Brazen (7 page)

The word
honor
is like an unripe berry dipped in cream. Rich with the expectation of sweetness, but tart with spite.

“This is why I sought you out,” I say. “To offer the possibility of restoring you to the king’s good graces.”

I see hope blooming on her face, bringing a little color to her cheeks. Her eyes are bright blue. Not at all like Fitz’s—or their father’s.

That hope is painfully familiar. If I had the opportunity to make amends with my mother, I would do anything—anything—to achieve it.

“The queen has offered to intercede. If you go to her now—honor her—she will speak with the king. Soften his heart to you.”

All signs of hope vanish from her expression, replaced by a stony resolve. And the blue eyes darken.

“I honor no queen but Katherine, daughter of Aragon,” she says, her voice cold, the Thames breaking free of the ice.

I can’t let this person see she has riled me. Every time I get angry, her energy rises. It’s as if she feeds on it. So I release my fists. Struggle to find a diplomatic reply.

But Lady Mary is not finished.

“However, if the king’s
mistress
would like to speak on my behalf”—she pauses—“I would be grateful.”

The temper of her voice is anything but appreciative.

Lady Mary turns away from me and kneels again before the altar. She doesn’t acknowledge my status or even my presence, and I’m left hanging, caught between retort and retreat.

“Give my brother my best,” she says to her hands, clenched before her. “If you see him.”

She knows that I may not see him. Or that when he sees me, he may run away. And after a moment of trying to decide how to take my leave, I just go.

The next morning, as we prepare to go back to London, the queen asks about my mission, though Lady Mary’s continued nonappearance is testament to my failure.

“Tell me what she said,
exactly
,” Queen Anne insists.

I don’t want to. But I do. At the word
mistress
, the queen’s lips go white and her hands clench reflexively. She climbs silently into her litter and pulls the curtains closed.

I look up to the windows of Hatfield, all of them staring blankly out at me, mute and expressionless. And then I see Lady Mary’s face at the center. Just for a moment. Alone.

I want to prove her wrong.

I am married.

But I can mentally strike through one of the things on our list of reasons to love a man.

I definitely don’t like Fitz’s sister.

L
ENT
IS
ALWAYS
THE
GLOOMIEST
TIME
AT
COURT
. T
HERE
ARE
NO
revels, no celebrations, no banquets. The men spend all their time in Parliament, and the women sit and sew, and everyone is cross and on edge.

So the day the men return from Parliament slapping backs and jovially haranguing one another, the entire court ignites on the spark of their energy.

Everyone crowds into the public rooms, and I am trapped at the far wall, against the windows. The room has two doors. One leads to the queen’s more private chambers. It’s closed, and I wouldn’t be allowed access. The other door is the one through which everyone is entering. A flood of them. Doublets and boasts and faces red with wine.

I feel the wedge of panic pressing into my lungs. I search for a familiar face. Madge. Margaret. Hal. I’d even be relieved to see Fitz. Anyone to keep me upright.

I stand on my tiptoes. I am so much smaller than all these men. I see only shoulders and velvet caps. Drooping feathers and gold braid. I try to suck in a deep breath, but it catches halfway and I cough.

Sharp, bony fingers grip my elbow, and my delirium threatens to overtake me. The edges of my vision blur and go dark, and I can only see as if through a tunnel. As if I wear blinders.

I turn my head, wobbling like a drunk, and almost cry at the sight of Margaret’s long nose and wide mouth.

“Let’s leave this place,” she says, and drags me away from the wall.

The two of us together cause a wave of bows and curtsies, parting the crowd like the prow of a ship. Margaret is the figure-head. The throng on the other side of the door is even more densely packed, and all my breath leaves me. But Margaret forces her way through and down the spiral stairs. We pick up Madge in our wake as we tumble out into a tiny courtyard.

Margaret releases me, and her hands flinch closed. She looks up to the sky, her face like a thunderstorm already broken.

“He’s done it,” she says.

“Done what?” I ask, my breath still short. I press a fist to my stomacher and finally fill my lungs.

“He’s gone and taken control of everything.”

“Who?”

“My uncle,” she says.

The king.

We should stop talking now. I should go find Hal. Or Father. Or sew. Or write poetry. Madge should be serving the queen. And Margaret should let her anger subside before she speaks out against the king to the wrong person.

But none of us moves.

“They’ve just voted,” Margaret says, more quietly, though her anger hardly seems to have dissipated. “The king has ratified it.”

“Ratified what?” Madge seems awed by Margaret’s anger.

“An act of succession to the throne.”

I hold my breath. As King Henry grows older, everyone worries about who will be next in line. Princess Elizabeth is barely crawling, much less walking or talking. And Lady Mary . . . I can’t imagine what the country would be like if she came to power with her spite and her need for revenge.

Then there’s Fitz. And Margaret, the king’s niece.

It’s treason to speak of—or even picture—the death of the king, making the succession a touchy subject to discuss.

“The act declares that King Henry’s first marriage was invalid and therefore Princess—
Lady
Mary cannot inherit.” Margaret looks at me pointedly. “Because she’s a bastard.”

She means Fitz will never inherit, either. Which is good for me. Or at least my marriage. No French princess would want to marry a bastard. They’d get in line to marry the next king of England.

“We knew that already,” Madge says.

“
Some
people didn’t,” Margaret snaps. The people who support Katherine of Aragon.

Like my mother.

Madge just shrugs.

“They’re also saying that everyone will have to take an oath,” Margaret continues, “that the succession is valid. That Queen Anne is the true queen.”

“But she is,” Madge says.

“Lady Mary doesn’t think so,” I tell her. But I am watching Margaret. She grew up with Lady Mary. And I wonder if she supports Lady Mary’s right to inherit. Or does she support her own?

“Anyone who won’t sign it is a traitor.” Margaret pauses to let that sink in. “And can be executed accordingly. Even speaking out—against the oath, the king, Queen Anne—could lead to imprisonment.”

I am glad no one ever listens to my mother. Except me. Because the things she says would send her straight to the Tower.

“He wants to control everything,” Margaret murmurs. “Lives, love, faith, words. Probably even the afterlife.”

“Shhh.” If what Margaret says is true, she’s putting us all in danger.

But Margaret doesn’t listen. “Look at his daughter. She’s been betrothed countless times. She has believed herself in love. Every. Single. Time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Margaret,” Madge sniffs. “She was betrothed to the dauphin when she was two.”

“And remained so for three years!” Margaret stands straight as a poker. She keeps her hands folded tightly together. But her body leans forward, her face screwed up in emotion, the passion behind her words breaking through the mask of royalty.

“And then the emperor.” She loses her grasp on her hands and they fly up over her head in despair. “She thought he was the most handsome man she’d ever met. A six-year-old girl madly in love with a grown man.”

Margaret frowns in disgust.

“And now she’ll never marry at all. Or if she does, it will be the second half sibling of some minor backwater prince. It was once even proposed she marry FitzRoy. Did you know that? That the king would have married his bastard daughter to his bastard son?”

The very idea makes me feel sick.

“She may be the king’s daughter,” Margaret says, and her eyes hold pain and anger in equal measure, “but it has done her little good. Just as I have garnered no profit from being the king’s niece. I am eighteen years old. And my life, my love, my marriage—my very survival—are all beholden to him. To be dispensed at the king’s pleasure.”

“He
is
the king,” Madge says, as if this explains and resolves everything.

“He’s not God,” I say. “There have to be some things he doesn’t control.”

“He will not control me,” Margaret says. “He may control my inheritance. He may control my past and my future. But he will not control my feelings. Not my mind. I am not his.”

I feel an ache within me—one of recognition and complicity. The king may control my marriage, but am I not in command of my emotions?

Margaret goes very still, perhaps thinking she’s said too much, but she doesn’t ask us not to tell. In this court, asking such a thing is an assurance that everyone will know before we sit to supper.

We stand in an awkward silence until Madge tosses her head.

“Well,” she says, “no one will control me, either.”

“No one
can
control you, Madge,” I tease.

Margaret laughs and I see a chink in the wall of her anger.

“May our thoughts and emotions—and, most importantly, how they guide us—always be our own,” she says.

Madge cheers and does a little dance, and I grin when she swings me around. But I add my own caveat to Margaret’s proclamation:

May our emotions always guide us to make the right choices.

W
E
LEAVE
W
HITEHALL
AND
THE
C
ITY
BEHIND
AND
RETU
RN
TO
the king’s birthplace. The rooms feel more crowded; they’re smaller, and the number of people in them seems to grow every day. But we are bounded by water on one side—which gives the illusion of space—and the gardens, orchards, and forests on the other. Where I can breathe.

We are here preceding the grass season—for hunting and riding and jousting—and to celebrate the end of Lent. The court has shaken off the mantle of winter and launched into spring with a vengeance. There are more parties. More flirting. And suddenly, the entire court is in love.

Except for me. I never see Fitz anymore. He has yet to come to Greenwich. He may be sent to Ireland in the summer, which approaches at an astonishing rate.

At the very least, I’d like to see him. And apologize. Something my mother never did.

So I go to find the one person who has always taken my side. To ask him to intercede. To arrange a meeting. Perhaps, even, to mediate.

Father is in the king’s good graces at the moment, and has rooms in the central donjon—the tower in the middle of the sprawling palace complex.

“I’d like to see His Grace,” I tell the usher at the door to my father’s apartments. And mentally kick myself. I should have said, “I
want
to see His Grace.” Or, “I
must
see His Grace.” There is a subtle but tremendous difference between asking permission and issuing a command.

“He is with the master secretary at the moment, Your Grace.”

The king’s newly appointed secretary, Thomas Cromwell, is reputedly a mercenary. Or used to be. The son of a blacksmith—or a brewer—he is quite possibly the cleverest man at court. Father despises him as an upstart—even worse than a “new man” like Thomas Boleyn, the queen’s father, who at least had knights and earls in his ancestry albeit Irish ones.

Father also says Cromwell deserves watching.

But I’d rather not. His face is hard. Brutal, even—like a murderer’s. He doesn’t tolerate nonsense. He’s known for getting things done, and getting them done properly. Without any mistakes. Without any argument.

Without any warning.

I’m a little afraid of him.

Father’s usher goes to announce me, and I shake the feeling off. Through the slightly open door I can hear Father’s voice rising.

“No, he will
not
be going, Master Secretary, not if there’s anything I can do about it.”

“And of course, you can do much.” Cromwell’s tone is flat, his words riding behind my father’s like a slick on the river.

“I do what I can.”

“Close relations with the queen certainly do no harm,” Cromwell muses. “Though it is truly the king’s wishes that matter.”

“The king does not wish to be separated from his son.”

“The king does not wish to be separated from his kingdom. You keep that boy too close.”

There is a tense silence. It’s not a friendly discussion. It’s a battle for power. Over the king’s decision. Over Fitz.

Suddenly the door is open and the usher is standing right in front of me, my nose practically pressed into the Howard livery emblazoned on his chest. I move away and he smirks, stepping aside to let me in.

“Your Grace.” Cromwell gives me a quick, short bow—barely noticeable. Father glares at the back of his head.

“Master Secretary.” I am about to incline my own head in deference to his title, when I remember Mother’s words.

Keep your damn head up.

So I keep my eyes on Cromwell as he approaches. He pauses when he comes abreast of me and whispers in my ear.

“Always good to see you,
Princess
.”

His words taste like charcoal.

“I’m not—”

But he is out the door before I can say three words.

I glance back at my father, who is deep in thought—hardly noticing my presence. When he looks up, he doesn’t see me at all, but stares past me to the door.

“He will not win,” he murmurs. Then he turns to me, a smile on his face, and his eyes seem to hold no concern at all.

“My dear,” he says, and grabs my hands to squeeze. He does not hug me. We are not that kind of family. Only Hal is that effusive in a greeting. We put it down to his poetic sensibilities.

Father turns back to his desk, and his shoulders slump. As though he can no longer keep up the court façade.

“Father?”

He straightens quickly, but doesn’t turn. “I’ve been to Kenninghall.”

Mother.
I don’t need him to describe their interaction. All I have to do is remember. Mother planting herself in front of him before he even gets in the door. Unloading all of her pent-up frustrations and accusations. Father, motionless, the color rising in his face. Until one of them explodes.

“Did you hear me, Mary?”

I look up. He’s watching me. I can’t answer. The images still flash at the edges of my vision.

“I said, I told her I want to formalize our separation.”

I rock backward.

“A divorce?” I ask.
Divorce
tastes like a posset. Curdled and fermented and heavily spiced—a weak remedy for a serious affliction. And easily poisoned.

“A formal separation,” Father corrects. “She refused.”

I would expect nothing less from my mother.

“She flew into one of her rages, so I had to lock her up.” Father says this casually, but his hands are shaking.

So am I. I am shaking with gratitude that I am here at court. That I have the protection of Anne Boleyn. That I have friends.

That I no longer have to witness destruction and imprisonment.

“And what will you do now?” I manage to ask.

“I will wait her out,” Father says. “I have moved her to Redbourne. She is no longer welcome at Kenninghall. I have taken all of her jewels. I have reduced her staff. She does not control my life.” He pauses, his shoulders rounding once again. “She doesn’t even control her own.”

But we both know that Mother has power over all of us. That she observes and judges all our thoughts and deeds, and she will act accordingly, sending us all into ruin. Or she will die trying.

Father thumps his desk once, startling me, and takes my hands again, an expectant smile on his face. “You came to see me.”

Fitz
.

The remembrance hits me like a clap of thunder.

“I never see Fitz,” I say quickly, and catch the look on his face. “Henry FitzRoy. I never see my husband. I should like to.”

“There’s really no need,” Father says smoothly. Soothingly. “It’s more important right now for you to get to know the queen. And the rest of your new family.”

He means the king. It is truly the king’s wishes that matter.

The king who can decide in an instant to send Fitz to conquer Ireland. Or into marriage with a French princess.

“Besides,” Father says, and strokes my cheek, “your husband is busy. With Parliament and the running of the country. I never saw your mother when we were first married. I never saw you.”

I know. That’s why I want to change things. To be different.

“I just . . .” I can’t say that to my father. “I heard he will be going to Ireland. I wanted to see him”—
speak to him
—“before he goes.”
Before he dies.

“He won’t be going to Ireland,” Father says, and his tone is short. Defiant. “And there really is no need for you to see each other. You are only fourteen.”

“Almost fifteen.” My birthday is just a few weeks away.

The muscle at the back of Father’s jaw twitches. I’ve contradicted him.

“The king has declared that you will not sleep together until it is deemed appropriate.”

I can’t tell him I tried to kiss Fitz. Father’s wishes match the king’s.

“I don’t want to sleep with him,” I blurt. “I just want to find out who he is.”

He comes back to stand in front of me. Not touching. But demanding attention.

“He is the son of the king,” he says, his voice such a low murmur that I have to strain to hear him. “That’s all you need to know for now.” He takes my face in his hands. “If we are very careful, and very lucky, you, my dear, may one day be queen.”

Treason.
Imagining the queen’s death. Imagining the king’s.

But my father has a way of making things happen. Of pushing things in the right direction. He is the Duke of Norfolk, and if not the most trusted nobleman in the country, he is certainly the most powerful.

I run the word
queen
around in my head and roll it on my tongue. The beginning is tart and brittle like the skin of an apple. But the long
e
is bright and sweet.

There is a flaw in this plan of his. One that can’t be disregarded.

“Henry FitzRoy can’t inherit the throne,” I say.

“Laws can be changed with a press of the king’s seal,” he says. “FitzRoy may be a bastard, but at least he’s a boy.”

I can feel the power in his fingers as he holds my jaw prisoner, studying me. Appraising me.

I hope I can live up to his expectations. When I smile, I feel my skin tug at his fingers.

My father nods. Satisfied. And pats me once on the cheek. Then he goes back to his desk.

“Do not worry, little one,” he says, using the pet name he gave me when I was young and would follow him as far as the gates of Kenninghall when he left for the north or for France or for court. Always going somewhere.

“Do not worry,” he repeats. “You have all the time in the world.”