Chapter 34 #2
Anne had forgotten she was glamoured to look like a guard. The poor boy thought she had come to escort him to his execution.
“No. And we have precious little time to explain,” she said. Anne hadn’t bothered to disguise her voice, and Thomas’s eyes widened when he noticed her words were distinctly female. “I’m going to need you to listen very carefully and put this on.”
She unbelted her tunic and let the belly’s worth of clothing drop to the floor. She tossed the dress to Thomas, who caught it at the last possible moment.
He peered at her in the faint light. “Who are you?”
“I am here to give you a chance to save the woman you love,” Anne replied. “But only if you are brave enough to do it.”
Thomas took a step forward, his expression shifting from despair to hope so quickly it made Anne’s heart ache. “You’re going to save Kat? How? What do I need to do?”
“You start by putting on that dress,” Anne said, gesturing to the bundle in his hands. “And you end by dying in her stead.”
The hope disappeared from Thomas’s face as quickly as it had arrived.
Anne explained her plan—that she would glamour Thomas to look like Kat, that she would sneak Kat out disguised as a guard, and that in a few days’ time, Thomas would be the one to kneel at the executioner’s block.
The only detail she omitted was her true identity, for although her cousin loved this boy enough to risk her life, Anne was not so foolish as to trust him with her greatest secret.
“It is the only way to save her,” Anne concluded. “If I thought I could save you too, I would. But the reality is, either you both die, or you give your life so that she may live.”
Thomas was quiet for several seconds. He looked down at the clothing Anne had procured, then toward the closed door of his cell.
Anne watched him carefully, looking for signs of doubt or self-preservation, but all she saw was sorrow.
He really loves her, she thought, and the realization made her indescribably sad.
“I’ll do it,” Thomas said at last. “For Kat, I will do whatever you ask.”
Anne nodded once and turned away, pretending she was giving him privacy to change, but really, she was trying to hide the tears that threatened to spill over.
Gabriel had loved her like this. He had been willing to give up everything, risking his honor and his life to free Anne from the prison of her marriage.
Why was it that the good men had to fall?
Why did men like Henry get to live without consequence, while Gabriel and Thomas were lost to the cruelties and bitter ironies of the world?
Thomas would die for the woman he loved, all because a man who didn’t love Kat at all happened to have a crown on his head and his ring on her finger.
For a brief, desperate moment, Anne considered trying to save them both.
She played out half a dozen scenarios in her head, from a feigned murder-suicide to a plain-as-day prison break.
But none of those plans ended with Kat alive for long.
None of them ended with her safe and growing old like she was meant to do.
And Anne’s broken heart had to make room for the loss of one more soul, for she would mourn Thomas now too.
“How do I look?” Thomas asked, a note of wry humor in his voice.
Anne turned and looked at him, relieved that she could offer a genuine smile at the sight of him trying to pull up the neckline of the gown. Mistress Leighton had added plenty of padding to the chest. “You look very pretty indeed.”
He helped Anne with the last part of the ruse—tying together clothes and bedsheets and then breaking a window open—the sound muffled by more magick.
Morgan would come back later and lower the makeshift rope, making it look as though Culpeper had escaped into the night.
When they were finished, Thomas followed Anne out of his cell, looking back only once.
Even though he knew the plan, Morgan blinked in surprise when Thomas stepped into the hallway.
He led them up several flights of stairs to Kat’s quarters, and through sheer luck or Morgan’s foresight, they came across no other guards.
Once Morgan had unlocked Kat’s cell, leaving the key in the door, Anne turned to him.
“Thank you,” she said again. “We could not have done this without you.”
Morgan gave a small bow. “It is my pleasure. Please send my regards to my lady Anna.”
When they walked through the door, Kat screamed.
“It’s all right, my love,” Thomas said, walking toward her slowly, his hands held out. “It’s me, Thomas.”
Kat was scrambling backward on her bed, clutching her covers to her chest and looking between Anne and Thomas, wild-eyed and panicked. Only when Kat saw his face did her own soften into a confused frown.
“Thomas?” She peered more closely at Anne. “And, Anne, is that you?”
“It is,” Anne said, offering her cousin a tired smile. “I’ve come to take you home.”
Kat’s mouth formed an O of surprise, and then she flung herself into Thomas’s arms. “Why are you wearing that gown? Where are we going? Anne, why do you look like a guard? Oh, I’m so glad you’re both here.” She held Thomas tighter, her voice full of emotion. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”
“I’m right here,” Thomas said, hugging her back. He looked over his shoulder at Anne, who sighed, knowing it was up to her to destroy this moment.
“Kat, I need you to get dressed.” Anne quickly shed her outer uniform and passed it to Kat. “You and I have to leave before anyone notices Thomas is missing.”
Kat began pulling on the clothes but gave Anne a questioning look. “What do you mean, before they notice?”
“We’ve made it look like Thomas has escaped,” Anne explained. “I will glamour him to look just like you, so after you and I leave, Henry will still believe you’re here.”
“So we’ll have to come back for Thomas, then?”
Anne shook her head and said the next words as gently as she could. “No, darling. I’m so sorry. Thomas is…Thomas is going to stay.”
Kat froze, her fingers hovering over the last button of her tunic. She looked at Thomas. “What does that mean?”
He sighed and forced a tight smile. “It means I will serve out your sentence.”
Horror overtook Kat’s features, and she started to shake her head.
“This is a mercy,” Anne explained. “The punishment for a man who has committed treason is to be hanged, then drawn and quartered. Death by the executioner’s axe will be swift.”
“Death?” Kat shook her head faster. “No. No!”
Thomas touched Kat’s face with a tenderness that made Anne look away. “Please, my love. Please let me do this. You can’t save me, but I can save you.”
“You don’t have to do that. We’ll take you with us,” Kat argued. “Won’t we, Anne?”
Anne forced herself to meet Kat’s eyes. “We can’t,” she whispered. “We went through this a thousand times. We know what it takes to break free of Henry, and the cost is steep. He must believe you to be dead, believe it beyond a shadow of a doubt. It’s the only way.”
Kat’s gaze hardened. “But you promised. You promised you would keep Thomas safe.”
Thomas caught her in his arms when she lunged toward Anne. “Kat, your friend has already worked a miracle by getting in here. Don’t waste your chance at freedom for me.”
“She’s a witch. She should be able to do anything,” Kat replied. The fire was still in her eyes, and it hurt so badly to know Anne would be the one to extinguish the blaze.
“Look at me.” Thomas placed his fingers beneath Kat’s jaw, turning her face toward his. “This is the way it has to be. I need you to live, my love. More than anything.”
Kat’s voice was clogged with tears. “But I don’t want to live without you.”
They held each other for a long time, and finally Anne had to clear her throat. “I need to create the glamour,” she said. “Our time is running out.”
Thomas pulled back and kissed Kat’s forehead. “It’s all right. Go. I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t,” Kat argued.
“No, I suppose not. But you will be.” He stepped away and nodded to Anne. “I’m ready.”
The glamour took several long minutes to set, and Anne was soon sweating from the effort.
The curse was more complex to account not only for Thomas’s features to match Kat’s, but to adjust how others would see his height and hear his voice.
It was glamour on top of glamour, more than Anne had attempted for herself or Lina, and finally, when the nub of Anne’s missing pinkie was barking from the pain of the magick, she was done.
Kat—or at least a believable likeness of her—looked back at Anne, smiling with her smile and watching with her eyes.
When Thomas spoke, it was with Kat’s voice.
“This is a very strange feeling,” he said.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she said, hoping he knew how much she meant it.
She reached out to take Kat’s hand, but Kat brushed her off and stepped by, looking back at Thomas.
“I love you,” she said, heartbreak in every syllable. “I will always love you.”
“Until the end,” Thomas replied.
Kat covered her mouth, muffling her cry, and ran out of the room, Anne close behind.
“I’m so sorry—” Anne started to say, but Kat whirled around, her lower lip trembling and her cheeks stained with tears.
“No matter how long I live, no matter what you do, I will never, ever forgive you for this,” Kat whispered fiercely. “Never.”
Skip Notes
* I must agree. Though I occasionally miss the energy and optimism and, yes, the beauty of my youth, I would never suffer it again. Leave me my hard-earned wisdom and harder-earned self-assuredness, and I shall keep my wrinkles and gray hairs and aching bones.