Karen Harper Read online

  Bending low, I tried to feel my way along, but I bumped into stone tombs or even metal coffins here and there. One resounded with a muted boom, but the man must not have heard it. With his lantern beam still a narrow shaft, playing it back and forth before his feet, he slowly worked his way closer to me. He must know I had not the courage to flee into the depths of the crypt. So did he know me? Was this someone I knew?

  I was horror-struck at how closed-in I felt, despite being in an immense area. My blood pounded like drumbeats in my ears. I had to remind myself to breathe. The air was stale. Dust shrouded everything I touched. Spiderwebs laced themselves across my perspiring face and snagged in my eyelashes. I heard a rat scurry away and wished that I could too.

  Behind a big stone monument, I knelt and peered out. It was pitch-black but for the man’s shifting stab of light as he methodically came closer. Who was he? Surely not Firenze in disguise with huge, padded shoulders to teach me a lesson about being followed, though he had mentioned the foolish women he painted who were lost in the dark. Had that been a clue that he would play this macabre trick on me?

  Christopher, who had of late become more desperate about possessing me—had he hired someone to frighten me so I would realize how much I needed him? Or had he come back to town early? It could be one of the members of the holy guild who didn’t approve of a woman so much as stepping into the place of their secret rites. Holy Mother Mary, I prayed, please don’t let Firenze’s fear come true that the queen sent someone to ensure that we keep silent. Nick? No, of course it could not be Nick, however much this man’s height seemed to match his.

  Tears speckled my cheeks when I blinked, but tears or not, eyes closed or not, the blackness was all the same. I felt the weight of the massive stones above me, the weight of my fears pressing me down. I had to bite my lip not to scream out in abject fear, even if that gave away my position.

  From time to time I heard the man’s sword scrape against stone or ding a metal coffin. Was it still in his scabbard, or had he drawn it? And for what purpose against an unarmed woman?

  He suddenly lifted his lantern aloft. I ducked, hitting the floor on my belly. He spoke in a whisper, but even that echoed.

  “Varina! Her Majesty has sent me to fetch you. The master painter is already on his way. We must make haste.”

  How could this man know about the queen, unless she had sent him? I did not answer, did not move, only breathed, shallow and slow. If he came closer, I must crawl farther away, find shelter in this place I could not see.

  I prayed that death and purgatory were not like this. I must leave behind more money for masses said for Will’s and Edmund’s and my souls. I must donate more votive candles, more— Was I mad? I must keep my mind on the here and now.

  I forced myself to crawl slowly, feeling the way before me lest I bump into another tomb. My skirts under my knees dragged me back. I pulled my front hems up and held them in my teeth and crawled upon my bare knees on the dusty, hard stone. The next tomb I reached was carved, some sort of large sculpture. I had dared to go back closer to the chapel door—at least I thought so. If I hadn’t lost my bearings, this was an area the man had already searched. I stood to feel the carving with both hands—a stone effigy of someone in armor? I think a stone-hewn dog lay at his feet. Yes, his wife’s effigy lay stretched stiffly out beside him, but with enough room for me to climb up and wedge myself between the two of them.

  I could only pray my pursuer would not find me here, that I was hidden by the stone or the shadows. I lay as still as the dead, as still as the wax effigies I’d carved. The fact that my pursuer did not speak again must mean he was afraid I would recognize his voice—or that now, since I had not answered, he knew that ploy would not ferret me out.

  Surely he would not search the entire area. If his lantern gutted out in the erratic drafts here, he could be lost too. I warrant he was thinking I would make a dash for the chapel door. That I longed to do, but I was smarter than that, not a wise virgin with a lantern but a wary widow in the dark. Even if he went back into the chapel and locked me in here, I could bang on the door when the guild members met late this afternoon—if I did not lose my mind by then.

  If this man thought he would go out and leave the chapel door ajar and wait inside to snag me, he was much mistaken, but what had he done with Signor Firenze? The hastily abandoned brush in the paint palette now made me even more fearful for the artist’s safety. Could he be on his way to see the queen and had thrown his brush down in all haste? No, if that were true, would not my pursuer have identified himself?

  The man was moving slowly back toward the chapel. Dared I hope he was going to leave? I was shaking so hard my shoulders bumped the stone shoulders of my hosts. Oh, no, he was coming close. But he seemed to be projecting his beam low, to guide his own feet or to flush me out like hunted game. How I longed to leap at him, to scratch his eyes and tear his cap and cape away. Who are you? I wanted to scream.

  He paused near where I lay. I could see some of this tomb now in the wan, reflected lantern light, stone emerging in shades of gray, a tall, carved monument around and above me. Of the man himself, I dared not shift myself to try to catch a glimpse of him.

  My nose tickled. I could not sneeze or all was lost. Though I needed to stay as still as stone, I slowly raised one hand and jammed a finger under my nose. Yet I was going to sneeze. He would find me, I— Ah…

  The sensation passed, and he did too, walking faster now, going out the chapel door and banging it closed behind him. I heard him lock it; the metallic sound echoed. At least that proved he had actually gone in, not just pretended to, then waited in the dark for me to move.

  Tears of relief ran down my temples into my hairline and my ears. Yet I had never beheld such utter blackness. Fearing I would lose my bearings and miss the direction of the door, I sat up. My snood snagged on something and my hair spilled free, but I did not stop. I climbed down and started in the direction of the sounds he’d made. I must make straight for that but not go too close, lest he suddenly throw open the door again to seize me.

  But I did go a bit closer, praying I was on track. It would not be too long—maybe several hours—before the holy guild members, including Christopher, would be inside, and then I must knock for help, explain some of what had happened. But time, space—everything here was out of joint. The air was not good, and I felt so drained…my body shaking with fatigue from holding myself so still and quiet…fears, emotions, and exhaustion sapping the remnants of my strength.…

  Hiding under an elevated bronze coffin, despite stirring up a nest of mice there, I must have fallen asleep.

  I jerked awake so fast I banged my head on the bottom of the coffin. Lying back, slightly stunned, I heard sounds—singing. By the saints, the service in the chapel must be under way!

  I edged out from under the tomb, amazed I could pick things out around me a bit now. Had my eyes finally adjusted to the dark? No, for whatever reason, the door to the chapel stood ajar. Despite how long I must have been in here, should I wait for them to finish? What would it do to my reputation—or Christopher’s—if I were to spring out, filthy and wide-eyed, during their solemn service?

  I decided I would bide my time. Surely the man who had sought me was gone. Or if he was one of them, he would not dare to harm me after their service. If they should close or lock the door again, I would have no choice but to bang on it and tell all—without saying my pursuer had mentioned the queen and the palace. Perhaps the queen had sent him just to test me. But surely it wasn’t true that Firenze had gone ahead.

  I picked out a place against the wall, one tomb away from the door. Sitting in the shadows with my back against the carved stone tomb, I put my hand out.

  And touched cold flesh.

  I gasped and scrambled a bit away. A person, but alive or dead? I could see little in the dim light and with my hair spilled in my eyes. Was it my pursuer still waiting for me in the chill? No, not moving, and too small to be him. I made bu
t a little cry, though I wanted to scream my soul out. The small man’s head lay at a sharp, unnatural angle. A broken neck? And on his face a mustache, paint smears I could even feel—he was not breathing and his limbs had begun to stiffen—Maestro Firenze, sprawled here, dead.

  Queen Elizabeth of York

  “I am sure you will like Wales,” our son Arthur told his bride as the newlywed couple supped with the king and me in our withdrawing room at Westminster Palace. I saw color come to Arthur’s already rosy cheeks. “A great adventure, Catherine! The people are almost as wild as the scenery, you know.”

  “I learn…all I can,” Catherine said in her halting English. “I like meet…the England people and Wales.”

  “I applaud your quick learning, daughter,” I told her, and raised a goblet of Rhenish to her, and the king followed suit. “The people love you, and they will love you all the more when you learn their language and their ways.”

  In Latin, Arthur repeated to her what I had said. She smiled and nodded. Arthur clearly adored her, though I had heard from my ladies who had spoken to Catherine’s Spanish ladies that the happy couple had not yet truly consummated the marriage. But, heading their own household in Wales, there would be long winter nights for them to complete their union—and for me to miss him.

  With kisses all around, Arthur and Catherine took their leave, hand in hand, heading for Baynard’s Castle, where they had lived since the wedding. We would see them off from there just four days before Christmas. I greatly disliked the timing of that, but had not argued with the king. And then the court would travel to Windsor for the holiday season.

  “They are getting on exceedingly well, I’d say,” my lord observed as the yeomen guards closed the door behind them, leaving us alone. “I know the word is they have not yet sealed their union, but I spoke to Arthur about it, and I predict the word from Wales will be productive by spring or summer. Elizabeth,” he said, turning me toward him and encircling my waist with his arm, “I have decided I will look further into that matter we discussed the other night.”

  “Oh, my lord, I am so grate—”

  “But on the condition that you not continually inquire how it goes or what I must do to ferret out answers—or from whom. I will tell you what I know of import when I know it.”

  “Yes, I understand. And I thank you, whatever means you must use.”

  “We all use our own means from time to time, do we not, my dear?”

  “Indeed, we do and must,” I countered, wanting to agree with him in all things for this boon he was giving me. I suppose he meant my asking him for this great favor when we lay abed together, but I prayed he knew naught of my privy plans and necessary scheming.

  Mistress Varina Westcott

  Leaving Firenze’s body where it lay, I crawled closer to the door of the chapel. Should I burst in, crying, “Murder! Murder!”? Should I wait until they were greatly dispersed to send one of them—Christopher, if he was there—for the sheriff or crowner? By the saints, what if they thought that I had killed the artist? Or could he have come out here to relieve himself or look at something, then fallen and hit his head? No, I knew in my heart that the man in black had killed him as he would have me, and I knew that however stringently I was questioned, I could not say all I knew about who could have meant us harm.

  As I huddled outside the door, through which I could now clearly hear the service, my mind raced over terrible possibilities. Had that tall man truly been an assassin? If so, surely he’d not been sent by the queen. Wouldn’t she need both of us alive, lest she wanted repairs on her precious effigies? The portrait Firenze had painted of me—and the effigies that I could never mention—were the two things that bound the artist and me together.

  But unless I had been followed, just as Firenze said he had been, Christopher could be the only one who knew where I and Signor Firenze would be, and quite alone. But that man who had pursued me in the crypt—he could not have been Christopher any more than he could have been Nick Sutton.

  My distracted, scattered thoughts finally settled enough to make sense of the service on the other side of the door. No doubt my six black candles burned before the angel triptych, casting light on the virgins with their lanterns that would never be finished by Firenze now. I wiped tears from my cheeks, despite knowing my filthy hands would smear my skin gray. I shook and my teeth chattered as I waited for a pause to knock on their door.

  Although the lead voice and some of the singing had been in Latin, now that voice cried, “I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out!”

  All of the symbols of light within the chapel made sense now. Many of the members of the guild of the Holy Name of Jesus were chandlers and candlemongers. Of course their rites would employ light and dark, good and evil. Surely they didn’t demand sacrifices beyond time, money, and secrecy.

  “Soon we shall have the painting of the ten virgins come to life on our walls,” the voice intoned.

  Come to life, I thought. And how was that? Did they intend to present living tableaux or pageants, like those for the princess Catherine or the mystery plays the guilds gave each Christmas? The outlined virgins would never come to life, not without Maestro Firenze. I raised my hand to knock on the door until I heard the next words.

  “And now we shall hear from our brother Christopher, who has obtained the artist for us.”

  Yes, the next voice was his: “Let us realize that the five foolish virgins are closer to life than the five wise ones. Womankind, unwed or not, has been weak and foolish since the days of Eve, when she tempted Adam to sin, taken in by the Evil One. And so it has been ever since that females, though they be made from Adam’s rib, tend to evil and seduction and desperately need direction and correction from both God and man.”

  I jerked my hand down and stood up straighter. Of course, he spoke Holy Church doctrine, but it suddenly rubbed me sore. I had managed my shop quite alone for months between Will’s death and Gil’s arrival. I had hired Gil and was yet in charge of major decisions. I was rearing my son without a man, though Gil and Maud certainly helped. I could carve candles and fine effigies. But yes, I had been foolish too—to adore Nick, a man above my star. And foolish certainly to ever think of wedding and trusting Christopher Gage, however much I desperately needed his support now in what must be a wrongful-death inquiry. I could bear to hear no more, to wait no longer. I must find help here.

  Knowing I looked a fright, but determined to stand up to these men if need be, I knocked on the partly open door and called in, “My name is Varina Westcott. A man chased me into the crypt after I brought your candles and I hid, but the artist Firenze lies dead outside this door.”

  CHAPTER THE NINTH

  Chaos ensued. Faces crowded the doorway, Christopher’s among them. Though he looked appalled at my appearance, he swept me into his arms, even when the others came out with lanterns and, half-blinded by their lights, I showed them where the body lay.

  After that, time became as endless as the blackness in the crypt had been. Questions came at me from the guild members, then the constable, next the high sheriff of the city, finally the crowner—all who entered the crypt to examine the body through the holy guild chapel. I hoped my tale made sense, as I was forced to cobble some of it together to avoid mentioning the queen. The ruling I overheard bandied about among the city law enforcement officials was that the Italian artist had fallen and broken his neck, or had been murdered by a man unknown. Most English thought Italians or artists were not to be trusted, anyway.

  Talk of women being fools, I thought. All that was obvious. Did they not credit what I had told them enough to at least inquire about the man, talk to those above in the cathedral who might have seen him?

  However protective Christopher had been this day, I would never wed him now. As for Nick, the man had deserted me without a fare-thee-well, and after that kiss and his words the day of the joust, I swore that I would swear off men! Oh, yes, that would be the clever
thing to do.

  At least several of the guild members said they would pay for Firenze’s funeral, and I promised a waxen shroud and votive candles. Finally, they carried his body out. I sobbed at his loss, leaning back against the last thing he had ever painted, the wise women with their lamps.

  Christopher, Gil, even Maud stuck tight to me that night, until I begged exhaustion and Maud took me upstairs to bed. Insisting I bid my Arthur good night, I sat by his bed to calm him, but I could not calm myself. Again and again, as I tried to sleep, the whispering man in black approached me in the depths of my dreams. Finally, I went back into Arthur’s room and lay across the end of his bed, listening to him breathe, willing him to be safe always and have sweet rest. I had not been able to save my dear Edmund from death, but I vowed nothing bad would ever happen to Arthur.

  Christopher had done just what I’d feared: insisted that this all proved I needed him to protect me. He said he’d used his influence to keep me from being questioned further. But my thoughts still raced: The mystery man had had a sword and perhaps a dagger, so if he had killed Firenze, wouldn’t he have run him through or cut his throat? But I had overheard the crowner say there was not a drop of blood upon him, and his neck had been cleanly snapped. Cleanly? An accident? Only a fall? More like a murder. I warrant that if Roberto Firenze had not been what Londoners termed a stranger—a foreigner—they would have looked closer for a killer, unless someone with authority had told them not to. I only knew I wasn’t going out into the city soon on my own again, not to graveyards, not to chapels or crypts.

  With the winter weather, I would be a voluntary prisoner in my home and shop, as if I had been locked up for doing something dire, but I would cling to my work and my family.

  And I knew now for certain one thing more: As soon as the time was right, or if he asked me first, I was going to tell Christopher Gage I would not wed him. Will and I had made a good marriage, but it was a binding of hands more than hearts. Nick Sutton had stirred my now celibate body—that was all, I told myself. I warrant men were not to be trusted in general. After all, Adam in the garden had the choice not to take that apple, and look who got blamed! Oh, yes, but for business matters, I vowed I was finished with men.