Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2) (21 page)

The king sent Bridget no more presents, but it was evident that his interest in her had not dissipated. Sir Richard, keenly aware of this, asked permission to leave court and go to his estate in Lincolnshire in an effort to get Bridget out of the way, but he was refused. “Your services are required here. You cannot leave now” had been the curt response.

The de Bretts therefore remained, and the king rarely allowed Bridget to be out of his sight for long. He insisted that she accompany the court everywhere it went, regardless of where they were going or what they were doing—be it hunting, hawking, watching the bear or bull baiting  (activities she hated) or even fishing, a pastime the king rarely indulged in but which took his fancy every now and again. He had developed a sudden mania for it and Bridget dutifully stood on the riverbank, along with a select group of courtiers, and watched for hours as their sovereign fished. When he finally landed something, a fairly large pike, he shouted for joy and held the wiggling creature over his head victoriously. His wide smile was directed only at her.

Bridget, for her part, kept as quiet as possible and never gave any encouragement to the king’s constant attempts at flirtation. She could only hope that he would grow bored with her lack of response or that he would finally agree to wed a European princess and thus make
her
the focus of his attention. The chances of the latter scenario coming true were considerably raised when Hans Holbein returned from the Continent, armed with his portrait of Christina, Duchess of Milan.

The Duchess, who was a niece of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, had been briefly wedded to the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, before being widowed at the age of sixteen. She was regarded as the greatest marital prize in the world, and it would represent quite a coup if it was Henry VIII of England, out of all her many suitors, who managed to land her.

“She looks like Madge Shelton,” Joanna whispered the first time she and Bridget saw Holbein’s portrait, which had been put on public display in the king’s presence chamber at Whitehall. Bridget considered the image and supposed that there was a slight resemblance to Madge, who had been one of Queen Anne’s ladies, and also the king’s mistress for a short period. The Duchess Christina did have some of Madge’s pleasant plumpness about her and also just the hint of an invitation in her gaze, “a look of the bedchamber,” as some might put it. Then again, Holbein had needed to provide that look in her eye in order to make up for all that was hidden. The fact was that the Duchess’s eyes were about the only part of her that was visible— the rest of her, her entire body, was clad in a black mourning gown that covered her right up to the neck. Not even her hair could be seen as it was concealed by a black cap. That only left her eyes, staring straight out at the viewer from a youthful, unmarked visage. Not much to go on really, but it seemed to have the desired effect on the king. He was enchanted with the portrait and let everyone know it. Christina, he declared, would become his wife.

“Lady de Brett,” a sharp voice behind her intoned, cutting like a scythe through Bridget’s thoughts. She turned and met the coolly appraising stare of Anne Seymour, Lady Hertford, the king’s sister-in-law and, in the Lady Mary’s absence, the most senior woman at court. Certainly in her own estimation anyway. Whip thin and with a face that could have been hewn from stone, Lady Hertford made it her habit to stride about the court, her hand firmly placed upon her husband’s arm, her richly embroidered gowns billowing out behind her like storm clouds. She was married to a powerful man, the prince’s uncle no less, and she wished everyone to be constantly aware of it. She thought little of any person beneath her in rank, which meant she usually never favoured Bridget with so much as a glance let alone a word. Thus, the decision to speak to her now could augur no good at all.

“Lady Hertford,” Bridget replied with the maximum of courtesy, “do you wish to admire the duchess’s portrait? Were we standing in your way? If so, I apologise.”

Lady Hertford flicked her spiky gaze disdainfully over the painting and shook her head. “Nay, I have had my fill of looking at the Duchess of Milan. She may be pretty, but she appears rather full of herself, and I cannot abide that in a woman. It is most unbecoming trait.” Bridget bit the inside of her cheek and resumed her observation of the portrait in an effort to hide her amusement. Lady Hertford, naturally enough, did not notice a thing. “I may not have come here to gaze at her portrait, but the duchess
is
the reason I have spoken to you,” she continued. “The king has ordered a masque be staged in her honour and he wishes you to participate. In fact, he specifically desires you to play the part of the duchess.”

“He, I mean, His Majesty, wants me to play the duchess? But I . . .” Bridget searched for a plausible excuse, a way out. “I am not of sufficient rank to take on the role of such a great lady. ’Twould not be proper.” She could see from Lady Hertford’s expression that she privately agreed that Bridget was indeed far too lowly to impersonate a duchess, but publicly she was compelled to take a different view. The king’s wishes were, as always, paramount.

“Oh please
, do not come the bashful maiden with me, my lady” she replied impatiently. “You cannot be surprised that the king has selected you for this honour. After all, he has done little else but lavish you with attention for the past few weeks. I cannot argue with your own assessment of your rank,” she sniffed, “but His Majesty clearly does not agree. Besides, you are tolerably handsome I suppose.” She surveyed Bridget with a frown. “More than that, you are still youthful enough to pass as the duchess, there being a lack of young ladies at court these days. Those two qualities should be sufficient to overcome your lack of breeding.”

In her desperation not to be roped into this charade, Bridget seized upon Lady Hertford’s remark about the lack of young ladies and turned toward Joanna. It was almost on the tip of her tongue to volunteer her for the role before common sense prevailed. The king had not asked for Joanna—he had asked for her—and there was no getting away from that.

“Thank you for your compliment
s, my lady,” Bridget replied sedately. “If it is the king’s command that I play the part of the duchess, then I shall be honoured to do so.”

Lady
Hertford nodded and clapped her hands together briskly. “Yes, yes, you are deeply honoured, now then, we must prepare and there is not much time. The king has rather sprung this upon us. Come along, you too, Mistress de Brett.” Joanna startled at the sound of her name, earning her a reproving glare. “You are to be one of the duchess’s attendants. Do not worry, it is a very minor role. Not even you can make a hash of it. We have only a few hours of rehearsal time, so there is not a second to lose. Both of you follow me.”

They did as they were bid and followed Lady Hertford to the Great Hall, where they were presented with their costumes and spent the rest of the afternoon rehearsing under the critical eye of Lady Hertford and the Master of the Revels. The premise of the masque was that Bridget, as the Duchess Christina, was being held captive by her attendants in a remote castle covered in ivy. Her resentful maids, dressed in green to symbolise their jealousy, had locked her up so that her beauty, of which they were terribly envious, would wither away and hence no man would ever want her. A group of rescuers, led no doubt by the king, would then storm the castle and rescue her, the ladies putting up a token resistance by throwing sweetmeats at the besiegers. Dancing and feasting would then follow in celebration of Bridget-Christina’s rescue.

Luckily, it was a familiar conceit, one much performed in several masques over the years which meant it did not require much rehearsal. In spite of this, Bridget could not help her body thrumming with nerves at the prospect of having to enact it. She shook as she was helped into her gown of shimmering white silk, sewn all over with rows and rows of tiny golden lovers’ knots. It clung to her like a second skin, emphasising every curve and contour of her figure. She looked like Venus herself, come down from Olympus to tempt the mere mortals below with her unattainable beauty. Once she was fully dressed, with her blonde hair piled high on her head and her delicate mask in place, her emerald-clad captors did not have to pretend to be envious. It was writ large on every face.

The time for the performance all too soon arrived; the courtiers gathered eagerly to watch, most arriving early, and the air buzzed with anticipation. From her vantage point in her mock castle, Bridget looked for her husband in the multitude, but it appeared he was not amongst their number. Either he was to be one of her rescuers, or he was choosing to absent himself from the proceedings altogether. Bridget debated which scenario was preferable to her but had no time to reach a conclusion. The music had started; the show was about to begin.

Everyone took up their positions at the sound of the first note. As instructed, at the correct moment, Bridget appeared at the top of the castle, as if she were emerging from a turreted prison cell. The candlelight reflected off her gown and a ripple of appreciation ran through the audience, like an autumn wind through fallen leaves. Bridget gazed out at them and her mouth went dry. The last time she had stood on a high place and looked down on a crowd it was from the scaffold on Tower Green, and suddenly she was back there, the smell of blood replacing that of pomanders and wax. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing emerged, not a single sound. She was frozen to the spot.

The silence lengthened and the watchers began to fidget and glance at one another in bemusement. It was then that Gertrude Courtenay, Marchioness of Exeter, came to her rescue. She momentarily threw off her assigned role as one of Bridget’s captors and whispered gently to her. “Do not be nervous, my dear. Your first line is, ‘Good people, I am the Duchess Christina and I am a prisoner.’ Just take a deep breath, clear your mind, and say it. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

Bridget
mouthed her thanks and took the marchioness’s advice: she breathed in, emptied her mind of the past, and brought it back into the present. “G-good people,” she began, stutteringly at first. “I am the Duchess Christina and I am a prisoner!” The audience gasped in unison, as if they were genuinely staggered at the news, and their reaction helped the rest of her lines flow back to her. “My ladies keep me locked up, both night and day, year after year, in this Castle of Virtue, for they hate my beauty and wish to see it die. It must die, else they will never get husbands for themselves, for any man who gazes upon my beauty is fated to love no other. He must have me, and only me, for his own.”

On cue, the treacherous handmaidens bobbed up from the ramparts and were roundly booed and jeered by the indignant onlookers. They laughed derisively at the response and glared out haughtily at the crowd.

“Yes, the
duchess is our captive!” Lady Hertford declaimed with glee, advancing on Bridget and digging her fingers cruelly into her arm. “And she shall remain so until she is old and grey! We will never let her go! Not while an ounce of beauty remains to her.”

“Good people,” Bridget once more appealed to the audience, “is this to be my fate, to die here, a doleful prisoner condemned to suffer until the end of my days? No, no, it cannot be, it must not be! If only there was a brave knight, a prince pure in heart yet strong in courage who would free me! His reward would be greatest one I can bestow—my love.”

She had hardly finished her sentence before there was a flourish of trumpets and a band of masked men entered the hall. Dressed in midnight blue, with hearts consumed by flames embroidered across their doublets, they advanced as one on the castle, a man who was unmistakably the king in the vanguard.

“Unhand the
duchess!” the king ordered, “you jealous, spiteful hags! I have journeyed across the land to rescue your mistress, the fair Duchess Christina, and I intend to claim her as my own.”

“Nay
, Sir Knight, we shall never let her go!” Lady Hertford cried, and she and her cohorts took up handfuls of sweetmeats and began hurling them with great gusto at the would-be rescuers. Most landed harmlessly, with only one man at the back, which Bridget now perceived to be Sir Richard, taking a direct hit.

The besiegers picked up the missiles and fired them back at the duchess’s captors and they soon fell back under the onslaught. With a cry of triumph, the men swarmed the ramparts and led away the ladies-in-green, leaving only Bridget standing on her own.

The king vaulted onto the top of the castle, like a man half his age, and grasped Bridget’s hand in his damp one. “The
duchess is set free!” he announced to widespread cheers and claps of approval. “She is a prisoner no more, doomed to spend her life in captivity. No, there is to be no more of that, my faithful subjects. She is liberated, she is unfettered!” He brought his face close to hers and lifted his mask, revealing his identity, as if there had ever been any doubt of it. “She is mine.”

The applause was thunderous.

Bridget kept to her part, curtseyin
g daintily and declaring that she was now the happiest woman in the world. She allowed herself to be led away from the castle, the scene of her horrid interment, down the stairs and into the main body of the hall. The king, carried away by excitement, spun her into the centre of the room and began to dance with her. The musicians, similarly enthused, struck up a
volta
and Henry threw himself into it with a panache and a dexterity that caused jaws to drop in every direction.