Laura Andersen - [Ann Boleyn 01]

by The Boleyn King

  Even Elizabeth was impressed with how well William had predicted Norfolk’s response. Of course Norfolk had to ask, and of course he knew it would never happen. No matter; they would observe the formalities. “He is prepared to so consider, and will indeed appoint a commission for that purpose on the day after his majority is reached.”

  Norfolk bowed his head, but Elizabeth was not finished. “On the condition that our beloved sister, Mary, attends the king at Hampton Court on June twenty-eighth, to make her personal recognition. And also upon the condition that, in that same visit, she attend service in the Chapel Royal.”

  She quite enjoyed the play of emotion rippling across Norfolk’s face. You may think you can outmaneuver my brother because he is young, she thought. But so what if you knew Richard III as a boy and have outlived four kings? You won’t outlive William … and you can’t beat him, either.

  Anything but stupid, Norfolk managed to get a handle on himself. “I shall write the Lady Mary.”

  “Thank you.” With a brilliant smile, Elizabeth raised her glass to him. Then, just as he began to relax, she said, “I’ve heard some disturbing reports about your son Giles. Only gossip, I hope, but perhaps you can set me straight.”

  His whole body seemed to tighten. “What reports have you heard—that I have not?”

  “Public drunkenness, gambling beyond his means, lechery—”

  “As might be reported of many gentlemen at this court. Robert Dudley, for instance.”

  “Rape.”

  “There has never been a claim laid of such.”

  “Treason.” Elizabeth let the last word fall into the startling silence.

  Norfolk might have thrown something at her if she were a man. But he knew too well the dangers of raging at royalty. “What evidence have you?”

  “As I said, these are only reports. I should be glad to have them proved wrong—the last, at least, since the others are only too true.” She sipped from her goblet, then faced him squarely. “The king is not a fool. If Giles has indeed gotten himself caught up in something … dangerous … then he is being used. By someone with both more wits and more influence than Giles could ever have. As his father, no doubt you will wish to discover if your son is indeed being used.” Unless you are the one doing so, she thought, in which case you are being given fair warning.

  “Are we finished?”

  “For now.”

  Elizabeth rose from the table and Norfolk followed, looking older than he had when they sat down to dinner.

  He bowed to her and began to walk out. She stopped him with a voice pitched for his gentlemen to hear as well. “Lord Norfolk, my brother expects a full accounting of your investigations within a fortnight. If he is not satisfied …”

  Finally his patience gave way, and his age, authority, and bone-deep dislike of having to submit to a woman released themselves in speech. “Do not think to threaten me, girl. I understand the king perfectly—and I will welcome discussing the issue with him. But if he tries to send you to interfere again, he will not be satisfied.”

  And that, thought Elizabeth, was exactly what William had predicted. Now they had only to wait and see what Norfolk did next.

  Days at Beaulieu followed an inflexible pattern: Lady Mary spent the morning closeted with Father Hermosa, two secretaries, and one or two of her most trusted women; the afternoon was given to reading and needlework in the presence chamber and an hour’s walk outdoors; then came a simple meal followed by a private mass.

  Except that Mary did not seem to appreciate the meaning of the word private. The mass was held in her privy chamber, true, but there were never fewer than two dozen in attendance. On this warm evening in early June, Minuette counted twenty-seven bowed heads as Father Hermosa chanted. She wondered how many of those were true believers, how many were simply loyal to Mary, and how many were council spies passing every name on to the Protestant lords.

  And how many, like Minuette herself, did not know why they were at a Popish mass. Though Minuette attended to make Mary content, she could not bring herself to go so far as to take communion. She had already been treated to several intense lectures on the state of her soul from both Lady Mary and Father Hermosa, to which she had listened with outward politeness and inward unease. The rigidity of their beliefs frightened her, and for the first time she realized why so many feared the thought of Mary on England’s throne.

  After the Latin benediction, Mary rose to withdraw but was stopped by a servant who came in and spoke to her in a low voice.

  “Of course,” Mary replied to whatever had been said. “I will meet him in my presence chamber. Father Hermosa, will you join me?”

  “Milady,” the servant added, speaking up a little, “the gentleman also requests the presence of Mistress Wyatt.”

  Minuette started. Who on earth would want to speak to both Mary Tudor and herself? For a breath’s hope she thought of William. Mary turned to her and said, “Mistress Wyatt, this way.”

  The gentleman was leaning against a paneled wall in the presence chamber, clad in dark riding clothes that should have looked plain but somehow suited his powerful figure. When he saw Mary, he straightened with an air of not-too-much-bother and bowed.

  “Your Highness,” he said, and it was the voice that cracked Minuette’s shock. She had not seen him in years, but she knew that voice.

  Stephen Howard favoured Minuette with a look that made her stomach rise. “Well, stepdaughter, clearly I have let you alone for far too long or I should not be surprised by how much you are like your mother.”

  She could not have answered if she’d wanted to. Fortunately, one didn’t have to answer when a Tudor was in the room. With glacial politeness, Mary said, “Lord Stephen you are welcome, as are all of your family. The Howards have been better friends to me in recent years than our earlier years might have indicated.”

  Minuette forced herself to follow the conversation, knowing that this was precisely the sort of laden encounter that she had been sent here to discover. But it was hard to concentrate on even the spoken words, let alone their unspoken meaning, with her stepfather there reminding her forcibly of Giles and that night at Hampton Court, and also stirring memories of her mother’s wedding … she had not thought of that wedding in ages. Around the time of her mother’s wedding Minuette had spent a month at Framlingham, one of the Norfolks’ homes, slipping away from supervision and wandering the corridors …

  “My brother, the duke, sends his regrets,” Stephen said. “There are events in play that require his attention in London. But he has sent me with a letter for Your Highness, and with counsel that I will deliver to you alone.”

  Mary regarded him coolly. “I shall be interested to hear of these events that keep him away from me. I will receive you privately in the morning. Mistress Wyatt, will you show your kinsman to a chamber?”

  Minuette curtsied and her stepfather bowed as Mary’s heels clicked out of the room along with Father Hermosa’s softer tread. Looking straight ahead, Minuette led the way to the opposite door. “I shall see where the steward has put your things,” she began, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm that made her swing away with a sudden, drowning fear.

  He dropped his hand. “You need not shy away. I only wished to ask how you are.”

  “Quite well, thank you.”

  “Enjoying your role as the king’s spy?”

  She would not let him unnerve her. “Why?” she asked. “Do you have something secret to tell me?”

  “I’ve done you one favour already in answering your question about Giles,” he said. “If you want something more …”

  The look he gave her as his voice trailed off was tantalizing, clearly meant to invite questions. Minuette wanted to turn on her heel and walk away, possibly after slapping his face, but she had been sent to play this type of game. At least here was someone willing to play, unlike the close-mouthed members of Mary’s household. And she could not dismiss the possibility that beneath the banter he held r
eal information.

  “What do you want?” she asked, remembering his preference for bluntness.

  “Peace, pleasure … prosperity.”

  “I don’t buy information.”

  “And I’m not stupid enough to try and sell any to a Tudor king. Some of us remember Henry only too well.” He shook his head, gravity mixed with cunning. “I want an assurance from you that whatever happens, you will speak for my good intentions toward the king.”

  “My assurances?”

  “The king will listen to you, so I’ve heard. And he must trust you, or he would not have sent you here. I want you to tell him what I’m about to tell you, and I want you to promise that he will know the information came from me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Tell the king that my brother is searching for a document, known as the Penitent’s Confession. It is an affidavit said to have been sworn and signed years ago. An affidavit stating that Henry VIII was not the father of Anne Boleyn’s son.”

  “Who swore this?”

  “Someone in Anne’s household—a clerk, a lady-in-waiting … the story changes in details. But not in essentials. Whoever swore it was supposedly in a position to know whose child William was.”

  When Minuette said nothing, her stepfather added urgently, “This is not mere gossip, child. This is the sort of legal maneuvering that could set England on fire and lose your friend his throne. If he wants to stop a rebellion, he’d best find that affidavit before the Catholics do.”

  “You are Catholic.”

  “I am English before I am Catholic—and I am an opportunist before either.”

  William stood at the window of his presence chamber at Hampton Court, his back to the regency council. As the heated words and angry inflections rose, he stared absently before him, his hands ceaselessly turning the piece of stained cloth in his hands.

  Although he missed nothing that was said, not a word of it influenced him in the slightest. He had known what to do as soon as the weary, travel-stained rider had appeared late this afternoon, just hours after William’s own arrival. But it cost him nothing to let his councilors talk, so he let them roll on while his own anger burnt out in silence and hardened into ice.

  It was Norfolk, naturally, who voiced caution, though not as vigourously as he might have. He was on edge, William knew, for today was the end of his two-week grace period. After today’s council meeting, he would have to report personally to William about his investigation. “Border raids are a way of life. One might as soon stop the tide as stop the reivers. Berwick has been burnt before and no doubt will be burnt again. The people had sufficient warning and no lives were lost.”

  He spoke with the authority of a man who had guarded the Scots border in earlier days and whose grandson’s troops guarded it now. The Earl of Surrey was presently in France, but his men knew what they were about. “It would be foolish to walk away from French negotiations because of a few burnt-out cots and trampled fields.”

  “It’s neither cots nor fields at issue here, and well you know it,” countered Northumberland, already twitching with the desire to fight. “It’s the French soldiers who marched with the reivers.”

  Norfolk’s reply held an edge of disdain. “You’ll wreck the chance of peace upon a fragment of muddy cloth?”

  “And the testimony of your grandson’s troops,” Northumberland retorted. “Are you saying they planted evidence against the French? Because trying to provoke a war would be perilously near to treason.”

  Rochford intervened at last, with the inflectionless voice of command. “The evidence cannot be gainsaid. There were French troops in Berwick. As our envoys are treating with Henri, he sends his soldiers across our border.”

  Once his uncle would have finished the matter, issuing orders in that same neutral voice. But today he paused, and William knew it was for his sake. In ten days he would turn eighteen and Rochford would no longer be regent. It seemed his uncle was prepared to step aside and let William rule.

  Aware that every word and movement would be closely scrutinized, William turned slowly to face his council. He let the muddy cloth unwind until it draped down in the unmistakable shape of a tunic. There was a long streak of dried blood surrounding the gaping slash where an English sword had driven into the wearer’s shoulder. In spite of its condition, the colours were unmistakable—bright azure and three gold fleurs-de-lis. French royal colours.

  William looked from face to individual face, until the eight men were taut with concentration. Only then did he speak.

  “My lord Rochford, recall the envoys. All of them.”

  His uncle didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  They waited for more, their eyes fixed on William, but he said nothing.

  Northumberland made a mild protest. “That seems an … inadequate response. If you will not treat, you should fight. Withdrawal and silence accomplish nothing.”

  William bared his teeth in a smile that he knew was like his father’s. “By all means hold your men in readiness, but I intend to give Henri every chance to hang himself. He thinks he can play me because I am young. He thinks I will overreach in my eagerness to avenge an insult. I think, if I can possess my soul in patience, he will make a mistake. And then we will see what silence may accomplish.”

  Northumberland paused, his mouth open, then looked at Rochford. William felt a flash of hot anger when his uncle nodded discreetly.

  Swallowing his temper, William said, “Send to France today. I want our men home.”

  Only Norfolk remained when the council filed out, though he stood now in deference. William was tempted to leave him standing, but the man was old and there was no need for discourtesy.

  “Sit,” he commanded. When Norfolk had, William asked, “You have a report for me, my lord duke?”

  Norfolk didn’t waste any time. “I have found no evidence at all that my son Giles is involved in anything remotely treasonous.”

  “Would you tell me if you had found such evidence?”

  “Listen to me, boy—I served your father and his father before him. You might even be said to owe your existence to me—it was I who brought your mother to Henry’s attention. Why would I allow anyone to jeopardize all that I have worked for since I was a young man?”

  “Perhaps because you are now an old man and the next world begins to loom larger than this one. Men will do nearly anything for religion.”

  Norfolk shook his head. “My conscience is clear. I have never forsaken my beliefs for convenience’s sake. The Lord will require to know what I have done, not what England has done.”

  William wanted to believe him. It would certainly make his life easier. But there was still the problem of Alyce de Clare’s death and Giles’s likely involvement. He drummed his fingers on the table while he thought. With the ambassadors being recalled and French troops in Scotland, the next step was war. He didn’t need this hanging over him. But neither did he have the resources to cope with every problem at once.

  His solution was imperfect but workable. “Lady Mary will attend our majority celebrations on June twenty-eighth. I know that she would enjoy a stay with your family afterward. At Framlingham, I would suggest. Of course, I will provide additional men for her protection and comfort.” And to keep you from getting up to anything dangerous, he silently added. Putting Norfolk and Mary in one place was either brilliant or utterly mad.

  Norfolk gave no clue as to which he thought it. “As it please Your Majesty. My family is ever at your service.”

  I hope so, thought William. I truly do hope so.

  Four days before William’s—and her own—eighteenth birthday, Minuette departed the Palace of Beaulieu with Lady Mary on their way to Hampton Court. On the first day of travel, Minuette rode. To her surprise, on the morning of the second day she was asked to ride with Mary inside her coach. Though she preferred horseback, Minuette took this last opportunity for a private conversation.

  After nearly eight weeks with the form
er princess, Minuette’s sympathy was tempered by impatience. She had been subjected to hours of gentle lectures on the need for England to return to the Holy Church and put away the heresies running rampant through the kingdom. “His Majesty is young, and thus easily blinded by evil councilors,” Mary had said.

  His Majesty is young, thought Minuette, and yet years more pragmatic than you will ever be. There was no going back. Catherine of Aragon was dead, and Henry as well, and no one could pretend that Anne Boleyn and her children had not happened.

  Though straightforward in many ways, Mary showed an advanced ability to refer to her love for her half siblings without ever acknowledging their mother. Even when Lord Norfolk had come in person to repeat the king’s command to attend him upon his birthday, Mary had listened stonily and then bade him tell the king that, as she loved him, she would do all that he commanded … within her conscience.

  At least her conscience allowed her to be driven to Hampton Court today. If nothing else, Minuette was desperate to see her friends once more. Especially Dominic—she’d had word from Elizabeth that he had been recalled from France. She could not wait to have people to speak to freely again. She had not even had Carrie with her for the last two weeks. As soon as her stepfather had left Mary’s house, Minuette had sent Carrie back to court carrying on her person a message to be hand-delivered directly to Elizabeth.

  They rode for hours without speaking, and Minuette wondered why Mary had wanted her at all. Only when the lanes began to show the familiarity of the approaching palace did Mary speak.

  “Mistress Wyatt,” she said. “Will the king allow the woman to humiliate me?”

  “Never. And I assure you that the queen has nothing but care in her heart for you. She would be your friend if you would let her.”

  The downward curl of Mary’s lip reminded Minuette of William when he was displeased. “You are too young to know of what you speak,” she said dismissively. “However she may appear to you, that person is the cause of all the misery in my life. She turned my father’s heart away from me. She rejoiced when my mother died, and she would be happy to see me follow.”