“I’ll stay.” Peter Jack had been quiet, leaning against the wall, and Parker knew he was almost asleep on his feet. He hadn’t slept in over a day and night, and it was taking its toll. He was not up to a wild ride through the streets of London.
He nodded. “That is sensible.” He held his hand out to Susanna, and she took it reluctantly. As he pulled her to her feet, he drew her against him, touched his lips to her ear. “You are too precious to me. I cannot let you out my sight now.”
She sighed in acquiescence, but her eyes lingered on Will. “At least Maggie should already be en route.”
Croke cleared his throat. “We will be off.”
“Don’t forget that leather jerkin.” Parker let Susanna go. “Good luck.”
Croke walked over to Fitzroy and bowed. “Good luck to you, your lordship. Heed Master Parker well. I know he is a great friend of your father’s and will take care of you.”
Fitzroy bowed back. “I will, sir.” His gaze rested on Will and Kilburne a moment, and Parker knew he had realized this was no game. That both he and Croke could just as easily end up in the same condition. Croke had done a good job with the boy. He was thoughtful enough to understand others had been harmed helping him. Perhaps seeing Fitzroy on the throne would be no bad thing.
Croke gave an encouraging smile. “We will see each other soon.” He exchanged a last look with Parker and left the room, with the guards following behind him.
“As soon as they leave the front gate, we leave by the side alley.” Parker waited for Harry to drop the curtain and step away from the window. “And then we ride like the demons of hell are at our heels.”
* * *
Harry was only a slightly better horseman than she, but Susanna was grateful he was at the reins as they struggled to keep pace with Parker, who had Fitzroy tucked before him and covered over with his cloak.
The streets of London always carried danger, but now it seemed to her every small movement was a bowman lifting a bow, or an assassin unsheathing his knife.
Their best defence was to keep moving forward at the bone rattling pace Parker had set.
Ahead, on their right, the Hospital of the Savoy loomed, and there was a collection of the wounded and ill loitering out the front.
It was easy to see how Jules and his men had easily kept watch on Durham House. There were so many people standing or sitting on the side of the road, they would not have stood out.
A man stepped into Parker’s way on the road ahead, and Harry drew his knife as they closed the distance. Parker danced the horse around the man, but he moved to block the way again, reaching up to grab the reins.
He was filthy. His legs were covered in something dried and black, caked to his leggings, and as they came level with Parker the stink of it enveloped her. It could have been nightsoil just as easily as mud.
The man was shouting something unintelligible, and at last Parker drew his sword, smooth, clean and efficient.
“Let us pass.” He lifted the sword to show he was armed and as a warning, but the man did not notice or did not care.
He made another grab for the reins, and Susanna saw Parker’s face harden. She guessed this was not one of Jules’s men, but Parker had had enough, and he was not prepared to take more of a risk than he already had. Fitzroy had been partly revealed by the horse’s panicked movements—Susanna could see his blond head emerging from Parker’s cloak—and if any of Jules’s men were watching, the secret was out.
Parker’s sword came down, and the flat of the blade struck the man’s upper arm as he lifted it to make another grab at the horse’s mouth.
He howled as if his arm had been sliced open, and Parker followed it through with a smack to the man’s ear.
With a shriek, he toppled over and crawled away, and Parker moved on, sword slashing out as he went.
The crowd parted, and as they followed close on Parker’s heels, Susanna locked gazes for a moment with a woman pressed up against the wooden fence along one part of the hospital front.
Her eyes were tired, worn through to her soul. No one would commission a portrait of such a woman, such a subject, but Susanna knew she would paint it. The raw exhaustion, the lack of any emotional shield, was as riveting as it was disturbing.
She stared hard, trying to memorize every detail, and at last, unnerved, the woman turned away, pressing her face into the wood.
The horse jerked to the side a little, and Susanna clutched at Harry’s waist to find her balance, looked back at the woman a final time.
A tight, cold hand of fear gripped her neck. The woman was staring down the road, the way they had come, her mouth open, and Susanna twisted in the saddle to look behind her.
A man was standing in the middle of the road, crossbow raised.
“Danger. Behind us.” Susanna grabbed hold of the ends of her cloak and lifted her arms out, creating wings of black wool that lifted and billowed in the late afternoon breeze.
She hoped the fabric blocked Parker and Fitzroy from view.
Parker turned back and she brought her arms in for a moment so he could see, then raised them out again.
They had been moving as fast as they could, before, but now Parker showed the crowds no mercy. He let out a cry that sent a shiver down her spine—a war cry that had a place on an ancient battlefield, and forced his mount into a canter, sword swinging left and right.
Harry followed tight behind, and Susanna wondered what the people leaping out of their path thought of the mad warrior with a child tucked up against his chest, and the dark horse, a Pegasus with wool wings spread wide, following behind him.
She braced herself for Jules’s bolt through her back. Braced herself for him to rid himself of her meddling, but then they thundered over Strand Bridge, bore right with the curve of the road, and suddenly, the Savoy Hospital was no longer behind them.
They only had the whole of London to ride through to reach safety.
Chapter Thirty-three
for it has often fallen out that many of them, and even the prince himself, have been betrayed, by those in whom they have trusted most;
Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)
“This way.” The words were hissed from a darkened alley, and Parker lifted his sword in response.
“Wait.”
He recognized the hand as it shot up in defense. Or rather, the rag-covered mitt.
“Gladys Goodnight?”
“Aye. In need o’ the back alleys, Parker? I know every one in the city.”
Parker nudged his horse into the alley, and Fitzroy clung tighter to him. The dingy passage stank, ripe with the choking smells of the latrine and rotting food. He sensed Harry behind him, and heard Susanna’s choking gasp as the smell enveloped her.
They moved in deeper, to where the alley twisted left, so they could not be seen from the street.
“This your fancy lady?” Gladys peered up at Susanna, looking like a tiny, wizened crone from a folk tale, with her lined face and startling, sharp blue eyes.
Parker nodded, although he would never have described Susanna as fancy. Beautiful, yes, but she held no airs about herself. He turned to her. “Gladys and I are old acquaintances from Belin’s Gate. She knows the backways to the Tower.”
“What’re you in such a hurry to get there for, anyhow?” Gladys skittered back and forth in place, a strange dance of nerves. The slightest movement taken amiss, and she would disappear.
“The boy.” Parker said nothing more, but Gladys stepped closer for a look at Fitzroy in the shadows and then jerked back as if struck by a snake.
“Well. You’ve certainly come up to quite a level, Parker. Quite a level. To be holding the likes of him afore you on a horse.” For once, Gladys was completely still as she looked at Fitzroy. “’Course, the thing to do is for you to ride on without him. Give ’em someone to follow. I’ll take the lad and your lady through to the gates of the Tower itself.”
She was right. He didn’t like that she was r
ight, but that didn’t change the facts. He didn’t want to leave Susanna alone. But if he stayed with her, he was endangering them all.
Jules would be looking for them, and who knew how many he’d paid for this job. If he had been working with some of the spies and informers de Praet had cultivated before he’d been thrown out of London, he could have called on a few to help in this. They were already double-agents to their own countries, what did they care about the life of an English prince?
Even if Jules didn’t know he had Fitzroy, he knew it was a possibility. And if Parker took the main street now, he could lead them a merry chase while Gladys slipped her way like the tiny, invisible mouse she was, through the back alleys and streets of London.
He turned to Susanna and found her watching him, her eyes grave.
“I don’t want you to . . .”
He raised a hand to his lips. He’d caught sight of Gladys, and she had flattened herself against the wall, her full concentration on the way they’d come in.
At last, he heard it, too. The sound of a footstep in the alleyway, the careful tread of someone wanting to make as little noise as possible.
His decision had been made for him.
He exchanged a quick glance with Harry and Harry swung down from the saddle as Parker lifted Fitzroy, still clutching his bow and arrow tight, up and over. Put him before Susanna on Kilburne’s dark mare.
Harry took off his cloak, rolled it up, and tossed it to Parker.
He grabbed it, held it to his body and covered his own cloak over it, like he was cradling a child. Drew his sword with only the faintest song of steel.
As he lifted the blade, Susanna extended her hand, clamped it around his sword arm.
Her eyes glittered in the dim light filtering in through the narrow passageway.
He lifted his arm closer to his face, and bent his head. Kissed her fingers. Then he kicked his stirrups, flicked his reins.
He felt her grip tighten for a moment before she let go.
With a shout, he shot from their hiding place and turned the corner, surprising a tall, blond man with a crossbow just a few steps from where they stood.
Jules.
He slashed out with the blade, but the horse was moving too fast to be accurate. He only managed to strike the crossbow itself.
He had the satisfaction of feeling the blade bite into the wood, and then he was out the passageway, on the Strand, and he turned the horse right, heading straight for Temple Bar.
He heard a cry behind him, and glanced over his shoulder, cloak billowing, to see Jules exploding from the alley, raising his bow.
Parker turned back, low over his horse’s neck, and rode.
* * *
Gladys moved quickly, flinching as Parker shot past her, and seemed to melt into the shadow ahead.
Harry grabbed the reins and led Kilburne’s mare after her, but Susanna sensed him hesitate, unsure of where she’d gone, when they reached a split in the alleyway.
They stopped and for a moment heard nothing but the slap of a loose shutter above in the rising breeze.
Fitzroy sat still as a rabbit before her, but she could sense him trembling, and she put her arms around him, and held the pommel.
“What you waiting for?” Gladys’s hiss from the darkness to the left made them all jerk. Harry moved towards her.
“Couldn’t see you,” he muttered, and Susanna thought she heard the old woman laugh.
“No one sees Gladys unless she wants them to.”
Her route plunged them into passageways so narrow the horse grew nervous, and Susanna’s boots scraped the walls on both sides.
Fitzroy was silent, pushing back against her, his arrow notched loosely in his bow. She lifted one hand from the pommel and gripped his waist, but he pushed it away.
More than once the buildings almost touched each other above them, and the way became pitch black, the dank smells almost overwhelming.
No one spoke, and she felt trapped in some waking nightmare, lulled into a half-wake state by the gloom and confusing twists and turns. She had no idea where they were.
She was jerked from her daze by Harry swearing softly, and she peered ahead. Light flowed in from a curve in the way ahead, the heavy, thick light of falling dusk, and with a jolt she realized they could soon be journeying in the night.
The prospect of being in this place with no light at all put her on the edge of panic.
“Do you see her?” They had not come across anyone since they started after Gladys, but Susanna whispered the question.
She’d had the sense more than once that eyes watched them from hidden places, and she had the same sensation, now.
Harry shook his head, and seemed to make up his mind to take the right curve, toward the light. The relief at his choice brought tears to her eyes.
And then the way was barred.
A man stepped as if from nowhere into their path, and Susanna wondered how long he’d been there, watching from the shadows. It certainly explained Gladys’s disappearance. She was so attuned to the dangers of the alleys, so accustomed to looking out for only herself, she had probably gone to ground without a thought.
The man said nothing, but his eyes were eloquent enough. They flicked over Kilburne’s mount, over Harry and herself, and Fitzroy, and at last Susanna saw a length of pipe in his hand. It looked like it had been smashed off a longer piece with a hammer, the top end buckled and rough, with sharp, jagged edges.
Harry drew his knife, and for the first time, the man showed a chink in his calm.
Harry looked like he’d been handling the weapon all his life, and the blade caught the light even in this gloomy alley.
But it didn’t have the reach of the pipe, and the man swung his weapon in an opening play.
The reins went slack as Harry dropped them, and Susanna took them in. There was no place to turn, but Kilburne’s horse, already nervous, sensed troubled and edged back.
Harry widened his stance. There would be no circling, no feinting, here. There wasn’t the room.
Susanna extended her arm a little and flicked, and the blade Parker had returned to her dropped, cool and comforting, into her palm.
Fitzroy looked at her hand, and then up to her, his eyes wide with astonishment to see her suddenly wielding a knife.
She adjusted her hold on the knife into a throwing grasp, and waited for a clear target as Harry and their attacker edged closer.
As if a bell had been rung, they rushed each other. The attacker’s pipe swung in a wide arc and Harry ducked under it and came up right in his face, knife raised.
His pipe useless with Harry so close, the man slammed his forehead into Harry’s, but Harry saw the move just a moment before, and jerked back his head.
He grunted as he took the lesser hit and stabbed out wildly, landing a cut on the attacker’s upper left chest and then danced back.
The man roared as the knife slashed him and clutched at the wound. Enraged, he swung the pipe, backhanded, and Harry dived straight at him again, slamming against his legs.
They both fell, the pipe flying from the attacker’s hand. It chimed like a bell as it struck the stone of the alley floor.
“You little turd.” The man raised himself up on his elbow, and Susanna could see the bloodlust in his eyes. He wanted to tear Harry apart. He struggled to rise, his hand groping backward to find his pipe.
He had been dangerous before, but now he was the injured bear, the enraged boar with arrows in his back. He got his legs under him and at last slapped his hand over the end of the pipe. Came up fast and swinging.
Harry was still down, vulnerable beneath him, scrabbling back so he would have room to stand. But before the attacker could lunge forward, he stopped dead. Lifted a hand to the arrow at the base of his throat, and made a strange, choking sound.
His eyes lifted to the horse, to Fitzroy, who was shaking like it was mid-winter before her, his hand still back and up from where he’d released the arrow.
The man collapsed back down, limp and silent, but as he struck the ground he began to writhe, grunting and gagging, his hands scrambling at his throat.
“Make it stop.” Fitzroy put his hands over his ears. “Make it stop.” His cry jerked Harry into movement, and he scrambled to his feet and struck, slicing the knife across the attacker’s throat, from ear to ear.
The man let out a gurgle. His hands at last went limp, and he stared at Harry, eyes wide with surprise, blood pouring from his wound.
Harry took a step back, and his hands were shaking as he wiped his blade on their attacker’s breeches. He breathed deeply, watching the blood spread in a pool beneath him.
She could hear nothing but the drip of water from a nearby drain and Harry’s deep, stuttering breaths. They echoed the shivers of the boy before her.
Harry seemed to shake himself out, suddenly, and turned to them.
She could see his face at last and it was pale as he grabbed their attacker under the arms and pulled him around the corner he’d leapt from.
When he stepped back into the alley, Gladys was just behind him, appearing like a dark goblin from the shadows.
He sensed her, and spun with a shout, knife raised, until he saw who it was.
She cringed back, a look of shock on her face at what she saw in his. “Sorry.”
Susanna wondered if her apology was for startling him, or abandoning them to their attacker.
Harry said nothing. He came back to the horse, took the reins and lifted his eyes to hers.
She held his gaze, her heart thumping in her chest. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “I saw it done, once.” He cleared his throat. “Never thought I’d have cause . . .”
“You protected us all, Harry.” She spoke softly.
He looked down, to where his hands grasped the reins. There were smears of blood on his fingertips and he rubbed them on his breeches.
Fitzroy straightened, his back ramrod stiff after the shaking. “My father will reward you, page. You truly saved us from death.”
In Defense of the Queen Page 18
