Tudor Rose Page 18

  Cicely was also very clear about the time Sybille should arrive. At exactly noon. No later. No earlier. Armed with this information, and wearing the Gordonsrod coat Rose had refreshed for her, Sybille marched out of the palace at half past eleven on a gloomy, fog-filled winter morning. Her footsteps were fueled by the residual anger she felt for the way her father had treated her and the nearly overwhelming desire to prove him wrong about what she had and would accomplish. Repeating the directions in her head, she made it to the office at exactly noon at least according to the Angelus bells tolling defiantly from a Catholic church in the distance.

  An unshaven, bleary-eyed gentleman of perhaps forty, with the bulbous nose birthed by too much wine and impeccably dressed in dark blue merchant’s garments, answered the door. “Yes, yes, yes?” he demanded with a suspicious sidelong glance.

  Confrontation never caused Sybille to fret. Especially when a man was involved. Sybille simply heaved slightly, and the rest always seemed to take care of itself. And that was the case now. The man’s face softened, gaze warming as it ran along her body, and Sybille found the exchange of the discs for the money went very smoothly after that.

  It was upon leaving the office, the impossibly huge sum of eight hundred pounds clanking in a large purse—one that she instructed Rose to sew for her without telling her its purpose—that circumstances grew more sinister. With her regular daily purse tied to her waist, Sybille was gripping the top of the new, much heavier purse tightly in one hand as she hurried back toward the palace, avoiding piles of horse manure and human waste, certain everyone around her was aware of the treasure she carried. She told herself she was being foolish, of course, no one could possibly know.

  Still she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following her. Why had she made this crucial errand alone? She should have trusted Rose enough to bring her along. Sybille glanced back toward the lawyer’s office, wondering if she should return and ask him to escort her to the palace. But when she caught the eye of a vendor carrying her bucket of days old fish off to market, she felt ridiculous and continued on her way.

  In her flustered state, Sybille missed one of the turns … or maybe the turn was still to come, she wasn’t sure. Where the hell was Violet Street? All the streets and houses looked the same in the haze of this damnable fog. Sybille had gone too far, or not far enough, and now she was lost in London. Damn. Damn. Damn. She was no longer nervous, just angry. Angry at herself. Stupid girl.

  Several dirty-faced boys in gray-tattered rags streamed past her, bumping into her and jostling her with cries of “Watch out there!” and “You’re absurd! You’re in the way!” A few steps ahead there was a man who might be a gentleman pulling the brim of his hat down over his eyes as he exited a crumbling townhouse and then disappeared into the mist. Even if she were to stumble across somewhere more suitable to ask, Sybille was cautious about approaching anyone for directions to the palace, sure that announcing her destination would make her large purse more interesting.

  When she came to the next intersection, she stopped and turned slowly in a circle as if she were admiring the view of the ramshackle shops and huddled groups of pathetic beggars. Sybille needed to make a decision; which way to go? A blur of movement caught her eye. A figure ducked behind a pile of rotted wood that had been half-dragged out the door of a burned-out shop she had just passed.

  So, Sybille was being followed after all.

  Well, enough is enough. Her father’s words rang in her head. Emboldened by the fact that her pursuer was frightened enough of her to try to hide, she decided she could take on whoever was after her.

  As she came around the pile of wood, she gripped the purse more tightly with one hand and with the other picked up an old floorboard, and raised it above her shoulder. She would give her pursuer a good bashing.

  “Sybille?” a familiar voice said.

  Sybille blew out air and dropped the board to the ground. “Honestly.”

  Rising from his crouch, the young man in the monk’s robes rose to his full six feet but still managed to look like a sheepish child with ridiculous fangs.

  “Howell Digby.” Sybille said his name like a curse. “I might’ve spilled your brains on this very street, you fool!” She began to turn away when a thought struck her. “Have you been following me this whole time?”

  “My school is … well, was … still is, I suppose, steps away from the palace, so….”

  Howell had been following her. He had probably been waiting outside the palace just waiting for a glimpse of her. Sybille knew she had that effect on men but this was perverse.

  “Important business awaits my return at the palace,” Sybille said regally. She had her pride. She wouldn’t ask him for directions. She would linger and then secretly follow him back toward the palace. “I don’t have time to dally here.”

  “Wait,” Howell reached out a hand but didn’t touch her. “It’s just … I don’t think I was alone. I mean, I believe there were others following you as well. This damnable fog offers perfect concealment.”

  “To some better than others,” Sybille admonished. “I do have my admirers. Perhaps it was my fiancé?”

  A flinch at that last word, Howell finally raised his blue eyes to meet her. “No, not him. There were several of them.”

  Sybille would have lied if she had said she wasn’t enjoying herself. After days at the palace where every word meant something else and even shit was covered in gold gilt, the honesty of Howell’s emotions felt like a cooling balm. Even if he had concocted this story of villains on her trail in order to appear her hero. She breathed out air again, letting the false haughtiness go with it.

  “Dear Howell,” she cooed.

  He reached out his hand again and this time it touched hers. Sybille allowed it, and she could feel his confidence grow. One finger on the back of her hand became another, and then another. The way his teeth poked out over his bottom lip no longer looked like a deranged puppy to her. Now it was distinctively wolfish. Manly even. Sybille felt something stir in her. She glanced around. They were partially hidden from view behind this wood pile.

  Oh, what would it hurt to give the boy a tumble?

  No, even with all that was happening. She couldn’t do that to her friend Rose.

  Sybille ran her free hand down the side of her dress, both to smooth the fabric and give Howell one last moment to stare before she stepped back into the street. When her hand reached where her daily purse should be it continued down her leg unobstructed.

  She gasped. Fear entered Howell’s eyes. “What?” he asked, obviously worried he’d done something to upset her. “What is it?”

  She looked down in horror. There was nothing there. The purse normally tied to her waist had been cut at the strings. It was gone. The world around Sybille seemed to slow way down.

  “Tell me how I can help!” Howell demanded as if from a great distance.

  The new purse still clutched in her hand suddenly felt different to Sybille. Terrified, she gave it a little shake. The strange clacking sounds told her what she needed to know. Still, she looked inside and found the bag was now filled with flat stones and scraps of tin.

  All the money—every bit of the eight hundred pounds—had disappeared.

  “Excuse me, what are you doing to this room?”

  “What’s that, my lady?”

  Rose stammered a protest. “Oh, I’m not a … ” What was she really?

  The young carpenter nodded, his large dark eyes clearly impatient to get back to marking the floor of the drawing room with a piece of charcoal. His two assistants busily took measurements of the baseboards. “My apologies, I’m in a bit of a hurry, my lady. Got to have these floors up a week from today.”

  “Who asked that this work be done?”

  “I do believe that I don’t know, my lady,” the man said, tapping his foot now.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Rose said, and let the carpenter return to the work
of removing yet one more option for her gala. Certainly, the drawing room was far too small for what she had planned, as was the great room where workers had lowered all eight chandeliers to the floor for cleaning. They dotted the tiles of the great room like crystal jellyfish washed ashore. They would be raised back up next week … the day after Rose’s gala.

  Why was the queen so intent on cleaning and renovations just now?

  Perhaps because it wasn’t the queen.

  It was Avis.

  Any interior space that might have proven suitable for a gala event had been eliminated. Out of habit and for something to do with her hands, she reached to touch the diary at her side and, of course, found her purse to be empty. The diary had been maddening with its indecipherable secrets, but also a source of some comfort for the hope it provided. While it was in her possession, there was a chance that she would break the code, discover the power of its secrets, and receive help from Dr. Dee.

  Dr. Dee.

  Rose wasn’t sure if she had passed his test, or if the bathtub had even constituted a test. Maybe the poor man had just drawn himself a bath and she had climbed in. She didn’t have answers because she had not heard from or seen Dr. Dee since that night—and she had learned that hunting him down did not pay. The gala was something she was going to have to pursue on her own, at least for the time being.

  “I need a quiet place to think,” Rose said, to no one in particular but loud enough that the carpenters and nearby servants could hear. Slumping her shoulders dramatically, Rose shuffled out to the stables, positive eyes were on her as she crossed the wind-swept courtyard on this gray, drizzling morning, and was met exactly on time by her friend, the stable boy.

  Rose imagined what the workers in the great hall would see if they looked out the windows right now. They would note Rose chatting with the stable boy and how she seemed to grow unsteady. They would see her reach out for his hand for balance. The workers would watch Rose take his hand for a moment longer than necessary, and then observe both putting something away, he in his pocket and she in her purse.

  The stable boy nodded a farewell and ducked back inside, leaving Rose standing alone. She glanced around, as if perhaps wondering if even this barn-like space might do for her gala. Theatrically, she threw her hands in the air as if giving up, and hurried back into the palace itself.

  She drifted into the entrance hall, and looking up the long sweep of the staircase, found Avis standing at the top. Finally! An audience member who really mattered! Avis was with an older gentleman … was it Lord Harrell? … with a group of what appeared to be beggar children standing behind them.

  “Right where that servant girl is standing,” Avis was saying, pointing down at Rose. “That’s where I believe the inlaid tile should be installed … next week. You and your little workers should take your time with the renovations, my lord. There is no hurry.”

  Rose let out a gasp and touched her birthmark. “What about the dining hall?” she called up to Avis. “Is that to be occupied the night of my gala as well?”

  “Hmmm,” Avis said. “Let me think. Yes, my family has it reserved for the entire week. After all, we’ll need it for a banquet. And the courtyards? You’re about to ask about those as well, aren’t you? All have been reserved for other functions.”

  “What are you doing?” Rose asked out loud. Inside, she was calmly wondering: Why was Avis attacking only Rose by blocking any room that she could possibly use? Why wasn’t she going after Sybille, too? Avis must have something else planned for Sybille. Something far worse.

  Rose held the back of her hand up to her head and leaned against a wall as if she might faint. Was she pretending too much?

  “What on Earth is it, my dear?” Avis purred. She had come down the stairs alone; Lord Harrell and the children were no longer with her. “Have you taken ill?”

  “Where did all those … those children come from?”

  “They come from homes with two parents,” Avis chirped, then hesitated as if knowing the insult was beneath her and had no poetry. “I don’t know where they were spawned, my dear. The palace has need of a workforce, Lord Northwood knew where to find one, and here they are.”

  “But … why? Why?” Rose asked pathetically, slumping against the wall and appearing to the world as if she were about to collapse.

  “Why?” Avis pounced. “Oh, there are so many questions wrapped up in that one word. And so many more answers. For instance, Why am I going to send you scurrying back to that hellhole you call home? Because you don’t belong here. Why will I be the one to claim victory next week when the queen selects my gala as the obvious winner? Because I am better than you.”

  Rose watched the glow rising in Avis’s cheeks, and noticed the intoxicating effect it seemed to have on the girl. Avis appeared almost giddy as if she were about to become untethered. Then something in her face and posture tightened, and Avis stabilized.

  “It seems there is no room in the inn for the traveling virgin and her ass,” she said. “Best to scuttle home. While you still can.”

  Rose waited for just a moment to give the rage one more chance to overtake Avis, and when it didn’t, Rose brought her other hand to her face. She rushed out of the room, releasing a loud sob, as Avis’s laughter followed her out the door.

  All the way through the palace, Rose kept up the loud sobbing. A lost and wounded calf loudly mewling for some comforting touch, making sure as many people as possible could hear her.

  When she finally reached her room and burst through the door, slamming it sullenly behind her, Rose found another girl filled with rage, this one flying across the room and bearing down on her.

  In the furious girl’s upraised hand was a pair of fabric shears Rose had borrowed from a maid down the hall. With her back against the closed door, Rose’s hand reached for the latch but she would never open it in time. Sybille had come at her once with a hoe for accidentally eating her bread, but that had been years ago.

  “There. You. Are.” Sybille panted each word as if she had been hard at work, and as Rose looked behind her, she could see that Sybille had been just that. Torn and cut pieces of fabric lay strewn about the room, covering the bed and most of the floor, as if a cyclone of knives had swept through the room—a very precise cyclone. All of Rose’s dresses and undergarments and coats and capes had been destroyed, but not one item of Sybille’s clothing had been touched. The dress Rose had said she was working on for Sybille’s gala remained in one piece and hung on a hook next to the other gown Rose had been creating for Sybille.

  “What is this?” For the first time that day, Rose felt a genuine sob welling in her throat.

  Sybille’s eyes gleamed maniacally. “I rip what you sew.”

  Even in the devastation and with a weapon hovering near her head, the horrible play on words was enough to make Rose flinch. Sybille must have taken her reaction for wonderment. “I thought of that phrase. And you think you’re the clever one! Did you take it? Did you take it? And don’t you dare tell me to calm down!”

  Rose fought back the desire to blurt out, What are you talking about? Take what? Would she sound sincere? Like anyone trying to prove their innocence she struggled with how to act. Once you thought about not appearing guilty, everything you did seemed to make you look so.

  Better to focus on something more immediate. “Sybille, will you lower those shears?” Rose was striving for a reasonable tone. “I’m worried you might stumble and accidentally hurt … ”

  My throat.

  Sybille looked up at the shears as if forgetting they were there. “Fine.” She threw them aside. The blades nicked the wall before clattering to the floor. “All right, I’m calm.” Clearly she was not. “Now tell me, Rose. Did you take the purse?”

  “The purse?” Rose echoed. She did another quick scan of the room and pointed to the bed. “It’s there.”

  Flicking her hand as if pushing aside Rose’s response, Sybille said, “You must be th
e one. The fabric you used was the same!”

  “Why does it matter?” Rose asked, her back still up against the door. “I scavenged that fabric from the scraps in the waste pile. Anyone could have done the same.”

  Sybille stepped even closer. “But how did you get it in and out of my grip. Some kind of witch, that’s what you are!”

  Dangerous talk, even more so than the threat of the shears. “Sybille!”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Pretending to be out of my head with panic, acting like I’m looking for a space for my gala.”

  “In the stables? Giving presents to the stable boy, sending him off to do your secret biding?” Off Rose’s hesitation, Sybille said, “Don’t deny it, Betsy saw you put something in his hand!”

  “Betsy?” Rose asked. “The scrubber who wants to be Avis’s maid? The one who hates Maggie? She would say anything to Avis to get on her good side.”

  “Well, she told me all about it just moments ago.”

  Careful, Rose.

  “Why would I deny going to the stables when it’s part of our plan? This is what we wanted!” Rose insisted. “It’s perfect! Avis’s spies and Avis herself are wasting time following me around! She’s busy stopping me instead of working on her own gala. She’s making your victory more and more possible.”

  “I did see what she’s doing to the front hall, all those children,” Sybille admitted.

  Rose needed to keep her on this path. “For some reason, Avis is hell bent on destroying my chances but doesn’t seem all that concerned about you. Because obviously she’s done something to block you already … like stealing your purse!”

  This theory connected with Sybille. “Oh,” she said and the horrible gleam in her eyes dimmed. She took a breath, and took a few steps back from Rose. “I found this.”