The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [9]
Then Cecil said, “When you say ‘foundling,’ I assume you mean you were abandoned?”
“Yes. I was a week old, at best.” Despite my attempt to seem unaffected, I could hear the old strain in my voice, the weight of my own sense of helplessness. “Mistress Alice had to hire a local woman to nurse me. As fate would have it, a woman in town had just lost her child; otherwise, I might not have survived.”
He nodded. Before another uncomfortable silence could descend, I found myself rushing to fill it, as if I’d lost control of my own tongue. “Mistress Alice used to say the monks were lucky I wasn’t dropped on their doorstep. I’d have eaten their larders dry, and what would they have had then to withstand the storm old Henry brewed for them?”
I started to laugh before I realized my error. I’d just brought up the subject of religion, surely not a safe subject at court. Mistress Alice, I almost added, had also said my appetite was exceeded only by the size of my mouth.
Cecil did not speak. I began to think I’d done myself in with my indiscretion, when he murmured, “How dreadful for you.”
The sentiment failed to match the scrutiny of his eyes, which remained fixed on me as if he sought to engrave my face in memory. “This Mistress Alice, might she have known whom your parents were? Such matters are usually local in origin. An unwed girl got in the family way, too ashamed to tell anyone—it occurs frequently, I’m afraid.”
“Mistress Alice is dead.” My voice was flat. Despite my previous honesty, some hurts I could not willingly reveal. “She was beset by thieves while on the road from Stratford. If she knew anything about my parents, she took it with her to her grave.”
Cecil lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear it. Every man, no matter how humble, should know from whence he came.” He suddenly inclined to me. “You mustn’t let that dissuade you. Even foundlings may rise high in our new England. Fortune often smiles on those least favored.”
He stepped back. “It’s been a pleasure, Squire Prescott. Please, do not hesitate to call upon me should you require anything. I’m easily found.”
He gave me another of his cryptic smiles, turned heel, and walked away.
Chapter Three
I watched Master Cecil disappear down the gallery before I sucked in a deep breath and turned to the door. I knocked. There was no reply. After another knock, I tried the latch. The door opened.
Stepping in, I found that the apartments, as Cecil had called them, consisted of an undersized chamber dominated by a bed with a sagging tester. Scarred wainscoting adorned the lower half of the walls, and the lone small window was glazed with greenish glass. A lit candle stub floated in oil in a dish on the table. Across the floor were strewn matted rushes, soiled articles of clothing, and assorted utensils and dishes. The smell was nauseating, a mixture of rancid leftover food and dirty garments.
I dropped my saddlebag on the threshold. Evidently, some things never changed. Rooms at court or not, the Dudley boys still lived like hogs in a sty.
I heard snores coming from the bed. I edged to it, my heels crunching on slivers of meat-bones embedded in the rushes. I avoided a pool of vomit by the bedside as I grabbed hold of the tester curtain and tugged it aside. The rungs rattled. I leapt back, half expecting the entire howling Dudley clan to lunge out at me, brandishing fists as they used to do in my childhood.
Instead, I saw a lone figure sprawled on the bed, clad in wrinkled hose and shirt, his tangled hair the color of dirty wheat. He exuded the unmistakable stench of cheap beer: Guilford, the fair babe of the tribe, all of seventeen years old and in a drunken stupor.
I pinched the hand dangling over the bedside. When all I roused was another guttural snore, I grabbed his shoulder and shook it.
He swung out his arms, rearing a sheet-lined face. “Pox on you,” he slurred.
“Good