The Tudor Vendetta Read online

  In the stables, Shelton slumbered. I shook his shoulder, waking him. He blinked groggily, his one eye widening when he saw Raff behind me with the dog. “So, you found the dimwit,” he croaked. “Where was he hiding?”

  “Never mind that. You must get up. I need you to take him away.”

  “Away?” Shelton righted himself on his elbows. “Are you mad? It’s storming like a witch’s cauldron out there. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why you want me to—”

  “Shelton.” The harshness in my voice stopped him. “Listen to me: This boy is why I was sent here. He is the reason Lady Parry came and, I think, why she disappeared. I do not have time to explain it to you. We do not have time. He is in danger. Now, get Cerberus ready.”

  He did not hesitate, reaching for his boots. “Where should I take him?”

  I paused, considering. “Not to London. Take him to Hatfield. Elizabeth’s governess, Mistress Ashley, is there; tell her who you are and that I sent you with the boy to seek refuge. She’ll know why,” I added grimly. “I’ve a feeling she’s always known, just as Lady Parry did.”

  “Hatfield it is.” He was already on his feet, towering over Raff as he bent his maimed features to him. “Can you ride a horse, boy?”

  Raff shook his head. “Not one like yours.”

  “No matter,” said Shelton. “I’ll put you on the saddle croup. You hold on tight, you hear me? It’s quite a fall if you don’t.”

  Within minutes, he had saddled Cerberus and led him out of the stall. Cinnabar neighed. After I tucked the blanket Shelton had been lying on over Raff, I took up the saddlebag with Shelton’s belongings and handed it to him. “I don’t have any coin. That wench Agnes stole my purse. She had another key to my chamber, it seems.”

  He chuckled. “You never were much good with money or caps.” He patted the saddlebag. “Not to fret. I’ve a little coin Nan gave me, in case we ran out of ale.”

  “Shelton,” I said, “you must guard him with your life.”

  “Aye, I understand.” He strapped on his broadsword and beckoned Raff, who went to him with the blanket clutched about him. He hoisted the boy onto the saddle, then used the block to heave himself up and, clicking his tongue, rode Cerberus out without looking back.

  I stood under the rain, watching them canter to the manor gates and into the swirling dark. Not until they had vanished from view did I turn back to the manor.

  It was time to tear out the heart of the mystery in Vaughan Hall.

  * * *

  As I walked back to the garden trapdoor, I prepared for my next move. I would not confront the Vaughans until morning; I needed enough time to elapse for Shelton to be well on his way to Hertfordshire and for Gomfrey to return from the village. The steward had a role in this; whether directly or as a witness, he was astute enough to have sensed Raff was no ordinary bastard. He might even know where Lady Parry had been taken or who Godwin truly was.

  My attention fixated on the tutor. Lady Vaughan said he had been with the family only six months yet had made a previous trip to London to place an order for books. Like everything in this wretched place, the truth was more obscure. Lady Parry had not traveled here solely to tend to the sick in the house, I suspected, but to ensure Raff did not fall ill, perhaps even to take him to safety from the fever. She must have been appalled to discover him toiling in the stables and at the gates, sleeping wherever he could, treated worse than the family dog.

  You must pay for the sin.

  I had not been wrong. All the events that had transpired were part of a vendetta against Elizabeth, whose sin this stranger I sought had somehow discovered. Was the stranger Godwin, who had worked in this very house? Lord Vaughan had lied when he claimed the boy was his, which indicated that at least he, if not his wife, knew whose son they sheltered. Had the tutor found out and seized Lady Parry because of it? If so, I might still hold out hope that she was alive, for whatever Godwin planned, he had not taken Raff. Perhaps he had tried but the boy had evaded him as he had me, hiding away to avoid being captured.

  I did not know, but Raff had clearly learned how to fend for himself. If he were indeed about ten years old, Elizabeth would have only been sixteen when she bore him. It must have happened after her father King Henry’s death, during the reign of her brother. In those years, I still dwelled in Dudley Castle, unaware of events at court, but I could imagine the terror Elizabeth must have felt. She may have been the king’s sister but she was still the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who had been beheaded for treason and adultery. Both Lady Parry and Mistress Ashley had served Elizabeth since her childhood; they must have connived to have her deliver her babe in secret and selected this remote manor to hide him, far from prying eyes. Where better than among Lady Parry’s kin, where Elizabeth could keep watch through her trusted servant?

  If Lady Parry had not been there to fight for me … I might not have lived to see this day.

  Yes, I had no doubt both Lady Parry and Ashley were complicit. As astonishing as it seemed, it also did not escape me that Raff’s situation had unsettling echoes of my own. Here I was, a secret Tudor, sent unknowingly to find another like me. It must be why Elizabeth had selected me for this assignation, though she did not know who I truly was. Lady Parry’s disappearance had caused her great distress not only for the lady herself, but for the child she had come to see. Elizabeth could not have risked sending anyone else to Vaughan Hall but me, because I was the only one who would keep her secret. Once again, she had misled me by withholding the truth, but I found that I could not blame her. How could she have confessed something so dangerous, so damning, in midst of the court, with ears at every door, with everyone around her watching and waiting to catch her in some inadvertent admission?

  These thoughts had me in such turmoil, I did not realize I was no longer alone until I entered the kitchens, replaced the key, and turned to find Mistress Harper. She kneaded her skirts, her face marked by the crease of her bedsheets, her bonnet askew on her head as she said tremulously, “You should not have done it. You should have left good enough alone.”

  I took an enraged step toward her. “It is they who should not have—” I started to retort and then the blow came from behind, a hammer upon my nape. I felt its impact shudder through me, the pain like a hot sun, so intense it scorched everything black.

  After that, I felt nothing more.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “He must be killed! He knows everything. He has spirited that bastard away and as soon as he leaves us, he will report it all—to her. He will be our ruin!”

  The shrill voice reached me through a head-thudding stupor. I felt, as Shelton had aptly described it, as if a thousand imps wielded poleaxes in my temples, and when I attempted to open my eyes, the light blinded me.

  Light. There was sunlight. It was day.

  I tried to struggle but could not move my arms or legs. For a horrified moment, I feared my injury had rendered me immobile for the rest of my life. I had heard of blows to the head that left a man unconscious until he came to, only to discover himself trapped inside a useless body.

  Forcing one eye open, I stared downward. I sat on a chair, my ankles bound. The pounding in my head did not permit me to look around, but the burning ache across my chest indicated I had been tied, my arms restrained behind me and fastened at the wrists.

  Shadows darkened my vision. I blinked repeatedly, unable to open my other eye. Then, as my surroundings floated slowly into view, I saw the long table before me.

  I was in the manor hall.

  “This has to end, Philippa,” said a weary voice that belonged to Lord Vaughan, though I heard him as if he spoke through a hollow tube. “We cannot go on like this. He knows, yes, but we’ll only bring more trouble upon our heads if we harm him.”

  “More trouble?” A shrill laugh erupted from Lady Vaughan. “You do not know anything! You have not seen how they can gut a man while he hangs from a rope, throw him like a slab of beef onto a block, and yank out his
entrails while he still lives. But I have. I know how long they can make the agony last, and I assure you, husband, you are not fit for such martyrdom.”

  A teary sniffling reached me. I strained to detect from whence it came when I heard Lady Vaughan snap, “Stop mewling, girl. You brought this on yourself! I told you to get him on his back, pleasure him until he slept, then steal his purse and bring it to me, not run off to that miserable hamlet. Had you done as you were told, you’d not be in this position.”

  Agnes lifted terrified protest. “But, he didn’t want me! He questioned me. He—he threatened me! What was I to do—” A stinging slap cut off her wail.

  “Shut up.” Lady Vaughan’s skirts brushed against my legs. I felt them as she passed by, thank God. I was not injured to the point of being paralyzed, only immobilized by my restraints.

  “Enough.” Lord Vaughan’s voice slashed through Agnes’s piteous sobbing. “Gomfrey found her, didn’t he? He brought her back. There is no need to strike her.”

  “Oh?” retorted Lady Vaughan. “She defied my orders. She was going to run off to York, or even London, perhaps, with his coin in her bodice and quite a tale to sell. She must go into the sea with him. She is no use to us now.”

  Agnes wailed. I heard the staccato clatter of heels on the floor, a sudden gasp that was not the maidservant’s, then Lord Vaughan’s trembling voice: “I said, enough. I will not be party to such infamy. We are not murderers. It is over, Philippa. Do you hear me? Over.”

  As Lady Vaughan cried, “He’ll see us to the gallows!” Lord Vaughan ordered, “Gomfrey, release him.”

  The steward stepped from somewhere behind me; as he came around with a dagger to kneel at my feet and cut loose the ropes of my ankles, I glared at him.

  He recoiled. “He’s awake!” He scuttled backward on his knees, his cowardice giving me a savage rush of satisfaction. Had my leg been loose, I would have kicked him.

  “You’d best learn to crawl,” I rasped. “You’ll be doing a lot of it by the time I’m through with you.”

  Lady Vaughan stood as though petrified, clasping her wrist where her husband must have grabbed her, Agnes huddled beside her, bound to a stool. Lord Vaughan stood a few paces from them; as his dark-circled eyes met mine, I saw the desperate toll that years of hiding Elizabeth’s secret had wreaked on him.

  His look of defeat urged me to move. A drunkard, grief-stricken over his son, he had let matters come to such a pass that they had assaulted the queen’s own man. I was by no means safe, despite his effort to subdue his wife.

  “He—he heard us,” said Lady Vaughan. “Blessed Virgin, he heard everything.” She barked at Gomfrey: “Kill him now.”

  I lunged forward, pulling my chair with me against the floor. “Do it and you shall indeed perish on the gallows. The queen will send others, should I fail to return. She will send her own guard and then, by God, she’ll raze this manor to the ground for what you have done!”

  Lord Vaughan stood utterly still. His wife pushed past him, stalking up to me. Her expression twisted, that trace of faded beauty I had marked when we first met vanquished by the ravenous hatred consuming her. “You think your heretic queen will save you?” she spat. “You think she’ll send her yeomen and lords of the Privy Council to bring us to task?” Her eyes narrowed. “I think not. She sent you here with only a manservant; she may have told you she sought Lady Parry but she lied.” She paused, taking in my silence. “Your queen never dispatched an escort to fetch Lady Parry back. That note we found on the saddle: My lord husband sent it to her along with a letter, assuring her that her secret was safe. I rather think she will welcome your disappearance, as well. She never wanted her wanton error revealed.”

  The icy meaning of her words sank into me like teeth. “You are wrong,” I whispered. “That child, he means everything to her.”

  “Oh?” She smiled with a callous disregard that made me want to throw myself at her throat. “He might have once, but not now. She knows well how every Catholic in this realm believes her illegitimate. She will be fortunate to see her own coronation, much less live out the year. Should it come to light she hid away a bastard, they will take her down like wolves. They’ll tear her apart and put her cousin, our rightful queen, Mary of Scots, in her place.”

  “You will die for this,” I told her, but she did not flinch.

  “No,” she said. “It is you who shall die.”

  The resolve in her voice made me struggle against my tethers, yanking furiously at the ropes even as she reached out her hand to Gomfrey. “Your knife.”

  Still crouched on the floor, the steward extended the blade to her, as Agnes yowled in the background. Anticipation suffused Lady Vaughan’s face. I braced for her thrust even as I strained to break free. I would die fighting for my last breath.

  She did not hear her husband come from behind her, the candlestick he swiped from the table aimed at her head. He brought it down with a sickening crack. Her eyes flared. She swayed, the dagger dropping from her fingers. She started to turn around, exposing to me the wound on the back of her head, then she toppled into Lord Vaughan’s arms.

  As he sank to the floor with her, he said, “Have mercy on us,” and started to weep.

  * * *

  Gomfrey cut my restraints. Shoving him aside, I staggered to my feet and looked down at the lord of the manor with his dead wife in his arms, crying as he buried his face in her bloodied hair. I said hoarsely to the steward, “Untie the girl.”

  While Gomfrey hastened to free Agnes, I leaned against the table. My legs threatened to buckle under me, but a cautious probing of my own nape detected only a painful knot. My left eye was swollen shut, no doubt blackened from my fall to the kitchen floor, which was why I was having such trouble opening it. Otherwise, though battered and bruised, I would survive.

  Mistress Harper emerged tentatively from the doorway leading to the kitchens. She gasped when she saw the scene before her and rushed to Agnes, who sat limp on the stool, her bindings strewn at her feet as she moaned.

  “See to her,” I heard myself say. My voice was flat.

  “Yes, at once,” Mistress Harper quavered. She dragged Agnes to her feet, one arm about the girl’s waist. Turning to Gomfrey, who had regained something of his impassive demeanor, I ordered, “Fetch my belongings from my chamber and bring them here.”

  With a terse turn of his heel, he left to do my bidding. A servant to his marrow, he knew better than to challenge me now that the edifice of lies his master and mistress had built had come tumbling down about their collective ears.

  I sidestepped Lady Vaughan’s body.

  I could not find it in myself to care that she was dead.

  * * *

  An hour later, after I washed myself with a pitcher Mistress Harper brought me, changed into my court doublet, hose, and breeches, and stuffed my filth-stiffened clothes into my bag, I returned to the hall. Pale and still sniffling, Agnes had my cloak; it was then that I belatedly remembered Raff’s ring. I snatched my cloak from her, probing the inner pocket. When I felt its small bulk there, I waved her aside and turned to find Lord Vaughan waiting.

  He had had his wife’s corpse taken away. Bardolf reclined at his feet and little Abigail sat beside him, ashen with fright. Before I could utter a word, Lord Vaughan said, “I will tell you everything. I swear it on my daughter’s soul. Only, I beg you”—his voice fractured—“do not arrest me. I am all my daughter has left.”

  I hardened my reply, though I had already determined it was not my role to condemn him. “Your only hope is that you withhold nothing more. When was Raff brought to you?”

  “In the winter of 1548,” he replied in a thread of a voice. “My aunt, Lady Parry … she came here with him at night. Philippa had not been able to conceive. After everything she had suffered, she thought God was punishing her. When Lady Parry arrived with a man unknown to us and the babe in her arms, we thought God himself had answered our prayers. We were assured the child was healthy; all we nee
d do was care for him as if he were our own. My aunt promised us we would lack for nothing; she gave us a sum of money and said we had only to send word to her using a cipher provided by the man with her, one Master Parry, though he bore no relation to us. She did not say whose child it was and I did not ask. But I knew. I knew almost at once.”

  Master Parry was Elizabeth’s treasurer, whom I had met at Hatfield and whom she had told me to contact should I need money. The plot to hide her child had indeed originated from deep within her most intimate ranks.

  “How did you know?” I drew a chair up beside him. Abigail pressed her face into her father’s doublet as Lord Vaughan caressed her hair. He then called for Mistress Harper, who hastened in. “Please,” he said, “take my daughter to her room.” Abigail tried to resist, clinging to her father until Mistress Harper managed to coax her away. As she left clutching the woman’s hand, I felt a deep sorrow for her. She had lost her brother and seen her own father murder her mother, albeit to protect me. She would never forget it, marked by the tragedy in her home.

  “I may look like a country fool,” Lord Vaughan said once we were alone, “but even I had heard the rumors during one of my trips to London, something about the princess and the king’s younger uncle, Admiral Seymour, who had wed King Henry’s widow, Kate Parr. It was said there had been flagrant behavior: an incident of the widow Parr restraining the princess in the garden while Seymour cut her dress to shreds, and other more disturbing tales of him bursting into the princess’s bedchamber when she was abed, near-naked himself, while all her ladies watched. The widow queen finally sent the princess away to a manor in Cheshunt. Her own brother King Edward forbade Elizabeth to set foot in court. And then,” he added, lowering his voice, “the arrests came.”

  “Admiral Seymour,” I said, thinking quickly of what I knew. “He was arrested by his brother, Lord Somerset, was he not? He was tried and executed for treason.”