by April White
Oh ick. Not. Going. There.
I forced my brain away from that train of thought. My self-protective instinct was throwing walls up around Elizabeth’s words so I didn’t have to see them or hear them or taste the bile that rose in my throat at the thought of them.
“Ye just had to do it, didn’t ye?”
I was pretty sure that guilt leaves a stain, and on me it felt like a sunburn. I looked up to find Ringo glaring at me with his arms crossed across his chest. When had he stopped being a nineteenth century street urchin, and who was the young man that stood in his place?
All the fight fled from my body and I slumped. “If you’re here to beat up on me, get in line.” I waved half-heartedly and then dropped my head into my hands.
“How’s that hair-shirt feeling? Itch yet?”
I looked up. He was still towering over me, but the glower had been replaced with something that looked a little like a smirk.
“Yeah, somehow I don’t think a hair shirt’s quite enough, do you?”
“It’s a start.”
I scoffed. “I’m screwing up, Ringo. I think I know what I’m doing, but instead I’m barreling around in the dark slamming into my friends and knocking them into cesspools.”
Ringo winced. “Is that what happens, then?”
I clenched my eyes shut and took a deep breath, then looked up at him. “You want to sit?”
He slid down next to me, shoulder to shoulder. We both stared at a painting on the opposite wall for a place to rest our eyes that wasn’t each other. I told him about Archer’s visions, including the privy dunk and Wilder’s sword-to-the-sternum trick to get Elizabeth to spill. And then I told him what Elizabeth said about how I treated Archer, and about blowing up at her and then running away.
We stared at the painting in silence for a long time. So long that I started analyzing paint swirls and brush techniques and trying to guess if it was a court artist or an apprentice who had painted the portrait of the lovely dark-haired woman holding a small child on her lap.
“Ye do a lot of running.”
“It’s how I stay alive.”
“Nah, it’s how them that’re on their own stay alive. Ye’ve got people now. Ye don’t have to run like that no more.”
Said the boy who’d been truly alone for most of his life. I looked at him for the first time since he sat down, and I knew he could see the fear swirling in my eyes. “But what if I forget how to run?”
“Can ye learn ‘ow not to?”
I searched his eyes and saw tenderness and humor and strength and fearlessness there. All the things I’d come to expect from this boy-man Ringo had become.
“Do you forgive me?”
His eyes narrowed. “Depends.”
“I won’t keep secrets from you again.”
“Good, but that wasn’t my condition.”
“Oh.”
“No, don’t take it back. There’s no secrets between friends, Saira. Can’t be if we’re going to make it through this business.”
“So what’s your condition?”
He took a deep breath. “I asked ye once to consider marrying me if ye didn’t go with his Lordship.”
I felt like a trapdoor released under me and my stomach had just fallen through the floor.
“Ringo …”
His gaze narrowed again as he held my eyes locked to his. “Ye’d be settling if ye did it.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise at his words.
“I won’t ever love ye like ‘e does. I know ye too well.”
I couldn’t help it, I started giggling when the tears began to stream. Both reactions made me feel totally ridiculous. “So I’m too scary, and you’re taking back your offer? Awesome.” The last word barely came out, choked as it was by the beginning of teary hysterics.
Ringo grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. He spoke softly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Saira, ye listen to me and ye listen well, ‘cause I’m only sayin’ this one time. I love ye, but I love ye like my sister. And because I love his Lordship as well, I’ll never play that ‘what if’ game that leads to so much heartbreak. I’ve seen how he looks at ye like the moon rises on yer skin, and how he holds his breath when ye pass by so he doesn’t reach out to pull you in just so he can smell the vanilla in yer hair. He loves ye with the whole of his past, present and future, and it’s a thing someone like me, with such a small life behind and in front of me, can never compete with. Nor do I want to. Because ye deserve a love like that. Ye’re a good person, Saira Elian, and ye should be loved like ye’re the last woman on earth and he’s the last man. Because I guarantee, fer him ye are.”
Breath shuddered in my chest, and the tears ran with full volume down my face. I had no voice left and the words came out in a raspy whisper. “What if I don’t love him enough, Ringo?”
His hand dropped away from my chin, and I felt the loss of contact like a cold chill over my skin. “Enough for what?”
“To let go.”
Ringo stood up and dusted himself off. My arms tightened around my legs reflexively and the lead ball in my stomach held me rooted in place.
“And is it so great, what ye’re holding onto?”
For once Ringo allowed his shoes to make a sound down the gallery as he walked away from me. It was the loneliest sound I’d ever heard.
The Plan
We were stuck in the pages’ annex during daylight hours, mostly because we had no business being in the Tower of London, but also because Archer and daylight didn’t mix. Sometime before nightfall Ringo popped in to bring us some food he managed to slip from the kitchens, but he was gone the next minute. I picked at a meat pie because I knew I should eat, but my appetite had pretty much flown out the window with my voice attached to its back.
Archer was still comatose in the far corner of the room. When I’d gotten back to the annex the night before, I couldn’t manage more than a couple of words to anyone, and though Archer’s eyes followed me wherever I went, I had trouble meeting them. Since I was such charming company I finally wrapped myself up in my cloak and pretended to sleep. Archer had settled in behind me just before the sun came up, and despite my best efforts to punish myself, I couldn’t help nestling into the cavity his body made.
The weight of the silence in the pages’ annex was crushing the breath out of me. Pancho had polished off his food and the remains of mine, and the sound of his chewing had nearly sent me at his throat.
“I’m going out.”
Pancho looked over at Archer’s sleeping form. “I’ll need a minute.” He burped loudly and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. I did my best to ignore him. He looked up, surprised I was heading for the door. “I said wait.”
“I don’t want you with me.”
Pancho stared, clearly at a loss for coherent thought. I did that to people, especially arrogant little entitled pricks.
“I need to find my brother.” God, the kid was whiny.
I shrugged. “Go find him, then.”
I needed to run, to lose myself in each move and get out of my head. I needed to be completely in the moment with no thought to spare for anything other than that. But the twelve-year-old looking out of Pancho’s eyes reminded me I wasn’t the only one who needed, and maybe doing something with a purpose would quiet the noise in my brain. I took a deep breath and leveled a gaze on him.
“Okay.” I looked away from Archer’s body so I could deny the guilt that crept up my spine. “I’ll go find your brother for you. But until I find him, you need to stay here and keep watch over Archer.”
Pancho’s pout reminded me he was just a kid. “He doesn’t need a minder, and in any case, I’m the one who knows the layout of this place.”
“Right. And there are people here who know you. Don’t end up in a cell here too, rotting away until someone remembers to feed you.”
He flushed. That one hit very close to home. “Where do you intend to look?”
I shrugged. “I’m starting wi
th Beauchamp Tower. They held a lot of political prisoners there.”
“You do that often.” Pancho watched me through narrowed eyes.
“What?”
“Speak as though it’s already past.”
I shrugged casually. “Habit.” And one I clearly needed to break. “Don’t let anyone but me or Ringo in, okay?” I swept toward the door, which was about the only thing big skirts and cloaks were useful for: the grand exit. “I’ll be back.” I almost did a Terminator voice and caught myself just in time. What the hell was wrong with me?
“When you find Thomas …”
“Tell him yourself, Pancho.” I managed to add compassion to my voice. I think he got it because he finally shut up and let me leave.
Breathing came a little easier once I was out of the pages’ annex. I hadn’t realized how trapped I felt in there. I made my way down the gallery toward the Great Hall. Hopefully it was early enough in the evening that Elizabeth and her entourage were still embroidering or reading or whatever it was they did sitting by windows in their rooms. The future queen was about the last person I wanted to see at that moment.
So of course I did.
I slid around the corner into the Great Hall and practically bumped into a Yeoman Warder. The look on his face echoed the shock on mine. I almost made it out of reach, but his grab was fast, faster than I expected, and my wrist was caught in his strong grip.
“There you are, Saira. Did you find the needlework I left by my bed?” Lady Elizabeth’s voice rang out clearly from across the Great Hall where she seemed to be doing laps with one of her ladies. Damn, she was good.
“No ma’am.” I used the Yeoman’s momentary distraction to yank my wrist out of his hand.
“Well, no matter. Come and walk with me. I do believe I’ve exhausted poor Courtney with my pace.”
I didn’t see a way out of this and crossed the hall to meet her. I towered over Courtney, who was practically Olivia’s pixie size, and Elizabeth smiled at her fondly. “Thank you for the company. I’ll meet you back in our rooms when Peterson is tired of allowing me my exercise.” Courtney shot me a quick glance from under her long eyelashes, then ran across the room past the guard and out the door.
The height similarity between us made walking with her easy, and Elizabeth seemed to add speed to her stride as we circled the room. I was surprised when she didn’t immediately speak because I was expecting some well-deserved harsh words. Finally, I was the one to break the silence.
“I’m sorry about last night. It wasn’t fair, what I said to you, and I apologize.”
Her expression was bland, but there was an edge to her tone. “Fascinating that you believe a mere apology can absolve you of the gravity of your transgressions. I find apologies are most often an insincere attempt to make oneself feel better.”
I hate it when people don’t accept apologies. It makes me snappish and defensive, and I fought to keep my voice even. “I’m sorry you’re surrounded by insincere people. When I need to take responsibility for doing something wrong, an apology is usually how I start.”
“Are you responsible for the sincerity of my people?”
I stared at her, uncomprehending.
“You apologized for them, so by your logic, you must feel the need to take responsibility.”
My jaw hurt from clenching my teeth against the frustration she inspired. I took a breath and composed my words carefully. “Lady Elizabeth, you called me in here, and I owed you an apology. If you don’t want to accept my apology, that’s fine, but I will not apologize for apologizing. That’s just stupid.”
“Of course it is.”
My eyes narrowed, and I could feel another blow-up building. “If you’re finished playing word games with me, I’m going to head out now. I am perfectly capable of making myself feel like crap. I really don’t need your help doing it too.”
A tiny smile played around her mouth. “I’m going to have to guess at the meanings of some of your words, but I do accept your apology.”
I stared at her. “I don’t know how to be around you. We’re almost the same age, but you’re practically the queen. And to be honest, you scare me a little.” The corners of her mouth lost their small smile, and I was suddenly anxious to put it back. “So, I’d like to apologize in advance for every stupid, filter-less thing I say or do. I really don’t mean to be offensive; I just seem to have a talent for it.”
Elizabeth studied me silently as we passed Peterson, who stared straight ahead but met my eyes in a direct gaze for a second as we went by. I shuddered involuntarily and then realized why. Peterson’s mouth had quirked up when he looked at me, and it was the sort of smile that I’d seen attached to predators’ faces when they spot their prey. I forced my attention back to Elizabeth.
“Is Peterson your usual guard?” I spoke under my breath and hoped we were far enough out of earshot.
She flinched very slightly, but her voice was calm and direct. “He’s been assigned to me since the day after I arrived.”
“Only in the daytime?”
“From dawn until sunset.”
“And then?”
“Then Alvin. But I won’t allow my people to wander about when Alvin is working. There’s something …” Her voice trailed off warily and I nodded.
“Predatory?”
“Yes.” The word was a hiss of something that sounded like fear, but then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Do you know that until I was three years old, I was the beloved daughter, cherished by my mother and treated by my father as a bright new plaything. And then my mother lost the boy she carried and my father …”
I thought about the beautiful brunette woman in the portrait gallery, holding the bright-haired baby on her lap. It was Anne Boleyn with Elizabeth, who was three years old when her mother was beheaded by order of her father.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “My father set us both aside to get his heir. His male heir. And I began to look over my shoulder a little bit more every day. Do you know how difficult it is to see forward and look back?”
She meant her Seer’s Sight, and she waited until she was sure I’d gotten that before continuing. “Just before you entered my visions I began to see my own future very clearly. It’s the first time I’ve known exactly what will come, and I must say, it has finally given me the peace I felt when I was a small child.” Her eyes wandered across the hall to Peterson, who was cleaning his nails with the tip of a dagger. “I’ve stopped looking over my shoulder now that I know exactly how I’ll die.”
I stared at her. “You’ve Seen that?”
A tiny smile danced on her lips. “You said you are sometimes afraid of me, and, to be perfectly frank, it is something I am proud of. I have cultivated that ability to inspire fear as a way to ensure people don’t take it upon themselves to steal up and plunge a dagger between my ribs. And yet, now that I know it will be a sword, not a dagger, that takes my life, I find I’m not so fond of fear, either inspiring it or feeling it. So I do wish you’d reconsider the advance apologies. I think I’ll find them quite unnecessary.”
We were circling around past Peterson again, and Elizabeth changed the subject with a speed that would have left me gasping if I hadn’t anticipated it. “The littlest boy, I believe he’s the son of the Lord Lieutenant, came to me in the garden today and brought the most beautiful posy of bachelor’s buttons. How could he know they are my favorite flower? Since I was a girl I’ve loved picking the bright blue wildflowers and would weave them into crowns for all my playmates. The boys would refuse to wear them of course, and Robin always teased that I looked like a wild thing in the woods with flowers woven into my hair.” Her smile turned sad at that memory, and her voice dropped again once we were out of earshot of Peterson.
“He’s here you know, Robin Dudley. His brothers and father thrust poor Jane onto the block just as surely as if they’d held the ax themselves.”
It was so strange to hear her talk about people I’d read about in hi
story books: her cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who had been executed by Queen Mary for basically being a pawn in the chess game for the crown; and Robert Dudley, who she’d known since childhood as ‘Robin,’ and who probably became her lover after she was queen. “Have you seen him?”
“Robin? Oh, no. I don’t even know where he’s being held. I haven’t seen him since we were young, though I do remember looking at him one day when I was about thirteen and thinking, ‘when did he get so handsome?’ Before then he’d always just been Robin, the boy who teased me about my hair.”
“My mom used to say that boys only tease girls they like.”
“Well, he was merciless, so he must have liked me very much.”
She was trying to be light, but I wasn’t going to let her slide on what she’d said before. “You don’t die here, by the way. There’s no sword in your future.”
Elizabeth’s clear green eyes were almost the same color as mine. In fact from a distance we probably looked pretty similar, especially if I ever wore my hair unbraided and loose like hers had been the night before. Her hair was more like copper and mine was a bit more golden, but we were close enough in height that our strides matched and neither one had to look down on the other.
“I will be beheaded here on Tower Green. Even now Bishop Gardiner is attempting to make my sister see the danger in letting me live. When Thomas Wyatt goes to his death, the head of the misguided snake will have been chopped, and the only one left for his supporters to see will be me. My sister will suddenly know fear, and with that my fate will be sealed.” Her composure was firmly locked into place on her face, and I could imagine the queen she would be.
“My history says you’re going to live to be the greatest monarch England ever has.”
A small flinch and a hairline crack appeared in her composure. “My fate is written, Miss Elian.”
“I’m Saira.”
She smiled, and we passed Peterson again in silence.
“One more turn, Milady.” His voice was coarse, and there was a sneer behind it that made me loathe him on principle.
As soon as we were out of earshot again she whispered to me, and I almost didn’t hear the question. “Are you a virgin, Saira?”
