The 48

by Donna Hosie

  And all the while I thought of my brother. A single player in the most dangerous court the English monarchy would ever know. Forced to navigate an assignment by himself.

  He needed me, and I needed him.

  Where was he? Why hadn’t he come for me?

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, I was awakened by screams. At first I thought they were mine, but I came to and realized they were coming from elsewhere in the house. The noise seemed to go on for hours: heavy boots on the floorboards. Shouts. Begging. More screams.

  But it was the pleading that was the worst. I tried to block the noise out, but it burrowed into my bones.

  And then, just as abruptly as it had started, it stopped.

  I didn’t want this anymore. I wanted out.

  Out of this house, out of this assignment, out of The 48 altogether.

  Alice was back. That meant I could make a plan to get the hell out of this mess. For good. Time was running out, but I was calm. I wouldn’t get a second chance. I started formulating a mental list of what we needed.

  Number one was obviously my brother—I wasn’t going anywhere without him. Number two was a place for me, Alex, and Alice to hide out until our forty-eight days were up. Number three was the painting of Cromwell by Hans Holbein, which would ensure that the three of us would return to the twenty-first century and the Louvre.

  And number four was securing Jane’s safety.

  * * *

  —

  All four priorities were achievable. I knew Alex was at Cromwell’s house in Stepney, and thanks to my snooping, I knew where the house was. Once I had my brother, I knew we would be able to find a safe house. Marlon could help with that. The painting by Holbein was in Cromwell’s lodgings in Greenwich Palace, and because the old fool was far vainer than his appearance indicated, it traveled everywhere with him. The painting was also the easiest requirement to keep an eye on, because it wasn’t as if anyone else in the palace court were going to take it. So unless Cromwell moved about, it would stay where it was.

  The biggest challenge was going to be trying to save Jane, and it was her fate that weighed heavily on my mind. I hadn’t been able to convince her in person to run away with us. I needed another way. My concern was exacerbated by another discussion I had with Henry, who had risen early on the first day of May to inspect his horses for more jousting and demanded that I accompany him to the stables after breakfast.

  “Tell me, Cleves,” said the king, running his fingers down the neck of a glossy chestnut horse. “What is Cromwell waiting for? I keep expecting to see the papers for the French woman’s arrest any day, but they are never forthcoming. I am getting impatient.”

  Anne wasn’t even called the queen anymore.

  “Cromwell is not a man to be rushed, Your Grace. Better a job done properly than quickly with the risk of failure.”

  “But it will be done soon?” inquired the king.

  Oh, yes, I thought. My job will be completed very soon. And I’ll be away from you and your madhouse court of murderers and schemers before you can arrest me.

  “Of that I am certain, Your Grace,” I replied diligently.

  “She is beautiful, is she not!” exclaimed the king, tugging on the lead of his horse.

  “A very impressive horse, Your Grace. She should win you many tournaments this summer.”

  “I wasn’t talking of the horse, man,” snapped the king. He slapped the horse’s back. It shuffled its hind legs nervously and then went back to eating from a hessian bag that was being held over its nose by a groom.

  “Forgive me, Your Grace. Whom did you mean?”

  “I know you have whispered about other ladies since you have been in my court, Cleves. Yet I am enamored of one alone. You cannot have failed to notice my words of love and adoration.”

  “You mean Lady Seymour?”

  Stay away from her, you murdering bastard, I thought.

  “I am moving her into even finer lodgings,” replied the king. “You were right in your opinion, Cleves. Jane is indeed queenly, and she will be mine.”

  “If that is what Lady Seymour desires, then I pray for your happiness,” I lied, my stomach gripping with pain.

  “Go back and tell Cromwell that,” said the king. “I have decided. Jane is mine.”

  But I knew that the words were not for Cromwell’s benefit. They were for mine.

  * * *

  —

  “You studied the horses with the king this morn,” said Cromwell. “How was his mood?”

  I was back in Cromwell’s dark and dingy chambers. Being in this room was suffocating.

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” I asked. “You’re his favorite person in all of Christendom. Why do you need me as your conduit?”

  “I am not avoiding anyone,” replied Cromwell. “I am choosing my moments to be in his presence. Choice of one’s own actions is the greatest freedom we have in this life.”

  Choices? Funny, I thought, coming from a man who controlled everyone like puppets.

  “The king’s mood was fine. He said he was moving Lady Seymour into better lodgings.”

  “So he has chosen?” said Cromwell quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “You do not approve?” asked Cromwell.

  “My approval counts for nothing.”

  “On that we can both agree.” Cromwell stood up and coughed. He stumbled as he reached for a white handkerchief. “I have been in this room for too long. Charles, we will leave within the hour.”

  “Leave for where?”

  “Stepney.”

  My stomach lurched with a sensation I had not felt in a long time. It was excitement and…hope.

  “Will I be permitted to see my brother?”

  “Of course.”

  Forget the Quickening. This was the best high in the world. Being apart from Alex had felt like something deep inside was stretching away from me and I had no way of reeling it back in. Just Cromwell’s words were enough to feel that pull again.

  And I was never going to let Alex out of my sight again. I would tie us together if I had to.

  “Thank you.”

  I had never said two small words with such sincerity before.

  Cromwell smiled with one side of his mouth.

  “You are still my man?”

  “I’ll do anything.”

  “Go and pack. You’ll need a change of clothes…and bring something to wear that you aren’t fond of. Clothing that can be…disposed of.”

  I wasn’t fond of anything I wore in this time. Alex and Alice and I were going to look like complete idiots once we traveled back to the Louvre in Tudor clothing, but we would cross that bridge when we came to it.

  * * *

  —

  I had an hour. I needed Alice. She was sitting on my bed when I got to my room. It was like the fates were finally aligning.

  “Cromwell is actually taking you to Alex?” she exclaimed. “But that’s wonderful.”

  “I know.” I was grinning like an idiot, I couldn’t help it.

  “And you’re serious about getting away?” asked Alice. “You aren’t going to get Alex and then change your mind and go all serious and culty on me?”

  “Culty isn’t a word, Alice.”

  “You know what I mean. Promise me that this is the beginning of the end of our time in The 48.”

  “It is,” I replied, throwing clothes into a chest that one of Cromwell’s men had brought up to my lodgings. “There will be a few more things still to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “I can’t leave the existing history to take its toll on Jane’s or Anne’s life.”

  “We’re not responsible for them.”

  “I am,” I replied. “If Jane marries that monster and has Prince Edward, sh
e’s going to die. I won’t let that happen. And I can’t allow Anne to be beheaded, either. She hasn’t done what she’s accused of.”

  “Anne is vile, Charlie. She’s responsible for as many executions as Henry is.”

  “I’m running away from The 48, Alice. And I’m leaving without having become an assassin. Do you understand how big a deal this is for me? I’ve been conditioned in death since I could remember.”

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Who—the queen?” I replied, knowing full well who Alice was referring to.

  Alice’s demeanor changed. Even though she was wearing a voluminous maid’s dress, I could see that her whole physicality had become stiff. She was putting up an invisible wall in front of her.

  “Alice, please don’t…”

  “Just get Alex and bring him back here,” said Alice, and her tone confirmed my thoughts. Warmth had been replaced by ice. “Then we can work out a plan to go into hiding before our countdowns reach zero.”

  “Alice…”

  “What?”

  I found I suddenly had no words, and Alice’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I’ve done more things I’ve regretted than I’m proud of, Charlie,” she said softly. “But I swear the worst thing I ever did was fall in love with you.”

  “Alice, please.” I tried to put my arm around her, but she pushed me away, hard.

  “Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me. Again.”

  “Alice—”

  “I’ll find you when you’re back from Stepney.” And then she was gone.

  * * *

  —

  My argument with Alice played over and over in my mind as Cromwell and I rode to his house. I was expecting the simple black carriage—a mode of transport only used by the nobility—to take us through built-up tenements and rickety wooden streets smelling of human waste, but the journey took us into the countryside. We passed a large church with a long nave and a white stone bell tower.

  “We won’t be alone at Great Place,” said Cromwell. “I expect discretion, Charles.”

  “Of course.”

  The carriage pulled up outside a country mansion. Pink-and-white blossoms covered scores of fruit trees, as far as the eye could see, and every time the wind blew, the blossoms would fall to the earth like confetti.

  A small, squat woman opened the door, and I followed Cromwell inside. It was dark and gloomy, the antithesis of the riot of color outside. A shiver rippled through my body.

  “Where’s Alexander?” I demanded.

  “Madelaine?” responded Cromwell.

  “This way, sir,” replied the woman. She couldn’t have been more than four and a half feet tall in her shoes, and I towered over her as she led me along a dimly lit wood-paneled corridor and up two small flights of steps that were uneven, with loose boards.

  The house smelled like wet dogs, and I could hear a repetitive thudding like something being continually dropped on the floorboards. As I reached the last stair, I pulled my knife from my boot.

  …I’m leaving without having become an assassin.

  The words I had said to Alice suddenly rang hollow.

  The woman pushed a door, which swung open with ease. And there he was. Alex was sitting in a chair; his chin was resting on his chest. A gray woolen blanket was wrapped around his shoulders.

  I tried to say his name, but the words got stuck in my throat. Instead, I flew across the room and slid on my knees, ending up by his legs. Alex flinched before he had even opened his eyes. Dark circles, like week-old bruises, surrounded his eyes like thick frames on a pair of spectacles.

  “If I’m dead, you weren’t the first person I expected to see in the afterlife,” he croaked.

  “You aren’t dead,” I whispered, taking his hands in mine. “You’re very much alive.”

  “Not for the want of people trying to kill me.”

  “I’m never leaving your side again.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but no offense, being with you twenty-four/seven for the rest of my life would be a horrible existence.”

  I made a shush noise and looked behind me to the squat woman, but she was either gone or listening on the other side of the door.

  “I’m going to get you back to Greenwich and Alice. And then—”

  But Alex was shaking his head. He was looking at someone over my shoulder.

  “You have seen your brother, as promised,” said Cromwell. He was standing by the door, his face bathed in darkness so that I couldn’t see his eyes. “Now you must come with me.”

  Alex was furiously pawing at me, trying to grip my arm, but he had little strength. His mouth was in a flat line, his lips pursed together.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, rising to my feet.

  “We have arrested Mark Smeaton for treason,” replied Cromwell. “And it will be your job to witness the confession.”

  I hardly recognized the fabric of my own existence anymore. One moment I was quiet and subservient, wearing the skin of the girl who didn’t want to be seen around a court that was heady with the stench of treachery and blood. The next I was conniving, doing all I could to halt a marriage the king himself had decreed for me, in order to secure a better future for myself abroad. And now I was acting the part of a proud, highborn daughter trying to do her duty as a maid of honor in this hope-forsaken place. Giving orders for nothing but the finest of furniture and fabrics for the queen’s apartments in the Tower. It was ridiculous. Everything was a sham.

  The Lieutenant had ordered one of the jailers—a rough-looking man built like a Shire horse—to escort me around the Tower. For mine own protection, the Lieutenant had stated. The jailer talked at me of Queen Anne.

  He talked at me of a future Queen Jane.

  And he also talked at me of Charles and Alexander of Cleves.

  He seemed to know them. Truly know them.

  If indeed they were men of Cleves at all.

  This man had a brutish nature. He spoke strangely of pain and death; almost fondly. He reveled in the screams and cries of those in the Tower. He called it his own personal symphony.

  The truth was, he scared me.

  But now, everything in this wretched world scared me.

  I stayed at Cromwell’s country house in Stepney for less than an hour. By nightfall I was in the Tower of London, some two miles to the east. Not under arrest physically, but certainly I was a hostage psychologically. My role was clear: to witness the torture of the court musician, Mark Smeaton, and the confession that would be inevitable under the circumstances.

  If I didn’t, then Alex would suffer.

  I now understood why Aramis had been so wary about Alex and me being paired as partners for this assignment. Just as I was starting to know my own mind, just as I was starting to break free, I had been brought back into the fold again. And it was the threat of something happening to my brother that was the spark. Aramis had even seen this coming.

  Grinch had killed Aramis, and she had me exactly where she wanted. Cromwell, too. Two different times were combining to steal from me the tiny amount of self I had found, because whether I wanted to or not, I was about to become a time assassin. People were going to die because of me and my failures.

  * * *

  —

  The rack was a fairly innocuous contraption on its own. It was a rectangular wooden frame with a thick roller at either end, and a number of pulleys and ropes were connected to the frame at both ends. By itself it looked like the frame of a bed.

  But tie the naked body of a terrified young man to it.

  Rotate the rollers in opposing directions.

  And then listen to the screams and the sucking sounds and the popping noises as ligaments are snapped and bones are dislocated.

  In seventeen years of experiencing death, I had never witnessed anything as barba
ric as the rack. I wanted to end Smeaton’s life, just to save him from what the jailers were doing to him.

  * * *

  —

  Mark Smeaton confessed to being the queen’s lover before the night was through. It was I who untied his broken body and carried him, as gently as I could, to a cell in the Tower. I wrote my witness statement, and another of Cromwell’s men took the news to the king’s chief minister. Jailers slammed his dislocated joints back into place while I held Mark, and I felt no shame in crying with him.

  As Mark sobbed, he told me he loved her. I didn’t ask who he was talking about. I wasn’t convinced he was really conscious, and I didn’t want him to say any more than he already had.

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t sleep that night as I sat by Mark’s side. I was too scared of what nightmares my subconscious would bring to me.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, May second, Anne Boleyn was arrested. I overheard yeomen mockingly avowing that she had collapsed screaming and wailing at Greenwich Palace. How would they know? They hadn’t witnessed it. The urge to take my anger out on other people was rising again. I ended up punching one of them so hard I knocked out three of his rotting teeth. The 48 had given me the skills for violence; the Tower had now given me a reputation for it.

  Anne Boleyn arrived at the Tower of London on a decorated barge that sailed up the River Thames. From one of the towers I watched her calm demeanor as she walked through the Court Gate instead of the Traitor’s Gate. There was no screaming or wailing—at least not while a single subject was witness. She was met by Lady Margaret and another young woman. Both were dressed in black and had white lace pinned to their hair.

  I swear Lady Margaret knew I was watching. She looked up, straight into the window where I stood. I didn’t move. Let her see me. I knew what she had done by adding my name to the list of alleged lovers of the queen. She wanted Alex; Cromwell wanted me as his man—body and soul.