Blood Ties

by C. C. Humphreys

  He took a pace forward. They retreated another. ‘You would murder us here?’ Anne’s voice had lost none of its edge.

  ‘Not you, missie. Not unless you force me too. I think his eminence ’as plans for you and ’e’ll be ever so grateful that I prevented your escape. But you, Rombaud … I just can’t take the risk with you. You’ve got some pact with the Devil going. You’ve survived what would kill a ’undred men. You’d survive this and come back for me. I know you would.’

  Moving toward them slowly, Uriah continued, his voice low, calming. ‘And as for murder …’ He laughed, and for a moment used his nose to nuzzle the branded ‘M’ on his left hand. ‘Well, it’s not like I ’aven’t done it before.’

  His slow steps closed the distance between them. Their backs pressed against the stone of the tower. He halted, a sword’s reach away from them, his knuckles whitening on the grip.

  ‘Anyway, it’s fitting, don’t you think? A sort of justice? Jean Rombaud, Anne Boleyn’s Executioner, executed. Making his end, right here, right where it all began.’

  Jean suddenly felt an enormous weariness. There was a sword raised on high once more in the Tower of London. There was the hand it had taken, the hand of a dead queen, returned, as if his vow, all the suffering, was for nothing. Uriah was right. He, who had been the very cutting edge of justice, now faced justice of his own. It was … fitting. And he was so very tired.

  He yawned. It was the yawn that delayed Uriah, just for a moment, just at that moment when he bent his legs for the strike, as his shoulders tensed and his wrists tightened. And it was just at that moment that he died, more or less, the point of a rapier bursting through his throat, severing an artery there, ribbons of blood hitting the wall above their heads. He fell forward and Jean, weary though he was, reached up and caught the pommel of the sword as it came down.

  Uriah’s eyes were open as he died. As his head passed Jean, he looked as if he would speak. But he was a big man and he fell fast, his head striking the stone beside Jean as the Frenchman stepped away.

  Tucknell had withdrawn the rapier as the man fell.

  ‘I had misgivings,’ he said calmly, wiping the blade on his cloak. ‘And I wanted to make sure the grille was replaced properly. Ways of escape from this place are few and who knows when one might need them?’

  He had moved back to see if the noise had drawn anyone to them and his glance fell into the open casket.

  ‘Jesu save me!’ he cried, a hand rising to his mouth. ‘Is this … this … Holy God, what horror is here?’

  Anne bent and closed the lid. Jean took the officer by the arm. ‘It is too long a story for now, Tucknell. Know only that the queen we both loved wanted this hidden for ever. But her enemies would misuse her still and have thus disturbed her rest.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Tucknell’s voice shook. ‘When that Jesuit dug her up, I knew he was about some evil!’ He gestured to Anne. ‘Give me the hand, lady. I will restore it to her violated grave.’

  ‘It would not rest there,’ she said. ‘I truly fear it will not be safe anywhere in this world. But we must take it and try again to fulfil the vow my father made to her.’

  He looked at them both, nodded. ‘Then go! Go now and go swiftly. For the dawn overtakes you, and Simon Renard and his torturers will soon be here.’

  Anne looked to her father, the executioner, to the sword in his hand. She looked down at the casket. Then she looked at the dead murderer sprawled in his blood at the base of the tower.

  ‘Father, there is something we must do first, before we go.’

  Jean heard that tone again in the voice and he sighed – for he knew when he heard it, that there would be no opposing his wife’s child.

  She continued. ‘You must use your sword within this place one last time.’

  Thomas’s sleep had latterly been free of nightmares but he awoke in horror when Renard burst through his door.

  ‘She has gone, Jesuit! Fled! These fools have let her escape!’

  ‘Who, my lord?’ Thomas raised himself from the floor, biting back the groan that came as his bound knee took weight.

  ‘Who, my lord?’ Renard’s sharp face was thrust into his, close enough to scent the rank breath. ‘The girl, Rombaud’s daughter. She whom you failed to get information from. Here’s James Woolston from the Council with the order for her examination. But there’s no one to examine. The witch has vanished.’

  Thomas felt nothing but relief. He kept it from his face, though and studied the other men who had crowded into his cell. The fat and florid councillor. The Tower guard who had first helped him dig up Anne Boleyn’s grave, Tucknell. And Gianni Rombaud.

  With a shout of fury, Renard dashed almost everything from the table, even the crucifix, glaring at each of the discomfited men in turn, daring them to challenge him. Then the hand came back to rest on the casket.

  ‘Well, at least we still have this,’ he said, striking it. ‘I have been denied one pleasure today, but I will not be denied my triumph. You …!’ He gestured at Gianni. ‘Bring it. Come, Lawley. Queen Mary’s crisis is almost upon her. She has taken to her birthing bed. It is time we confronted the Princess Elizabeth with the proof of her satanic legacy! It is time we bent her to our will!’

  He marched from the room, the councillor in his wake. Tucknell glanced expressionlessly at him before following, leaving the two men.

  Gianni moved first, picking up the casket. ‘Well, Jesuit,’ he said, ‘all our efforts have come to this moment. Praise God and Carafa, for making us the instruments of Christ’s triumph.’

  As the younger man left the room, the box tucked under his arm, Thomas bent painfully to the floor and picked up the crucifix, setting it once more in the centre of the table. He genuflected, his fingers pausing at his lips. Behind them, he mouthed, ‘And praise him for leading his child Anne from the darkness, like the first Pope, Holy Peter, from his prison. Guide her still, Lord, wherever she may be.’

  She had expected the summons. The rumours had spread swiftly around Hampton Court that the Queen had taken to her birthing bed. And though the final crisis might be delayed a week, even longer, Elizabeth knew her opponent would not wait so long. As with the contest in chess, Renard was preparing his endgame.

  She had not expected to be taken to his chamber. They had not met there before, only in the bare room with the convex mirror, or in her own apartments.

  The light, contrasting with the wet darkness outside, dazzled her; so she paused in the doorway, till her eyes were more accustomed to the brightness of the clusters of candles. Between their banks of light she saw the chessboards, all in play, on every available surface. There was just one on the main table that faced her though, and even if her eyes were still adjusting to the light she saw immediately that it was their game, identical to the one that lay on the tiny board in her room. These pieces, by contrast, were huge, beautifully carved, as tall as a man’s hand. On these squares, too, white knights, bishops and pawns hemmed in her black queen.

  Hovering over them was Simon Renard.

  She spoke from the doorway. ‘Do you always need to play your games so late, my lord?’

  He gestured her into the room, sitting as he did. His voice was brisk.

  ‘We conclude a bigger game tonight, lady. And its triumph will surpass anything that can happen on this board.’

  She came into the room. She could see now into the shadows behind the table. Two men stood back there. One was the Jesuit she had met before. The other was a dark young man with a face that seemed familiar, yet she knew she had never seen before. The way he regarded her, the mixture of hatred and a strange joy in his eyes, made her shiver. Yet she spoke out boldly. ‘And is a princess not to be given a chair?’

  The Jesuit made to move, was waved back with one gesture from Renard. ‘You do not have time to sit, lady,’ he hissed. ‘You have time to make a decision, and that is all.’

  Her look of disdain led him on.

  ‘You have heard that the Que
en is come to what she believes is her crisis.’

  A nod. It was all she could give him. She suddenly didn’t trust her voice in the face of these men’s certainty.

  ‘She will lie there a week, maybe two. By then, even she will have come to know her mistake. Even her great hope will have ended.’

  She found a voice from somewhere. Anger, probably. ‘And you call this “triumph”? Are you not ashamed to glory when the Queen, my sister, is to be so desolated? Do you not pity her?’

  ‘I pity no one. I care only to keep this country in the Holy Faith and Imperially aligned and I will do anything to achieve this. Anything!’

  His hunger was clear. It silenced her, that naked desire lit by candles. He pulled up a parchment and held it toward her.

  ‘Will you sign this, lady? Will you agree to marry King Philip in the event of your sister’s death should she die childless? As she will.’

  She could only shake her head. He reached behind him and placed upon the table a small walnut casket to the side of the chessboard. Its lid was down.

  ‘Perhaps this will change your mind.’ His long fingers stroked the wood almost languorously. ‘For if you do not sign, be assured that what lies within here will be placed under the Queen’s bed. It will only be discovered at the moment of her greatest sadness, when all hope is finally gone, when she is asking that question we all ask when our greatest longing has been lost.’ His voice rose to a shrill, whining imitation. ‘Why? Why have I been cursed? Holy Me? Good Me? Mary, namesake, mother of God, why me?’

  Flickering candlelight danced on his face. ‘What lies within this box will give her that answer. When she sees it she’ll know who cursed her. She’ll see again the woman whose memory she hates above all others. The woman whose daughter wants to make heretics of her people, steal her crown, bed her husband.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘For what lies within this box is nothing less than the six-fingered hand of your mother – Anne Boleyn!’

  He threw back the lid, raised a candelabra above it, triumphant.

  She staggered then, thought that her legs would not hold her. Despite the light, it was as if she could not penetrate the mist that descended between her and the table. Yet she knew she had to know the extent of what opposed her. So planting her legs square, her father’s daughter, breathing deep, she looked into the casket.

  At first, there was revulsion, an instant of terrible shock. But she took a breath again, another, kept her gaze fixed on the horror within the box. Long moments passed, in breaths and guttering candles. Finally, when she felt she once more had control of her voice, she spoke.

  ‘It is said I have inherited some things from the mother I barely knew. An aspect of face, a cast of eye and brow. Mostly, they say, a certain daintiness … of hand.’

  She raised one, moved it gracefully before her face, drawing all eyes to it before she continued, her voice growing ever stronger.

  ‘They also say my mother had six fingers. But try as I might I can only see five before me. Five! And though I barely knew her, I do believe these two things of her. She was not a man. And she was not a murderer.’

  Silence in the room, silence so deep only the candles could be heard in their burning. The look of triumph did not alter on the Ambassador’s face for it seemed he had not heard Elizabeth’s words, was still listening to those he’d expected to hear, those that announced her complete surrender to his will. It took Thomas, limping forward to look into the casket, to end the silence.

  ‘Holy Father,’ he said simply. ‘Holy Father in heaven.’

  Only then did Renard move, seizing the casket, spinning it round to face him. He tipped it, and what lay within fell onto the table before him. He staggered away from it, collapsing onto his chair.

  ‘What … what?’ was all he could manage.

  A silence again, but a shorter one, and it was the Princess who broke it. She stepped up to the table and looked down at the chessboard there, at her queen, surrounded, hemmed in by Renard’s men.

  ‘It was checkmate in three, wasn’t it, Ambassador?’

  She waited for his glazed eyes to meet hers. Held them there but for a moment. Then she bent, placed her fingers under the board’s varnished edge where it overlapped the table and threw it high up into the air. Black and white shapes spun through the candlelight, fell into Renard’s lap, onto the floor, rolled across the table to nestle against the ‘M’ branded onto Uriah Makepeace’s severed hand. And only when the last piece had stopped moving did Princess Elizabeth turn and walk, very slowly, from the room.

  SIXTEEN

  THE HOSTAGE

  From the buttresses of Notre Dame, stone demons shrieked rainwater across the great square. He had thought he was tracking a bear, which had made as much sense as anything within this dream. The huge black animal, the sign of his clan, had beckoned him with his grunts, the hmm hmm hmm drawing him from the forests of the homeland he could only imagine into the familiar stone canyons of Paris.

  Now Tagay stared at the great church. The bear’s call had faded away, leaving only the soughing of the wind through the eaves. That made him look up to them, to see a woman standing there, her long, long black hair coiling around her. No, she did not stand, she floated, one foot loosely tethered to the stonework.

  He had never seen her. He knew her.

  ‘Ataentsic! Great Mother!’ he called.

  The Goddess looked down and her foot slipped. As she started to fall, the bear Tagay had tracked and lost emerged from the shadows at the great wooden doors. He knew the bear must catch her, for his people believed that only if the Great Mother reached the earth safely could the world be formed. He ran forward, becoming the bear, becoming the Goddess falling faster now, harder now …

  Tagay tumbled from the bed, his knee, elbow and hip striking the floor, waking him to pain. His head hurt the worst, as if it were filled with boiling oil, although that had nothing to do with the fall. That was all the wine he had consumed the night before.

  He had cried out when he fell, and he cried again now as nausea swept him. There was an echo from the bed, a rebuke, some muttering. Raising himself carefully, he looked at the woman sprawled among the dishevelled bedclothes. He didn’t recognize the blonde, matted hair, the smeared, powdered face. The woman was as naked as he was, and it was the rolls of pallid flesh beneath the sheets that reminded him. She was a cousin from the country, come to Paris for the King’s birthday. The Marquise had pushed them together at the dinner last night. This cousin was at least twice his age – and weight. But after the usual night of drinking Tagay went where he was told.

  He crept back onto the bed. He wanted to consider the dream as his mother had always taught him to. But the spinning returned, worse than before. He rose, steadied himself against one of the bedposts. On the armoire under the window, there was a basin of water. He plunged his face into it, held it under. Then, with droplets running off him, he raised his eyes to the mirror that hung there.

  His face was puffy, the whites of his narrow, dark eyes a tracery of red lines. His long, black hair was flattened, oil and night sweat pinning it to his scalp. His brown skin looked almost pale, its sallowness emphasized by the wisp of beard that clung unconvincingly to his jaw. His mother had always told him not to grow a beard, said that among their people it was a sign of low intelligence. But his mother was long dead, and the men who had looked after him since her death all had beards. Even the Marquise had one, though she would not have been flattered if he said he was imitating hers.

  The thought made him laugh and realize that he was still a little drunk. He turned back to the bed, ignoring its occupant, searching the floor nearby. A flagon was on its side, yet sucking produced little more than a thirst-inducing drop. He was reaching under the bed frame when he heard scratching at the door. It opened, and the Marquise thrust her head into the gap. He was naked, but didn’t bother covering himself up.

  ‘Well, well!’ The older woman took in the scene with satisfaction. ‘Did you g
ive my cousin something pleasant to remember when she returns to her decrepit husband and rotting castle?’

  He ignored her, continued his hunt for wine. Another flagon produced only a sip. Frustrated, he sat on the bed’s edge and groaned.

  ‘Come, Tagay.’ Her voice was gentle, which surprised him so he looked up. She had come part way into the room and was beckoning him. ‘Let us away before she wakes. Your beauty is too tempting and you both will need some rest before tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’ His voice was raspy. ‘And what is tonight?’

  ‘How could you forget, you silly boy?’ She was moving round the room, gathering discarded items of clothing. ‘Tonight is the feast for the King’s birthday. Henri will want his “Little Bear” beside him.’ She stooped, and pinched his cheek. ‘And I have someone very special for you to be nice to. Very special – and very rich.’

  Anger rose in bile to his throat. ‘Wine,’ he said. ‘I want wine.’ He tried to squeeze another drop from the flagon.

  Hardness took over the wrinkled face. Snatching the bottle from him, she said, ‘You’ll drink wine when I let you, you Indian dog. I want you sober tonight which you won’t be if you start drinking now. I told you, we’ve a rich one. The richest yet.’

  She thrust his clothes at him and he slid, with some difficulty, into the doublet and breeches, holding them at his waist, not even bothering with the strings to tie them to each other. He could do that in his attic at the top of the house, later. The Marquise was limping about the room, searching. Under a jumble of discarded stays she found her desire.

  ‘Ah!’ She weighed the bag and they heard the satisfying clink of coin on coin. She opened it and ran the contents through her fingers, nodding in satisfaction. He reached out toward her.

  ‘What do you want money for, Little Bear? Don’t I take care of all your needs?’

  ‘New sword,’ he grunted. ‘Broke mine yesterday.’