by Diana Rubino
She felt herself losing respect for him, just as she had as when he'd intercepted Catherine's letters, and she hated herself for it. Just when she assured herself that he would lower himself no further, he spoke again.
"Then there's her brother George—"
"A bit of a fool, but surely no harm to you– Oh, you mean. Oh, no. Surely not."
"Aye, why not."
"But her brother! Oh, sire!"
"Why not? Any witch who would expel a half-formed monster from her womb when she is supposed to be carrying the heir to the throne of England would not be above incest! It is perfectly credible! He could very well have been the father! Who would dare question it, in the light of everything else she has done?"
He grinned maliciously, and she could see he was actually enjoying this plotting of Anne's disgraceful and torturous death along with a roundup of innocent men. "Is there anyone you wish to dispose of, my dear?"
Amethyst reeled in shock. "No!" Never could she presume to take another person's life...no matter how they hurt her. "Please, sire, think this over! Just divorce her and be done with it! Then we can marry! But this...charging her with adultery! Think of the scandal."
His brows knit and he stiffened. "You must excuse me, Amethyst, for I must now speak to Cromwell."
He strode past her. She grabbed on to the sleeve of his robe to try to make him listen to reason, but he yanked himself out of her grasp and slammed out of the chamber.
The council, which included Anne's own father and uncle, soon inquired into the activities of the Queen and her alleged lovers.
Finally they charged Anne with adultery, the poisoning of Catherine and Mary, and the injuring of the King's health. After her trial, she was taken by barge to the Tower, and was led to her lodgings there, laughing and weeping at the same time, to await her execution.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Warwick Castle
The great hall gleamed with the glow of the hundreds of candles set in gold candlesticks atop the enormous horseshoe-shaped table. Fires blazed in the hearths. The table was set with gold chargers, cups and ewers, each place setting in perfect symmetry. The wine goblets were of the newest and most fashionable Venetian glass sparkling in the candlelight like star sapphires, throwing blue shadows on the tablecloth. The bell-shaped great salt stood majestically on its three golden feet carved into the shape of delicate leaves, its detachable pepper caster glowing like a crown at its top.
This evening's feast was to be ambrosial, down to the last detail of the marzipan molds of Warwick Castle. As their future queen, Topaz was going to give her guests a fanfare as close as possible to that of a royal banquet as Warwick Castle was transformed into a palace.
Topaz's ladies-in-waiting put the finishing touches to her hair, piled atop her head, brushed to a coppery sheen, encircled with a light but distinctive gilded crown, dotted with tiny pearls and diamonds, a pompous statement, but an appropriate one.
Her gown was a rich velvet of royal purple slashed at the sleeves, under which she wore a gold chemise. She did not need the jewelry she continually shunned, for her skin was radiant and milky, and her gown sparkled more brilliantly than any gems that could have adorned her fingers and throat. This was going to be her subjects' first preview of her as their queen, and what a generous queen she would be.
She took one more trip to the kitchen for a final inspection, a bustling but organized affair, as cooks all attired in white checked the roaring fire in the central open hearth and two smaller hearths on either side, above which were suspended huge iron cauldrons billowing with delicious steam.
The master cooks scurried about, shouting orders to their apprentices, stirring, churning, pouring batter into mixing bowls, beating eggs, turning the roasts on spits. A young scullery maid swept a sprinkling of flour from the floor, and the bakers slid loaves of bread and cakes into the brick ovens.
The long worktables were strewn with carving knives, strainers, sieves, whisks, ladles, and shiny copper pots. Platters were piled with cheese tarts, pastries, cubes of jellied milk, different meats and game, including turkeys, recently introduced from the New World.
Bowls were heaped with peas as green as the countryside, sunny yellow squash, bright orange carrots chopped into round coins, earthy turnips and radishes, luscious apples, plump pears and succulent grapes spilling over the platters like waterfalls.
She had a few surprises for her guests in the exotic fruits in their first season in her gardens; raspberries, black currants, and melons, all germinated and raised lovingly from seeds imported from the lush gardens of Portugal, Spain and Italy. In addition, on each guest's plate would be a 'love apple,' tomatoes from Mexico, one of the delicacies brought back from the South American colonies by the brave explorers.
The invited nobles were brave soldiers and warriors, and the kitchen help, her own personal maids, and servitors would cater to her guests' every need. This week-long feast would be like none other ever held at Warwick Castle–it was to be even more sumptuous than the Christmas celebration attended by the King and his court.
There would be dancing, music, archery, lawn bowling, uninhibited lovemaking, as she'd invited all her guests to bring a companion, and on the final day, a staged tournament with jousting, knights and horses clad in armor, wielding blunt-edged swords, charging toward each other while the ladies shrieked with glee. For this occasion, she'd sent Sabine away to visit Margaret Pole along with her ladies-in-waiting.
Dipping her finger into a bowl of cream and putting it to her lips, she nodded, turned and swept out of the kitchen. All was going well. At any moment, they would begin arriving at the gatehouse, and she wanted to be there to greet each one of them personally.
Thomas More was the first to arrive, just as she'd planned.
"How many guests do you expect at the castle, my lady?" he asked, handing his reins to the groom who trotted off to the stables.
"At least two hundred, not counting their retinues," she replied. "Every room in the castle will be occupied, although the sleeping arrangements may be a bit awkward, since I know not who is bringing whom and who wishes to share a bed with whom, but that will add to the fun of it!"
Indeed, close to two hundred guests did arrive, some with as many as ten servants, maids, and ushers, and as her ladies-in-waiting checked off the guest list upon each party's arrival at the gatehouse, the great hall filled with all the glittering jewels, furs, embroidered velvets, satins and noble bodies that could have graced Hampton Court Palace for a royal wedding feast.
After the final course was served, she stood, hushed the musicians in the gallery, and the hall grew quiet. Those who were dancing stopped in mid-stride or mid-leap, goblets halted halfway to open lips, and all heads turned to face their hostess. Thomas More sat at her right, looking up at her with awestruck admiration.
"My dear guests, some of you may be aware of why I invited you here for this week of merrymaking," she announced, her voice ringing through the great hall with confident resonance. "Every one of us has something in common. We all share a common history. We are descendants of the brave men who fought at Bosworth and lost their lives fighting for either the Yorkists or Lancastrians. The two houses are now united under Henry Tudor. But we must remember how this battle was won, and who won it. And we must remember who my father was. He was Edward, Earl of Warwick. He was the last Plantagenet, and as such, he was in direct line for the throne."
She went on to explain her family's claim to the crown, how it had been snatched out of her father's hands by Harry Tudor. She brought their history right up to the present, condemning the present king for his cruel treatment of Queen Catherine, causing her to die a miserable death in a drafty castle, for his heretical abandonment of Rome and the Pope, and for his adulterous behavior and bigamous marriage to Anne Boleyn.
She denounced his dissolution of the monasteries and his declaration that he was head of the Church. She mocked him for his hypocritical heraldry of the continuation of his fat
her's policies to bring the kingdom out of the feudal systems of the dark ages into a radiant outburst of Renaissance culture and finery while his subjects starved.
By the time she had finished delivering her speech, her guests were no longer scattered about the dance floor or wishing to pour more wine down their throats. They were entranced with this charismatic woman, who'd been born in the Tower of London and had seen her father, the rightful Yorkist King of England, dragged to his death at the request of Henry Tudor, the present King's father.
By the time the evening ended, she had the lords of many shires—and the pledges of their sons and tenants—willing to fight for her cause.
They came up to her one at a time, bowed and kissed her hand as if she were the Queen herself.
And so I shall be, sooner than you think! she vowed silently as the last of her followers bowed his way out of her presence.
She dashed up the stairs before any of her servers could bother her with tomorrow's meals or appointments.
Digging in her wardrobe, she found what she'd been looking for: an item she had never told a soul she owned. It was a glittering crown with fake stones which she'd fashioned herself out of base metal.
She kept it highly polished and loved to place it on her head. "Queen Topaz the First," she declared in a steady, yet quiet voice; servers were everywhere.
"Off with Henry Tudor's head! Ha, ha, haaaa!" she ordered, not so quietly this time.
Don't miss The Crown of Destiny, Book Four of The Yorkist Saga, an excerpt from which is at the end of this novel.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the Medieval Heritage Society, who at Goodrich Castle, patiently answered my many questions and gave a fine performance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Albert, Marvin, The Divorce
Ashdown, Mrs. Charles H., British Costume During Nineteen Centuries
Banks, F.R., The Penguin Guide to London
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Braudel, Fernand, The Structures of Everyday Life
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Kendall, Paul Murray, The Yorkist Age
Kendall, Paul Murray, Richard III
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Newark, Timothy, Medieval Warfare
Quennell, Marjorie and C.B., History of Everyday Things in England, 1066-1799
Read, Conyers, The Tudors
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Wood, Margaret, The English Mediaeval House
THE CROWN OF DESTINY
Book Four of The Yorkist Saga
Diana Rubino
CHAPTER ONE
Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, Northwest England
Topaz Plantagenet was doing what no woman had ever done in the history of England – going to battle for the crown she felt was her destiny ever since her father had been put to death by Henry VII after Richard III had lost the battle of Bosworth Field.
Refusing to give in to weariness, she returned to the cliff-top as the sun finally set, her horse stumbling now and again on the uneven surfaces of the long-abandoned trails that wended their way through the district. It had been another glorious clear day, finally giving way in a blood-red haze to darkness.
Her brow furrowed as she squinted out to sea, but it was not the setting sun, in its last dying throes, that troubled her. Where were they? Why weren't they here yet? For three days now she and a handful of loyal followers had been waiting at this desolate spot for her Continental allies to join her and depose Henry VIII at last.
The location had seemed a perfect choice when they had all been plotting around the table with Sir Thomas More, safely ensconced within the walls of Warwick Castle by a roaring fire, but she was not so sure now. The isolated cove, nestled back down the trail and surrounded by jagged sentinel cliffs of rock, was a cursed place seldom visited by the living. Even the bolder warriors in her party, veterans of many a bloody campaign, seemed to sense the grim atmosphere. None of them would make their camp tents within the bounds of the ancient ruins.
She shuddered, not from the westerly breeze, bringing with it another night edged with chill, but at the forsaken, desolate landscape. The breeze that swirled round the cliff was evil, the sweltering sun drifting away to cast its heat upon a more blessed land. Her heart pounded at every rustle of the wind in the gorse and ferns, sole inhabitants of this barren cliff-top, and she sensed that even they wished her gone.
She chided herself out loud, patting her horse on the side of his neck, not so much to comfort the animal as to reassure herself. Railing at phantoms! If the men could see her now, after the way she had derided them for their fear of the troubled spirits rumored to walk these bleak cliffs and populate the long-dead hamlet below.
A thriving seaport two hundred years ago, the cove was now a tomb. Even before the final deadly raid, when the French had landed in the mist to slaughter every last unwary villager before taking their plunder, the accursed place had been blighted. It had suffered the lawless butchery of countless pirate raids, and twice been stricken with the Black Death. The hangman's noose had seldom been empty when people had lived there, for when no other enemy was afoot the village would fall upon its own with accusations of witchcraft, conspiracy or smuggling.
Small wonder then that this grim place had finally been forsaken by mortal man, but not forgotten. Even now, few men would walk this coastal path by day and none dared venture forth by night. The devil himself had been spotted here just two years hence, leaving cloven hoof prints in the barren earth, or so they had been told by the elderly fisherman living in the cottage by the fork in the coastal road that had led them here.
"Bad rum, superstition and wandering goats have conjured up many a devil!" she had laughed, and in the warm summer breeze, her men had laughed with her.
Now they clustered uneasily, cheek to jowl around their campfires in the twilight, taking courage from strong ale and adding new embellishments to the well-worn tales of their own bravado that would see them to their bedrolls.
No, she decided, straightening her back and deciding to make the best of her situation, the choice had been a good one, a perfect one. None better could be found to shield their venture from prying eyes. Who cared if dead men did roam these ways, for dead men could not warn Henry of her rebellious plot against him to win the crown for herself at last.
The sky was now streaked with a few feathery lavender bands and she dismounted in order to gently turn her steed and descend the steep course back. She would walk ahead and lead the creature safely down the derelict path just as she had the last two nights.
As she picked her away carefully along in the twilight, she wondered, could she stand another day's wait? She would have to, for she could not forsake this quest, or all her lifelong dreams would be ruined, just as the town in which she and her men were camped had been left in ruins.
She took a dozen steps before the glint of a solitary lost ray of sunshine on polished steel in the distance caught her eye. Her pulse quickened again. Had they come at last? Or were these Henry's ships about to thwart her desires? Had he somehow been made aware of her treachery? Had she been a fool to trust old man Bridgeman? She had made him Captain of Arms at More's insistence, entrusted him with a small fortune in gold, and charged him with raising an army abroad, and on wh
at basis?
His only references had come from his own mouth. He could not account for his whereabouts for almost half of his seventy-eight years, and these he was rumored to have spent in various prisons and gaols, not least of which was Newgate Prison.
Yet Bridgeman's character was such that she could not help herself but trust the rogue. No one else had need of the poor used-up old wretch that he was, and he knew it. Without her cause he would have no purpose left but to wither and die, this she was sure of. He could never betray her. She had seen beyond his gnarled ugly husk and broken gait. She had found rare qualities within him, not all goodly, but certainly useful. He had an eloquent manner, a practiced poise, a charm that she had never seen before.
