The Crown of Destiny (The Yorkist Saga)

by Diana Rubino

  Thus the unsuspecting Henry was caught in a web before he ever knew what happened. The entire matchmaking incident slipped Henry's mind, and on June twenty-third, his marriage to Anne of Cleves was formally dissolved.

  He and Anne parted company on amicable terms, and she would always be regarded as his 'sister.' She would receive a generous annuity as well as lands and plate. He settled a good deal of Anne Boleyn's property upon her, and treated her with respect. She was forever grateful her marriage to Henry VIII had ended with her life intact.

  On the day Thomas Cromwell was executed for treason, the ambitious Norfolk, with some last-minute drills from Topaz, packed his giggly niece into a coach for her journey to meet her future husband, the King.

  War with France was once more imminent, and Roland Pilkington received a summons from His Majesty the King to wait upon him and do his service to the crown.

  Amethyst heaved a sigh of relief. Her last look at Roland was from her chamber window, galloping away to serve in the King's navy. He did not say a word to either her or his father.

  She wept tears of relief and wrote to Henry immediately, thanking him for removing Roland from her life as well as giving him a purpose and a reason to live.

  In the course of his writing, she learned of a new turn of event in their lives. "I must admit, I have developed somewhat of a fancy for the young Catherine Howard," Henry wrote Amethyst. They were now corresponding on a regular basis, and she'd visited court a few times at the King's request, without her husband. "She really does bring a spark of life back into this tired old court. I had thought she would be all wrong for me. But she makes me feel young again."

  "The news is wonderful, sire!" she wrote back, relieved he had found someone to occupy his time and help him forget his troubles. The feisty Catherine would certainly do that, and grooming her for royal life would certainly take up a fair bit of his time. "Topaz will be so pleased to hear you approve of her after all!"

  Topaz was more than pleased when Catherine Howard became queen on July twenty-eighth. Now it seemed as if all her plans were about to fall into place.

  Warwick Castle, January, 1541

  Two horses galloped through the gatehouse entrance, where a stable hand met them in the courtyard. The man and his groom dismounted, their shoes clapping the frozen earth as they hit the ground. A servant came rushing up to them, her face flushed in the cold air as she curtsied and led them up the stairs into Topaz's receiving chamber.

  Topaz emerged from her inner chamber, dressed in an eggshell-colored velvet gown, split at the front to reveal a dark maroon underskirt embroidered with tiny roses, sweeping the floor gracefully as she approached her visitor.

  "It is such a pleasure to see you, Cousin Geoffrey! Do come in and sip some ale. How fares the weather?"

  "'Tis getting darker and colder," he replied, stomping his feet and rubbing his hands before the fire. "The wind is from the north, and pricks the skin like needles."

  "Do warm up and partake of some ale, then. When you are sufficiently thawed out, we shall discuss business."

  But first she needed to know a few things.

  "And how fares my dear Aunt Margaret?"

  "Oh, mother is her usual self. She never talks of the King any longer, since her banishment from court, but she still fondly speaks of Princess Mary, as if she's her very own daughter."

  "So she and the King have become enemies, then?" she asked with a gleam in her eye.

  He shook his head. "Not enemies, as such; I believe she will die with her head attached."

  The chuckle they emitted simultaneously was not a comfortable one.

  "So, what brings me to Warwick Castle, dear cousin?"

  "Geoffrey..." Topaz displayed her most dazzling smile, her teeth as white as the garland of dried hyacinths around her neck. "I am the first to admit my abortive attempt to regain my rightful control over the throne has been the biggest setback of my life. A lesser person would have considered it a failure, but not I. I do not give up. It was but one method, and it did not work. There is more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes. There is more than one way to spell a word, there is more than one way to make love..."

  She hesitated, awaiting her cousin's reaction, but there was none. He sat, transfixed, his eyes bright with anticipation, realizing that perhaps his journey in the biting cold and slamming wind would be worthwhile after all.

  "There is more than one way to reach one's goal, in other words," she concluded. "Geoff, as my cousin, and my most faithful ally since the death of dear Thomas More, I am soliciting your help."

  "Topaz," he sighed, regarded his cousin with a look resembling that of a pilgrim gazing upon his patron saint, "your silence all this while, your monastic retreat back into the folds of Warwickshire life, well, the entire kingdom, the King included, have taken it as acquiescence. Quiet acceptance that you will not be queen."

  "How naïve of them!" Topaz replied flippantly, plucking her goblet off the table, holding the stem between two fingers as she sipped. "Certainly I fooled you not, Geoffrey."

  He gave a tight smile. "Why, I had a feeling you would rise again. You were never easily restrained. Even when we were children, you took charge at all times. You were the leader."

  "Lest you question my integrity, let me assure you my integrity is intact. I relinquished my claim to the throne upon my release from the Tower and I intend to keep my word. I would not betray the subjects of my kingdom and the people I was born to lead. They would have every reason never to trust me again. I would not blame them.

  "No, I have given up all rights to the crown and am forever grateful to the King for having granted me my freedom. But that does not mean I have given up. I may have relinquished my personal claim. However, I do have a son. Two, in fact."

  "Topaz!" Geoffrey's smile widened. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. "What plans have you in that scheming mind of yours? Why, had you been a friend of the King's, you could have executed his divorce in half the time Wolsey did, and with greater aplomb."

  "Aye. Much more forcefully, too. I simply would have marched on Rome, hanged the Pope in chains and seized the Vatican."

  "No doubt you would have." Geoffrey cocked his head to one side. "So, Topaz, what shall we do?"

  He licked his lips hungrily, and she was sure it wasn't because of the good-tasting ale. His lips may as well have formed the unsaid words, "What will I gain from all of this?" just as clearly as if the sound had come from his mouth. He was proving easier to reel in than a tiny minnow—and just as eager to beat the rest of the school to the bait.

  "I am using a different approach this time, a more subtle and contriving one. We are not going to engage any military personnel. There will be no soldiers, no cavalry, no weapons. What I have here, Geoffrey, is a straight path to the throne... The crown gets placed on my son's head and we shall rule through him a new kingdom, a happy kingdom, a rich kingdom!"

  She crossed the chamber and held the door open for him to pass. He rose and walked past her into her bedchamber.

  She rolled a trunk out from under her bed. It rested on a low wooden wagon with four wheels and a handle. She slid a key into its lock and popped it open.

  Inside were letters, piles of letters, folded and sealed with wax. The trunk was nearly filled to capacity with them.

  "There must be a few thousand letters in there," he commented.

  "Three-thousand-six-hundred-fifty, to be exact," she replied, a smirk turning one side of her mouth upwards. "Having written five per day for the last two years, two years since the rebellion, I now possess this number of letters."

  "What are these letters?"

  "They are messages, messages to my previous supporters. The majority of the messages are to neutral citizens, who will be more pliable and susceptible to what I have in mind."

  "What do the messages say? Is it a pack of lies about Henry to turn the kingdom against him?"

  Topaz laughed, patting her younger cousin on the cheek
. "We need not spread lies about him. He has saved us the toil! Look at him! No one trusts him, no one wants to go near him! It is a miracle my sister is still alive! She must be canonized for putting up with him all these years! Nay, we need not spread lies.

  "The letters are written by my son Edward. I am the true author, but they are signed with his name written on his parchment. They solicit support to put him on the throne. They state simply, 'As my mother Topaz has relinquished her claim to the throne, I am the rightful king, by virtue of her father, Edward Earl of Warwick, executed by Henry Tudor, father of the present king. As my faithful supporters, and believers in the reforms my mother planned to put into effect, you will be rewarded when I ascend the throne as King Edward the Sixth.'"

  "Do you think you will gather the support, Topaz? Look what happened in the battle. Even with the mercenaries, Henry's army came through victorious."

  "It cannot fail. This is not a military exercise. There will be no need for fighting. At the time of our battle, he was just about to do away with Anne Boleyn, and the church was in upheaval, yet the people still trusted him.

  "But now the King has proven himself to be a tyrant. He has confiscated the monies that previously went to Rome, and kept it himself to finance his war with France, to build his tawdry coastal forts and decorate his palaces with garish furnishings, and to stuff his corpulent face with food while his subjects starve!

  "He has shamed his people with his succession of so-called wives, with his two bastard daughters, and with his sickly excuse for a prince. No one wants the Tudors on the throne anymore! We have had two generations of Tudors; God forbid there should be a third. Should Edward Tudor inherit the throne, with his Lutheran ways, it would cause civil war all over again. We need unity, we need fellowship, we need harmony. And we have had none of that with the Tudors!"

  Geoffrey applauded his cousin, flipped the lid of the trunk shut and sat upon it. "Henry will go wild. He will retreat to one of his hunting lodges to live out his old age in staggering defeat." Geoffrey's eyes wandered off, betraying a hint of fear as Topaz's plan fermented in his mind.

  She pinched her cousin's ruddy cheeks and cupped them in her palms. "We shall not fail, Geoffrey. This will be a peasant's revolt, a dissension of the nobility and a coup d'état all rolled into one. Best of all, it will be peaceful. The age of chivalry will return yet."

  "Who will be delivering these messages throughout the kingdom?" Geoffrey asked.

  "My pages, your pages, every servant and squire we can spare, and of course, we shall personally deliver them to our fellow nobles. And, Geoffrey, when you reach Kenilworth Castle, keep on going."

  He stood and clapped his heels together, taking Topaz's hand in his. "As the faithful future subject of King Edward the Sixth, I am at your service, Queen Mother!"

  She beamed in delight. Then they opened the lid of the trunk, and began.

  Topaz arrived at Gosfield Hall, the stately stone manor house of her closest neighbor and ally, Edward Hardwicke, the Earl of Arundel. Arundel had secretly provided her with funds for her first rebellion. She knew Arundel and his wife were in Scotland for a fortnight or so, as he'd asked her to keep an eye on his grounds and servants while he was away. To save her messengers' time, she delivered the message herself, for him to read when he arrived back home.

  She dismounted, walked up the path lined with graceful elms and rapped the brass knocker against the oaken door. "Please deliver this message to Lord Hardwicke when he arrives back from Scotland," she told the insipid looking fellow who answered the door, whom she took to be a servant.

  She handed the sealed parchment to the man who took it with a feeble grip.

  "Aye, Madam, I shall."

  She turned, climbed atop her mount, and rode off.

  Hampton Court Palace

  "That Warwick boy? No, it couldn't be! Has he actually inherited his mother's brass balls?" Henry stormed to Archbishop Cranmer, who entered the presence chamber with another fistful of letters.

  "These are from the homes of the Earl of Westmoreland, the Earl of Wiltshire, and the Earl of Huntington, among others, Your Majesty," Cranmer replied.

  Will Somers, with a sudden thought, came forward. "Sir, did these lords say who delivered the messages to their residences? Was it a man? Or a woman?"

  Cranmer nodded. "I see your supposition, but most of them told me it had been a young boy, a servant, or a stable hand. Certainly no one of any importance."

  Will turned to the King. "Your Majesty, I just had a penetrating thought."

  "Not now, Will, I am in no mood for any droll—"

  "Nay, Your Majesty!" Will interrupted the King for the first time in his life. He had to, for he had to enlighten the King before it was too late! "No... I was visiting my sister last week, remember, at Gosfield Hall."

  "So what?" Henry roared, his head rolling about helplessly in his great hands.

  "I answered the door, for Lord Hardwicke and my sister were not in residence. The messenger was not a young page, nay, sire! It was a beautiful woman, in a dark green velvet riding cloak, with a bright circlet of flowers about her head and about her neck..."

  Henry looked up and knocked a plate of chicken to the floor. The servitors scrambled to clean it up. "A woman, you say? Wearing flowers?"

  His mind rapidly made connections, unraveling his past, his memory speeding backwards as if falling into a void... Beautiful woman, flowers, flowers about her hair, her neck, green, her color. He remembered Amethyst telling him of Topaz shunning jewelry for flowers, wearing green constantly, for it so accented the burnished lustre of her coppery hair...Topaz.

  "Will, Will, help me up!" The King strained in the huge chair made especially for him and Will sprang forward to help the King rise. He brushed the crumbs off his cloak and limped over to his writing desk, opened the top drawer and extracted a sheet of parchment he'd received fairly recently. On it was the note Topaz had written to him about sending him the little Howard minx. He held it up to the candle, then called for Cranmer to bring over the other messages.

  Holding the letter up next to one of the messages, he noticed a slight similarity in the handwriting. His eyes scanned each leaf, then whizzed down to the signature.

  "The boy did not write this," Henry said, shaking his head. "It was his mother. It was Topaz, I know it! Will! What did she look like? Describe her to me, and do not leave out one detail."

  Will racked his memory, trying to picture the fleeting image in his mind's eye. The encounter had been so brief, he'd barely held the door open halfway, but he conveyed the few details he could remember...

  "Well, she had a lot of dark reddish hair, a mean kind of look and, er..." He held his hands, palms up, level with his chest, and gestured. "She had a rather ample pair of...you know...."

  "Aye, I noticed the same thing when I met her," the King replied, his index finger pressed to his lip. "I shall seize her and you shall identify her." His voice regained its resonant tone. "If it is indeed she, she will go back to the Tower! She will rot there yet!"

  Topaz was brought before the King in the council chamber. Will stood at his side, holding his head erect. Topaz averted her eyes from the King's hard stare, but upon looking at Will, a look of alarm registered in her features. They looked at each other for a split second, then both looked away as mutual recognition lit their eyes.

  Will's gaze slid down Topaz's stony face, the plump lips set in a determined grimace, the long thin neck, and heaving under her low-cut bodice, the ample bosom...

  "It is she," he confirmed.

  "Are you sure, Will?" The King asked, but it was not necessary. He knew she was guilty as sin just from her looks, and once again she was coming forth to admit it.

  "Aye, the very same woman."

  Later that morning a woman was brought, struggling, whimpering and sobbing, from her cell in the Tower to East Smithfield Green. There was no scaffold, only a low block. The hooded executioner stood by while the lord mayor and a few others gathe
red about.

  Her writhing and twisting body broke free from the guards and she tore across the courtyard, leaving the stunned guards each with a piece of cloth from her sleeves.

  The guards and the hooded executioner ran after her, each in a different direction, so that they surrounded her and dragged her back to the block, her knees buckling beneath her, her feet dragging heavily, back to the spot where she was to die.

  The guards shoved her head down to the block and the executioner wielded the axe, bringing it down only to embed the blade in the wood, for she had broken free again, only inches from the blade's swiping blow as she writhed in the exasperated guards' arms.

  Her screams pervaded the courtyard as they slid her back down once again. The axe fell a second time, and split open her neck. Blood spewed out of the open wound, and her screams died down to a strained gurgling, yet her arms and legs thrashed about as she made a final desperate attempt to cling to her precious life. The axe man wielded another blow, and another, and finally the body ceased its thrashing and lay still.