The 48

by Donna Hosie

  Scurrying like a mouse on the hunt for crumbs, I made my way across the cold flagstones, past flickering candles that were almost spent, until I reached my quarry. I knocked on the door twice, and bravely, without waiting for a reply, I entered.

  And gasped.

  At first I thought it was Alexander of Cleves writhing on the floor. White spittle was foaming at the corners of his mouth. He was in his brother’s arms, and an older gentleman, who I presumed was the Duke of Cleves, was inspecting some grapes.

  It was a snatch in time before I realized that it was the brother who had been struck down, and Alexander was the one cradling him.

  “Milady!” exclaimed the older man. “We did not mean to rouse you from your sleep.”

  “What has happened?” I asked, kneeling down beside Alexander.

  “My brother…my brother!” cried Alexander. “He’s been poisoned.”

  “Your bag, Alexander,” called the duke; he was throwing fruit onto the fire. It blackened and shriveled on contact, causing a rotten stench to rise from the flames.

  “I have seen the court physicians use leeches before,” I said. “But I fear we do not have time. If it is poison, charcoal will draw it out.”

  “Charcoal…of course,” said Alexander of Cleves. He dropped his brother onto the floor and half staggered, half slid toward the bed.

  “Milady, allow me to escort you back to your room,” said the duke; his countenance was stern, his tired eyes flecked with red.

  “I cannot leave until I know this man will last the night,” I replied, taking his head onto my lap. I needed the sons of Cleves alive.

  The brothers were the same in almost every way, although Alexander’s nose was slightly bent to the left, and his red flaming hair was longer. I saw nothing of the Duke of Cleves in either, from the color of their gray-blue eyes to the shape of their angular faces. If they were both to be acknowledged bastards of the king, the court would welcome them warmly.

  Until such a time as they both became a threat.

  Alexander of Cleves returned with a pewter goblet filled with black liquid. It was similar to an antidote I had seen used once before. The concoction had been successful on that day. I prayed that history would repeat itself.

  “Charlie, drink this…”

  “Alexander!” rebuked the duke.

  “Charles,” said Alexander, correcting himself as he started to pour the liquid down his brother’s throat. The motionless brother started to cough and splutter.

  “He is rousing!” I cried. “Praise to the Lord above and the king.”

  “You saved him,” whispered Alexander. “Thank you, Lady Margaret. Thank you.”

  The sorcerer-sons of Cleves were now in my debt.

  And I intended to call on that favor with haste.

  I could taste bitterness. It coated my tongue, teeth, and throat. I gagged several times. The mixture being poured down my throat was thick and gritty. It rubbed against my gums, filling my mouth with the sensation of drowning once more. I was being force-fed mud. I tried to struggle but stopped when I started to choke. It was going up my nose, it was blocking my throat. I was dying once more.

  “He is rousing!” cried a female voice. “Praise to the Lord above and the king.”

  Whispers followed that I could not understand.

  “Don’t fight it, Charles,” said a voice I did recognize: my brother’s. “All the way down. Come on. All the way down.”

  I could smell Alex. The scent of my brother was soap and sugar. It felt safe. My brother would never hurt me. I could trust him.

  The smell of the woman was strange. Not unpleasant, just strange. As if spice and perfume and sweat had been ground together by a mortar and pestle.

  I started to relax and accept what was happening. This was just like trying to get over the stages of time travel. The gritty concoction started to soothe my burned throat. I gagged and coughed, but I swallowed it nonetheless. Another body pushed against my side.

  “The antidote should start to work soon, Alexander,” said Aramis to my brother. “You did well. We are in your debt, milady, yet you must leave. It would not aid your reputation to be seen alone in the company of three men who are unrelated to you. And you would do well not to speak of this to anyone.”

  An implied threat that even the stupidest of courtiers would understand.

  The cold rim of a metal cup was resting on my chin. The person holding it was trembling. I wanted to speak to my brother, but the paralysis of the poison had affected my voice as well as my eyes. I could manage no more than a groan. I could only see white cloud and black shadow.

  “It’s fine, Charlie,” said Alex. I felt his fingers tenderly comb through my hair. He had never done that before. “You’re gonna be fine.”

  “Alexander!” said Aramis.

  I wanted to warn my brother that he was dropping out of character. Alex had to stop calling me Charlie. There was a stranger in the room with us. We were going to be discovered. We’d be hanged or burned or beheaded as sorcerers.

  Then I felt a constriction in my stomach, like something nefarious inside was being sucked into a sponge.

  Seconds after that, I started throwing up. The more I was sick, the more movement I gained back. Quid pro quo for draining away the poison. By the time my eyesight had started to return, my throat was shredding skin as the activated carbon antidote mixture my brother had given me absorbed not just the poison, but half of my gullet lining as well.

  Sweat was pouring off me. It pooled around my neck; I could feel it dripping down my back. Every muscle I possessed ached with pain. Even breathing was uncomfortable. As figures became more than shadow, I concentrated on the one I knew was my brother. He would get me through this—he had before.

  I trusted him. He was the only one—other than Alice.

  Alex’s eyes were red. That was the first color I saw. He was also ringed by a halo of pale yellow light from several candles.

  But my brother looked the opposite of ethereal. He looked scared.

  “I will leave you now,” said the young woman. She had long blond hair that was plaited to the side. Her body was covered in a red damask dressing gown with a burgundy cord.

  “May I escort you back, Lady Margaret?” asked Alex.

  “No. Your father is quite correct. It is better that I am alone and not seen in company,” she replied. “I will see you on the morrow, Alexander of Cleves?”

  “I will make sure of it—I am in your debt, milady.”

  The door opened and closed. A draft ran up my body like a wave. I shuddered.

  “Charlie?”

  “I’m okay,” I groaned, lifting my hand. I tried to touch Alex but merely swatted the night air.

  Okay wasn’t a word used in the sixteenth century, but I needed Alex to know I was all right. Really all right. That I was myself—whoever that was now. The stranger was gone. I could bend the rules a little.

  “You scared the crap out of me,” whispered Alex, wiping his red, swollen eyes. “Don’t do that again.”

  “I didn’t mean…to do it at all.”

  “Can you move, Charles?” asked Aramis, pulling me into a sitting position.

  “How do you feel?” asked Alex.

  “I’ve felt…worse,” I replied. Even my own voice sounded detached, like I was hearing it underwater.

  “Good enough,” replied Aramis. “Now, on my count, Charles, I want you to stand. One, two…”

  On three, he and Alex pulled me to my feet. I wobbled, but more from the head rush than the inability to stand.

  “Someone poisoned the grapes,” said Aramis bluntly. “It was lucky you only ate one. Lady Margaret has obviously seen this befall someone in the court before, because she knew exactly what to do. You were lucky she alone heard the commotion and no one more important came. Yet be aware she may
now be a liability to you. You’ll need to watch her like hawks.”

  “Where are the grapes? We can’t leave…them lying…around.”

  “The remainder of the grapes, and the rest of the fruit, are now burning in the fire,” said Aramis. “And from now on I suggest we have someone test your food. There are plenty of servants here who already do it for half of the court.”

  “Should we abort the assignment?” asked Alex. “Alice, now this. Someone wants us to fail. I would bet anything now that Grinch has gone rogue and is behind all the crap that’s been happening.”

  “You have taken pills for a forty-eight-day assignment,” replied Aramis. “And even if I could get you back to the institute now, what do you think would happen if you turned up?”

  “We wouldn’t get…a second assignment?” I said, coughing blood into my open hand.

  “Exactly right,” replied Aramis, but he spoke too quickly. Something wasn’t right. “You cannot—you must not—return to The 48.”

  The veins in my brother’s neck and forehead were bulging, but I was so proud of the way he was restraining himself. It was taking every ounce of control he had, but he was now mastering his emotions, just like Assets were taught.

  This was our existence.

  “I’m going to get some wine or ale,” said Alex, running his fingers through his hair. “Hopefully that’s not poisoned too.”

  Another cold breeze of air wafted across my shivering body as Alex departed the apartment and left me alone with Aramis.

  “Did you get my note? Do you still think it wise to have your brother as your Asset partner?” asked Aramis as he helped me to walk into the other bedroom. I didn’t want to move, but I was too weak to argue. The poison had sucked the fight out of me.

  “I don’t trust anyone else as much as I trust Alex.”

  “One day you might need to put your own welfare ahead of that of your partner,” said Aramis quietly. “I have never thought siblings make good Asset partners. There is too much emotion involved. Others disagree, of course, which is why it is permitted. But watching your brother as he mixed the antidote…I don’t think he has the capacity to be selfish enough to leave you, and one day he might have to. Could you do it?”

  “Why are you suddenly acting like you care?” I asked. “You’ve been a total shit up until now. I’m pretty sure Alice Tanner would agree.”

  Aramis sighed. “There are things I cannot tell you right now, Charles. But you will learn soon enough. Now, tell me, what happened as you were waiting to travel in the Louvre?”

  “We didn’t see whatever happened,” I replied. “Alex and I had gone into the designated travel room at the Louvre. We took the radiation pill. And then we heard a scream as we concentrated on the vanishing point.”

  “So you didn’t actually see Grinch, or anyone else, for that matter?”

  “No. We saw a black shadow appear in the doorway, but we had already started the time loop conversion…and then we arrived in the bell tower.”

  “Could it have been Alice Tanner?”

  “I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, let alone who it was, Aramis.”

  “Grinch was my Asset contact on my first assignment,” said Aramis. “I had to keep the Marquis de Sade alive in an insane asylum for thirty-two years. Grinch has always been a stickler for the rules and putting The 48 first. She made me the Asset I am today. And you should be aware that she is known here in the Tudor court. She travels under the guise of Madame du Pont, a French noblewoman. She’s been in this era several times.”

  “Alice said it was Grinch who pulled her through the cosmic string, which makes me wonder if she even took a radiation pill. What is Grinch doing?”

  “Time will tell, Charles. But you definitely didn’t get a visual on the figure?”

  “No. My eyeballs were being stretched out of their sockets.”

  Aramis shrugged. “It is of little consequence. Grinch is forty-seven.”

  Aramis didn’t need to elaborate as to his thought process.

  “How old is Willem?” I asked.

  “You know how old Willem is,” replied Aramis. “Or you wouldn’t be asking.”

  “What happens to the younger partners of Assets once the old ones aren’t…around anymore?”

  “They go back to The 48,” said Aramis. “You know this, Charles.”

  I decided not to specifically mention Katie. I needed to get back to the assignment. Some desperate part of me wanted to show Aramis that I could concentrate, even after what had happened. And I hated myself for wanting to impress him after he’d threatened Alice’s life.

  “I heard Anne Boleyn earlier,” I said. “She was yelling at someone.”

  “Her time is almost up too,” said Aramis.

  “Alex and I end her, Aramis.”

  “You don’t end Anne, Charles,” replied Aramis. “But you will end Jane Seymour, one way or another. Now I suggest you rest. Tomorrow you will get reacquainted with the king.”

  I sank down onto the bed and closed my eyes. The pain had transferred from my stomach to my lower back. My poor kidneys were screaming in protest at the poison still filtering through my blood.

  “One day you’ll be asked to choose a way, Charles,” said Aramis. “Choose wisely, and without sentiment. Self-preservation is all that matters in the end.”

  I was heady with excitement as I climbed beneath the bedcovers. Lady Cecily had been awake when I returned to our quarters, but she turned her back to me and refused to talk.

  Not that I would have revealed anything of the time I’d spent out of bed. My hands were trembling. I placed them across my chest and felt my heart racing. I was alive, and the sons of Cleves were in my debt. Twice over, now, though they had no knowledge of what I’d witnessed the night they left.

  And now I’d saved one of them. I thought of the veiled threats of their father, the duke, and stifled a laugh. He would not tell anyone of my actions. I had saved a Cleves heir from poison. Someone wanted them gone from the court. Cromwell and Edward Seymour were the first names that came to mind. Had they heard something? Was the king perhaps intending to marry two maids of honor to the young men who looked so much like him? Seymour could not have thought Jane at risk for such a match. But these were unpredictable times.

  I moved my hand and tucked it under my breast. My heart had slowed.

  For the first time in recent memory, I felt no fear. Only clarity of purpose. My good fortune this night was a sign. True, a marital alliance with one of the Cleves brothers, and in a strange land, no less, was terrifying based on what I had seen them do.

  But my survival was all that mattered to me. My parents had other ambitions for their only daughter, yet my prize was clear.

  My survival.

  And self-preservation was all that truly mattered in the end. Whether my heart was broken or not was irrelevant. As long as it was still beating.

  A new day dawned. What a surprise—it was raining. How had the English not evolved to possess webbed feet?

  I washed and dressed and immediately went to check on Charlie in the next room. He was awake. His eyes were pink and rimmed with dark circles that looked like week-old bruises.

  They met mine when I leaned over him. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “I’m not sure I can lay claim to saving your life last night. If Lady Margaret hadn’t mentioned charcoal, I’d be burying you this morning.”

  “That Lady Margaret won’t cause trouble, will she?” asked my brother.

  “We’ll find out,” I replied. I was aware that I had dropped my Cleves façade in front of her, during the terror of what had happened. There was no point in telling Charlie this; he would only worry. And he had enough to deal with.

  I needed to lighten the mood.

  I had on a white shirt that looked remarkably similar to the one I had
worn yesterday, and a pair of dark brown pants that were too tight around my thighs. One good lunge and the court would be seeing more of me than was decent. At least Charlie wouldn’t have to worry. My legs were more muscular than my brother’s, so the same clothes would be a perfect fit for him. After struggling for what seemed like an eternity, I had also managed to put on a pair of black riding boots, and to complete the look, slung over a chair with casual elegance was a thick black cloak.

  I can do casual elegance, even while looking like a major dumb-ass, I thought.

  “Have you heard anything about Alice?” asked Charlie.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Which is good news. Now put these clothes on and try not to upstage me. Are you hungry?”

  “No,” groaned Charlie. “I’m never eating anything again.”

  “Tough,” I replied. “We’re in the Tudor court and we will feast and stuff our stomachs—”

  “Until we cannot move,” interrupted Charlie, recalling the instructions Aramis had given us before our first introduction to the king.

  * * *

  —

  With Charlie finally dressed and somewhat washed, we left the apartments. I hoped we wouldn’t see anyone important until Charlie had recovered a bit more, but we hadn’t gone more than a hundred meters when we walked straight into the queen. Anne’s skin was so white she looked like a marble statue cloaked in a burgundy dress. The dress was low-cut, but it wasn’t provocative. Her collarbones were extremely pronounced.

  Stress and fear were literally eating away at her.

  I bowed to the queen and her three ladies, all of whom were older. Charlie followed, but when he brought his head back up, he had gone so green I thought he was going to throw up there and then.

  Unfortunately for us, the queen wanted to talk.

  “The sons of Cleves have returned,” she said. “The court has missed you.”

  The coldness in her voice didn’t match the words.

  “And that sentiment is reciprocated,” I replied, hoping my brother wouldn’t faint. “We are very much looking forward to staying here now.”