The 48 Read online

  That had been a problem for some senior Assets at The 48, particularly the directors. There were five of them, led by Asix, who was the boss of them all. The directors were chosen not by TOD, but by virtue of how many successful missions they’d had. They were responsible for a fair amount of trainee education and oversight, in addition to time writing. And Alice questioned them constantly. About everything. Challenged them on their personal philosophies. Pointed out loopholes in the Tenets. Asked for details about TOD’s membership. She was shut down left and right. But she occasionally got us thinking outside the box.

  Of course, all the senior Asset instructors, and the directors, especially Grinch, hated that. They were always telling Alice that asking the wrong questions would get her killed earlier than her time.

  But it was always obvious to me that Alice had instincts and emotions that not even The 48 could snuff out of her. And Grinch truly tried.

  “I think you’re probably right, that Aramis is going to have a hard time finding her. But we can’t leave her out there,” I said. “It’s getting dark. She doesn’t know anyone. She’s had no briefing—”

  “Alice read my dossier,” interrupted Charlie.

  “Charles!”

  “Alexander, listen to me. If we go looking for Alice, we’re just going to draw attention to the fact that she’s here. If anyone’s going to do that, let it be Aramis. He won’t find her. As to her safety, I suspect the reason your knife is missing is because she stole it when you handed her the clothes. She would have known you would be able to find another one without too much trouble.”

  “You’re probably right. But Aramis is still going to be checking in on us.”

  “Of course he is. He’ll probably be back any minute. And he has to be back at the king’s side at some point or his cover will be blown. Speaking of which…” He picked up our dossier and waved it in my face. “We still have a job to do. In spite of everything.”

  “‘In spite of everything,’ he says. You are cold sometimes, man,” I said, shaking my head. “The 48 would be so proud of you.”

  Charlie didn’t disagree with me, but I could tell from his sharp intake of breath that my comment had hurt. Yet I stood by my words. He was cold. Steely. His goal here was still the mission, and nothing would change that. For me, the goal was making sure Charlie and I came out of this still breathing.

  “Let’s find Marlon,” said Charlie. “Aramis can’t drop his guard if others are around us. Safety in numbers. We’ll request that Marlon is placed as our watch while we’re in the palace.”

  That was a plan I could agree to. Readily.

  * * *

  —

  Charlie stayed glued to my side as we walked past doors and flaming torches. Hampton Court was like a little village, with people scurrying on their way. Occasionally a cloud would pass across the moon and plunge the king’s court into a Dante-esque inferno scene where the torches cast everything in a red flickering glow. But even though the night was cold, there was something human about the palace. The smell of roasting meat did little to overpower the stench of open sewers, but it was more bearable now.

  It was amazing how quickly a person could acclimatize to shit, I thought.

  I kept my eyes peeled for Aramis. I knew he’d be angry that we hadn’t waited for him, but going after Alice had been his deviation from the assignment, not ours. We needed to get to our lodgings, and my new friends in this court were going to be my allies, too. Whether they wanted me or not.

  Gittern-up-the-butt notwithstanding.

  I heard Marlon before I saw him. There was something unmistakably joyous about his English voice. It must be nice to live that way, I thought. In the moment, with no real cares except your next meal and your next fumble in a corner.

  “Alexander!” cried Marlon the second he saw us skulking out of the darkness like two cats. “And the brother, Charles of Cleves. Your arrival is most fortunate.”

  “And why is that?” I called, grinning.

  “Wine and song!” cried Marlon, to the cheers of several other guards who were clearly off duty. A crowd of women surrounded them.

  “Take one for the team,” whispered Charlie. “We need to know where our lodgings are.”

  “I hate you,” I muttered, but soon I was enveloped in a crowd of women who must have been the loose women that Lady Margaret had referred to so jealously.

  “Do you need rescuing again, Alexander of Cleves?” whispered a voice near my right ear.

  I laughed. “You are getting very good at this,” I replied, placing my arm across Marlon’s shoulder.

  It lingered there just long enough.

  “Is the pretty she-devil not with you?” asked a guard, glancing around.

  “No,” I replied, hoping beyond anything that Alice was hiding in a cupboard somewhere.

  “Then my balls may yet see the dawn,” he replied.

  It was the yeoman Alice had attacked.

  “We started on bad terms,” said Charlie. “I would like to rectify that. I am Charles, son of the Duke of Cleves.”

  “Yes, you said when we first met.” He paused, then offered his hand to us both. “Thomas Ladman. The seventeen-year-old bastard son of the Duke of Cambridge. Hence the reason I wear the uniform of the guard and not the jewels of nobility.”

  I also shook Thomas’s hand, which was rough with calluses and as cold as ice.

  “You know Lady Margaret,” I said.

  “Lady Margaret is a rose amongst thorns,” replied Thomas. “And destined for a bed that’s greater than mine,” he added bitterly.

  “The duke has procured us lodgings in the palace,” I said, changing the subject. “Would either of you know where? We are in danger of becoming hopelessly lost once more.”

  “I do,” replied Thomas. “You are staying in the Base Court. I can take you to your rooms when you are ready.”

  “Now is as good a time as any. Our journey was…tiring.”

  “Then let us take you now,” said Marlon warmly.

  * * *

  —

  I followed Marlon and Thomas as they led Charlie and me back past Wolsey’s apartments and the empty room where we had first found Alice. We walked across damp cobbles that were slippery underfoot, beneath a portcullis, and out into a larger courtyard. The bell tower where we had arrived was now manned by guards.

  The moment we were back inside the palace, we heard angry words being screamed by a woman. It was a mixture of English and French.

  “Our beloved queen,” muttered Marlon.

  “Don’t you like her?” I asked.

  “There are rumors of witchcraft,” replied Marlon. “I would not wish to walk in her shoes.”

  “Why is she here at all?” asked Thomas. “This wing is for guests of the king. The queen’s apartments are in the Clock Court.”

  “Nighttime wanderings?” whispered Marlon, raising a suggestive eyebrow at me.

  “She does nothing to dispel the rumors,” said Thomas, shaking his head. “Indeed, she seems to encourage them. I pray that the queen does not take her maids of honor with her to the Tower. It would pain me to see Lady Margaret suffer for her mistress’s ill deeds.”

  “Why should it be the queen’s responsibility to stop rumors?” said Charlie. “People shouldn’t gossip in the first place.”

  “Spoken like someone who is already enamored with the French way,” said Marlon.

  “I wouldn’t say that aloud,” said Thomas. “The walls have ears in the palace, and Cromwell has spies everywhere.”

  “Let’s just get to our lodgings,” said Charlie. “I’m tired.”

  “They are just along here,” said Thomas. “Would you like us to stand watch, as it is your first night in the palace?”

  “Yes, we would,” my brother and I replied at the same time.

  I h
oped we wouldn’t have need of their protection before the night was out.

  We were shown into two separate rooms, connected by a creaking dark oak door that was carved with fleur-de-lis the size of my hand.

  Our new lodgings at the palace were certainly a lot grander than the rooms we had stayed in before. A sign, perhaps, of the standing we had already attained with the king. We each had a large four-poster bed and an ornately carved table with a pewter bowl for washing. The fireplaces in both rooms were crackling with orange flames that had a pink tint around the edges. There was a large padded seat beneath each window, and clothes had already been laid out on the beds. Aramis must have arranged all of this, down to the riding boots propped up in the corner.

  The juxtaposition of an Asset in control with the man we’d seen earlier was difficult to understand.

  “You may wish to wash before the evening meal is served in the Great Hall,” said Marlon. He and Thomas both bowed, and the doors closed with a solid thump.

  Alex collapsed onto the bed, which immediately sank down several inches.

  “Now, this is more like it, Charlie,” he said, wriggling into the damask covers. “A comfy bed. An evening meal. Clothes that’ll make us look like rejects from clown school.”

  I walked over to the window. It was latticed into diamond shapes. Each pane showed a distorted view of the courtyard below, giving it an abstract-art appearance, like a Picasso painting.

  “Where are you?” I whispered, tracing my fingers down the condensation that was already pooling in the lead lattices. “Where are you, Alice?”

  * * *

  —

  After dinner, which was a subdued affair without the king, even with the strains of plucked instruments, eight rich courses, and plenty of stares, we returned to our rooms. We removed our shirts and placed our kit bags at the bottom of a wooden chest that was set at the end of one of the beds. Alex’s chest was pink from where his kit bag had rubbed against his skin.

  “What archives did you bring with you?” I asked, leafing through the small bundle of papers he had already placed in the bottom of the chest.

  “Just the ones I thought could be important,” he replied. “Antidotes, makeshift weapons, that kind of thing. But I had to print them out in a calligraphic font, and really small, so they wouldn’t look out of place if someone found them.”

  “You’re going to go blind if you try to read these,” I said, holding them up to the light with one hand. With the other, I held my stomach, which was griping after so much rich, greasy food at dinner. I picked up some red grapes that had been left in a bowl, just to try to take off the edge. They were overripe but somehow sour.

  The door was flung open and a gust of wind swept through the room. The fire crackled in response.

  “I told you both to wait in the antechamber earlier,” growled a voice from the door. I recognized it immediately. “It was not a good look to have you both attend dinner without me.”

  “It wasn’t our fault you weren’t there,” I muttered. Aramis glowered in reply.

  “Did you find Alice?” asked Alex.

  I was glad my brother asked the question. I didn’t tend to ask questions that I didn’t want to hear the answer to.

  I was a coward sometimes.

  “No,” snapped Aramis. He slammed the door and sank into an upholstered chair.

  “Has this ever happened before?” I asked through gritted teeth. My head was pounding. “Has Grinch ever done something like this before? Alice shouldn’t be here—she doesn’t want to be here. Why won’t you help her—help us?”

  “I am your Asset contact, not hers. And I am aware of Assets turning up unscheduled on assignments before,” replied Aramis. “Which is why this deviation must be exterminated. Remember your Imperatives and Tenets, Charles.”

  “Deviation? Alice isn’t a deviation!” cried Alex. “How can you say that? Someone in The 48 is working against us, Aramis. We heard screaming in the Louvre as we started to travel. Grinch had just left the room.”

  “What? You never said—”

  “We haven’t…had a chance.” I grabbed hold of one of the wooden bedposts. My legs were starting to buckle. I was barely holding myself upright.

  “Charlie, what’s wrong?”

  Pain was stabbing at my insides. Burning spasms pinged around my gut.

  “Alex…”

  I fell to the ground as my legs gave way. I had no control over them. I had no feeling whatsoever.

  “Alexander!” cried Aramis. “Come here, quickly.”

  I felt hands behind my shoulders, but my sight had clouded over. I couldn’t see who was holding me. Liquid was bubbling up inside my throat. It was frying my vocal cords. I was drowning in boiling acid. I knew this sensation, and it filled me with the same fear I had felt when I was testing poisons in my toxicology Imperative.

  We of The 48 consider toxicology a key area of study. Knowledge in this discipline could mean the difference between life and death. All Assets are to become conversant with the naturally occurring toxins and chemical combinations can cause death in humans. Toxicology is to be studied in conjunction with ethnobotany. Trainee Assets will be required to test chemicals on one another to build immunity, and to learn how to create an antidote under pressure.

  Darkness invaded everything.

  Fire could be a friend or a foe. Its tendrils kept away the biting cold in winter; yet it was also a hungry beast that could devour an entire dwelling in moments.

  A fire earlier in the year had destroyed a number of the ladies’ rooms near the apartments of the queen. Many said it was set deliberately. The queen placed the blame at the door of an unfortunate servant who was not seen again.

  But others suspected a more powerful wrongdoer.

  One of the rooms that had been destroyed was a chamber I shared with Lady Jane and Lady Cecily. Flames could have been the end of me, but I had been unable to sleep that particular night and had stolen away for fresh air with my two friends. The day after, my own father questioned why I had not been in the room when the fire broke out. Evidently, my reputation was worth more than my life in his eyes. Yet I had been able to satisfy his questions in the furor that followed by being suitably subservient to him and to the irate men around us who sought to root out the arsonist.

  To alleviate our distress, my fellow ladies and I had been removed to alternative chambers whilst restorations were calculated.

  The calculations were taking a good while. The king was stalling. It was assumed he did not want to spend the money on ladies who served a wife who might not last the year. The only one who mattered, Lady Jane, had already been moved to apartments nearer the king.

  Fire could have been my foe that day, but it had inadvertently become my friend. My new chambers were set farther from the queen’s than before, ensuring I was guaranteed peace during the night.

  Except this one.

  * * *

  —

  I hadn’t been able to sleep. I had seen Thomas Ladman earlier in the evening, and the stake had finally been plunged into my heart. My head had, of course, known that we could never now be more than old acquaintances from a childhood long forgotten. Yet the heart does not always align with the head, until it has visual evidence of something that may break it.

  We had known each other since I had arrived at the court. He was a bastard son of the Duke of Cambridge, and as such had received an education befitting someone being groomed for higher purposes. Two years after my arrival, the duke’s wife successfully delivered not one but two male heirs, and Thomas was abandoned. The king took pity on Thomas and gave him a position of rank in the yeomen guard.

  Our hopes for marriage all but disappeared. My father heard of our childish courtship and demanded I stay away from Thomas. A bastard was not worthy of the only daughter of Sir Richard Montague.

  Yet Thomas could not s
tay away from me, and we continued to meet in secret. For more than two years. Our kisses, our secret.

  Until I began hearing rumors that I was not the only woman Thomas was kissing. Marlon had the good grace not to speak of it, but the servant girls and other yeomen were not so kind. Gossip did not feed just the court; it was there to be devoured just as hungrily by those who served.

  And then this night I had seen it with my own eyes. He must have known there was a chance I would see him, fumbling and pressing against one of the kitchen wenches, who was clearly delighted by the attention, judging by the moans of longing lingering in her throat.

  I felt sickened, despoiled. And, to my shame, above all I felt envious.

  Thomas Ladman did not see my tears. He would not have heard my stifled sobs.

  Or the hardening of my heart. He would not get another moment of my company.

  I was lying awake that night, distressed and distracted, when I heard raised voices; frightened cries. They sounded male.

  I knew at once who was making the sound.

  I climbed out of bed and wrapped a heavy damask robe around my shoulders.

  “Lady Margaret!” exclaimed Lady Cecily. “What in the king’s name are you doing?”

  “Can you not hear the voices?”

  “Of course—I wish I could not,” she replied, pulling the bed coverings up to her nose. “Do not venture out there. It is improper.”

  “Need I remind you that the last time there was a disturbance near our chambers, our lives were almost forfeit?” I said.

  Lady Cecily made no reply.

  I pulled open the heavy oak door. It creaked a warning as I slipped through; the tie of my robe momentarily pulled me back as it caught on the heavy cast-iron handle.

  Alexander of Cleves was staying in the Base Court. An honor indeed. I could hear his and another, deeper, voice. That one had the true accent of the House of Cleves. But Alexander’s voice was peculiar. It was elongated and higher, almost as if he had been inflicted with some kind of palsy.