Kit woke in the night, his mouth dry as paper and his bladder aching. Perhaps the sleeping draught hadn’t been as strong this time, or perhaps he was getting used to it already. Sidney was still snoring at his side, his arm flung out across the blankets. Kit thought of poor Edward, dying in his bed only a few yards from here. Perhaps he wouldn’t get up and use the chamberpot just yet. It was easy enough to scoff at ghosts in the daytime, but at night when footsteps echoed and shadows shifted in the moonlight … It couldn’t be long until dawn, surely?
The ache in his bladder got worse, and he was just about to chance getting out of bed when he heard the door of their chamber creak. Was that Master Weston coming to wake them for breakfast, or the prince’s ghost? He waited, heart pounding so loud he wondered that it didn’t wake Sidney. The whisper of shoeleather on stone came nearer and nearer the bed. He wriggled upright, hardly daring to breathe. Should he wake Sidney? No, his companion would only tease him about it if it turned out to be nothing more than a servant.
The footsteps halted close to the bed. Light moved beyond the curtains, but not on the same side as the footsteps. There were two of them? Kit backed against the headboard, and next to him Sidney stirred.
“You awake, Catlyn?” the other boy mumbled.
At that moment the curtains were wrenched aside. Kit had a momentary glimpse of an unfamiliar man’s face, yellow and black in the candlelight, then something was pulled down over his head, like Uncle Sandy’s hat in the game of Hoodman Blind. A drawstring tightened about his throat and rough hands seized him. Kit kicked and tried to shout for help, but drawing breath only sucked the sacking dust into his mouth and made him choke. In his panic his full bladder gave way.
“Gah! Little bastard pissed all over me!”
“Less wriggling, little master,” a second voice growled, “unless you want to feel the back of my hand.”
Kit lay still, just as he was told, whilst they bound his wrists and ankles and wrapped him in something that felt like a blanket. One of the men hoisted him up, threw him over his shoulder and carried him out of the portcullis chamber, past the garderobe to the spiral stairs. At first Kit thought – hoped – they were going to the upper chamber, and that this was nothing worse than some cruel new jest of Prince Henry’s, but the man went down and down, through a small room and down again into a great echoing space like a cellar. Finally they were out into the cool night air and the man halted as if waiting for something.
Kit twisted in the man’s arms, determined to get free, but that only earned him a sharp slap around the head. Tears pricked his eyes. If only Henry had not taken his sword from him; he could have kept it by his bed and killed the man the moment he attacked.
A creak and a splashing sound, then Kit was carried rapidly downwards. The world lurched, and Kit cried out as he was thrown through the air, landing with a painful thud in what felt like the arms of another man.
“Just the two of them?” That was the man now holding him.
“For now,” said another man, one Kit had not heard before. “Quick, before anyone sees the water gate is open.”
Kit was lowered onto a hard surface that moved under him. After a moment he realised he was in a boat. Two of them, the man had said. Then at least he was not alone.