The Queen's Lady. Barbara Kyle

said, “Gilbey’s right. Mayor’s men’ll be coming. I’m off, too.”

      The boy set Honor down so harshly she staggered for balance. Wordlessly, men and boys gathered up their booty, leaving behind small piles of litter, and scuttled into the alleys. Their torchlight evaporated. Under the hiding moon the street went dark and cold. Papers fluttered. The faint, far-away bursts of shouts and shattering glass rolled over the rooftops then died in the air above Honor and the body. She looked across the street at it. It lay sprawled amongst the refuse, a black mound.

      There was a moan. Honor’s heart tightened. The sound had come from the body.

      “Per favoré…qualcuno…O! Per pietà!”

      Honor stood still, afraid, unsure. She heard a scrabbling on the cobbles. A dog was snuffling through the litter. It moved to the body and circled it.

      The man did not move. “Va! Va via!” he gasped.

      The dog seemed to sense his helplessness. It thrust its muzzle into the open neck of his gown.

      “Per pietà-à-à!”

      Without thinking, Honor sprang from the doorway. She snatched up a pewter goblet and hurled it. It struck the dog’s hind leg. The dog yelped. She seized a pot and pitched it as well. The dog turned and bolted up the street.

      “Who is there?” the man cried.

      Honor came closer, cautiously, and stood over him. The moon sailed out from the cover of clouds, washing him with a cold, white light. Now she could see him clearly. He lay on his back on top of his bound arms. At his throat the scarves and necklaces were twined in a bright tangle. He did not move. His eyes were closed. His moans had stopped. Had he died? she wondered.

      His eyelids sprang open. For a moment, man and child stared at one another.

      “Thank you,” he whispered. “The dog…” He stopped to cough.

      “Do you hurt?” Honor asked.

      A small smile tugged at his lips. “No hurt. Back is broken. Feel nothing…” His voice trailed. “Muoro. I am dying…”

      If he’s dying, she thought, how can he smile? But she realized what she must do. “Sir, I’ll fetch a priest.”

      “No! No need!”

      The sudden fierceness of his voice surprised her. She did not want to disobey him, but everyone knew that God would not allow a soul into heaven if it was filthy with unconfessed sin. “Sir,” she said, marveling at his ignorance, “you must be shriven.” She did not want him to burn in hell’s fires forever.

      “No,” he insisted, faintly now. “Confession…priests…prayers to God…no good…”

      She drew back. He was speaking blasphemy. Even a child knew that. But she noticed blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the cobbles like ink. Maybe dying is making him mad, she thought. Otherwise, how can he smile so? “Sir,” she asked softly, “are you not afraid to die? And all alone?”

      “You came to help me,” he whispered. “When there was no one else, you came. What should I fear when I have uno àngelo—an angel—beside me?”

      Honor stiffened at the sound of footsteps. The moon was masked again by clouds and she could not see far, but she could hear the low voices of men, their words indistinct.

      The dying man heard them too. His body jerked once in a spasm. “Inside…my gown,” he rasped. “Piccolo àngelo…take it.” He was spitting blood. “Take it! Now!”

      Honor kneeled and reached into his gown. She withdrew a slim book slightly larger than a man’s hand.

      “I wrote it,” he said, his eyes glinting as if with joy, “for you.”

      “For me?” she asked, beguiled, though his comment made no sense, strangers as they were. She could not even read.

      “But never…never show it to a priest!” He coughed. Honor winced as the warm mist of blood sprayed her hands. “You understand? Never…to a priest!”

      “A secret?” she whispered.

      Again, his lips formed a serene smile. “Si, piccolo àngelo. A secret…”

      Blood bubbled out of his mouth. His head lolled. His dead eyes stared at her, wide open. But Honor felt no horror. Despite the violence done to him, his life had closed so peacefully.

      “Somewhere ’round here…” It was a man’s voice. Two dark forms were turning the corner of the ransacked house. Honor stuffed the book deep inside her wide sleeve and crouched. Looking across the body, she watched the men approach. They were kicking at the litter.

      “You sure there was a purse on him?” one man muttered.

      “I saw it at his belt,” the other insisted. “When he fell.”

      “Well, find him and cut it. And let’s be off.”

      “And his rings? Cut his rings, too?”

      “Cut off his poxy balls, if you want, but get the purse.”

      The second man finally saw the body and shot out a finger. “There!”

      They both hurried forward. A few paces from the body the second man stopped abruptly and held out his arm to stop the other. “Jesus, it’s that sneaking girl.”

      Both men whipped out knives. They stepped toward her.

      Honor jumped up, ready to bolt.

      From behind her a thick arm swept around her waist and snatched her. Her body was jackknifed, facedown, and she could see only the heels of her abductor’s boots. He bounded up the street, and she gasped for air, pinned against his thigh. She was joggled half a block before the man carrying her swung into an alley and halted. He hoisted her up roughly, his hands encircling her rib cage. Fierce with fear, she swung her fists at him with eyes closed, but he held her away easily.

      “What do you think you’re up to?” he cried.

      Her eyes popped open. “Ralph!”

      She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face against the stubble of his cheek. “Oh, Ralph,” she gulped, “they were smashing the houses! And they pushed the foreigner man out the window, and he fell, all broken! And those robbers were going to kill me, and—”

      “Hush, little mistress, I’ve got you now.” He cupped one beefy hand around the back of her head and hugged her with the other. “You be safe now. Hush.” He began walking quickly.

      She held tight, drinking in the familiar smell of his battered leather jerkin and feeling safe, indeed, in his embrace. Ralph Pepperton, at nineteen, was over six feet tall and built like a tree trunk. Honor had been told by her nurse, Margaret—with no little pride—that Ralph had never lost a fight. On Lady Day, when he had vaulted the neighbor’s garden wall to visit the pretty scullery maid there, a brawl with two of that household’s retainers had ensued, and the servants on both sides had bet money on Ralph. “An ox on two feet,” Honor’s father had called Ralph that day, and beamed as he pocketed his own winnings.

      Ralph was heading up the dark alley, making for the glow of torches on the broad thoroughfare of Cheapside. “What a night,” he growled, kicking through the garbage of dung and bones. “May Day’s for fun, right enough, but this time the ’prentices have gone too far. They’ve burst Newgate jail and loosed the prisoners. And now they’re off to fire the houses on Lombard Street. I watched some hound a Frenchman up the belfry of St. Mary’s like a rat before they dragged him down and set on him.”

      He talked on as if to soothe her, though his voice was tight with indignation. “I grant the ’prentices have some cause to hate the strangers, but Sweet Jesu, there be some mighty sins committed this night. And they’ll pay for it, sure as there’s eel pie at Lent. But never fear, little mistress,” he murmured,