The 48 Page 8

  I was in 1536 now, when no one but Alex and I could know that in 336 years’ time, Queen Victoria would get lucky. An Asset would swap pistols with Arthur O’Connor at the last minute, so that the one he tried to fire was unloaded.

  The failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605? It was an Asset who tipped off the authorities to the explosives.

  When Assets carried out missions, we did not question them. We didn’t look at the bigger picture. We couldn’t. Because the bigger picture was being recalibrated all the time by TOD: the collective that funded us with astronomical wealth and operated entirely from the shadows.

  * * *

  —

  My life, my existence, was training. But nothing in my training had taught me how to brace myself for how bad Tudor England smelled. It was almost worse, this second time around. The enclosed brick bell tower had protected us from the worst of it, but as Alex and I walked out into the cool spring air, the smell of open toilets hit me in the face like a sucker punch. It was probably this bad because we were so close to the River Thames, which was basically an open septic tank. The first time we had arrived I had actually thrown up, it was so awful. Ideally, breathing was done through the mouth here.

  “Stay close to me, Charles,” said Alex, now speaking with a slight Saxon accent. “I don’t want to have to spend forty-seven of our remaining forty-eight days looking for you in this rabbit warren of buildings. It’s worse than the Louvre.”

  “The feeling is entirely mutual,” I replied. “Now keep your voice down and try to look purposeful. I don’t want to be overheard and arrested as a spy before we’ve even reached the inner walls of Hampton Court.” I tried to puff my own chest out and walk taller. “Our instructions include a reminder that there will be plenty of people here who still have no idea who the sons of Cleves are. So our first job is to find Aramis, who can vouch for us. He’s probably watching us from some tower right now, seeing how we cope with the return. So look cool.”

  Alex eyed me up and down and grinned. “Look cool? I’m made of cool.”

  I ignored that. There was no actually looking cool dressed like sixteenth-century noblemen. Anyway, Alex knew what I meant. We had to project an air of confidence now. We had Aramis—and a king—to impress.

  * * *

  —

  Henry VIII was eighteen years old when he ascended the throne—only a year older than an Asset on their inaugural assignment. Henry wasn’t supposed to be king, according to the line of succession. He had an older brother named Arthur who died at the age of fifteen. History had Arthur’s death written down as a long illness. He was a prince who became sick after his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and never recovered.

  The 48 had Arthur’s death recorded rather differently. It was noted as Time Assassination AT1502.

  Future assassinations were easier to cover up if a psychopath was king.

  So after Arthur’s death, Prince Henry became the heir instead of the spare. He was ten years old. He was subsequently married to widow Catherine and closeted away for the day when his father, Henry VII, died.

  The 48 didn’t have a hand, sword, or vial in that one. Some historical deaths were natural.

  * * *

  —

  “You look so serious. Aren’t you excited? Just a little bit?” asked Alex, nudging me with his elbow.

  “Excited is the wrong word. We’re going to be here now for forty-eight days. The slightest detail could make everything go wrong. We have to do this properly. We will do this properly—just as we’ve trained.”

  “Breathe, will you? It’s an easy assignment, Charles.” Alex rolled the r in my full name dramatically. “All we have to do is stop Henry from marrying Jane. And you met her. She’s nice, but she’s not exactly the most captivating person at court. There are plenty of Protestants here for him to choose from who are more likely to catch his eye. We just have to make him see them.”

  “We can’t think like that. There are no easy assignments.”

  But Alex was infuriatingly right. On paper, manipulating Henry VIII was a simple task. Right now, Henry VIII was forty-five years old. Decrepit, paranoid, and desperate for a male heir. He was a monster, driven half mad by pain and disease. As far as the king was concerned, he didn’t need a person in his bed; he needed a womb. All TOD asked of us was that we ensure that the womb didn’t belong to a Catholic.

  * * *

  —

  “Stop!” a deep voice suddenly cried. “Stop in the name of the king! State your names and business or we will run you through.”

  I spun around. Three guards stood in a semicircle behind us. They were dressed in tight red pants, black leather boots like ours, and red tabards with golden embroidery on the front. All three were smaller than Alex and I by several inches, but two looked like they had the muscles for a fight. They also had the benefit of spears that were pointed perilously close to our chests. The sun glinted off the metal in sharp beams of light.

  If Aramis was watching, he wasn’t getting involved. We had to show we could get ourselves out of trouble.

  “We are guests, loyal to the Crown and its king,” said my brother, who, like me, had his hands raised in supplication. “I am Alexander, son of the Duke of Cleves. This is my brother, Charles. We are already known to the court and to His Grace. You aren’t going to declare war on a friend and ally like Cleves, now, are you?”

  My brother bowed; I quickly followed suit. Alex had done well; he had jumped straight back into character before I had.

  But he stayed stooped. My eyes flicked to the gap between his leg and the black leather of his boot—where I saw he had concealed his knife.

  “What is your business in the palace?” asked the guard. “We heard the tolling of the bell. Guests of the king with honorable intent do not take such liberties as to disturb the peace of Hampton Court.”

  “Forgive us,” I replied, raising my body just a few inches. “My brother and I saw the bell tower and could not resist bringing it to song.”

  I was just as cool as Alex—sometimes.

  And I had to make sure he didn’t use that knife, not on our first day back.

  “We wished to look around the grounds, but we became separated from the Duke of Cleves’s party,” said Alex. “The area around Hampton Court is truly magnificent, and truly expansive. Much larger than our castle in Cleves.”

  The three guards looked at one another; one stroked his neatly trimmed goatee with his thumb and forefinger. While they had slightly jaundiced skin and red-rimmed eyes, their unlined faces indicated they were around the same age as Alex and I, and their expressions were a mixture of confusion and fear, indicating they weren’t particularly experienced. This meant my brother and I could take the upper hand. We were claiming to be nobility—we were certainly dressed like it. Dare the guards question us? A wrong move in either direction could result in their necks being stretched out from a length of rope on a scaffold. These were dangerous times for all.

  “The Duke of Cleves is holding council with the king in the Great Hall,” said one of the guards to the others. “As these two are not armed, we should let them be.”

  “Gentlemen, if you take us to the Great Hall, we can meet with the Duke of Cleves when the king has dismissed him,” I said. “I’m afraid the size of this noble palace is as great as the mazes outside it. We are hopelessly lost. The duke will be most grateful for your assistance to his kin.”

  The guards had lowered their spears. They had stepped back, as if to acquiesce to my request, when a scream sliced through the air. It was so high it made my ears buzz. The three guards pivoted toward the noise.

  All five of us immediately sprinted in the direction of the noise. It was coming from the upstairs section of a set of apartments within a cobbled courtyard. The square design amplified the sound.

  “Those are Wolsey’s old rooms!” shouted one of the guards.
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  The rooms we were supposed to arrive in, I thought. It was just as well we hadn’t.

  Another scream. We ran through an arched oak door. The smell of incense made my eyes water. It was dark and damp. A bare table was the only piece of furniture I could see, and it was covered in a thick layer of dust.

  “Stay here,” ordered a guard, throwing back an arm to stop Alex from climbing the stairs. “You are unarmed. I do not desire to have to save your hides as well as a lady’s.”

  “Dickhead,” muttered Alex as the three guards charged up the stairs.

  “Play nice,” I whispered. “You didn’t have a problem getting to know yeomen the first time we were here. They could be useful.”

  Dust cascaded from the eaves as shouts and the sound of furniture being smashed replaced the screams.

  “I don’t like this,” said Alex. “Screw those guards. We could probably take all three of them in a fight anyway. We should get up there. This was our original destination. What if it’s connected?”

  I always tried to think of everything, but I hadn’t thought of that. Taking the steps two at a time, we ran up the stairs and rushed into a room on the right where the noises were coming from. Sweat trickled down my back. Already we were in the thick of the action, and we had been back in time for less than an hour.

  We arrived in a bedroom. Thick velvet drapes were pulled back from the single window. There were four spent candles on sconces fixed to the oak-paneled walls, and the centerpiece was a large two-poster bed with a fringed burgundy canopy.

  One of the guards had his back to us, but he was holding someone in his arms who was kicking and struggling for all they were worth. Another guard was waving his spear in front of his body as if he were about to skewer a wild animal. The third guard was holding a bloodstained handkerchief to his lip. There were two upturned chairs on the floor, and a pile of books lay scattered across the dusty boards. A silver seal for securing letters rolled past a stained chamber pot.

  “This hellcat is about to eat her way through my fingers!” cried the first guard. He clearly had his hand over the mouth of the person who had been screaming, because her screams were now muffled. I looked down and could just make out her white-soled sneakers thrashing between his legs.

  White-soled—what?

  Then the guard holding her crumpled to the floor. The so-called hellcat had twisted her body around and kneed him between the legs. I winced in sympathy pain…and then felt my stomach drop into my boots.

  “Alice!” exclaimed my brother.

  Our assignment had just gotten a lot more complicated.

  You know this she-devil?” groaned the felled guard, still clutching his groin.

  “Yes,” I replied quickly, being sure to keep the accent. “She is…she is a maid from the House of Cleves. She traveled back to His Grace’s court with us. We became separated.”

  I glanced at my brother; his face was taut like a drumskin, slightly vibrating as if it had just been struck.

  Stay in character, Charlie, I silently willed.

  But I already knew this was a disaster of epic proportions.

  Alice had positioned herself in a classic tae kwon do back stance. Her fists were raised and her thigh muscles were taut with energy. Her light brown eyes darted all over the place. I pitied the fool on the floor who had just tried to take her on. Alice was top of the class in every martial art Imperative. She had kicked my ass more times than I could remember. Charlie’s, too. She was small, but lightning-fast.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  “Alice—you don’t need to be frightened,” I said, stretching out my hand, but she was frozen, just like Charlie. I wasn’t even sure she recognized me. Her breathing was so rapid I could see she was starting to hyperventilate. Had she already gone through the three stages and the Quickening? I simply couldn’t tell.

  “You’re…you’re safe, Alice,” stammered my brother, finally realizing that this was actually happening. “We won’t…we won’t let anyone hurt you. Alexander and I…we’ll protect you now.”

  “And who will protect us?” snapped the guard with the spear. “To attack a guard in the grounds of the palace is regarded as an attack on the king himself. These are not times to be seen as an usurper to the Crown.”

  “A what?” gasped Alice, finding her voice. “Charlie, Alex, I don’t understand why…”

  Alice wasn’t dressed in sixteenth-century clothes. She was wearing tight black jeans, a crumpled long-sleeved black T-shirt, and red sneakers. Her brown hair was a mass of ringlets, and then I noticed the slick of dried blood congealing in her hairline.

  “We’ll take responsibility for her,” said Charlie quickly, stepping forward to defuse the situation. Alice fell to her knees. She wasn’t crying, but she was shaking with shock.

  “Did you attack her?” I demanded.

  “No,” replied the guard who was holding a bloodied handkerchief to his face. “We merely tried to restrain her.”

  “Then you cannot be surprised if she fought back against you,” I snapped. “Alice is a simple maiden from our land. She clearly did not see three honorable guards of the king, but three men rushing to assault her. Would you have accepted your fate, or fought back also?”

  “We will take her with us,” said Charlie, stepping forward to help Alice up.

  “Indeed. Because we are taking all three of you,” replied the guard on the floor. Two skinny black rats scuttled across the bare floorboards. “If the Duke of Cleves does not recognize you, we’ll hang you down at Traitor’s Gate before the sun sets.” He sounded bitter, as if he would like nothing better than to hang us there and then for his humiliation at the hands of Alice.

  I stayed back with Alice as the two guards still standing helped their fallen comrade down the stairs. Charlie followed to create a buffer between them and us. He was the better fighter if it all went pear-shaped. I only had a few seconds. Alice’s breathing was steadying, but she was still trembling. I quickly scanned her for more injuries, but there was nothing obvious, other than the cut on her head. She was moving okay, so I didn’t suspect fractures or broken bones. Concussion would certainly explain her confusion.

  “What’s happening, Alex?” she whispered. “I don’t understand. Why am I here? Grinch…”

  “We can’t discuss anything here,” I hissed back. “Keep quiet until we can find somewhere to talk.”

  But as Alice steadied herself on the wobbly balustrade and took several long inhalations, I heard a beep and saw a tiny shadow flicker across her wrist. I pulled her hand toward me. Her skin was ice-cold.

  A display had been activated.

  47 22:39:48

  Alice had been sent here, just thirty minutes after we had.

  * * *

  —

  By the time the six of us had reached the courtyard, the guard Alice had kneed in the groin was walking normally again, although he gave her a wide berth, preferring to guard Charlie, who, understandably, was the quietest of us all.

  Having his ex-girlfriend turn up in Tudor England was not part of the assignment.

  “Where are we going? What’s happening, Alex?” whispered Alice. Her lips were turning blue, and I could see a thin layer of white foam on the inside of her mouth. Severe dehydration. Alice needed water or she was going to start hallucinating.

  “Stop talking,” I muttered. “We were going to the Great Hall, but now we’ll have to find somewhere to hide you.”

  “Why is she here?” whispered Charlie, pulling me to one side as the three guards led the way—single file—down a steep cobbled alleyway that ran between courtyards. “This wasn’t her assignment.”

  “I have no idea,” I muttered back. “She started to mention Grinch but I had to shut her up. This isn’t right, Charlie. Something’s gone seriously wrong here.”

  “Logical options.”
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br />   “Sent to spy on us?” I said, keeping an eye on the three guards.

  “I doubt it—can’t you see how scared she is?” whispered Charlie. “And a spy wouldn’t stand out like she clearly does right now. And we aced the reconnaissance. A trainee wouldn’t be sent to spy on us.”

  He sounded offended at the mere suggestion.

  “So what are your thoughts?” I asked.

  “This is an accident—or something more devious,” said Charlie through gritted teeth. “Let’s just find somewhere to hide her before we go to the Great Hall and make contact with Aramis. Someone will know where he is, and the clock is ticking. We need to push back on everything that isn’t the assignment. The assignment is all that matters.”

  I opened my mouth and then shut it so abruptly my back teeth clacked together. Only minutes ago, forty-eight days had seemed like a lifetime to me. But Alice’s appearance had altered my perception. Forty-eight would soon become twenty-four, which would become a week, which would become a day, an hour, a second. Our day one instructions were to meet Aramis and get settled back into court life as if we had never been away—and already we’d gone far astray.

  On paper it had sounded easy.

  I worried that finding Alice was an indicator of something bigger than all of us—including the assignment.

  * * *

  —

  Our journey through the palace provided a review of sixteenth-century royal living. It was a study in nervous tension. Women in full, heavy gowns and jewels glided around the corridors—and when you looked back, they had disappeared. It was as if they dissolved into the heavy tapestries and drapes. Men looked up from writing desks and then quickly slumped down again, dipping their quills into ink pots to continue scribing.