7.

War is not to be avoided, but is only to be put off to the advantage of others;

-Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 3 Susanna glanced behind her with a little spike of fear. She didn't want Wolsey to know she was alone and unprotected. Had he seen the room was empty as she'd stepped out?

She switched her knife to her other hand and swiped a fear-slicked palm down her wool dress.

Where were Simon and Peter Jack? Even if they were in the eating hall, she was surprised they would both leave.

She would find them.

She stepped out of the antechamber, closing the door quietly behind her, and a hand tapped her shoulder from behind. She spun on her heel with a strangled shriek.

It was a man in the Cardinal's livery. She put one hand to her heart, half-raised the other, knife still clutched between stiff fingers, and stared at him, breathing fast.

"My pardon, mistress. Does His Grace require anything?" He either didn't see her weapon in the gloom or chose to ignore it.

She shook her head.

"My thanks." The man shuffled back to a chair set in a dark alcove of the passageway.

Able at last to draw a breath, Susanna wondered if he realized how close he'd come to having his throat cut. She readjusted her grip on her knife. "Did you see which way my companions went?"

"I've seen no one."

Susanna could feel the Cardinal's presence and wanted, needed, to flee. She turned in the direction she'd come, trying to remember the twists and turns Simon had taken to deliver her into the Cardinal's lair.

With the King gone to stay in one of his country houses to hawk, Bridewell was eerily empty. Some of the passageways had not been lit, and Susanna walked with a hand against the wall, swinging out to avoid chairs and hall tables.

The smell of beeswax, lemon, and vinegar was strong. Evidence the servants had been hard at work while they had the chance to clean thoroughly.

At last, up ahead she saw lights, and realized she was all but running toward them. She forced herself to slow, to breathe deep, and stepped out into a main hall.

She recognized it, and recalled the way out into the courtyard.

There was no sign of Simon or Peter Jack, and she began to worry. They would never have left her alone willingly, even without the threat of Parker's anger hanging over them.

A few servants looked in her direction. They were gathered around a small fireplace at the far end of the hall and although it made sense to approach them, Susanna suddenly felt very foreign, very out of place.

She was exposed, too. If the Cardinal came looking for her he would see her, no matter which passageway he used. She moved closer to the door to the backyard and tucked herself behind a heavy support beam.

After some minutes had passed, she peered around. The Cardinal's man had joined the servants at the fire, and one suddenly pointed in her direction.

Heart thumping, Susanna looked at the door that led to the stables. Wolsey's man began walking toward her, and she considered her chances of finding help here against the man who ruled England for the King.

She ran for the door.

A bitter March wind had started up and Susanna pulled her cloak about herself as she headed for the stables, hurrying within before Wolsey's man could see her direction. She shuddered with relief as she stepped into the warm, ripe air of the barn, and her cheeks burned with the change in temperature.

"Aye?" The groomsman who stepped forward eyed her suspiciously.

"I'm looking for Simon Carter." She was fascinated by his face, by the deep wrinkles at his eyes, the dimple in his cheek.

The man relaxed. "You'd be Parker's lady, eh?"

She nodded. "I can't find Simon to take me home."

The man scratched his head. "I haven't seen him. His cart's still here." He pointed and Susanna recognized Simon's cart, and his two horses feeding quietly beside it.

Simon might have been called to other duties, but Peter Jack's disappearance was inexplicable. She turned back to the door out to the yard, torn between worry for him and fear of the Cardinal. Rain began drumming on the stable roof.

"Why aren't you waiting inside-begging your pardon at the question-mistress?"

Susanna turned to the groomsman, unsure whether to answer truthfully. Wolsey was not the master of Bridewell, but all knew he acted for the King. "I'm afraid of someone within." It was the most truthful thing she could say.

"Someone behaving ill?" The man rubbed his cheek. "Does he know you're Parker's lady, and all?"

Susanna lifted her shoulders.

He pursed his lips. "Most likely not. You can stay here, then. Simon won't go anywhere without his cart and his animals." He gave a small bow. "Name's Alfred, mistress."

Susanna curtsied back. "I am Susanna Horenbout."

After the intricate, delicate work of the illumination, she felt like a bolder, larger challenge. And she loved the good humor on his face. "Would you let me sketch your portrait?"

8.

And although they were great and wonderful men, yet they were men, and each one of them had no more opportunity than the present offers, for their enterprises were neither more just nor easier than this, nor was God more their friend than He is yours.

-Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 26 Parker's frustration and anger were like a sack of rocks, bumping and bruising him with each step. He'd lost the assassin south of the river-a thick fog and increased foot traffic conspiring to rob him of a chance to run his quarry to ground.

Unless he'd been deliberately led on and dropped. Parker didn't want to contemplate that possibility. It would mean he'd wasted the whole afternoon and had no starting point at which to try to pick up his man again.

He walked into his courtyard and frowned. The only light in the house came from the kitchen.

There was no sound from the barn, but Parker stuck his head around the door anyway. The horses looked up curiously from their feed, and then went back to their supper.

Parker closed the door, and as he stepped out from the eaves the rain came, suddenly, in a soft hiss of sound.

The thought of Susanna waiting within, in the warmth, made him run through the puddles to the back door with a lighter step.

He stepped in and the wind wrenched the door from his hand and slammed it against the wall.

As he struggled to close it, he registered Mistress Greene and Eric, their eyes wide with the shock of the slamming door and the suddenness of his entrance.

They were sitting beside the fire, in a way that reminded him of a vigil. Mistress Greene stood and suddenly an icy knife twisted in his gut.

"Susanna?"

"Not here." Mistress Greene wound the corner of her apron around her hand. "The King ordered her to Bridewell Palace."

"The King?" Parker frowned.

"Aye, to paint some important document for him. Simon came to fetch her."

Parker relaxed a little. "Peter Jack went, too?"

They nodded in unison.

Parker turned back to the door, hand extended to open it again. It swung inward of its own accord.

Peter Jack stood dripping outside. His eyes lifted and the look in them shot a bolt of pure terror into Parker's heart.

There was a gray-green tinge to Peter Jack's skin, and he had clearly stumbled and fallen a number of times on his way home. "I ate something ..." He pushed a muddy hand through his hair. "I've been sick all afternoon, and when I got to the Cardinal's rooms she wasn't there. Simon had already told me we'd have to find our own way home, so I know she hasn't gone with him."

Parker stepped back so Peter Jack could come into the warm kitchen, but he would not move.

"I've lost her, sir. She's gone."

Parker came for her, striding out of the darkness like Hades in search of his bride.

Susanna watched him, fascinated, from her perch on a hay bale. She'd just finished a detailed charcoal of Simon's horses, but here was something infinitely more interesting to draw.

He'd pushed the stable doors open, striking them with open palms, and stopped short at the sight of her, his mouth grim and his eyes filled with the curious blankness they assumed when he was prepared to do infinite harm, commit any violence.

Her heart almost stopped beating at the power and danger of him, and at the way his face softened in the three steps it took him to reach her and draw her into his arms.

He did not speak, and neither did she. The only sound was the drip of water as it fell in a steady stream from Parker's cloak onto the stone floor of the stable.

There was a scrape of a boot behind them and Parker tensed. Susanna put out a hand to still him.

"We kept 'er safe, sir." Alfred shuffled forward and Parker stepped back a little, his arm still around her.

"I thank you for it." Parker gave a half bow.

Susanna began packing away her things. "This is for you, Alfred." She held out a second sketch she had made of him, forking hay.

He took it and gaped as he held it to the light. "Aye, and I can see why the King called you from over the sea, mistress. It's as if you trapped me on paper. Aren't I the lucky one, getting sommat same as the King?"

"Thank you for letting me stay here." She lifted her satchel.

Parker took it from her hands. "Peter Jack is looking for you, too. We have to find him."

"I'm glad he's safe. I was worried about him." She let Parker draw her toward the door and gave a final wave to Alfred before stepping out under the eaves to watch the rain fall in rhythmic sheets.

Parker closed the stable doors behind them and turned to her, his face shuttered. "You took years off my life, my lady. I am aged."

Susanna smiled and looked up into his eyes, as blue as the border she'd used in the King's document. "I knew you would come to find me. And I did not want to walk back alone in the rain and dark."

"No." He raised a brow. "That would have been even worse."

"I thought I would have to, but Alfred hid me when he came looking in the stable-"

"Who came looking?"

Susanna shivered, like a cat, from the top of her spine down. "The Cardinal's man."

She saw him frown, confused.

"The Cardinal wishes me ill."

He stared at her.

"Did he touch you?" His words were calm, but his eyes made her think of a blizzard.

"He tried, after I finished the illumination. A nobleman came in just at that moment to argue about some grant the Cardinal has ordered people to pay. I managed to get out, but his man came looking for me. When I couldn't find Simon or Peter Jack, I chose to wait in the stables, near Simon's cart."

"You did well." He looked at her steadily. "No matter the situation, you always do well."

The smile she gave him came from deep within, and she blinked to hold back the tears that suddenly threatened to fall.

"Which nobleman interrupted Wolsey?"

She cleared her throat. "I don't know. I wish I did. I want to paint his portrait, or his wife's, as a thank-you. He saved me from having to stab the Cardinal." She laughed, weakly. "The knife was ready, in my hand. And then, no doubt, I would have had to flee back to Ghent."