“I don’t want to be wise any longer. I want to be honest. Come to Wynfield and we’ll decide how to tell William the truth.”
The truth…“I’ll come.”
Minuette tried to persuade Elizabeth to stay at Wynfield with her for at least one night. But Elizabeth declined. She was not in a companionable mood, and as gentle and perceptive as her friend was, Elizabeth was far too raw to even touch on the subject of Robert. They rode next to each other in heavy silence the last hour before their roads would separate, and finally Elizabeth asked the question that had weighed on her. “Did he kill Alyce?”
Elizabeth had not been able to get the dead woman’s face out of her head for a week now. Although she’d hardly paid any attention to Alyce de Clare while the woman was alive, they had crossed paths on the very night of Alyce’s death. I should have seen it then, Elizabeth thought heavily.The way she looked at Robert, her insolence in acknowledging me, the hint of pity in her voice…I should have known she’d been Robert’s mistress.
And on that very night, Alyce had been found at the bottom of a staircase with a broken neck. Accident—or deadly intent?
Minuette said decisively, “I’m sure it was an accident. I suspect Alyce confronted him, no doubt they argued. But I do not believe Robert would intentionally kill a woman.”
Neither did Elizabeth believe it, but she was beginning to see that she was not the best judge of anything where Robert Dudley was concerned.
What had John Dee warned her?Even the clearest eyes cannot see straight into the sun.Robert had been her sun, and she had been blind. Never again.
They reached the branching of the road where a third of the guards would continue with Minuette to her home near Stratford-upon-Avon. Elizabeth and the remaining guards would take the road to Oxford.
Minuette reined up next to Elizabeth. She looked smaller than usual, as though the captivity had diminished her. For one moment, Elizabeth felt that she was looking at a stranger and her friend’s remoteness smote her conscience.
“Are you sure you want to go to Wynfield?” Elizabeth asked. “Perhaps it is not ideal for you to be alone just now.”
“It will be good for me.” Minutte smiled, and the familiar vivacity of it eased Elizabeth’s heart. “There are things I must put in order at home. I won’t stay away long.”
“William won’t let you.” Elizabeth laughed softly.
Minuette’s smile was sad. “Goodbye, Elizabeth.”
It sounded like more of a farewell than it should have.
William and Dominic were on the road two days later. It was the last day of September and the skies hung low with sullen clouds. Northumberland and his sons were somewhere ahead of them on the road to London, under the personal guard of the Earl of Sussex. Dominic was glad to be riding freely with William rather than guarding prisoners.
He was unsure how to broach the subject of Minuette and Wynfield Mote. They passed the branching road to her home the first day, but Dominic still said nothing, afraid that if he proposed going immediately, William would seize the same opportunity. And figuring out how to tell William the truth didn’t mean throwing it in his face at the first opportunity. Minuette had always been right that it would need to be tactfully and carefully done. So Dominic rode on to Oxford with the king, reaching the university town just before dusk on a sullenly wet evening that gave full promise of a bitter winter to come.
They were quartered at King’s College, in plain but adequate rooms that quickly filled up with tapestries and furniture for the king’s overnight stay. William insisted on visiting the fellows and students at dinner, moving amongst them in a way that almost made Dominic jealous. What would it be like to have the gift of easy conversation? he wondered. And was it a gift, or just very good training for a king who had to be popular with his people?
The first sign they had of trouble was the exhausted horse, lathered in sweat, quivering in the courtyard of the college as they returned to their quarters. Someone had ridden here at great speed.
Dominic followed William up the stairs two at a time. They met Harrington on his way down to find them. He told them what little he knew while leading them to the solarium where the rider waited. “It’s one of Norfolk’s men, he’d ridden to London and Rochford sent him on here. I gather there’s been violence along the border, but he didn’t say much. He was ordered to report directly to you.”
The rider was young and possessed of northern sturdiness, though his face was tinged with gray. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for days, a fact he soon confirmed. “Lord Norfolk ordered speed. I’ve ridden straight through from London and Carlisle before that.”
“Tell me,” William ordered.
“It was bloody,” the young man said wretchedly, looking younger by the minute. “We’d heard of raids, so his lordship sent us across the border, as a warning, like. We weren’t expecting trouble, just a band of reivers, but they were waiting for us. A full army. They swept through us like grain. And they didn’t take hostages, either, just killed everyone they could reach. We lost three hundred men before we could get back to Carlisle. They didn’t follow us, thank God, or we’d all have been lost.”
William shared a swift look with Dominic and it seemed they had the same thought.Bloody Scots—always meddling at the worst possible moment.“What’s Norfolk doing?” the king asked.
“He’s mustering to Carlisle, with scouts posted along a twenty-mile stretch of the border. They hadn’t crossed it when I left.” The rider reached inside his doublet and pulled out a creased and sweat-stained letter. “He ordered me to put this into your hands alone.”
William broke the seal and read, then raised his head. He studied the young man before him. “Do you know what this says?”
“No, Your Majesty. But I can guess.”
“How?”
“Because I was there, and Lord Norfolk wasn’t. I’m the one who told him about the banners that rode with the army.”
“What banners?” Dominic asked.
