From high up, silhouetted against the torches, she saw two men leaning from a window overhanging the river. One of them was Anthony, his cropped dark hair uncovered. She caught a glimpse of the horror on his face. So Celine had gotten her note to him after all, and he had managed to track her down, but too late.
“Kate! Jump now!” he shouted, tossing a rope down. He climbed out onto the window ledge, as if he would climb down to her.
“Anthony!” she shouted. Richard grabbed at her ankle, dragging her back into the foaming, freezing water that rushed in around them as the boat cracked apart.
She kicked out with her free leg with all her strength, and out of sheer luck caught him on the side of his head. He staggered back, giving her just enough time to launch herself into the river.
The cold stole her breath, almost paralyzing her, but she knew she had to move if she was to survive. The current was powerful, catching at her, twisting her around, determined to drag her down. But she was even more determined to live.
She pushed herself hard to the surface and kicked out until she felt slick, rigid stone under her flailing hand.
She held on with every ounce of her strength. When she shook back the wet, slimy strands of her hair from her eyes, she saw she had reached one of the stout stone supports of the bridge. High above her was the dark canopy of the bridge itself.
Clinging to the stone, just out of reach of the greedy river, she watched in horror as a wall of water engulfed the wrecked boat and Richard St. Long all in one swallow. Richard shouted, a high-pitched, primitive, animal sound. Then he was sucked down under the bridge, and she couldn’t see him any longer. Every bit of him and his boat was gone, as if they had never been there.
But she was alive.
Kate held tight to the stone, her teeth chattering so loudly she could hear nothing else. All she could do was keep holding on, and wait for Anthony to find her.
Kate rested her bruised forehead against the cold stone and whispered the only words she could think of. The queen’s own favorite oath: “God’s blood!”
“Kate! Are you hurt?”
From behind her closed eyes, she heard the thud of a rope swinging against the stone pile, and suddenly warm arms closed around her and drew her close to an even warmer, strong body. Anthony. He had come for her. She wasn’t alone there any longer.
“Nay, I—I am not hurt . . . ,” she gasped, but her words dissolved in tears she had held back too long. Tears for Mary, for Nell and Bess, tears of fright that she would die in the cold waters, never to play music, or dance, or laugh again. Never to see her father or the queen again.
“Sh, I am here,” Anthony said softly. “You are safe now, I swear it. Thank God I got your note in time, and was able to follow the villain’s trail to the river. He made little effort to cover his tracks. Master Hardy thought we could see more from the bridge. Oh, Kate, if I had lost you . . .”
Kate held on to him as tightly as her numb hands would let her. She could almost think she felt the press of a gentle kiss on her temple. But perhaps she was merely dreaming it.
CHAPTER 29
Kate opened her eyes, gasping for air. For an instant she was sure a cold wave of water was closing over her head, sucking her down and down to the bottom of the Thames. Then she realized she stared up at the dark blue curtains of her own bed at the queen’s palace. She was safe. She was alive.
She fell back onto the bolsters and made herself take a deep breath and then another. The bedclothes and her smock were twisted around her, damp with sweat, but she hadn’t the strength to tug them aright. Her whole body ached, and the image of Richard St. Long screaming as the river seized him wouldn’t leave her mind. The horrible cracking sound, like thunder, as the boat broke apart.
The boat she had been in only an instant before.
Nay, she thought fiercely. She wouldn’t think of that now. She was alive. And Richard was a murderer who had killed innocent women simply as some mad revenge against the queen—his half sister?—who had stolen what he saw as his right. That the river had claimed him was only a sort of justice.
She wouldn’t think of him now. She would think of the moment when Anthony had so daringly climbed down that rope to gently pry her frozen hands from the stone pier and take her in his arms. He had held her, whispered to her, wrapped her in his own doublet until her sobs quieted. He waited with her until they could be rescued by Master Hardy’s boat, and then he had made sure she was brought here. The queen’s own physician came, and then . . .
Then what? Kate could remember nothing else after that, just flashing images of roaring fires, Mistress Ashley holding out a goblet. The queen’s dark eyes as she bent over the bed? There was also discordant music jangling in her head, shrill laughter, images of masked visages and Diana’s deer chasing her down. What was real, what a dream?
Kate held her breath and made herself sit up against the bolsters, pushing away the aching protest of her bruised limbs. When summer came, she would have to practice swimming. The view outside her small window was only blackness, punctuated by a few swirling flakes of snow. Night, then. How many nights had passed while she lay there in bed, dreaming? She had to find Queen Elizabeth and tell her what she had learned. That no red-haired ladies need be afraid to walk in the garden now.
She saw two goblets on the small table beside her bed, and she reached out for one, but her hand was still stiff, clumsy. She knocked the heavy silver vessel askew, and cursed as she looked down at her rebellious fingers. Surely they would be better soon? She needed them so much, for the music that was everything to her.
A sudden movement near the fireplace made Kate twist around with a gasp. She felt foolish to let herself be so unobservant as to not realize she wasn’t alone. After all that had happened . . .
Then she saw who it was, and she sat back again. The woman who slowly rose from a seat by the fire wore a black gown and old-fashioned gable hood, and she leaned heavily on a walking stick. Lady Gertrude Howard.
The elderly lady moved carefully across the small room. She smiled, and her faded eyes seemed clear, with none of the dazed confusion she usually wore as she followed the young Duchess of Norfolk around court.
“Here, Mistress Haywood, let me help you,” she said. “I have been dosed with Mistress Ashley’s possets before, they can be most disconcerting. It is good that you are awake now. How do you feel?”
“Tired. Confused.” Kate watched as Lady Gertrude’s thin, twisted hands carefully poured out a measure of wine. Pale Malmsey, the queen’s favorite. Just like the kind that poisoned the mouse. “How long have I been here? I must tell the queen what happened!”
“You have been here three days. And the queen knows what that mad Master St. Long did—your friend Master Elias told her. It is good that you wake now. We are to move soon, so the queen can be ready for the opening of Parliament next month.” She gently pressed the cool silver into Kate’s hands. Her fingers were warm on Kate’s chilled skin, strangely comforting. “Her Majesty sent you this wine herself. She has been to look in on you every day. She has sent messages to your friend Master Elias telling him you are recovering, and to the actor Master Cartman to tell him of the poor women’s murderer. His troupe has gone to Whitehall to prepare a celebration performance for the queen’s return.”
The queen had taken the time to look in on her? And she was to see Rob again soon? Kate’s head spun so much she could not take it all in. “Thank you, Lady Gertrude.” Kate stared down into the golden liquid, still seeing that mouse—and that terrible moment they realized the queen was truly in danger from some unseen foe.
And now it was known that particular danger was from sins committed long ago. The sins of parents, visited on their children, never dying.
Kate took a sip of the wine. It was soft and soothing on her dry throat. Lady Gertrude sat down carefully at the foot of the narrow bed.
“I know you are not Eleanor,” Lady Gertrude said quietly. Her fingers twisted over the handle of her stick, and Kate saw it was carved in the pattern of lions and crosses. The badge of the Howards. “I am old, true, and I often feel closer to things that happened decades ago than now. But I know you are not her, though you look so much like her. I was startled at first.”
Kate took another sip of the wine, turning Lady Gertrude’s words over in her mind. Her father had also told her she looked like her mother, but she sometimes thought it was only his wishful thinking. The wine seemed to fortify her. “You knew my mother when she was young?”
“Aye. We were friends. Well, perhaps not friends.” Lady Gertrude laughed, and set about straightening the blankets around Kate’s legs. “I was older than her, so perhaps it was more like we could be a mother and daughter, since neither of us had such. I was only one of dozens of Howard girls, you see, and had no dowry, so I never married. And your mother’s mother died when she was a small child, barely out of leading strings. That was when she came to Hever Castle.”
“Hever?” Kate cried in surprise. That was the home of Anne Boleyn’s parents, where it was said King Henry courted Anne with letters, jewels, and gifts of fresh venison for her table. “What was my mother doing there?”
Gertrude’s eyes narrowed in her lined face. “What exactly do you know of your mother, child?”
Kate’s gaze flickered to the lute on its stand near the fire. The elegant instrument that was her only connection to the mother she had never met. That, and her thick, heavy dark hair, which her father said looked just like her mother’s. Her hair and her music, inherited from Eleanor Haywood. That was almost all her father told her about her mother.
“Not very much,” she admitted. “She died when I was born. I think it wounds my father to talk of her. Would you tell me what you know, Lady Gertrude? Anything at all. I do so want to know her.”
Lady Gertrude bit her lip uncertainly. “I am not sure—if your father has not said . . .”
“Please, Lady Gertrude!” Kate begged. Somehow being so close to death in that icy water made her long to know even more about her past. About her mother, who sometimes felt so very close to her and sometimes impossibly far away. “I must know. Wouldn’t she want me to know her?”
Lady Gertrude studied Kate carefully, her head tilted to the side like a fragile, inquisitive little bird. “Aye, I know she would. And I am old. Soon I will see her again, and I will have to tell her of my dealings with you. Here, let me brush your hair, and I will tell you what I can.”
Kate obediently sat on the edge of her bed while Lady Gertrude fetched her comb and set about gently untangling the knots in Kate’s long, dark locks. Her old hands were careful, soothing, and Kate fell into the rhythm of it and of Lady Gertrude’s tale of the past.
“Do you know anything at all of your mother’s family?” Lady Gertrude asked.
“Nothing at all. I know my father’s family were always court musicians. His grandfather came from Italy to serve King Henry VII.”
“Your mother’s family were also musicians, but not to royalty. They served noble families for any entertainments when royalty visited their estates. They were very well-known for their skill.”
“Is that why she was at Hever? Her parents were employed by the Boleyns?” Kate was rather happy to know her family was somehow connected to the Boleyns, however distantly. Ever since that night in the chapel of the Tower, kneeling with the queen next to Queen Anne’s grave, she had thought about her.
Lady Gertrude’s steady sweep of the comb paused for an instant. “Aye, in a manner of speaking. Her mother played the lute, that very one you have now. When she died, Eleanor was brought to Hever so she could learn music as well. She was the loveliest little girl, Mistress Haywood—Kate. All dark, curling hair and large green eyes, so full of curiosity. She could play the lute and sing like an angel. I had been sent to Hever to serve Lady Elizabeth, the sister of the Duke of Norfolk who married Thomas Boleyn, and I was lonely there. Eleanor followed me everywhere, always asking questions, but I didn’t mind. I loved her company. I always wanted a child, you see, and she was like my own in many ways.”
“And when she got older?”
“She was even more beautiful. There was some talk of sending her to serve Lady Anne, when she went to the French court, but Eleanor was still too young for that. I was glad of it. I would have missed her too much. As it happened, we both ended up in the train of Anne Boleyn, when she became queen in 1533. She wanted Eleanor as her privy chamber musician.”
“And that is where she met my father?” Kate asked.
“Aye, at the court of Queen Anne. Matthew Haywood was so very handsome! All the ladies giggled over him, following him about, trying to catch his eye, but he could see naught except his music. Until he met Eleanor. Queen Anne didn’t want Eleanor to marry and leave her, yet we could all see there would be no parting them. If ever two people were meant to be together, Kate, it was your parents. They would spend hours in the corner of the great hall, absorbed in some bit of music they were composing, no one in all the world but the two of them.”
The image Lady Gertrude painted made Kate smile. Her father, young and handsome, no gray in his hair or worry in his eyes, no gout crippling him, scribbling down musical notes while her beautiful mother played the lute to his tune. “When did they marry, then, if Queen Anne objected?”
Lady Gertrude’s hand went still. “Not until after the queen died. Then they left court for a time, as I did. I heard they worked under the patronage of Lord Evensham in the north of the country, until your father came to serve Queen Catherine Parr. Your mother had died by then, and I fear I never saw her again. The reign of Queen Anne was too brief, but it was glorious, for all of us. She loved your mother as I did. There was never anyone as beautiful and sweet as Eleanor.”
Beautiful and sweet. So her father had lied when he said Kate took after her! But she relished the description now; it made her feel she could see her mother in her mind. “Why did Queen Anne favor her so very much? Because of their childhood days at Hever?”
Lady Gertrude carefully set aside the comb and turned Kate to face her. Her face was very solemn in the firelight. “Oh, my dear girl. You truly do not know, do you?”
“Know what?” Kate asked, confused. “I knew almost nothing of my mother until tonight, thanks to your kindness.”
“Then I should not be the one to tell you.”
Kate was desperate to know more now, to know everything. “Please, Lady Gertrude! I beg you. I need to know my mother, and you are the only one who can help me. If there is some secret, I shall never share it with anyone. I vow that.”
Lady Gertrude caught Kate’s face between her hands and looked deeply into her eyes. In her faded gaze, Kate was sure she could see all the past. The truth of who her mother was, who she was. She had seen just such a truth drive Richard St. Long to madness. Could she bear it any better?
But she knew she could. She had survived murderers not once but twice now. She was learning her own strength. And knowledge, truth, was the foundation of all real strength.
“Please,” she whispered.
Finally, Lady Gertrude gave a sad nod. “Queen Anne loved your mother because Eleanor was her own sister. Thomas Boleyn once took your grandmother as his mistress, and Eleanor was their daughter. When her mother died, Thomas vowed he would take Eleanor into his household at Hever and raise her to be a musician, as her mother’s family were. His wife, Elizabeth, who was my own cousin, could not object. And she became fond of Eleanor, too, as everyone did who knew her.” Lady Gertrude gently touched a long wave of Kate’s hair. “You have her Boleyn hair. Queen Anne’s hair.”
Kate stared at Lady Gertrude in stunned, numb silence. The firelight flickered and danced, turning her from a normal, placid old lady in old-fashioned clothes into something twisted and strange. Frightening. �
�You are lying,” she whispered.
Lady Gertrude smiled, a sad, pitying smile. If she had smirked, or laughed, Kate would have known she did indeed lie. Or that her words were a mere figment of the madness of an elderly mind, as when she had first called Kate by the name of Eleanor. But her eyes—so dark and shining, sunk deep into her lined face—were clear and steady. They were eyes that had spent decades watching everything, knowing everything, saying nothing.
Until now.
Aye. Kate knew, deeply and instinctively, that Lady Gertrude told her the truth. Kate’s own mother, the mother she had never known and always dreamed of, was the bastard sister of Queen Anne Boleyn.
Suddenly dizzy, Kate fell back against the bolsters and closed her eyes. Her whole past, the past she had imagined, anyway, seemed to shatter like the stained-glass windows of Queen Mary’s old-religion churches. The shards, sparkling green, red, blue, yellow, exploded outward and scattered, landing in a pattern of chaos. She could make no sense of it.
“’Tis well, my dear, I promise,” Lady Gertrude said, so horribly gentle. Kate felt Lady Gertrude’s trembling hands smooth the blankets over her shoulders and tuck them around her. The soft gesture made her want to cry. “I loved your mother like she was my own daughter, just as she would have loved you. She would never want the truth to hurt you, but to set you free. To help you know her, and yourself.”
Kate opened her eyes and stared up again at the dark blue of her bed-curtains. They were like the water, but this time instead of drowning in it she could break free of its hold. Free of the past. If she wanted to. If she was strong enough.
And Kate suddenly realized she was strong enough. She had survived murderers, twice. She had survived the merciless, careless river. She had helped the queen. Queen Elizabeth, who was now closer to her than she ever could have imagined.
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