Karen Harper Read online

  I swore not to tell, but I would never forget. How deeply it had disturbed me that my final farewell to my finest work seemed to be under the weight of not a vow but a threat.

  Queen Elizabeth of York

  As I lay in the royal bed, I thought I heard a child’s voice calling me. Even the words were distinct enough to awaken me: I don’t want to die. I want to live.… But farewell. Farewell! Help us; save us!

  My first thought was to calm myself by running to the little chamber where the four beautiful effigies lay, but I was sleeping with Henry this night. When we bedded together—as now, usually in his chamber, not mine—he was always Henry to me, not the king. I would be thirty-six at my next birthday, but my body yet responded to his lovemaking. Perhaps there would be yet another prince or princess, though never ones to take the place of those I’d lost.

  My heart still hammered in my ears from the echo of little voices I surely must have heard only in my head. Henry still slept, though fitfully, tossing, moaning, breathing hard in spurts as ever. From his earliest years, he’d confided once, he’d never had a sound night’s sleep, not even with trusted guards at the doors, not even when, at last, the throne was his. Especially not then. In our earlier years, he had even slept with his crown by the bed, fearful lest someone would come and snatch it.

  Although I knew it would be unusual if I left him before morn, I carefully extricated my hair, which was caught under his shoulder, and edged toward the far side of the bed. I could tell the guards in the hall I had a queasy stomach and needed my own chamber. I vow that was nearly the truth.

  “Are you all right?” came Henry’s sleepy voice. “Is all well?”

  “Yes. I was just awakened by worries,” I told him, deciding he might insist on sending for a physician and make much ado if I told him I felt unwell. I wondered what he would say if he ever learned what lay in the secret chamber off my bedroom. I could not stifle those little voices in my head demanding, Save us…help us! Perhaps, though they were long lost, I could help myself. But first I must mention something I would give in to before asking for a great favor.

  “You’re not fretting again that we should stay here for Christmas instead of Windsor?” His voice came slowly, dragging out his words. “Tradition is important in establishing the Tudor name.”

  “Not that,” I told him. True, I had not wanted to leave my secret chamber for so long, but I did love Windsor all decked out for yule, and hoped the change of setting would help to heal my heart. But I had to get this precious and precarious moment back on track. I’d capitulated on Windsor and now must give in on something else.

  I told him, “I admit I’m still fretting about Arthur and Catherine leaving us before yule and riding to the Welsh border in this bitter weather.”

  “Is that it then? I told you, my dearest, it’s best that they establish themselves in their own household there. He’s not called Prince of Wales for nothing. Besides, you know I named him Arthur to remind our subjects that the Tudors claim a heritage from King Arthur of Camelot, that good and glorious kingdom of yore in that very area where Ludlow now stands.”

  “I know. But our Arthur is thin and has that cough.” Though I had meant this already settled issue as a diversion, I shuddered at the thought of Ludlow Castle with the winter winds and sharp spring off the Marches that divided England and Wales. I lay back down in bed, feeling overly warm instead of chilled. Now. Now, I told myself. I must broach the issue I had wanted to for weeks, indeed for the sixteen years we’d been wed, and especially these last long ten years when I had covertly pursued my inquiry. Seeing my dead brothers brought to life had made me bold and desperate.

  I cuddled back against his warmth, and he put his arms around me so that we lay spoon fashion, as we oft did after our union. I did not have a loveless marriage, for this loyal, clever man truly cared for me beyond the blending of our blood and lineage—I knew that and must trust it now.

  “Of course you are right about Wales,” I said in a rush before he fell back asleep or was tempted to take me once more. “But there is something I need and want very much, I beseech you, Henry.”

  He kissed my naked shoulder. “And not this?” he asked, his voice teasing.

  “No—that is, not yet. I bear a burden you could ease, though I know you would rather leave the issue buried—I mean not deal with it, as busy as you are.”

  I turned in his arms to face him, to whisper even more quietly, as if some evil being would hear my plea, however much we lay in a curtained bed in a room and palace guarded to the hilt.

  “Speak, my dearest, if I can do aught to ease your mind and heart.”

  “It yet haunts me that my brothers disappeared. No doubt they are dead, but there is no one to answer for it—murder and regicide.”

  I felt his body stiffen. I held my breath.

  “So long ago,” he said.

  “But new to me each day. I still blame myself for counseling my mother to let her second son go—and I should have told her to protest little Edward’s being taken to the Tower, son of a king—a king himself!”

  “Yes, yes, but King Richard, who no doubt had them harmed by one of his lackeys, is dead and buried, and I’d like to keep it that way. Some Yorkist wolves are still on the prowl, and we don’t need another uprising with a pretender to my throne, which could happen if I stoke those fires of Richard dispatching your brothers again.”

  “Such rebellions could be cut off by proving the boys are dead—bodies or bones found, a murderer’s confession, something! Could you not make more inquiry in a privy way? It would satisfy me—and the justice on which our Tudor kingdom must be established—if it were handled secretly, but I must know.”

  He knew I was distraught, yet I held back the depths of my vehemence. If the boys’ murderer still lived, I would see that he or they were assassinated or executed—send Nicholas Sutton secretly to do the deed, if need be. Lately, though, he had gone from my service to the king’s, and had been assigned to Prince Arthur’s personal guard for the coming journey to Wales.

  It haunted me too that there were Yorkists the king had taken back into his good graces, such as Sir James Tyrell, who helped to hold Calais in France for us. Even our Lord High Treasurer, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, had once stood for the Yorkist cause. Since Henry needed their talents and services, he had given reprieves to both men, but they might indeed still be on the prowl. I vowed that, whether my brothers’ murderer hid inside or outside of our court, I would be a she-wolf to discover him!

  Henry pulled me closer, tucking the top of my head under his chin. I could feel the pulse in his neck, the very thudding of the heart that had the power and ruled this kingdom. He had not said no. He was weighing all the options, as he always did.

  Mistress Varina Westcott

  Because Christopher had gone on a journey into the shire of Kent to bargain with the beekeepers who provided all of us with wax, he had allowed me to deliver candles from my chandlery to the chapel of the guild of the Holy Name of Jesus in the crypt of St. Paul’s. Ah, he was trying to tempt me with all the good things he could do for me and mine if I would agree to wed him.

  I took two of our apprentices along—over Gil’s protests that he should be the one to go with me—because it would have come to a spat when I told him he could not accompany me down into the crypt. Christopher had been adamant about that. The lads would guard the horse and cart I had loaded with the longest tapers we sold. These were black ones, thick four-foot-long candles priests usually carried in funeral processions but which the guild of the Holy Name of Jesus had ordered for their secret ceremony on this day. Christopher would be back to attend, so I wanted everything to be set up just right.

  I was not nervous, for I knew I would not be alone in the chapel. According to Christopher, the increasingly popular Signor Roberto Firenze had been hired by the holy guild to paint soaring angels on the ceiling. Hoping those did not remind me of my nightmare, I was anxious to see them. Christopher had also sa
id that he had no doubt that the Maestro, as he oft called Firenze, would use my face for at least one of them—and he’d bribe the man if he did not.

  “We ought to get a cut of his fees from assignments to which your portrait has given him entry,” Christopher had said. “I hear he’s painted some very important people of late.” I had almost laughed aloud; he would have erupted had he known the little Italian had painted wax figures for the queen—ones I had made.

  “You lads, wait here and guard all well,” I told John and Piers, fifteen-year-old twins, in their second year of apprenticeship to us.

  “But those big ones be heavy,” John said as they handed me two of the six tapers and I balanced them in my arms.

  “Yes, but you can’t enter the chapel with me, so I’ll be back—twice.”

  Fortunately, I found the door unlocked and the stairwell well lit, though closing the door behind myself took some doing. As I descended carefully, I fancied I could hear Firenze below singing or humming. What a blessing to be happy at one’s work, I thought. I could cling to that in the future if I found the courage to turn Christopher down. I prayed that he would not hurt our chandlery from spite, since he had the power of the guild behind him and we had no representation there. Just to show me how much I needed him, he must be delaying acceptance of Gil’s request to join.

  “Signor, it’s me, Varina,” I called as I neared the bottom of the stairs, not wanting to startle Firenze and have him spatter paint on an angel’s face. But he was not painting angels and not on the ceiling; on each of the side walls he had sketched outlines of five women, all holding lanterns, five thrusting them forward, five sadly holding them down at their sides.

  “Ah, mi bella Varina,” he sang out, turning away from his task. His curled mustache tilted up in a welcoming smile. “I did hear you might be coming.”

  “But I heard you were painting angels on the ceiling,” I said, looking up at it before I laid the two long tapers carefully on the floor.

  “Later. Right now ze five wise and five foolish virgins from ze Bible, eh, from the Lord’s own parable. Half of them had their lamps lit, prepared for when ze bridegroom come, ze others not and want to borrow a light, but too late, and they are left behind, calling, ‘Lord, Lord,’ in the darkness. Has something to do with the guild’s secret rites in this place, eh?”

  So far, only the outline of the maidens’ faces and hands holding their lanterns were completed. They looked like ghosts emerging from the white plaster, as if they’d risen from their graves out in the crypt and were able to pass through walls. Strangely, it popped into my head that Nick had called the detested Lord Lovell a ghost, but I thrust that thought aside.

  “I hope you’re doing the wise ones first,” I told him. “Christopher said you might use my face. If you do, I hope it’s one of those.”

  “Of course, of course! But, speaking of being prepared, I must ask you something.” He came closer. His face was streaked with smudges of paint, just as he’d looked when he painted my portrait and the queen’s effigies. It rather gave him a wild look, I thought, and I somehow liked him the better for it. Besides, I was forever burning myself with wax, getting it in my hair or clothes or under my fingernails. I knew how it felt to be totally absorbed in one’s work.

  “What is it?” I asked him when I saw how distressed he looked, yet how he hesitated. “Does working so far down in this small place bother you too?”

  “Not that. I think I been followed. And someone outside my door at night—ze hall floor creaks. I look out through ze keyhole and only see black clothing. I call out and open ze door and someone running down ze steps at the inn, but no one below seen a stranger. Ze lady who hired us lately—she was so—ah, what is ze word?—adamant I keep her secret, I fear she sends someone to keep their eyes on me that I not talk. You have anything like that?”

  A shiver shook me. By the lady, he meant the queen. “No, but I’ve been preoccupied. I admit I haven’t been watching. Yet I can’t imagine that—”

  “You know what happened to ze Egyptians.”

  “The Egyptians? You mean in the Bible?”

  “No—just heard about it,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, though we were quite alone. “The pharaohs, their kings and queens, they build small burial chambers hidden in huge stone buildings. But to keep ze location of their bodies secret from grave robbers, they kill ze ones know about it, ze ones built it for them, seal them in a crypt too.”

  “What? You don’t mean that the—the lady—wants to silence you for what you know?”

  “Just my imagination, si, but I got a good one—you too, I bet. Artists must have that or not artists at all.”

  I tried to reassure and calm him. He went back to work as I hurried upstairs and went outside to the cart to carry down two more black tapers and then, when I saw Firenze was working like a madman, went back up for two more without bothering him. The boys were blowing on their hands and stamping their feet in the cold, so I sent Piers to buy hot spiced ale and roasted chestnuts for us. I told them I would take longer this time because I needed to set up the candles. But when I went back down with my last load, the artist was nowhere to be seen.

  I feared Firenze was upset that I had not sympathized with him more about his worries. Had he just not been speaking to me on my second trip down because I’d ignored his talk of Egyptians? Was he playing a trick on me? Not only was he not in the small chamber, but he had snuffed out all but one of the lamps in the room, though the stairwell was still brightly lit and threw light within.

  I put the heavy tapers down. I looked for him under the benches, then behind the glorious triptych screen with the soaring angels. There was room for someone to hide back here. How I’d like to secrete myself to hear what really went on in one of these males-only rituals, but I saw nothing but spiders there.

  “Maestro? Signor Firenze? Roberto Firenze!”

  My voice echoed. Surely singing or chanting would carry just that strangely down here. I saw that the side door to the huge crypt area itself, which Christopher had mentioned, stood slightly ajar. Was Firenze hiding out there? I did not put it past him to jest with me, but he had not seemed in the mood for that today. Yes, his things were still laid out here—paint exposed to the air, even a big horsehair brush dropped hastily on his large palette, with its handle as well as bristles in the paint.

  Dared I look out into the crypt? Perhaps he had just gone out to relieve himself or even to explore. I could imagine the coffins and monuments of yore resting there in the vast, silent darkness. I shivered again. I could go for help, though to whom I did not know. Or at least I would take the lantern at the bottom of the stairs with me and call into the crypt for him.

  I shook my head at my foolishness. I was obviously making much ado about nothing. The volatile little man had evidently gone up to get some drink or food, and I had simply missed him on my way back down. I should have asked whether he needed something from upstairs. He could have gone out any of the cathedral doors and not wanted to leave all the lanterns burning while he was away for a respite.

  Without anyone else here, the walls seemed to close in on me. I stood frozen, trembling, almost unable to get myself to move toward the staircase. My pulse pounded, and I could not catch my breath. I could see why they wanted to have the ceiling painted down here. That would at least give the illusion of space. To think of all those dead bodies just beyond that partly open door to the crypt, enclosed forever, just as my dear ones, my Edmund had been. And to think that Firenze had feared he was being followed and I had refused to credit it…

  I heard footsteps on the stairs. Thank heavens, he was coming back. As he approached, the light that curled from the well-lit staircase into the back of the chapel dimmed as his form blocked it out. His shadow, somewhat shapeless in a cape perhaps, cast itself upon the wall and then disappeared.

  I realized the person was too big to be Firenze. Whoever it was had been putting out the lanterns on his way down the steps. Was
it the one who had been following Firenze, and the artist had gone upstairs, seen him, and fled back down here and into the crypt to hide? Should I call out or hide too?

  A long, black-sleeved arm with black gloves reached out to lift the lantern at the bottom of the steps off its hook. The intruder shuttered the light so that only a single, narrow beam shot into the room, for all had gone dark behind and around him.

  His steps slowed. As I pressed myself back behind the edge of the triptych, I heard him shuffle into the room. He could trap me here. I dared not cry out to question or challenge him.

  Staying in the shadows, I bent over and tiptoed toward the door to the huge crypt under the cathedral. Some said it was as large as the building above. I cursed the door when it creaked as I opened it farther and darted out into utter blackness.

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

  I feared I would be pursued, and I was right. How had everything so swiftly gone so wrong?

  I heard the man come out into the crypt. His narrow lantern beam swept the area by the door, back, forth, along the walls, the floor. I heard him close the door to the chapel firmly; I knew that would be my only way out. If I fled farther into the crypt, I could wander in the darkness for days and be lost down here forever in this pitch blackness. I knew I must work myself back to the door and flee upstairs, but then, my pursuer knew it too. If I was gone too long, would the apprentices summon help or send someone to look for me? Why had I told the lads I would be gone for a long while? I should have heeded Firenze’s warning about being followed. And where was he?