Read Online Keeper of the King's Secrets by Michelle Diener - Free Book Online Page B

with feet dangling, his heart in his mouth.
    With a cry, the merchant leaped into the boat. Parker stopped and saw the boat rock wildly under the onslaught.
    The waterman held out his hand, and the merchant placed the gem in his palm.
    With a flip of his oar, the waterman spun the boat back into the maelstrom, and the boat was sucked through the arch.
    “To me! To me!” Parker dropped onto the pier, his throat raw as he shouted over the pounding noise. He lifted his money belt. “To me—King’s business!”
    At last a boat came forward, spinning twice before it reached the pier, hitting the stone with a crack of wood.
    Parker dropped into the small vessel, pushing himself back as his feet touched the bottom to make his impact less.
    “You landed better than t’other one.” The waterman spat. “Money?”
    “Aye.” Parker dug into his purse and produced three sovereigns. “King’s business. Follow them.”
    “Always wanted to work for the King.” The waterman chuckled and pushed them away from the swells at the pillar with an oar.
    For a moment they were in free spin, the water turning them as if they were in a whirlpool, and then, with a forcethat threw Parker’s head back and sent his cloak streaming behind him, the current grabbed hold of them and shot them like a rock from a catapult through the arch.
    Darkness and noise pressed against him from all sides, spray fell like hard rain, and then the Thames spat them out the other side.
    Parker looked over the side to see they were six feet above the water, plummeting down toward it.
    “Brace.” The waterman lifted his oars high but ready, and when they smacked down onto the surface he dipped them in and heaved, propelling the boat forward so the impact did not brake them too much and tip the front into the water.
    The relative quiet after the assault under the span gave Parker the sense he had lost his hearing.
    “Well, that was a good ’un.” The waterman laughed, the sound almost maniacal.
    Parker rose a little from his place at the back of the boat, searching for the merchant.
    And there he was, urging his waterman toward a small beach on the riverbank.
    “There will be no trouble for you,” he called out. “I only want some answers.”
    “I saw your chain of office under your cloak. What do you want? Me in the Tower?” the merchant called back from his boat.
    “What have you done, that you should fear the Tower?”
    “You were asking after Jens of Antwerp. Do you know what has happened to him? He is dead! And a thousand curses onhim. He has ruined me, brought the life I had here to an end.” His words bounced on the water with an echo.
    “What did he want of you?” Parker silently urged his waterman to go faster. They seemed no closer than they had been, and the merchant was almost to the shore. “I swear in the King’s name, if you answer me truly, I will not stop you leaving.”
    The merchant turned in his seat to face Parker. “He wanted passage on one of my ships. A way to slip out of the country. But he was not cautious enough. He was followed to my house, and I was called to answer to the Duke of Norfolk himself. I am ruined.”
    “Do you know what trouble Jens was in? Why he needed to leave so suddenly?”
    But the merchant had turned back and was looking at the shoreline, silent.
    Parker followed his line of sight and saw a figure in brown, hat pulled low, on the high part of the bank. His stomach dipped, rock-heavy, as he caught sight of the crossbow in the man’s hand.
    Someone hailed Parker from the left, and he saw Harry and Susanna running along the road toward him. Toward the assassin waiting on the bank.
    “Back!” At his shout, the merchant jerked, looking at him in fear.
    But Harry had seen, had grabbed Susanna and was pulling her toward St. Magnus Church, while the assassin weighed where to aim his bow. He swung toward her, but there were alreadycries and shouts of alarm from the crowds above as they noticed his