They both knew Eric’s man from the docks hadn’t just been lucky. Someone had told him about the boys under Old Swan, told him Parker landed there to get home. The weapon might have been a desperate boy, but another hand had pointed him in Parker’s direction.
Peter Jack opened his mouth, closed it, cleared his throat. He looked down, twining his fingers together. “Kinnock.” The word came out strangled. At last he raised his head. “Kinnock’s been actin’ strange. I thought I seen him buy a pie the other day. A pie! He laughed and asked where’d he get the money for a pie. But I know I seen him.”
“So, money from somewhere. That does point to him. They think he’s useful where he is and didn’t want him to have to disappear, so they picked someone else at random to do the job. Or Kinnock told them to choose you, because you’re his competition. No matter—they know I’d hunt down whoever tried to hurt her, with the full backing of the King.”
At Parker’s mention of the King, a full-body shiver wracked Peter Jack’s thin frame. He said nothing, but Parker saw he finally realized the trouble he’d gotten himself into.
“When did he start acting strange?”
Peter Jack frowned. “Couple o’ days back. Well, stranger’n usual.”
“And the rest of the lads?”
Peter Jack pulled himself together. “They’re all right. They’d take me over Kinnock any day.”
“Well then, we’ll have to do something about Kinnock.” Parker tapped his lips with his fingers. “And you can tell the lads I have some work for them too.”
“What kind o’ work?” Peter Jack crossed his arms over his chest and hugged himself tight.
“The King thinks I’m too straight,” Parker replied. “But we’re about to see how crooked I can be.”
Parker was gone when Susanna woke the next morning and found Mistress Greene at work in the kitchen.
“Where are the lads?” She helped herself to the food Mistress Greene had left out for her.
“In the stables. It’s a mess in there. Luke wasn’t doing his work the last few days he was here, and then he walked off without so much as a by-your-leave.”
Susanna lowered her mug of warm cider and swallowed a mouthful of bread. “Why did he leave?”
“Lazy.” Mistress Greene punched into her dough, and kneaded it. “I expect someone to work if they’re earning good money for it. And I see they have a warm place to sleep and a full belly as well as their wages. This ain’t a bad place to lay your head.”
Susanna caught the edge of sadness in Mistress Greene’s tone. Bewilderment.
“It seems to me a lovely place to lay your head. I certainly slept well, and this bread and honey is delicious.”
“Aye?” The housekeeper appeared mollified. “Well, I do keep a good house. And we’re lucky to have the bread oven. Not many’s got one around here.”
“The journey last night was so dark and cold, I haven’t even seen the house properly.” Susanna stood and swept the crumbs she’d made on the table onto her plate. “I’d like a quick look before the weather worsens again.”
“You do that. ’Twill snow before the day is out, mark my words.”
Susanna fetched her cloak and stepped out into the yard, reluctantly closing off the heat of the kitchen behind her. The air was icy, stinging her cheeks, and she drew her cloak tighter. The clouds were tinged green, hanging low on the horizon. She felt hemmed in by them.
She made for the arch that led to the lane, wanting to get a better look at the street. She’d caught a glimpse of it from her bedroom window, and she was intrigued by the church at the top of the lane. She picked her way between the puddles and slush on the gravel-covered earth, grateful for her thick clogs.
Before stepping into the street, she turned to look back at Parker’s house. It was an old two-story gray stone building with a thatch roof. Solid. Imposing. Her new home for a while.
For just a moment, she thought with longing of her home in Ghent: tall, elegant, with its beautiful murals decorating the exterior—some of her father’s best work.
She had exiled herself from that. Or been exiled.
Her parents thought she’d given everything up for lust. But she hadn’t. She’d gambled her father would allow her the same freedom he did Lucas. Afford her the same respect. But she had lost.
Her chances of marriage were slim if she continued as an artist, and she had no plans to become a nun. She thought of Joost, and shivered. But her father had not placed her … explorations with Joost in the same category as Lucas’s affairs. Instead, he’d shipped her off to England, throwing her to the wolves.
But that wasn’t fair. None of this madness in England was her father’s fault.
With a sigh, Susanna turned toward the street. The cold was making her feet ache, and she needed to move. She stepped through the arch and turned, colliding with a man lurking just outside against the wall.
He was big in a rawboned, gangly way, his arms and legs too long for his body, his hands huge. He grunted as Susanna hit him, but kept his footing.
A cry of surprise caught in her throat. The man had a wildeyed, unpredictable look, like a wounded animal, and she took an instinctive step back.
His cap had long sides to cover his ears and he wore gray homespun cloth, his shoes just leather soles wrapped in cloth. He lurched forward, something desperate in the movement, and Susanna turned and began to run across the yard.
His hand reached out, caught hold of her cloak, and yanked her back.
She went down with a scream, landing on her back in the wet mud of the courtyard, the wind knocked out of her. She lay gasping for breath as he loomed over her, blocking out the sky.
“Get back!” Peter Jack called out, his voice deeper somehow, fierce. “Get back from her.”
The man started, shuffled back a little, and Susanna saw Peter Jack and Eric standing at the barn door. Peter Jack had a pitchfork in his hands, and Eric wielded an axe that was half his height. They would barely reach her attacker’s midriff.
“Oi!” Mistress Greene burst from the back door, wielding a rolling pin in one hand and a saucepan in the other.
The man crouched at Susanna’s head, his breath coming faster, his eyes flicking between the boys and Mistress Greene. There was a knife in his hand. Susanna saw its dull glint as he lowered it to her throat.
“No!” Peter Jack charged, pitchfork raised, at the same moment Susanna rolled away.
The man jerked the knife sideways, catching the cord of her cloak. He cursed in panic when the blade wouldn’t come free, and in desperation, yanked it hard, cutting the cord and nicking Susanna under her chin.
Somehow the cloak was tangled around his arm, and with a tug he pulled it out from under her and was up and running. Susanna rolled to her stomach in time to see him disappear around the corner, her cloak clutched tightly in one hand, his knife held high in the other.
She pushed herself up on her knees, wincing.
“That was fast work,” Peter Jack said, holding out a hand to help her up.
“Fast work?”
“I didn’t finish ye off last night, so they sent someone round next day to do it.”
“What on earth?” Mistress Greene arrived in her rolled-up sleeves and her apron, flour on her cheek. “What was that about?”
“Got a price on her ’ead, this one,” Eric told her, jerking his head toward Susanna.
“Go on.” Mistress Greene looked at each of them, and Susanna saw her mouth close with a snap as she realized they were serious. She looked out into the lane. “Well, we saw him off, didn’t we?”
“Course we did. What with bein’ armed to the teeth ’n’ all,” Eric said, looking at her saucepan and rolling pin as he leaned on his axe handle.
It set them all off laughing. Susanna felt tears on her cheeks. She clutched her stomach, felt the ache of her back where she’d fallen. Saw the blood drip from her chin to mingle with the dirty water she was standing in.
That was how
Parker found them, howling with laughter, near hysteria, standing without coats or cloaks in the middle of his yard.
8
The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier: Not to renn, wrastle, leape, nor cast the stone or barr with men of the Countrey, except he be sure to gete the victorie.
Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman: To be esteamed no lesse chast, wise and courteous, then pleasant, feat conceited and sober.
Susanna and Parker stood before the Boar’s Head public house. It looked warm and inviting, especially now the snow had started. Thick, fat flakes drifted down, each feather-light touch to her cheeks and neck an icy kiss as they melted on her skin.
“The vestry business of St. Michael’s is conducted in a tavern?” she asked Parker dubiously.
He slanted her a look, still barely controlling his anger at the latest attempt on her life. She suspected he blamed it on her. “St. Michael’s is the livery church of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers. The company prefers meeting here with the parish priests. It’s warmer than the vestry and there is more space.”
He looked up and down Crooked Lane and, satisfied the street was clear of assassins for the time being, opened the heavy wooden door of the tavern.
Susanna stepped forward, but he shook his head. “They could have someone planted in the Boar’s Head, for all I know.” There was an edge to his voice, sharp as a stiletto.
If there was someone biding his time on the other side of the door, waiting to kill her, she felt sorry for him. Parker would show no mercy, parish priests as an audience or no. The veneer of civility, the fine outer layer of the courtier, had been worn down. Worn through. The real Parker lurked just below the surface.
She shivered, and this time it wasn’t because of the snow.
She noticed a flick of his right hand, and saw his blade drop into his palm before he stepped inside.
He held the door for her, but his eyes swept the room.
“Master Parker!”
The priest who hailed him was sitting at a long table with eight or nine other men. All had tankards of ale and bread and cheese before them. A large wooden bowl of apples had been pushed to one side, their red-green skins like gems against the black clerical robes. A fire roared in a massive fireplace behind them.
Susanna sighed. This was a scene she did not need to subvert. Priests sitting easily with a group of plumbers in a pub—it was perfect.
“Father Haden.” Parker made his way to the priest, his hand firmly on Susanna’s arm.
She smiled at them all, holding the painting as it would be firmly in her mind.
“Who is this lovely lady with you, Parker?” Another priest, his light blue eyes glinting in the glow of the fire, stood and bowed to her. The other men followed his lead with a scrape of chairs.
“We don’t see him for weeks on end, and then he appears with a beauty on his arm. Ho-ho, Parker, you are a dark one.” The man who spoke was no priest. Susanna could tell by his clothes and his hands, which had seen enough hard labor to scar and mark them. She placed him in the painting, leaning on his elbows, his head thrown back in a laugh, his hands resting easily on either side of his mug.
“Gentlemen.” Parker bowed, showing no reaction to the lighthearted teasing. “Father Haden, if we may have a private word?”
A look passed among the men, and they sat again, watching Parker carefully, their faces alight with curiosity about Susanna.
Father Haden rose slowly under the weight of his old bones, and Parker drew him aside. “I would present Mistress Susanna Horenbout, Father. She is the King’s painter, newly come from Ghent.”
“Horenbout?” Father Haden cast her a swift glance. His body was bent with age, but his energy was undiminished. A lively fire burned in his dark brown eyes, and his white hair, though clipped into submission, looked as though it had a life of its own. “I have heard of Horenbout. Gerard Horenbout painted the portraits of the King for the glass windows at St. Nicholas in Calais.”
“You have seen them, sir?” Susanna asked him.
“Aye. I made a small journey some years ago.”
“Gerard Horenbout is my father.”
“Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, mistress.”
Parker’s mouth was a hard line. He was clearly impatient to get on, to take action. And he could take no action unless she was safe.
“There is something afoot at court, Father.” Parker’s voice dropped so low, both Susanna and the priest had to lean forward to hear him. “Mistress Horenbout has been caught up in it, and the King has set me the task of ensuring her safety.”
Father Haden kept silent, waiting for Parker to explain.
“An attack was made on her in my own courtyard not two hours past, and I have a suspicion who it may have been. But I cannot leave her alone again, and I ask if she can be part of your company in the tavern this afternoon.”
“We are not trained soldiers, Parker.”
Parker shrugged. “There are ten of you. And some of the plumbers are able enough. Master Selby alone would give an attacker pause.”
“Surely you have the full guard of the King at your disposal?”
“Aye. And not a one could I trust in this matter.”
Father Haden looked grave. “That is the way of it, then?” He watched Parker’s face, then gave a decisive nod. “Of course Mistress Horenbout is welcome to sit with us.”
“Father.” Susanna placed a hand on the old priest’s arm. “Would it be rude of me to paint you instead? You make such a wonderful scene, all sitting at the table.”
Father Haden laughed. “Well now, I never would have said we were pretty as a picture. But if that is what you want.”
She nodded, her hand already inside her bag, touching the small oak panel within. She had not known what to expect in England on her arrival, had not known if the King would require immediate work, so she had a panel already primed and plenty of ground pigment for her paints.
“I can see the light of inspiration in your eyes, Mistress Horenbout. And I am not one to stand in its way. Let me introduce you to the others, and then you can begin painting some old men at rest.”
As he took her arm, Parker reached out and held her shoulder. “Do not leave the tavern. For any reason. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Take care.” Susanna touched his hand with a light brush of her fingertips, and blinked at the spark she felt. She saw something flare deep in Parker’s eyes, then deepen even more when he noticed her reaction.
Parker took a step back, and her hand fell to her side. “It is not I who needs to be on guard today,” he answered, his voice rough. He sketched a salute to the priest, then dipped a quick bow to the rest of the table.
As he walked toward the door, Susanna noticed the blade had never left his hand.
The docks. It kept leading back to the docks. His old haunting ground.
Parker counted the connections as he dodged a cart piled with fish, the cartman swearing as he strained to push it over the potholes in the cobbled street. First Harvey, a merchant and spy who’d gleaned most of his secrets in harbor taverns. Then Eric’s man, the mysterious dockhand. And now Gripper.
Halfway through Susanna’s description of the attack, Parker had known it was Gripper. It had to be.
The worm would expect Parker to come after him, and would be hiding in the darkest sewer he could find.
And Parker knew just where that sewer was. He’d hidden there himself a time or two. Before fate had intervened and taken him from pauper to gentleman. One of the King’s new men, as Norfolk contemptuously called them. No pedigree but their own efficiency and intelligence.
Parker thought there could be no higher compliment—not that Norfolk had the wit to realize it.
“Master Parker. Roughin’ it, are ye? Miss the stews?”
Parker stopped short and turned to the figure huddled against a wooden warehouse wall. She was wrapped in so many rag layers, she resembled a hessian
sack. “Mistress Goodnight.” Parker bowed, and heard the old crone cackle with delight. “I would hardly call the docks the stews.”
“Then ye’d be blind.” She shuffled away from the wall and hunched as the wind tugged at her wrappings. “Lookin’ for Gripper?”
Parker hid his reaction, but he couldn’t fool her. There was a gleam of triumph in Gladys Goodnight’s eyes.
“Naught c’n get a fright into that lump like you, Master Parker. And he ran like the six divils of hell were after him when he came past.”
Parker nodded slowly in understanding. “Clutching a cloak in his hand?”
“Ye always was a quick ’un, Parker. Aye, winter is that bitter and I’m not for much longer lest something changes. Like I gets me a new cloak.”
Parker slipped a hand into his money pouch and brought out a sovereign.
Gladys squawked like a chicken. “Just the cloak’ll do it.”
“The cloak and this, Mistress Goodnight. My business with Gripper is … urgent.”
“Eh?” For the first time, Gladys looked worried. “You ain’t going to really kill ’im, is yer?”
Parker shrugged. He wouldn’t lie. Killing Gripper would be more satisfying than a shipload of new crossbows.
“Thing is …” Gladys shuffled on the spot. “I can’t be party to killin’ one o’ their own, Parker. They’d be stickin’ the knife in me ’fore your back is turned.”
“They?”
“Strange sorts around the docks these days. ’Tain’t wise to provoke ’em.” Gladys sniffed, then wiped her nose on a filthy sleeve. “Ruthless, they are.”
“And Gripper is in league with them?” The freezing wind seemed to claw into his bones, but he waited patiently.
Gladys laughed. “You always spoke fancy, even when you spent yer afternoons here as a lad, but now you’re right royalty. Gripper’s in league wif ’em, all right. In league.” She sniggered.
“So where is he?”
In a Treacherous Court Page 5
