C. Gortner: The Tudor Conspiracy

I closed the door. The room was stifling from a lit brazier in the corner. “I must speak to her.”

“Her?” he echoed, and then, as he realized my intent, he shook his head. “Out of the question. She will not see you. She refuses to see anyone, but she’ll especially refuse you.”

I removed the folded letter from my cloak. “I must deliver this to her. The princess’s life depends on it. You care about Elizabeth, too. I know you don’t want to see Renard win.”

He swallowed. “What-what do you mean by that?”

“You know. Just as you knew from the moment I arrived why I had come. You were expecting me. You knew Cecil would send someone because you had warned him.”

His aghast expression confirmed it: The anonymous informant at court was none other than Rochester, the queen’s trusted comptroller. The warnings of the peril Elizabeth faced from Renard and the impending betrothal to Prince Philip-they had come from him. It must have tormented his conscience. He loved the queen; he’d stayed at Mary’s side in her darkest hours, when Northumberland had the kingdom in his grip and no one believed she’d win the throne. Still, like many who served her, he also must believe she was about to commit a terrible mistake. English to his core, he couldn’t stomach the thought of a foreign power coming upon these shores or the terror that would follow in its wake.

“I am Her Majesty’s loyal servant,” he quavered. “You cannot prove anything against me. And if you try, I’ll deny it. All of it.”

“You don’t understand. I do not seek to-”

He came at me, seizing my wrist. “It is you who do not understand. Nothing can save her now. It is over. Finished. We have lost.” His voice shook. “The queen will not be dissuaded. She had Lady Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley executed today. I was there; I had to bear official witness to their deaths.”

Pain slashed through me. Jane and Guilford had been pawns in other’s designs; now, both were dead. Yet Robert Dudley lived. The man I had come to loathe and mistrust more than any other on this earth, who’d been behind the entire conspiracy, who had, by his very actions, compelled Elizabeth and me into this impasse-he was still alive.

So much for justice, I should have killed him when I had the chance.

“God assoil them,” I murmured. “I pray Lady Jane did not suffer.”

“It curdled my blood,” Rochester said. “The poor lass couldn’t find the block after they blindfolded her. She groped her way to it, begging those around her for help. I tell you, I’ll never forget it, not as long as I live.” He turned from me, wiping his sleeve across his face. “You must go. I cannot help you. It is over. Now every man must shift for himself.”

“You do not believe that. You never believed that. You’re one of the good men, remember? You must do as your heart dictates or you’ll regret it the rest of your days. You’ll always wonder, if you’d done as I asked, could you have saved the princess?”

He went still, his back to me, his shoulders hunched about his ears.

“Are you willing to let that devil Renard take her down?” I added. “Because I am not. I’ll see him in hell first.”

“Hell,” said Rochester, “is where you’ll undoubtedly end up. And I’ll be there with you.” He lumbered to his desk, yanked a ring of keys from its top, and took up one of the candles. Cupping the flame with his hand, he turned to me. “I can’t very well parade you about court. You’re a wanted man. I’ll not risk my life for you. I have a wife and children. I need to keep my head on my shoulders.” He jangled the keys, turning to the wainscoting. With a press of his hand on a decorative panel, he swung it open, revealing a narrow opening. “This passage leads to her apartments. I’ll see you inside, but I warn you, that is as far as I go. After that, you are on your own.”

“Fair enough.” I ducked down, squeezing through the opening. The passage must be part of the older, underlying structure of the palace-a stone tunnel that scarcely accommodated Rochester’s bulk, dark as a wolf’s mouth, so that his candle cast a mere feeble circle of light.

I made myself take steady breaths. After deep water, there was nothing I liked less than enclosed spaces. I felt as if I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, my palms turning slick with sweat. The passage seemed to go on forever, a purgatory. Just as I feared I might have to turn back, Rochester rounded a corner, fumbling at his keys. He unlocked a mold-stained door and pushed it open on surprisingly well oiled hinges; as I gratefully stepped from the tunnel, I found myself in the royal chapel, close to the altar.

“Convenient,” I remarked, trying to make light of the matter, even as sweat dripped from under my cap. “In case one is late for worship.”

“An escape route,” he said. “It’s a secret passed down among a select few who serve the royal person, from the old days, when Cromwell sowed terror in every heart. Times past, this chapel used to be part of the monastery of York. This part of the palace is full of tunnels, some supposedly leading to the river.” He sniffed. “The good friars must have liked a little contraband together with their communion wafers.”

I took in the beatific silence of this jewel-box place, where I’d last heard the requiem mass for Peregrine. The stained-glass windows emitted a peculiar muted glow, catching the reflection of the outside torches and a hint of moon. As I inhaled the frigid smell of marble and fragrant wood impregnated by incense, I was struck again by how familiar, how intimate, it felt to me, as if I had been a Catholic once.

“You stay here.” Rochester blew out the candle. “Renard has spies watching every nook and cranny; if it’s not safe, we go back the way we came. No argument.”

As he started to move down the aisle, I said, “Wait,” and handed him the princess’s letter.

He recoiled. “I’m not getting any more involved than I already am. If she agrees to see you, you can give it to her yourself.”

I removed the jeweled leaf from my doublet, enfolded in a scrap of cloth I’d torn from the hem of my shirt before leaving Ashridge. “Then show her this.”

“What is it?” He eyed me suspiciously. “A bribe? She’ll not like it, I assure you.”

“Just show it to her. Once she sees it, she will receive me.”

He snorted. “Yes, trust and a groat will get me a tankard at Satan’s table.” But he pocketed the leaf and went on, grumbling under his breath.

I had to smile. If I ever needed a friend at my side, I’d want Lord Rochester.

* * *

I sat upon a pew and waited, the silence draping over me like velvet. I hadn’t realized until this moment how frenetic my life had been, how driven; my entire existence, my every waking hour, had been subsumed by the struggle to safeguard Elizabeth. Now, in the solitude of this chapel, where by all rights I should not be, I suddenly felt the weight of the change that these past days had wrought in me.

I had crossed an invisible threshold. Come what may, I would never be the man I had been. Alone, without any more reason for pretense, I had to finally acknowledge that after all my denials, my painstaking efforts to lead a normal life, I had been deluding myself. I thought to escape the secret of my past, bury it deep within, and be a man like any other. I’d wanted so earnestly to believe it, I convinced myself that if only I married Kate and created a new existence with her, a refuge that was ours alone, where nothing and no one could touch us, I would find peace.

I had been wrong. Peace, it seemed, was not my destiny.

You have a flair for this work … You are a born intelligencer.

Cecil had been right. He had known all along what I had refused to see: I was fated for a different, far more dangerous path than the one I envisioned.