by Barbara Kyle
Honor simmered at his insolence. She was provoked, too, by the smirk on the face of the gamekeeper’s wife who was leaning against the door jamb, watching. Honor stepped up to Thornleigh and pushed away the proffered bottle. “Save your bawdy offers for your strumpets,” she said. “I have other business with you. Where can we speak privately?”
“Oh, this is privacy enough,” he said with a laugh. Still holding the hot poker and the bottle, he stepped over the wolfhound bitch and flopped into a chair. He set the bottle on the floor. The dog continued to snore at his feet. He stretched his long legs across her back as if she were a footstool. “Don’t worry about them,” he said, jerking his head toward the gamblers. “They wouldn’t hear the crack of doom. Not unless it was followed by God in person, come to sit in on the game.” He scratched his lean belly absently as he chuckled. “The presence of the Lord might raise the stakes, though, eh?” He looked up at Honor. “Now. What can you possibly want of me?”
She stepped closer, unwilling to be overheard despite his assurances. He made no move to rise.
She crouched at his side. “I want your ship,” she said.
“Ha! You, and all my creditors.” He smoothed one bare foot along the dog’s fur, making her shiver in her sleep.
“Hear me, sir,” Honor said. “A man’s life is in peril. I must arrange his passage to Flanders. Immediately. Can you take him? Have you a ship near London?”
“‘Immediately!’” he mimicked her. “What,” he said, scratching his stubbled chin, “have I not time to shave and throw on a shirt?”
“Then you do have a ship nearby.”
“Snug and safe at anchor in the estuary. And I mean for her to remain so.”
“I am willing to pay. Handsomely. In gold.”
“You’d better be, mistress, for passage ‘immediately.’ The channel’s a cauldron of spring storms, fouler than an old maid jilted at the altar.” He studied her face with suspicion. “And who’s this mysterious cargo? Don’t tell me you’re still sneaking around, stirring the pot behind your kind mistress’s back?”
She stood, furious. “Look who talks of sneaking!” she snapped, tossing a glance at the gamekeeper’s wife. The woman stood braiding her hair in the bedchamber doorway.
“I had her with her husband’s blessing,” Thornleigh protested, amused. He craned his neck to look past Honor at the gamblers, and raised his voice. “Isn’t that right, Farquhar.”
Without looking up from his cards the gamekeeper stabbed the air with his finger obscenely. “Pox on you, Thornleigh!”
Thornleigh grinned and spread his arms to Honor in a gesture of triumph. “You see?”
“I see a drunken sot,” Honor flared. “A lousel not fit to entrust this mission to.”
The light of enjoyment died in Thornleigh’s eyes. He bent for the bottle and took a long pull from it, then wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “An accurate assessment, mistress,” he murmured to the bottle. His eyes flicked up to her, hard with scorn. “So find some other fool.”
He put down the bottle and turned his attention grimly back to the hot poker. He was holding the handle so that the glowing tip pointed directly between his eyes, and he glared at it, absorbed, shutting out the room. He seemed locked in a contest to stare it down, Honor thought, as if it were a living creature that was challenging him. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered it until it pointed at his breastbone. Both hands were grasping the handle, and the tip was poised inches from his skin. It was as if he intended to brand himself.
Honor watched, appalled. What was this perverse game he was playing? Was he daring himself to suffer pain? She recalled seeing the same steely challenge in his eyes that day at Greenwich when he had finally dropped all bravado and thudded his fist onto the block, ready to let his hand be severed. She remembered thinking then that he seemed somehow to be welcoming the punishment.
“There is no time to find help elsewhere,” she said fiercely. “The friar’s life rests in your hands.”
Thornleigh blinked. He looked up at her. “Friar?”
She knew she should not have said so much, but at least her declaration had broken his malevolent trance. “His name is Brother Frish,” she answered, hazarding all. “The Lord Chancellor is on his heels for heresy. He was convicted once before and escaped the Bishop of Lincoln’s prison. A second conviction will send him to the stake. Brother Frish does no man harm, but the Chancellor will burn him unless you carry him to safety.”
For a moment she thought she saw real interest glinting in the blue depths of his eyes.
“You’re risking a lot for a raving friar, my lady,” he said. But the interest quickly drowned, and mockery again washed shallowly in his eyes. “The Lord Chancellor, you say? The mighty Sir Thomas?” He whistled softly through his teeth. “You seem to make a habit of biting hands that feed you.”
Honor felt like slapping him. “If it’s money you need to stiffen your backbone, I’ve told you I will reward you well.”
“Let’s see it.”
“See what?”
“Your gold, woman,” he growled.
She was taken aback—by the request and by the bitterness that fueled it. “I haven’t brought it here,” she stammered. “I need time to—”
“A pity,” he cut in. “Good night.” It was a clear termination of the interview.
He again moved the poker tip toward his chest. He stared down at it as if mesmerized, slowly drawing it closer until it was only a finger’s breadth away. She knew he was going to sear himself.
It was exasperation that made her strike. She kicked the poker, knocking it sideways from his grasp. It clattered to the floor. With a yelp the dog sprang to its feet. The men at the table looked up.
Thornleigh sat stunned, mouth open, hands still uplifted as though the object he had been holding had inexplicably vanished. He gaped at Honor, his face as clear and wondering as a child’s.
With a jolt of energy concentrated in one fluid movement he rose and stood over her. He stared into her eyes with a naked intensity that could have been fury, or contempt, but which Honor somehow knew was nothing more than astonished curiosity. It charged his face, his body, his breathing.
She stared back at him, as unnerved by his sudden proximity as he had been by her action. He loomed over her, but she stood rigid, her curiosity equal to his.
She spoke first.
“Why do you seek to hurt yourself?”
“Why do you seek to risk yourself?”
She heard his breathing slowly becoming steady. As his chest heaved and settled, she was aware of firelight gleaming off his skin. She felt warm blood sting her cheeks. She dragged her eyes away from him, but it was only to catch the smirk of the gamekeeper’s wife at the bedchamber doorway. The woman winked at her as if in understanding that they appreciated at least one thing in common.
“Thornleigh!” one of the gamblers shouted.
Honor and Thornleigh turned. The gambler was pointing at them. “Behind you!”
Thornleigh looked behind his feet. Smoke was curling up from the floor. The fallen poker had set the floor rushes alight, and small teeth of flames were eating a widening circle across the stone.
Thornleigh swooped for the sack bottle, upended it, and sloshed the wine over the fire. Instantly, the flames died. The damp rushes at the edge of the blackened circle smoldered. The men at the table went back to their game.
Thornleigh picked up the poker and replaced it safely on the hearth, then turned to Honor. He folded his arms across his chest and studied her. Honor had the unnerving sensation that it was she who had now become his challenge.
“This is my proposal, mistress,” he said. “I’ll tell you my price. Then you tell me if this friar’s skin is worth saving after all.”
Her comment to Frish had been well founded. Thornleigh did want a king’s ransom.
Honor stood alone, hugging herself outside the doorway of the Blue Boar Inn near Botolph’s wharf. The fog around her glowed w
ith a sickly phosphorescence, made murky in patches by lights on London Bridge, though it was only three by the clock. No, more like four, she realized. It must be an hour she’d been waiting.
The tavern door opened and a customer ambled out. Honor turned her face away. The customer padded off homeward and was swallowed by the fog. His footfalls faded. All was silent again.
Her ears picked up a soft scuffling of feet, then a scraping along the stone wall of the alley. Then a cough. She stepped around the corner and peered into the gloom. A man’s face emerged. It was Frish.
Relief converted her tension into a steam of anger. “Where have you been?”
He shuffled up to her and she gasped at the sight. His face was as white and damp as raw pastry. His eyes were black smudges. His white-blond hair, ragged with bits of straw, was matted to his skull. His hand was bandaged with a strip torn from the hem of his tunic, the strip grimed with dried blood. A ripped sandal clung to one foot. The other foot was naked and bleeding.
He read the shock in her eyes. “London is a dangerous place for fugitives,” he murmured.
“Your foot…” she whispered.
He shrugged. “A contest with a dog over a bone. The dog won.” He slumped back against the wall, eyes closed, as if this slight effort at speech had sapped him.
“My God,” she said, “you haven’t rested since leaving Mrs. Sydenham’s, have you?”
“Who can rest and stay one step ahead of More’s men, and alive?” His eyes sprang open showing pinpoints of fear. “Why have you come?” he asked. “I said, send a message. Has the plan foundered? Has Thornleigh refused? Is it—”
“All’s well,” she quickly assured him. “I simply thought it was safer to see the thing through by myself. I’m my own messenger.”
“Then…it’s really arranged?” he whispered, trembling.
“Yes. Thornleigh’s ship, the Vixen, waits for you off Gravesend. You ride there now and sail for Bruges tomorrow with the tide. Take my horse. She’s tethered at the end of the alley. No, don’t worry, I’ll hire a barge to carry me back to Richmond.” She handed him a purse of coins. “Give Thornleigh this.”
The purse held only a quarter of the amount Thornleigh had demanded, but it was all she had been able to raise that morning by selling the jewelry she was wearing to a Cheapside goldsmith. She could only hope that the promissory note she had tucked inside the purse would satisfy Thornleigh until she could write to the stewards of her father’s estates for the balance. “Now, listen,” she said. “The instructions Thornleigh gave me are these. When you arrive at the wharf, the signal—” She saw him shiver. Her first thought was that it was from joy. Then she realized it was fever. “Brother, it’s at least a two hour ride. Can you make it?”
There was faint barking in the distance.
“I can,” he rasped, pushing himself from the wall in a show of resolve. “More’s bailiff and his dogs are not far behind. I must.” He swayed. The purse dropped from his fingers. Honor caught him under both arms and held him up. He weighed no more than a girl.
He pushed out of her embrace and bent to retrieve the purse. He stood up straight, but she saw the effort it required. Sweat was crawling down his cheeks. “I thank you, good lady, with all my heart,” he whispered. “And now, I’ll trouble you no more…but say farewell.” He tried to smile, but his fever-blurred eyes could not focus on her face.
Honor grabbed the purse from him. “No, Brother. You’ll not say it yet.”
She threw her arm around his waist. Half dragging him, she staggered down the alley to the waiting horse. She propped Frish against its flank, then braced her legs and bent with hands buckled together, like a knight’s groom, to lift him into the saddle.
Frish hesitated, ashamed.
“There’s no time for this,” she ordered. “Let me help you up!”
With a groan of humiliation he slipped his bloody foot into her cupped hands. She held herself stiff until he had struggled up onto the horse’s back. She mounted in front of him and jigged the reins. Too weak to protest, Frish could not prevent his forehead from slumping onto her back as they started down the street.
The fog lifted shortly after they passed London’s wall. “Small mercies,” Honor muttered as she strained to see signposts in the dusk.
They reached Gravesend harbor three hours later, in darkness.
By the time Honor had tethered the horse, helped Frish down, and hauled him to the wharf, she was chilled with sweat and her legs trembled with exhaustion. She sat Frish gently on a coiled heap of wet rope and looked around. The wharf appeared deserted. Another small mercy. She gazed at the black void of the river. Somewhere out there Thornleigh said the Vixen lay at anchor. “I must leave you for a moment, Brother,” she whispered.
She hurried into a nearby tavern and returned with a lantern. Panting, she sat beside Frish on the heap of rope and tried to calm herself with several deep breaths. Frish’s head slumped onto her shoulder. She threw a large handkerchief over the lantern, held it toward the water, and flapped the cloth up and down five times.
She peered out into the blackness for several minutes, then repeated the signal. Could Thornleigh see it? She sat watching, listening to the slap of water against the wharf and to Frish’s ragged breathing. A feeling of dread gathered around her heart. Was Thornleigh out there at all? Or did he lie drunk in some London brothel, a man not fit to pledge his word?
She signaled again. Again, no response.
Frish was shivering horribly. She took his head upon her breast and stroked the blotched face. He was babbling, falling into delirium. “Hold on, Brother,” she murmured. “Hold on.”
But hold on for what? she asked herself with rising panic. What was she to do next? The inn where she had borrowed the lantern was full, and even if she could find another inn they must go back to London eventually if Thornleigh had deserted them. Take Frish back to London now? He would never be able to sit the horse. Even if she tied him to her and they made it back through the pitch of night, where could they hide? A tavern? Holed up inside like rats? Waiting for More’s men and dogs to sniff them out?
A lantern burst of light. Dead ahead. Another, and another. Five of them!
“The signal, Brother! Thornleigh’s on his way!”
She grabbed his tunic collar and jerked him forward to get him to his feet. He was limp in her arms. Together they lurched down to the water steps and there Honor stood holding him upright, tottering with the strain, waiting. She heard oars lapping through the water, and relief flooded her when she saw a winking lantern light bobbing closer like some lost, drunken star. The pointed prow of a skiff broke through the gloom and the boat skimmed alongside the water steps.
The rower had his back to her. A scrawny man with gray hair sprouting below an oily red cap. Not Thornleigh. Honor’s heart thudded. It was a trap! Thornleigh had informed. This was an agent of More’s, come to arrest both Frish and her!
With a soft cry of panic she hauled the semiconscious Frish around and began to stumble with him back up the steps.
“Halt there!” the rower said.
Terrified, Honor staggered on.
“Mistress Larke!” the man called in a forced whisper.
She reached the top stair, gasping under Frish’s weight.
“Stop, mistress! I’m from the Vixen!”
Honor lurched to a halt, desperate to flee but utterly unable to carry her burden farther. “You’re not! You’re from Sir Thomas! How else could you know my name?”
The man stared up at her, confused. “Know your…? But Master said—”
“What master?”
“Master Thornleigh.”
“But he didn’t know I’d come!”
This appeared to baffle the man even more. He scratched his head, knocking his cap askew. “Master said he gave you his instructions, my lady. Who else would come but you?”
Honor let out a huge breath of relief. It was not a trap after all. This was Thornleigh’s man. Fe
ar, she realized, had blinded her. Though her original intention had been to send Frish here alone, only she had known that. Obviously, Thornleigh had assumed she would accompany Frish.
“Jinner’s the name,” the scrawny man said, setting down his lantern. “Samuel Jinner. At your service, m’lady.” He dragged off his oily cap, but he did not smile. Rather, his mouth drooped. His eyes drooped, too, and his nose, and his mustache. His very beard, a scraggly gray patch in the middle of his chin, drooped in two forlorn wings. But he stood in the skiff, bandy-legged but stalwart, with an arm outstretched for duty. Honor trusted him instantly.
“Master Jinner, you are well met,” she sighed, for the burden in her arms was too much to carry even one step more. “This is Brother Frish.”
Jinner flopped his cap back on. “I’ll take him aboard, my lady,” he muttered, shaking his head as he reached for Frish, “though he don’t look fit to me.” He laid the moaning man in the bow.
“He’s very ill,” she agreed, “but his fate will be far worse if he tarries longer in England. Please, tell your master to give him every care.”
“Don’t you fret,” Jinner assured her solemnly. “I’ve found that several leagues of sea water put between a man and the law does wondrous things for a man’s health.”
Honor smiled. She wiped sweat from her face and was aware of a light-headed exhilaration. She recognized the feeling. It was the same buoyant sense of well-being she had felt the night of the raid at Sydenham’s when she and Frish had crouched in the alley under the soft rain, so keenly alive after the danger—and free. I did it, she thought, exulting. I got Frish away from Sir Thomas. It worked!
Jinner hobbled toward his oars, then touched his cap to her. “I’ll be off, m’lady. A betting man wouldn’t lay down a farthing for my fate either if I tarry longer from the Vixen.”
“Is Thornleigh such a hard master?”
