“Last time,” I said. “Give me the letters. Or would you rather bleed?”
“Bleed!” he hissed, and he twisted with brutal strength, bringing up his knees and ramming them into my groin. Stars exploded in my head. I lost my grip. I hit him as hard as I could in his face; he hit back, and then we were struggling, tumbling across the rug, fists ramming and fingers gouging as he sought to wrest the knife away or drive it into me. I felt nothing-no pain, no fear, not even when he slammed a fist into my temple and the world went dark. With a ferocious bellow I didn’t recognize as my own, I started beating him, over and over, using my poniard hilt, hearing flesh give and bone crack.
Then my hands were about his throat; he flailed under me as I shut off his wind like a vise. He started to choke. My rage-that boundless, consuming rage, which I had kept tethered deep inside like some beast, fed on years of suffering, of doubt and yearning and helplessness-devoured all caution, all pity.
All reason.
“Stop! Please!”
A girl’s frantic wail and the frenzied barking of a terrier barely penetrated my consciousness. A pounding sound echoed; Robert was kicking, his heels banging spasmodically against the floorboards as he fought for air. As I looked over my shoulder, past the blood seeping down my face, I saw figures rush into the room, coming toward me.
I thrust my blade at Robert’s throat. “Any closer and I swear to God, I’ll kill him.”
His brothers slid to a halt. John was in the lead, ashen dismay spreading across his face as he took in our sprawled position, the contents from the sideboard spilled across the floor, the overturned chairs and stools strewn in our wake.
Guilford was the first to recognize me. He cried, “It’s the foundling!” and Henry Dudley spat, “Whoreson. Let the dog loose on him. Then I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
“You will do no such thing!” rang out a wavering voice; it came from the same girl who’d cried out at us to stop. As I tightened my hold on Robert, I stared through the ebbing haze of my anger to where Jane Grey stood as if petrified on the threshold.
She was looking at me in disbelief. “What … what are you doing here?”
“He’s plotting treason,” I told her. “You’re in here because his father forced you to assume the queen’s throne, and now he would send you all to the scaffold.”
She lifted a hand to her chest, as though she lacked for breath. She said haltingly to John, “I believe he speaks the truth. I know him.”
“So do we!” retorted Guilford. “We reared the worthless shit in our house and then he turned coat and betrayed us-”
I pushed the tip of my blade harder against Robert’s neck. He let out a strangled cry. “He has letters to prove it,” I said. “I want them. Now. Or he dies.”
John Dudley shifted his gaze to Robert. I could see he was unwell, his face sunken and complexion sallow, like an invalid’s. His voice was slow, measured, as if it cost him to formulate words. “Letters? Is this true, Robert?”
Robert tried to raise protest; I cut him off. “It’s true, though he’ll lie to his last breath if he can. Where are they? Where are the letters?”
John looked bewildered. “I don’t-” Jane had already moved past him, evading her husband, Guilford, who stood clenching and unclenching his fists. Henry ripped the dog’s lead from him and unleashed the terrier; it bounded at me, baring its teeth.
“Sirius, sit!” Jane snapped. The dog went to its haunches at once, a low growl in its throat as she proceeded to the hearth, groping under the lip of the chimney. She extracted a cylindrical oil-skin tube, which she held pensively before she turned around.
Guilford gasped. “How did you know?”
She gave him a bitter smile. “Do you still think me a complete fool? I’ve been coming here every week to walk and dine with you; I have eyes. I saw books arrive. I saw others leave. I counted them every day. I even tried to read one. But they are useless. The pages have been cut out.” She kicked with her diminutive foot at the pile of books near the dog’s cushion by the hearth, toppling them. “Your brother Robert would see us dead to satisfy his ambition. Even now, he refuses to recognize that our fate has always lain in God’s hands.”
“A pox on God!” snarled Henry Dudley. “And a pox on you, too, you righteous Grey bitch!” He started to lunge at Jane. John stepped in front of her with his hand held up.
“No.” Though he was frail, in his voice reverberated an echo of that unquestionable authority his father had once commanded. “That is enough.” He looked at me. “Let Robert go. You have my word you will not be harmed.”
I hesitated. A room full of Dudleys and one exit: It was my worst nightmare come to life, but it was a risk I had to take. I released Robert, rising quickly to my feet and stepping away. He drew in gulps of air, his face a mass of contusions, his lip split and bleeding. I still couldn’t feel anything, but I knew I would later. I must look almost as bad as he did.
“You can’t let him leave,” Henry was saying. “He knows everything now. He’ll tell the queen. The bastard foundling will be the one who sends us all to the scaffold!”
John glared at him before he turned to me. “You once served our family. But you deceived us and, according to Robert, helped the queen put us in here. Will you now send us all to our deaths?”
I shook my head, trying not to look at Jane’s thin figure behind him, the tube in her hands. “I want only to help my mistress, Princess Elizabeth.”
Robert croaked from behind me, “Don’t believe him. He’s a liar. He wants revenge. Give him those letters and he will use them against us. He’ll take us down, every last one.”
John hesitated. All of a sudden, fear seized me. I might not make it out of here alive.
“I promise on my own life,” I said to John. “I will not use the letters against you.” I clutched my knife tighter, sensing his brothers watching, waiting for his word to tear into me like hungry wolves.
Then John stepped aside. “Give him the letters.”
Jane held out the tube. As I took it, I saw the stoic resignation in her blue-gray eyes. I had to resist the urge to clasp her to me, to gather her up and take her far from this awful place. She was so short she barely reached my chin, fragile as a child; the toll of her confinement showed in the hollows of her cheeks and in her shadowed, haunted gaze.
“I believe you to be a man of honor,” she said. “I trust you’ll honor your word.”
“My lady,” I whispered. “I would rather die than see you harmed.” I bent over her hand. Then I tucked the tube into the saddlebag, grabbed it and my cloak off the table, and started for the door.
“Prescott!”
I paused, glancing over my shoulder. Robert had staggered to his feet with John’s help. Leaning on his older brother’s thin shoulder, he flung his words at me like a gauntlet.
“It’s not over,” he said. “Nothing you say or do can stop it. You may have won this day, but in the end I’ll triumph. I will restore my name if it’s the last thing I do. And remember this: On the day Elizabeth takes her throne, I will be at her side. I will be the one she turns to, in all things. And then, Prescott-then you’ll regret this day. Her hour of glory will be your doom.”
I didn’t answer. I did not give him the satisfaction. I turned and walked out and left him there in his prison, where, if there was any justice left in the world, he would remain for the rest of his days.
It was the only way Elizabeth would ever be safe from him.
Chapter Fifteen
Outside, a cacophony of distant bells rang. It was late afternoon, and the winter sky had begun to darken. Pulling my cloak about me I hastened back through the ward, pausing briefly at a horse trough to wet my cloak and wash the blood from my face. The gates would close at dusk; I must be out before they did. Transferring the tube from my cloak to the safety of my doublet, I tried to look impervious as I made my way to the gatehouse.