The 48
Page 23
Anne was sitting on a dais with four ladies-in-waiting sewing at her feet, Lady Rochford among them. I took a quick inventory of the other people in the room. Alice wasn’t there.
Neither was Jane, or Lady Margaret.
“Make yourself useful before you start gathering dust. Perhaps you’d like to sing for me? And if so, what words would you have, Cleves? You and Smeaton together would make a pretty pair of cooing doves.” At that, the queen laughed. No one else did.
“I would be happy to read for you, Your Grace,” I said stiffly. “Or walk with you outside should you require a steadying hand.”
“And now we arrive at Charles’s real reason for entering my rooms,” said the queen, her voice high with nerves. “He wishes to read me words of love.”
“No,” I replied quickly.
The queen’s face darkened.
“You do not love me? All men love me. Why, don’t they, Weston?”
The queen’s attention turned to a young man who was wearing a navy-and-red doublet. As he spoke of his devotion, I swapped looks with Lady Rochford. Her husband, Anne’s brother, was on the list that Cromwell had given me. She wouldn’t care if he died; it was well known that she despised her husband.
What a wretched existence, I thought. To live with such hate in your heart.
* * *
—
I spent the rest of the afternoon as the queen’s object of ridicule. I sucked it up like a sponge. Cromwell wanted every conversation, every glance. He was going to get it.
* * *
—
That night I told him of everything and everyone I had seen and heard in Anne’s apartments. He seemed satisfied.
“Tomorrow is going to be a long day, Charles,” he said ominously when I hastened to the door. “Be ready.”
Madness had overtaken me.
I hadn’t meant Alexander of Cleves harm. I had simply wanted to see him—to hear him say he had agreed to marry me. That he was as happy with the news as I was. Cromwell had told me to consider it done. I needed to know that the union had been sought. That I would have a new, happier life abroad.
But Alexander of Cleves had not said my name when I’d slipped into his room. He had called for Lady Jane.
My thoughts raced. If Alexander loved another—Lady Jane or otherwise—it mattered not. Charles of Cleves was my insurance. Cromwell had his name. If Alexander knew that, ill thoughts of other unions would instantly flee his mind. It was cold, and calculating, but if that was what I had to be, so be it.
I gripped the bedpost. Would that I could simply disappear, as he and his brother had that night, so many weeks ago.
The question hit me like thunder.
Would Alexander do it again, if he were under duress? Would he take me with him?
I scarcely recalled reaching for the pillow. Or asking God’s forgiveness.
But I did recall the feeling of fear that fell upon me as he struggled, and struggled, that he was not going anywhere.
I was afraid to sleep. I knew someone had tried to smother me. Someone stronger and with more evil intent would have carried it all the way through.
Well, if they had come back to finish the job they had started on the way to Windsor, they had done a pretty poor job of it. I was still in Tudor England, in body, if not spirit.
I was finding there was something strangely empowering about surviving assassination attempts. It would have been interesting to discuss this with Charlie, but he had too much else running through his head. I didn’t even tell him about the suffocation attempt when he came back to the room, even when he mentioned the burst blood vessels in my eyes. He could hardly talk—he looked like death himself.
Charlie was hiding something from me. I was hiding something from him. We were twins. We both knew it.
But instead of talking with him, I downed several goblets of wine. Then I lost the battle to stay awake.
* * *
—
No nightmares, but I woke up feeling wretched, with a hangover from Hell. I had only wanted to numb the pain for a few hours.
Charlie had obviously done the same.
“You. Look. Terrible.” I was standing by the end of Charlie’s bed, hanging on to the post for dear life because I was still unable to put any weight on my cauterized leg.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” replied Charlie, wincing. “And I shouldn’t have had any of that wine.”
“I need to be out of bed because I should be at the opening joust,” I replied. “People are going to talk. And I think the wine was fermented through the open pores of plague victims. It’s the only explanation for how I feel.”
“People are not going to talk about you not being at the joust,” said Charlie, getting out of bed and taking my arm. We both lurched as I tried to turn around. I was going to either puke on him, or puke on my bandages.
My brother would have to take one for the team this time. I didn’t need vomit-soaked bandages.
“The only people who know you’re back here are me, Alice, Marlon, Thomas, and the doctors who have treated you,” said Charlie, wiping himself off. “No one will be gossiping because no one will know.”
He felt my forehead and smiled. “I think your fever’s broken. But you still need to rest.”
“You said there was another guard too, at one point. Didn’t you?”
“Yeah. An older yeoman called Bewsey,” replied Charlie, helping me back into the bed. “But he seemed decent. He won’t say anything. So promise me you won’t try to leave this room today.”
“You have that look on your face,” I said, turning my head to look at him.
“What look?”
“The one where I think you’re either constipated or planning to kill someone.”
“Might be both.”
“Concentrate on the assignment, Charlie. If you get hurt because you’re trying to get back at someone, we’re screwed. Lady Jane is all that matters.”
Charlie knelt down by my head and ran his fingers through my hair.
“This mop has grown twice as fast as mine in the weeks we’ve spent back in time. If you had a wet suit you’d be the perfect surfer.”
“Get me a board and watch me,” I murmured.
“Nothing will go wrong from now on,” he whispered. “And I’m going to get you back to the twenty-first century, I promise.”
But the only sound I heard in reply in the darkness was my own snore.
The first joust of the May Day holiday was important. I had bathed and dressed in a gold-and-cream dress for the occasion. Small pearls lined my French hood, and a single string of the same, a wooing gift from an earl several months earlier, pressed down on my throat. My head was pounding as if my heart had been placed there. Alternate mouthfuls of milk and honey-covered bread did nothing to settle my stomach, which had been churning since I’d fled Alexander of Cleves’s room the night before.
The ladies-in-waiting and maids of honor in the queen’s court waited for her to finish dressing. We would follow her procession. I took no joy in the knowledge that her fate was about to be sealed. I had enough humanity left in me to feel sorry for Queen Anne.
At the same time, I could not stop thinking about the Cleves brothers, whose lives I held in my hands. And the feeling of power that brought me.
At the earliest opportunity, I would speak with Cromwell to discover where things stood. One way or another, things were coming to an end.
The first joust of the May Day holiday was important. I had bathed and dressed in a gold-and-cream doublet for the occasion. I looked like an idiot, but I had to blend in and yet still stand out enough for the king to call on me. My wine-induced headache was still pounding away, but alternate mouthfuls of milk and honey-covered bread that servants kept circulating kept the puke down. It was what everyone here ate when they felt ill.
But yet again, as I walked down to the grand tents and stables erected for the tournament, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I shouldn’t be doing this. Jane’s life choices should be up to her, not some Termination Order Directorate from five hundred years in the future.
Thinking about choices. Daring to doubt what I had been told to do. Alice’s questions had been a bigger influence on me than I cared to admit.
* * *
—
I arrived at the large field; the king wasn’t there. That was good.
I wasn’t in the mood for his cantankerous yelling, with my sore head. I glanced around at the laughing faces—while trying to avoid eye contact with all of them—for people I recognized.
There was no Cromwell, but that wasn’t a surprise. I didn’t think for a moment he would actually be the one to deliver the list of names to the king. Assuming it went down according to the history I knew, the men—including Anne’s own brother—were going to be accused of having sexual relations with her. They would all be arrested with the queen. All would be found guilty. And if history wasn’t changed, all would be executed.
* * *
—
Anne Boleyn was already at the jousting field, sitting under a silver fabric canopy decorated with the letters A and H entwined. Her ladies-in-waiting were perched on chairs just below her dais. Lady Margaret was wearing a dress made from the same ridiculous gold fabric as my doublet. She looked different. She wasn’t trying to disappear into the crowd. Margaret wanted people to see her. Even the angle of her head was higher. Prouder.
She gave me a sideways glance; I swore I saw a smile play out on her pale lips. Was she mocking me?
I decided there and then that Hell would freeze over before I let her get near my brother.
Jane was to the queen’s left, and my chest tightened, just enough for me to catch my breath. She was wearing a caramel-colored gown with a simple string of pearls around her neck. Her hair was pulled back under a matching French hood, but the sun was beating down on her face, making her hair look more golden than red. I didn’t catch her eye, but I couldn’t avoid the gaze of her brother, Edward Seymour. He was standing next to the empty dais of the king, glaring at me. His face was even thinner and more pinched than normal. In fact, he didn’t look well at all.
Good. Maybe he’d caught something horrible that would result in gangrene or pus-filled boils.
I recognized Marlon Chancery and Thomas Ladman next, standing tall among the yeomen guard. Their being here meant that Alex was unguarded for the day, unless Alice was able to slip away from whatever duties she’d been assigned. I understood—even if I didn’t like the situation. The two yeomen’s obligations were to the king before the sons of Cleves, and Marlon had already risked so much to help Alex.
A dull ache formed in my chest as I thought of Marlon and my brother. I wished like hell that Marlon came from our time. He and my brother had no chance together here. They belonged in different worlds. Would they end up having the same depressing conversation Alice and I had had? Would they wonder if it had been friendship, lust, or something more?
Then again, even if Marlon did come from our time, it’s not like he and Alex would have any future together. He wasn’t raised within The 48. And even if he were, if anything beyond friendship or lust developed between them, the culture around The 48 would stop it eventually. Because that’s how things worked there.
The takeaway, I decided, was that love sucked. The 48 had the right idea there.
And then my eyes landed on Anne Boleyn, and my heart broke. She had been watching me, and when her stunning black eyes caught mine, she smiled. Not a toothy smile, but not a fake one, either. There was something innocent about it. Like she was just saying hello to a friend, and I knew she had very few of those.
The king arrived then, to a great trumpet fanfare and flanked by minions. He was wearing a golden brocade doublet and white stockings and shoes. Sweating already, he looked like a cooked goose. As the knights were introduced by their heralds, I began to make my way over to the king’s dais. By the time I reached him, the ground was thundering with hooves as the first two horses charged toward each other. I turned around in time to see the splintering of a lance against the silver armor of a knight who was falling through the air. The crowd cheered and booed in equal measure. The king roared with laughter, and I took my place near him and his other courtiers.
“Your first May Day joust, Cleves?” called the king. “They don’t have this in the Rhineland.”
“Indeed, Your Grace,” I replied with a short bow. “I have much been looking forward to it.”
“I would have liked to have seen you and your brother face each other,” said Henry. “What a sight that would have been.”
“Not as great as seeing you joust,” I said sycophantically. I edged a few steps closer to the king. “Will you be taking part this week, Your Grace?”
“I may yet,” replied Henry, glaring at an older man in black robes. “And I defy anyone to tell me I should not.”
The sun was beating down on my head. The hat I was wearing was much plainer than the hats of other men of the court—it had no feathers, for a start—but it was made of thick black fabric and was acting as the perfect heat conductor. I could feel the nausea rising in my stomach again. The queen and her ladies were all covered by shade, but on the gentlemen’s side, only the king was protected.
If I puked now in sight of Henry, it would be game over. My head would be on a spike at the Tower of London before the heaving had finished. I grabbed the back of a nearby chair.
“What’s wrong with you, Cleves?” demanded Henry.
“My apologies, Your Grace. I do not have your healthy constitution. I am afraid I ate something last eve that has disagreed with my gut.”
“Get the man some wine,” ordered the king to one of his squires. “And where are the next horses?”
“Not wine,” I whispered to the squire, grabbing his arm as he made to run off. “Water.”
I spent the next hour sipping tepid liquid that tasted like someone had washed their clothes in it. The king got louder and more obnoxious as the tournament progressed. A constant supply of food and wine meant he only moved once, and that was to take a piss. That act was completed behind his canopy, which displayed his silhouette for all to see.
The king never engaged the queen, even though they were only a few feet away from each other. Several times Anne attempted conversation, only to have her words dismissed with a contemptuous flick of the king’s hand. What also couldn’t be missed was the way Henry looked at Jane and, bizarrely, Lady Margaret. It was beyond gazing, it was leering. His mouth was set in a smirk and his eyes were narrowed and covetous.
* * *
—
And then it happened.
* * *
—
A young squire, whom I immediately recognized as one of Cromwell’s messenger boys, approached the dais. I held my breath as a piece of paper was passed to a courtier and then the king.
What was on that paper?
Was my name written there?
Every muscle I possessed was clenched. I could feel the sweat dripping down my back. Even my top lip was budding with perspiration. My stomach turned in on itself as I waited for my name to be called out as a traitor. I had a knife in my boot, but it wasn’t my own safety that was running through my head. It was the well-being of Alex and Alice.
The king read the parchment twice. No one seemed to notice he had even been approached. Cheers went up from the
crowd as another rider was unseated.
Only Anne seemed to be aware that something was happening. Her dark eyes flicked several times from the joust to the king. She shifted nervously in her seat. Then Lady Margaret glanced over. She kept her eyes lowered, but her chest was rising and falling rapidly.
Quietly, with no fanfare or fuss whatsoever, the king rose from his throne on the dais and stepped down.
* * *
—
And he walked away without a word.
Several courtiers ran after him. Others looked around in confusion. The queen asked where the king was going, but no one answered.
Because no one knew.
I decided to take my chance while everyone was distracted. Crossing the grass, I made my way toward Jane Seymour. In a moment of sentimental madness, I stopped to pick a few daisies along the way.
When I reached her, I dropped them in her lap. “Stay safe,” I said softly.
“My favorite. How did you know?” she whispered back.
We smiled at each other. And then I took off running after the king.
I would deny everything.
There was no proof, and if it was Lady Margaret’s voice against mine, I would shout the loudest.
* * *
—
I caught up with Henry just beyond the line of brightly colored tents that had been set up to house those jousting in the tournament. There were several courtiers with him, but no one was speaking. No one dared. Edward Seymour was there. For once he didn’t glare in my direction. He raised a wiry black eyebrow at me, as if to say What the hell is going on? I shrugged. My head was still attached to my neck for now, but I was utterly convinced that Cromwell had made his final move to end the marriage of Henry and Anne.