The Queen's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

“That’s the girl,” he said.
    The broken-toothed lord beside him ordered one of his men to seize her. The henchman dismounted.
    Honor darted behind Ralph. Shielding her, Ralph called to Bastwick, “What’s this about, Father?”
    “Let her go. This is Sir Guy Tyrell. The girl is his ward now.”
    “What? Can the Court of Wards have judged so soon?”
    “Do you question the King’s justice, man?” Bastwick asked witheringly.
    “Not I, Father,” said Ralph. “If this be the King’s justice.”
    “Ha,” the lord snorted, “all will be legal enough once I marry her to my boy, eh, priest?”
    Honor, pressing close to Ralph, could feel his muscles tense. He stepped backwards, pushing her back as well. He looked at the priest, “And what reward be in this unholy bargain for you, Father?”
    Honor saw the priest’s black eyes flash at Ralph with anger.
    “I tire of this fellow’s prating,” Tyrell growled. He signaled to his other men. They dismounted and stalked toward Ralph.
    Ralph fought, but he could not prevail over four men. They soon had him on his knees, his nose bleeding, his arms trussed.
    The henchman did not find Honor easy to subdue. She kicked and bit and screamed for help. Bastwick glanced furtively around the empty courtyard. He jumped from his horse, pulled a knife from his boot, and strode over to Ralph. He lifted Ralph’s head by the hair and held the knife at his throat. Ralph sucked in a breath. “Come tamely, girl,” Bastwick said, “or that breath will be his last.”
    Honor stopped struggling. Quietly, she stepped forward. The henchman hoisted her up onto the gelding brought for her.
    “We should take the fellow, too,” Bastwick said to Tyrell. “I believe there’s a bond between them that might serve us.”
    Tyrell nodded, understanding. As his men pushed Ralph toward the gelding, Tyrell warned him, “Any trouble from you, we’ll carve a finger off her.”
    So the two prisoners rode together out through Larke’s gates, each as the other’s reluctant jailer. Behind her, Honor heard the servants in the chapel singing prayers. And in the house, lying forgotten under the pillow on her bed, was the foreigner’s little book.
    The party passed under the city walls at Newgate where apprentices were being hanged in pairs. They reached the Great Western Road, and soon they had left London—and the King’s justice—far behind.

2
Tyrell Court
    O n Honor’s twelfth birthday it rained all day. The great hall of Tyrell Court stank of the damp wool and sour sweat of Sir Guy Tyrell’s retainers, the armed band with which he intimidated the district. Having lounged and drunk their way through the enforced indolence of the soggy afternoon in the company of a few serving women of the household, they were waiting now for supper.
    Honor sat in a corner. Bored, she watched rain dribble from the louvered vent in the middle of the roof of the archaic hall. Tyrell, chronically short of cash, had made no improvements to the dark, medieval house his father had left him years before. Raindrops hissed onto the fire in the central hearth. Its perimeter was littered with old charred bones beneath the spit. Its smoke hazed the hall.
    Lady Philippa Tyrell, Sir Guy’s wife, came in blowing her perpetually dripping nose on a rag. She took her seat at the head table. Boys began carrying in the supper—trenchers of beef and bread and turnips, along with pots of ale. The company noisily settled in at the benches along trestle tables abutting the head table.
    Honor was approaching one of the tables when she saw Father Bastwick come through the arched doorway. She moved to a place farthest from the chair she knew he would take, the one beside Lady Tyrell. Bastwick was a regular visitor at Tyrell Court, and often, in Sir Guy’s absences, he took the lord’s seat. This morning, Sir Guy had left for business in Exeter. Honor grabbed a second trencher for Ralph as the serving boy passed. She slapped some