Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2) (31 page)

“Harry,” for once his
Christian name flowed from her without effort or self-consciousness, “I am sorry for speaking to you as . . . importunately as I did. Forgive me. It was thoughtless and foolish. I forgot myself. I forgot it is not my place to question you. You are the king and I am nothing.” She tentatively touched his arm. A long second elapsed before Henry accepted her gesture. He closed his fingers over hers, gently at first and then so hard that Bridget bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from gasping. But she did not pull her hand away. Not for a moment.

“You are correct
, my lady, I
am
the king” he said, his face now turned fully toward hers, “and do you know how that came about? No? Well, let me tell you. My father won a battle. That is all. A single, solitary battle at a place called Bosworth Field. His forces defeated and slew the Plantagenet king, Richard, and my father took his crown. He picked it up from where it had fallen on the battlefield and placed it on his own head, thus crowning himself. But that was not the end of his war. It was only the beginning of it.”

The king let go of her
hand, and Bridget cringed at the painful sensation of the blood running back into the ends of her fingers. Henry did not notice; he was too intent on the history lesson he was imparting.

“
You see, the Yorkists, those loyal to the claims of the White Rose, would not so easily accept their defeat. They put forward pretended heirs: Lambert Simnel, who is now my falconer, and that pitiful boy Perkin Warbeck. The Irish even anointed him as their king, thinking he was Richard of York, one of the lost princes! He was, of course, no more than a jumped-up Fleming, coached by liars and flatterers to cheat my father out of his hard-won rights. Well, he fought them all and he beat them all. He put a rope around Master Perkin’s neck, and then he took the head of the Earl of Warwick, yet another Plantagenet, who had connived with Warbeck in the Tower. And still, even after blood was spilt, it did not stop. Still, we were not safe.”

The king walked across the room, his footsteps heavy. He picked up the silver jewellery box and stared at the symbol of his dynasty, the
red-and-white rose that adorned the lid. “You ask favour for the Marchioness of Exeter and her kin. They are my faithful subjects you said. Hear me well, madam—I am a Tudor. We do not have ‘faithful subjects.’ We preside over a court of traitors. We rule over men and women who would take our crown, either for themselves or on behalf of whichever of the sprigs of the White Rose that are closest to hand. My father knew that; I know it, too. That is why we have promoted the so-called ‘new men,’ men like Lord Cromwell, who owe their very existence to us. Men who do not dare to take a breath unless we allow them to do so. The Exeters and their brethren of the old nobility have no love for me, let alone loyalty—they rail against my rule in private, and long for the day their beloved Cardinal Pole will come and save them. Let him try. There is a spike waiting to receive his head on London Bridge, right next to the ones reserved for his accursed relatives. For my naïve, soft-hearted, little love . . . that is the only way to deal with traitors. My father taught me that, and it was a lesson I have learnt well. I shall teach my own son when he is old enough. It is the only way for our line to be secure; the only way for it to survive.”

“I understand
, sire” Bridget concurred, her voice subdued. “Of course traitors must be dealt with severely, and I would never presume to tell you of how to proceed on such a serious matter. I am a mere woman after all.” The king nodded in prim agreement.

Bridget hesitantly continued.
“The marchioness is not only a woman but a mother, and she feels a mother’s concern for her family, especially for her young son. She came to me, in all sincerity, and I felt it my duty, as a Christian, to speak to you and ask that perhaps some mercy could be extended unto her. I do believe her to be a good woman.”

The king put down the jewellery box and beckoned to Bridget. Heart thumping anew, she crossed to his side. When she got close enough, he pulled her roughly
to him and kissed her hard.

“I have heard enough
talk of Lady Exeter and her blasted family. You say it was your Christian duty to speak up for her and perhaps it was, though she would never do the same for you. That shows you have a good heart; you have put another’s well-being before your own. I cannot remember the last time anyone did that at my court. I appreciate it. Your words, and the kindness you have displayed, will be taken into consideration. But that is for the future. Now, madam,” he began to work away at the lacings of her gown, “I require another kind of display from you.”

Bridget knew she had reached the limit of the king’s patience
. She could press no further, not if she wished to remain in his good graces. She had done for the marchioness what she could, and she hoped it had been enough, but now the time had come to help her own cause. With the horrid prospect that Henry had conjured up, the image of the cell called ‘Little Ease’ at the Tower, she aided the king in removing her remaining garments, and then let him guide her to the bed. She lay down obediently upon it and welcomed the carnal attentions of her sovereign like the good subject she was.

Chapter Twenty One

A thunderstorm had broken over London on the December day that the Marquess of Exeter, Sir Edward Neville and Lord Montague lost their heads. As a result, only the most hardened of spectators had been prepared to come out and watch the three noblemen, their boots squelching and slipping in the mud, make their way haltingly out of the precincts of the Tower and up the silent hill to the scaffold. There the headsman had most anxiously awaited their presence. He complained to the officials that he hated it when it rained on an execution day; it made the axe handle hard to grip.

“
Despite the circumstances, which were very trying, they made a good end,” Cromwell had told the court over the Christmas celebrations at Greenwich. “All except for Sir Edward Neville, of course. He could not resist the temptation to proclaim his innocence. Fortunately, not many could hear him such was the incessant clamour of the rain. He tried, poor man, but eventually he had to lay his head down just as his fellow traitors had done. And then all was over.”

The king ha
d at first been agog to hear every gory detail of the executions, though he had, as was his wont, made himself scarce from London on the day that they had been carried out. Henry Tudor was not a ruler who liked to see his own justice done. An increasingly long list of courtiers, churchmen, kinsmen and most famously of all, his second wife, had trodden the well-worn path to their deaths well out of the sight of their king. Out of his sight perhaps, but not out of his mind.

The latest rash of
arrests and beheadings had caused not just the usual cold gusts of terror to blow through the court, but they had also, more unusually, triggered a discontented murmuring at the fate of the three men. Some grumbled quite openly that it was disgusting that noblemen of such impeccable and ancient lineage should be condemned to suffer traitor’s deaths based on nothing more than the ravings of Lord Montague and Cardinal Pole’s brother, Sir Geoffrey. Lord Cromwell, who had interrogated Pole, was forced to defend himself on the matter several times, even to the august likes of Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys.

“You see
, Eustace,” he had asserted, “I, too, grieve for the ruin of so great and glorious a family. It gave me no pleasure to witness it, I can promise you. But be that as it may, treason cannot be allowed to take root in this kingdom and make no mistake about it, those men were traitors. They planned to make Cardinal Pole king and marry him to the Lady Mary. Sir Geoffrey told us it all; we could hardly shut him up in the end. Now why would he lie, why would he condemn his own brother to the axe? No, I saw the truth of it in his eyes. Why, we even found a banner embroidered with pansies and marigolds in the home of the Pole matriarch, the Countess of Salisbury. Those flowers were meant to represent the union of her son Reginald and the Lady Mary. Nothing could be plainer.”

Chapuys
and others had been unconvinced, but their opinions were of little importance. The king was the only man who counted and he was certain of their guilt, certain that they had formed a nest of vipers in his “court of traitors,” as he had once described it to Bridget. “The Holy Virgin be praised that the wretched marquess and his confederates have been justly dealt with,” he had proclaimed. “My son’s inheritance has been secured.”

It had not
only been the luckless marquess and his kinsmen who had suffered though—the net had been spread far and wide and had enmeshed the aged Margaret Pole, she of the banner, as well as her young grandsons, Henry Pole and Edward Courtenay. And who had been the last to go, the last one who had been marched out the door by the halberdiers, protesting all the way? Gertrude Courtenay, Marchioness of Exeter.

She had been
imprisoned along with the rest of them. Imprisoned but not executed. That, at least, was some comfort to Bridget; perhaps her efforts on Lady Exeter’s behalf to the king had not been entirely in vain.

“Lady Exeter and her son still live
,” Bridget had said to Joanna as Christmas had passed and the New Year of 1539 had come in. “I think the king and Cromwell will not avenge themselves further on that family now. They have the heads they desired.”

“Perhaps
, but they are not completely satiated. Carew is next. That is what Will says,” Joanna had responded without thinking.

Bridget had been unsurprised by this piece of intelligence
. She knew, from the king’s private rants, how much he had come to despise Sir Nicholas Carew. And once again Joanna was proved right. As one of the prime movers in the downfall of Anne Boleyn, Bridget had shed no tears when Carew had been arrested and tried in February, for having supposedly conspired with Exeter to depose the king. He had gone to the block in March. Bridget had felt little, but that was understandable; she had not been his companion since childhood, she had not hunted with him, played endless games of cards and dice with him, shared jokes and ambitions and confidences with him. She had never been his friend. The king had, and while Carew’s death had left her personally cold, it had made her heart thump to observe how quickly and callously the king disposed of his friends. And all without a tear shed on his part either.

“Madam, Master Holbein is here
,” Joanna announced. The court painter’s arrival brought Bridget’s attention firmly back into the present and out of the unhappy events of the recent past. She turned from the window that looked out across the beautifully manicured grounds of Hampton Court, at the knot garden, the lake and the fountain, and then she greeted the returning artist with a convivial smile. As ever, Hans Holbein was in a rush. He bustled in, laden down with brushes and paints, his young assistant trailing behind him, dutifully carrying the canvas that bore her image. The image that was still shrouded from all eyes and would remain so until it was, at last, unveiled to the king.

Holbein bid Bridget to sit and angle
her face toward the light. “You know the routine by now, my lady,” he said playfully. She laughed and he set about his work without another word.

After a few minutes, Bridget decided to break the silence. “I hear you have lately been in Cleves
, sir. Tell me, were the tales of the duke’s sisters true? Did you find them to be as beautiful as all the ambassadors promise us they are?”

Holbein’s assistant tittered
, and his master threw him a warning glance. The young man obediently covered his mouth and pretended that he had merely been clearing his throat. “Aye, madam, I did,” Holbein answered cautiously, “though they are extremely modest ladies and are kept closeted away from the eyes of men by their brother, Duke William. In fact, when I arrived I feared I would not be able to paint them at all, as nothing of their faces could be seen. They were veiled from head to toe. Fortunately, the diplomats were able to resolve the matter, though not without much grumbling on the part of the duke and his advisors. Still, I think I have managed to capture both sisters in a manner that will please His Majesty. The Lady Anne in particular.”

And do not forget about pleasing Cromwell
,
Bridget thought. Lord Cromwell’s desire for an alliance with Cleves was as great as ever and certainly would not have been lost on Hans Holbein who, after all, was a client of Cromwell’s. All portraits of royal personages were exercises in politics to some extent at the best of times, but this one would be especially so. Bridget looked forward to seeing it, far more so than she anticipated seeing Holbein’s efforts on her own behalf. She was never going to be queen; it sounded as if Anne of Cleves stood a very good chance of becoming so. She was interested to see what the lady looked like.

“Bridget!” Joanna burst into the room, her sudden entrance startling both painter and subject. “Bridget, you must co
me at once. I have been conversing with Will and he has told me the most grievous news. He says that Lord Crom— ” Her wild-eyed gaze strayed to the obviously listening Holbein, and she abruptly cut short her sentence. Taking a breath, she resumed at a slower pace, choosing her words more carefully. “Please, madam, it is imperative that we speak. In private. I apologise for interrupting Master Holbein when he is at his work, but it cannot be helped. This matter—it cannot wait.”