The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [53]
I froze.
The tip of a dagger pressed into my back, just below my ribs.
A nasal voice intoned, “I wouldn’t resist if I were you. Take off your jerkin.”
I slowly removed my outer garment, thinking of the map folded in my pocket as I let it drop at my feet. My assailant’s blade felt very sharp against my thin chemise.
“Now, the dagger in your boot. Carefully.”
I reached to the hilt and pulled my knife from its sheath. A gauntleted hand reached around to take it from me. Then the voice, which I now recognized, said, “Turn around.”
He wore a hooded cape, his features were concealed.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I said. “I hardly call that fair play.”
With an effete laugh, he cast aside his cowl. He had a face too sly to be deemed handsome, with prominent cheekbones and in one earlobe, a ruby. His sloe-eyed look pierced me where I stood. How had I not recognized him as the man Peregrine had described?
He’s taller than you, but not by much. He has a pointy face, like a ferret.
“We meet again,” I said, just before a burly henchman emerged from the shadows and hit me in the face.
* * *
I could barely make out the way before me, my left eye throbbing, my jaw aching from the blow, as I was marched with arms twisted behind my back past crumpled structures and through a ruined cloister into a dank passageway. Rusted iron gates hung like dislocated shoulders from doorways. We descended a steep staircase into another passage, descended yet again. The passage we now entered was so narrow two men could not walk abreast. A lone pitch torch crackled in a peeling holder on the wall.
The air smelled fermented. I had to breathe deep of it, reminding myself not to give in to panic. I must concentrate, observe, and listen, find some way to prolong my survival.
We came before a thick door. “I hope you’ll find your accommodations agreeable,” said Stokes as he slid back the bolt. The door swung outward. “We want only the best for you.”
Inside was a small circular cell.
His ruffian shoved me inside. Slime coated the uneven flagstone floor. Skating on my boots, hands splayed before me, I skidded into the far wall. The smell in here was rank; a sticky, moldering substance on the wall adhered to me like crushed entrails.
Stokes laughed. He stood under the flickering light of the torch, his cloak parted to display his stylish garb. I saw a gem-studded stiletto on a thin silver chain at his waist. I’d never seen anyone wear the Italian weapon before. Unlike the earring, I assumed it was not for display.
He clucked his tongue. “I daresay no one would recognize you now, Squire Prescott.”
As my shoulder throbbed from where I’d hit the wall, I felt fury rush through me. I righted myself, surprised by my own outward composure. “You know my name. Again, not fair play. Who are you? What do you want with me?”
“Aren’t you the nosy one? No wonder Cecil likes you.”
I hoped my jolt of fear didn’t show. “I don’t know any Cecil.”
“Yes, you do. You earned his interest in a record span of time, too. And as far as I know, bedding boys isn’t his taste. I wouldn’t say the same for Walsingham.”
I lunged. Stokes flung up his arm, unsheathing and aiming the stiletto at my chest in one elegant movement. “If I miss,” he said, with a quivering laugh, “which is most unlikely, my man outside will disembowel you like a spring calf.”
Breathing hard, I moved back. What had gotten into me? I knew better. “You wouldn’t be so confident if we were evenly matched,” I told him.
His face darkened. “We’ll never be evenly matched, you miserable imposter.”
Imposter. Did he mean spy? I went cold. He was the Suffolk hireling, my mystery stalker. I was certain of it. How much had he overheard of my meeting with Cecil? If he’d learned enough to unmask the secretary, then whatever Cecil planned could flounder, fail.
“I’m Robert Dudley’s squire,” I ventured. “I have no idea why you think I know this Cecil or why I’d pretend