The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [93]
“I don’t know,” he retorted, but he was quivering.
“I think you do.” I squatted in front of him. “The duchess seemed to know. She saw the birthmark on my hip and was willing to kill me. Why does she want me dead? Who does she think I am?”
“Exactly?” he said, and he flew at me without warning, bowling me back and crushing the quiver of arrows under our combined weight. My head struck the path. For a second, the world melted. I rammed my knees into his ribs, clawing at the arrow shaft. His scream and the ensuing gush of blood were enough. I rolled, throwing Stokes off. I sprang up, kicked the bow out of reach. Unsheathing my blade, I leapt onto Stokes’s back and pinned him in the dust. I pressed my blade against his throat, pushing the side of his face into the dirt.
“Shall I do it?” I hissed. “Shall I cut you here and now, and leave you to bleed to death? Or will you tell me what I want to know?”
“No! No! Please!”
I released him. Stokes panted, blood seeping from his maimed leg.
I yanked him over onto his back. Positioning the dagger at the site where the arrow protruded, I said, “I promise you, this will hurt. When I start cutting out that shaft, it will hurt more than you can imagine. But it might hurt less if you don’t hold your breath.”
I punctuated the words with an icy smile. Dark rage erupted in my heart, a sudden uncontrollable thirst for vengeance. In my soul’s eye, I saw again a slash of steel, the slow terrible crumpling of a mutilated form. I stood swiftly, went and retrieved the bow.
Stokes was staring at me in horror when I located an intact arrow, fitted it, and wheeled about. I shot with precision. The arrow sang through the air and thumped into the cloak rumpled about his head, missing his ear by a hair’s breadth.
He writhed and tore at the cloak, trying to get away from the arrow that held him fast. “You win!” he shrieked. “I’ll tell you anything you want. Just cut me loose, damn you to hell!”
“Answer my question.”
He suddenly let out a feral giggle. “You fool. You’ve no idea, do you? We were going to drown you, toss your body into the river, and you would never have known why.”
I clenched my jaw. “You’re going to tell me. Now.”
“Very well.” Pure malice gleamed in his sloe-eyed look. “You are the last child of Mary of Suffolk, Henry the Eighth’s youngest sister, also known to her family as the Tudor Rose. That mark you bear—it is one her babe inherited, a mark she too carried. The only ones who would have known of it are those who were intimate with the late duchess’s person.”
My breath came in stifled bursts. A roar drowned out the sounds around me. I stared at the man before me and recalled in mind-chilling procession all the events that had led me to this unthinkable moment.
I tasted bile in my throat. “Are you saying the duchess thinks…?” I faltered. I couldn’t say the words.
Stokes sneered. “I’ve told you what you wanted. Now let me go.”
Feeling as if I tumbled into an endless void, I raised my fingers to my lips and whistled. Cinnabar trotted down the hill. From my saddlebag, I removed Kate’s salve and the linen she’d packed for my shoulder. I tore back his bloodied breeches, cut the arrow at the hilt, applied the salve, and dressed the wound. Then I wrenched the second arrow from his cloak.
I looked at his ashen face. “You’ll still need a surgeon to remove the tip. See that you get to one as soon as possible. Otherwise, the wound will fester.” I held out my hand. “Come. I’ll help you onto your horse.”
He gaped. “You lie in wait to shoot arrows at me, and now you want to help me onto my horse? It must be true. You must be one of them. You’re mad as old Henry himself.”
“Don’t. Not another word.” I took hold of him, yanked him up. He yelped as I held his stirrup and hoisted him onto his saddle. He gathered his reins, hauled his horse’s head upward.
He swiveled about. I met his malicious regard, knowing he prepared to inflict a far deeper wound than any arrow of mine could deliver.
“Your mother,” he said, in undeniable glee, “her mother—she delivered you in secrecy before she died