The Boleyn Reckoning (2 page)

It was also a sham. The original plan had been to have Parliament pass an Act of Attainder against Northumberland, avoiding a public trial and allowing the Crown to quickly confiscate the duke’s lands. Granting him a trial instead in no way meant that
Northumberland stood a chance of acquittal. There could be no doubt of the verdict; this trial was for the sole purpose of placating the populace.

Rochford opened the proceedings with a reading of the charges, none of which Dominic could dispute: the calculated secret marriage between Northumberland’s son, Guildford, and Margaret Clifford, a cousin to the king and thus in line to England’s throne. That disastrous marriage had been annulled after Margaret had given birth to a boy, but Northumberland’s impudence could not be overlooked in the matter. And then there was the damning charge of
with intent and malice aforethought confining Her Highness, Princess Elizabeth, against her will
: Dominic had seen firsthand the duke’s intent to keep hold of Elizabeth in his family castle until William agreed to listen to him. Related to that was also the charge of raising troops against the king—again indisputable. For the last two charges alone, Northumberland’s life was forfeit.

But Dominic was less easy about the other charges that had been considered behind the scenes. Charges that Northumberland had conspired to bring down the Howard family two years ago, that the duke had offered alliance with the Low Countries, even claiming in writing that Elizabeth would be a more amenable ruler than her brother … Dominic had been the one to find those damning letters in Northumberland’s London home. He just wasn’t sure how much he believed in them. Papers could be forged. Letters could be planted. Witnesses could be co-opted to a certain testimony. And it hadn’t escaped his attention that those particular charges were not being tried in court today.

“We’ll keep it simple,” Rochford had said. “Leave out the messier aspects of Northumberland’s behavior.”

And that was why Dominic kept a wary eye on Rochford. Because the messy aspects of this business were also the most open to other interpretations. More than eighteen months ago, the late
Duke of Norfolk had died in the Tower after being arrested for attempting to brand the king a bastard and have his half sister, Mary, crowned queen. Dominic now believed, as most did, that the Duke of Norfolk’s fall had been cleverly manipulated.

“What say you, John Dudley?” Rochford asked after the reading of the charges.

“My Lord Chancellor,” Northumberland responded, rising. His dark eyes, always alive with intelligence beneath the highly arched brows, looked at each juror in turn, and Dominic felt an unexpected grief at the imminent loss of this bright and capable man. “My lords all,” he continued, “I say that my faults have ever only been those of a father. I acknowledge my pride and ambition, and humbly confess that those sins have led me to a state I do greatly regret. But I have not and could never compass a desire to wish or inflict harm upon His Most Gracious Majesty. My acts were those of a desperate father to a willful son. Guildford’s death is greatly to be lamented, but I do desire nothing more at this time than to be reconciled to my king and his government.”

The presentation of evidence lasted only forty minutes; then Northumberland was led out of the hall and the jury retired to discuss their verdict. It took far less time than Dominic was comfortable with, and the outcome was never in doubt. Rochford and the twenty-year-old Duke of Norfolk (grandson of the man who had died in a false state of treasonable disgrace) were the most vehement of Northumberland’s enemies, but every other lord on the jury had cause to resent the duke’s arrogance and ambition. And as Dominic studied each man there, he was keenly aware of an undercurrent of fear, deeply hidden perhaps, but real. There was not a single peer present whose family title went further back than Henry VII’s reign, and most of them had been ennobled by Henry VIII or William himself. The Tudors had broken the back of the old hereditary nobility, raising instead men whose power resulted
from their personal loyalty and royal usefulness. It was true of Dominic himself—the grandson of a king’s daughter, perhaps, but in more practical terms only a son of a younger son with no land or title at all until William had granted them to him.

Or consider Rochford, Dominic thought, who might have been only a talented diplomat or secretary if his sister had not been queen.

The problem with being raised up by personal loyalty was that one could as easily be unmade. And thus it was today—the jury would find Northumberland guilty because William wished it as much as because it was right. And after all, Dominic would vote guilty without more than a slight qualm, for he had ridden through the midst of Northumberland’s army last autumn and knew that it had been but a hairbreadth of pride and fear from open battle against the king.

They returned to the hall and Northumberland stood to face the jury as, one after another, each member personally delivered his verdict. Dominic saw the glint of tears in Northumberland’s eyes as Rochford pronounced the traditional sentence of a traitor—to be hung, drawn, and quartered—and concluded with, “May God have mercy on your soul.”

There was open triumph in George Boleyn’s voice.

Elizabeth was with her brother when Dominic and Rochford returned to Richmond to report on Northumberland’s trial. They met the two dukes in the palace library, a chamber William would once have overlooked. Not that he wasn’t well-read and intellectually curious, but before the smallpox that had nearly killed him at Christmas, William would more likely have been found playing cards or dice or tennis or riding through the royal park. Solitude and lassitude were new habits of the king.

Elizabeth studied her younger brother, noting worriedly that he
had still not regained all the weight lost during his illness. William had always been tall and lean, but the hollows in his face were new, as was the paleness that could not be ascribed entirely to winter. The pallor of his face was accented by the carefully trimmed dark beard that made him look rather rakish in some lights. The beard was also new since the illness.

The library was not entirely empty of others, but the half-dozen quiet attendants in the chamber were there in case of sudden need, not as entertainment. They kept to themselves at one end of the library, giving the royal siblings plenty of privacy.

And of course, there was Minuette—though these days one hardly needed to specify her presence. Wherever William might be, Minuette was at his side. The only place she didn’t follow the king was his bed at night, and Elizabeth wondered how long that restraint would last. Since his illness, William’s devotion to the childhood friend he’d secretly betrothed had grown perilously near to obsession.

When Rochford and Dominic entered the library, the Lord Chancellor dismissed the attendants, then offered his official report of Northumberland’s conviction. William, seated beneath the colourful canopy of estate, received the news in frozen silence. Another lingering effect: his characteristic restlessness was often submerged beneath lengthy periods of stillness. When Rochford handed the king the execution order to sign, William took it without a word, almost as though he had no interest in the matter.

It was Elizabeth who said, “Thank you, Uncle.”

That stirred her brother enough to say flatly, “You may go. Lord Exeter will return the order to you shortly.”

Rochford gave them all a long, hard look—lingering with disapproval on Minuette seated so near the king that she was almost beneath the royal canopy of estate. As William intended her to be. There was a time when Minuette would have looked uneasy at
Rochford’s fierce attention, but today she merely matched the chancellor’s stare with one of her own. It almost made Elizabeth smile. Minuette might look demure and innocent—in her gown of white and amber and with her honey-gold hair artfully arranged with jeweled combs—but her devotion to William was absolute. She would not be cowed from doing what she thought best.

And Rochford, for all his concern, was not ready to bring his discontent to open argument. Elizabeth knew it was coming—this inner circle of just the four of them could not be allowed to last much longer—but for today the Lord Chancellor held his tongue. He left them alone.

They had always been exceptionally close: the “Holy Quartet,” Robert Dudley had named them. But since his brush with death, William had kept his sister, his love, and his friend even tighter around him. Was it for comfort? Elizabeth wondered. Or protection?

Alone with those few he trusted absolutely, William stretched out his long legs in a gesture that made the tightness in Elizabeth’s shoulders ease. She rejoiced with every moment that spoke of William as he had been before.

“Sentenced to be hanged, disemboweled, and quartered,” William said to Dominic, of Northumberland’s fate. “I’ll commute that to beheading, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You have nothing else to plead?”

Elizabeth tightened again. They had not told William of Robert Dudley’s plea to see her, of his claim that another man had as much to do with Northumberland’s fall as his own actions. But despite their silence, William knew Dominic very well. Clearly he sensed there was more than just the usual caution behind his friend’s reserve.

But Dominic did not hesitate. “Northumberland held Elizabeth
and Minuette against their will in Dudley Castle. He raised an army that could only have been meant to be used against you. I have nothing to plead for him.”

William nodded, then stood and crossed to the table where pen and ink waited. The Duke of Northumberland must die. The three of them watched as he signed in swift, bold strokes
—Henry Rex
. His father’s name. His ruling name.

He handed the signed order to Dominic, as always entrusting his closest friend to see his will carried out. Of all of them, Dominic appeared the least changed by William’s recent near-death. Reserved, loyal, darkly watchful … only now and again did Elizabeth see Dominic’s green eyes gleam with emotions she could not always name. The gleam today seemed to her one of approval or possibly, like herself, relief that William had taken another step to returning to himself.

As though he read their minds and wished to increase their happiness, William said abruptly, “I’ve settled on Easter for our return to London. We’ll spend it at Whitehall and celebrate lavishly. Masques, tournaments, riding through the streets to Westminster Abbey for service …”

Elizabeth added tartly, still trying to gauge when and how to speak to her brother as before, “All elaborately designed to set people’s minds at rest and give them reason to rejoice in their brilliant king.”

Through everything—Rochford’s report, William signing Northumberland’s death—Minuette had not moved and her expression had not altered. Another change: that the girl once so bright and merry and easily read now kept her own counsel to a frightening degree. Everything she did seemed calculated for William’s sake.

At last she stood and walked to William, facing the king without touching him. There was something poignant, almost painful
about the pairing, an indefinable twinge that set Elizabeth’s heart wringing, as Minuette smiled gravely and said to William, “The people are waiting to rejoice in their brilliant and handsome king.”

William flinched slightly and kept himself angled a little away from Minuette’s gaze. Keeping his left side turned always to the shadows.

The smallpox, which had covered his face and chest and arms wholly, had not scarred so thoroughly. Indeed, he had healed almost cleanly, and if one looked at him from the right, one saw only the perfect face with which he’d been born. But on the left, the sores had left a brushstroke of scars behind, like a brush swept carelessly across a canvas.

Minuette was the only one who dared speak of it openly, or to touch. She did so now, resting her hand on William’s ruined cheek, which was only partially covered by his newly grown beard. “The people love you, Will, as we do. The rejoicing will be honest. What matters more than that you are still here?”

Only Minuette could make William smile these days. He did so now, and Elizabeth thought if only her brother could be brought to smile more, to be himself more, to quit brooding on the scars, that people would hardly notice them. We see what we expect to see, she thought. Will must make people expect to see only the king and all will be well.

Minuette slipped into Richmond’s Newe Park well after dark, shivering in the glooming fog. Only when William retired for the night did he release her from his presence, and then only because he intended to drink heavily before bed. Minuette knew she would have to deal with the drinking at some point, but for now she was only too glad to have the night hours for her husband. The dark was their ally. Their only ally these days.

It was all supposed to have been finished by now. They had wed
secretly (and illegally and, according to the Protestants, heretically) last November, with every intention of confessing to the king at Christmas. Then William had been stricken with smallpox. And in the space of days when they feared for his life, plans and confessions had fallen to the wayside.

But not their marriage. And not our love, Minuette thought as Dominic wrapped her in a fierce embrace, his cloak enfolding them both. As she knew every line of his body in the dark, she also responded to his every thought and desire before they were ever expressed, and so their kiss was not so much one of welcome after a long day of secrecy but a kindling of their longed-for marriage bed. Minuette had come to think of herself in these last weeks as one of the marble statues she might come across in the palace or garden. Lovely and impeccable and unfeeling, confined to an ordained form and unable to move at will.

But every time she came into Dominic’s arms, the marble shattered and she was a woman again: warmed and passionate and imperfectly real. Before their marriage, Minuette had thought Dominic cold in his behavior, frustrated by the control that left her bewildered and wondering if he wanted her at all. Their weeks at Wynfield Mote as husband and wife had broken that illusion forever and so, even though they could not abandon themselves completely at court, the memory of his hands tracing every inch of her body before following the path with his mouth heated her blood. Tonight she could almost feel that her palms rested on Dominic’s bare chest and not the black wool of his doublet.