Secrets of the Tudor Court (29 page)

I nod. "Yes."

"And Norfolk?"

I hesitate. My heart is pounding. I want to--God knows I want to--but I will not. I will not implicate him. "No...I do not believe he is involved."

Cat cups my cheek with her hand. "God bless your devotion, child, misguided though it may be. You are still loyal enough to me to be worthy of my regard." Tears light her eyes. "I was certain..." She averts her head.

"Your Majesty?"

She sighs. "You know, Lady Mary, when I watched you dance that night in your beautiful green gown I thought..." She returns her eyes to me. "I thought I was looking upon the next queen of England."

I shiver. "Never, Your Majesty," I reassure her with vehemence, clasping her hands in mine. "Never."

Cat draws me into an embrace. "God bless you, little Mary," she whispers.

I cannot thank her. I cannot speak past the tears rising in my throat.

Wasn't it my Anne who always called me little Mary?

My brother Henry, Lord Surrey, has returned to court after a visit to France. He is in fine form, as outspoken as ever, but this is a trait I decide to excuse, knowing we are all lacking in one way or another and are very unlikely to change. Instead I find I am thrilled to see him, and exchange with him a long embrace, hoping that despite our past, relations might be mended between us.

Surrey does not seem to hold any grudges. It is a happy reunion. In his presence I forget for the briefest of moments the tension of this court, the fear I have on my queen's behalf, the regret that twists my gut whenever I think of my father. Now there is only my dear brother, and I concentrate on him. He updates me on Frances and the children and entertains me with his poetry, inquiring as to whether I have composed any.

"There is one," I tell him. My heart is pounding. It is a poem I thought never to share with another soul. But this man, this great poet, my lord brother, is of my blood. Perhaps in finding one person to share my innermost being with, I will begin to heal from what has seemed to be a wound as persistent and festering as the king's rotting leg.

Surrey and I sit alone in the gardens. I have retrieved my little silver casket of treasures, reading him one poem, then another, till at last I arrive at my opus. Surrey wraps his arm about me in a manner so casual and filled with familiarity that tears sting my eyes.

I lean my head on his shoulder and begin to read "O Happy Dames." As I read I think of my Cedric, how much he loved the first verse, how he was denied hearing the rest. How it was one of his only requests that I finish that poem. I think of the melody he set to it. I think of the sea, my love's watery grave...

At the poem's conclusion we sit in silence. Tears stream unchecked down my cheeks. I had never read the poem after its completion. I was unaware at the time I had written it that I had all but prophesied such things as Cedric's death before, or perhaps, as it was occurring. I am stunned.

Surrey takes the poem from my limp hands and reads it over to himself. He then places it in the little casket and wraps his arm about me again, holding me tight.

We say nothing. There is nothing to be said. Somehow I know that I have impressed Surrey, that at long last he finds me a worthy peer, and that is enough for me.

I do not realize until the middle of the night that when Surrey and I parted company I had left the casket behind. Oh, well. Not to worry. I am certain he has not forgotten it.

Indeed, he has not forgotten it. When I overhear courtiers discussing Surrey's haunting and tragic new poem, "Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover Being Upon the Sea" I begin to tremble with rage.

"Have you heard the poem?" I ask Kate Brandon, my face burning.

"What poem?" Kate asks. "Oh, yes, your brother's. I think I did."

"How does it begin, do you recall?" I ask, trying to remain calm. Kate shrugs. "'O happy dames...'" She cocks her pretty head. "Really, I don't excel at memorizing poetry. But it is quite good if one can't find enough things to be depressed about at this court."

O happy dames...O happy dames...I choke back a sob and excuse myself.

What is there to be done now? Everyone knows Surrey is The Poet; King Henry designated the epithet upon him himself. He is so proficient and skilled in it that there is no doubt it is his calling. I am an amateur, a dabbler at best. No one would believe that it was I, not Surrey, who composed it.

No one would believe now that the renamed "O Happy Dames" is something that I wrote with passion, love, and longing. That "O Happy Dames" was my heart's pride.

I seek out Surrey in despair. I may have lost all credibility, but I will not lose out on the chance to confront my brother.

He is found in the gardens, arguing with another courtier about something. I do not pay heed. I seize his arm.

"My lord! I will have words with you," I say in firm tones.

Surrey laughs. "Excuse me," he tells the receptacle of his tirade. "My sister sees fit to be rude."

The other man is thrilled to escape Surrey and bows toward me with a smile before making quick strides in the opposite direction.

I have not relinquished his arm. "My lord," I ask, only now allowing tears to fill my voice. "How could you?"

"To what do you refer?" he asks me, brown eyes wide with feigned innocence.

I shake my head. "Oh, you are Norfolk's son," I breathe in horror. "My silver casket, the casket with the poems you stole. If I cannot have the credit for my work, at least return me my property."

"Oh, that," he says. "I'm sorry, Mare," he says. "Really, I am. It's just that you forgot the casket and I was reading it over again when someone asked what it was and...well, they assumed it was one of my compositions. I would have said something, but once they started attributing it to me, well, it sort of took on a life of its own. And you must admit, the writing is rather like mine. You must admire my style," he adds with a smile that is meant, I am sure, to disarm me.

I do not acknowledge the last statement. "Yes, it must have been an extremely difficult situation to extricate yourself from," I say, my tone oozing with the famous Howard sarcasm. "How do you bear it?" I shake my head. "Take the poem. God knows I have lost everything else. I give it to you, Surrey. I did not write it for the world; I do not write for any praise or adulation. I write for myself. The poem will bear your name but I know the truth. I will always know the truth. And you cannot take that away from me."

"Mary, listen. I'll tell them--I'll tell them--"

"It doesn't matter what you tell them," I spit. "The damage is done. Take it. It is my gift to you, dear brother. But the rest, the casket. I want it back."

"It will be returned, my lady," he replies, his tone thick with an emotion I do not care to analyze.

Later that evening, as I am preparing for bed, a messenger delivers my little silver casket.

Everything is there.

Everything but "O Happy Dames."

The court is rife with too many other intrigues for me to remain caught up in my own petty resentments. So I let it go. I let go of "O Happy Dames." I let go of my anger toward Surrey, and with it all feeling toward him as well. If I cannot extricate myself in full from Norfolk, at least I can from my brother, whose impact on my life is far more peripheral.

Now is no time to think of anyone but the queen.

Queen Catherine proves herself to be cleverer than anyone has ever given her credit for. She soothes His Majesty's suspicions with a word; all of her religious debates, she tells him, indeed anything she may have said or did to upset him, why, it was all to serve as a distraction from his bothersome leg. He rewards her with his signet ring, the ring he had given Cranmer to save him if he were unable to.

It is on 13 July when they come for her. She is sitting in the gardens with His Majesty, quite reconciled, when Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and forty guards throw open the gates to arrest her. King Henry struggles to his feet, crying, "Knave! Knave, beast, and fool!"

Poor Wriothesley, as much as I detest him, must have been scared witless. I am certain it was prearranged that Her Majesty was to be arrested for heresy while taking her leisure with the king in the gardens, but King Henry, ever the role player, wanted to act the part of hero and neglected to tell his lord chancellor that plans had changed.

And so, upon the presentation of His Majesty's signet ring and a strident objection from the king against Queen Catherine's arrest, she is saved.

Saved!

I can breathe.

But only for three days. Only until Anne Ayscough and John Lascelles, the man who accused poor Kitty of her adulteries at Lambeth, are burned at the stake at Smithfield. Anne was so weak and crippled from her months of torture that she had to be carried to the stake and chained to it in order to keep her body upright.

I pray that her death was quick. Even Master Lascelles did not deserve such a death, whatever hand he may have had in Kitty's fate. No man is fit to judge another, and as much as I mourn my little cousin I cannot harden my heart against this tragedy.

No, there is no breathing at this court of Henry VIII. There is nothing to be done but count the heads that roll, sift through the ashes at Smithfield...oh, God, this is madness. Truly Hell cannot be much worse.

I will flee. I will go anywhere, I decide. I will do anything it takes, if only to get away.
Self-preservation, Mary
...Mother's words, uttered to me a lifetime ago when I could not comprehend their meaning. Now I know too well the significance of this advice and I will adhere to it.

To my surprise it is Norfolk who proposes to me my way out.

It is the first time I have been summoned to his apartments since the night I dared go against his wishes. Now, with both plots to seize power having failed, Norfolk sits behind his desk, his face drawn with weariness. He appears as any ordinary old man, an old man who stayed too long at the feast and longs for nothing more than to take to his bed.

"Sit, Mary," he says in a soft voice.

I do so without a word.

He removes his cap. His hair, once black as ravens' wings, is now streaked with silver. He leans forward, folding his arms on the desk.

"The Seymours will be in power before long," he tells me, as though this is something I have not known all along. "I am certain Edward, Queen Jane's brother, will be named regent once the little prince...once he..." He trails off. He cannot seem to finish the sentence. "In any event, it has become prudent to ally ourselves to the Seymours."