She turned away. I followed her to the gallery entranceway. As she made to enter, I touched her shoulder. "Tell her this, from me. Tell her there's a plot afoot to arrest her sister. She must not meet my master. She must leave now, before it is too late."

From the gallery came a ringing: "Kate? Kate, are you there?"

The voice immobilized us. Kate pushed me from the entrance, but not before I saw Elizabeth silhouetted against those magnificent far doors, her hand clasping the collar of her crimson robe, her hair unbound. "Kate!" she called out again, and I heard the fear in her voice.

"I'm here, Your Grace! I'm coming," Kate cried back. "I'll be right there."

"Hurry up," said the princess tremulously. "I've need of you."

She moved forward. Though I had the perfect opportunity at that moment to go to Elizabeth, something held me back. I said, "You will tell her?"

"She won't listen." Kate met my stare. "She loves him, you see. She has always loved him. Nothing we say or do will stop her." She smiled. "Gallant squire, if you truly wish to help her, be at the pavilion tonight with your master."

She left me standing there, incredulous.

I didn't want to believe it, though it made perfect sense. This was why she had stayed at court despite every apparent threat to her safety.

She loved him. Elizabeth loved Robert Dudley.

Chapter Fifteen.

I needed time to sort out my turmoil before I could return to Lord Robert. The palace was eerily still. I saw only menials going about their business, none returning my wan greeting as I wandered Greenwich's unfamiliar labyrinth of corridors. All the courtiers had retired to their respective quarters or gone to stroll in the formal gardens, it seemed.

I was adrift in a shadowy world.

Brooding engulfed me. I tried to tell myself that despite being the daughter of a king, Elizabeth was still flesh and blood. She was fallible. She did not know him as I did; she did not see the depths of avarice and shallow ambition that ruled his heart. But then, she herself had admitted as much to me. She said only last night in Whitehall that she'd never had cause to mistrust him.

Yet anything less than the truth would bring about her doom.

I reached a grand hall, where servants were laying out carpets, setting up tables, hanging silk garlands over a dais in preparation for the festivities. Those few that paid notice looked at me once and turned away. I stopped, suddenly knowing what I must do.

Shortly thereafter I emerged onto a tree-lined promenade leading into the formal gardens that stretched to a loamy hill. Daylight faded from the sky, scalloping the clouds in scarlet. It looked as if rain were on the way. I took Cecil's miniature map from my pocket, ascertaining my location. To my disappointment, the map didn't detail the gardens, and I didn't have much time before I had to make my way back.

Like most palace gardens, however, these must follow an established pattern. s.p.a.cious yet laid out for the court to amble and enjoy without getting lost, wide avenues bordered with topiaries wound past herb patches and flowerbeds before threading off in various directions.

I took one of these narrower paths.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Drizzle began to fall. I stashed the map in my pocket, pulling my cap low on my brow as I looked about. In the distance, I glimpsed what looked like an artificial lake girdling a stone structure.

My heart leapt. That must be the pavilion.

It was farther than it appeared. I found myself traversing the length of a forested mall into a wild, strangely haunting parkland. Glancing over my shoulder, I spied fresh-lit candles in the palace windows. I wondered if Elizabeth herself gazed out from one of them at this moment, deliberating on her encounter with the duke. Or was she thinking only of tonight, of what her rendezvous with Robert would bring? I'd never been in love myself, but from what I knew, lovers pined for each other when apart. Did Elizabeth? Did she long for Robert Dudley?

I regretted I'd not taken the opportunity to tell her what I knew. I might not have relished the deliberate destruction of her romantic notions, but at least she'd arrive at her rendezvous tonight forewarned as to just how high my master aspired.

The rain grew stronger. Turning away from the palace, I quickened my pace.

The lake surrounded the pavilion on three sides. A set of crumbling steps led up to it from the unkempt pathway where I stood. It must have been a lovely spot once, idyllic for dalliances, before years of neglect had rendered it lichen stained and near-forgotten.

Exploring the area nearby, I located, as Walsingham had said, an old postern gate in an ivy-covered wall, leading to a dirt road and the sloping hills of Kent. This gave me pause. Horses could be tethered here out of sight and hearing, if properly muzzled and their hooves bound up in cloth. Had the princess selected this place less out of a sense of irony and more because of its value as an escape route? The possibility lightened my spirits, until a less-appealing prospect occurred to me.

What if this was Cecil's plan? He may have decided to take advantage of her intention to lure Robert here, a place from which she could quickly, by force, be spirited away. No matter what else the secretary might be doing, it couldn't serve him to let Elizabeth fall prey to the Dudleys. She was, as he had said, the kingdom's last hope.

I paused, considering. Now that I was alone, out of the palace and with enough s.p.a.ce around me to feel as though I could actually breathe, I realized I had been led about like the proverbial blind man, by my nose. I had accepted Cecil's proposition, delivered my master's reply, reported to Walsingham. But I did not know any of these men, not really. Had I become another p.a.w.n to be discarded? What if there was more to this elaborate subterfuge than met the eye, more lies twisted within lies? I felt compelled to recall every word that had pa.s.sed between Cecil and me, to search our verbiage for clues. Somewhere in our conversation lay the answer to this riddle. And I'd best find it.

I froze.

The tip of a dagger pressed into my back, just below my ribs.

A nasal voice intoned, "I wouldn't resist if I were you. Take off your jerkin."

I slowly removed my outer garment, thinking of the map folded in my pocket as I let it drop at my feet. My a.s.sailant's blade felt very sharp against my thin chemise.

"Now, the dagger in your boot. Carefully."

I reached to the hilt and pulled my knife from its sheath. A gauntleted hand reached around to take it from me. Then the voice, which I now recognized, said, "Turn around."

He wore a hooded cape, his features were concealed.

"You have me at a disadvantage," I said. "I hardly call that fair play."

With an effete laugh, he cast aside his cowl. He had a face too sly to be deemed handsome, with prominent cheekbones and in one earlobe, a ruby. His sloe-eyed look pierced me where I stood. How had I not recognized him as the man Peregrine had described?

He's taller than you, but not by much. He has a pointy face, like a ferret.

"We meet again," I said, just before a burly henchman emerged from the shadows and hit me in the face.

I could barely make out the way before me, my left eye throbbing, my jaw aching from the blow, as I was marched with arms twisted behind my back past crumpled structures and through a ruined cloister into a dank pa.s.sageway. Rusted iron gates hung like dislocated shoulders from doorways. We descended a steep staircase into another pa.s.sage, descended yet again. The pa.s.sage we now entered was so narrow two men could not walk abreast. A lone pitch torch crackled in a peeling holder on the wall.

The air smelled fermented. I had to breathe deep of it, reminding myself not to give in to panic. I must concentrate, observe, and listen, find some way to prolong my survival.

We came before a thick door. "I hope you'll find your accommodations agreeable," said Stokes as he slid back the bolt. The door swung outward. "We want only the best for you."

Inside was a small circular cell.

His ruffian shoved me inside. Slime coated the uneven flagstone floor. Skating on my boots, hands splayed before me, I skidded into the far wall. The smell in here was rank; a sticky, moldering substance on the wall adhered to me like crushed entrails.

Stokes laughed. He stood under the flickering light of the torch, his cloak parted to display his stylish garb. I saw a gem-studded stiletto on a thin silver chain at his waist. I'd never seen anyone wear the Italian weapon before. Unlike the earring, I a.s.sumed it was not for display.

He clucked his tongue. "I daresay no one would recognize you now, Squire Prescott."

As my shoulder throbbed from where I'd hit the wall, I felt fury rush through me. I righted myself, surprised by my own outward composure. "You know my name. Again, not fair play. Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"Aren't you the nosy one? No wonder Cecil likes you."

I hoped my jolt of fear didn't show. "I don't know any Cecil."

"Yes, you do. You earned his interest in a record span of time, too. And as far as I know, bedding boys isn't his taste. I wouldn't say the same for Walsingham."

I lunged. Stokes flung up his arm, unsheathing and aiming the stiletto at my chest in one elegant movement. "If I miss," he said, with a quivering laugh, "which is most unlikely, my man outside will disembowel you like a spring calf."

Breathing hard, I moved back. What had gotten into me? I knew better. "You wouldn't be so confident if we were evenly matched," I told him.

His face darkened. "We'll never be evenly matched, you miserable imposter."

Imposter. Did he mean spy? I went cold. He He was the Suffolk hireling, my mystery stalker. I was certain of it. How much had he overheard of my meeting with Cecil? If he'd learned enough to unmask the secretary, then whatever Cecil planned could flounder, fail. was the Suffolk hireling, my mystery stalker. I was certain of it. How much had he overheard of my meeting with Cecil? If he'd learned enough to unmask the secretary, then whatever Cecil planned could flounder, fail.

"I'm Robert Dudley's squire," I ventured. "I have no idea why you think I know this Cecil or why I'd pretend to be anything else."

"Oh, I do hope you're not going to play the innocent when she gets here. That will not do. No, not at all. False modesty never impressed Her Grace. She knows all too well why you were brought to court and why Cecil shows such interest in you. And she's not pleased. She does have the Tudor temper, after all. But you'll learn that soon enough."

With theatrical flair, he waved his hand at me. "Don't go anywhere." He yanked the door shut. A bolt outside it shot into place. Pitch darkness plunged over the cell.

In all my life, I had never been so afraid.

Chapter Sixteen.

I closed my eyes, drew in slow even breaths. I let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Gradually the darkness lightened, shadows peeling from shadows. Judging from the chill, I determined I was underground. I could also discern the murmur of water nearby. Was I near the river?

I crept around the cell. I didn't like what I found. Despite the wet algae on the floor and walls and the overall unpleasantness of the place, there were no droppings or other signs of rodents, though rats must infest Greenwich as they did every place where food could be found. There was a wide barred grate at the base of one wall by the floor; crouching down to look beyond that black hole I found a miasmic stench and clearly heard the gurgling water. I also discovered that although I could scratch clumps of mortar from the grate's crevices, it was solid.

I must be under the ruins of the old medieval palace, perhaps in an ancient dungeon. But we'd come a distance from the lake, and not enough rain had fallen to explain this palpable moisture. Greenwich had been built after the age of feudal warfare. It had no ramparts or defensive moats, as independent-minded lords with armies of va.s.sals were allegedly no longer a threat. Yet the slimy floor and moldering air indicated this cell had been flooded recently.

None of which eased my anxiety.

After circling the cell twice, I thought I knew how a caged lion must feel. Stamping my feet to stir the blood in my legs, I squatted back by the grate. My attempts confirmed that I could not dig or break it out from the wall. Even if the mortar around it could be dug out, the grate loosened or broken, I had no way to do so without a pick of some sort.

I was trapped, while in the hall the festivities for Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley's wedding would soon commence, and the hour of Robert's meeting with Elizabeth neared.

I sank to my haunches. I couldn't have said how long I sat there, waiting. At one point I slipped into exhausted sleep and awoke, gasping, thinking I was drowning in a viscous sea. Only then did I realize that the smell permeating my skin was of river water, and that a muted clamor approached.

I came stiffly to my feet. An exasperated voice declared, "By the rood, Stokes, was there no other place to lock the wretch in?"

"Your Grace," said Stokes. The bolt slid back. "I a.s.sure you this was the only place I could find on short notice that proved suitable to our needs."

The door opened. Torchlight flooded the cell, blinding me. Seeing only shadows in the doorway, I brought up a hand to shield my eyes. A bulk pushed inside, swatting about with a cane. Then it went still, peering. "Bring in that torch!"

Stokes squeezed in behind the bulk. The torch he carried illuminated what first looked to me like a mastiff swathed in carnelian, a ludicrous pearl-dotted coif perched on its oversized head. I blinked repeatedly, forcing my one eye to focus. The swollen one had completely shut.

Frances Brandon, d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, glared back at me. "He looks smaller. Are you certain it's him? It could be someone else. Cecil is wily. He'd subst.i.tute his own mother if it would further his cause."

"Your Grace," said Stokes, "it's him. Let my man handle this. It's not safe."

"No! I am not some lily-livered girl. If he so much as looks at me the wrong way, I'll bash in his skull and be done with it." She blared at me, brandishing her stout silver-handled cane, "You! Come closer."

I advanced as calmly as I could, making certain to stop far enough away to evade an unantic.i.p.ated swipe at my head. "Your Grace," I began, "I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding. I a.s.sure you, I have no idea how I've offended."

The end of her cane stabbed out, missing me by an inch. She guffawed. "Well, well. He has no idea. Did you hear that, Stokes? He's no idea of how he's offended."

"I heard, Your Grace," twittered Stokes. "An actor he most certainly is not."

The cane slammed down. "Enough!" She lumbered to me. I had to stop from flinching. During my wandering through Whitehall the night after Elizabeth left, I had come across a portrait of Henry VIII, his gross ringed hands on his hips, bulging legs apart. Standing face-to-face now with the late king's niece, I found the resemblance daunting.

"Who are you?" she asked.

I met her vicious stare. "Begging Your Grace's pardon, I believe we were introduced. I am Brendan Prescott, squire to Robert Dudley."

I choked on a cry. With savage accuracy, her cane slammed up between my legs. I doubled over as white-hot pain seared off my breath. Another whack brought me gasping to my knees, my groin pulsating in agony.

She stood over me. "There, that's better. You will kneel when I address you. You are before a Tudor, daughter of Henry the Eighth's beloved sister Mary, late d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk and dowager queen of France. By all that is royal in my blood, you will will show me respect." She jabbed my concaved shoulders with her cane. "Again, who are you?" show me respect." She jabbed my concaved shoulders with her cane. "Again, who are you?"

I gazed up at her contorted visage. Her mouth turned inward, like a venomous bloom. "Seize him." Stokes's henchman, who was broad as a wall and twice my height, lumbered in. He hauled me up, pinioning my arms. I didn't have the strength to struggle, limp from the pain of her blow to my genitals.

Stokes asked, "Shall we start with kicks to his ribs? That tends to loosen the tongue."

"No." She didn't take her eyes off me. "He has too much to lose, and Cecil has no doubt paid him well for his silence. I don't need him to say anything. I have eyes. I can see. Some things cannot be forged." She stabbed her hand at me. "Strip him."

Stokes handed her the torch and tore off my chemise. "He has very white skin," he purred.

"Get out of my way." She shoved Stokes aside, thrusting the torch at me. I tried to recoil, but the henchman's grip manacled my wrists. Her eyes scoured me. "Nothing," she said, "not a mark. It's not him. I knew it. Lady Dudley has deceived me. That she-b.i.t.c.h forced me to surrender my claim to the throne for nothing. By G.o.d, she'll pay for this. How dare she set her drunkard of a son and my own mealy-mouthed daughter above me?"

My blood congealed.

"Perhaps we should be thorough," Stokes suggested. He instructed his man, "Turn him around." The henchman started to pivot me. As he did, to my horror, I felt my breeches slip a notch, over my hip.

Silence fell. Then a hiss escaped her. "Stop." She thrust the torch at me again. I clamped down on a cry as the flame singed my skin.

"Where did you get that?" she said haltingly, as if she couldn't trust her own sight. I hesitated. Pain speared through my shoulders and across my chest as the henchman yanked up my arms farther.

"Her Grace asked you a question," Stokes said. "If I were you, I'd answer."

"I-I was... born with it," I whispered.

"Born with it?" She reared her face at me, so close I could see tiny broken veins threading her nose under her powder. "You were born born with it, you say?" with it, you say?"