The 48

by Donna Hosie

  The king bounded up the short flight of steps into one of the entrances to Greenwich Palace. He took a left into a long corridor, a right, and another left. He knew exactly where he was going.

  We entered a large room with tall windows made from warped glass that went from waist height to the ceiling. There were several chairs lined up against the wood-paneled walls.

  And in the center of the room stood Thomas Cromwell. His long black hair was greasy and lank and his small beady eyes looked bloodshot.

  The king strode forward and hugged him.

  “You have saved me,” said the king. “You have saved us all.”

  “Do you wish to know the names?” asked Cromwell.

  “No,” replied the king at once. Bile rose in my throat. So I wasn’t safe yet. “Gather the council. I want it expedited.”

  He turned triumphantly to his courtiers, his hands spread wide in exultation. Edward Seymour was older than the rest of us by at least twenty years and he remained calm, but two of the younger courtiers standing on either side of me were fidgeting nervously. One was biting his nails; the other had sunk his nails so far into his thumbs I could see the crescent shape already forming.

  “Tennis, Cleves,” said the king. “To the courts.”

  Adrenaline seemed to be working wonders for the king. He was like a new man. The bad leg that had plagued him ever since I arrived wasn’t troubling him at all.

  “Your Majesty,” called Cromwell. “May I borrow Cleves’s ear, just for a moment?”

  “Have the whole of him if you wish,” replied the king, roaring with laughter.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I wanted to tell you that I was sorry,” replied Cromwell quietly.

  “So my name is going to be on the list you give the king?”

  A bubble of anger in my chest was rising and thickening. I could feel my head shaking with suppressed rage. I had done everything that had been asked of me, by everyone.

  And I was still going to die.

  “You’re not taking me,” I snarled, getting right into Cromwell’s face. “I will slit your throat before you say another word.”

  “Your position in the court is safe for now,” replied Cromwell.

  * * *

  —

  But it was the way he emphasized your that made my legs buckle. And I knew instantly what he meant.

  Alex!

  Cromwell shouldn’t smile, ever, I thought as he loomed over my bed. His teeth were like little yellow headstones.

  But it wasn’t that which turned my stomach. It was that when he smiled, his mouth opened.

  His breath was poisonous.

  He was a basilisk. Ready to strike with his eyes, his mouth, his entire toxic being.

  * * *

  —

  Cromwell had knocked on the door and allowed himself into the chamber without a response from me.

  “If you are looking for my brother,” I said feebly, trying to maintain the accent that had become second nature to me when the assignment first commenced, “he isn’t here. He’s gone to the joust.”

  “I am aware,” replied Cromwell, peering around the room. “It is you I have come to call upon, Alexander of Cleves.”

  “I’m afraid I am not entertaining company at this moment. Indeed, I am not capable of much at all.”

  “That is good to hear,” said Cromwell. He looked over his shoulder and beckoned in two hulking men who were dressed in stained brown pants and gray tunics.

  “Take him.”

  22 23:18:59

  The investigation into Anne Boleyn’s treasonous behavior was now official. It was April 26, 1536. She hadn’t been arrested—no one had—but the behavior of the king at the first day of the May joust had sent the entire court into an uproar. The wise ones were finding reasons to leave for their country homes.

  With the exception of the Seymour family, who were now so many in number it was as if they were breeding in front of my eyes. They knew their time was coming.

  Alex was gone. Taken to Cromwell’s home in Stepney.

  Alice had been dispatched to the Tower of London. Not as a prisoner, but to “make preparations for the queen.”

  Lady Margaret had gone to the Tower too, with several other maids of honor and ladies-in-waiting. Rumor was that she fainted when told. She wasn’t under suspicion, but the queen would still need attending to, even in prison, when she went.

  Jane Seymour remained at court. She was no longer referred to as an attendant to the queen and was now barred from seeing anyone without the presence of her brother.

  Grinch’s and Aramis’s whereabouts were unknown to me. And I strongly suspected no one else at The 48 was coming to help me.

  * * *

  —

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked Cromwell furiously.

  “Because I need you more than the king does,” replied Cromwell with utter indifference. He was writing more instructions, which I was to deliver around the court. I had become his carrier pigeon. Nothing more than vermin with broken wings.

  “If I do this, will you take me to my brother?”

  It was a question I now asked constantly, ever since I had run back to my lodgings to find my brother gone and a pile of bloodstained sheets left in his place.

  “In good time” was Cromwell’s standard response. “Take this to Rich. He will then have a job for you. Do it quickly and report back to me.”

  “I want to see my brother. If I report this to my father—”

  Cromwell held up his hand. He was not going to listen to that bluff again. I was powerless, and he knew it.

  Outside, I kicked a stone pillar until my toes throbbed with pain. Then I slammed my open palm again and again and again until shards of stone started to crumble away. I took no comfort in knowing that Cromwell would eventually meet his end on the block too, just like Anne Boleyn. I wanted him dead now.

  * * *

  —

  Richard Rich was possibly the only man in the court who was surrounded by more paper than Thomas Cromwell. As the king’s solicitor, his rooms were not as large as those of the chief minister, but they were filled with manuscripts and leather-bound books. The floor was covered in pieces of string and discarded quills. It was a mess.

  Rich opened the letter and read Cromwell’s words. A thin smile played out across his mouth. It was a smile of respect.

  “Do you know what is in this letter, Cleves?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “You see those ledgers over there?” Rich pointed with a long-nailed finger to a pile of large accountancy books. “Those are the bookkeeping ledgers for the queen’s expenses. The smaller green book on top is the one we have procured from Mark Smeaton.”

  “The queen’s musician?”

  “And more besides,” replied Rich with a sneer. “Go through them, match them up, and report back to Cromwell.”

  “Match what up?”

  “Gifts of money from one, with expenses paid in the other.”

  It was obvious what they were looking for in the ledgers: payment in kind from the queen.

  “And what if they don’t match up?” I asked.

  “They will—because you will make it so.”

  There was a finality to his words that made me realize that even if I didn’t find corresponding accounts, it wouldn’t matter. Cromwell made Wall Street financiers look like missionaries. But he had my brother, and his power over the queen’s situation meant he controlled Alice’s whereabouts too.

  The threat was clear. I had to find something to incriminate the queen.

  * * *

  —

  I pored over the ledgers until my eyes were seeing numbers and Tudor script in triplicate. Mark Smeaton was paid one hundred pounds a year from the king’s purse,
but he had also managed to purchase horses and expensive clothes that were way beyond his means. Someone was paying him extra, but I had found no evidence it was the queen.

  I wasn’t the only person in this poisonous court who was being set up.

  * * *

  —

  Rich eventually left the room as the sun set. My entire body had seized up and my ass was numb from sitting on it most of the afternoon and early evening, but the moment I heard his footsteps fade, I seized my chance. I went straight to his desk and started looking for an address.

  Cromwell’s house in Stepney.

  I had found a map of London on the large table where I was working. It was archaic, but I had been given a copy of this map in my dossier. I had memorized palace names and knew how to trace a route from Greenwich to Stepney. It was about five miles. I was fit. I could run it in half an hour; it would take even less on horseback.

  Cromwell was smart, though. He probably knew that I would eventually track down my brother. The chief manipulator would also know that I stood a good chance of getting to Alex before anyone realized I was missing. And so he had deployed another round in the arsenal of weapons I had inadvertently given him.

  Alice.

  By separating the three of us, Cromwell had ensured that if I made a choice to save one, it would immediately condemn the other.

  * * *

  —

  The candle in front of me was almost burned out. I pulled it from its waxy foundations and held it over the parchment I had been writing on. The corner took flame and the oily paper was quickly engulfed. The heat pressed against my face, making my eyes water. The orange flames threatened to burn my fingers. I knew it wasn’t normal to crave pain, but it was such a release. I just couldn’t cope anymore with making decisions about my life, and the lives of those I loved and cared about.

  I could burn down this whole palace, I thought. Every room was a mass of kindling just waiting to be ignited. I could start a fire in every corner, and the court would be so preoccupied with saving itself that I might have time to save Alex and Alice.

  “Put the flames out, Charles,” said a voice from the door. “Playing with fire will only get you burned.”

  Grinch was standing in front of the closed door. I hadn’t even heard it open.

  “What are you doing here?” I gasped. “I was starting to think you hadn’t happened.”

  “Your assignment is crumbling around you,” she replied. “I expected more.”

  “Cromwell has taken Alex to his house in Stepney. A…Aramis isn’t here. I don’t know if either is alive.”

  I had been about to say Alice, but there was a ringing in my head. I chose to take it as a warning sign. None of us knew why Grinch had dragged Alice back in time to an assignment that wasn’t hers, and Grinch hadn’t been prepared to offer up the reason when I last saw her.

  “Alexander is alive,” replied Grinch impassively. Her scarred face wasn’t moving. She wasn’t even blinking. “But you have disappointed me, Charles. Director Asix and I gave you an assignment instruction and you have deviated from that task. With your tunnel vision, you have placed valued Assets in mortal danger—”

  “That wasn’t me!” I cried. “Don’t you dare blame me for what’s happening to Alex right now.”

  “I am speaking of more than just Alexander. I, for one, am in a timeline where I should not be. You care too much. Love is weakness—you know this.”

  “Then why are you here, dammit?”

  Although what I really meant was, why was Alice here?

  “To remind you of your failings,” said Grinch. “I have been monitoring the timeline from the institute, and the timeline you were supposed to be writing has gone dark. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Gone dark? Yeah, I knew what that meant. Assignments were always based on either success or failure. Going dark meant failure. Ultimately, failure wasn’t an option, so other Assets would be sent back to correct the failing of original Assets who had reached the line of zeros without success.

  The latter were punished by The 48, and if they were newer Assets, and disposable…

  Was Grinch here to kill me because I was failing? Was Grinch here to assassinate—dispose of—me?

  I had often wondered how I would react when faced with my own mortality. And yet the fear I’d thought would consume me at the end wasn’t there, not really. Not for myself. It was Alex who was my main concern now. If I could protect him, get him safely back to the twenty-first century, then I would submit myself to whatever fate Grinch had in store for me.

  “I’m not here to dispose of you, Charles,” replied Grinch, as if reading my mind.

  “If you touch my brother—”

  “I’m not here to remove Alexander, either,” she added. “You asked earlier about Aramis. Well, I am now your Asset contact on this assignment.”

  “Why? What happened to him?”

  “Aramis is dead,” replied Grinch, as calmly as if she were telling me what the weather was doing. “What…how?”

  “Let’s just say it was his time.”

  Grinch was cold at the best of times, but there was a strange gleam in her eye as she spoke. Her jaundiced skin flushed, and the long scar flared as if illuminated as the blood rushed to her face.

  Grinch was happy that Aramis was dead.

  “So. What is your plan?” she asked, slowly limping across the room toward me. I started to back away. I didn’t trust her. Even hurt, she was still almost certainly lethal.

  “I’m going to get my brother.”

  “Wrong answer. What’s your plan, Charles?”

  “I’m going to get my brother,” I repeated, more forcefully.

  “Wrong answer.”

  “We can play this game all you want,” I snapped. “But you aren’t going to make me—”

  “Your assignment timeline has gone dark,” repeated Grinch. “Remember your training, Charles. There is no escape.”

  Grinch wasn’t just throwing words at me—that wasn’t her way. She was repeating a line from a section of The 48 Tenets.

  Do not fear death. But do not make death your friend. Death is your master and your servant. There is no escape. For it comes to all in the end.

  I didn’t want to die.

  “How can I get the assignment back on track?”

  “What have you done wrong?” asked Grinch. “Think hard, because in less than ten days this assignment will go critical.”

  “But I don’t know what to do,” I replied. “I can’t get Henry to consider other Protestant women. He wants Jane.”

  “You must think.”

  “What’s the Rewriting? I asked you about it when I first saw you back here. You went a strange…a strange color.”

  Grinch stopped limping toward me. Her cheeks pulled in slightly as her nostrils flared. I had embarrassed her.

  “Rewriting is the term used for deliberate sabotage during an assignment.”

  “But Alex and I aren’t sabotaging anything,” I replied.

  “The Assets on the official assignment are rarely the Rewriters,” Grinch responded. “The saboteurs may not have even shown themselves to you.”

  “People attacked Alex—in this time. They mentioned the Rewriting, and they wanted it to continue. Which means there are other Assets here. Was Aramis a saboteur?”

  “You have set things in motion that have to be undone,” said Grinch. “Loyal Assets are scared—it is not a state they are accustomed to. Your assignment was to ensure that Jane Seymour and Henry the Eighth do not become betrothed. I am now ordering you to kill her.”

  “I will not!”

  Grinch inhaled and didn’t seem to stop. She tipped her head back as her chest expanded like a balloon.

  “Love is a weakness, Charles.”

  “I know. I’ve
been told often enough.”

  “Do you?” snapped Grinch. “Then could you please explain to me why this important timeline in the Religion Eradication program has gone dark?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know why you’re not talking about our countdowns. We’re still in the flatline stage. We have time. I think you need to show more patience. You’ve called it dark too early.”

  “The reason we have called this assignment dark,” cried Grinch, “is because the target, and the Asset sent to remove her, care too much for each other. Now, what do you have to say to that, Charles Douglas?”

  I sobbed into the abyss of my own making.

  Yet there was no one to hear me.

  No one other than the maid who came with the brothers from Cleves.

  I had trusted Cromwell.

  I was a fool.

  Alexander of Cleves had been spirited away. And the look his brother gave me at the joust told me that he knew. He knew I’d betrayed him.

  I had betrayed him—risked his life in order to save myself. I had tried to manipulate his brother’s future by putting myself in it.

  Charles of Cleves could have been my ally, yet I had made of him an enemy more dangerous than Cromwell.

  For the king’s man dealt with matters of the head.

  I had wounded Charles’s heart.

  * * *

  —

  I screamed into the abyss.

  What had I done?

  The maid from Cleves came to me, but she had little time or empathy for a woman far higher in rank than she.

  “Are the queen’s rooms to your satisfaction?” she asked. “I have asked another lady-in-waiting, but all she can do is cry too.”

  “You will refer to me as milady,” I snapped, desperate to take my anger out on someone who by birthright deserved to be suffering more than I.

  The impudent creature just shrugged. “A yes or no will suffice,” she said. Then she bent down close to hiss in my ear. “You’re going to be sharing those rooms when the queen arrives. And if I find out you betrayed the brothers of Cleves, I will do everything I can to make sure you share the scaffold, too.”