tiny gate there in the outer wall. This key’ – he pulled an ancient piece of metal from his pocket – ‘opens that gate. Lock it again, throw the key away – for if you were caught with it, it would go ill with me – and run. God speed.’

  He turned but Anne’s hand delayed him. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I do not do this for you, but for the lady I pray to my Saviour in heaven will soon be Queen.’

  ‘Will you be in peril when it is discovered I am gone?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I will go back and break your door now. And as I told you, a prisoner once took this passage before. I just hope you are luckier than he was. Fare you well.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jean said, but Tucknell was already off, lantern light receding into the gloom.

  There was no choice. Fresher air and freedom awaited them above. Anne placed her hands this time and Jean rose to her groans. He scrabbled into the narrow gap, braced himself, reached down. She grabbed at his dangling arm and he pulled her to where she could get a purchase. Soon they were wedged together in a hole no more than their conjoined bodies in width.

  ‘Does the lady precede, Father?’

  Jean smiled and hugged his daughter. ‘I think youth precedes, Anne. You were always the best climber in the family. Anyway, you do not want my old limbs tumbling onto you from the darkness above.’

  A returned hug and she was gone. He gave her a few seconds then reached up to follow.

  The walls were narrow and rough, outcrops that jabbed into the back also providing handholds. Anne moved swiftly up, Jean following more slowly, making sure of his bracing each time. The tunnel twisted, almost levelling at one point before heading up again. The air got fresher and soon Anne detected the glimmer of a lighter darkness.

  ‘Father! I am at the surface, I … I cannot move the bars!’

  Jean squeezed in beside her, they both pushed hard and eventually there was a giving. Carefully, they moved the grille to one side. Jean thrust his head up, sensing the air around him.

  ‘Come,’ he said, and hoisted himself from the hole.

  They were flush to the wall of a tower. Scaffolding stood against it, repairs underway to its crumbling stone. Jean moved to the edge of the battlements; a stair did indeed wind down to the dull waters of the moat. He shivered, turned back.

  ‘Anne,’ he said, then realized she was no longer behind him. He ran back and found her, staring up at the precarious wooden platforms that girded the tower.

  ‘Child! We must go. A cold swim awaits us before we gain our freedom.’

  ‘I have been here before.’ Anne continued to gaze upwards. ‘This is where I was brought for that Jesuit to examine me. Father!’ She turned excitedly to him. ‘This is where I saw it!’

  ‘Where you saw what? Come, we must leave! Now!’

  ‘The hand. Anne Boleyn’s hand. It is in this tower.’

  He said, ‘No’. He even reached for her. But she was quick, tucked in her shift, swung up on the nearest wooden beam. It shook, but took her weight.

  ‘Anne!’ Jean hissed. ‘We have done enough. We must escape. It is a slow death for both of us if we stay.’

  She looked down. Her voice was soft and clear. ‘It is a lingering death for this land and a curse that will pursue our family for ever if we leave without what we came for. Wait for me.’

  His whispered cry of ‘Anne!’ went unheeded. Hand over hand, she disappeared up into the wooden structure. She reached planks, these leading her to the lip of a wall. Slipping over it, she found she was on the first level battlements. An archway opened onto an inner stair and, realizing that it could be the sole one within the tower, she began to climb.

  His cell door was ajar. Peering around it, she sought his shape on the cot where she had last seen him. But he lay on the floor before the table, before the rough hewn crucifix, his arms spread wide and parallel to its crossbeams. Behind it, lay the casket.

  She waited for him to shift, for his lips to move in the prayers indicated by his attitude of supplication. It was only after she had watched him for some little while that she realized his breath was shallow and regular. The Jesuit, despite the hardness of his bed, slept.

  Placing each foot lightly down, she moved into the room. It was small, and the prone man took up most of the space. She stepped up to his left arm and carefully leaned over to the table. The casket was heavy but, bracing herself, she managed to heave it toward her.

  Thomas Lawley cried out. In wakefulness his prayers calmed. In sleep, his dreams tormented. Both concerned the woman he had examined the previous day. In his prayers he saw her repenting her sin, coming gently, beatifically, back to Christ the Redeemer. But in this dream he saw her coming to him, and she was naked. He wept, in terrible desire, in rejection. Then, the rejected, so beautiful body that once had floated, now lay broken on the rack and he cried out, ‘No!’ screaming the word again and again … until a hand descended from the heavens, to caress his forehead and a voice whispered, ‘Peace’ softly in his ear.

  The horror faded, dreams vanishing into a serenity indistinguishable from prayer. Pulling his outstretched arms in, he curled into himself and slept on.

  Anne left her hand upon his forehead for a moment, marvelling at the calm that had come to the man below her. A younger, almost handsome face she decided, when the lines of etched pain relaxed.

  This is the real him, she thought, stroking, soothing still, behind his rigid faith. This is the man before the hurt.

  Then she straightened, picked up the casket once again, and crept from the chamber.

  When Jean heard the scaffolding creak, he stepped into the still thick shadow that girded the wall. But his daughter’s voice drew him out.

  ‘Anne! What are you about?’

  ‘This!’

  She held the casket toward him, made to open the lid, for the key was in it. He laid one hand on hers.

  ‘No. I do not want to see it. I never wanted to see it again. What it has done to me, to my family …’ His voice shook. ‘If we must bring it, then we must. But do not show it to me. And, for the love of Christ, hurry!’

  He pulled her toward the moat. They’d nearly reached it when the voice halted them.

  ‘You can show it to me, girl. I’m afire to see what so many ’ave desired, so many died for.’

  Uriah Makepeace rose from the water stair before them. The pale dawn light glinted off the sword that rested on shoulders. ‘Especially since what has ruined your family could be the making of mine, Rombaud, old comrade! So show me.’

  Uriah moved a pace toward them; they stepped back.

  ‘I’d almost given up on you. No one could find you nowhere and I ’ad men all over the streets. I thought, ’e’s not going to leave his pretty daughter to be stretched, is ’e? Not the fearless Jean Rombaud. So I thought I’d keep a personal watch at the dock. And there you came. I lost you underground but then I wondered if you knew about the gate behind the ’awthorn? Seems you did.’

  It was the apple-sized pommel that Jean recognized. Uriah saw his eyes widen. ‘Yes, Rombaud, it’s
your old friend. See what good care I’m taking of it?’

  He lifted it and they saw the short, heavy blade, the distinctive square end silhouetted against the dawn sky. The Englishman kept it up on high, where the killing strokes begin.

  ‘Why?’ was all Jean’s dry throat could manage.

  ‘Why … betray you?’ Uriah looked sad. ‘Alas! But I told you about how me and my late partner lost the Tower concession, right? Feeding the prisoners, doing the banquets, all that? My lord Renard has promised me them all back. That’s a lot of silver, my friend. So my conscience didn’t come cheap, I can assure you. And what with stopping you escaping, and retrieving the Witch’s ’and and all, well …’ The grin returned. ‘Got to be worth a few guineas on top, don’t it? Eh, far enough, you!’

  It was Anne who had moved. The casket thrust before her, she said, ‘But didn’t you want to look inside?’

  Jean recognized the tone of the voice. It was the way Beck spoke, just before she struck.

  ‘Anne! Stop!’

  Uriah raised the weapon, his shoulders tensed. ‘You listen to your father, girlie. I may not be Jean Rombaud, but he knows I can use this sword. Put the ’and down and move back.’

  Reluctantly, she placed the casket on the ground, rejoined her father.

  There were half a dozen paces between them. In a sudden movement, Uriah flicked the catch of the casket with the blade. The lid swung up, the interior facing him.

  ‘Well, well, well.’ Wonder spread over the scarred face. ‘So she really did ’ave six fingers. No wonder his late Majesty loved that whore’s caress. ’E liked the unusual, I’d ’eard.’ He chuckled, then his eyes hardened. ‘So much death, Rombaud, come from you taking what you oughtn’t ’ave. They do say, one man’s death is another man’s fortune, though, don’t they?’