The Boleyn Reckoning (6 page)

He was not surprised to see Renard return to conversation with Mary minutes later. While Minuette made small talk with a rigid and unhappy Lady Suffolk, William watched his half sister and the Spanish ambassador engage in conversation that was clearly more than just polite. He was very curious how Mary would respond to his plans for Elizabeth. Certainly she would approve any alliance with the Spanish, but there must be part of her that would resent watching the much younger Elizabeth make a marriage that Mary might have liked for herself. Still, she was probably the only English person in the room who rejoiced wholly at the blow he’d launched tonight against the French treaty.

Certainly Elizabeth did not appear pleased. He could read his sister’s temper in the sharp lines of her shoulders and the angle of her body, and in the way she kept clear of him. Fine. He was in no hurry to fight with Elizabeth. She’d known what was coming—if not quite how soon—and she would simply have to accept it.

“William.” Rochford’s voice was soft and even, but the fact that the Lord Chancellor used his name and not his title told William how very angry he was.

“Uncle.”

“You have your father’s gift at keeping a kingdom off balance.”

“Is that a criticism, Uncle?”

“It is a fact, nephew. One I should not have overlooked. May we speak privately, William?”

“It’s Easter. And I thought the point of this gathering was to show me off to my people and assure them I was in ruling condition.”

“Tomorrow, then. Before the council meeting.”

William met Rochford’s eyes easily. “No.”

He was shocked when his uncle gripped his upper arm with a tight hand and whispered angrily, “I am your
chancellor
.”

“And I am your
king
,” William snarled. “Shall I give you cause to remember it? Ask Northumberland how that ends.”

Pulling free, William went straight to Minuette and wrapped one proprietary arm around her waist. He knew what he was doing, and the doing of it made him heady with pleasure.

Elizabeth arose on Easter Monday with her conscience clear and her purpose fixed: she would speak with Robert Dudley. Today.

Watching William do precisely as he’d pleased last night and damn the consequences had freed something in her. Her own marriage to Philip of Spain would be fixed and made before anyone had a chance to so much as blink. So be it. But she would not walk that path without deciding first how she felt about Robert. She soothed the tiny pricks of conscience that she was being petty by reminding herself that Robert claimed there was a schemer left in England’s government and only she held the power to that revelation.

William was closeted in a privy council meeting that no doubt would be more drawn-out and rancorous than usual. With the court focused on Minuette’s sudden elevation and the possibility of French retaliation, it was a relatively simple matter to leave Whitehall in a boat and head downriver to the Tower. Part of the ease of it all was having Walsingham with her. The intelligencer had a knack for slipping in and out of places and situations without notice. And although Elizabeth hardly blended into the background
of London, she was at least not in a royal barge flying banners and attracting the eye of everyone on the river and alongside it.

The Water Gate was slimy and black at this tide level; Elizabeth’s arrival caused a concerted flurry of activity. The Lieutenant of the Tower was summoned and already apologizing as he approached. “Forgive me, Your Highness, we had no word—”

“I sent none. This is a personal visit, not a state one. I am here to see Robert Dudley.”

The inheritance of being royal meant using as few words as possible and not bothering to explain oneself. It certainly came in useful now, for the lieutenant didn’t even think of denying her. Why would he? Everyone knew how close she and William were. If she were here, surely it was with the king’s permission.

Those useful expectations again.

Whatever Robert’s expectations had been, clearly they had not included Elizabeth showing up unannounced in his prison cell. She had never seen him so disconcerted—except for that awful evening last autumn when his wife had walked uninvited into Dudley Castle.

Elizabeth herself had been most unpleasantly surprised that night. She had never met Robert’s wife before, and when she’d accepted Northumberland’s invitation to Dudley Castle, she had never dreamed Amy Dudley would be so bold. Beyond surprised, Elizabeth had been hurt, and the vulnerability of that feeling worsened a hundredfold when the Duke of Northumberland turned her from honoured guest to royal hostage. Even now Elizabeth was unsure how much of her anger at Robert was legitimately caused by his behavior and how much was simply protection for herself.

When she walked into Robert’s cell in Beauchamp Tower, his startled expression instantly gave way to relief.

“Hello, Robert.” Best to act as though nothing at all had happened.
Certainly she had never been sentimental, though she couldn’t help noticing that he’d lost weight since November and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes that made him look older. And grimmer.

But after clearing his throat, his voice was unchanged—light and untroubled and with a promise of warmth to it. “You are looking remarkably well, Your Highness. To what do I owe this honour?”

“You said you would speak to me. I am here. For England’s sake, not yours,” she warned, though whether the warning was for Robert or herself she didn’t know.

“Naturally. Please, though there is nowhere good enough for you, will you sit?”

She allowed Robert to draw out a wooden stool and sank onto it with her bloodred skirts belled out around her. “Join me,” she said to Robert, indicating the only other stool in the small chamber. No more than ten feet in any direction, many of the block-stone walls had irregular carvings where prisoners had passed the time in artistry or protest. The wide-planked floor and utilitarian furniture (bed and table only, besides the two stools) were an incongruous backdrop to the luxury-loving, ever-elegant Robert Dudley. Elizabeth imagined being confined here herself and felt a deep, involuntary shudder of revulsion. It wasn’t the meanness of the chamber that frightened her, but the thought of being at the mercy of a temperamental and all-powerful king. If men such as Robert, who had known William all his life, could end in the Tower, then who was next?

Robert looked behind her at Walsingham, who had shadowed her steps through the Tower precincts. “What of your man?”

“He’ll stand. And listen, and remember.” She needed Walsingham to be her ballast, and because she was wise enough to know her own limits where Robert was concerned.

Robert sat facing her, far enough away that touching would be impossible. A nicely judged distance. “How is the king?” he asked.

“In robust health and temper,” she snapped. “Tell me what you have to tell me.”

“I confess it was not you I expected to see today. Dominic promised me—rather forcefully—that he would be the one to return on this day for my answers. Are you here in his place?”

“I am not a woman to be sent in another’s place,” she reminded him disdainfully. “Though if you tell me all of what I need to know, then I imagine Lord Exeter will be satisfied and leave you be.”

“Has he told you nothing of my claims, then?”

“Only that you claim to have evidence that it was not your father who set up Lord Norfolk and the false Penitent’s Confession. Convenient for you, seeing as you would like to escape your father’s fate.”

“Yes, being locked in the Tower is highly convenient.”

“Who is it, Robert?”

“Surely you can guess.”

“Surely I can, but I need you to say it.”

“George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.”

The name hung heavy and menacing in the air, as though the Tower walls themselves did not want to bear witness. For one moment, Elizabeth wished passionately that she had not come so that she might not have to go forward from this claim. But she was not given to long regrets.

It was not as though the name was a surprise—she and Dominic had both guessed that would be Robert’s claim—but Rochford had been the bedrock of England’s government for almost ten years. Did she seriously consider him capable of treason?

Except it wasn’t precisely treason, for Robert’s accusations were that Rochford had worked to bring down Norfolk and Northumberland,
not the king himself. She didn’t think that would make much difference to William. It wasn’t Rochford’s actions her brother would deplore, but his lies.

Behind Elizabeth, Walsingham’s steady voice commented, “That’s merely a name, sir. Anyone can accuse—where is your proof?”

Robert looked miserable, and dead serious. “I worked for him, for years. I’m the one who planted the Penitent’s Confession at Framlingham after Minuette told me precisely where she would be looking for it. Why do you think Rochford asked you to send someone after her? He knew you would send me. And before that, I wrote coded letters to a woman in your mother’s household, using her to stir up old rumours and give Rochford a plausible pretext to move against Norfolk.”

“A woman,” Elizabeth repeated flatly. “You mean Alyce de Clare.”

“Yes.”

“The same Alyce de Clare whom you kept in your home for a month, getting her with child before sending her back to court to spy on my mother.”

If he lied to her now, it would be over. Like her brother, Elizabeth could abide almost anything but lies.

Robert didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“Did you kill her?” For Alyce had broken her neck falling—or being pushed—down a staircase. It was her death that had begun the unraveling of the original Norfolk conspiracy three years ago.

Robert didn’t flinch at the question, nor did he hesitate. “No. We argued that night, it’s true. Alyce told me she had made arrangements to see William and confess her part in it all—she was unhappy about her last assignment.”

Elizabeth remembered that last assignment—a vile broadside depicting Anne Boleyn calling upon Satan for the power to seduce Henry, meant to be planted for salacious viewing at court.

“I had surmised that much,” Elizabeth said sharply. “How did she end up at the bottom of the staircase with a broken neck?”

“It was an accident. I swear it, Elizabeth. She’d told me of the child, was angry at my response, and I pushed her away … God knows I did not mean to hurt her. Certainly not to kill her.”

She could never be absolutely certain, but Elizabeth felt how much she wanted to believe him. For now, that was not her primary concern. “All this proves to me is that you were working to blacken my brother’s name as a pretext to crush a nonexistent Catholic rebellion. I already knew that. But that might as well have been at your father’s direction as my uncle’s. More likely, in fact, for why would my uncle entrust any of this to you?”

“Because he knows what I want and promised to help me obtain it. A divorce—clean and final.” Robert did not add:
And a chance to marry you
. He did not have to say it.

She would not follow the path of that motivation just now, for she needed to be clear-headed. “As Walsingham said, Robert, where is the evidence that any of this is true?”

“At Kenilworth. My …” He cleared his throat uneasily. “Amy has in her keeping a chest with a false bottom. Even if she could figure out how to open it, I doubt it would mean much to her—she doesn’t read Latin. There are notes and dates and, most important, two messages with Rochford’s seal. In themselves they might not be damning, but Dominic knows how to read ciphers, and in conjunction with everything else I think you’ll have to at least ask your uncle some very hard questions. Like which operatives told him the Spanish navy was on the move to rescue Mary.”

Again Walsingham broke in. “That’s a good point, Your Highness. The threat of Spanish naval movements in 1554 was a lie, all my intelligence sources agree.”

“Perhaps they wanted Rochford to think they were moving.”

Walsingham countered, “Whatever the simplest reason is for a
lie, it’s usually the true one. Deception is far easier to maintain when simple than when complicated beyond measure.”

Elizabeth stood up. “We’ll have the chest fetched from Kenilworth. Walsingham and Dominic can go through it and decide from there.”

Robert rose more slowly, still graceful despite the hollows in his cheeks. “Do you believe me, Elizabeth?”

“Do I believe that you played shameful games with my mother’s reputation and my brother’s birth in order to advance your own ambitions? That you took advantage of the woman you were using and ruined her?”

A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he asked steadily enough, “Do you believe that your uncle has maneuvered behind William’s back?”

“In more ways than even you can count,” she said. “In this particular matter? I will look at your evidence and decide for myself.”

“Thank you.”

I’m not doing it for you
, she nearly said. But that would have been a lie.

T
HE ONLY REASON
Dominic didn’t drink himself into a stupor on Easter night was the knowledge that he would have to be present at this morning’s privy council. Trying to maintain his tenuous emotional control would be hard enough without a raging hangover. What he had done instead after fleeing the court was walk for hours through the London streets surrounding Whitehall. Not the safest choice, but he’d been armed with both sword and dagger. Not to mention a driving need to hurt someone.