The Traitor's Blade by Kevin Sands (fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

Simon and Isaac were in good spirits, if not exactly well. She’d taken a carriage from Berkshire House, and the driver had helped her transfer the journals. Isaac had already started on them and would work through the collection in time.

“Did you send me flowers?” she said suddenly.

I flushed. Tom found something very interesting to study outside the window.

“There was a girl,” I said. “She was poor… she needed… I hired her.”

“That was so thoughtful.”

“Yes… well. Good. Fine.”

Tom’s shoulders were shaking, which made my face grow even hotter. Sally didn’t appear to notice. She just curled up in one of the chairs, pulled out a couple of needles and yarn, and started knitting. She hummed a pleasant tune, smiling to herself.

Other than feeling the fool, all was well. As my embarrassment faded, I almost hoped for some sort of problem, because then at least I’d have something to do. Tom practiced his sword drills. Sally enjoyed her knitting; now that her injured hand had started to recover, she could manipulate the needles again, even if it was slow going.

That left me with nothing. I thought I might practice with my pistols, but both Tom and Sally pointed out—rather forcefully—that maybe firing guns around the palace was not the wisest thing to do at the moment. I was insulted; obviously I wasn’t going to shoot them in Whitehall. I figured I’d fire into the Thames. Tom told me if even one of my bullets went into the water, I was going in after it.

So the wait was killing me. I should have brought the chessboard. Both Lords Walsingham and Ashcombe were busy with their own preparations for the king’s departure to Hampton Court, and it wasn’t my place to stick my nose in, so I couldn’t learn anything from them. The spy master was kind enough to remember to send a note I’d been expecting, which was simple and unsigned.

C — The rat died.

In some way, that was a relief. On the one hand, the sugar had been poisoned, which was terrible. On the other, we’d saved everyone at the party, and I was spared from looking a complete idiot. Now I wished something would happen, already.

I should have wished for anything else.

The letter came after dark.

I didn’t see it arrive. I was looking out the window over the Thames, watching the torchlight and lanterns glow over the ripples in the water, when Sally suddenly stopped humming.

“Where did that come from?”

She’d paused in mid-yarn-loop. She stared, head cocked, at a small beige rectangle on the rug near the door.

I nearly fell off my chair scrambling to get it. Lord Walsingham was right. I’d got a letter. C. R. on the front, the back sealed with a circle in red wax. My heart skipped a beat as I cracked it open and read the message inside.

The name of the enemy. Leave it with the flowers.

Come alone.

CHAPTER

39

“NOT A CHANCE,” TOM SAID.

“This is what Lord Walsingham ordered me to wait for,” I said.

“I don’t care. No. A thousand times no.”

Sally agreed with him. “You can’t go alone, Christopher. You remember what happened the last time you were at Saint Paul’s.”

What the letter commanded was simple enough. Write down the name of the enemy and leave it with the flowers—that is, on the lid of Saint Erkenwald’s tomb, where we’d received the third puzzle.

“It’s a trap,” Tom insisted. “ ‘Come alone’? If this is really from the Templars, why would they ask you who the enemy is? They already know the enemy.”

“I think it’s a test,” I said. “Did I learn anything from what they gave me? Am I worthy to continue?”

“It even smells like a trap.”

He wasn’t wrong. And yet… “They went to all this trouble,” I said, “helped us save the king, for what? To set a trap for me? They could have done that ages ago.”

“It’s still not smart,” Sally said. “Please, Christopher.”

I wished I could make them understand. It wasn’t like I wanted to go alone. I didn’t want to go at all. But if I hadn’t followed the trail yesterday, the king—and many, many more people at the party—would have died.

“How about this?” I said. “Sally tells Lords Walsingham and Ashcombe what’s happened. Tom goes with me to Saint Paul’s, but I go into the church alone. I’ll have my pistols; I’ll keep my back to the wall. If anyone attacks me, I’ll fire a shot to tell you to come in.”

Tom began to protest that wasn’t good enough, but I cut him off.

“I have to go, Tom,” I said. “You know I do. His Majesty gave me to the spymaster. It’s my job.” Even if I’d never asked for it.

And with this, Tom quieted. He knew: We were apprentices. Our entire lives belonged to someone else. That sad look returned, the one I’d seen yesterday, after he’d been with Lord Ashcombe.

It’s hard to say no to a king.

What on earth did they want him to do? I’d never found the right time to ask. And now I was wondering if it was too late.

But in the end, he agreed.

What choice did we have?

It was just an ordinary night.

That’s what I kept telling myself as we rode in silence to Saint Paul’s. People were out as usual, fewer than in full daylight, but enough to know the city was still alive.

I’d left Bridget with Sally, who’d shut the bird in my room before running off in search of Walsingham and Ashcombe. No doubt they were deep in preparations to leave. When we collected Blossom and Lightning from the stables, we saw the king’s horses being hooked up to his carriage, everything getting ready to move His Majesty to Hampton Court. Whatever the Templars had to tell me, if it was a warning about the king, I hoped it would come quick.

We approached Saint Paul’s through Ludgate, from the west. As agreed, Tom waited in the street. I handed him Blossom’s reins