Deanie."
"For crying out loud!" mumbled Deanie.
"Don't they have anything better to do than shave
my legs?"
"It appears not, mistress," said the duke,
winking at her.
"All right. Tell them I'll be right down."
The grateful steward bowed and slipped out
quickly, not wishing to give Deanie a chance to change
her mind.
Resigned to her fate, she stepped to the window
and stared down at the scores of burly men milling
about in the courtyard. Suffolk stepped by her side
and chuckled.
"They are a virtual army," he muttered,
shaking his head in amusement.
Deanie was about to agree, when she stopped.
"What did you say?"
"I said they are a virtual army," he
repeated.
"An army," she said softly. "My own army
..."
"Mistress Deanie," Suffolk warned, "I
like not your tone."
She answered him with a beaming smile.
"Tell me what is churning in that mind of
yours," ordered Suffolk.
But Deanie said nothing. She simply nodded
at him and left the antechamber with an alarmingly
light step.
After a brief pause, Suffolk began
to follow her through the door. "I am getting too
old for this," he mumbled to himself as he straightened
his sword.
Before he could make it to the courtyard, he was
stopped by Norfolk, who informed him that the king
needed his counsel on urgent business. Suffolk
had no choice but to go with Norfolk.
He was not particularly worried. After all,
what harm could befall Mistress Deanie in the
few short minutes during which he would be closeted
with the king?
If he weren't so damned well fed and rested,
he wouldn't be so damned annoyed.
"I will repeat my question," Kit said between clenched
teeth. "Who is holding me?"
"Now now," soothed his tormentingly cheerful
jailer. "How's about another slice of
pheasant?"
"I do not want pheasant." Kit realized
he was sounding like a petulant child. "I want
to leave this place."
"Now why would you want to do that, Sir Duke?
Is not the cooking to your liking? Is the wine off?"
"The cooking and the wine are more than agreeable."
"Why thank you, Duke. I will go and inform
Cook, and pleased as Punch he will be, let me
tell you."
"No!" Kit wiped a hand over his mouth in
exasperation. "Please, just tell me where I
am."
"You are in a lovely place, really."
A noise very much like a growl escaped Kit's
throat, and he heard his jailer back away.
"Now, now, Sir Duke. Why would you want
to leave here and go back to that nasty court?"
Kit was about to speak when something about the jailer's
words made him halt. He bit back the
venomous urge to shout. Instead, he softened his
voice. "You do have a point there, my good man,"
he coaxed.
"Yes I do, Sir Duke. All those evil
people, God help us, running about, mucking about where
they have no right. Yer better off here, that's what
I say."
"I suppose you're right." Kit tried
to keep his voice calm. "I am just concerned about
my cousin."
"Mistress Deanie? Awe, don't you
worry about her, Sir Duke. He'll watch out
for her."
"He will, won't he?" Kit willed himself
to relax. "He has always been a good friend to me."
"The flower of manhood he is!" The jailer
stopped and sucked in his breath, as if he could
suck back his words from the air. "By God, I
had best see to my chores."
Kit sat heavily on the cot, fury surging
through him. Now it all made sense, his
well-meaning, confoundedly meddling friend. The flower of
manhood.
Blast him to hell!
From below the cellar, the entire house was racked
by a single bellowing voice.
"SUFFOLK! DAMN YOU, I'LL GET
YOU FOR THIS!"
The servants, the kitchen staff, the stable boys
and laundresses and gardeners all stopped,
exchanged perplexed blinks, and returned to work.
It was always an adventure working in the
household staff of Charles Brandon, the duke
of Suffolk. Always an adventure indeed.
Chapter 18
The plan wasn't quite worked out yet. There were a
few minor details missing, a very few
trivial items that needed to be fine-tuned.
For one thing, Deanie had no idea where the
Tower of London was located. Of course it was
in London, and it was a tower. But that was all she
knew.
Finding London was also something of a problem. The
last time she was there it had been marked with
reflecting road signs and tourist kiosks.
She'd been lounging in the back of a large,
American-style, air-conditioned bus, her
headphones plugged into the rough tape of a new
CD, and had paid absolutely no attention
to landmarks or directions.
Once at the Tower, Deanie had no
further strategy. That was it. She had an
imprecise notion of storming through the Tower gates
with a gang of barbers and exiting with an extra
barber--namely Kit. If she could find that
woman, the countess of Salisbury, she would
grab her as well. Nothing mattered other than
getting Kit out of there as soon as possible.
Assuming Deanie and her makeshift army of
confused barbers could actually locate the right town
and the right tower, finding Kit within the walls of said
tower was also going to be rather exciting. She had
convinced the barbers that she was going on a mission of
mercy to shave and bleed some of the more unfortunate
occupants of the Tower. They knew she had become
a favorite of the king's and did not dare question her
authority.
Deanie added an extra incentive: If they
followed her occasionally strange-sounding orders,
she would give them permission to shave her legs as
much as they wished. She further promised to make
hair-free legs en vogue at court, thereby
providing them with an intriguing sideline.
"What if men decide to have their legs shaved as
well?" The question came from a massive young man
named Yerkel. He seemed to have no first name, no
last name. Just Yerkel.
"Here, here!" shouted an enthusiastic barber with a
disfiguring growth on the side of his face. "I will
not shave a gentleman's limbs."
"No. I think you're all safe. I don't
think men would like it." She tried to sound convincing, but
she herself wasn't so sure. Men in 1540 did
wear stockings, after all.
The trick was to persuade the barbers that going to the
Tower had been their own idea, a
guild-sponsored charity mission. After a few
moments of heated debate, they agreed to allow
Deanie to go with them.
Surprisingly, to the barbers, the Tower itself did
not conjure frightening images, no apparitions of
Vincent Price or looming shadows. Only
recently had it been used as Henry's jail.
Before, it had simply been a royal residence,
like Nonesuch or Richmond. Since it was much
older--it had already been standing for hundreds of
years--the building was well fortified from the days of
ever-changing kings and hostile invasions. After the more
recent imprisonments of Anne Boleyn,
Thomas More, and a handful of other executed nobles,
it was just beginning to garner its sinister
reputation.
They had left immediately, the barbers on their
mounts and Deanie on Fancy, the same horse
she'd ridden weeks earlier from Hampton. She
didn't want to wait a minute for Suffolk
to follow, or for anyone else to discover her
plan. Even running back into the palace
to change into more suitable riding attire was out of the
question; she surely would have been stopped.
They were but a few miles from London, continuing
on the muddy Thames-side path that traveled from
Hampton to Richmond.
She now understood why Suffolk had called the
road dangerous. Even in the full sun of a
spring afternoon, she caught sight of half a dozen
undesirable, suspicious-looking characters, all of
whom seemed capable of the most vile of crimes.
Only when the potential felons seemed to be
following at an alarmingly close pace did she
realize they were reinforcements for her army. The
extra barbers joined them on the road, casting
curious glances at her ankle when the skirt of
her red velvet gown became caught on the
saddle.
London was still nowhere in sight, or even on the
horizon. She felt as if they had been
traveling for hours. Even as they entered a
village, there were no indications that the great
metropolis of London was near.
The village was sprawling, hundreds of
half-timber houses and single-story cottages
sprinkled along a gentle rise. Some of the
homes boasted glass windows and brick
chimneys; others had nothing but oiled linen covering
the windows.
The more modest dwellings had no chimneys at
all. Instead they had gaping holes in the roofs.
Since it was now spring, most of the roof holes were
covered with lengths of thatch or wooden boards or
more oiled linen, anything else that might keep out the
rain.
the muddy streets, making them more evil smelling
than even the Thames-side road. Nothing was
paved, and the streets were dangerously slick with
animal excrement, rotting garbage, used
bathwater, and the tossed-out remains of household
privies.
The buildings became progressively larger
and more impressive, the gardens smaller
as the houses were packed closely along the
streets both broad and narrow. There seemed to be
no plan to the village, no sense of zoning
commercial buildings from the residential ones.
She caught sight of a wide bridge spanning
the river. The amazing thing about the bridge was that it
was an actual street, boasting two parallel
rows of houses, some as tall as three stories.
They were pointed and spiraled, triangular and
square.
A chiming in the distance signaled the hour of
two. Deanie turned to Yerkel, taking a deep
breath through her mouth to avoid the surrounding stench.
She had become used to the odors of the court, but this
was another level of stink she could never have
imagined.
"Where are we?"
Yerkel, whose single expression seemed to be
one of bland resignation, lifted his blond
eyebrows. "We are in London, Mistress
Deanie."
Deanie was about to respond, but instead held her
tongue. What had she been expecting?
Piccadilly Circus with candles? Signs
pointing the way to Heathrow?
At once a vile gust of wind blasted past
them. Deanie gagged. Yerkel gazed calmy as
she struggled against the urge to wretch.
"Yonder are the tanners," he explained with the
air of a bored tour guide. "The fishmongers and the
butchers ply their trades together, so their smells
do not poison all of London. The bear-baiting
pits lay there as well, if you enjoy the sport.
So are the baths, the stews, and so forth."
He smiled in benign contentment.
"Where is the Tower?"
Without speaking, he nodded in the direction of a
brick structure.
While she was instantly relieved that Kit was
not imprisoned in a more horrifying building, it was
something of a disappointment. She had been expecting
a dramatic Gothic castle, black and
sooty, covered with chains and the remains of
tortured victims, faces contorted in silent
screams of eternal agony.
Instead it was almost cheerful, the gray bricks
edged with lighter trim, impressive turrets
on every corner. The clustered towers made the compound
resemble a Disney creation.
The only hint of foreboding was the
well-armed guards standing with rigid authority at
the gate. They held staffs much like those of guards
at Hampton, and their determined expressions
appeared even more fierce because of the iron helmets
worn low on their foreheads.
The closer they got, the less cheerful the Tower
appeared. Most of the expansive windows were
covered with spiked bars. They rode over a
small arched bridge to the main entrance. From that
angle Deanie could see the river entrance, the
so-called Traitor's Gate, through which so many of
Henry's enemies had made their one-way
journey.
The large guard, standing with his muscled legs
apart, did not seem to notice Deanie and the
barbers. He did not seem to move a muscle,
not even to blink.
"Hey," Deanie called as her horse
broke away from the pack. The barbers remained a
few feet behind in a shifting cluster. The guard
gave no response to her greeting. "Good day,"
she tried again. "Um, we've come here to shave the
prisoners."
With that statement the guard's steel-blue eyes
slid to her face. Still he remained silent,
impassive as a log.
"You see, we're all here to make the
prisoners a bit more comfortable. It's the little
touches that add up." What was she saying? Next
she'd go on about a chocolate on the pillow and a
complimentary Continent
al breakfast.
Although it seemed impossible, the guard appeared
even more solid than a few minutes earlier.
She heard the clip-clop of hooves behind her
and turned to see Yerkel, his face partially
obscured by the cowl of his cloak, approach on his
oversized horse. She tried to gesture him
back to the rear. The last thing she needed was
Yerkel's brooding presence by her side.
"Good day, Robert," Yerkel said to the guard.
"Good day to you as well, Yerkel," the guard
muttered without looking up.
"You two know each other?"
Yerkel said nothing, but the guard nodded, a
gesture so slight she would have missed it had she not
been alert.
"Yerkel," she whispered. "Can you get us
inside? Bribe him, threaten, promise him just
about anything--just let us get inside."
Yerkel remained silent, but he
dismounted from his horse and walked over to the guard.
They exchanged a few words, a very few words, and the
guard's eyes widened, and he looked Deanie
up and down. Finally he nodded once and called
to someone inside the gates. The man inside
called to another unseen person, their shouts echoing
against the brick walls.
"What did you tell him?" Deanie hissed
to Yerkel, who was motioning to the other barbers
to dismount.
Yerkel did not respond. Instead he patted
his horse and began to walk through the open gates.
"Please, what did you say? It had to have been
a threat, perhaps a dire warning. Did you threaten
to fight with him? Please, Yerkel."
He stopped, his massive shoulders straight,
his rounded blond head still. "The truth?" His tone
was ominous, and Deanie was again reminded what a
barbaric age this was.
She nodded, bracing herself for the savage warning
Yerkel must have imposed.
"I told Richard that should he allow us to pass
within the Tower gates to shave some of the prisoners,
we will divide with him any coins we are given."
"That's it?" She was unreasonably let down.
"You guys promised to share the tip?"
"That was not all." Yerkel's voice took on
a menacing edge.
Her eyes widened. She needed to know what
bloodthirsty method Yerkel had employed
to gain entry. She may need the technique
later.
"I told him that should he allow us to pass
unhindered, I will ask Mother to make a beef
pudding."
"Mother?"
"Richard is my older brother," he
concluded, nodding to his sibling as they passed through
the gates.
"Oh." She looked over at the guard, trying
to imagine a large, doting mother silently stirring
a kettle. "Can you ask him where the duke of
Hamilton is?"
Yerkel shrugged, handing Deanie the reins to his
horse, and returned to his brother. After a few
more brief words, Yerkel walked back
to Deanie.
"My brother says the duke of Hamilton
is most likely at court with the king or at his own
estate, Manor Hamilton."
"No, no," Deanie corrected. "Tell
him it's perfectly all right, we know Kit's in
here."
"My brother says he is not."
"No offense," she said, studying Richard's
solid and unyielding form. "But is it possible that
he just doesn't have everyone's name straightened out?"
Yerkel gave a half shrug of acknowledgment.
"It is possible."
"Well, then." She sighed. "I guess it's
about time for us to begin shaving the prisoners."
"Only their faces," he warned. "I will not
shave the leg of a man, or the arm either."
Andwiththe limb issue settled to Yerkel's
satisfaction, they began searching for Kit.
"Hamilton! God's blood, move that
carcass of yours!"
Kit jumped from the cot at the sound of the
voice, the clattering of a sidearm becoming louder
as Suffolk approached.
"So has he told you, Suffolk?" Kit
warned. "Has my jailer told you that I intend
to kill you? I shall enjoy every moment, you
black-hearted whoreson."
"Hold, Kit. We do not have time for this." The
rusty lock clicked open and light flooded the
cell. "Mistress Deanie's in the Tower."
"What happened?" His anger vanished as he was
released from the room. He bolted down the hall
with Suffolk, paying little attention to the stone
corridor or the startled servants.
"I must apologize, my friend," Suffolk
panted. "I thought to only help you, the both of
you."
"Tell me, what happened?"
"I took you here, to my own estate, as I
garner you have deduced by now. The rumors were running
thick and fast that you would attend Cromwell in the
Tower. I wanted to remove you from danger, and had
to move quickly, while the king was yet away at
Richmond."
"Did Deanie know of this?"
"Nay. I underestimated her, Kit. I
told her naught of my plan, feeling she would be
safer if she acted the part of the grieving cousin."
"Poor Deanie," he mumbled, squinting against
the unaccustomed sun. "The Tower, Charles.
Tell me how she was arrested, and why." He