The Tudor Conspiracy - Gortner Christopher W. (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .txt) 📗

“Majesty.” I stood and turned to the door. She spoke again, her tone rigid with devastating power. “Remember this, whoever you are: To me you no longer exist. You’ve achieved your aim. You are now truly a man without a past. See that you stay that way.”

I turned to take one final look at her, erect with her head held high, every inch a queen despite her dishevelment. I bowed, with reverence, and I walked out.

Lady Clarencieux rose from her post by the fire. I saw relief wash over her face as I reached out and took her hand in mine.

“Watch over her,” I said. “She’ll need more care than she knows.”

“I will care for her with my life.” She left her hand in mine for a moment before she withdrew it. “Be safe, Master Beecham.” She turned to the door of the chapel. She did not need to explain; a man who did not exist could no longer pass through Whitehall.

As the door closed behind me, I heard her say, “At the fork in the tunnel, turn right. It will bring you to the river.”

* * *

Rochester had absconded, as I expected. As he’d said, he had a family to protect. He had left the chapel’s secret door unlocked, but I knew the way back to his study was barred. Inhaling deep, I slipped on my gloves and entered the stone tunnel. This time, I had no light. I could scarcely see two feet in front of me, my heels crunching on rubble, the chatter and scamper of rats sending shivers through me. The farther I went into that airless darkness, the more I smelled the acrid tang of the river. I quickened my step, stumbling as I neared what appeared to be the fork.

The left tunnel stretched into nothingness; the right glimmered with faint light. Gripping my sword at my hip, I advanced carefully. More debris crunched underfoot; the moldering walls were slimy to the touch even through my gauntlets. I was so focused on reaching that distant pinprick of light that seemed to beckon like a mirage that at first, I thought I must be imagining the other scent wafting toward me-an insidious perfume, which clung to the air as if its wearer had just passed through.

I froze. Lilies.

A footstep came behind me. I whirled about, yanking at my blade.

No one was there.

I started to tremble. No, it couldn’t be. It was impossible. I had seen her leap off the bridge. She had plunged to her death.

The perfume was everywhere now, swirling like a tenacious invisible mist until all I could smell was her. Inside my skin and out. Everywhere.

“Show yourself!” I cried, my voice reverberating wildly. I heard another footstep, the crush of powdered stone under a heel. I bolted forth, dashing toward that sound, my blade swinging before me as I kicked rats aside, my inchoate howl exploding from my lips.

I reached the fork. The tunnel that led to Rochester’s office lay directly before me, the one to the chapel to my left. As I stood there breathless, terror erupting through my very pores, a door clicked open, and then there was the distinct clack of heeled footsteps.

Someone had entered the chapel.

God help me, she was alive. Sybilla still lived.

Muted voices in the chapel reached me: a murmur, a barked order, and then the singing of metal being drawn. I didn’t wait to see the guards come charging through that door. Spinning back around, I raced the way I had come, careening like a drunkard in a labyrinth, my heart in my throat. The tunnel grew tighter, pitching to a slope. The ceiling lowered, so that I had to duck my head lest I scrape it, scrabbling into a rivulet that grew steadily deeper, until it reached to my waist and I was sloshing through it. The water was so cold it cramped my bowels. Light began to widen around me. I couldn’t feel my own legs as I struggled through that fetid pool, almost wailing in fury when I saw the curved grate directly before me, set low in an impassable stone wall.

A sluice gate: I was in a sewer that carried waste from the palace.

Behind me, clamor approached. I heard the men splashing, coming closer. Sheathing my sword, I unhooked my cloak and threw it aside. With a whispered prayer, I shut my eyes and plunged underwater, groping at the underside of the gate, seeking an opening. If it went all the way down, I was doomed. Just as I began to despair, as my lungs screamed for air and I fought the impulse to open my mouth and let myself drown in the shit-filled bog, my hand encountered a serrated edge. Grabbing hold of it, I propelled myself under the gate, clawing with my hands across the putrid bottom. I felt a sharp tug at my shoulder, something snagging my doublet. I kicked hard, knowing whoever was behind me would see my floating cloak and know where I’d gone. The alarm would be sounded; guards would be sent from the palace. The queen would not protect me again if I were found.

With a talonlike scrape down my shoulder, I tore free of the grate and swam upward. The water carried me, tumbling, down an incline. I grappled with debris, clutching at anything I could, and then I was tumbling headlong into the conduit that spilled into the river, the sky wheeling above, scattered with stars, the moon remote in its cradle of cloud.

The sounds of pursuit faded; the far shore of Southwark winked with random torchlight. Dragging myself out of the conduit, I took a moment to catch my breath.

Then I scrambled to my feet and ran as fast as I could into the city.

* * *

I dragged myself toward the dockyards, sodden and shivering. Remembering Cinnabar in the stables, as well as Elizabeth’s mount, Cantila, and Urian, I thought I’d have to find a way to retrieve them. I didn’t dare return to the palace now, though. I had to find shelter in the only place I had left-in the crowded streets near the Tower.

I stumbled past evidence of Wyatt’s aborted revolt: broken barricades, trampled standards, a bloodstained armband submerged in slush. Every house, shop, tavern, and inn was shut; when I reached the Griffin, I banged on the door with my bruised knuckles.

“Please, please answer,” I whispered through chattering teeth. “Please, be here.”

It seemed an eternity before a pair of shutters in an upper-story window flung open. “Who’s there?” demanded a woman’s voice. I craned my gaze to where she leaned out, a nightcap askew on her head, a work-roughened hand gripping the sill.

“Scarcliff,” I said, and as she tilted her head, I repeated, louder, “Scarcliff! Is he here?”

She glared. “No one by that name here. Get from my door, beggar, or I’ve a mind to toss my chamber pot on you. Get, I say!”

“No, you don’t understand…” My protest faded. I was fairly certain I addressed the buxom Nan, who served me the night I had met Scarcliff here. She must be the owner or his wife; proprietors usually dwelled above their place of business, as a safeguard against break-ins and theft. “Shelton,” I suddenly thought to say. “I’m looking for Archie Shelton.”

She hesitated. Then she vanished, banging the shutters behind her.

I groaned. I couldn’t take another step. My clothes were lined in icicles; I could feel a stinging pain where the sluice gate had cut me. My knees wavered; just as I decided to drop on this threshold, as good a place as any to die, the bolt behind the door slid back and the woman was standing on the threshold, clutching a shawl to her plump shoulders.

Behind her, barrel-chested and clad only in his braies, was Scarcliff.

“I thought you might be here,” I said, and he caught me in his arms as I collapsed.

Chapter Twenty-three

A fiery concoction being poured down my throat jolted me back to consciousness. Coughing, I tasted a sudden foul rise of bile and leaned over a tattered settle to heave up a horrifying quantity of vomit.

“You poor thing,” exclaimed Nan, patting my mouth with a cloth as I groaned and lay back against a cushion. “Where in heaven’s name have you been?”