The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [119]
Rushing down the stairs out of the keep, I came to a halt. My heart pounded in my ears. I could scarcely draw breath as I scanned the crowded bailey for that figure I’d seen earlier, which I now knew had not been a figment of my overwrought imagination.
It had been Master Shelton in a black cloak. Master Shelton: who’d been abetting Lady Dudley and Guilford in their escape and saw Cecil and me going into the keep. He had to be near. Lady Dudley was expecting him, and he wouldn’t abandon her until he determined there was nothing more he could do. Master Shelton was nothing if not reliable; he fulfilled his duty, no matter what.
But I now knew he had been doing something more. He had served Charles of Suffolk before he came to the Dudley household, and Mistress Alice must have known him from that time; unbeknownst to Lady Dudley, she’d entrusted him with the truth of my birth. I knew he had mourned my mother, brought the piece of her broken jewel to Mary Tudor. I knew he had spared my life at Greenwich. What I did not know was how deep his bond with my mother ran, if he was in fact the very reason she had hid her pregnancy. I had called myself Suffolk’s son to disarm Lady Dudley, but deep inside something was still missing, an elusive key I did not possess, which, if found, would unlock the final secret.
He held that key. Only he could tell me if he was my father.
* * *
I cursed, peering into a flickering darkness in which cloaked figures rushed about like shades. I’d never find him in this mess. I should give up, make my escape while I still could, before they locked the gates and I was trapped inside.
I started to turn toward where the majority of those in the bailey headed. As I did, I caught sight of a shadow at the wall opposite me, where the night crept thick as ink.
A hood shielded its face. It stood still as a column. I paused, every nerve on alert; it lifted its head. For an electrifying instant our eyes met. I sprang to him, just as Master Shelton whirled about and ran, pounding on powerful legs, into the crowd that plunged like stampeding cattle from the ward.
I crashed headlong into the onslaught, wedging my way forward. Master Shelton was ahead, distinguished by the bullish width of his shoulders. The cobbled causeway narrowed, forcing the fleeing officials and menials into a bottleneck. The portcullis was shut, a maw of teeth impeding escape. From behind us, the clangor of hooves signaled the arrival of mounted patrols on steeds, accompanied by scores of guards in helmets and breastplates.
I watched in horror as the soldiers began pulling men with apparent randomness from the throng, their staccato question—“Whom do you serve? Queen or duke?”—accompanied by the sickening thrust of pikes rupturing skin. Within seconds, the stench of urine and blood thickened the air. At the portcullis, men clawed at each other in frenzy, scrambling over heads, shoulders, ribs, breaking and crushing flesh and bone.
Master Shelton was trying to pull back, to fight his way out of the panic that had erupted. If a guard or someone else identified him as a Dudley servant, in this madness he’d be killed.
A blood-flecked guard on a massive bay approached, forcing the crowd to part. Several unfortunates flew off the causeway into the churning moat, where others swam or drowned. I rammed forward with my shoulders, as hard as I could, pushing those behind Master Shelton. The steward whipped his head about, the puckered scar across his face starkly visible.
He glared when he saw the guard coming toward him. I started to shout a warning just as the crowd lurched into motion, swallowing him from view. The portcullis had been forced up. There was chaos, men tearing up hands and knees as they sought to crawl