The Blackthorn Key

The King’s Men hauled me into an empty parlor. Two of the soldiers pressed me into a hard-backed chair and stood beside me while I waited. I wasn’t sure how long it was—it felt like more than an hour—before an official came. Dressed in fine white linen, he looked me up and down from beneath his wig. “Come with me,” he said.

I tried to stand. The guards had to help me up the stairs. It was so far, my legs so weak, that by the time we reached the top, the King’s Men were carrying me. The linen man led us through a banded wooden door to one of the Tower’s bedrooms, where the king’s soldiers put me down.

The sun streamed through the window, giving off a warm glow. Two chairs rested in front of the empty fireplace, plumped with plush blue cushions that matched the silks on the four-poster bed. Splayed on the bedsheets was an emerald-green shirt, also silk, and dark blue cotton breeches, with soft doeskin boots beneath. A sturdy oak table held a crystal bowl. It overflowed with fruit: apples, oranges, pomegranates, grapes.

“Lord Ashcombe has ordered that you remain in the Tower, to keep you safe,” the linen man said. “I hope these quarters will be adequate.” He pointed to the door on the left. “There’s a bath in the parlor, already prepared.”

The scent of rose water wafted from behind the door. It mixed with the coppery smell of blood on my skin.

“The king’s physicians will tend to your wounds as soon as they’re finished with Lord Ashcombe,” the linen man said. “In the meantime, is there anything else you require?”

My voice came out like sand. “Where’s Tom?”

“Who?”

“My friend. Is he here? Is he all right?”

The linen man shrugged. “You were the only person Lord Ashcombe requested.”

The rug was warm, the weave soft against my feet. I looked down. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost my boots.

I stared at the bowl of fruit. “May I please have one of those?”

“Of course,” he said. “You must be starving. I’ll bring a proper meal at once.”

True to his word, twenty minutes later he returned with four servants. They placed a set of silver dishes on the table. There was roasted goose, braised beef and gravy, seasoned fish, spiced vegetables in white sauce, and half a strawberry cake. I smelled the sweet oil on the goose, still steaming.

It wasn’t until they left that I started to cry.





JUNE 3 TO JUNE 21, 1665


Spring’s End





CHAPTER


37


THREE DAYS AFTER THEY’D CONFINED me to the Tower, they took me to see Lord Ashcombe. He lay on the bed in a room like mine, the king’s physicians buzzing around him. A thick white bandage was wrapped around his head, covering the left side of his face. A scarlet slash soaked through it at the cheek. Another bandage was wrapped around his right hand, crimson stains crusting where Wat’s ax had removed his fingers.

Lord Ashcombe shooed the doctors away as if they were flies. He beckoned me closer and mumbled into his bandages.

“I . . . I don’t understand,” I said.

Lord Ashcombe looked annoyed, although whether with me or the dressing on his face, I couldn’t tell. He tried again, more slowly, slurring through the cotton. “You set. A trap.”

I bowed my head. “I’m sorry, my lord. I never meant to get you hurt. I wanted Master Colthurst to confess so you’d realize he was the killer. I didn’t know he’d bring so many men.”

He waved my apology away. “No. In the. Underground lab. The Archangel’s Fire.”

“Yes, my lord. I couldn’t take the chance that Oswyn might find it and escape.”

“Your trap. You knew. You could get him. If he. Went down.”

“I hoped so.”

“Yet you. Let him torture you. With that liquid. First.”

My fingers traced over my chest. Before the king’s physicians had dressed my wounds, I’d seen the melted flesh. My own map of hell, forever burned into my skin. “I did.”

“Why?”

Several steps ahead, Oswyn had said. But I’d already been taught that, by a man so much greater than Oswyn could have ever hoped to be. Secrets under secrets. Codes inside codes.