The Traitor's Blade, Kevin Sands [fiction novels to read txt] 📗

“Sally told you how mean they were to her in Paris. Besides, I don’t have any place in all that finery. I just want a simple life. With a kind girl, who’ll make a kind home.” He was silent for a moment. “I do think the king was right about you, though. You should marry Sally.”

“Enough already.”

“I mean it.”

To my surprise, he really did.

“Look,” Tom said, “everything His Majesty said about her was true. You’d be good together. Plus, she’s got the most important quality of all.”

“What’s that?”

“I like her,” he said. “You are absolutely forbidden from marrying a girl I don’t like.”

“Ha! That goes for you, too, you know.”

“Naturally.”

“I still think you should ask the king to introduce you to some court ladies. If you don’t want to marry them, just say no.”

Suddenly Tom looked very sad. “It’s not easy to say no to a king.”

I paused. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he said.

He snapped the reins and rode ahead in silence.

I rode behind him for a while. I thought back to when I’d seen him exiting Lord Ashcombe’s office. Why had he been in there? What were they talking about?

It occurred to me that other than the pension—and even now, I could barely believe it; a pension, it was absolutely mad—Sally and I both got additional gifts. She got to be the king’s ward; I got a new master. Surely Tom deserved his own gift, too? Besides his new, beloved hat?

Had Lord Ashcombe offered him something?

And what sort of gift would make Tom sad?

I sighed. He obviously didn’t want to tell me, so I just worked to cheer him up. Today, that wasn’t hard to do. Apart from the fact that Tom also loved his new horse, the path to Berkshire House took us around Saint James’s Park.

The green, originally a deer-hunting ground preserved for Henry VIII, had been altered by Charles to make it even more grand. Surrounded by grass and trees was a canal, forty yards wide and nearly half a mile long, upon which all sorts of waterfowl made their home. Including a bunch of white, long-necked, giant-beaked birds.

I pointed them out to Tom as we rode. “Look.”

He stared, amazed. “What are those?”

“Pelicans,” I said. They’d been a gift to the king from a visiting ambassador a couple of years back; I couldn’t remember from where. Master Benedict had brought me to the park that summer to see them.

Look at me now, I said in my heart. On a horse, apprenticed to a spymaster, in service to the king. Not exactly the life I’d planned.

Life rarely goes as planned, Master Benedict said. The question is: Are you happy?

Was I?

I think… maybe I could be. I’ll always miss you. But if this business ever gets settled… I paused. Tom thinks I should marry Sally.

What do you think?

That’s years away, I said.

Master Benedict sounded amused. That’s not a no.

I shook my head. Even the angels were making fun of me.

Sally squealed when she saw us.

We were waiting in the parlor of Berkshire House while a servant went to fetch her. As we sat among the finery—portraits in gilded frames, drawers of polished walnut—it occurred to me how ordinary this sort of thing had become. And how strange that was.

Even now, all this formality to visit Sally, a Cripplegate girl. Yes, sir, please wait in the parlor—madness.

Sally broke through the airs by running, delighted, into our arms. Tom being closest to the entrance, she flung herself at him first. She hugged him and gave him a giant kiss on the cheek. Then she came to me. She held me longer, tighter. But she didn’t give me a kiss.

Tom watched the whole thing. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he gave me an innocent look, as if to say, I didn’t say anything. It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

Anyway. Sally looked a little flustered afterward. Though that just may have been her excitement. “Can you believe it?” she said. “The king’s ward? And a pension? Oh—they did tell you, didn’t they?”

“They did,” I assured her.

“It’s all so wonderful,” she said, and she hugged me again. It felt good—and she smelled like cherries.

My face was warm. I cleared my throat. “Settling in to a life of leisure, then?”

“Oh, I don’t want that.”

“Uncomfortable in all this luxury, are you?”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m so grateful for what the king’s given us. And everyone’s been so much nicer to me here than in Paris.” She said the last with a genuine sigh of relief. “I’ve already been invited to a party. But a life of lazing around… I don’t know. I want to be useful.”

Tom and I exchanged a glance. “In that case,” I said, “have we got something to tell you.”

CHAPTER

20

SALLY LISTENED AS I LEANED in and recounted the events of the last day. She was horrified by the attack on Simon, stunned at my new apprenticeships, and amazed by the letters I’d been getting. She studied the one we’d found in the Banqueting House.

“ ‘Saints defend these ancient walls…’ What does it mean?”

“We’re off to Blackthorn to find out,” I said. “Want to come?”

She stood, eyes shining. “I’ll see if I can borrow a horse.”

We tied our mounts outside the Missing Finger. I was just giving Blossom a good scratch before leaving when Tom said, “Look who it is.”

Bridget fluttered down from the roof of my shop and ran excitedly over my boots. I picked her up, stroking her feathers as she cooed at me.

“Guess you’d rather be at home,” I said, and was surprised to think, Me, too.

Blossom snuffled at Bridget, who eyed the horse somewhat nervously before settling down. Introductions made, I cradled Bridget in my arm, entered my shop, and got a rather rude welcome.

A club rammed into my chest. Bridget fluttered away, landing atop the jars behind the counter.

A brute, heavy-browed and nearly the size of Tom, scowled in my face. The end of