Royal Blood. Rona Sharon

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      During the annual celebration of the Order of the Garter, Sir Michael Devereaux arrives in King Henry VIII’s court on a mission for his benefactor. The celebration’s endless feats and sumptuous women delight the charismatic newcomer, who becomes captivated by the enigmatic Princess Renée of France. But evil, it seems, has followed Michael to the court. Shortly after his arrival, an unknown killer claims several victims, including the queen’s lady-in-waiting, and the powerful Cardinal Wolsey asks Michael to help with the investigation. As he searches for the killer, Michael is haunted by disturbing images of the victims—flashes of violence that lead him to doubt his own sanity. Michael soon realizes that the key to solving the crime is connected to both the pope’s imperial vault in Rome and a mystery from Michael’s own past—revealing a secret that is so damning, it could forever alter the future of mankind.

      Powerfully evocative and steeped with detail from the breathtaking era of the Tudors, Royal Blood is historical storytelling at its richest—an unforgettable tale of intrigue, passion, and danger.

      Books by Rona Sharon:

      MY WICKED PIRATE

      ONCE A RAKE

      ROYAL BLOOD

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

      ROYAL BLOOD

      RONA SHARON

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      For Dana and Zeev—

       With all the love and gratitude in my heart

      In memory of my friend, Niza

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      1

      In front—a precipice;

      Behind—wolves.

      —an ancient Roman aphorism

      Tiltyard at Castle Tyrone, Ireland, 1518

      “Again!”

      The command was followed by a clap of thunder.

      Michael slammed his visor shut and stormed into combat. Rain sheeted the marshy, torchlit lists, rendering him near blind. After hours of training, his arms throbbed from holding the lance and shield, his leg muscles burned with the effort of keeping his hot-blooded destrier at a straight gallop. The earth shook beneath the thundering stallions as mighty hoofs plowed through sludge. Dreading the collision and despising his fear, Michael couched his lance at his sinister opponent, armored in black steel cap-à-pie and bearing down on him like a dark chthonic force.

      Aim low, then at the last moment strike the helm, the Earl of Tyrone’s instructions resounded in Michael’s head. Strike the helm, the helm…

      The shocking blow to his own helmet prized Michael out of the saddle. He crashed into the squelchy ground, whence he had risen moments before, in an ungainly heap of armored limbs.

      Mud splotched the grille of his visor as massive hoofs reached his sprawled form and reared up, threatening to fossilize him in the midden. With an oath, Michael recoiled on capped elbows and spurs, glaring up at Sir Ferdinand, Lord Tyrone’s shadow. “Blood from a stone!” the raspy voice mocked him. The raven visor turned toward the shrouded figure observing the joust from a recess inside the barbican. “Your incompetent sunflower is not ready! He will never be ready!”

      Michael felt murderous. Yes, he had lost, again. But he could cudgel Ferdinand for drubbing him and then deprecating him to the great lord who had reared him as his own son and legal heir. Only killing Sir Ferdinand would be akin to slaying a mountain; the knight was indestructible.

      Michael fell back on the pulpy alluvium, exhausted and dispirited. Rain drummed his visor; cool rivulets sluiced his face. The storm was gathering force. Dusk bled into night. Squinting at the donjon, its diamond panes glowing brightly beneath the darkening welkin, he fancied a long hot bucking by a roaring fire, a flagon of mulled wine, a juicy hunch of mutton, a pliant wench…

      “Again!”

      The terse order sliced through his aching head, jolting his battered bones. The varlets’ strong hands hauled him up and set him aright. He wrenched himself free from their steadying grip and trudged, clanking, to the end of the course. Pippin, his manservant, bridled his horse. Archangel snorted, shook its armored head, and stomped its feet in protest, fetlocks deep in mud.

      Michael gentled the destrier with petting and praise. “One last time, and we will have done, O great one. My word upon it.”

      He swung onto his weary horse with a metallic clang, his muscles groaning at the ongoing torture like rheumatic joints on a withered nun. Pippin handed him the lance and buckler with his usual word of encouragement. “You will fell him this time, master. I know you will.”

      “The left shoulder.” Michael eyed his complacent adversary. “He protects his heart.”

      “A delicate heart, eh? Forsooth, that is a point in his favor, for I doubted he had one.”

      “Aye, ’tis black as his suit of armor—and his soul.”

      “God smite him,” Pippin muttered scathingly.

      Michael steered Archangel to the starting line. The signal was given, and he was hurtling up the rain-battered course at full tilt, the sloughy ground quaking beneath Archangel’s hoofs. The heart, the heart, Michael thought, focusing on the magnificently wrought black breastplate.

      A heartbeat later, he was on his back in the muddy puddles. His left shoulder hurt as if it had been ripped from his body. He shut his eyes tightly. He felt…routed, peppered, unworthy.

      Sir Ferdinand drew rein, laughing viciously. “Mind your own heart next time, sunflower!”

      The authoritative voice in the tower rumbled, “Put him on his feet and bring him to me!”

      Michael, divested of his armor and a good deal of aplomb, leaked mud at the threshold to the castle’s eyrie at the top of the bastion. His noble protector’s preferred haunt was constructed after the Pantheon in Rome, an architectural marvel with a rounded dome and a skylight carved out of its center that formed an interior waterfall when it rained. A gilt gridiron set in the black marble floor drained the rainwater into the support pillar around which the tower stairwell spiraled and