Mary jumped, hearing a loud thump. She dared to slip out. The guard lay upon the floor as if dead, while another man stood over him, his face masked. He gestured at her angrily and then fled before her down the back stairs.
Mary dared not pause, just as she dared not think, other than to pray that the guard had not been killed on her account. She saw no one who was awake as she flew down the back stairs in the wake of the man hired by Adele.
Mary exited through the kitchens. By now she had her cloak pulled up over her head, shadowing her face. Once outside, she began to run.
If anyone saw her as she darted across the open courtyard to the stable she had been directed to, no one called out. She did not expect anyone to. With her mantle pulled up over her head, she could be any woman, and no doubt these guards had seen more females furtively crossing the bailey for their assignations than not. Mary rounded the stable and hurried through a door in the thick outer wall, down steep stone steps, across a narrow corridor, and out another door. She was outside and beneath the castle walls, on the wharf. She had made it.
Why did she not feel triumph?
The day was growing light. The rising sun appeared as a fuzzy apricot ball on the smoky horizon. It was fiercely cold, and for a moment, as Mary stood there searching for the oarsman, she was strangely elated, thinking he had not come. Then she saw a small boat being rowed towards the dock, and her heart hammered wildly. This was it. If she wished to leave, she must do so now.
She paused on the edge of the dock, trembling with the awesome decision she must make—a decision she had thought firmly made. It was hardly that, she realized, for she was filled with hesitation, with reluctance. She edged closer to the landing’s edge, fists clenched, praying for guidance. Stephen’s image haunted her.
She was suddenly loath to leave. In the span of a fortnight, he had become the focus of her life.
Slowly the rowboat approached. Mary began to cry. At first she was not aware of it, but then she felt the wetness on her cheeks. Was he really to blame for all that had passed?
She shoved a fist against her mouth so she would not make any sound and alert the guards upon the watchtower. She was the one who had slipped from Liddel in disguise against all better judgment in order to rendezvous with Doug. She was the one who had refused to yield her identity to Stephen, yielding instead her virtue. And dear, sweet Lord, Malcolm was the one who had handed her over to Stephen, without even giving her a single word of comfort, without even waiting to see if she was really with child.
Stephen hardly deserved the blame she had cast upon him. It was easier to blame Stephen than to blame herself, or worse, to blame Malcolm.
Mary covered her face with her hands. Her thoughts were terrible, terrifying.She was nothing but a political sacrifice.She realized with startling clarity that she might escape, but she could not go home. She could never go home again. She had no home.
Consumed with grief, she never heard the man approaching her from behind. And just as the sun slid past the murky horizon, vivid and yellow, she felt someone’s hand upon her shoulder.
For the briefest of instants she thought it was Stephen, that he was not still drugged after all, that he had followed her from the keep and now prevented her escape. She turned, not to protest her innocence—but with open arms, with relief.
A masked man pushed her violently backwards.
Mary screamed as she fell. Time seemed to stand still as she floated through the air. In that endless moment as she fell backwards, Mary realized with horror that she had been pushed into the Thames, and that she was likely to drown.
She hit the water with a splash and went under. At first Mary could not move. The water was freezing cold, stunning her. An intense desire to survive brought her out of her stunned state, but her cloak and skirts were tangled about her limbs, trapping her as she sank rapidly through the blackness. Panic exploded in her as she began to feel the effects of holding her breath. Mary began to thrash, but only became more coiled in her clothing, sinking even deeper.
Dear Lord, she was going to die.
She was going to die without ever seeing those she loved again, without ever saying good-bye. Dear, cherished faces flashed through her mind, her mother, her brothers, her young sister, Maude. Malcolm. Regret swelled in her heart. And Stephen, she thought of Stephen, whom she had so grievously betrayed.
Mary did not want to die. She was too young to die. She had not lived yet. She realized that she had been upon the precipice of a whole new life, as Stephen’s wife, and suddenly, fervently, she knew she must live in order to explore it.
But she sank deeper and deeper. She began to cough. Water flooded her lungs, and she began to choke. Her body throbbed painfully from the pressure of the river pushing in upon her, and her lungs felt as if they were about to explode.
Shards of light splintered in her brain, and just before the blackness, Mary knew it was too late.
Chapter 14
Stephen saw the masked man as he pushed Mary into the River Thames.
He had never imbibed any of the drugged wine. Having been suspicious of his bride’s intentions to begin with, he had seen her furtively slip the contents of a vial into his wine that evening. He only pretended to drink several glasses of the burgundy, recognizing quickly enough the odor that tinged it. A small portion of his fury was mitigated when it became obvious that she did not intend to kill him, merely to drug him.
He had feigned the effects of the drug, waiting for her next move. Soon it became clear that she thought to escape. When she left the Tower, he followed, finally hiding in the shadowed doorway of the keep’s outer wall. He could hardly believe the extent of her defiance.
Now all fury fled. With a roar, Stephen catapulted from the doorway as the black river sucked Mary under.
At the dock he halted, wrenching off his sword belt while he scanned the rippling surface of the water, hoping to see her rise once more. He tore off his tunics in frantic haste, then his boots. There was no trace of Mary. The water had become smooth and unblemished where she had fallen in.
His heart pumping painfully, Stephen dove in after her.
Less than a half a minute had gone by since she had disappeared beneath the water’s surface. But as he plummeted through the dark depths, completely blinded by the blackness, he could not find her.
