Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (40 page)

Greenwich
Palace, Greenwich

September
10th 1533

Of
course, they canceled the jousts. A daughter did not merit the display. And the
cannonade salute of the Tower guns was reduced from one hundred one shots to
one and twenty.

“Is
she any less royal because she’s not a boy?” I muttered to Joan as we processed
to the Chapel Royal for Elizabeth’s christening three days after her birth.

 
Joan Percy, surprised at the offense I
took on my baby cousin’s behalf, tried to reason me out of my sulk.

“She’s
still the King’s daughter,” she said. “She will have every benefit given her
blood.”

“She’ll
never succeed to the throne.”

Joan
frowned, perplexed by my stance. “If not for that she would never have been
born and we’d still be calling the Pope our Spiritual Father.”

“Well,
mayhap that would have been for the best,” I muttered. “I’ve heard Lady Mary
Tudor’s no dullard.”

Joan,
wool-headed as always, would not let it go. “She’s still a girl, Mary. And
girls don’t rule England.”

“Oh,
bite your tongue,” I snapped and walked away from her before she guessed my
pique sprang from a personal frustration.

I
wandered the corridors, brooding on the disaster.

A
boy would have saved John and I. Instead, Mariah rejoiced in our new girl
cousin. And Elizabeth was just another girl who one day, no matter her title,
would be like me—a girl in need of a husband.

Why did God forsake Anne?

For
that was clearly what He had done, no matter the King’s mild reaction. What
must he truly feel? Cheated?

I
did.

A
prince gave Anne everything, and with it she would be moved to give me
everything I wanted. But God had withheld it from her. Why? What had she
done?
 

John’s
plan must be abandoned. I’d known it the moment the midwife cried “girl”. But
we had no chance to plot another. For some reason, Aunt Elizabeth kept me close
for the three days between Elizabeth’s birth and her christening. I had no
space to write to John, no leave to find him in our alcove.

Michaelmas
was nineteen days away.

Nothing
had been publicly said of the wedding—neither
mine nor
Mariah’s
. Fitzroy wasn’t even returned yet from France. He still
lingered in Calais. No one had word on his exact arrival.

But
a royal or semi-royal wedding did not require a long time to arrange. Look at
Anne. Married above the Holbein Gate at Whitehall.
In secret.

When
the King forgot his disappointment at Elizabeth, he would remember Fitzroy. And
Suffolk. And me.

______________

Elizabeth’s
christening was my first sight of John in four days. We both wore our best. I’d
donned the apple green gown from my first appearance at court. It was my
talisman. Janet had sewn a new panel of darker material at the hemline. I’d
grown almost two inches since I’d come to court. Though I’d not come into my
duckies, as Bess had said I would, they could not be far behind.

John’s
black coat and hose were the most elegant clothes I’d ever seen him wear. He
looked sleek, dangerous, and very desirable to my eye. My lips replayed his
parting kiss on the barge four nights ago, causing me to miss half the
ceremony. By the time my mind drifted back, Elizabeth squirmed, naked and in
the arms of one of her godmothers, the sour Marchioness of Exeter. She looked
ready to drop her. She wouldn’t dare contemplate it if she held a prince—Anne’s
son or not. Poor Elizabeth.

Archbishop
Cranmer, one of Elizabeth’s godfathers, put her back inside the purple velvet
mantle held by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. That lady rearranged the
mantle’s long ermine furred train, cooing at the babe, before Uncle Wiltshire
took it up.

At
the moment of her christening, five hundred torches leapt to life. The Duke of
Norfolk held a tiny brand in Elizabeth’s hand.

The
Garter King of Arms cried out: “God, of his infinite goodness, send prosperous
life and long to the high and mighty Princess Of England, Elizabeth!”

We
processed out of the Friars’ Church and to Anne’s chambers. John came up behind
me on the halpace stairs.

“My
father is within,” he put in my ear as he passed me. I checked a moment and let
him precede me by a wide margin. My hand felt for the ring hiding at my
breastbone. Its reality soothed me.

A
scarlet carpet had been laid from the entrance of the Watching Chamber to the
gallery leading to the Presence Chamber. Those present took it for the barrier
it was. I walked the length, awash in the cacophony of voices clambering for
purchase against their neighbor’s.

The
gallery provided a momentary respite between that noise and the music in the
Presence Chamber. The black curtains had been pulled down. Sunlight streamed
through the bay windows. Anne’s bed of state filled the space where her chair
of estate once sat.
A lengthy queue of well-wishers wound
around the chamber.

Two
long trestles, groaning with a host of edibles, had been erected against a
wall. I wove my way to it, plucked some early
grapes,
a tiny cut of cheese, and scanned the crowd for my parents.

“They
say there was a marriage at Suffolk House today.”

Seymour’s
colorless voice shook my heart like a babe’s rattle. She wore another ridiculous
costume—too many clashing colors, too many petty jewels, and a breadbox
trimmed with yellow velvet ribbon. Her skin absorbed the color making her look
jaundiced.

“And
what is that to me?” I mumbled, through a mouthful of cheese.

Seymour
pretended to yawn so she could draw her hand over her mouth and whisper, “They
say the Duke of Suffolk has married his ward Katherine Willoughby.”

I
made a sound halfway between a grunt and a moan, as though I’d been punched in
the throat.

“That’s
impossible.” I glanced around searching faces for signs of shock, disquiet to
support Seymour’s story. “Katherine Willoughby is betrothed to the Duke’s own
son.”

Seymour’s
fingers tapped her chin. “No more. The Duke took the girl’s inheritance for
himself. You may say that he has jilted his own son.”

I
barely heard her. My mind whirled, calculating what this news meant.

Suffolk
had married his ward. There was no prince in the cradle. But I could present
Anne with something of value—the earldom of Oxford. My knees shook.

We are saved.

I
tore the little pearl ring off my small finger and shoved it into Seymour’s
startled hands.

“With
my thanks, Mistress Jane.” My smile strained the corners of my mouth.

Seymour’s
own mouth fell open. Her horse teeth gleamed like ivory counting sticks.

“You
are welcome, Mistress Mary,” she said to my disappearing back.

Where
in God’s name was John?

I
searched the chamber for him, but he was gone. His father, deep in conversation
with Master Cromwell and the Queen’s Chamberlain, noticed me. I curtsied to him
and got a quizzical look in turn. I stifled a giggle and moved on.

A
happiness greater than what I’d felt waking in John’s arms on the barge filled
me, greater than the day of our betrothal, greater still than the day he first
declared his love. And the happiness of those three days outweighed every happy
day I’d ever had before them.

I
found Joan and Mary Wyatt standing where the sewing circle should be. The
stools had been lined against the wall. Our elders occupied them. Joan glared
at them.

“Have
you seen Lord John?” I asked them.

Mary
Wyatt shook her head. Joan did likewise.

“I
have not seen him, but that young man looks sour as Spanish wine.”

Joan
would know; her breath reeked of it.

“Which
young man?” I asked.

Mary
Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “The one staring at you with all the subtlety of an owl
for a dormouse.”

She
nudged my shoulder with her own, indicating I should look to the far corner of
the chamber.

Tom
Clere’s unblinking eyes plunged me back to the night at the Tower. His hard,
contemptuous voice rang in my head.
I
don’t want anyone to know I ever thought you worthy to be my wife
.

“Who
is he to look so at you?” Joan demanded. Mary Wyatt gave her a sharp look.

I
drew a single, steady breath and rolled my shoulder with languid speed so that
he would know it was for him alone. Here! It said. You are no more to me than
that.

“He
is a nobody,” I said.

“Then
he should be swept out to the Watching Chamber with the rest of them,” Joan
sniffed and downed the remainder of her wine. “I will see it done.”

Mary
Wyatt grabbed Joan’s arm. “Bess Holland is no good influence,” she muttered.

“No!
Wait a moment,” I said. “Let him stay. He came to see his betters, so let him
do just that.”

Joan
tried to roll her shoulder, but the wine made her so graceless it came out a
lumpish shrug. I laughed and wandered away from them.

God
had delivered my enemy to slaughter.

I
had only stopped envisioning this moment when John was barred from Windsor.
Before that I’d devoted too many hours better spent at prayer or doing the
Queen’s needlework to crafting the details of this encounter. After our
rendez-vous in London, I had re-scripted every word a dozen then a hundred
times; polished and refined them to precious metal. And now, I discovered I did
not need them.

My
forefinger hooked the ring and drew it forth. I felt like Jason returned from
Colchis, brandishing the Golden Fleece to win his kingdom; like King Arthur
pulling Excalibur from the stone; like Anne receiving the scepter and orb at
Westminster.

Success,
I now knew, feels as
heart-stopping
, skin-tingling,
blissful as love.

I
slipped the ring onto my third finger and
a breathtaking
warmth swept up my arm. I laughed again. I almost felt drunk.

“What
has you so merry?” John’s arrival behind my shoulder confirmed God’s hand on
the moment.

“This,”
I said and held up my hand. Sunlight poured through the ruby. It blazed like
the beacons at Portsmouth must do when the enemy is sighted. I held it higher
so that Tom Clere could not escape it.

John
laughed. “Perfection!”

“Perfection,”
I echoed as tears heated the backs of my eyes.

Lord, I am grateful for this day beyond
all others before and yet to come.

John
stepped closer, blocking my view of Clere. “You have pleased me more than you
can ever know,” he said then kissed my lips. It was not the short, proper kiss
of greeting, but the unmistakable drawn out varietal of the lover.

“The
Queen’s eyes are upon you!” someone hissed. It sounded like Mary Wyatt.

I
broke the kiss, turned my chin in the Queen’s direction. Anne reclined on her
bed, a little golden crown woven into her dark hair. I looked into her eyes and
shivered as I entered their darkness.

I
licked my lips and told myself she would not be offended when she learned that
while Suffolk had scuttled her plans, I had single-handedly redeemed them.

Then
Anne smiled. The darkness lifted as though it had never been. I caught my
breath. Her mood moved like flame.

Anne
released my eyes by turning to Lady Rochford who stood nearest the bed. I
brushed by her to the pale face beside her. Mariah regarded me with all the
warmth of a corpse. Every hint of color in her face had dissolved. Even her
hair looked dull.

I
took a deep breath then showed her every one of my pretty Boleyn teeth.

“Lady
Mary Howard,” I murmured. “You may go hang.”

“What
are you doing with my ring?”

I
did not recognize the low, strident voice, but knew it addressed me.

I
turned and came face to face with the King in miniature.

The same sapphire eyes with their heavy
lower lids, winged brows, and rosy cheeks.
The same proud cant to his neck, shoulders thrown back to
broaden the already broad chest. The same sunlight that had ignited my ruby lit
the tiny diamonds studding his coat.

Lord
Fitzroy’s rosebud lips pinched just as his father’s did when put out.

“Give
it here.” He held out a hand so choked with rings he could never hope to close
it.

“I
think not,” John said then appended, “Your Grace.”

Crimson
speckles erupted across Fitzroy’s neck and cheeks.

Lord
Surrey slid a hand around Fitzroy’s upper arm and glanced at John. “Poor bait,
de Vere,” he drawled. “Come Fitzroy, there’s dicing in the King’s Presence
Chamber.”