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He pushed her faster up the hill toward the green, which had been watered with the blood of traitors who had defied a king's will.
    With great effort, Meriel kept her tongue in her head, determined to retain both until she could get away, for she would get away from this evil condition, if only to death. Although she preferred something more pleasant and less permanent.
    They bent to enter at a low doorway and she was led past barred cells, some holding men in chains, who looked up hopefully and then sank back into their stinking straw. She heard groans and imagined, swallowing hard, that she smelled the acrid odor of blood over the other all-too-human odors. She was pushed round a corner and up narrow tower steps, circling past a series of landings with doors. She fought down waves of terror when again she heard the moans of men and a woman's cry. Or was it her too-vivid imagination? All her life she had heard stories of the bloody Tower; none of them she wanted to recall in detail at this moment or even the next.
    Dizzy from climbing, Meriel put out a hand and touched the scream-soaked stones, ancient and cold, then quickly withdrew her fingers, wiping them against her shift.
    Finally, Chiffinch opened a door at the very top and pushed her over the lintel.
    Meriel was amazed that there was a cheerily glowing fireplace and food steaming upon a trestle table before it. An older woman of a good thirty years was rising from a pallet against the wall to curtsy to her. To her?
    Meriel faced the spymaster. "If you don't intend to use me for your private pleasures, what do you intend? You must tell my master where I am, for he will look—"
    "You have a confident air for one born so low," Chiffinch said, his eyelids drooping but nonetheless seeing everything.
    "I begin to think me that I have not been mistaken in my plan."
    Before Meriel could scream, What plan! the heavy oaken door slammed shut. She quickly tried it, even as the huge lock clicked.
    Furious, she stomped to the window to jump, or to yell rape, but she saw that she was very much too high for the one and too without any rescuers for the other. '"Od's wrath!" she yelled, whirling on the other woman, who curtsied again. "Who are you, and what—"
    "My pardon, your ladyship, won't you please sit and break your fast. I have here some warm ale, cakes and haunch of good English beef."
    The woman's eyes were lowered as Mend's mouth dropped open in amazement. "Why do you call me that?"
    "Call you what, your ladyship?"
    "Your ladyship!"
    "Is that not the correct address for the Countess of Warborough?"

Chapter Four
A School for a Countess

    The sun was setting through the stone mullioned window when two Tower yeoman guards came for her. She had paced miles back and forth in the room, but had also eaten well, sensibly deciding that she could not escape if weakened by starvation. And the odor of fresh bread, still warm, was irresistible, as it had always been. Orphans learn early that food is never to be rejected for reasons of temper. Or any reason.
    The maid, who said her name was Agnes, although Meriel could pry little else from the sly wench, had helped her into a dress that Meriel recognized immediately. It was heavy lilac velvet trimmed in large gray pearls, and as she put it on Meriel could smell the lavender scent of its former owner. It was indeed the same gown worn by Lady Felice the night before as she danced the sarabande with her husband, Lord Giles Harringdon.
    An image of the tall earl, moving stiffly with his partner in a body that seemed made for grace and lithe movement, came at once to her mind. Or perhaps had never left it as the features she'd adored for so long were never far from her thoughts. Hey, well, I always try to be honest with myself, or what is the purpose of a mind?
    But how came the dress to be here in the Tower and not on Felice? And why should Agnes playact that Meriel was the Countess Felice?
    Meriel sneezed violently, and Agnes rushed to