Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2) (7 page)

BOOK: Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2)
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Chapter Four

 

For the next few days, Sir Richard barely spoke to Bridget. He was polite enough, and showed her
all the proper courtesies when they were on display to the court, but he kept his own counsel in private, directing most of his speech to his servants.

 

Bridget could only surmise that he was jealous of the attention the king had paid her in his privy chamber the other night but, if so, his childishness irritated her. She had not wanted, nor encouraged, His Majesty’s attention. In addition to that, it was hardly something she could do much about. He was the king. They were all subject to his will—if he snapped his fingers, they must jump; if he called a tune, they must dance; if he summoned them to his chamber, they must come. Sir Richard knew all of that as well as anyone, and besides, if anybody could be accused of encouraging the king, it was surely him. He was the one who had been all eagerness to come to court in the first place. He was the one who had basked in the few minutes of attention the king had bestowed on him. He was the one who wanted desperately to rise. If the king’s reaction to her caused him to sulk and punish her with the silent treatment, so be it. It made no real difference to her.

 

That morning, even if she had wanted to speak to her husband, she would have been unable to, as he had left her alone in their rooms. Sir Richard had headed out early to watch a tennis match at the behest of two unlikely companions, Sir Nicholas Carew and the Marquess of Exeter. He had stiffly enquired of Bridget whether she wanted to accompany them, but she had cordially declined the invitation. The memory of the last tennis match she had attended at Greenwich was still too raw. A tennis match was the last event Anne had attended before her arrest, before they had made their journey together upriver to the Tower, a journey from which only one of them had returned. She shivered. No, Sir Richard was welcome to his tennis match.

 

Bridget crossed the room and seated herself at a small writing desk. She took out a piece of parchment, smoothed out the creases, and picked up her quill. She was writing to three people: the abbess, Joan de Brett, the abbess’s niece Joanna, and to Sister Margaret Welles, their newest resident at the Manor of Thorns. Sister Margaret had come to them in the New Year, when her only remaining family, her brother, had died, and she had been left on her own. Now aged over sixty, she had spent most of her life at Rivers Abbey and she missed it badly. When Abbess Joan had heard of her plight, she had unhesitatingly offered her a home with them. She had settled in as well as could be expected, and seemed content enough, although she had protested volubly when Bridget and Sir Richard had left for court. “Why would anyone want to serve that monster?” she had demanded. “The king has been the ruin of us all.” Despite this outburst, Bridget wanted to keep her, and the others, informed of everything that had had happened thus far and, more importantly, she wanted to enquire as to the state of Joanna’s health. In truth, she had grown a little concerned; she had expected to have heard from Thorns by now. When she left, Joanna had been suffering from a mere cold. She prayed that she had not taken a turn for the worse.

 

She began to write, but the quill had barely touched the surface of the parchment before she was interrupted by the sound of a single knock. She hastily finished her opening sentence, set down the pen, traversed the chamber and opened the door. She was met by the sight of a young girl standing impatiently in the corridor.

 

“Lady de Brett?” the girl asked rapidly, and just a touch insolently for one who appeared to be not yet fifteen.

Bridget crossed
her hands demurely in front of her and looked the girl straight in the eye. “Yes, I am Lady de Brett. And you are?”

“I am Anne Bassett, maid of honour to Her Majesty Queen Ja
ne,” the girl replied gaily. “I bear a message for you from my mistress. She would like you to present yourself in her quarters forthwith. I am to conduct you there, my lady, if that is acceptable to you.”

 

Bridget dug her fingers into the folds of her gown and tried to keep her expression as impassive as possible. Jane wanted to see her? Whatever for? Lady Rochford had told her that the queen had no use for her, which was no surprise, given the events of the recent past. So why the peremptory summons? She had no option but to find out. “It is perfectly acceptable to me, Mistress Bassett,” Bridget responded calmly. “In fact, I would be honoured to accompany you to Her Majesty’s apartments, but as you can see, you have found me at my leisure and therefore I am not properly attired to see the queen. Please allow me a few minutes to don an appropriate dress.”

 

Anne Bassett nodded, and Bridget headed to a tiny antechamber where she furiously began combing, pinning and piling her blonde hair on top of her head, preparatory to covering it with a French hood. She threw off her robe and changed into a dark grey gown, one of her oldest and simplest, which she thought would please Jane. It was difficult putting on even the most basic of gowns on her own but finally, once everything was in place, she checked her reflection in the mirror and was reasonably content with what she saw there. She returned to the doorway and fixed the young maid with a brilliant smile. “Come then, Mistress Bassett, lead the way. I am ready to go.”

 

Anne Bassett spun around and, with a self-assurance that belied her years, led Bridget away from her lodgings and towards the queen’s. On the way there, Bridget had time to further ponder what on earth Jane could want with her. Bridget was inextricably linked with Jane’s predecessor, a woman Jane herself had had no regard for in life and would not want to be reminded of in death. Lady Rochford had let Bridget know that her presence was unwelcome, and Sir Richard was not so important a person that his wife’s friendship needed to be cultivated. Her mind ticked over at a brisk pace, trying to hit upon the right reason for her summons, but so far she could only draw a blank. She sighed and Anne Bassett glanced back at her, a strange smile playing around at the edges of her lips. Clearly, Bridget’s summons was no mystery to
her
. This pert, little maid, with her freckled face and vivid blue eyes, knew exactly what was going on. Bridget’s heart rate picked up, and she tried, unsuccessfully, to loosen the stomacher of her gown.

 

They soon came to a part of the palace that Bridget recognised, and she no longer had to pay such close heed to the direction of Anne Bassett’s steps. She knew now exactly where she was. She looked around at the familiar scenery and took note of the changes that had taken place. They were many. She passed by the section of wall where a portrait of Queen Anne had once hung, the portrait she had seen torn down by laughing tradesmen on the day of Anne’s execution. A new tapestry depicting the Three Fates had taken its place, and Bridget glanced at it as closely as she could as they trooped past—the figure of the most lethal of the Fates, Atropos, her gleaming golden shears gleefully cutting the thread of life, seemed to leap out at her.

 

Anne Bassett came to the great double doors and entered breezily through them. Bridget followed and bowed her head modestly as they passed through the presence chamber, keeping her eyes carefully averted from the curious gazes that met her there. Mistress Bassett then came to the privy chamber and walked with more circumspection through its entranceway. Everyone gathered there turned as one at her arrival. The queen stood in the centre of the room, surrounded by her attendants and, at her right hand, by the Lady Mary. All the women, led by Lady Rochford and Edward Seymour’s wife, Lady Hertford, regarded Bridget’s ingress with disapproval bordering on hostility. The Lady Mary was the only one who smiled and showed a hint of kindness in her eyes.

 

“Your Majesty,” Anne Bassett announced, “Lady de Brett is here.” She stepped aside and Bridget took her place. The queen looked her up and down for a few moments and then signalled, with a toss of her head, that she should approach further. With downcast eyes, Bridget walked as close as she dared to the queen and sank into the deepest curtsey she could manage, her skirts spreading out around her like a silver puddle. The silence in the room was deafening, and Bridget had to work hard to stay in position and not topple over sideways.

Eventually, just when Bridget thought she was going to collapse in a heap, Jane spoke.
“Stand up, Lady de Brett,” she ordered, her voice shot through with queenly imperiousness. “We have looked upon your nimble curtsey long enough.”

 

Bridget stood up slowly, careful not to allow even the slightest wobble in her legs. She lifted her gaze with equal deliberation and met, dead on, the wintry stare of Queen Jane Seymour. Her eyes held all the warmth of an icicle, and her face was whiter than snow. She regarded Bridget as if she was the last person in the kingdom that she wanted, or had ever wanted, to see.

 

Bridget returned her look in what she hoped was a suitably submissive manner. While the queen remained deliberately mute, she had time to contemplate her appearance at close quarters. Jane was quite possibly wearing every gemstone that the king’s Jewel House possessed within its considerable coffers. The diamonds around her neck almost seemed as if they were choking her, and every one of her delicate fingers, resting proudly across the expanse of her belly, glimmered with wide golden rings. Anne Boleyn had set out to stamp her authority on the court by the sheer force of her presence and personality; that approach was not available to Jane Seymour. Lacking that type of charisma, she had chosen another way to make her mark: a flagrant display of wealth to advertise her newly acquired power. In the end, though, no amount of flashing diamonds or softly glowing rubies would matter. Jane would be judged not by the impressiveness of her jewels but by the issue of her womb.

 

The queen was a short woman, tiny really, and thus the curve of her stomach was rendered especially pronounced. Bridget recalled that a
Te Deum
had been sung at St Paul’s to give thanks for Jane’s quickening in May. It was now nearly August, which meant that the queen must be fast approaching her time. Soon she would take to her chamber with her women and await the birth of her child. God willing, it would be a boy. Did Jane want Bridget to be one of the ladies who attended her through the travails of childbirth? No, she dismissed that idea immediately—it was so absurd. The reason for her summoning to the queen’s privy chamber could have nothing to do with the forthcoming royal confinement.

 

Jane seated herself whilst indicating that Bridget should remain standing. “Welcome to my court Lady de Brett. I must say that the married state suits you well. Your looks have improved greatly since last I saw you - your countenance has taken on the proper cast of a mature and dutiful wife. There is nary a trace of the naïve, unsophisticated, wide-eyed maid fresh from the country that I remember from . . .” the queen searched for the right word, “before.”

 

The women in the room tittered, and Bridget felt heat spread across her creamy complexion. She forced her lips upward in the approximation of a smile and pretended as if the queen had paid her a compliment. “I thank you, Your Majesty. I am very pleased to be married, although you have the advantage of me, as you are carrying an heir for your husband, whereas I am as yet barren.”

 

Jane glanced down at her belly and her face filled with pride. For a moment, the force of her emotion rendered her otherwise-pedestrian features pretty. She rubbed her hands across her brocade-covered bump and sat a little higher in her chair. The mention of her forthcoming babe seemed to soften her a little, and Bridget noticed a slight thaw in her frosty expression.

 

She ran her light eyes up and down Bridget’s frame and tapped one finger on the carved armrest of her chair, as if she were weighing a decision on a set of scales in her mind and considering the result. After a decent interval, she ceased her tapping and spoke. “Lady de Brett, let us proceed to the reason I have called you hither. I have no real desire to have you as a member of my household, and I am certain that I do not need to tell you the reason why. I am well served by the ladies I already have, even by my newest maid, Mistress Bassett, although she has much still to learn.” The girl grimaced. “And furthermore, I do not seek, at present, to increase the numbers of ladies about me. Nonetheless . . .”

 

Bridget tensed, and she thought of the tapestry portraying the Three Fates she had seen outside. They must have reached the part where the thread, having once been spun and measured, was cut. She anticipated the verbal slice of the blade, but Queen Jane, for once, said something that took her off guard. “The king speaks highly of you and also of your husband, and he has made it plain to me that he wants your presence at court. Lord Cromwell has similarly praised you and suggested that a place should be found for you. I, both as a Christian and as an obedient wife and subject, have decided to accede to their wishes. Therefore, my decision is this: I do not require you to officially join my household, but I do require you to attend on me in my chambers as and when I command, and, to that end, you shall accompany me to Windsor when we remove thither. If you can prove yourself amenable to me you may yet become of one my ladies once my son is born and I have fully recovered.”

BOOK: Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2)
11.74Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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