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of childbed fever. She never told anyone but her trusted eldest daughter that she was with child. She was mad with fear; she begged her daughter to keep it a secret. She hid her pregnancy from everyone, even her husband, who was by that time estranged from her, living almost full-time at court. But something happened in those last hours; Mary of Suffolk must have confided in the midwife, said something that fostered her mistrust, because my lady was told you were stillborn. She was at court at the time, so she ordered your body disposed of, the birth covered up. Had she known you in fact had survived, she’d have ridden from Whitehall that very night and strangled you herself. You see, you could take everything from her—the estate and title, her place at court and in the succession. You are the son that Charles Brandon had longed for, the heir to the Suffolk earldom. Think of that next time you muck out a stable.”

My reply was passionless. “Next time, I give no quarter.”

“Neither do I,” he replied. “If I were you, I’d make sure there is no next time. Because should she ever find out you’re still alive, it’ll be far worse for you than for me.”

He whirled about, galloping away.

Left alone on a road splattered with blood, I sank to my knees.

FRAMLINGHAM

Chapter Twenty-five

Every man, no matter how humble, should know from whence he came.

Cecil’s words echoed in my head as I rode in silence. By nightfall I had to pause to give Cinnabar time to rest. I chose a clearing in a forest, beside a shallow stream. Removing the saddle and bridle, I rubbed him down with a cloth from my saddlebag and set him loose to graze. “At ease, my friend. You’ve earned it.”

I crouched in the bracken, opened my saddlebag, and brought out the ruby-tipped jewel Mistress Alice had given me. I almost couldn’t look at it, knowing now its significance, the reason she’d hidden it all these years. I wanted to throw it away, forget it existed, though in my soul I knew I could not afford to delude myself anymore.

For if what Stokes had told me was true, there was no forgetting, no turning away. I had to uncover the truth, come to terms with something that was so vast, so far-reaching, it defied acceptance. I owed it to myself, to the many times I’d wondered as a child; more importantly, I owed it to the woman who had saved me—to Mistress Alice, who had somehow known who I was and preserved my life from my own murderous sister.

In the palm of my hand, the gold shimmered.

A Tudor.

I was one of them, born of the younger sister of Henry VIII; brother to the bestial Duchess of Suffolk, uncle to Jane Grey, and cousin to Queen Mary.

And Elizabeth. She and I: We shared the same blood.…

Tears burned in my eyes. What had she looked like, this mother I had never known? Had she been beautiful? Did I have her eyes, her nose, her mouth? Why had she borne me in secrecy? What had she feared, that she’d never let her pregnancy be known?

And what would my life have been like had she lived?

The Tudor Rose … the mark of the rose.

I arched my arm over my head. I should fling the petal away, never speak of this to another living person. Better to be a common stable hand, a bastard and foundling, rather than some being borne in secrecy and consigned to oblivion—condemned always to shadows and the fear of discovery, to a lifetime of hiding and of keeping others always from the truth.

My fingers would not release it, though. The petal had a truth of its own now, inextricably entwined with my own. God help me, it was a part of me I could not surrender, not until I had discovered everything there was to know.

I returned it to Kate’s scented handkerchief and put it back in my bag. As I did, my fingers brushed the thin volume of psalms I had taken from the Dudley library, bringing a momentary smile to my lips. I carried another memory of Mistress Alice with me, as well, one that made me think of her as she had been.

After I finished the last of the stale bread and cheese I’d packed, I lay down on the forest floor and closed my eyes. But I couldn’t sleep.