Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

Shelton
House, London

April
1533

“When
is the babe due?”

Madge
tugged my stays an inhalation tighter. Her avid hazel eyes fixed on my chest in
Mother’s long mirror.

“Still
nothing,” she muttered. “Can you breathe?”

“Enough,”
I got out.

“Better
you don’t faint,” she said and tied me off. “The Prince will come late
September.”

“How
do you know it will be a boy?”

Madge’s
already thin lips disappeared. “No one knows, Mary. We hope. We all pray. And
we don’t entertain thoughts of it going the other way. Comprenez-vous?”

I
nodded. “Oui, je comprend. Mais—“

“No
‘but’, Mistress Shelton.” Madge’s eyes caught mine in the mirror. “The Queen
carries a prince and only a fool would argue for any other outcome. Turn
around.”

Obeying
her rankled, but Mother’s expectations constrained me. Madge had arrived from
Greenwich the night before to see me properly outfitted and escorted to the
Queen.

I
did not care for Madge. I still thought of her as Margaret Parker, though she
and my brother John had been married almost ten years, and had four children
from it. The Parkers held themselves a touch grander than the Sheltons by
virtue of their tiny blood connection to the King. Madge’s father, Lord Morley
was an intellectual. Madge had pretensions of being the same. But she was not.
A woman could not be an intellectual. Even Sir Thomas More said so, and his
daughter was accounted the best educated in England, excepting the King’s
daughter Mary.

“I
once dressed Anne when she was about your age,” Madge murmured. “She was new
come from France.”

My
pique softened, hearing a morsel from Anne’s past.

“She
had the smallest waist,” she went on. “But, mayhap yours is smaller.”

She
fitted her hands around me, counted the inches.

“Slender
as a willow wand. Any man who partners you had best keep a good grip. You’re
liable to slip through his fingers.”

I
threw my head, making my loose hair snap across my shoulder.

“Yours
is a shade lighter.” She resettled it in a plumb line down the middle of my
back. Then she pushed my French hood back toward my ears, exposing even more of
my crown.

“That
is how they wear it at court.”

I
studied my reflection. My headpiece looked jaunty, almost daring.

“Am
I stylish enough?” I asked.

Madge’s
ruthless eyes took me in from toe to head.

“Fresh
from the country looks well to any gentleman’s eye.”

Fresh.
That was my card to play. According to Madge, I would be the final Maid of
Honor to join the Queen’s household tomorrow. That alone assured me
distinction.

“Watch
Anne,” Madge said. “She still sets the fashion, though her novelty is long
behind her.”

I
stroked my apple green velvet skirt. “How does she do it?”

Madge’s
fingers paused in refolding my left sleeve. She took a long breath. “By being a
Frenchwoman born
English.” Her eyes wandered the
mirror for a memory.

“When
she returned home she was the most fascinating creature our men folk had ever
seen.”

Madge
looked bespelled. She might tell me anything.

I
took a breath and asked the most blasphemous question a member of the Boleyn
kin could ask. “Did the King love her from the first?”

“No,”
she murmured, eyes still a’wandering the past. “He hated her. He hated all
things French that year.” A strange, dark smile bloomed on her lips. “Until he
didn’t.”

The
River Thames, London

April
1533

As
I followed Madge down our frost slicked water stairs to Uncle Wiltshire’s
barge, my last sight of Thomas Clere rushed at me so fast I flinched and
crushed Master Stafford’s fingers. He winced, but handed me safely down from
the water stairs into the barge.

“Your
pardon, Master Stafford,” I murmured.

“Naught
to fear, mistress.” He gave me a reassuring grin. “The ship knows her way to
Greenwich.”

 
   
He
handed me inside the cabin beside Madge. Another man threw a bearskin rug
across our knees. Then we were pushing off and the beater started his count. I
shut my eyes and the memory returned stronger than before.

The
Howard barge had come to fetch Clere back to court before the light failed.
Long shadows spread across the garden as we walked behind a hedgerow toward the
water stairs.

I
clutched his sleeve as we walked, praying no one saw me from the house. Tom
Clere had been our brother’s guest, not mine. I should not be clutching his
sleeve or any other part of him. But he was leaving for Greenwich then to
Calais with the court as they went to meet King François. And I had heard
nothing from Anne, if I was to go.

Were
two months of poems, dancing, and gentle kisses behind the hedgerows enough to
trust that his heart would stay true?

They must be. He proposed to me.

Me.
Not Gabrielle as our brother Tom had anticipated when he brought him home for a
meal.

“Thomas
Clere has sense,” he’d said when he noticed Clere sought my company, not
Gabrielle’s on his next visit to Shelton House. “Mother thought otherwise when
she had me bring him home.”

“It
was Mother’s idea?”

My
brother nodded. “Of course. The Cleres are close with the Howards—Thomas
is a second son, but he’s Lord Surrey’s oldest friend. He was fostered at
Kenninghall with the rest of them.” He kicked a loose piece of flagstone out of
our way. “Not a bad connection to make. He’s sure to rise at court with
Surrey’s help.”

My
interest in Master Thomas Clere quickened.

“And
if he married, would he make his home at court?”

My
brother laughed. “Don’t stitch the bed linens just yet, sister. Clere has
notions…”

“Notions?”
I asked, baffled.

“He
wants a love match.”

A
fit of giggles stole my breath. “He does?”

My
brother giggled too. “He does. The King’s set the fashion.” His laughter
slowed. “Do you think you could love him? He’s no beauty.”

That,
sadly, was true.

His
features were even, but homely. Except for his remarkable wideset blue-green
eyes. He was not tall for a boy, being only a hairsbreadth taller than
Gabrielle. If I ever wore chopines I’d have a clear view over his head. His
spare frame did not predict prowess on the tourney field, but perhaps he might
grow into it. He was only seventeen.

“Remember
what to say,” I’d urged Clere. “Do not forget to praise my skill with the bow.
Father taught me, so that will warm him.”

Clere
grinned. “Win him, you mean. I know how to flatter Mary. I grew up amongst the
Howards.”

At
that moment, Lord Surrey waved his feathered cap from the cabin under the
helmsman’s platform.

“Hurry
Clere!” he shouted. “The tide’s going!”

“And
use your best paper,” I said. “That will impress Mother.”

“I’ll
borrow some from Surrey,” he said. “Now, come here.”

He
pulled me behind a potted fig tree and put his lips to my ear.

“Take
heed betime least ye be spied,

Your
loving eye ye cannot hide
;

At
last the truth will sure be tried.

Therefore
take heed.”

I slipped out of his arms.

“I
have been completely discreet!” I hissed.

“Not
so,” he countered, eyes shifting to the upper windows of the house. “Your maid
gives me knowing looks whenever she’s about.”

“Dulce
Hopwood is a fool,” I sniffed. “And a laundress—no one would believe
her.”

Tom
grinned. “Still, we must not give your Father any cause to object to me.”

“He
won’t,” I said. “You are perfect in every way.”

“Especially
the Howard way?”

I
gave him a coy little grin. “Your connections do not hurt your cause.”

“Well,
I may lose them if I do not go,” he muttered as Surrey yelled again.

“Then
go,” I said. “With this, and my love.” I pressed the token into his
hand—a tiny lock of my hair tied with a silver thread I’d pulled from the
embroidery on Gabrielle’s best kirtle.

He
smiled, brought it to his nose. “Rosemary.”

“For
remembrance,” I murmured.

Clere’s
exquisite eyes explored my face, scouted its details as if he would make a map
of it.

“You
make parting a sweet sorrow,” he murmured.

“Sweet?”
I scoffed even as my heart leapt to know his meaning. “How can that be so?”

Clere’s
crooked teeth peeked through his quick smile. “I don’t know, my love. I swear
to unravel it when I return.”

My
stomach suddenly whirled as we entered the deeper current of the Thames and the
memory spun away.

I wish Thomas Clere had drowned. Then I
could mourn him, and not hate him as I do.

The
river turned choppy. Fingers of cold wind pressed the back of my neck. I pulled
my hood over my headdress to save my ears. Seagulls plied the air, crying for
sport around London Bridge. People in the houses above leaned from windows,
watching them chase and torment their fellows with vicious swipes of their
narrow yellow beaks. The worst dove headlong at their rivals, forcing their
retreat. I searched the water for the prize they jousted for, and saw nothing a
gull might value.
 

Maybe they truly do it for sport just as
we do.

Then
I looked up. My eyes had not discerned them at first because they were almost
as black as the stained stonework.
 

Three
heads, in different states of rot, adorned pikes right above my own.
 

Mary, Mother of God.
 

My
fingers genuflected without thought. I had never witnessed an execution
nor
its aftermath.
 

Had
they been enemies of the King or simple villains?
Catherine’s
supporters or spies?

No
matter. I should feel nothing but rightness at their fate. So perish all the
King’s enemies!
 
But the pitiful
remains provoked no fear, no outrage for whatever their transgressions had
been. I ducked my head, shut my eyes, and murmured a brief prayer for
them.
    

The
oars beat twice, once against the water, which then echoed against the
stonework of the bridge. I opened my eyes once the echo stopped.
 

Ahead
loomed grey sky. I turned to look back at the yellow and blue that had painted
the sky above my house.

Fare thee well London. I hope for a
better sight when I return for Anne’s crowning.

I
turned back around to see the riversides almost divested of the city’s
trappings.
 
We had passed London’s
boundaries and entered the country of Kent.

Anne
was from Kent. I had not visited Hever Castle since I was a babe. I wondered if
she would visit now she was Queen. I would return to Norfolk just once—to
show Emma and Gabrielle my splendor, since I would never have them at court to
see it.
 

Mist
diffused the view across the water. Swans drifted in and out of sight among the
reeds against the farther bank. I heard nothing beyond the pull of the oars as
London fell away in the fog.

The
air lost its acrid bite of wood fire, sewage, and decay as we flowed downriver.
All of my reference points vanished. The mist grew to a fog so thick we could
not see a barge length in any direction. The beater slowed his count. My heart
slowed with it.
 
Time disappeared.
There was no sooner or later, no forward or back. We floated, suspended on the
water in a cocoon of nothingness.

I
shivered within my cloak. If this was what Orpheus had found when he went to
the Underworld I could not blame him for turning around and losing Eurydice.

I
no longer believed a city called London filled with one hundred thousand souls
stood behind us. Greenwich was a myth.

The
mindless drumbeats echoed from every side. The oars cut the water for no good
purpose.
 

We’re
not moving! I wanted to shout at them.
 

Madge
stirred, her eyelids fluttered, but she did not wake. I was alone in my fear.

Suddenly
the mist broke and a blinding rush of sunlight shut my eyes. I blinked them
clear and looked up. Greenwich’s massive red brick façade loomed over me.
Dozens of great bay windows watched the river like dark empty eyes. The King’s
crimson and gold pennant flew above the donjon. We sailed through its rippling
shadow.

How
had the hours passed in a moment? I had no time to wonder as we glided past the
King’s donjon to the public stairs.

“Oars,
up!”

One
of the rowers caught a flying rope out of the air. A man’s deep laugh sounded.
Someone pulled away the bearskin.
  

“Mistress.”
 

I
blinked at Stafford’s extended hand. “As promised. You are safely arrived at
Greenwich.”