The Noble Assassin. Christie Dickason

at her! his eyes beg the other diners. What man has ever been so tormented by his spouse?

      Let it pass! I warn him with my eyes. Can’t you see the danger you’re in? Can’t you feel how your dutiful wife has just changed?

       Chapter 8

      My husband continues to eat slowly and calmly, to show everyone who rules in this house. But he eats without appetite. He still watches me, with the progress of his thoughts clear in his eyes.

      He had seen. He had noticed. He feels the change in me and doesn’t know what to do. I almost pity him in his confusion.

      Everyone waits for his response while they pretend to eat. By rights, he should assert his male authority. Perhaps even try to beat me later.

      But he does not know what to do and hates himself for not knowing. He hates me for making him not know.

      His eyes shift away. I have long suspected and am now certain. He is afraid of me. Just as he had once feared his formidable father.

      Poor, poor Edward, I think.

      Whatever manhood he ever had seems to have leaked away through his cracked arm bone, along with his youth and any vitality, as if the crack had let in a sense of death. The tree trunk that met his head had not cracked his skull, but it seemed, nevertheless, to have shaken his wits.

      After the horse threw him, he had surrendered himself to becoming clumsy and lop-sided. He seemed to aim at the world askew, anticipating dislocation and, therefore, finding it.

      At first, I had tried to coax him into healing. ‘It’s only an arm,’ I said. ‘Not your neck, or back. It will soon mend.’

      ‘What do you know of twisted sinews and constant aches that gnaw at your spirits?’

      I had bitten back my impatient reply and offered him the cup of pain-killing draught.

      Now he gives up on eating, shoves away his plate and stands up from the dinner table. Everyone else stands. He lifts a foot, then hesitates.

      I recognise that hesitation. He lurches forward. Looks around. Everyone pretends not to see.

      His secretary, his steward, his three attending gentlemen, and all the rest, stand politely, waiting to see what he will do, or wish them to do.

      A show of respect for his position, I think. Not for the man.

      Every year since his accident, the Earl shrinks a little more. Everything grows less. His movement, his appetites, his will. His fortune. His dignity. The space he occupies in this world.

      He looks at me accusingly, as if I had caused the floor to shift beneath his feet.

      I have to look away. I cannot bear his wilful determination to suffer.

      On the last time that we truly spoke to each other, he had pointed at me with his good hand. ‘I stumble towards the grave,’ he had said. ‘I’m dying, and no one on this earth cares that I am afraid of death yet wish for it at the same time – least of all you, who should care most of all. My wife.’

      ‘You’re not dying,’ I said. ‘You can walk. And you could ride again, if only you would.’

      ‘What do you know of suffering?’

      I could only look at him, wordless.

      ‘Get out of my sight,’ he had said. ‘Stop taunting me with your lithe moves and your sudden little dance steps.’ His gaze had fallen on the ridged mud plot outside the window, a frozen maze of ditches and string, which would one day become my new garden. ‘Go look for joy out there in the mud you love so much.’

      Unless I shared in his misery, I insulted him with any pleasure I took in life.

      ‘And in case you hope to make a life without me here in this godforsaken place,’ he said, ‘I will tell you that no one of any consequence will ever come see your blasted garden!’ He steadied himself against the tabletop, waving away my offered hand. ‘What good do you imagine that making a garden has ever done anyone?’

      He turned his face away from the window, squinting his eyes as if hurt by the light.

      ‘I know that you hide from me out there, amongst all those costly infant trees we can’t afford. I’ve seen you wrapping them tenderly against the cold. And when it’s too cold to coo over trees or seedlings in some gardener’s hands, you bury yourself away from me making sketches and diagrams. You make your garden only to torment me, to punish me for what I have become, even though it was not my fault.’

      I had stood wordless, unlike my usual self, my breath taken away by this mistaking of the truth, and from fear of what I felt coming.

      ‘How dare you imply reproach, as if I were a useless husband?’ His knuckles whitened on the edge of the tabletop. ‘I lifted you from country into court. And to no purpose! You have killed my family’s line. You can’t even produce me a living heir!’

      I keep my eyes averted now until I hear him move away from the table. I watch him leave the hall. He walks uncertainly, as if unsure where to go. His two gentlemen of the bedchamber, the sons of neighbouring knights, exchange glances then follow him. I see his old nurse hobble to meet him in the passage outside the hall, take his good hand and lead him away to the safety of her care.

       Chapter 9

      Falling asleep that night, the heaviness of the orchard ambushes me again. To fight it, I repeat to myself all the reasons that life has changed and will continue to change.

      Elizabeth, in flight and without a home, needs me. The newly married princess, in love with her young husband, headed for his beloved Palatine, had not needed me. Then she had lost her one close English friend, Lady Anne Dudley Sutton, gone with her to Germany after her marriage. She will need to see a well-known face. She will need a trustworthy friend. She needs me now as much as her mother ever did.

      I turn over in my bed and yank at a wrinkle in the sheet that feels like a mountain ridge under my shoulder. I listen to Annie’s gentle snores from her pallet on the floor.

      If she is to come home, Elizabeth must believe that the English still love her. I must reassure her. And that I too still love her. That I will protect, inform and amuse her. Then, when she returns, she will make me her first lady of the bedchamber as her mother did. I will again be the older almost-sister, trusted once more with private access to both her person and her secret thoughts. I will be back where I belong and have purpose again.

      My restless foot meets the solid weight of one of my small hounds, which has managed to slip into my chamber and jump onto the bed. I feel the animal go very still, pretending to sleep, waiting for the command to get down. But I welcome the heavy warmth. After a moment, the dog sighs and softens in sleep.

      I cannot sleep. She might already be a captive. Or even dead, executed by the Hapsburgs, or from loss of blood in childbirth. Her confinement must be soon.

      I close my eyes and feel for her in the darkness of my bed. Surely, I would feel an emptiness if she had died?

      Elizabella, please write to tell me that you are well!

      I am still awake to hear the first birds warming up after the night.

      I do not tell my husband that I mean to defy him. I make an inventory of my remaining jewels not yet sold to try to pay our debts or to buy winter feed for the horses, or salt and sugar for our table. Or Edward’s claret. I rifle through my secret, shrinking store of plate, silver pomander cases, embroidered gloves, silver-gilt boxes and other baubles for the gifts and bribes needed to navigate Whitehall.

      At Whitehall, appearances matter. The surface is held to reveal the inner man. Or woman.

      And I am going back to Whitehall.

      With my lady Agnes Hooper and my maid Annie, I lay out my old court