‘You do not dance, fair lady?’ he asked, his voice hoarse and muffled.
‘Nay,’ Rosamund answered firmly, trying to shake away shivers of sudden fear. She had had enough of dancing with strange masked men. ‘Not tonight.’
‘Such a great loss. But then, surely there are other, finer pleasures to be had on such a night as this? Perhaps you would care to see the moon in the garden…’
Rosamund finally saw a gap in the crowd and broke through it, just as the importunate man reached for her hand. His laughter followed her.
The dance floor was even more crowded now, the couples twirling and leaping in a wild Italian passamiente. Despite the cold night outside, the room was hot, close packed, filled with smoke from the vast fireplace and the torches, and the heavy scent of expensive perfumes and fine fabrics packed in lavender. All the voices and the music blended in one loud, shrill madrigal set off by the drumbeat of dancing feet.
Rosamund suddenly could not breathe. Her chest felt tight in her closely laced bodice, and the red-and-black hangings seemed to be closing inward. Surely they would fall, enveloping them all in their suffocating folds.
Her stomach felt queasy with the wine and sweets, the heat. The sadness amidst the revelry was too overwhelming. She wanted to leave, to curl up somewhere and be alone. But as she turned away her path was blocked.
‘Lady Rosamund?’ the man said.
Rosamund was startled; for an instant she saw the man wore a black cloak, and she stiffened. But then she noticed that this man’s cloak was plain, not embroidered with stars, and that it could be none but Lord Burghley. His only nod to a disguise was a small black mask and a knot of ribbons on his walking stick. Over his arm he held the Queen’s fine white fur-cloak.
Rosamund smiled at him. ‘La, my lord, but you are not meant to recognise me! Is that not the point of a masquerade?’
He smiled back. ‘You must forgive me, then. Your disguise is most complete, and indeed I should never have known you. I am no good at masquerades at all. But Her Grace described your attire to me when she sent me to find you.’
‘She knows my costume?’
‘Oh, Lady Rosamund, but she knows everything!’
Not quite everything, she hoped. ‘That she does, thanks to you. Does she need me for an errand?’
‘She asks if you will be so kind as to fetch some documents to her. They are most urgent, and I fear she failed to sign them earlier as she meant to. They are in her bedchamber, on the table by the window. She said you would know where to find them.’
‘Of course, Lord Burghley, I shall go at once,’ Rosamund answered, glad of the distraction, the chance to leave the ball.
‘She also sent this,’ he said, holding out the fur cloak. ‘She feared the corridors would be chilled after the heat of the dance.’
‘That is most kind of Her Grace,’ Rosamund said, letting him slide the soft fur over her shoulders. ‘I will return directly.’
‘Thank you, Lady Rosamund. She waits in the small library just through that door.’
As Burghley left her, she glanced around for Anne, finding her arguing with Lord Langley, who was clad in huntsman’s garb. She hurried over to her, tugging on her black-velvet sleeve.
‘Anne,’ she whispered. ‘I must run on a quick errand for the Queen.’
‘Of course,’ Anne said. ‘Shall I come with you?’
Rosamund glanced at Lord Langley. ‘Nay, you seem—occupied. I won’t be gone long, the papers I’m to fetch are in Her Grace’s bedchamber.’
She hurried out of the hall, drawing the Queen’s cloak close around her. The corridors were indeed chilly, with no fires and only a few torches to light the way. They were silent, too, echoing with solitude after the great cacophony of the hall. Outside the windows, the frosty wind rushed by, sounding like ghostly whispers and moans.
Rosamund shivered, rushing even faster up the privy stairs and through the Privy and Presence Chambers. Those spaces, usually so crowded with attention-seekers, were empty except for shifting shadows. She found she wanted only to be gone from there.
In the bedchamber, candles were already lit, anticipating the Queen’s return. The bedclothes were folded back, and a fire had been lit in the grate.
Rosamund eased back the fur hood, searching quickly through the documents on the table by the window. The only papers not locked away in the chests were piled up, waiting for the Queen’s signature and seal.
‘These must be them,’ she muttered, catching them up. As she folded them, she could not help noticing Lord Darnley’s name. A travel pass, for him to proceed to Edinburgh? But why would Queen Elizabeth suddenly give in to Lady Lennox’s petitions, giving up pressing Lord Leicester’s suit on Queen Mary?
Rosamund glanced up, meeting the painted dark eyes of Anne Boleyn. The Queen’s mother seemed to laugh knowingly. For love, of course, she seemed to say. She could no more part with him than you could your Anton.
Yet sometimes life held other plans for people. The Queen, and her mother, knew that well. And Rosamund knew it now, too.
She hastily stuffed the folded papers into her sleeve, raising the hood as she dashed out of the silent chamber. She had suddenly had quite enough of ghosts. She wanted, needed, to see Anton again.
As she turned the corner out of the Presence Chamber, an arm suddenly curled out of the darkness, wrapping around her waist and jerking her off her feet. A gloved hand clapped hard over her mouth.
Rosamund twisted about, panic rising up inside her like an engulfing wave. She tasted the metallic tang of it in her mouth, thick and suffocating.
She twisted again, screaming silently, but it was as if she was bound in iron chains.
‘Well, this is a lucky chance,’ her captor whispered hoarsely. A black, hazy cloud obscured her vision, even her thoughts, and she could see nothing. ‘Most obliging of the lady to come to us. I hope we did not interrupt an important assignation?’
‘And no guards or anything,’ another man said gloatingly. ‘It must be Providence, aiding us in our cause.’
Rosamund managed to part her lips, biting down hard on her captor’s palm so hard she tore away a piece of leather glove. She tasted the tang of blood.
‘Z’wounds!’ the man growled. ‘She is a wild vixen.’
‘I’d expect no less. Here, hold her down so we can bind her. There’s no time to waste.’
The two men bore her down to the floor, Rosamund kicking and flailing. The heavy cloak and her velvet gown weighed her down, wrapping around her limbs, but she managed to kick one of the villains squarely on the chest as he tried to tie her feet.
‘That is enough of that,’ he cried, and she saw a fist descending towards her head.
Then there was a sharp, terrible pain—and nothing at all but darkness.
Anton glanced around the bacchanal of Queen Elizabeth’s masquerade without much interest. The bright swirl of rich costumes and wine-soaked laughter could hold no appeal for him right now. Since he’d parted with Rosamund last night, it was as if the world had turned to shades of grey and drab brown. All colour and light was gone.
He had vowed to focus only on his work now, had told himself that in staying away from her he was keeping her safe. Letting her go on with her life. But whenever he glimpsed her from a distance it was as if the sun emerged again, if only for a fleeting moment.
Had he been wrong, then? Doubt was not a sensation he was familiar with, and yet it plagued him now. In trying to do the right thing, had he irrevocably wounded them both?
He studied each passing face, each lady’s smile, but he saw no one who looked like Rosamund. The ball had started long ago; surely she should be there? After all that had happened…
Across the room, he saw Langley and a black-wigged lady in dark velvet. Most likely, Anne Percy, who was Rosamund’s friend. Surely Anne would know where she was? He made his way through the crowd towards them, needing to know she was at least somewhere safe.
‘Have you seen Lady Ro
samund?’ Anton asked Anne Percy.
‘Aye, the Queen sent her on an errand,’ Anne answered, giving him a searching, suspicious glance. ‘I have not seen her since, though she should have returned long ere since.’
Anton frowned, a tiny, cold prickle of unease forming in his mind. It seemed ridiculous, of course—Rosamund could be in any number of places, perfectly safe. Yet he could not quite shake away the feeling that all was not right, a sense that had once served him well on the battlefield.
‘Is something amiss, Master Gustavson?’ Anne asked. ‘Shall Lord Langley and I help you to look for her?’
‘Yes, I thank you, Mistress Percy,’ Anton said. ‘You know better where she might have gone on this errand.’
Anne nodded, leading him out of the Great Hall, dodging around drunken revellers who would draw them back into the dance. They traversed the long, shadowy corridors which grew quieter, emptier, the further they went. The only sound was the click of their shoes, the howl of the wind outside the windows.
Anton scowled as he noticed the lack of guards, even as they entered the Queen’s own chambers. Had they been given the hour’s respite, perhaps a ration of ale to celebrate the New Year? Or had something more sinister sent them away?
The darkened rooms certainly felt strangely ominous, as if ghosts hovered above them, harbingers of some wicked deed. Even Anne and Lord Langley, who usually were never quiet when they were together, were silent.
‘The papers Rosamund was sent to fetch were in the bedchamber,’ Anne whispered, pushing back her mask. ‘In here.’
Even the Queen’s own chamber was empty, a few flickering candles and a low-burning fire in the grate illuminating the dark, carved furniture and the soft cushions where the ladies usually sat. There were no papers on the table by the window.
‘She must have gone back to the hall already,’ Anne said. ‘But how did we miss her?’
Anton was quite sure they had not missed seeing Rosamund there. The battle instinct was suddenly very strong in him, that taut, ominous feeling that came before the clash of war when the enemy’s armies gathered on the horizon. Something was surely amiss with Rosamund.
Anne seemed to feel it, too. She leaned her palms on the table, shaking her head as Lord Langley laid his hand on her arm. ‘I did think someone was lurking outside our apartment last night,’ she murmured. ‘I thought it was just one of Mary Howard’s suitors—she does have such terrible judgement in men. But what if it was not?’
Lord Langley took her hand in his. ‘There is always someone lurking about here, Anne. I’m sure it was not a villain lying in wait for Lady Rosamund.’
She slammed her free hand down, the crash echoing in the silence. ‘But if it was? She is pretty and rich, and too trusting—valuable commodities here at Court. And that country suitor of hers…’
Anton glanced at her sharply. ‘Master Sutton?’
‘Aye, the very one. He certainly did not seem happy to have lost his prize.’
‘Was she frightened of him?’ Anton asked.
‘She said he was not what she once thought,’ Anne said. ‘And I did not like the look of him.’
Did not like the look of him. Anton did not like the sound of that. He carefully studied the room, searching for any sign that things were not as they should be, that there had been a disturbance in the jewelled façade of the palace.
He found it in the corridor just outside the bedchamber—a glint of green fire in the darkness. He knelt down, reaching out for it, pushing back his mask to examine it more closely.
It was an earring, an emerald drop set in gold filigree.
‘That’s Rosamund’s!’ Anne gasped. ‘She said they were her grandmother’s. She wore them with her costume, a green gown and wig of red.’
Anton closed his fist around the earring, searching the floor for more clues. Crumpled up by the wall was a roughly torn scrap of glove leather, stiff with dried blood. Not Rosamund’s—she had not worn gloves—but blood was never a good sign.
‘I think she has been seized,’ he said, his mind hardening, clarifying on one point—finding Rosamund as quickly as possible. And killing whoever had dared hurt her.
He showed the crumpled bit of leather to Lord Langley and Anne, who cried out.
‘The stables,’ Lord Langley said, holding onto her hand. ‘They will have to get her away from the palace.’
‘Should we tell the Queen?’ Anne asked. ‘Or Lord Burghley, or Leicester?’
‘Not just yet,’ Anton answered. ‘If it is Rosamund’s disappointed suitor, or some villain seeking ransom, we do not want to startle them into doing something rash. I will find them.’
Lord Langley nodded grimly. ‘We will help you. I have men of my own household. They will be discreet in their search until we must tell Her Grace.’
‘Thank you, Langley,’ Anton said. ‘Mistress Percy, if you will search the Great Hall again, and look wherever you know of hiding spots within the palace. But do not go alone!’
Anne nodded, her face pale, before she dashed out of the corridor. Anton and Lord Langley headed for the stables.
It had been quiet there all evening, the servants told them, with everyone at the Queen’s revels. But one of the grooms had prepared a sleigh and horses earlier in the evening.
It was for Master Macintosh of the Scottish delegation.
‘He wanted to be quiet about it, my lords,’ the groom said. ‘I thought he had a meeting with a lady.’
‘And did he bring a lady with him when he departed?’ Anton asked.
‘Aye, that he did. He carried her. She was all bundled up in a white fur-cloak. And there were two other men, though one left in a different direction.’
‘And Master Macintosh? Which way did he go?’ Anton said.
‘Towards Greenwich, I think, along the river. They were in a hurry. Eloping, were they?’
A lady in a white fur, carried off towards Greenwich. The cold, crystalline fury in Anton hardened into steel.
He turned on his heel, striding back towards the palace. He needed his skates—and his sword.
Chapter Fourteen
Snow Day, January 2
Rosamund slowly came awake, feeling as if she struggled up from some black underground cave towards a distant, tiny spot of light. Her limbs ached; they did not want to drag her one more step, and yet she struggled onward. She knew only that it was vital she reach that light, that she not sink back into darkness.
She forced her gritty eyes to open, her head aching as if it would split open. At first, she thought she was indeed in a cave, bound around by stone walls. She could see nothing, feel nothing, but a painful jolting beneath her.
Then she realised it was a cloak wrapped around her, the hood over her head. A soft fur hood, shutting out the world. And then she remembered.
She had been snatched as she’d left the Queen’s chamber, grabbed by a man who had muffled her with his gloved hand. Who had knocked her unconscious when she’d kicked him. But where was she now? What did he want of her?
The hard surface beneath her jolted again, sending a wave of pain through her aching body. A cold, metallic-tasting panic rose up in her throat.
Nay, she told herself, pushing that panic back down before she could scream out with it. She would not give in to whoever had done this, would not let them hurt her. Not when she had so much to fight for. Not when she had to get back to Anton.
Slowly, her headache ebbed away a bit and she could hear the hum of voices above her, the clatter of horses’ hooves moving swiftly. So, she was in some kind of conveyance being carried further and further from the palace with each second.
She eased back the hood a bit, carefully, slowly, so her captors would think her still unconscious. Fortunately, they had failed to tie her as they’d threatened.
‘…a bloody great fool!’ one man growled, his voice thick with a Scots burr. ‘That’s what comes of paying an Englishman to do something. They muck it up every time.’
‘H
ow was I to know this was not the Queen?’ another man said, muffled by the piercing howl of the wind. ‘She had red hair and a green gown, she’s wearing the Queen’s cloak. And she was coming out of the Queen’s own bedchamber!’
‘And how often do you see Queen Elizabeth wandering about alone? She may be a usurper of thrones, but the woman is not stupid.’
‘Perhaps she had an assignation with that rogue, Leicester.’
‘Who she would betroth to Queen Mary?’ the Scotsman said. ‘Aye, she’s a lusty whore. But, still—not stupid. Unlike you. This woman, whoever she is, is too short to be the Queen.’
Rosamund frowned. She was not short. Just delicate! But the Scotsman was right; the other man was a foolish knave indeed not to be sure of his quarry. It was an audacious scheme, seeking to kidnap Queen Elizabeth, and would require sharp, deft timing, as well as steely nerves.
What would they do with her now, since they had realised their terrible failure?
She felt the press of a sheet of parchment against her skin, the travel visa for Lord Darnley, tucked into her sleeve what seemed like days ago. Were they in the pay of Darnley and his mother, then? Or someone else entirely?
Her head pounded as she tried to make sense of it, as she thought of Melville, Lady Lennox and Celia Sutton. Of the Queen’s scheme to marry Queen Mary to Lord Leicester. Of the poppet hanging from the tree—thus to all usurpers.
And she thought of Anton, of how she had to return to him. To set things right, to find out why he said what he did, and how they could go forward.
‘What do we do with his girl, then?’ the other man said. He sounded strangely distant, as if masked. ‘She bit me!’
‘And you deserve no less,’ the Scotsman said wryly. ‘These English females usually lack the spirit of our Scottish lasses, though. I wonder who she is. I suppose we should discover that before we decide how to correct your foolish error.’
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