The Crown A Novel

11


Bess and I ran back through the vaulted rooms. We went so fast that my lungs burned. I’d never run like that in my life. We had no candle now, but there was enough moonlight from the windows to guide us. And Bess, thank the Lord, knew this castle keep well.

We hurtled around a corner. Bess flew up against the stone wall, grabbing bricks with both hands to cling there. At first I thought her winded, stopping to catch her breath, but she shook her head at me to be silent.

I bent over, a pain clawing at my side.

“Do you hear?” she mouthed at me.

After a few seconds, there it was: heavy steps, coming quickly. Frightened, I nodded.

She grimaced.

“Chapel,” she whispered.

We crept quietly now, looking behind us, braced for the tall, fearful shadow of Tom. Was he coming after us alone? I wondered why he hadn’t alerted anyone else, or called out to us to stop.

In a few minutes we’d reached an arched doorway, and Bess pulled me in after her.

This was a place of aching beauty: the graceful stone columns bordering the long pews, the soaring ceiling, the three stained-glass windows filtering the sweetly colored moonlight. It had been so long since I had heard Mass; I almost swooned as I gripped the first pew we reached. We crept to the middle of a pew halfway to the altar and knelt on the floor, next to each other. I could see Bess gnawing her lip, and I knew she was trying to think of what to do as we hid.

I heard something. It was so faint that I wasn’t sure of my senses. I looked over at Bess; she seemed unaware. It must have been my own nervousness.

Another minute crawled by; I peered up at the nearest stained-glass window. I could see only a face of a beautiful blond young woman. The Virgin Mary, I was sure of that. Yet this woman had a proud, vain tilt to her head. She looked like someone whose portrait I’d admired. A fresh young Plantagenet queen, who’d served as the artist’s inspiration.

I heard the noise again. This time Bess reacted. She grabbed my wrist and held it tight. Her nails dug into the flesh, but I endured it without flinching.

“Susanna? Bess?” Tom’s voice was no more than a loud whisper, coming from behind us, just outside the chapel.

I closed my eyes.

“You’re in there, aren’t you, girls?”

Bess stiffened.

“I’m sorry, I know I frightened you,” Tom said, his voice conciliatory. “I was wrong. Lost my head. Come out and nothing more will be said.”

Bess’s nails eased out of my arm as if she were getting ready to stand up, and my eyes flew open.

“Bess, no!” I mouthed at her.

I felt something cold on my hand. It was her ring of keys.

She pressed her mouth to my ear to whisper. “Mistress, I’ll go out and draw him away from you. I’ll say you went ahead of me, but I wanted to pray. He’ll take me back to maids’ quarters and look for you on the way. He’d never expect you to go to Beauchamp now. It’s the opposite direction.”

I shook my head violently. “I can’t make it back to my cell without you.”

“Yes, you can. Use the tunnel; you won’t be able to get into Beauchamp from the outside, this time of night.” She pushed the keys harder into my hand. “Leave these in your cell, under your bed. I’ll find a way to get there tomorrow.”

Before I could say anything else or pull her back down, Bess had shot to her feet and hurried to the end of the pew.

“Are you yourself now, Tom?” she demanded. “You’ll not be a beast to me, or I won’t come out.”

“Where’s Susanna?” His voice was harder than before.

“I was all affright and needed to come to chapel, but she ran straight for her bed in maids’ quarters. You know she isn’t one for praying.”

“Is that so?”

My fingers shook around the key ring. He didn’t believe Bess. In a minute it would all be over.

A second man’s voice rang out, deeper in the Tower. “Who’s there? Declare yourself.”

“It’s Tom Sharard here, Sir. Escorting out Bess from night duty.”

I heard Bess’s quick steps as she hurried out of the chapel; then two sets of footsteps headed away. There were male voices, then Bess’s, though I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They didn’t sound agitated or angry; somehow Bess was managing it. The trio of voices grew dimmer, and I realized they were walking away. After a few more minutes, I heard nothing at all.

When I tried to rise up, my knees buckled, and I sprawled onto the pew, terrified. How could I manage this secret journey back to Beauchamp if I couldn’t even stand up in the chapel? I thought about remaining in the White Tower all night and taking my chances at dawn. But my Beauchamp Tower cell was always checked just after sunrise on rounds. I couldn’t possibly get there in time, past all of the warders, in daylight, still posing as Susanna.

I had to leave now—tonight. And I had to do it alone.

I retraced my steps through the vaulted rooms. One led into another in a straight line—that was not hard for me. I found my way back to the great hall and hurried across it. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness; I could make out the stone walls and battlements. And it was surprisingly easy to locate the wooden door to the underground tunnel. Ten keys hung on Bess’s ring; the second one I tried opened the door.

That same foul tunnel smell oozed over me. It was completely black down the steps, and I had no candle.

Trembling, I went forward, closed the door behind me, and edged down the steps, feeling the brick wall as I went. My foot touched the bottom, but it was too dreadful. I scrambled back up. I couldn’t bear to leave the steps. As I hovered there, I heard the scratching of the rats. So many of them. I could almost feel their whiskered breath on my legs.

“Mary, mother of God, protect me,” I said aloud. But my voice broke. I was a small and puny woman, standing on the threshold of evil.

I took a deep breath. Nonsense. These were mere animals and must be told their place.

I cried, “You will not interfere with me. I am Joanna Stafford, and I will not be stopped!”

I leaped onto the tunnel floor with both feet and willed myself forward, into the blackness, running one hand along the damp, crumbling stone wall, the other stretching forward.

Over and over I said it: “I am Joanna Stafford, and I will not be stopped.” I’d sickened of the running and hiding and cowering. A new recklessness coursed through my veins.

Three times, running down the black tunnel, my foot touched something alive, a quivering warm body. In each case, I kicked it aside and kept going.

I stumbled onto a step. I didn’t even mind the sharp pain in my shin from the fall. It meant I’d reached the end.

I found the correct key and eased the door open a crack. It had to be midnight at least, but warders made rounds all night long. Bess had told me that.

I saw a light shining in the Beauchamp passageway. I pushed open the door a little more. A different man sat in the exact same spot as one had hours earlier—about twenty feet away—with his legs stretched out before him. Between the yeoman warder and me was the stone stairway leading up to my cell. I didn’t see how I could make it to those stairs unseen.

I waited, thinking, my fingers pressed to the door, when a sputtering sound made me jump. The door bounced open with a loud creak. I yanked it back and waited, shivering.

But the warder didn’t react. I realized why: he was snoring.

I licked my lips and then eased all the way out into the passageway, walking as quietly as I could. One step, then another. He snored again, a deep, wet sound. The man must be ill, snoring like that. His feet shook from the sheer force of it.

I made it to the stairs. My ordeal was almost over.

The winding steps were worn smooth, as I remembered when I was first brought to Beauchamp Tower. And that was the problem. I’d walked the stairs only once since that May afternoon, and it was trudging behind Bess, not paying close attention to our route. I was concentrating on holding up the bedsheets, trying to pass as Susanna, not on needing to retrace my steps.

Now I didn’t know where to go.

Remember, I ordered myself. Remember how many flights you took, where to turn. I shut my eyes tight, then opened them and peered at the circular staircase, going up three levels. My cell was on the second floor, but going in which direction? Each floor had two archways.

I selected the archway on the left of the second-floor landing. Based on everything I could recall, this seemed right.

But it wasn’t.

It took me a while to realize, walking down the length of one dimly lit passageway, and then another, that this was wrong. At first I tried to convince myself that I was going the correct way. But a newly painted huge rectangular arch forced me to admit it—I had never seen it before. I doubled back, looking for the circular stairway to begin again. Yet even that was impossible to locate.

I leaned against a wall and pressed my forehead to the stone. My body ached with fatigue; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had something to eat or drink.

But I didn’t dare rest for long. A snatch of prayer, and I pushed off from the wall, determined to search again. I walked down a few more dark and silent passageways, fighting down my frustration. I could translate tomes of Latin, speak Spanish and French, do flawless needlework, play music, ride the fields, manage sums, but I’d never possessed a sense of direction. I hadn’t had one when I became lost in my uncle’s maze long ago, and it was missing now.

I found myself at the end of a long passageway and yanked open the wide door.

The night swooped down to cradle me in its hand.