Keeper of the King’s Secrets

by Michelle Diener

  “You can arrange a war all on your own, can you?” The Comte’s mouth turned in a sneer, and his gaze was no longer on the blade against his cheek but on Parker’s face.

  “Aye. I can do just that.” Parker spoke with quiet conviction. “It will not be difficult to convince my king to do that which he is already considering.”

  The Comte looked away, down the table to where the last guest lay snoring into a dish of pastries.

  “Perhaps the clever thing would be to make sure you don’t get the chance?” The Comte turned back, his eyes blazing with triumph.

  The smug look of victory was a mistake.

  As Parker heard the crack of glass smashing, he lifted his arm and threw his knife at the guest who had risen, cake mashed into his cheek, a jagged wine bottle drawn back to throw.

  He dived left, too late, and the thud of the jagged bottle into his flesh was the only sound he could hear. White-hot pain seared down his arm, and then the shouts of the Comte pierced the thrumming of blood in his ears. A man screamed in agony, and something dropped to the floor with a clatter.

  His knife?

  Parker gritted his teeth and snaked under the table to retrieve it, sliding in blood.

  It was not all his.

  He rose cautiously, gripping the table. The assassin stood at an open window, panting, his face white against the night sky. He pressed a hand to his upper shoulder, blood staining his fingers, and Parker looked down and saw the bottle still buried high on his own right shoulder.

  He pulled it out by the neck, refusing to make a sound, then lifted his gaze to the window again, knife ready. But the assassin was gone.

  Parker looked after him, swaying. Then he blinked to clear his vision and turned to the door.

  “Where are you going?” The Comte was still crouched by the table, his words a whisper.

  Parker glanced at him. “Perhaps to start a war.”

  He threw the bottle, dripping with his blood, at the Comte’s feet.

  He looked like a Viking from the old sagas. Wild-eyed, blood stiff in his hair, caking his clothes.

  A dark stain sat high on his shoulder.

  He held his knife in one hand, as if he’d carried it across London, expecting immediate attack.

  Susanna had run into the hallway when she heard him on the front steps, and she stumbled to a stop, staring, as he closed the door behind him.

  He watched her, waiting to see what she would do. A spray of blood, fine as the pattern on a butterfly’s wing, decorated the ridge of his cheek.

  She felt a cry well up within her chest and she fought it, fought the way it wanted to twist her face, her mouth, and fill her eyes with tears.

  She went to him, gentle, careful, and he bent his face to hers. She kissed his lips lightly. She was too afraid to put her arms around him.

  “Can you walk to the study?”

  He nodded and she expected him to use her shoulder to lean on, but he walked under his own power, then sank down beside the fire.

  “I will get Peter Jack to call Maggie.”

  He started to protest, but she ignored him and walked out of the room to the kitchen.

  Peter Jack was already yawning and stumbling out of his room, roused by the sound of voices at the door.

  “Fetch Maggie.”

  He froze mid-stretch and his gaze went to the passageway. “Bad?”

  “Bad enough.” Susanna went straight to the hearth and took a jug to scoop up some hot water from the pot in the embers.

  Peter Jack had his boots on and his cloak about him by the time she had stoked the fire.

  “Bolt wound?” he asked.

  She shook her head, viciously stamping down the wail inside her, pressing her lips together and gulping as it tried to claw its way up.

  “Broken bottle.”

  The door slammed behind Peter Jack as he ran out, and she took a deep breath, trying to still her hands as she fumbled through a drawer for some clean cloths.

  Then she picked up the jug of water and walked carefully out of the room, watching to make sure she did not spill.

  There would be no more spilling tonight. No water, no tears.

  No blood.

  19

  Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.

  —Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25

  It was like old days, Parker thought. He would get into trouble, and Maggie would patch him up.

  She glared at him now, stirring something with a little pestle. “I thought this kind of thing was over, when you became a fine gentleman for the King.”

  Parker looked down at his shirt lying on the floor, cut to ribbons, and at the deep cuts in his shoulder. “The King’s business is not all courtly dances and days at the joust.”

  Maggie snorted. Her tiny sylph of an assistant stepped forward with a jug of water, and Maggie held the mortar out for her to pour in a splash.

  “Will it heal well?” Susanna sounded as though she were fighting something when she spoke. Every word was measured.

  “Aye.” Maggie looked disgusted, as if she’d hoped it were otherwise. “Nothing important was damaged, and he can feel down his arm to his fingertips, so he should make a full recovery if he keeps it clean.” She lifted up some of the mixture in the mortar with a spoon and dropped a little onto Parker’s shoulder.

  It was hot and it stung, and Parker swallowed a curse.

  “Keep putting this on every few hours,” Maggie told Susanna. She packed her things in quick, deft movements. “I get far too much business from this house.” She sniffed, and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Lock him up if you have to.” Then, with her assistant in tow, she sailed from the room.

  Parker closed his eyes, riding out the sting of the herb paste on his wound. He heard Maggie go through the kitchen and have a word with Mistress Greene, who’d woken when Peter Jack had returned with the healer. The house was a blaze of light, and it was not yet matins. The bells of St. Michael’s would not ring for a few more hours.

  The room was silent. The small sounds Susanna made as she gathered the jug of water and cloths she’d used to mop the blood from his shoulder had ceased, and he opened his eyes.

  She stood in the middle of the room, her hands full, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  He felt his heart rip.

  “My love.” He pushed out of his chair, forgetting his shoulder and staggering under the sudden stab of pain.

  Susanna dropped the jug with a clatter, pressing her hands to her mouth as if to still the trembling of her lips.

  “I am safe and well.” He slid his arms around her, wincing as the movement caused ripples of pain up his neck and down his arm.

  She said nothing, shaking in the circle of his arms without making a sound. His left hand stroked her back, and at last she breathed in deeply and lifted her head.

  “This cannot go on. It needs to end.” She spoke in a whisper.

  “I drew blood from him tonight. He will not easily lift a crossbow for a few days. It will give us some time.”

  She sighed and rested her head against his left shoulder. “What is Norfolk’s role in this, do you think?”

  Parker let the feel of her, the heat and flexible strength, seep into his tired body. “When Wyatt went to him about the Mirror, it was surely the best day of Norfolk’s life. If he could expose Wolsey to the King, catch him out with the Mirror of Naples …” Parker thought of the humiliation, the absolute disgrace that would come down on Wolsey. “It would be the triumph of Norfolk’s life at court.”

  “Norfolk must have had Jens followed, and through that, found the cloth merchant Jens had asked to provide passage out of England.” Susanna eased away and led him like a child back to his chair.

  “Aye.” Parker s
ank down gratefully. “Jens was either charged by Wolsey to be the courier of the Mirror to France, and was arranging passage with the merchant, or he had some other plan afoot. Perhaps he had even decided to flee without Wolsey’s knowledge.”

  Susanna rubbed her temples. “And Norfolk was either paying or blackmailing the merchant to give him information. To betray Jens.”

  “To catch Wolsey.” Parker closed his eyes. “Norfolk would not care who he ruined if it meant having Wolsey thrown from court. Or better yet, beheaded.”

  “So what happens now?” Susanna knelt beside him and took his hand in hers.

  “The French don’t have the Mirror. The Comte would have left with it already if they did. So either Wolsey has it, or he knows where it is. I’ll have to talk with him again.”

  “What happens if he won’t tell you?” She traced the back of his hand with her fingertips.

  Parker opened his eyes. “He will.”

  Wolsey’s red cardinal’s hat stood high and proud on his head. When it had been sent from Rome more than ten years earlier, Parker had heard it was received at Dover like royalty and accompanied to London in the same way. There had been a procession through the streets with it.

  Now it dipped and swayed as Wolsey stood at the altar in the chapel at Blackfriars. If rumor was right, the Queen had insisted on this ceremony to thank God for sparing the King’s life after his fall into the ditch.

  Her motives were no doubt sincere, but Parker knew the King did not want any reminders to the nobility that he could have died without a legitimate male heir. The only way to mitigate the damage was to keep it private and quiet. So though the Queen had wanted it held at St. Paul’s or Westminster, the King had persuaded her he would prefer a more personal, heartfelt ceremony among friends.

  Parker and Susanna’s invitation now gave Parker access to Wolsey, if he could get the Cardinal alone.

  Quiet ceremony or no, Wolsey had made use of the occasion to wear his red robes, to remind those present that he was the highest-ranking official of Rome in England.

  And you want to be higher. Parker watched Wolsey perform the rituals and wondered if he would ever attain his ambition. He was one of the King’s new men; like Parker himself, raised up from obscurity because of his ambition, intelligence, and hard work. They could have been natural allies, but Wolsey’s ego would suffer no rival. Parker had learned long ago that every honor that went to someone else, Wolsey considered stolen from him. He would have it all, even control of the Christian realm itself.

  Wolsey came to the end of his liturgy, and the congregation rose.

  The King and Queen led the procession out of the chapel, and as he followed, Parker saw tables had been laid in the gallery that connected Bridewell to Blackfriars over the Fleet River. Dishes of small tarts and pies, confectionery and fruit, gleamed in the mid-morning light.

  Parker winced as he was jostled in the crowd leaving the chapel and Susanna’s hand tightened on his arm. “Is your wound troubling you?”

  He dipped his head, keeping his voice for her ear alone. “I would rather no one know of it. Say nothing.”

  He stumbled as a hand landed heavily on his shoulder, right over his injury.

  For a moment he thought he would faint. He saw Susanna’s eyes widen and she stepped close into him, her arms going about him as if in embrace. Holding him up.

  “I am not sure how things are done in foreign courts, but in England, we behave with decorum in the King’s company.” The speaker was Thomas Boleyn. Even with spots dancing before his eyes, Parker felt Susanna stiffen against him. As the sharp pain ebbed, he stepped back a little from her. Her nostrils were flared in challenge.

  “Is that so?” She could have breathed icy patterns on the gallery’s fine glass windows, so cold was her voice. “I am from the court of Margaret of Austria, my lord, and you can draw what conclusions you will from that.”

  It was Boleyn’s turn to stiffen. His face grew flushed, the color rising up from his neck and staining his cheeks red.

  Susanna could have let it go there, but she was too furious. Perhaps because it had been Boleyn’s hand on Parker that had caused him pain, as well as Boleyn’s son who had twice tried to rape her. She drew herself up. “Both your daughter and your son were at court with me there, of course, although your son was sent away for unbecoming behavior, and your daughter—”

  “Parker.” Boleyn’s voice cut Susanna off with the finality of a headman’s ax. “I would have an urgent word.” He gave a shallow bow in Susanna’s direction, devoid of any emotion. “Excuse us, madame.”

  Parker bowed deeply to her and raised her hand to his lips. Her expression showed clearly what she thought of Boleyn. His mouth twitched as he straightened to join Boleyn to the side of the gathering.

  They found a spot a little away from the others, next to a window where the river below them masked their voices.

  “What is it?”

  Boleyn stepped in close. “There is a rumor you can bring down Wolsey.”

  Parker stared at him, his mind working. Boleyn was no close friend of Norfolk’s. How had he caught wind of this?

  Then he remembered where Wyatt had run after he’d found the Mirror was missing: to Anne Boleyn.

  20

  To appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

  —Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 18

  Whatever Boleyn was saying to Parker, Parker did not look happy to hear it. Susanna watched the two men in the alcove, their heads together.

  “My lady. I have not seen you these many weeks.”

  Susanna turned and came face-to-face with Elizabeth Carew. She curtsied, and as she sank down, she wondered if the beauty was still the King’s current mistress.

  “I have been able to do the King’s work mostly in my own rooms, not in the palace.” She rose up and found herself again captivated by the woman. “I would like to paint you, my lady, when you have time to sit for me.”

  The request had sprung from her unbidden, and from the way Elizabeth Carew’s mouth fell open, it was the last thing she expected to hear.

  “Paint me?”

  “Aye.” There was no sense going back now. “The scene I have in mind is a stream, deep in a forest, with you rising from the waters.”

  Elizabeth seemed more startled still. “Not a portrait, then?”

  Susanna shook her head.

  “I … don’t know. I will speak with my husband about it.”

  “That would be most kind.”

  Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably. “I had hoped … that is, I came to ask if you might draw me as you drew Lady Browne in the Queen’s chambers last month. I would send the picture to my mother.” She clasped her hands in front of her, and Susanna realized Elizabeth had not expected a friendly welcome.

  She recalled the way Elizabeth Carew had first treated her, when she’d thought Susanna was the King’s new mistress, come to replace her. And felt sorry for her.

  “I would be happy to make such a drawing.”

  “My thanks. Perhaps we can arrange for it next week?” There was a strain to Elizabeth, a brittleness about her that made Susanna think of a fine piece of porcelain. She would shatter if she so much as stumbled.

  This court seemed to grab hold of beauties and suck the life from them until their bones lay too close to the surface.

  “I am sorry I do not have my charcoals and parchment with me right now.” Sunlight streamed into the gallery; it was a good place to draw.

  The crowds parted a little, and she saw that Wolsey stood at the King’s shoulder. Henry must have seen him there, but ignored him as he spoke with the Queen and some of her ladies.

  Despite the King’s clear message, Wolsey remained where he was, swaying from side to side. Susanna thought the movement unconscious. Wolsey was beside himself with agitation or nerves.

  �
��That man.” Elizabeth’s eyes flared at the sight of the Cardinal. “He tries to oust my brother and husband from the King’s circle at every opportunity. He wants only his own men around the King.”

  Susanna watched Henry clap Elizabeth’s brother, Francis Bryan, warmly on the shoulder as he joined the group. “The King does not heed him, it seems.”

  “No. But it does not stop that red-clad devil trying.”

  “He does the same with Parker.” Susanna looked at Elizabeth’s taut face.

  “Aye, I’m sure he does.” Elizabeth did not smile. “There is a rumor that Parker knows something that can bring him down. Perhaps that is why Wolsey hops from foot to foot like a bird on a branch. He wishes to get in first and turn the tale to his advantage.”

  Susanna went still. “What rumor is this?”

  Elizabeth gave her a measured look. “Thomas Wyatt told my brother, my husband, and George Boleyn that Parker has information that could be the end of Wolsey.”

  No doubt that was why Thomas Boleyn had Parker cornered.

  Susanna took a deep breath. “Did he mention what this information was?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I hope it’s true. Is it?”

  Susanna did not answer. She moved toward Parker and he saw her coming, saw her face, and cut Boleyn off.

  They met halfway.

  “Wyatt—”

  “I know.”

  “And Wolsey waits anxiously to speak to the King, even though the King ignores him. I think he’s heard the rumor as well. I think he plans to lie, to cast another as the villain. Perhaps even you.”

  Parker nodded, his eyes narrowing. He strode forward and bowed deeply to the Queen. “Your Majesty.” He bowed to the King, and then nodded to Wolsey.

  Susanna followed behind him and curtsied deeply. The Queen looked at her, round and sharp-eyed as a bird, and Susanna’s stomach sank. Those eyes looked as if she would pierce her through like a worm.

  The Queen did not know her. They had never been introduced. Susanna repressed a sigh. Would her father ever have sent her here, if he had known that all thought her the King’s mistress, simply because she was young and often seen leaving His Majesty’s chambers?