The Boleyn King (15 page)

He was not the only one. Northumberland had spent a lot of time this winter being wherever she was. Today, for example. Not five minutes after she arrived, Northumberland slipped into a suddenly open space next to her. Like her, his eyes were fixed on the game—but his attention was not.

“May we speak, Your Highness?” he asked in a low voice.

“Speak of what, my lord?” Neither of them looked away from the tennis match. Robert and William were both good, keeping up long volleys between serves.

“There are whispers, Your Highness, of disturbances planned to disrupt the king’s coming majority celebrations.”

“Surely that is a matter for the council.”

“Not those kinds of disturbances. These are more … subtle. Rumours, old gossip, stories that you would not like retold.”

Like the broadsheet of her mother’s reputed witchraft or the taint of bastardy being flung at Will … no, those were stories she did not want retold. But neither would Northumberland. He had staked everything on Anne’s children and the English Church. He could never profit from Mary.

Which made her blunt. “What do you want?”

“Lord Rochford keeps things too close. He makes decisions alone that rightly belong to the council. This embassy to France after their treachery to us last fall—it should have been discussed openly. Rochford is Lord Protector for only a short while longer. He should be reminded that I am not his enemy. We seek the same end—a stable, Protestant England. Keeping us divided is what the Catholics want. He must trust me.”

Elizabeth finally turned to him a little, enough so that she could see the pointed beard that might have concealed his expression if he’d ever cared to try. At the moment he looked crafty. “Are you seeking a matchmaker, my lord? For all your similar aims, I do not think you and my uncle well-suited for long-term happiness.”

“It would be in your interests to look to my happiness.” Northumberland lowered his voice. “Without the regency, your brother will make decisions based on all the counsel he receives. Do you wish that counsel to come solely from your uncle? Or might there perhaps be a matter dear to you on which my counsel would be useful?”

Northumberland gave a long look at his son, conceding graciously to William on the tennis court, then turned his shrewd eyes on Elizabeth. “Perhaps a matter to which you and I see the same end? A happy marriage, Your Highness, is not a gift to be slighted.”

He bowed and backed away through the crowd, leaving Elizabeth flushed and edgy. And also, she admitted to herself, intrigued.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AS APRIL BLEW in with gusty rain, Minuette set down her pen and stretched. She’d been working for hours and her head spun with deciphering the spidery handwriting of European diplomats. Why could men not learn to write legibly?

But diplomacy was not her only work today. She had three letters addressed to her personally that she had left till last. The first letter was less than a page, and she could almost have recited it word for word without even reading it. It was from Philippa Courtenay, Dominic’s mother and, as always, it contained a mix of spiritual and everyday counsel:
begin each day on your knees … remember the suffering of our Lord’s mother and our own lot as women … never wear wet slippers … subdue the body to the spirit
. Philippa was not an original correspondent, but she was at least consistent.

In her own orphaned state, Minuette had not paid much attention to Dominic’s family. She knew his mother was born a Boleyn, first cousin to Queen Anne, and that she had remained secluded in a country manor after her husband’s death. When Minuette was fourteen, just before joining Queen Anne’s household, she had come around a hedge corner in the Richmond gardens one day and stopped at the sight of Dominic crumpling a letter in his hand as though he could unwrite what was written. His shoulders were taut and he wasn’t quick enough to hide the pain in his eyes.

And she, always curious, had managed to worm out of him the news that his mother had tried to set fire to her bedroom three nights before. Although he’d spoken grudgingly, Minuette had thought there was a relief for him in sharing with someone who did not recoil.

Still, as becomes a dutiful son, Dominic had not said much else, only that his mother had always been delicate and a little unbalanced.

It was Queen Anne who had told her much more, as Minuette became a trusted attendant and daughter substitute in the months that followed. She had told Minuette stories of the cousin she had grown up with, of their correspondence when Anne went to France, of Philippa’s devout nature and desire to take the veil. Of her parents’ promise to let her become a nun when she turned sixteen.

But when Philippa was fifteen, all had been undone the first time William Courtenay laid eyes on her. He was thirty, Queen Anne had told Minuette, and completely wrong for her. A girl who has dreamt her entire life of the solitude and contemplation of the convent is unlikely to make a good wife to a worldly and virile soldier.

In eight years of marriage, Philippa gave birth to six children; only Dominic, the firstborn, survived. When she was widowed at the age of twenty-three, Philippa might gladly have gone to a convent as a lay sister—except that convents no longer existed in England. Because of her cousin Anne.

Minuette shook her head and laid Philippa’s letter aside. She would write to her tomorrow. She debated which of the remaining two letters to read first, and with a sigh decided to deal with the more difficult.

It was not her first letter from Stephen Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s younger brother and her stepfather. He had written sporadically over the years, usually when he was drunk, she thought, and missing her mother. But this wasn’t that sort of letter. This letter had come in answer to one she had sent two weeks ago, prompted by Giles Howard’s name on the list of possible gentleman suspects in Alyce’s pregnancy.

Not that she had asked outright if Giles had truly been at Kenninghall, as he’d claimed, during March of last year. That would come later, after an exchange of pleasantries and casual correspondence. With that thought, she had asked after Stephen’s own health and family (he had three children from a previous marriage, who were all married themselves and scattered through the kingdom and court) and told him inane stories of her days with Elizabeth, pretending with every word that it was normal for her to send such an inquiry.

The moment she read his answer she saw that her stepfather had not bothered with such pretense.

Am I to believe that after all this time, you are truly interested in my doings? If so, the court has altered you more than I would have thought possible. Come, Minuette, let us not play games. You write with a purpose. Why not simply tell me what that purpose is? You might find me willing to oblige you … for your mother’s sake.Until you send to me again (with the truth, this time), I remain yours, Stephen Howard

Minuette had never liked her stepfather, but she felt a grudging respect as she reread the letter. Not only was he not stupid (which she had never believed any Howard to be, save Giles), he was also straightforward (which no Howard ever was). Or straightforward to a point. It did make the task easier, she conceded. She would simply write and ask him if he knew of Giles’s whereabouts during the crucial month of Alyce’s absence. If he asked her why … well, she would think of something.

She meant to write back at once, but when she opened the last letter all that changed. She thought some very bad words that Dominic would be shocked to realize she knew, then set off immediately in search of Elizabeth.

It had been a restless winter for Elizabeth. With the French marriage off, she was once again adrift in a sea of waiting. She coped as she always did—busy, composed, always ready to be whatever was needed. Except when the sick headaches struck, leaving her for hours in a darkened room at least three times a month.

Today, though, she had Robert to entertain her. As her dancing master led Elizabeth and a dozen of her ladies in practice, Robert played the perfect courtier with each—whispering to one until she laughed aloud, complimenting another on her light step, bowing deeply to a third. But it was Elizabeth he had eyes for, and she in turn knew where he was at every moment even when her back was to him.

She caught sight of Minuette entering and waved for her to join them. But Minuette shook her head and raised her hand until Elizabeth could see that she held a letter. She remained against a tapestried wall while Elizabeth clapped her hands, thanked the dancing master, and dismissed her women.

Robert lingered. “And what have you been doing this fine day, Mistress Wyatt?”

“Working. You?”

“Also working—to please our dear princess is my favourite task.”

He had certainly applied himself diligently these last weeks. Every time Elizabeth so much as thought of him, there he was with a story to make her laugh, a book to make her think, or a game to make her forget herself.

And how much of that is his father’s doing?
Elizabeth wondered.
Does Robert know his father’s hopes? Do
I
know his father’s hopes? Perhaps I am imagining what I want to hear—that Northumberland will do whatever it takes to get Robert divorced so that he is free to marry me
.

“Elizabeth,” Minuette said, breaking her thoughts, “I have gleaned some news. From the Continent. Perhaps bearing on the … private matter.”

Not waiting to be dismissed, Robert kissed Elizabeth’s hand languorously. “I know when to retreat gracefully. Until later, my lady.” He drew out each syllable, making the phrase almost sensual.

Only when he was completely out the door did Elizabeth manage to turn her attention to Minuette. “What news?”

Minuette sat down on the nearest bench and waited for Elizabeth to do the same before speaking. “I’ve had a note from a secretary in the Spanish ambassador’s household. The secretary thinks he’s in love with me and shares more than he should trying to impress me. He says the latest dispatches from Spain speak of stories springing up around the emperor. About how little William looks like your father. About how much he resembles instead …” Minuette hesitated.

“My mother?”

“Your uncle.”

Elizabeth wasn’t entirely surprised. “So that’s the line they’re taking, is it? Not only is William a bastard, but he is a bastard born of incest.
A Boleyn king
. The Spanish want people to wonder whose son he really is.”

“Anyone who’s met him knows he is his father’s son.”

“But not that many have met him—not even in England. And even some who have would benefit from questions about his legitimacy.”

“I just don’t understand why it’s being stirred up after all these years.”

“Because William is about to take personal control of his kingdom. And precisely what he will do—well, he will not ever be a figurehead. My uncle at least was a known quantity. But Will …” Elizabeth trailed off.

“A Boleyn king,” Minuette mused. “The stories may be in Spain for now—but that phrase was found in the very heart of William’s court. The day Alyce died. Someone in England is involved.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Mary.”

“Surely not. Mary is very fond of you both—”

“Fondness has little to do with principle, and Mary is extremely principled. Even if she does not believe William is Rochford’s son, she will assert to her dying day that she is the only legitimate heir to England’s throne.”

“It doesn’t have to mean Mary personally is involved. There are many Catholics who act in her name.”

“Have you not heard that Mary has once again claimed illness as a reason not to join us for Easter? Perhaps she merely wishes to avoid a heretical service—or perhaps she is distancing herself even more from Will’s court.”

Minuette sighed, and Elizabeth opened her eyes. “What else was in that note?” she asked, noting the distress on her friend’s face.

“He told me that the ambassador visited Mary last week and found her very ill indeed. Ill enough that he believes … apparently Mary hinted …”

“Mary hinted what?”

“She believes she was poisoned.”

“Oh, wonderful.” All the mischief and joy that Robert had brought her vanished. “Does she not get tired of the same conspiracies? According to her, my mother tried and failed to poison her more than once before my parents were ever married.”

“We’ll have to tell William,” Minuette said at last.

“Do you really think he doesn’t know? Whatever the Spanish ambassador is saying, my uncle Rochford has most certainly heard it. Don’t worry about telling William—worry about how to soothe his temper afterward.”

On April 10, the official envoys from the English court presented themselves before King Henri, preparatory to opening formal negotiations. As the Earl of Surrey and Edward Seymour were received and flattered, Dominic breathed a sigh of relief, glad to leave diplomacy in the hands of these more experienced men.

Not that he would be leaving France just yet. Rochford had sent orders by the new envoys that he was to remain as long as they did, with the cryptic reminder not to “underestimate personal influence.” Dominic thought cynically that his orders had more to do with Rochford’s instinct for multiple avenues of control rather than any help Dominic might provide.

It seemed he was not the only one to think so. When he met Renaud that afternoon for a desultory exercise with swords, the first thing the vicomte said was, “So Rochford keeps his favorite spy at our court.”