Tudor Rose Page 9

  But, of course, she couldn’t say any of this to Sybille. She would have to play along for now.

  “Oh, bother,” Sybille said at full volume, pretending to struggle with the fireplace implement.

  Rose couldn’t put it off any longer. Sybille wouldn’t let up until Rose paid attention to her.

  “Here,” Rose muttered, her voice rough with sleep as she climbed out of the bed they shared. “Let me do that.” Rose had refused to continue sleeping on the pallet in the corner like some kind of dog, and Sybille had haughtily agreed to the arrangement. Of course she had, Rose thought. Sybille was only too happy for the extra warmth Rose provided. Squeezing her feet into her shoes, Rose took the five steps required to cross the small room and took the poker out of Sybille’s hand.

  “Ow!” Sybille squealed and sucked on her finger. “No need to be so rough.”

  “Sorry,” Rose said, carefully dodging the fight that Sybille was clearly after.

  Rose haphazardly jabbed at the coals, realizing there was no point in starting a fire. Before blowing out the candle last night they had agreed on a plan to visit the cathedral first thing to begin planning Sybille’s wedding. So they’d be leaving the room soon.

  Our room! Rose corrected herself, and the words echoed in her thoughts like celebratory church bells. Two girls from Gordonsrod had a room in the palace!

  But for how long? Rose could almost feel the heat of Avis’s rage radiating from her quarters just down the passageway. She wouldn’t rest until Rose and Sybille were sent packing—future sister-in-law be damned.

  With her brown eyes lowered in a phony display of submission, Sybille whined, “I was only trying to help. But you’ve always been so much more clever than me. You proved that last night with the queen—”

  Suddenly, Sybille snapped out of her act as if something had occurred to her. “How did you know about the stars?” All pretense dropped, she directed her now sharp, focused gaze at Rose. “Tell me, girl, tell me right now. How did you come by that answer?”

  Oh, one of the most powerful men in the queen’s court gave me a coded book and told me that it contains the secrets of the universe and I managed to decipher just one little part that coincidentally was the answer to Her Majesty’s question.

  Of course, the truth wouldn’t do. It was certain to damage their friendship and derail any alliance they needed to work through this Challenge together. If she thought Rose was forming connections behind her back and keeping secrets, Sybille would never really trust Rose again. So instead Rose just shrugged and said, “It’s something my father taught me.”

  “Oh!” Sybille sounded relieved. “Oh, your father, of course!”

  And then she went right back into her lost, little lamb routine, as if the past ten seconds had never happened.

  Rose fought back a snort as she hung the poker back on its hook by the hearth. She loved her friend, but it would be impossible for Sybille to make her intentions more obvious. Rose could write the script nearly word for word on what she would say next.

  Rosie, darling, we really should combine all of efforts to make sure that I am the one the queen takes on her progress. That will insure that we’re both secure in our positions.

  But, as usual, Sybille surprised Rose. The line actually took a bit longer to leave Sybille’s lips than she expected.

  In fact, it didn’t arrive until about an hour later. The girls had dressed and made the short muddy walk out of the palace, past the Richmond Priory where Rose slowed their pace hoping in vain for a glimpse of Howell. Beyond the priory it was only a few hundred more feet along the Thames to the cathedral where Sybille was to be married. The girls were inside, ogling the towering stone pillars, the center aisle that was wider than the main road back in Gordonsrod, and the seven-story high vaulted ceilings, when Sybille finally let it out.

  “Oh!” Sybille said as if inspiration had struck that very moment. Overhead, gaudily painted angels looked down on them with smug amusement, sharing cherubic winks with Rose, as if they had been expecting this as well. A few capped heads were bowed in the lines of chairs and the smell of incense—wasn’t that a Catholic device?—hung heavy in the air.

  Rose had a difficult time mustering an enthusiastic response for Sybille’s ridiculously false “Oh!” She simply sighed and waited for what was coming.

  “You know what I believe, darling Rose?” Sybille asked as if Rose were a child about to receive a precious doll. Drawing out the suspense, Sybille pulled Rose with her up the aisle and into the row of seats second from the front. Once they had kneeled on the pads placed on the marble tiles, Sybille finally announced, “You should drop out of the Challenge.”

  “Really?” Rose asked, trying for a tone of sincerity or surprise but missing.

  Sybille didn’t notice. “Yes, I’m just thinking of this now. Without you, the number of players in the Challenge will drop. And it will allow us to focus all of our power and resources on my efforts.”

  Rose nodded. “Yes, I do believe that—” she started and then stopped, as if she too had just been struck by inspiration. “But wait. I don’t think the queen would approve of us rewriting the rules of the game she created. Do you?”

  Sybille’s eyes flashed. “Don’t fight me on this, Rose!” she shouted. “My gala is the first and it will be the best!”

  Glancing back, Rose checked to see who had noticed Sybille’s outburst. A few rows behind them one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting and her maid were staring at girls and shaking their heads. Turning to Sybille, Rose put a finger to her lips.

  “And don’t you dare tell me to be quiet, girl,” Sybille snapped. “I’m the one getting married here in just three weeks. I think I have a right to be heard in the place where God Himself will be present to seal my future.”

  Rose tried to stop herself, but rolled her eyes, and something about the casual familiarity brought Sybille back to Earth.

  “I guess you’re right.” She sighed, lowering her voice. “What if removing yourself caused the queen to call the whole thing off and just hand that bitch Avis the prize? When it’s so clearly meant to be mine. You have to as least pretend to plan something, I suppose. But whatever funds you raise, you have to give to me. After all, how would I ever be able to take you back in as my servant if it turns out that you were plotting against me the whole time?”

  Rose nodded away like a simpleton, but secretly wished Sybille would just stop talking. She had no intention of dropping out of the Challenge and wasn’t about to just pretend to plan something, whatever that meant.

  Rose needed time to think. “Let’s pray for a bit.”

  “Why?” Sybille asked.

  Rose laughed thinking she was making a joke. “Sybille, just for a moment. Something to quiet our thoughts.”

  “Well, we’ll make it fast, and then we need to talk about my wedding.”

  What was there to plan really? The bride and groom would arrive here at the cathedral with their families—Mervin Maydestone was scheduled to arrive any day now and she supposed they would have found Robert (or his wine-bloated corpse) by then. The bishop would pronounce them wed and there would be a dinner to celebrate.

  There. Wedding planning done. Rose turned her “prayers” to her own gala.

  The only parties she had ever attended were those thrown by Aunt Clemence in Gordonsrod. And spoiled meats and diluted beer at a purity inquiry banquet wasn’t going to win her that spot in the progress—the spot she desperately needed if she was going to ever have even an ounce of independence. There had been her own two-day wedding but Rose had been so tipsy on beer by the time she reached the altar that she barely knew what had happened. Then, of course, her husband had died before they even had a chance to consummate the marriage, so that might not be the best model of a party to follow either.

  The better question, Rose supposed, was how she would raise the funds? She was even more alone than her friend—at least Sybille had her brother a
nd father to fall back on if all else failed.

  When she was sure Sybille wasn’t watching, Rose’s fingers touched the diary in the purse at her side, and she wondered if the answer to everything she needed was in the book.

  No more delays, she told herself. Starting today I will find out how to decipher the code, even if it kills me.

  At that exact moment, in one of the palace’s common rooms, Avis was also considering possible ways to raise funds. She needed an actual treasure to stage a gala that would destroy Rose Castletown and that harlot trash Sybille Maydestone.

  Sybille wanted to be her new sister? Not if Avis’s efforts could annihilate her before the wedding day and prove to her family that it was worth breaking the contract to rid themselves of the Pie-corner pestilence.

  Even better, Avis already knew exactly the shape her day-long masque would take and it would be unlike any ever seen in England … or the world.

  But such extravagance would come at a very high cost. Perhaps as much money as it took to run the kingdom for the same amount of time. Where would she ever find that amount of money?

  Her mind landed on and then rejected this idea or that—sell her horse, no that horse belonged to her father; offer her services as a dance tutor to the ladies of the court, no that would require years, maybe centuries of reels. As she thought, Avis dragged a fingernail over the intricacies of the cameo she wore on a pale red ribbon around her slender neck. Without having to look at the cameo, she could picture the carved, severe face of her grandmother glaring up at her disapprovingly.

  As always.

  The grizzled old witch had lived a joyless life, denying herself any physical comfort or the smiles that came with a good meal or a pleasant song. The only time she had laughed was with her last breath, convinced she was bound for paradise. In reality, that paradise was a muddy church cemetery on the edge of a bog where her old bones were rotting in the cold, unforgiving soil. Avis refused to make the same mistake. She was put on this planet and in this palace to live. And she intended to do just that, in comfort and in style.

  At first it was at her mother’s insistence that Avis kept the cameo close to her person at all times. Adelaide Scarcliff believed that every single servant was a thief—apparently blind and deranged as well, for who would want to intentionally snatch the awful thing? But as Avis grew older, it became more of a battle of wills between Avis and her stingy grandmother. If Avis were to take the cameo off and bury it or crush it with a heavy stone, that would somehow be conceding to the old bat. It would mean she had given up and her grandmother had won. Avis couldn’t have that. Just as she couldn’t have those sewer whores distracting the queen from the gala she was going to produce.

  And how Avis’s gala would glitter!

  The cast she would employ would be equal to the population of a large village, with the actors gorgeously attired in perfectly designed costumes, each one completely accurate down to the last detail to different time periods. The guests would feel as if they had been somehow transported into the past—all while eating and drinking only the finest meats and wines England had to offer.

  Then, when the masque was at its height, a single horn would sound gathering everyone’s attention. The hundreds of guests would all stop and watch Avis and Fulke perform a choreographed waltz for the queen. Of course, the queen would find them so wonderfully beguiling that she would bow to them.

  It was a delicious image, one that Avis attempted to savor. But her enjoyment was short-lived as she heard those two tarts from Gordonswamp or wherever the hell they were from slinking past one of the room’s doors, chortling and carrying on like the scabbed toads they were.

  Reacting to the disturbance, Avis pressed her nail deeper into the hard stone of the cameo, causing her cuticle to catch on its surface, as if her grandmother was biting her from beyond the grave. Avis’s nail tore and she hissed. But the pain was already giving way to something else, a realization. Words were echoing in her mind. The grave …

  “Too hard?” her friend Dorothie asked. Dorothie had been stroking Avis’s hair just as Avis’s sister had once done. The girls had the common room all to themselves this morning, with Avis seated in a low-backed chair by one of the six fires and Dorothie standing just inches behind her.

  When Avis didn’t respond, Dorothie continued to run her flat palms along Avis’s intricate braids, starting at the sides of her head, down, around, and up into the perfectly woven bun. A small bead of sweat rolled from Dorothie’s temple to her chin. Both girls were overheated this close to the fire in their thick brocade gowns, but Avis barely noticed. She was on to something. Her mind was clutching a thread and she didn’t want the thread to snap.

  Was it the cameo? Was that what had been nibbling at her thoughts?

  The hideous cameo might bring a decent price she could put toward her gala. But, no, her mother would notice immediately and the torture of deadly glances and silent punishment would begin. And, of course, selling the awful thing would mean that her grandmother would win their war of wills. If not the cameo, maybe something else in Avis’s possession … ?

  Without moving her head, she reached a blind hand into the purse she kept tied at her waist. She fingered the silver spoon inside, the same one she had since she turned seven. You never knew when your host might run out of utensils—or when you might be given one crusted with week-old pork stew—so it was always best to travel with one.

  The spoon was intricately carved, but its sale wouldn’t even cover the price of a new wig for her to wear to the gala. Avis’s touch moved on to the other jewels in her collection: a ring crowned with an asymmetrical pearl that her aunt had passed on to her, a broach with a rather large jade that her mother had given to her two years ago on her first day in the palace, and a pair of gold earrings. Where did those come from again?

  Didn’t matter. None of what she currently carried or wore would fund even a minute of the gala she had in mind.

  If not an item from her purse, what else could she part with? Her gowns? Her bed? Her maid? None of these things were actually her own. Would the queen consider it help from her family if she were to sell them?

  What else could she do? The heat from the fire was finally starting to get to Avis. Or was that her anger bubbling up?

  Avis took a breath, and tried to enjoy Dorothie stroking her hair. For a moment, she even imagined that Dorothie was her sister Agnes.

  “That’s nice,” Avis said as she used to tell her sister.

  But the words sounded hollow and weak. This person wasn’t her sister. Unlike Dorothie who was always battling runaway curly strands of brown hair, Agnes’s own had always been perfect, tied up and secured with her favorite pin. This was not her sister. This was a lesser member of court who was distracting her from hearing what her inner thoughts were desperately trying to tell her!

  As a child, a sea captain had visited their home with a chained captive he had brought from his travels. A giant leopard that slunk with liquid grace. That was how Avis moved now, like a cat.

  She spun around in her seat, her flat palm slicing through the air and connecting with Dorothie’s right cheek. Like the crack of a riding crop, the sharp sound ricocheted off the walls and drove out every other noise. Even the crackling fire seemed to go silent. Dorothie was too stunned to move, her fingers frozen in place on the sides of Avis’s head. Then her hands dropped and her lips parted in a silent question.

  Did you just strike me?

  For a split second, the curtain Dorothie kept between what her face showed the world and her inner thoughts parted. And there was something—dangerous?—in her eyes that made Avis pause. Dorothie wasn’t without power. She was well-liked among the young people in court. If she worked at it, she could make Avis’s life difficult.

  Maybe slapping two girls in twelve hours wasn’t showing the best judgment, Avis realized.

  She needed to make some kind of amends. “Too hard?” she asked, repeating Dorot
hie’s earlier question as a joke. When that landed flat, Avis tried again. “You have been far too cozy with the two bacons,” she said, her tone even. “But I’m going to allow you to make it up to me.”

  Dorothie’s eyebrow cocked in another silent question. Avis stood and maneuvered Dorothie so their positions were reversed. She carefully tucked a few of the loose strands back into Dorothie’s bun and then began stroking her head, just as she had been doing to Avis.

  Loose strands! Oh … yes.

  Maybe the slap had been a good idea after all. It had clarified her mind. Now Avis could hear her thoughts clearly and she knew exactly what they wanted her to do. The idea was dark. Evil perhaps.

  Avis Scarcliff was a bit in awe of herself. How could she ever pursue such a plan?

  She thought about the queen’s progress, about watching one of the country tramps going out on the adventure while she remained trapped in a near-empty Richmond Palace. Avis would be destroyed, her standing ruined. Not to mention the fact that Fulke often traveled with the queen’s court. He and Rose would be traveling together, staying at the queen’s different residences and tightly packed inns … where rooms would be shared.

  She felt the rage bubbling again and took a calming breath. First things first. Avis needed to deal with Dorothie. She would be kind and allow her to do her a favor. After all it was Dorothie’s ridiculous hair that had given her the idea for her plan in the first place.

  “I need you to keep an eye on those disgusting simpletons for me,” she said, kneading the tender spots behind Dorothie’s ears gently. “Can you do that for me?”

  After a moment, Avis felt Dorothie’s head give a slight nod under her hands. Avis registered it but was occupied with a new growing scheme.

  There was one item Avis could sell for a very large sum, but first she would need to secure it. It was a piece of jewelry that surely no one ever expected to see again. A dark mission indeed, and who better to help her than the man she intended to marry? What better way to bind themselves together than with something so wonderfully perverse?