“Aye, worse luck,” Elizabeth exclaimed dourly.
He laughed. “Cheer up, sweetheart,” he told her. “ ’Tis only a few more months until England’s hope is born. Then you can flee north, and be home in time for the grouse. Ah, here we are. Which is your barge?”
“I have to wait for my tiring woman,” Elizabeth said. “She was taking little Mistress Howard to the old duchess’s servants. The great lady forgot to make arrangements to send the girl home. I was delegated to take her to see the queen crowned, but if I am not by the queen’s side then I intend sleeping in my own bed tonight.”
“A lonely bed.” He leered at her.
Now it was Elizabeth who laughed. “Am I fair game then, Flynn Stewart, because I am no longer a virgin?” she teased him. “My husband is a jealous man, and he is every bit as big as the king. Even more so, if rumor is to be believed.”
“You certainly know that I regretted letting you go,” he said to her.
“Pah! Three years ago I should have believed such romantic twaddle, but I have since learned that you Scotsmen are passionately bound to your service first, and not to your women. I seduced my husband shortly after I returned to Friarsgate, and even that was not enough to keep him by my side. He had a duty first to his own sire,” she said.
“You seduced the man?” His look was incredulous. “God’s wounds, that it would have been me.” But he was beginning to laugh as he spoke.
She grinned back at him. “I wanted him,” she replied simply.
“Do you love him?” Flynn asked, suddenly serious.
“Aye, I do,” Elizabeth admitted. “I was starting to love you, and you knew it, but you would not have been the right man for Friarsgate, Flynn. And to be the man for me, you had to be the man for Friarsgate.”
He nodded, completely understanding her. “But we are friends, Elizabeth?”
“We are friends, Flynn Stewart,” she told him. “And I still think your king should give you a nice rich wife to settle down with, but I think you are a happier man without a wife, eh? You enjoy the excitement of this court, and all its intrigues.”
“I do,” he admitted.
“Mistress, I found some of the dowager’s servants, and left Mistress Howard with them,” Nancy said, coming upon them.
“Then we are ready to escape to Bolton House,” Elizabeth said, and Flynn helped both women down into the barge.
“I will see you again,” he promised her.
“Aye, you will,” Elizabeth agreed.
They reached Bolton House in good time, and Elizabeth found Philippa awake and waiting for her in the great hall. The sisters embraced, and Elizabeth kicked off her shoes, loosened her laces, and sat down before the fire.
“How is Hugh doing?” Philippa asked her sister.
“The queen adores him. Why wouldn’t she, with that angelic face of his, and his sweet voice? She loves having him by her, and is very kind to him.”
“Then perhaps it will be all right,” Philippa said.
“She didn’t know who he was, sister. When I brought him to her, she said that she had stolen him from the king for his pretty face, and did not even know his name. She was surprised when I told her,” Elizabeth explained. “Hugh has great charm, and has won her over. Anne is not a woman to be fooled. Your son is very lucky.”
“Crispin wants to leave tomorrow,” Philippa said. “He is not one for the court these days, and neither am I, to my surprise.”
“I will be fine,” Elizabeth replied. “The progress is not to be a great or lengthy one this summer, given the queen’s condition. The child is due in September. I will go home immediately after he is born.” She arose. “I am exhausted. I slept in a chair by the queen’s bed last night. And then today I was given charge over the queen’s younger cousin, Catherine Howard.”
“There will be jousting and dancing for the rest of the week,” Philippa noted. “You are likely to be kept busy, I fear.”
Elizabeth yawned. “I know. God’s blood, how I long for Friarsgate, and my country ways.”
“And your husband,” Philippa said mischievously.
Elizabeth grinned. “Aye, I long for Baen too. It is time that young Tom had a brother or a sister.” She yawned again, and stood up. “Good night, Philippa. Do not go without seeing me first, please.” She kissed her sibling and went to her own bedchamber.
The Earl and Countess of Witton departed early the next morning. Elizabeth watched them go, wishing desperately that she were with them. The whole long summer stretched ahead. A summer she would not be at Friarsgate. A summer away from Baen and young Tom. Sitting down on the edge of her bed, she wept. She wanted to go home, not to the joust to be held this afternoon in the queen’s honor, or to the banquets and masques that would follow. She was not a part of any of it. She was not a great lady. She was plain Elizabeth Hay, the lady of Friarsgate. She didn’t belong here at court.
And when she had finished feeling sorry for herself, Elizabeth called to Nancy, and they prepared to join the queen once again.
The summer months passed. Many in the court had gone home to attend to their own estates. At first the queen accompanied her husband on the annual progress, but they did not travel far from London, only briefly to Essex and Surrey. Mostly they remained at Greenwich, the king going off with his closest friends to hunt a few days at a time.
It was customary that a queen take to her apartments a month before the birth of a child, to be served only by women. Anne had chosen to have her child at Greenwich, and it was a great relief to Elizabeth when they finally settled into that lovely palace on the river.
The queen’s apartments had been completely redone in their absence. Now everything was prepared in accordance with the rules for royal childbirth that had been set down by King Henry’s grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, in the last reign. The walls and windows of the queen’s rooms but for one window would be covered with rich tapes-tries. Only women would be allowed into the royal apartments. And Anne would be forced to remain quiet in the darkened chambers as she awaited the momentous occasion of her child’s birth. She kept Elizabeth by her side most days and nights, along with young Hugh St. Clair, who had become her favorite page. He had also become a favorite with the other ladies as well, who enjoyed his sweet voice, and his pretty face and manners.
Elizabeth slipped through the woods to Bolton Greenwich as often as she could. Returning one day, she found Anne in a towering rage, and none could calm her. Of course, they were all terrified that the queen’s outburst would cause her to miscarry. “What has happened?” Elizabeth asked Lady Margaret Douglas, the king’s niece.
“Someone has told her that the king is dallying with a lady of the court. That his hunting trips are but ruses to be with his lady love,” Lady Margaret whispered. “You know how jealous of him she can be.”
“God’s wounds!” Elizabeth swore. “Who told her that?” She had heard the rumor herself, but had paid it little heed. Many husbands denied their wives’ company were known to find amusement elsewhere. But the king was being discreet, for if he was indeed dallying with another, no one knew who she was, or had even seen anything untoward.
“We do not know,” came the reply.
“Well, it has to be one of the women here,” Elizabeth said, looking around. Her gaze lit on Jane Seymour, who sat placidly through the queen’s tantrum, sewing. She had no reason to dislike Mistress Seymour, but she did. There was something sly about her, Elizabeth thought. “I had best go to her,” she told Lady Margaret.
“Oh, would you?” Lady Margaret sounded relieved. “She does love you, and she listens when you advise her, Mistress Hay.”
Elizabeth hurried into the queen’s privy chamber. Anne was sobbing violently, and her hair was loose and disarrayed. There were several pieces of broken crockery upon the floor. “You are upsetting yourself needlessly, your highness,” she began, and she waved the others in the chamber out with an imperious hand.
“Do you know what he said to me?
” Anne sobbed. “They sent for him, you know. I told him what I knew. I told him I would not countenance his fucking another woman, and especially now, when the child is so near to being born. He did not beg my pardon, or even console me. He said in that commanding voice of his, ‘You must shut your eyes, madame, and endure, as your betters before you have endured. You must surely know that having raised you to such utopian heights I can as easily lower you back to the depths.’ Oh, Elizabeth, he does not love me anymore!” And the queen sobbed harder.
The lady of Friarsgate put comforting arms about the queen. “He was angry at being found out, Anne. All summer long he has kept anything he considered distressful to you from you. Some of it quite silly, I might add. Of course he loves you. Now cease your greeting, and think of the child you are carrying.”
“Ohh, Elizabeth,” the queen cried, “you must never leave me!”
And Elizabeth Hay felt a chill race down her spine. Never leave? God forbid! She would go as soon as the child was safely delivered and in its mother’s arms. She already had Nancy packing for their journey, and had sent for a contingent of her own Friarsgate men, too afraid to ask for a royal escort lest she be denied. She was going home! She needed to be on her lands again. She needed her husband and son.
On Sunday, the seventh day of September, Anne went into labor in the great bed of state that had been prepared for the birth. Around her, the midwives and the physicians conferred, while by her side Elizabeth Hay sat holding the queen’s hand. As her labor grew in intensity Anne squeezed the hand in hers over and over again until Elizabeth thought it would never be of use to her again. The cries of the woman in labor reached the courtiers awaiting word of the birth in the queen’s reception room. Among them a seventeen-year-old Mary Tudor waited to be displaced by a brother. Perhaps then they would let her see her mother. Perhaps then they would finally let her marry her cousin Phillip, as her mother wanted her to do. Phillip was very dashing.
And then between three and four o’clock that early September afternoon the wail of an infant was heard. It was a strong cry, and those in the waiting room began to smile. Perhaps it had all been worth it, after all. The child, a Virgo, would be a great king. They showed the queen her infant, and Anne began to weep. Only those standing closest to her heard her soft words. “I am ruined!”
“Nay!” Elizabeth bent to whisper to the exhausted woman. “She is a strong babe, and but the first of many that you will bear the king.”
Outside, it was announced that the queen had been delivered of a fair maid, a princess she had declared would be called Elizabeth, after the king’s late mother. The king came, and went in to his wife. The child was healthy, he declared jovially, and the prettiest he had ever seen, with her halo of red-gold hair so like his. There would be others, he said, but everyone knew he was disappointed. Anne Boleyn’s star was fading fast, and the king’s eyes were already lighting with pleasure upon one of her ladies-in-waiting: the meek and mild Mistress Jane Seymour.
“We will call the babe Mary,” he told his wife.
“Nay, you have a daughter Mary,” Anne said with a show of her old spirit. “I have called her Elizabeth after your sainted mother, may God assoil her good soul. You will name the lads, my dear lord, but I will name the girls.”
The king chuckled, eased from his bad mood briefly. Then he nodded. “Agreed,” he said. “You always did know how to bargain, Annie.” Then he left her.
Elizabeth came back in to be with her friend. Anne was paler than she usually was, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes, which now had a haunted look in them. “He spoke kindly to you,” Elizabeth comforted the queen as those around her prepared her for sleep.
“I have disappointed him. I said my daughter was named after his mother, but she is named after you too. May she be as strong a woman as you, Bess,” Anne said.
Three days after her birth the princess to be called Elizabeth was baptized by Archbishop Cranmer, immersed in the silver font kept for royal babies. She then went off to her own royal household while her mother lay in state receiving the mighty. But it all rang hollow. Everyone knew the king was unhappy, no matter his fine words. And Anne was condemned to remain forty more days in her confinement until the ceremony of her churching took place.
And then one morning in early October, as the king came from his chapel, a man with a wealth of black hair, as tall as if not taller than Henry Tudor, came down the corridor of the palace dragging two yeoman of the guard, one clinging to each of his arms. The king and his companions were both astounded and surprised. Reaching Henry Tudor, the great man shook the guardsmen off and bowed politely to the monarch.
His gray eyes engaged the king’s blue ones. His garments were soiled, but of decent quality. There was a length of red-black-and-yellow plaid over one of his shoulders. He was unarmed but for a dirk at his side. “Your majesty,” he said in a deep voice that hinted of the north. “I have come, with your permission, to fetch my wife home.”
“Your wife?” The king was truly puzzled.
“Elizabeth Hay, the lady of Friarsgate, your majesty,” the man said. “She came in the spring at the queen’s command. Now I would like her to go home at your command.”
Henry Tudor began to chuckle, and the chuckle grew into a great shout of laughter. The men around him looked nervously at one another. Should they laugh too? Discretion prevailed, and they remained silent. The king’s amusement eased, and, nodding, he said, “Aye, Scotsman, it is time you got your wife back, and if she is anything like her mother, which I believe she is, she longs for her beloved Friarsgate.” He turned to look at the men accompanying him, and, finding who he sought, he waved him forward. “I will send for your wife to come to you in my gardens. She has our permission to go home. In the meantime I give you a fellow Scot to keep you company.” Then, with another deep chuckle, Henry Tudor moved past Baen Hay, the MacColl, and on down the corridor.
The two men eyed each other, and then the king’s man held out his hand. “I am Flynn Stewart,” he said.
“Baen Hay, known as the MacColl,” was the response. “You must be the other Scot she kissed when she was here last.”
Flynn Stewart was unable to repress the grin that sprang to his lips. “A gentleman does not kiss and tell, sir,” he said as they walked down the corridor and out into the gardens by the river. She had not been lying: Her husband was a big man.
Baen chuckled. “Do you think she has enjoyed her time here?” he asked.
“She came for the queen, but I know she longs to go home. The queen feels she needs Elizabeth’s friendship, but she does not consider her friend’s husband or child or responsibilities, her own needs overshadowing all.”
“They say she is a witch,” Baen said.
“They are wrong,” Flynn countered. “She’s just an ambitious woman who has now played her trump card, and probably lost. I doubt Elizabeth could have gotten away from her but that you came to fetch her. It is better she not be caught in what will follow, Baen Hay. Her heart is too good.”
“Aye,” Baen agreed, “it is.”
“Baen!” Elizabeth was flying across the lawns, holding her skirts up so that she would not trip. She flung herself into his open arms. “Oh, Baen!” And, taking his head between her two hands, she kissed him hungrily.
“I will bid you both farewell and a safe journey then,” Flynn Stewart said. She loved him. Oh, yes, she loved him very much, and for a brief moment he was envious.
Elizabeth turned in her husband’s arms. She smiled sweetly at Flynn. “Thank you,” she said softly, and then together with her husband, the lady of Friarsgate walked across the green lawns of Greenwich towards her uncle’s house. She did not look back, and so she did not see the woman standing alone in an upper window. She did not hear the familiar voice whisper a farewell. She did not see the single tear slip down the queen’s face. She was going home with her husband, and for the first time in months Elizabeth felt lighthearted. The day was bright with an October sun
. Baen was by her side. And she was going home to Friarsgate!
Epilogue
June 1536
Flynn Stewart was riding for the border separating Scotland and England. He had taken a route far out of his way, but before he saw his brother, the king, he meant to stop at Friarsgate first. He owed that to Elizabeth. Looking about him as he rode, he admired the beauty of the region, now understanding Elizabeth’s passion to live here, and not at court. It had been almost three years since he had watched as Elizabeth and her husband walked away from Greenwich. He wondered if she had changed, but thought not. And then he topped a rise in the narrow road, and there before him lay Friarsgate. Its fields were filled with growing grain, and its green hillsides dotted with white sheep. He halted for a brief moment, taking it all in. Could he have been happy here? Perhaps, but he could have never denied his loyalty to his brother, King James V.
Urging his horse forward, he rode down the hill along the road that passed through those beautiful fields and a small cluster of cottages. Reaching the manor house, he pulled the beast to a halt and dismounted as a stable lad ran to take his animal. Stepping up to the door, he knocked loudly upon it, and when a servant opened the door, Flynn Stewart said, “I need to speak with your mistress.”
“This way, sir,” Albert said, leading him to the great hall. “Mistress, a gentleman asking for you,” the hall steward said.
Elizabeth looked up. Then she stood, holding out her hands. “Flynn!” Her eyes were bright with their welcome. “What brings you to Friarsgate? I hope the queen has not sent you to bring me back to court again, for I shall not come. My responsibilities have increased greatly since my return.” She smiled at him as Albert brought a goblet of wine for her guest.
He took the goblet, gulping half of it down. He had not realized he was so thirsty. “I am on my way to Edinburgh,” he told her. “I thought I should stop and see how you and Friarsgate are doing,” he told her.
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