by Karen Harper
“Staff is back already, Mary. Your father has not returned from visiting Wolsey at Lambeth, but he took a barge and as it gets pitch black soon, he should be back any time. We left word for him. He will be here directly when he catches wind of all this.” The triumphant laughter was gone from Will’s weary voice at the thought of his father-in-law’s anger. He threw his cloak on a chair and went back into the sitting room.
In the dimness of the bedchamber, Mary washed her face and smoothed her tousled hair. She peered at her face in the gray mirror, a face they said that had never learned to hide and dissimulate, to pretend indifference or joy as was proper etiquette at court. What was it the old Italian master of the French king had told her about pain in her eyes? Old Master da Vinci and Staff—they had always seen things clearly.
“Mary. Is the child all right? Are you coming out here? There are several things we must discuss before we face your father. I will not have him badgering me.”
She went out immediately. And what about his badgering me, my protector husband, she wanted to demand. “You will wake Catherine if you do not keep your voice down,” she said only.
Neither of the men moved at her words. Staff and Will sat at the large oaken table, Will slumped over it, Staff leaning back with his long legs stretched out under the table. Will’s back was to her. She took the chair that Staff offered her without rising. He sloshed red wine in her cup, and she drank it straight down.
“Maybe we should all be drunk when he arrives,” Will observed impassively. Staff grunted. He poured Mary another cupful.
“I wish we could go to Hever,” she said quietly.
“Home to mother,” Will jibed. Then he added, “That is out, totally out. We are about to become personae non gratae with your father as well as the king, just as though we had never been the Bullens’ bread and butter for these past five years.”
Mary no longer felt the urge to argue such accusations. “I know we cannot go to Hever, Will. I just said I wished we could.”
“And,” Staff put in, reaching his arm for more wine for himself, “it is very likely that His Grace may pursue Anne there, and it would hardly do for the lovely sister and ex-mistress to be under foot.”
“He will never pursue Anne further,” Will countered. “Did you not see the livid look on his face and the hatred in his eyes this morning when she stood up to him? When Thomas Bullen figures it out, he will probably hope that Mary can win back His Grace despite our banishment. The little ice goddess Anne will have none of her king in bed, and His Grace knows it. He will glut his prideful, lusty maw with the first pretty face and body he sees tomorrow, mark my words.”
“Perhaps, Will, but when he slakes his thirst that way, what then? Boredom sets in. You know him. He is a hunter and relishes a challenge, even the distant danger of defeat. That is the only reason he puts up with me on the tennis court or at the butts. Unlike some, he gets truly bored with sweetness and compliance.” He gave Mary a warm glance when he saw Will staring down into his goblet. “Unlike some men, he may be entranced by the little witch, for to some, stormy days are more loved than clear, golden ones.” He moved his muscular thigh gently against Mary’s leg under the table, a tiny caress, then took it back. His face was impassive when Will looked up from his cup.
“Will you tell Lord Bullen of your thoughts, Staff?”
“Only if he asks directly or threatens to dangle Mary in front of the royal nose again. She has had enough and is well out of it, Will.”
“But suppose it is necessary, Stafford,” Will said, his voice taking on a new edge. “Your family position is not involved. That is fine for you to say. Or,” his fingers drummed loudly on the table, “do you have other interests in this? You are not the only one who observes the behavior of other men, you know.”
Mary’s fingers tightened around the metal stem of her goblet. Surely Will had never seen them alone together. They had never been alone enough for Will to suspect, and there had been no consummation of their love.
“I have an interest in this, Will. For a friend I have had for years and of his wife, whom I care for too.” They stared long at each other across the narrow table, and Mary held her breath.
“I am sorry, Staff. It is all getting to me. That damned George asked me to stay close to him and Anne today without telling me why and it was me, not him, His Grace shoved out of the way when his temper snapped. It is a hard thing, to work so hard for favor, and have it ruined through no fault of one’s own. Eleanor and I had such hopes.”
Mary drained her wine cup and put it down hard on the table. Staff said slowly, “You care too much, Will. Do not let His Grace’s quicksilver moods ruin your chances for happiness.”
“And you, friend Stafford, do you care for nothing? Is it so easy for you to let go of a dream?”
Mary’s eyes filled with tears, and as she poured herself more wine, she interrupted shakily. “I only want you to promise me one thing, Will, please.”
Will swung his eyes from Staff’s calm face to her impassioned one, hardly guessing the real cause of her tearful look.
“I want you to promise me that you will not allow my father to use our son as a bribe or wedge on His Grace. Keep little Harry out of it.”
“And you, madam, do you wish to be kept out of it, if your father insists?” he probed.
“I can try to fend for myself against him, Will. Our son Harry cannot.”
“When have you ever fended against your father, golden Mary?” Will asked coldly. “We shall see.”
“I think we shall see now, Will,” Staff interrupted and rose quickly to his feet. Hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor and a fist rapped twice on the door.
Will stood slowly and Staff retreated, with his cup, to a chair along the wall. Mary swung open the door and curtseyed.
Her father and Uncle Norfolk burst into the room bringing a draft of chill air, as though they had come straight from outside. “Well, the rumors are at Wolsey’s door already, and I am certain the grand cardinal was pleased to think that the upstart Bullens could fall through the foolishness of a mere girl. I brought your uncle. This mess may take more than my head to put right.” His still-gloved hand lifted in the direction of Staff. “I see you are here with them, Stafford. I sometimes think you have observed His Gracious Majesty as well as I. You may stay. Perhaps I can get straight answers out of you if my own family is as wayward as usual.”
He sat in Staff’s vacated seat and threw his hat into middle of the table. Norfolk draped his furred cloak over the back of Will’s chair and sat against it silently, his eyes darting from Will to Mary, who closed the door.
“Well, where is she?” Lord Bullen demanded. “She refused him, they say. Where did he send her? Is she back here with you?”
“Anne and George have gone to Hever, father,” Mary said behind him, and he swiveled in his seat to stare up at her grim-faced.
“And I suppose you were not even on his arm, or were sour-faced and sad to be near His Grace as you have been the past year. You lost him, girl. You let all this happen.”
“Mary held him for five years, my lord,” Will responded quietly, and Thomas Bullen shot him a frown.
“Well, obviously, that is all water over the mill dam now, Carey. So we must regroup and go on from here. He said he wanted all the Bullens to get out of his sight?”
There was a silence and Mary could tell that Will was hesitating to tell him of the shove the king had given him, which he clearly interpreted as the banishment of the Careys with the Bullens.
“Well, Stafford?” Thomas Bullen swung his gaze to the tall man sitting against the wall. “I knew I could not depend on rationality here when we are so desperately in need of it. How did you interpret it? Can Mary stay? To try again?”
Staff strode to the table and leaned his hands upon it, towering over Bullen and the avid Norfolk, who had not yet spoken a word. “I shall tell it to you as I see it, my lord. Mary dare not stay, at least for now. If Will complies wi
th the implication of His Grace’s meaning, they should retire for a while, and they may very well be welcomed back later as part of the court. I think the king feels no enmity toward Mary and will not unless she becomes an embarrassment to him if he decides to pursue Anne further.”
“Ah,” Bullen let out breathlessly, before his eager eyes became impassive again.
Stafford paused as though to let the possibility sink in. “Anne is the cause of the unrest, my lord. The king is hurt, but I believe the hurt may turn to challenge. It is not impossible that the king may choose to hunt a doe in the quiet gardens of Hever as he did in the noisy forests of Eltham.” Staff straightened as though the lecture were complete. “He has done so before, I remember.”
Norfolk’s deep voice broke the pause. “Then, Thomas, there is the possibility of Anne. I cannot believe Anne could hold him over Mary’s beauty, but we have seen it—His Grace is bored all the time now, with the queen, with his future.”
“And Anne can be made to see the error of her ways,” Thomas Bullen intoned. “Damn the willful wench to lead him on and deny him in public. It is worse than the nightmare of Elizabeth’s refusal.”
Mary shuddered at the outright mention of the family secret she had heard her parents discuss so long ago, when she was first sent away from Hever. Will stood impassive, and Staff retreated against the wall. Unheeding, the two men huddled over the table in earnest conversation, as though there were no one else in the room. Mary strode over to Staff and drank from his cup. She had had much wine, more than usual, and she felt dizzy, but she did not care. She did not care about anything as long as they left her children out of it and she did not have to return to the smothering arms of the king.
The low buzzing of their talk ceased, Will was the only one close enough to hear what they had been saying and he stood frozen, like a statue, near the table.
“You think Carey may come back to court after a time?” Bullen questioned again, turning to Staff and speaking as if Will were not standing only five feet away.
“Yes, milord. Especially if they get away before his return.”
“But if Anne should come back to court?”
“Will’s position as Esquire should not be in danger, even if Anne should return. The king will only promote a Gentleman Usher to do the work while Will is away. I think I can see to that. And why should the king’s new mistress not ask for her sister to come back to live at court if worse comes to worse? It will not touch His Grace’s scruples, and it will be as though Mary were never in his bed. You have seen it, Lord Bullen. You know it to be true.”
“Exactly. Then I am off to Hever tomorrow to deal with the foolish baggage who has caused all this upheaval. Damn it, Norfolk, her mother always did spoil her and cling to the girl as the last of the brood. She said she would never live with me again if I sent Anne to France younger than I had Mary. It is the only time I ever gave in to the woman. I waited over two years past when Anne should have been at Francois’s court with Mary.”
Norfolk nodded as he spoke. “Yes, Thomas. Mary has always been as sensible as she is beautiful. But I have hardly known Anne since that crazy Percy affair. Something broke in her then, I think. I wish you God’s help in dealing with the sticky situation.”
Thomas Bullen rose to go, as though all were settled, then spun back to Will, who still seemed dazed by it all. “See that you are gone before the retinue arrives, Will. To Plashy, I think, since the house is better there than the one in Lancaster.”
“I had thought Plashy. If you can use your influence, be certain my household position awaits me when we come back.” Will’s voice was strangely forlorn, not bitter or taunting as Mary had expected when he faced her father. He had not seen Thomas Bullen as crushed by the news as he had hoped. He is astounded at the Bullen resiliency, she thought.
“Then I will contact you there when it is safe to return. And, Will,” Thomas Bullen added as he and Norfolk turned at the open door, “do not fear for your precious position. I have the surest feeling that your friend William Stafford will hold it secure for you until your return. And then there is always the child if His Grace does not forgive Anne her foolishness.”
Mary’s head jerked up from her cup. “Father, wait.” Staff reached for her arm, but she was too quick for him as she moved unsteadily toward the two men.
“If Anne is wise and strong enough to stand up to your counseling as I have never been, then I am all for her. That is a battle she must fight for herself But if she will not be your pawn as I have been so faithfully all these lonely years, then I tell you now, sensible little golden Mary will never allow you to use her son to buy favors with the king. Never.”
Thomas Bullen’s dark eyes widened suddenly and then narrowed to slits of blackness in the dim room. “I spare you my anger, Mary, because exile and the loss of those things with which you have been surrounded are hard to accept. Go off to Plashy with Will, think it over and remember to keep your tongue. I want no silly letters to the king. You have been a good soldier, girl, but admit it. Your rewards have been great. Good night, Mary.”
“I may have been a good soldier to you, father, but to me, I have been a damned fool! I hope Anne tells you to go to the devil! You wanted to send her away to Ireland. You stood there while she was ripped apart from Harry Percy. You married George to that treacherous Rochford woman.” Sobs tore at her throat and tears coursed jaggedly down her flushed cheeks.
Staff was the first to reach her as her father grabbed her arms and shook her. He shoved her against Stafford, but his toneless voice addressed Will. “Your wife is drunk, I think, Carey. You had best calm her hysteria before she gets on the subject of her own marriage of which I was hardly the cause. See to her.”
The door slammed behind him. Mary seized Staff’s arms and pushed her wet face against his soiled velvet chest as Will stood silent, watching his impassive friend comfort his sobbing wife.
PART THREE
A Lover’s Vow
Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green,
Or where his beams may not dissolve the ice,
In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen;
With proud people, in presence sad and wise,
Set me in base, or yet in high degree;
In the long night, or in the shortest day;
In clear weather, or where mists thickest be;
In lusty youth, or when my hairs be gray;
Set me in earth, in heaven, or yet in hell;
In hill, in dale, or in the foaming flood;
Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell;
Sick or in health, in ill fame or in good;
Yours will I be, and with that only thought
Comfort myself when that my hap is naught.
—Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
CHAPTER NINETEEN
December 28, 1527
Greenwich
The single narrow window in the bedchamber Mary shared with Will looked over the stretch of lawn to the now-deserted bowling greens and beyond to the gray Thames. She was grateful her friend Mary Tudor had allowed that little Catherine could share the spacious royal nursery with Margaret, the love child from her beloved Duke of Suffolk. Mary turned, leaned against the window ledge and surveyed the irregular, cramped quarters wedged in the far northwest corner of mazelike Greenwich before the kitchen block began. Isolated quarters were a far cry from the fine chambers that were theirs when she had been the king’s mistress. And a far cry from a year ago during the Twelve Days of Christmas at lonely Plashy in Northampton.
Mary sat again at the small drop leaf table and balanced her hand mirror against the wine jug. There was no room here for an elaborate dressing table with its rows of cut glass bottles and polished framed mirror. Father had said that, because of Will’s reinstatement as Esquire to the Body, they would probably be given other quarters later, but she did not really believe it. Except for Mary Tudor and her mother, who was here as companion to Anne, she had seen no one of importa
nce since they had arrived late last night. And tonight at Christmas revels she would have to hold up her head and face them all—proud Anne and the king who forgot everything so easily. And Staff. She bit her lip hard to keep the tears from welling and ruining her newly applied eye color. Surely Staff would be there with some adoring woman on his arm.
She saw it all then—not the small chamber at Greenwich to which they had returned—but the wood-beamed hall of the modest manor house at Plashy only a month after they had fled the king’s wrath. Staff had ridden to Northampton to see them, and she had fought to control the ecstasy she felt to be near him again. He had supped with them so close across the trestle table and told them all the news of how the prideful king had bedded three ladies of the court in quick succession. Then he had turned restive again and had ridden off to Eltham to hunt. But Eltham was only a morning ride from Hever, as well they all knew. His pursuit of a Bullen was on again, but Anne had held her ground firm, against her father’s counseling.
Still, it was hardly the news of her sister or the king she had cherished that sunny day more than a year ago when William Stafford had visited Plashy. It was the sight of his rakish smile and the smell of his leather jerkin when she poured his wine.
But Will was watchful and not to be fooled. He saw her love for Staff on her face and in her eyes when he rode in that second time. He was cold to Staff and bitterly cruel to her. If it had not been for the fact that he knew his friend held his position safe for him in his absence, and had he not trusted Staff’s lack of ambition to advance himself through it, she was not sure what he might have done to her. So through the months she lived at quiet Plashy with an embittered husband and a growing daughter, she guarded her face and hid her aching love deep in her thoughts.
