“I believe you. I do. But this can’t wait. So do as I say. Go back to our room and stay there. Don’t answer the door. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I pushed him toward the opposite entranceway. “Go. Now.”
He left reluctantly, glancing at me over my shoulder. My night’s intake of wine turned sour in my belly. Pulling my cap lower on my head, I plunged through the hall doors and into darkened corridors that smelled of stale perfume and candle smoke. By exposing myself to reach Elizabeth, I’d taken a significant risk and heightened Renard’s suspicions even more, but I wasn’t going to let that, or any henchman of his, stop me. On the dais, the queen herself had singled Courtenay out, about to send him like a lackey to fetch Elizabeth from her rooms, but then he and Elizabeth behaved as if they’d never met. The sheer distance they’d kept from each other in the hall was enough to confirm that he was more than a mere companion she went riding with. He and Elizabeth were involved in something, and I intended to find out exactly what that something was.
In the long gallery, bejeweled courtiers flittered past me. I feigned a drunken stagger that elicited a woman’s giggle and a man’s angry “Out of our way, sod!” As soon as the courtiers passed, I quickened my pace. Courtenay must have taken this gallery, but as I moved out of it, down a flight of stairs into a narrower passageway, I began to think I’d taken a wrong turn. Whitehall was a labyrinth I’d barely mastered, and I realized I was actually heading into the bowels of the palace, the damp rising off the stone flagstones.
I cursed under my breath. I started to turn back and retrace my steps. I had surely lost Courtenay by now, and-
The faint echo of voices reached me.
I inched back toward where the passage rounded a corner. Two figures stood partially illumined by icy light coming from a poorly fitted postern door. The taller of the figures had his back to me, but I identified at once the distinctive black-and-white-draped arm at his hip, dangling silver points. The other figure was lithe, shorter by a head and swathed in a black mantle. A jolt of recognition set my blood to racing when I saw the alabaster oval of her face, framed by her fur-trimmed hood.
I pulled out of sight, my heart pounding.
It was Elizabeth, alone with Courtenay.
“We must be careful,” I heard her say, the passage’s low vaulted roof amplifying her voice. “This game has become far too perilous.”
“Game?” Courtenay gave a brusque laugh. “It’s gone far beyond that. We’re in a fight for our lives, now that your harridan sister means to set the Spaniard over us.”
“You forget that my sister has not announced anything yet,” she countered. “It may be that this betrothal to Philip of Spain will never come to pass. Such affairs take time. There are a hundred complications that could interfere and-”
“The only consideration is whether she’ll take your head before or after the wedding,” he cut in, with a callousness that chilled me. “Didn’t you hear how she spoke to you in the hall? She warned you before her entire bloody court! Elizabeth, you cannot play both sides anymore. Mary will move against you. She’ll see you to the scaffold even if she has to execute every Protestant from here to Dover to achieve it.”
“Careful, cousin.” Elizabeth’s voice turned hard. “You speak of my sister. Besides, she has not done anything to me yet. I am still in the succession by our father’s will.”
Courtenay laughed. “Henry also named your aunts and their children after you. Mary will see you dead or disinherited, and put that sour bitch Lennox in your place, until she gets with child by Philip. You know it and so do I. Are you going to submit? Will you sacrifice your very right to be queen to Mary’s unholy Hapsburg alliance?”
“God’s teeth, I’ve heard enough!” Elizabeth exclaimed. She paused, lowering her voice to a hiss. “What would you have me do, eh? I’m watched day and night by her spies, by the ladies she’s set in my chambers, by the very laundress who washes my linens! Since I came to court, I’ve been on the edge of an abyss. I do not intend to submit. But neither do I mean to lose my head over it. If it comes to it, I’ll do what I must to survive.”
“Meaning what? You’ll kiss the pope’s arse, and Philip of Spain’s, too?”
His tone was so taunting, I had to brave another look. I saw him reach for her, as if to take her hands, and she recoiled. “You would have me build my own scaffold.”
“I do not force you to anything,” he replied. “But you heard your sister: The time for prevarication is over. Trust in Dudley and me, if nothing else. Only we can see you safe.”
My entire being froze. Dudley: He spoke of Robert Dudley, my former master, Northumberland’s favored son and Elizabeth’s childhood friend, whom Mary had confined in the Tower with his brothers-Robert Dudley, who stood condemned of treason.
Elizabeth had gone utterly still. The moments passed like years, weighted with her unspoken reflection. Then she said quietly, “Here it is.” She parted her cloak. From within its pocket, she retrieved a small package and handed it to him. Drawing her cloak back about her figure, she gestured to the postern door. “Now call for your man to accompany me to my rooms. I feel a headache coming on. I need to rest.”
My mind keeled as Courtenay avidly thrust the package into his own cloak. I stood as if paralyzed, trying to make sense of what I’d just seen, barely registering the figure that came through the postern door. It stepped forth purposefully, a gloved hand held up, detaining Elizabeth. Then it pointed that same hand to where I lurked. The princess turned to Courtenay, frowning. In that instant, I recalled what Peregrine had told me. He’s wearing a black cloak and hood. He’s huge. I couldn’t see his face, but he didn’t seem friendly.
I took one look at the man’s bulk, at the shapeless cloak and cowl that concealed him from head to foot, and realized I had been mistaken. Renard hadn’t set a man to trail me. The shadow watching me in the hall, the figure standing there now, pointing at me, was a hireling of Courtenay’s. As I heard Courtenay curse and Elizabeth gasp, I spun around to race back the way I’d come, my footsteps like thunderclaps in my ears.
The long gallery was dark, a lone cresset sputtering oily flame high on a far wall, throwing more shadow than light. I was gasping for air, had to make myself breathe through my nose as I pitched myself headfirst into the nearest recessed window bay.
Moments later, Courtenay appeared, Elizabeth close behind him, her hood drawn up over her head. “Are you sure?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes, he was there!” Courtenay was turning to and fro, peering furiously into the gallery. “By all the devils in hell, he was eavesdropping on us, and now we’ve lost him!”
“Who are you talking about?” asked Elizabeth. “I didn’t see anyone.”
Courtenay’s voice edged. “That nobody from the hall, who made such a show of rescuing Jane Dormer’s dog, He must have followed us.” Without awaiting the princess’s response, he swung about to his henchman, who lumbered up with a distinctive limp, an unsheathed dagger in his fist. By the looks of it, the earl had hired a mercenary. “You idiot,” spat Courtenay, “you were supposed to keep watch!” He lifted a hand as if to strike the man, but Elizabeth interposed herself between them.
“Enough,” she declared. “You told him to wait behind the postern door for our privacy, remember? How could he have kept watch?”
“He’s a miserable whoreson,” snarled Courtenay. He stabbed his hand at the henchman. “Get back to the hall and find him. If he overheard enough to tell Renard or, God forbid, the queen, we won’t need Philip of Spain to come and burn us. Mary will do it for him.” Courtenay’s voice twisted, his lips drawn back to show his teeth. “I’ll take Her Grace back to her chambers. You do what I pay you for and get rid of that mongrel-come-out-of-nowhere before he ruins everything!”