Free Traitor's Kiss by Pauline Francis

will have those trees chopped down to make your wood pile and you will burn on Tower Hill long before you get to hell.”
    His attendants would have handled me as roughly as a common beggar, but he signalled them to leave me, as he did. “May God protect you, Your Grace,” he whispered, “and lead you to the truth.”
    Only Alys could do that. But without Francis, I did not know where she was. And if I found out, could I trust her now? Or did she seek to put her son on the throne of England?

Chapter Eight

    I went down to the river, watching the winter’s day deepen into dusk from the water steps. Usually this is my favourite time of the year, when all is icy sheen on land and water. The Thames shimmered under its thin crust of ice. Beyond, barges jostled for space at the moorings, their bargemen huddled over warming ale.
    The Romans called it Tamesis, the dark river. In my mind it was now the river of the dead.
    The clouds thinned and parted. A full moon spilled its glorious light onto the water. I fancied that the moon was my mother’s head floating free. She used to look at me with love and kiss me all the time and cool my feet in the fountain…I remember it all now…so why did she choose, at the last moment, to annul her marriage to my father and leave me without a royal name?
    I stared into the glittering water that could take me to Alys, taking care not to fall in, for I knew that the weight of my furs would drag me down to the mud. She could tell me the secrets of my mother’s soul, as no perfume could.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be worth the trouble of throwing yourself in, for I’d pull you out,” a voice said. It was a gentle voice with a French accent. “It would be rich pickings for me though – a Princess.”
    So silently had his little boat drifted to the water steps that I smelled Francis before I saw him – the stench of death and decay that I had smelled when I first met him. He held up his lantern with bare hands that were clawed with cold. His pinched face flared with sores.
    â€œThe river always gives up its dead, however long it takes,” he said. “And when you float to the surface your body’s bloated with stinking water and your eye sockets scuttle with crabs…”
    Part of me had longed to see him again, for nobody but his mother could tell me what I wanted to know. And part of me was consumed by anger that he had dared to show his face again. I glanced towards the guards at the top of the water steps. They would not move unless I commanded them, although they watched my every move. “If you do not tell me who you really are, I shall have you arrested now,” I said. “I only have to shout one word – treason – and they’ll take you to the Tower.”
    â€œShout it then, if that’s what you want.” His lantern rattled as the boat bobbed. Francis looked as wretched as those he pulled from the water.
    I leaned towards him, straining to be heard above the noise of the bargemen. “So is it true? Are you my father’s natural son?” I wanted him to deny it.
    â€œYes. Does it matter?”
    â€œOf course it does. It smacks of conspiracy.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Is it a conspiracy when a woman sacrifices her own reputation for the woman she serves?” he asked. “Do you know that a man can’t lie with his wife when she’s with child? It’s against the church’s teaching.”
    Could he see my blush in the near-darkness? “Of course I do,” I said, although I did not know it.
    â€œThat’s when men often take mistresses, especially kings. When your mother was with child – with you – your mother chose mine to lie with your father until you were born. It’s common practice. For your father, this was almost the same as being faithful to your mother. For her, it was a way of keeping her husband close by.”
    â€œSo we