by V. E. Lynne
“This letter is signed ‘Mistress Margaret Welles.’ Who is this person to you? Is she a relative?” the king demanded.
Bridget drove her nails into her palms, using the little burst of pain to gather her courage and focus her mind. Sister Margaret was beyond her help; she was beyond anyone’s help. She had dug her own grave. But what of the abbess? Was she in peril? Bridget could still save her, and that was all that mattered.
She lifted her eyes, looked straight at the king with equanimity and answered, “No, sire. This woman, Mistress Margaret Welles, is no relation of mine, nor is she related to Lord de Brett. Mistress Joan took her in as an act of kindness, as she was a nun at Rivers Abbey. She is not a young woman, and once the abbey was suppressed, she found herself alone in the world without family. Clearly, as Lord Cromwell said, Mistress Joan’s act of Christian charity has been betrayed. I can promise you, sire, that none of us were aware of Mistress Welles’s correspondence. None of us were aware of—this.” She looked sadly down at the single sheet of parchment and hastily blinked back tears.
The king regarded her speculatively. He turned to his chief minister. “Cromwell? What say you? Is Mistress Joan de Brett an innocent party in all this? Was her good nature used against her? This Welles woman wrote to Lady Exeter. Was any of the correspondence found amongst her belongings after the marchioness’s arrest?”
Lord Cromwell pursed his lips in an oddly matronly fashion and replied smoothly, “No, Your Majesty, nothing was found from Margaret Welles amongst the effects of the marchioness. I came by this letter by other means. As for the innocence of Mistress Joan, I believe Lady de Brett is entirely correct. I have conducted a thorough investigation and I can say, with utter certainty, that Mistress Joan played no part in the treasonable doings of the Welles female. Mistress Margaret, as my investigation uncovered, has been a keen letter writer in support of the claims of the White Rose, in particular those of Cardinal Pole. And that is not all. I have testimony that she has spoken openly against Your Majesty several times to whomsoever will listen to her. The ‘mouldwarp’ prophecy is a particular favourite of hers, I am told.”
The kings eyes bulged and he went a dark shade of red. “The mouldwarp? Hang her up then! God almighty, is there no end to these traitors and the lengths they will go to destroy me? Am I never to be safe from them? Is my son never to be safe?” The king slumped into a cushioned chair and leant forward, his hands on his knees.
“Majesty, of course you will be safe . . . you are safe,” Bridget soothed, covering the king’s hands with her own. “You are the king, consecrated unto God. There is no earthly force that can undo that.”
“I am the king,” he agreed, his voice so low it was barely more than a hiss, “and you would do well to remember that, madam. You now stand in a very difficult position. Your aunt has harboured a traitor in her midst, within the walls of your husband’s house no less. The house that he never visits any longer because he is kept so busy on his other estates. Estates that I gave to him. Because of you. Because I wanted you and you have pleased me, at least for a time, though your affection, dearly bought, proved barren.” He glanced at her flat belly. “Never forget that everything I have bestowed, everything that I have given you, it can all be taken away,” he clicked his fingers, “like they never were. That was a truth that the previous wearer of this pendant never fully realised, not until the sword sliced through her neck. One of the privileges of a king is that I can make things disappear. Honours. Lands. People. All can vanish,” he smiled nastily, “in an instant.”
Bridget could hear the roaring increase in her brain and was sure that she was about to faint on the spot, but somehow she centred herself. She smiled and inclined her head as if to indicate that she understood. The king, satisfied that he had made his point, gave her hand a hard squeeze and stood up.
“My lady, you asked permission to leave court for a time. That permission is granted. I think it best that you repair to the Manor of Thorns and see to your household. You shall remain there until I see fit to summon you. I assume that Lord de Brett has been informed of the arrest of Mistress Welles?” Cromwell nodded. “Good, no doubt he is making his way back to London as we speak. He is a . . . practical man, and I have no doubt that he will set his house in order.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Bridget said in what she hoped was a suitably biddable tone. “You are most kind.”
The king held out his hand, and she duly dropped into a curtsey and kissed the extended ruby ring. The king then withdrew and dismissed her with a finality that was unmistakable. Bridget turned for the door and nearly bolted out of it. She exited through the outer chambers, past the rows and rows of curious stares that included even the habitually stony-faced guards, their sharp-edged halberds turned blessedly away from her. She assumed an air of calm indifference, but once she was past them, out into the passageway and around the first corner, she sagged against the cool stone walls and waited for her galloping heart rate to slow back down to normal. If anything could be termed “normal” now.
She cried out in frustration and slapped her palm several times against the wall. The shock of the impact reverberated up and down her arm but she welcomed it. Bridget could not remember ever being so angry. She wanted to tear the palace to pieces, brick by brick, such was her fury. She wanted to rip down every tapestry, turn over every table and chair, and shatter every pane of glass. She wanted to run out into the courtyard and scream and scream until she was hoarse and her throat bled. But she knew that she could not and besides whatever she did, it would be useless. Futile. Sister Margaret was going to die. She could not stop it. The abbess would be destroyed by grief. She would never forgive herself. In addition to that, the king had made it very clear that they might lose their home and their lands. They could be stripped of it all, and she, who had sacrificed the most, would be left with nothing. “Oh, Holy Mother, forgive me,” she muttered dejectedly. “I have debased myself, I have lost my honour, my good name, and for what? I am the king’s whore. I am a sinner. I am a failure. I have failed you. I have failed everyone.”
“Oh, I would not say that,” Lord Cromwell remarked, emerging into the corridor like an emissary of doom. “You have not failed at everything. You succeeded in pleasing your king. True, he grows weary of you now, as he eventually does all women, but for a time you pleased him. Greatly. More importantly than that, he still holds you in esteem. He has told me so many times—he told me so again just now. You have never gossiped about him, you have never laughed at him or spread ugly rumours about him, as others before you have done. You have shown discretion and kept your own counsel. Therefore, once His Majesty is married to Anne of Cleves, and I thank you for your support of that match, as a reward you shall have a place in her household. All in all that constitutes a very good return for . . . what did you call it? Your debasement of honour?”
Bridget barely listened to his words; she had had enough of listening to them. They had availed her nothing. Instead, she walked up to him until their faces were mere inches apart. For once she felt no fear; her anger had swallowed it up. She longed to slap him so much that her palm tingled in keen anticipation of the blow.
“Careful, madam,” Cromwell warned. “Think before you act. I am prepared to make allowances for the fact that you are . . . upset, but do not forget yourself too far. The consequences could be dire.”
“Dire consequences?” Bridget laughed. “Well, I suppose you are the man to ask about those. You are, after all, the master of them. Let us contemplate your list of victims so far, shall we, my lord? It is quite distinguished. You have helped to send all manner of people to the headsman: Bishop Fisher, Thomas More, Mark Smeaton, the Queen of England, the Marquess of Exeter, Sir Edward Neville and now you can add a harmless, old nun to the tally. Tell me, will you attend her execution as you attended so many of the others? We did so enjoy your rather strikingly detailed descriptions of the final moments of Exeter and his cohorts last Christmas. It really added mos
t wonderfully to the season of goodwill unto all men.”
“I am glad to hear you appreciated it, madam, though you seem to have completely missed the point of my relaying their last sorry moments of life to the court. The penalty for treason is death, a bloody end upon the block, the heads afterwards placed on spikes as a warning to others. Those men were traitors, as were all the others you mentioned. They were deservedly punished according to the law. That is how we go about protecting the realm, how we protect the king. It is immaterial that Margaret Welles is an old woman. She has committed treason. She must now pay the penalty for it.”
Bridget knew he was right, though every fibre of her being hated him for it. Sister Margaret had committed treason, according to the law, but even so she could not just let her die. She had to at least try to save her life.
“Do you remember that we had an agreement, my lord?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Then you must also remember the terms of that agreement, since they were your idea. I agreed to yield myself to the king and to promote the alliance with Cleves, indeed to promote all your causes. In return, you agreed to guarantee my family’s safety.”
“Mistress Welles is not one of your family.”
“She is of my household; she has lived at Thorns, and before that at Rivers alongside myself and my aunt Joan de Brett, who is one of my family. She is like kin to me; I have known her all my life. Please . . . Thomas. I beg you. Do not do this. You can spare her. I know you can.”
Cromwell wavered a little at the use of his name, which she had never employed before. A fast pulse beat in the side of his temple. He inhaled deeply.
“I am sorry, my lady, but I cannot spare her. Mistress Welles is a traitor, and she is no kin to you. The best I can do is spare her the full rigours of a traitor’s death. As far as your true kin is concerned, namely Mistress Joan, I honoured our accord. You do realise that I could have had her arrested too? She sheltered Mistress Welles, she is close to her, and I am sure they talked often on a great many subjects. They have a liking for contentious banners; perhaps she also dipped her pen in treasonous ink? I could so easily have had her put to the question, shaken her up and seen what fell out. I chose not to do so. I kept my word. Which, madam, is more than I can say for you.”
Bridget drew back. She had not kept her word? Was he just seeking to deflect her accusations, or was he in earnest? She searched his face for the answer. He kept his expression tightly shuttered, but his eyes gave him away. They burned with a ferocity that was barely controlled.
“Oh, yes, my lady, you were the one who went outside the terms of our covenant, not I. You were supposed to confine yourself to two things and two things only: sleeping with the king and promoting my causes, namely the Cleves marriage. But that was not enough for you, was it? You could not stop there—you suddenly found that you commanded a little bit of power, and when Lady Exeter came to you with her tale of woe you could not help yourself. You had to go to the king and try to exercise it. Without so much as a by your leave, you pleaded for leniency for the marchioness. And, what is more, you succeeded.”
Bridget stared at him incredulously, then she burst out laughing. “I succeeded, sir? By what possible measure did I succeed? Lady Exeter’s husband and their kinsmen are dead, while others of her family, including herself and her son, are imprisoned and furthermore she is under an attainder. That means, as you well know, legally speaking, that she no longer exists. How on earth does any of that constitute a success? I would have thought it was a rather good description of a catastrophe.”
Cromwell smiled mirthlessly and looked her directly in the eye. “Then once again, madam, you have it wrong. Yes, Exeter, Montague and Neville are dead. Carew is dead. But they were all supposed to die. The whole, worthless lot of them. None to be spared, including your beloved marchioness. I care nothing for her fate, nor for the fate of her son, Edward, that she is so agitated about. It is the fate of another Edward that entirely preoccupies me. Prince Edward, the king’s son, his sole heir. Nothing and no one must ever prevent his accession. As long as any of the White Rose remain alive, with their Plantagenet pretensions and their dreams of Cardinal Pole as king and the Lady Mary as his queen, he is not secure. Neither is his father. The marchioness was always supposed to follow her husband’s path to the block. As you say, she is attainted. All that is needed is the king’s signature on her death warrant. But he won’t sign it. ‘She is in the Tower, let her rot there,’ were his last words on the subject before he forbade all mention of it. And so that is where she sits, day after day, still drawing breath, still alive, whatever the law says. I would call that a success, madam, and I would also call it not keeping your word.”
Bridget shook her head in disbelief. It was all absolutely, dreadfully clear to her now.
“Do you mean to say that because the Marchioness of Exeter’s heart still beats you blame me, and thus Mistress Welles must pay the price for it? My God. I knew you were ruthless, but you have surpassed yourself. You did not dare to try to make me pay—the king holds me in too high regard for that. You could not be certain of his reaction, therefore, you determined to take out your desire for revenge on a pathetic, old woman who wrote a letter that never even reached the marchioness in the first place! You told the king that no correspondence from Mistress Margaret was found amongst Lady Exeter’s possessions, correct? Therefore, there was no compact between them, there was no danger. And how did you come by the letter in the first place? One of your informants must have intercepted it, some creature of yours, some false cur you have planted in my household to spy on us and do your bidding. Probably the same person who fished the scrap of the Five Wounds banner out of the Thames for you. Have I hit the mark, my lord? Am I right at last?”
Cromwell crossed his arms defensively. He did not blink. “Good God, you really think me the devil’s henchman, don’t you? Intercepting letters, spies placed in your home, bits of cloth pulled out of the river in the dead of night. You do have a lively imagination, perhaps I will utilise it one day. As it happens, my lady, nothing as fantastical as your version of events took place. Mistress Welles indisputably wrote a treasonable letter, perhaps one of many she penned; after all, her opposition to the king is well known. She never had the wit to hide it. It was brought to my attention by the one person who had the most to lose if your family was disgraced. Your husband, the Viscount de Brett himself. Mistress Welles chose the wrong person to deliver her ill-starred missive, a man called Walters. He brought the letter straight to his master and in turn his master brought it to me and left it in my capable hands. As for the banner, well you may be closer to the mark there. John Walters is a man I have known for a long time. He is a useful person I find. In many ways.”
Bridget looked away, the disgust writ large on her visage; Cromwell smiled at her more in sorrow than in satisfaction.
“Do not condemn him. Lord de Brett acted entirely properly. He is loyal to the king, and he does have his own position, as well as his sister’s and yours, to consider. I gather he never wanted the Welles woman in his house to begin with; it was done as a favour to Mistress Joan. Once he realised the poison he had allowed to take root within his walls he acted to vanquish it. After the discovery of the letter, he kept her under close observation until I gave the order to act. When that was given, the woman had to be literally dragged out of the place, crying and shrieking invective all the way, mostly against me. She wants martyrdom, I believe. Well, she shall have it. As for revenge, do not be ridiculous. If I had wanted to ‘move against’ you, I could have done so. At any time. No desire could be further from my heart. I merely wanted to offer you a reminder.”
“A reminder?”
“Aye.” Cromwell sighed, and before Bridget could react, he touched her face with a gentleness she had never seen him display before. “I have told you this before, but you seem oddly incapable of remembering it, let alone of truly comprehending it. You work for me. After all, you owe everything
to me and to my munificence. It was I who ensured your return to court after you climbed down off Anne Boleyn’s scaffold in your blood-soaked dress. It was I who ensured your husband’s smooth return to favour, despite his family’s less than illustrious history. From that flowed all the new titles and lands and jewels you now enjoy. All because of me. Why, you ask yourself? Why bother with you, a little nobody who can bring me nothing? The answer is simple and you already know it, though you struggle to admit it, even to yourself. I am captivated by you, madam, mesmerised one might say. I have been ever since the first day I saw you in the tiltyard at Greenwich. You have stirred something in me I thought was long dead, something I have not felt for many years. At times, you have felt it too.” He traced the length of her collarbone; she jerked away. “But despite my . . . feelings, there are limits. Limits to what I can allow—there always are. You must learn them. I have found that a harsh lesson in brutal reality is the only way anybody truly learns anything. My father taught me that. Perhaps, at long last, you have learnt it too.”
He cupped the side of her cheek. Bridget kept her face, now flushed with shame and impotent rage, resolutely turned away. “The king will summon you back to court in a few months,” he said, “though your time in his bed is up. I am sure that that news is not unwelcome to you. Hopefully, the marriage contract with Cleves will be signed by the end of summer and we shall have a new queen ere long. You will join her household; in fact, I anticipate you will ride quite high in her favour. You will serve her and you will serve me. This episode, this . . . unpleasantness between us, will be utterly forgotten. It does no good to dwell on the past, not when there so much to look forward to. A new marriage for the king, a new prince in the royal cradle. An entirely new England to make. Until then, keep yourself quiet at Thorns and wait for the tempest to blow itself out. ’Twill not take long and then we shall embark upon a new future. Together.”
