by Karen Harper
Many of Mary’s ladies wept. Mary looked pale and ill. I knew she had not liked Cat Howard and that she planned to ask her father if she could be his hostess at court now that he had no queen, but she looked sincerely grieved. Who would not, hearing that her sire, whose blood ran in her veins, had brutally set aside yet another wife? Mary’s beloved mother, cruelly divorced; Anne Boleyn, beheaded on what many yet whispered were trumped-up charges; Anne of Cleves, bought off and set aside; and foolish, frivolous Cat Howard, however unfaithful, beheaded too. May God help, I thought, the next woman Henry Tudor turned his amorous, amoral attentions upon.
Though sitting stoic through it all—perhaps newly sobered by Anthony’s news or Alice’s fears I would wed him but loved another—I finally shed my own tears when I heard where the queen had been hastily buried. Her once pretty, plump body and head lay beneath the paving stones of the same small church in the Tower precincts where they had put my father.
After supper that evening and some privy time he spent with Mary Tudor, Anthony sought me out and walked me off alone from the others. Talk was muted that evening; the winter wind howling as if in mourning and the crackle of the fire in the huge hearth were enough to drown out the mostly female voices.
“My dearest,” he said, seating us on a padded bench under a frosty oriel window and taking my cold hands in his big, warm ones, “I know this has been hard for you to hear, and I pray you will not think what befell the king’s marriage is a bad omen for another young woman wedding an older man. I mean in my own suit for your favors and hand, of course.”
“You have my assurance there were no privy secretaries or fond fellows about my chambers while I was growing up—only my brothers, to whom I am still loyal.”
“Yes, yes, of course, as I would expect you to be. That is, unless they gainsay the king. But, I assure you, if Gerald, in Italy or France, would come home here—”
“Ireland is his home.”
“I mean, of course, to England, to throw himself upon the king’s mercy . . .”
I could not help it. I yanked my hands back and stood, crossing my arms over my chest and thrusting my fists under my armpits. “The king’s mercy?” I cried, much too loudly. “Forgive me, my lord, but I have seen little of that.”
“Gera, on the scaffold, Cat Howard made a speech that she sinned grievously against him, that she deserved her fate. And so did others.”
I sat down beside him again so hard my skirts whooshed out air. “Be that as it may,” I insisted, “I know some he has executed did naught but belong to a large family where one member rebelled and took the rest down with him.”
“I know, my dearest, I know it is bitter yet for you. And you know that I am full loyal to my longtime friend Henry Tudor. So I must have your word that, should we wed, you would treat him with proper deference and loyalty, else it could be my downfall too, for through me you would be drawn into his closest circle.”
Edward Clinton had been right to warn me. Marriage to Anthony Browne meant easy access to the king. Why must Edward see everything so clearly when it came to me? But perhaps he had studied me as I had him.
“Gera? I am not yet asking for your hand, but I am asking if I should continue to court you in the most serious and passionate way.”
“You told us this evening that the king commanded Surrey to attend his cousin’s bloody death.”
“Yes, but what has that to do with us?”
“I have seen even kin betray others in my own family, no doubt at the bequest of the king, your dear friend, just as he forced Surrey to appear to approve his cousin’s death.”
“Gera, you think too deeply for a woman. Besides, Leonard Grey paid the price for his high-handed ways and other missteps.”
“More than missteps. But I would never do that—betray my family, whether it be my brother Gerald, the rightful Eleventh Earl of Fitzgerald, or my deaf and dumb sister—or you, if I wed you, my lord.”
His eyes shone glassy with tears as he pulled me to him, sliding our thighs together on the alcove seat in a hard hug. “Then you will get on with the king for me—not like you treated John Dudley, with cold disdain? As for your brother Gerald, if he returns, I will do my best to see he is reconciled with the king, for he was yet young, as were you, at the time of the Fitzgerald rebellion. And your deaf and dumb sister is welcome to come to live in my household, a new, united family, I pray, with children of our own.”
Children of our own—that would bind us, make me care for him more; surely it would. But my children would be as much Fitzgerald as Browne, as much Irish as English, I swore to myself that night, as I composed myself to make the answer I knew would seal my future with this man—and get me closer to the king.
“I swear I will get on with the king in any public occasion and keep my secrets to myself, my lord.”
“Then I shall formally sue for your hand when you return to court, when the rough times are smoothed there again!” he cried, and took my chin in his big hand to position me for a devouring kiss. Strange, but it did not make me feel I rode wild waves, as the merest look or touch from Edward did. But that was best. I must keep my cause and my head clear, not be swamped by desires I could not control.
So that night, I yielded to Sir Anthony Browne, king’s man, my lips but not my heart. The die, as Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon River into enemy territory he wanted to invade, was cast. Yes, I would wed this man. I would not only get on with Henry Tudor but ingratiate myself with him. But had not Anthony heard that I would keep my secrets to myself? And that meant I would still stoke my hatred of his king and find a way to bring him Fitzgerald justice, albeit, of necessity now, in secret too.
With all the talk of the queen’s beheading, I should have known I would have my nightmare again. That very night it came to haunt me. Trapped in the cellars of Maynooth while bombardment exploded overhead, I tried to hold The Red Book of Kildare to me, to keep it dry above the water streaming past with the heads in it . . . tried to find Gerald in the flood, to tell him to flee, to beware the betrayal of the Tudor king. My father’s face, my uncles’, and Silken Thomas’s went past, all shouting, “A Geraldine! A Geraldine!” Then foolish Cat Howard’s head spun by as she clutched the ruby red necklace around her neck, screaming at me, “Do not wed for power and fame. . . . Wed the one you love, the one you love. . . .”
I thought I screamed aloud as I awoke, but no one else in our bedchamber stirred. When my heartbeat slowed, I heard gentle breathing. Mabel had the covers clutched tight around her like a little tent, my dear friend and future stepdaughter.
I lay there, perspiring, and tried to calm myself. My once vague plans were coming together now. I would wed a wealthy man who had easy access to the king. We would live at court, where I could find an unguarded privy moment to stop this king’s cruelties—and the dreadful nightmare that had stalked me for years. Surely it would go away when I made Henry Tudor pay for his sins against my family, when I got Gerald home and back to Maynooth—someday, somehow. Anthony had said I could have Margaret with me, at least when we were at our own properties, though not at court, which would have disturbed her anyway.
Disturbed . . . that dream always disturbed me. Why could I not forget it when I awoke, or even the next day, like other dreams that fled at dawn? Why could I not forget Edward Clinton, whom I knew cared for me too, though we were ships passing in the night? Wed to others, we would never again steer a ship together, let alone our lives.
Tears ran from the corners of my eyes into my hairline and my ears. Suddenly I longed for them all—not only Edward, but also Father and Mother, so in love with each other, Gerald, Margaret, my brother Edward, Cecily, Magheen, still mourning the separation from her Collum, who had stayed with Gerald these long years. Uncle James, all my uncles. My dear pet, Wynne. How I missed Maynooth of Kildare!
I stayed awake till the dim dawn, afraid the dreadful dream would return if I slept. Yet in a semisleep, to comfort myself, I danced through memories of
two places precious in my heart, Edward’s Lincolnshire and my Ireland.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON
March 1542
“His Majesty wishes a privy interview, Lady Gera,” Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, whispered in my ear, startling me, since I had not noted his approach. I looked up from the cards on the table and saw the king beckoning me from across the room, where he sat alone.
Henry Tudor, to my delight, had seemed a broken man when we had first returned to court a fortnight ago. He had gained even more weight, his leg abscess pained him and stank, and he hobbled about on his cane. The once great warrior and jouster had to be winched up by a machine to sit on a horse. His daughter and hostess, my mistress Mary, had tried to placate him, but to no avail. He was bitter, mean-spirited, and seething with fury.
So was all that enough to slake my thirst for revenge? No, never, so I bided my time, learning all I could, including following Anthony one evening after he had kissed me good-night at my chamber door. He had been hastily summoned to the king, and my hunch was correct: He went into the king’s rooms—perhaps to his hidden rooms I had heard of—from the narrow back servants’ hall through a door with no knob or visible hinges that simply looked to be another wainscoted panel. I had not dared to try it, lest Anthony or another should meet me on my way in. But there would be a time for it, I vowed.
Since I had decided to act in secret against the king, what better way than a secret passage into his presence? When I confronted him, I must not simply surprise him—strike from behind—for he must know the reason for my retribution. Yet I was haunted with the thought that I would be stooping to his level to try to ruin him and grieve his family.
The night Henry Tudor summoned me to his table, all his closest courtiers, now including me, were gaming in the king’s presence chamber. I had been winning wildly at Gleek again, this time with Anthony’s money, so I assumed the king would tease or berate me for that, as he had before.
“Yes, sire?” I said as I approached where he sat at a black velvet-covered table slightly separate from the rest of us. He had been playing with his three closest favorites, my betrothed, master of the king’s horse, whom I would soon wed; Sir Anthony Denny, chief gentleman of the privy chamber, who also controlled access to the king and organized his finances through control of the privy purse; and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had fetched me. All three of them had left the table for some reason and were now nowhere in sight.
“Winning again, Lady Gera?” Henry Tudor asked, snagging my wrist to pull me up from my curtsy and seat me in the chair next to and facing him. I resented calling him anything but tyrant, bowing my knee to him, and his calling me Gera, but I forced a smile and addressed him properly.
“Fortune seems to fall my way, Your Grace, but only when I am at the gaming tables.”
“Not pleased with your betrothal, you mean?” he challenged, pulling me forward in my chair so my skirt bumped his knees. He was getting hard of hearing, and I had seen him wear German-made spectacles when he read, though he was too vain to use them in public. Why did Anthony not come back to the table? I was so close to this man, the bane of us Geraldines, that I could smell his leg pus soaking through his stocking and hear him rasp to breathe. I was so close I could have clawed his eyes out.
“Of course I am pleased with my betrothed, Your Grace. It is only that once someone said to me when I won a pot of coins that it was ‘the luck of the Irish,’ and the Irish—my Irish—have had little of that.”
“Ah, yes, the sad fate of the Geraldines,” he said, as if he were not at all mindful of my past, when I knew he and Anthony had recently discussed it. “But you uphold their honor, very prettily too, if I do say so.”
With his hand that did not hold my wrist, he reached over and turned my face one way to the side and then the other in the most intimate of scrutinies. “Tudor coloring—much like my girl Elizabeth’s—but a most unique face. Surrey may speak and write drivel much of the time, but he was right about ‘The Fair Geraldine.’ Hell’s gates, girl, if you were a bit older, and I a bit younger—and you did not have the Browne brand on you, of course—we would dance a pretty tune in more ways than one.”
He dared to ogle me, down, up, the lewdster. I felt frozen in horror and revulsion. Was this how blatantly he had examined Edward’s first wife, Bessie Blount, then the Boleyn sisters, poor Cat Howard, and countless others before bedding or wedding them? And I was stunned to realize that, if such a clandestine tryst would give me the time and place to kill him, I would consider it.
Thank God, he did not ask me if I would have liked such attention from him, for I feared I would be sick to my stomach and my very soul. Or could he be testing my loyalty to his longtime friend Anthony? Could that be why they had all cleared this table so he could speak with me privily? Surely they had not been placing wagers on what I would say!
I stared at his hand snaring my wrist. That square, freckled hand with reddish hairs was the very one that had signed the Act of Attainder, which still stood against my family. That hand had approved with the stroke of a pen my father’s imprisonment and the cruel public deaths of my half brother and uncles and the despoiling of Maynooth and Fitzgerald holdings.
Lest I say what I was really thinking, I managed to get out, “I hope I will bring good fortune not only to my lord Anthony but also to both of us as we serve you together over the years, Your Grace.”
Henry nodded, and his mouth crimped in the slightest hint of a smile. “Will you summon your brother Gerald home for your wedding then?”
That shocked me anew. “I have been told he moves about a great deal, seeking a fine education, so I would not know where to send to invite him.”
“Ah, a pity. Well, do your best with that, for we would like to meet him, and what more auspicious occasion than a wedding linking his sister to a dear friend of the king of Ireland.”
I almost screamed out, You murderer! You are not the king of Ireland! But I repeated what was sadly the truth. “Your Grace, I’m not certain how to send him word, though I would love to have him here on my special day.”
He didn’t believe me the first time or the second, of course. He almost look amused at our little joust as he said, “Tell him, should you get some inkling of his wanderings, that he should bring The Red Book of Kildare with him and much will be forgiven. My Irish representatives need the names in it for proper taxation; that is all.”
I knew he lied, just as Uncle Leonard had when he invited my uncles to Dublin to forge a truce. At last the king loosed my wrist. My hand tingled as blood rushed back into it. I thanked God and Saint Brigid that distant Beaumanoir had that precious heirloom book buried under a hedge. The manor had been forfeit to the crown, so my sisters had moved into Bradgate to be reared with Lady Jane Grey and her sisters. After all these years, only I and Magheen, who detested Henry Tudor too, knew where The Red Book of Kildare lay.
“Well,” the king said as I rose and curtsied, “Sir Anthony is a lucky man. Lady Gera, I would like you to stay on at court to serve a special woman who is coming to live among us at my bequest, Lady Latimer, Katherine Parr, a lovely and proper widow. She has said she would like to have both my daughters with us too. You, of course, know the Lady Mary well, but resemble more the Lady Elizabeth, flibbertigibbet that she is, so perhaps I will put you in my youngest girl’s household.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I would be happy to serve the lady Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth of England, the unloved Anne Boleyn’s girl, was beloved by the masses. And though I’d heard the king mistrusted Elizabeth’s demeanor because her mother, so he claimed, had been a flirt and a whore, Mary had expressed some affection and admiration for her half sister. She had told me that the girl was a serious scholar, hardly a ninnyhammer like Cat Howard, however much the king now seemed to trust no young woman.
As for Lady Latimer, Katherine Parr, the rumors I had silently scoffed at could be true: The king inten
ded to take a sixth wife. But I had also heard she had beseeched him to make her his mistress and not his wife, just the opposite ploy of the two Howard family queens. Wise woman, Katherine Parr, I thought, not wanting to take on such a dangerous marriage, but perhaps there was a second reason, so court tittle-tattle said. She had been courted by and was quite smitten with the roguish, handsome Tom Seymour, a naval man too, one of Queen Jane Seymour’s brothers, the uncles of Prince Edward.
How stupid and arrogant of Henry Tudor to think that any woman could want him for himself now, I fumed, gazing at the bruise on my wrist as I curtsied again and walked away. Without knowing Katherine Parr, I forthwith felt a certain sisterhood with her. She too knew to tread carefully at this court. And if she wed an old man but loved a dashing, younger sea captain, I understood her to the very depths of my being.
On July 12, 1543, Henry Tudor wed Kathrine Parr, Lady Latimer, at Hampton Court Palace. The king’s three children were in attendance, and I could see each from the side pew in which I sat next to Anthony. Prince Edward, for once without his long-faced, bearded uncle Edward Seymour hovering over him, perched proudly in the front pew. Needless to say, his other uncle, Thomas Seymour, who had avidly courted today’s bride, was at sea and not expected back to court for a good long time.
Edward Clinton was also busy making a reputation for himself in the fleet. Or, when not at sea, visiting his family at Kyme and getting more children on Ursula. I heaved a silent sigh and forced my attention back to Bishop Gardiner’s reciting of the marriage vows I soon enough would exchange with my betrothed. The king had decreed our marriage would be at court also, with himself in attendance, but I still could not quite fathom it all.
