“Yes?” Gwynnie looked around.
“You’re shaking.” Emlyn reached up and gently took the pail out of Gwynnie’s hands. “Are you well, miting?”
“Oh, perfectly well. Can you not see how I am dancing for joy?” Gwynnie stepped away, her hands moving to her hips as she looked around the hall. It was cold with the fire not yet lit, the emptiness foreboding.
“Your sarcasm does not help matters.”
“God’s blood, Ma —”
“What did I tell you about that tongue of yours?”
“Who cares if I curse after what has just happened?” Gwynnie marched to her mother’s side and dropped to her knees. “You wish me to act normal? You wish me to make up a fire?” She tossed far too much wood into the grate and fumbled for a tinderbox, her fingers dropping the iron wool multiple times in her effort to retrieve it from the small plain case.
“Gwynnie —”
She tossed the burning wool onto the wood. It caught light so suddenly that they both veered back, with Gwynnie kicking the fire screen into place to prevent the flaming wood from rolling out.
“Well, yes, you seem normal,” Emlyn said, her tone equally sarcastic.
“Do not pretend this has not changed everything, Ma.” Gwynnie shook her head, watching the flames as they danced. “I cannot sit here and do nothing.”
“Then what is it that you intend to do?”
Gwynnie remained silent, uncertain how to answer the question.
“Anything you do endangers us both,” Emlyn reminded her. “Was this not to be our last job? You wish to risk that now by pointing the finger at the king’s son?”
A door opened in the distance and they both lowered their voices.
Gwynnie breathed deeply, knowing her mother was right. For so long her only goal had been to keep her mother safe, but now she didn’t know what to do.
CHAPTER 6
“Wait! You there, maid!” a voice called.
Gwynnie halted with the tapers in her hands. She stood in the withdrawing chamber behind the great hall, having just lit another of the palace fires. Emlyn continued to scrub down the fireplace, as if no one was shouting to them at all.
On the other side of the room, beneath an archway flanked by green and red tapestries revealing the hunt of a white hart, stood two men. Gwynnie’s stomach had lurched when she first saw the figures, thinking briefly that it was Renard and Fitzroy come for her again. She breathed a sigh of relief when she recognised Tombstone.
The tall young man wore a black robe over his rich doublet, his collar stiff and high around his neck. At his side was a second man, far older, with a shining bald head, a slightly hunched back and bushy white eyebrows.
“Is this who you spoke of?” the older man asked Tombstone, pointing at Gwynnie as they entered the chamber.
“Yes, Master,” Tombstone replied, before turning to Gwynnie. “What is your name?”
“I am Gwynnie Wightham.” Gwynnie stood tall, looking between the two men. “I saw you this morning. With the … body.” She almost said Florian’s name but realised that as a maid she would not be expected to know who he was.
The elderly gentleman gestured dismissively toward Gwynnie. “She is little more than a child, a mere girl,” he said, as if she was not present.
Gwynnie frowned. “And you, sir, are an old man. For what reason are we pointing out one another’s state?”
The gentleman’s bushy eyebrows shot up. Before he could reply, Emlyn approached, offering one of those sweet smiles that usually had gentlemen bending to her will.
“Gwynnie, dear, that is no way to greet a gentleman,” she said, dropping into a deep curtsy. “Good day to you, Master. I apologise for my daughter’s manners. She can sometimes be uncouth, and the dramatic events of this morning have left her a little lacking.”
“That is quite understandable.” The elderly gentleman smiled back at Emlyn.
Gwynnie had to stop herself from sighing in exasperation.
“May we have the honour of an introduction, Master?” Emlyn asked as she raised herself from the curtsy.
“Well, quite the manners of a fine lady. What a surprise.” The elderly man’s smile grew all the more.
Gwynnie would have happily pointed out that if he knew her mother at all, he’d realise she was no fine lady. Born in one of London’s slum districts, any manners Emlyn had learned she had copied from the fine ladies she had watched as a girl, before stealing their purses.
“This is Master Neville Pascal, Magistrate for the City of London and the Palaces,” Tombstone said, indicating the senior man. “I am his lawyer and clerk, Elric Tombstone.”
Gwynnie noticed the ink stains on his fingers once again. He wore an elegant doublet beneath his cloak, embroidered with gold. For a lawyer, he dressed quite finely.
“We have been asked by Lord Cromwell to look into the recent robberies here at the palace and, of course, Master Florian Battersby’s death.” Elric Tombstone’s eyes turned to Gwynnie. “I noticed that you, Mistress Gwynnie, were particularly interested in the body this morning. I thought it strange and wished to ask what drew you to look at it?”
“Is it so strange?” she asked, anxiously fidgeting with the tapers in her hand.
“It was the way you looked at the body.” Tombstone stared at her. “Most looked away, but not you.”
“My child is not afraid of the realities of the world, Master.” Emlyn spoke with a sad sigh. “Having grown up as serving women, we see much darkness and despair on these streets.”
Pascal and Tombstone exchanged a look. Pascal fidgeted so much that his black court shoes squeaked on the tile flooring. In contrast, Tombstone stood perfectly still. His grey eyes now flitted from Gwynnie to Emlyn.
