The Irish Princess (18 page)
Read The Irish Princess Online
Authors: Karen Harper
Tags: #Ireland, #Clinton, #Historical, #Henry, #Edward Fiennes De, #General, #Literary, #Great Britain - History - Henry VIII, #Great Britain, #Elizabeth Fiennes De, #Historical Fiction, #Princesses, #Fiction, #1509-1547, #Princesses - Ireland, #Elizabeth
I kept telling myself how much I hated Clinton, but I was angry with myself that my eyes oft sought him amidst the crowded tables of courtiers at midday meal in the great hall while everyone awaited the king’s return. Clinton was engaged in conversation with the bootlicking villain Dudley, who had overseen my family’s executions. Which of the ladies was Clinton’s wife—if she was here at all—I knew not and cared not.
Upon our arrival, Queen Catherine had sent for my mistress to visit her apartments, while Mary’s ladies were to stay nearby in the suite of rooms we had been allotted. They were quite pleasant, though small and not that near the royal suites, which were on the south and west sides of the Cloister Green Court, one of three interior courtyards in this monstrously large place I must learn to navigate. Still, our windows overlooked some gardens, a greensward, and the Thames a mere stone’s throw to the south.
I felt quite overwhelmed that day. Who would credit that I had finally gotten myself this far? Though where I was exactly in a sprawl of buildings with one thousand rooms and two hundred eighty beds, all in use, since the entire court was here, I was not yet quite sure. (And, however much I hated the Tudors, I must admit I was impressed with the pure water that was piped in from springs at Coombe Hill three miles away and the privy water closets in most of the bedrooms. Why, at Maynooth and even at Beaumanoir, besides chamber pots that must be emptied, we had to walk to the end of the cold hall and perch our bums over jakes like drop chutes that led to a cesspit or rushing river.)
I peered out windows to get my bearings, but from here I could see so little of the eighteen hundred enclosed acres that made up Hampton Court Palace. At table, where food had been brought in from the vast kitchen block, I had heard chatter about the walled and towered tiltyards, three bowling alleys, shovelboard lanes, and closed tennis courts with twelve windows for spectators to admire the king’s prowess. By Saint Brigid, everything here, from the chapel to the yew maze, from gilded ceilings to carpeted floors, was for the pleasure and passions of “His Royal Majesty,” our “sire,” as if he had begotten us all!
Unlike Mary’s other ladies, I could not sit still embroidering or I would go stark mad waiting for her to return from her audience with the queen. I slipped out for a solitary walk, rehearsing how deceitfully I must behave here at court. At last I would meet and live near the forty-nine-year-old king, killer of the Geraldines, my target for justice and revenge. We had been told that His Majesty, now that he had wed his young bride, had returned to the first flush of youth, with early risings, much hawking, and hunting, though, because of an ulcerated leg, he merely watched his young queen, whom he had dubbed his “rose without a thorn,” at her favorite pastime of dancing.
I tried to calm myself, but my unease was made far worse as I rehearsed what I would say and do when I met Their Majesties—I admitted I was going to have to call them such. But the other person I could not bear to be civil to sought me out as I paced the long gallery alone.
“I saw you in the great hall at dinner,” Edward Clinton said with a tight smile. I felt a huge blush begin, heating my throat and spreading upward and downward. He looked sun-browned and windblown, even here at Hampton Court, where everyone else seemed combed and careful. He looked—damn the man—grand, with his broad shoulders tapering to his leather-covered chest and his narrow hips and strong thighs. Unlike most courtiers who wore soft shoes about the court, his legs were encased in black riding boots. So was he leaving now, and for where?
“Oh, did you see me? I did not notice you,” I lied, forcing myself to look straight ahead and not into that intense and intimate stare. Somehow I managed to keep walking.
“You are much grown in all the right ways, Lady Elizabeth,” he said, looking me over. “I believe I heard the Earl of Surrey say your friends call you Lady Gera.”
“They do,” I said, not breaking stride, “so you should call me Lady Elizabeth.”
“Tart tongued too. That should serve you well at court, as long as you are not addressing Their Majesties. I regret I shall be leaving for a while to go to sea and will not be here to keep you out of trouble.” He fell in beside me, his long legs easily keeping up when I stretched my strides.
I bit my tongue before I could blurt,
Good riddance!
Truth be told, I would have loved to go to sea—but, of course, not with this man. “You regret leaving because you have wed again,” I said. “To a Dudley, I hear.”
Good riddance!
Truth be told, I would have loved to go to sea—but, of course, not with this man. “You regret leaving because you have wed again,” I said. “To a Dudley, I hear.”
“Ah, you do care. Actually, I did not know Ursula Stourton—yes, John Dudley’s niece—until she was named one of Anne of Cleves’s maids of honor. Ursula is en route to Kyme, my Lincolnshire castle, for a while. It seems she’s with child already, and now that her former royal mistress Anne of Cl—”
“Has been cast aside, as kings—this king, at least—are wont to do one way or the other.”
He grabbed my arm and stopped my headlong strides, putting my back against the wall and blocking me in, just around the turn of the corridor in a dimmer, narrow hallway. “It seems I am ever to be giving you advice,” he spit out, angry now. “I was afraid the Tudors would have to tangle not with Lady Elizabeth, but with Gera Fitzgerald of the infamous Irish Geraldines.”
“I don’t need your advice or your taunts. Leave off and unhand me.”
“But you need a good shaking. Hear this, Irish. You will be walking a thin tightrope here, and you must beware or it could snag you, or worse—choke you like a noose if you take a tumble. The king keeps his friends close but his enemies closer, and which you become to him is up to you. But you must have no illusions that your Helen of Troy face or ripening body will save you, if push comes to shove.”
I wanted to push and shove him away. He leaned closer; I could smell sweet cloves on his breath. Curse him, my knees felt weak as if I could topple into him, as if some magnetic north pulled me toward him. I had to lash out, say something.
“Will you hold it over my head that I tried to steal your precious Pilgrimage of Grace papers?” was all I could manage, and that a bit too breathlessly.
“That rebellion was put down too, and do not plan to start another. I’m not the one who will hold it over your head if someone reports to His Majesty or one of his council—”
“Someone such as your lord and master, the king’s henchman, John Dudley? Oh, I can see why you wed his niece, just as you did the king’s former mistress. Stepping-stones to power—to Parliament, to a command at sea.”
“I am deeply honored you have kept up with my career.”
“A pox on your career! Dudley oversaw the horrible execution of my half brother, Thomas, Earl of Kildare, and my uncles.”
“Yes, I heard and rued the day. But your kin would not have even been in the king’s clutches unless your uncle Leonard Grey had tricked them with promises or pardons and handed them over. And now he too has overstepped, and I don’t want you to be next.”
“He did? How?”
“You seem to have done well with court gossip but haven’t heard that? Don’t be warning your mother, as she’ll hear the news soon enough. Grey has been replaced as deputy of Ireland by St. Leger—”
Amazingly, I thought of poor Alice first. My uncle would come home now and take a bride, and it wouldn’t be her. She’d buried her sorrows, even as I had, but it still grieved her sore to lose him.
“Just heed me now,” Clinton was saying. “Your uncle is being sent home to face charges of treason, with the main accusation being that he intentionally let your brother Gerald slip out of Ireland and flee.”
I gasped and pressed my back and legs against the wall to stand. “The king will attack that uncle too?” I whispered. “Lord Grey was a traitor to us, but—him too? Then the king wants Gerald that much? Will he wipe out my brother Edward next and the rest of us?”
“That is especially why, fetching maid or not, you must take a care for your own safety. Now I must go before someone comes upon us, though I warrant everyone’s lollygagging about the base court waiting for the king to return from his daily slaughter—of deer, this time.”
I wanted to scream and beat my fists against the wall, against this man. Yet I wanted to cling to him too, his new Dudley wife be damned, for I needed someone to be strong with me. He did care for me somehow. His undertone was critical of the king, however slavishly he seemed to serve him and Dudley too. He rued the day he’d heard his mentor had overseen my family’s executions. I was so very afraid, and yet I could tell no one what I intended to do, trust no one.
“Gera Fitzgerald, do not be a fool. I repeat: You must be wary; stay out of plots and trouble. You must not let others know your feelings. Hell’s gates, Irish, you don’t know the half of what can go on and go wrong here in the poison garden of court policies and politics. I hear someone coming. I’m off for Lincolnshire and then to sea. Keep your head down here, Irish, but keep your chin up too.”
He lifted my chin in his big, calloused hand, so that I stared up at him. I held my breath, wanting to knock his hand away, but feeling we swayed and rocked in unison, as if we were at sea again. I felt capsized by the fierce look he gave me. Our mouths were so close; it was the first time I had ever really wanted to be kissed, and I believe I was foolish enough to part my lips and breathe through them.
“And watch your beautiful backside too, because others will,” Clinton muttered. He pulled his hand back, spun away, and was gone, striding down the dim corridor away from the long gallery to which I must return to find my way back.
I cursed myself for not berating him more, but I was still digesting all that he had said. I should at least have shoved him away, I told myself. But my heartbeat still thundered in my chest. No, that was the sound of hoofbeats, echoing in the inner cobbled court.
I ran along the gallery to a window in time to see a string of men ride in with hunt hounds yapping at their heels. And there in his huge saddle on a massive steed—it was easy to pick out which one he was—sat Henry Tudor, king of England, Scotland, and—curse his evil soul—lord of Ireland.
The first time I saw Henry Tudor up close that very afternoon, when I was formally presented to him, I wanted to spit in his face and claw his eyes out. But I gritted my teeth, curtsied, and braced myself as he touched my hand to raise me, and his sharp, sunken eyes went thoroughly over me. What would it avail me to be thrown into prison for defying him outright? Mother had been sore ill off and on, so it might be the death of her. She had forbidden me to so much as come home for a visit. I would like to escape with my life, even after I sought justice for the Fitzgerald fatalities, though if not, I would die for what I hoped to do.
But how to do it; how to do it?
repeated in my brain as Henry Tudor still looked me over and seemed to approve.
But how to do it; how to do it?
repeated in my brain as Henry Tudor still looked me over and seemed to approve.
But, I noted, the queen did not. Her lower lip thrust out, she pouted. She even stamped a foot, mayhap because, for this moment at least, she was not the center of her lord’s and everyone’s attention. Yes, I learned that later about her—despite all she had and how heads always turned her way, she was ravenous for attention and affection.
And speaking of attention, it was the first time I noted how avidly her closest maid of honor, Lady Jane Rochford, of whom I knew nothing then, watched the queen’s every move as she stood slightly off to the side. It was almost as if the middle-aged Lady Jane were living her life through the young queen of whom she was obviously so proud, for she hung on her every word and move. When Cat Howard smiled, Lady Jane did too. When Cat looked affronted, it seemed to me Lady Jane Rochford wanted to slap away the perpetrator, even the king. The woman’s smothered passions made me almost understand her. She had, I thought, a fierce fondness for her royal charge, one that made me miss Magheen’s affection for and loyalty to me.
“My dear lord,” Queen Catherine said with a pert smile as she clung to his arm, even as he seated himself heavily in a massive chair, “I have told your daughter Mary that I shall take Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald for my own maid, someone a bit closer to my age. Of course, Mary said she considered her—your,” she said, nodding at me as I tried to cover my surprise at this turn of events—“services as a gift to me. Oh, my dear lord, I am so happy you were pleased with your hunting today, and the new necklace is so lovely—look!”
Despite at least twenty courtiers looking on—Lady Jane giggled and simpered when her mistress did—the queen tugged her taut bodice away from her breasts and leaned toward him so he could glimpse the rubies on a gold chain that plunged between her plump, pushed-up breasts. I could not but help think that if my mother or Magheen had seen one of us girls do such in public, even to a husband or family member, we would have been soundly cuffed and scolded.
“How prettily it sets off my fair skin, see?” she shrilled with a giggle that was soon drowned by the king’s guffaw of approval. I could tell he yearned to plunge his big paw down her neckline, and not to fondle the necklace. And so, in just a few moments, I learned that a lady-in-waiting—me—could be traded off to humble someone—a king’s daughter—just as a pretty bauble might be given for favors or power.
Indeed, my first impression of the monarch I so loved to hate was that, as dangerous and wary as he was, he was stupid enough to be besotted with a silly girl. Yet he was no doddering fool, for his eyes, deep-set and small like a pig’s in his jowly, florid face, were watching everything, even as Jane Rochford did. Despite his obvious happiness now and hail-fellow-well-met demeanor, I knew what he was really like.
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