The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [57]
“No more of that,” said the duchess. “It must look as if he wandered off by himself. No wounds, no bruises that can’t be part of his death. I want no indication of foul play.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Stokes said, as I crawled from them. My cheek was cut, the blood spurting hot on my bruised face. Through a blur I saw her swerve about and lumber to the door.
“Your Grace,” I called out. She stopped. “I … I would know the reason for my death.”
She glanced at me. “You were never meant to live. You are an abomination.”
She trudged out, the henchman behind her. Stokes tripped to the door. Before he closed it he said, “Don’t hold your breath. You’ll die much faster—or so I’m told.”
The door slammed shut. The bolt clanked over it.
Alone in the darkness, I began to shout.
Chapter Seventeen
I shouted until I had no voice left. I couldn’t believe I would end like this. It was unthinkable. I wanted to roar the walls down into rubble, dig my way out with my bare hands, knowing now how a slaughterhouse animal must feel, waiting for its executioner.
Without realizing what I was doing, I started to pace. It was astounding how much had fallen into place—astounding and appalling. My arrival at court must have been premeditated, orchestrated by Lady Dudley to force the duchess into relinquishing her place in the succession. And if this was true, then Lady Dudley knew something about me. She’d taken me into her care because of it. The woman who disdained and humiliated me, set me to cleaning her stables, ordered me flogged when I sought to read a book—she held the secret to my past.
Il porte la marque de la rose.…
A wave of desperation overcame me. I fought not to give in, reminding myself that everything could be an illusion, a manipulation. In my pain and anger, as I sought to make sense of the senseless, I didn’t pay heed to the subtle changes in the air around me, to the mounting gurgle that signaled the beginning of the end, until I heard water seeping across stone, felt its cold touch swirl about my feet.
And I reeled around to see a black torrent gushing in through the wall grate.
I stood, petrified. The flow grew stronger, faster, bringing a smell of rot and sea, gushing in with unstoppable force as the flooding tide funneled through underground conduits into the small cell. In a matter of minutes, the entire floor was awash.
I backed to the door. There was no latch or keyhole; several furious kicks confirmed that breaking it down was not an option. Fear tightened about my chest. The overflow from the river would keep pouring through that grate until it filled the room to the ceiling.
I was going to drown unless I found a way out.
For an instant, my body refused to move. Then I jerked forward and sloshed through a death trap rapidly vanishing under liquid. I acted on instinct. I bent by the grate, maneuvering past the torrent. Mustering every last bit of strength, I grabbed hold of it and pulled, resisting the burning tear of muscles and the fact that I was kneeling in water that now reached my waist.
I pulled. Nothing. Tightening my grip, I pulled again. Rusted shards scraped my fingers.
“Move,” I whispered. “Move. Move!”
With a crumbling crack, the grate gave way. My arms flew up to shield my head as I plunged into the pool. Gasping, spitting out a slimy mouthful, I clambered to my feet. The grate had twisted outward, a toothy maw. I had no way of squeezing out.
The water continued to rise.
* * *
I still couldn’t believe I would die.
Scenes from my brief time at court drifted past me, so that I saw again the bedlam of London, the maze of Whitehall, the faces of those I’d met, who had become the architects of my demise. I thought Peregrine; of all of them, he might mourn, and just as I could abide no more, I recalled Kate Stafford’s face as she kissed me. And I beheld the twin suns in Elizabeth’s eyes.
Elizabeth.
Molten blood pumped through my limbs. I could feel the water creeping upward, an implacable presence whose clammy fingers swam about my chest.