I shrank from the woman’s face but two feet from mine. She was as base and ugly as Gabriel was gossamer beauty. She glared at me with eyes set deep under thick brows, as baleful as a demon.
“Don’t hurt me.” My voice sounded so hoarse. My limbs felt weak and heavy.
“Of course I won’t hurt you,” she said. “I was simply trying to wake you. You must eat something. It’s been too long.”
Slowly, it all fell into place. I had seen Margaret burned at Smithfield; my father caused a disturbance, injured himself, and was taken away; I’d been arrested with poor Geoffrey Scovill and brought to the Tower of London. I must have slept for some time, awakened by this woman, who, I now perceived, having gained distance from my dream, was not a hideous demon but an ordinary woman in her middle years, albeit one dressed in rich brocades and an elaborate French hood.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Lady Kingston. And now you will eat. Bess?”
She beckoned, and a second woman, younger and heavier, carried over a wooden tray. The pungent smell of thick fish broth hit me like cannon fire; every sinew of my body craved food.
“We tried to give you something to eat yesterday,” Lady Kingston said as the serving woman named Bess set the tray on my bed and withdrew.
“Yesterday?”
“Don’t you recall it? You have slept for two nights and a day. We tried to wake you yesterday. You took some wine, and then fell back asleep. Your dress was changed, the one you had on was too dirty to rest in.” I realized I wore a long cotton shift. Lady Kingston pointed at a drab gray dress folded at the foot of the bed. “I know it is not appropriate to your station, but I am kept much occupied.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said as I drank my first spoonful. Lady Kingston pursed her lips and watched me eat. It occurred to me that a woman wearing such elaborate clothing while doing her husband’s business in a prison cell would not approve of my indifference to fashion. But I couldn’t care about that. All that mattered was the broth. Every steaming mouthful sent strength back into me.
When I’d finished the soup, I looked around the room. I was being held in an enormous space—it looked about forty feet long—with a cracked wooden floor and high stone walls. Sunlight poured in through a series of barred windows halfway up one wall. The only pieces of furniture were my bed, a small table, and Lady Kingston’s chair.
My face must have posed the question.
“We do not usually keep prisoners here,” she said, shrugging. “But there are few empty rooms, and we didn’t want to put you among all the men.”
I sat up straighter. “Is my father in the Tower?”
Lady Kingston picked up the tray and carefully placed it on the table. She gave me a steady look as she sat back down.
“You said some things before I roused you,” she said. “You called for your mother, but there were others you called for as well. I heard of an angel?”
“I was dreaming.”
“Were you?”
The serving woman, Bess, appeared at her side. “Sir William says you’re required in the Lieutenant’s Lodging, my lady,” she murmured.
“Very well.” Lady Kingston stiffly rose to her feet. “Bess, prepare her.”
As Lady Kingston swept across the long room, I bit my lip. What were they preparing me for? As the last vestiges of my strange dream faded, an icy dread took hold.
The instant the door shut behind Lady Kingston, Bess grabbed my hand. “Don’t tell her anything, I beg you.”
I studied her more closely. She looked about thirty. The deep pockmarks in her cheeks and chin meant that she’d had a strong bout of the disease and that it had nearly killed her. Yet what struck me most were her eyes. They gleamed, they shone, they even sparkled. My presence seemed to enthrall her.
“Why?” I asked, trying to pull my hand loose from her clammy grip.
“She’s a spy for him.” The words came in a feverish rush. “Lady Kingston calms the women and feeds them, and she asks questions, and they sound very innocent, but she writes it all down for her husband, everything they say, and then Sir William writes to Cromwell.”
“Is that so surprising?” I asked.
“You should have heard her with Queen Anne. She went mad here, the queen, when the king had