The Boleyn King (17 page)

Elizabeth opened her eyes and smiled. “Come sit and talk to me before you go away. We must have a good gossip—heaven knows you won’t get any of that with my sister. Tell me about Jonathan Percy and the sonnets he keeps writing you.”

Minuette blushed. “I’m sure you know as much about him as I do.”

“I’m sure I don’t. He’s never said two words to me, but you he can talk to for hours. A musician and poet—I never expected you to find such a scholarly young man appealing.”

“He’s a nice boy,” Minuette said. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in question, and she laughed. “All right, he’s not a boy. But he
is
very nice. He talks to me as though I am a person, not just a woman.”

“Very different from his sister.” Elizabeth could never resist teasing Minuette about her dislike of Eleanor.

“Indeed. I find it hard to remember that he and Eleanor are not only siblings but twins.” Her face hardened a little. “You’ve heard that she’s been delivered of a daughter.”

“Will is pleased, though no doubt Eleanor would have preferred a son.” She studied her friend’s averted face. “Tell me true, Minuette: could you bear to be her sister-in-law?”

Minuette hesitated. “I … it’s not a question of that.”

“Isn’t it? The only reason Jonathan hasn’t asked for you yet is that he lacks the arrogance of most males. He may actually be unsure of your answer.” She studied Minuette closely—the troubled eyes that would not quite meet hers. “You would say yes, wouldn’t you?”

Minuette did not precisely answer. “He’s a good match for me. He’s a court musician, so I could continue in service to you. He would be kind to me and to … any children.” Her blush deepened. “I do not find him unattractive. That is more than most women can expect in a husband.”

“Certainly more than I can expect.”

Minuette must have caught the edge of despair in her voice, for she went straight to the heart of Elizabeth’s chaotic emotions. “Have you spoken to William about your future? He cannot wish you unhappy. If you could tell him how you feel, make him understand …”

Elizabeth aimed for sarcasm but didn’t quite bring it off. “What do you imagine, Minuette? That I confess my wildly improper love for Robert and hope the king and council would approve a royal princess marrying an ambitious man who would divorce his wife for that sole reason? Brotherly affection will never overrule William’s practicality.” But wasn’t that the very thing she hoped? Wasn’t it, more or less, what Northumberland had hinted at?

“Your parents married for love.”

Throat painfully tight, Elizabeth stared at the tapestry on the far wall, an image in deep shades of russet and green of Judith cutting off Holofernes’s head. “My father, perhaps. But if you have managed to uncover my mother’s heart enough to know why she married, it is more than I have ever done.”

“You do not think she loved him?”

Elizabeth took her time answering, though it was a question she had long debated. “I think she loved him as well as she was able considering she had no choice in the matter.”

4 May 1554
Beaulieu

I arrived yesterday before noon. I have yet to see the Lady Mary. She has kept to her privy chamber all day while I sit amongst her women in the presence chamber. No one seems at all likely to speak to me, and I’m beginning to wonder what precisely William expects me to do. Interrogate the women? Force myself into Mary’s presence? At least I have Carrie with me—she insists she is only my maid, but I tell her she is my friend. And here at Beaulieu, she is my only friend
.

At least I can report that I have unsettled everyone. I suppose that’s something
.

5 May 1554
Beaulieu

I was summoned to speak with Mary’s private chaplain today. Father Hermosa was a confessor in Catherine of Aragon’s household and, though greatly aged, he is intelligent and—surprisingly for a Spaniard—practical
.

He apologized for Mary’s continued confinement, alluding to repeated bouts of weakness since her great illness in April. And just as he knew I wondered if the illness was real, I knew that he wondered if I’d heard the supposed cause of it
.

“You are a ward of the king’s mother?” he asked. If it weren’t for the disdain behind the words, I would be entertained by the convoluted ways they speak of Anne, since they will never call her queen
.

“I am.”

“And a companion to the Princess Elizabeth?”

I simply inclined my head, since he obviously knew all about me. Perhaps that is what they’ve been doing behind closed doors for two days—gathering information about me
.

“Elizabeth would dearly love me to give her best wishes to her sister,” I said smoothly. “As would the king, her brother. I am here to see her for myself, so as to send my personal assurances to those who cannot visit.”

“I shall let Her Highness know.”

He used that title deliberately, to see how I would respond. Mary is not a royal highness, not even inside her own walls. But then they are not her walls, are they? The walls, like every other thing in her life, belong to William
.

8 May 1554
Beaulieu

I was at last granted an audience with the Lady Mary this evening. I arrived just after what was undoubtedly a private service of vespers in her makeshift oratory. Clearly William is not the only one of Henry’s children to know how to send wordless messages
.

But she was kind enough to me, if naturally wary. She asked with genuine goodwill after Elizabeth and William, and seemed pleased when I asked with intelligence about her latest project—writing a rebuttal of Martin Luther’s heresies (much as her father did more than thirty years ago)
.

“I remember you,” she said suddenly, apropos of nothing. “In the gardens at Hampton Court. You and Elizabeth were walking with my father. He liked you—you made him laugh.”

“I am glad to have known His Majesty, even a very little.”

Mary is not good at dissembling. Her efforts to decide what to do with me were all too apparent from the tightness of her hands on the chair arms and the tension around her eyes. She knows she cannot send me away, but she could choose to stay behind private doors while I am here
.

Her face softened slightly, though not anywhere close to a smile. “I am honoured that the king, my brother, has sent you to me for a time. I look forward to speaking with you often of his health and happiness.”

I made a deep curtsy and was then dismissed to bed. I cannot possibly be duplicitous by nature, or I would not care whether she welcomed me or not. I do care—it would be awful to spend the next seven weeks trapped in a house with a woman who hates me
.

Though if she hated me, I might not feel quite so guilty about spying on her
.

CHAPTER NINE

“MORE WINE, LORD Norfolk?” Elizabeth asked, and when the old duke nodded, she motioned forward an attendant to pour.

Elizabeth was doing William’s bidding in hosting the duke for dinner in her presence chamber. Though there were two of her women and four of his men in attendance, she and Norfolk sat alone at the small round table.
He’ll be less wary of you
, William had said.
Soothe him and sympathize with him … and see what he might spill about Mary. And Giles
.

Just as well he had asked her to do it, Elizabeth thought, for William was in a chancy mood at best. Beneath the surface enthusiasm and energy devoted to his coming majority lurked a temper that had been flaring more often than usual these last weeks. Just yesterday William had shown himself mightily displeased at losing a tennis match to Robert. Though truly, it was when he stopped throwing tantrums that William was most dangerous.

Norfolk might be charmed by her, but he was too canny to believe this dinner was to flatter him. “What is our topic this evening, Your Highness?”

“Must we have a topic?”

“I knew your mother at your age—don’t tell me you don’t have a purpose.”

“My brother would like assurances that his looming majority will not precipitate a domestic crisis. I’m sure you’ll agree that we have quite enough to deal with on the Continent just now.”

“And I’m sure you would agree that the king’s first responsibility is to his own people. Many of whom have been hunted and repressed for years.”

Elizabeth had her marching orders, and she delivered them smoothly. “In return for your personal assurance that all His Majesty’s subjects will respect his throne, he is prepared to return the Lady Mary to the line of succession—after his own future children and myself, naturally.”

Of course Norfolk would accept. He could not hope for more. The Protestants would be furious, but sometimes balance was maintained by keeping both sides discontented.

“And my assurance will take what form?”

“An act of Parliament, to which you will give vocal and written approval.”

Norfolk steepled his fingers. “May I ask what the king envisions for the Lady Mary in his reign?”

“Our dear sister may continue with the attendants of her choosing and the ability to hear mass privately from her own chaplain. How privately is up to the king—but I daresay he will not countenance attendance above two or three at a time.”

“She will be allowed to travel?”

“At the king’s discretion—and certainly not abroad.”

Elizabeth knew that the Catholic powers were divided on this point. Some had pushed for years for Mary to quit England and return to her mother’s Spanish home in order to rally support. But others cautioned that once Mary was gone, she might never return, and thus would die the last hope of Catholics in England. William was of the opinion that an enemy, especially one in your own family, should be kept close at hand.

“Your Highness,” Norfolk said, “principle demands that at the very least I demand a return to your father’s Act of the Six Articles”—meaning dismantling the heavily Protestant changes led by Rochford and Northumberland. Norfolk continued, “If the king can assure me that he will consider—seriously consider—doing so, then I am prepared to support such an act of Parliament as has been proposed.”

Even Elizabeth was impressed with how well William had predicted Norfolk’s response. Of course Norfolk had to ask, and of course he knew it would never happen. No matter; they would observe the formalities. “He is prepared to so consider, and will indeed appoint a commission for that purpose on the day after his majority is reached.”

Norfolk bowed his head, but Elizabeth was not finished. “On the condition that our beloved sister, Mary, attends the king at Hampton Court on June twenty-eighth, to make her personal recognition. And also upon the condition that, in that same visit, she attend service in the Chapel Royal.”

She quite enjoyed the play of emotion rippling across Norfolk’s face.
You may think you can outmaneuver my brother because he is young
, she thought.
But so what if you knew Richard III as a boy and have outlived four kings? You won’t outlive William … and you can’t beat him, either
.

Anything but stupid, Norfolk managed to get a handle on himself. “I shall write the Lady Mary.”

“Thank you.” With a brilliant smile, Elizabeth raised her glass to him. Then, just as he began to relax, she said, “I’ve heard some disturbing reports about your son Giles. Only gossip, I hope, but perhaps you can set me straight.”

His whole body seemed to tighten. “What reports have you heard—that I have not?”

“Public drunkenness, gambling beyond his means, lechery—”

“As might be reported of many gentlemen at this court. Robert Dudley, for instance.”

“Rape.”

“There has never been a claim laid of such.”

“Treason.” Elizabeth let the last word fall into the startling silence.

Norfolk might have thrown something at her if she were a man. But he knew too well the dangers of raging at royalty. “What evidence have you?”

“As I said, these are only reports. I should be glad to have them proved wrong—the last, at least, since the others are only too true.” She sipped from her goblet, then faced him squarely. “The king is not a fool. If Giles has indeed gotten himself caught up in something … dangerous … then he is being used. By someone with both more wits and more influence than Giles could ever have. As his father, no doubt you will wish to discover if your son is indeed being used.”
Unless you are the one doing so
, she thought,
in which case you are being given fair warning
.

“Are we finished?”

“For now.”

Elizabeth rose from the table and Norfolk followed, looking older than he had when they sat down to dinner.

He bowed to her and began to walk out. She stopped him with a voice pitched for his gentlemen to hear as well. “Lord Norfolk, my brother expects a full accounting of your investigations within a fortnight. If he is not satisfied …”

Finally his patience gave way, and his age, authority, and bone-deep dislike of having to submit to a woman released themselves in speech. “Do not think to threaten me, girl. I understand the king perfectly—and I will welcome discussing the issue with him. But if he tries to send you to interfere again, he will not be satisfied.”