The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(89)
“I am afraid so, Your Highness. You do not want to catch the summer fever like your poor brother, do you?”
Henry got up from his seat. “Of course not. Although you would make me better if I did, wouldn’t you, Renardi?”
“I would endeavour to do so, Highness. As I do now for your brother.” He gestured towards the bedchamber. When the door had closed behind them, Master Weston rose from his chair.
“I think I shall take the air for a short while,” he said to no one in particular. He carefully put all the chess pieces back in their starting positions and then left, talking to himself under his breath.
“Gone to help himself to the prince’s wine stores, more like,” de Vere said, heaving himself up from his cushion by the hearth.
“Why don’t we get treatments for the fever?” Sidney asked.
“Because we’re not princes,” de Vere replied. He lowered his voice. “Besides, what if Renardi made Edward sick, and is trying to do the same to Henry with this ‘treatment’?”
“Why would he do that?” Kit asked.
“Because he’s a foreigner. You can’t trust them, you know.”
“Catlyn’s a foreigner,” Sidney said.
“I am not,” Kit replied, though not with any conviction.
“Yes you are, the prince himself told me. Your grandmother was French, your mother is Dutch and you were born in France. That makes you a foreigner.”
“Perhaps you poisoned Edward,” de Vere said, looming over him.
“I did not.” Kit backed away from the older boy.
De Vere’s fist came flying towards him. Kit dodged, and de Vere yelped as his knuckles smashed against the rough wall. Kit raised his own fists, screaming with frustrated rage, but something else welled up inside him, a sadness that sucked the air from his lungs and left him feeling hollow and cold. The last thing he saw were his companions staring at him in wide-eyed horror before he fell into darkness.
If the Queen’s household had been quiet before, it was sepulchral now. Juliana’s ladies were not permitted to speak unless spoken to, though the Queen spent so many hours in the little chapel that she was seldom there to give permission. The summer days seemed far too long, the hours endless. Coby tried to occupy her time with sewing, but that only left her mind free to worry about Kit and Mal. She had seen neither of them since the day of the coronation procession, did not even know if either of them were still alive, although she hoped that someone would have brought word if they were not.
Her one small consolation was that Olivia appeared even more frustrated by their confinement and silence than herself. The “castrato” was not permitted to sing, of course, not even a hymn or psalm at their daily worship. Olivia spent most of the day staring out of the window or hunched up on a cushion, eyes closed. Coby wondered if she was wandering the dreamlands or merely feigning sleep to avoid what little conversation the others dared attempt.
One thing Coby knew for sure: since Mal’s plan had failed, she had no choice but to get Kit out of here herself. She considered petitioning the Queen, but if she were refused it would only make life ten times more awkward. It also felt discourteous to ask for herself what the Queen no doubt longed for and was unlikely to get. Reluctantly she put that option aside, to save as a last resort. The best plan was to rely on no one but herself, which meant finding a way out of the castle. And that required a reconnoitre. Getting out of Saint Thomas’s Tower was easy enough; all she had to do was wait until Juliana went to prayer, then take herself off to her bedchamber complaining of womanly pains. If any of the other ladies discovered her absence and betrayed her, she would take the consequences.
She tarried in the outer ward for a while, examining possible exits whilst pretending to be enjoying the rose garden, just in case anyone was observing her from the surrounding towers’ windows. The Cradle Tower’s gate opened directly onto the moat, which was no use at all, but she had discovered there was a landward exit somewhere hereabouts used by the warders to get to Tower Hamlets. It was somewhere beyond the far wall of the rose garden, and with the skeleton keys she had brought hidden in her sewing basket, it would not be too hard to get through the locked gate in the garden wall. No doubt the causeway itself was guarded, but it seemed their best chance of escape.
With the exit from the outer ward accounted for, that just left the issue of getting into the Bloody Tower. In addition to the covered walkway to the Wakefield Tower on the same level as the Queen’s bedchamber, there looked to be an open walkway above. Perhaps it was part of the guards’ nightly round, though. She made her way into the inner ward and rapidly assessed possible entrances from that side; there might also be a way in from the lower level of the round Wakefield Tower, since it closely abutted the rectangular mass of the Bloody Tower. Nor was that entrance guarded, which was promising. Unless it meant there was no route through to the prince’s chambers and hence no need for a guard. If only she could explore properly! With a grimace of frustration she walked up the slope to the coldharbour gate that guarded the small ward between the White Tower and the Great Hall. There might be nothing she could do for the dead who had been taken to the makeshift mortuary in the hall, but at least she could report to the Queen on how many had been claimed by their families.
For a brief moment she entertained the idea of disguising Kit as a dead body and having Ned come and take him away, but that would be far too hard to arrange given the lack of communication so far. No. Simple and fast was the only way that was likely to work, and even the chance of that was not good. But what other choice did she have?