Secrets of the Tudor Court (30 page)

The other children, Jane and Catherine—yes, another Catherine Howard—are as pleased to stay away from him as I am, for he criticizes them for everything from their table manners to their hair to proper facial expressions. Once I heard Jane pull her sister aside and confide that she hated her grandfather and couldn’t wait for him to return to court.

Little Margaret, a babe of two months, is far too young to receive any criticisms, and remains in the care of her nurse or, whenever I can, myself. As fertile as my sister-in-law Frances has proven herself to be, she is not very maternal and is more content to gossip with Margaret than attend to her children, leaving the blessed duty of coddling my nieces and nephews to me.

At Kenninghall I also find time to write. Margaret Douglas and I pass the spring and summer composing verse. Whenever Surrey is home he finds the time to join us and at last we find some merriment. To my annoyance, he still finds ways to jab my writing style at every turn.

“I don’t know why you don’t say something to him,” Margaret says one afternoon as we throw breadcrumbs into the pond for the swans. “He is needlessly cruel to you with his unnecessary criticisms.”

I shrug. “Margaret, you know as well as I what we have suffered. I have seen my three beloved cousins beheaded. I have lost my husband. I have fought and won my meager inheritance after a great deal of grief. After all that, allowing my brother’s words to bother me would be petty and vain.”

“You’ve a better heart than I.” Margaret laughs.

Whatever resentment I may feel for Surrey is replaced with pity when after returning to court, he is promptly sent to Windsor as punishment for hitting a man named John Leigh. What they disagreed about, I can only imagine. Surrey’s temper is so hot it could have been over something as silly as insulting the feather in his hat.

At supper that evening Frances is in a state. “I don’t know why he has to be so thoroughly disagreeable and showy,” she laments. “It will bring him nothing but trouble. The king is amused by him, thank God—sees something of himself in him, he’s said. But that won’t last. King Henry’s affections are fickle, as well we Howards know.” She glares at my father.

Norfolk, who is holding Little Henry, glares back. “That will do, Lady Frances,” he says in his soft tone, bouncing the toddler a bit.

“I don’t know why you insist on bringing him to table, either,” she continues, narrowing her eyes at Little Henry. “He should take his supper in the nursery. I’m certain you didn’t allow your children to eat at table till they were at least three or four.”

“Lady Frances, I said that will do.” Norfolk’s voice bears an edge to it, a warning Frances should heed. He takes in a breath. “My son is a smart lad, an accomplished lad. He has a bit more growing up to do, that is all. Has to rein in that—what did you call it?—
showy
side of his nature. I assure you we will have words on the subject. For now, however, it is best not to discuss his situation in front of the children.”

“Yes, you certainly know what’s best,” says Frances. “Your
wisdom
has carried us all so far!”

The table is stunned silent. The rest of the children’s heads are bowed, though Little Thomas stares at his grandfather through thick dark lashes.

“Lady Frances!” Norfolk barks. Little Henry jumps in his arms. “Excuse yourself. Your spirit is vexed and I believe you have not made a full recovery from Margaret’s birth.”

Frances rises with such abruptness the bench we are seated on wobbles. “Yes, I must be sure to recover! I shall recover, Lord Thomas. I will be a good wife to my celebrated husband, who comes home just long enough to make certain to get more babes on me, then leaves to cause a ruckus somewhere and land himself in detainment! Yes, I shall recover, my dear ‘Father,’ if only so that I might spit out more precious Howard brats to carry on this cursed line!”

In a whirl of red skirts, Frances runs from the room, sobbing.

Little Henry sniffles. “Are we cursed?”

Norfolk laughs, squeezing him to his breast. “Us?” he asks as though this is the most ridiculous assumption one could make. “Come now, everyone finish supper. We shall be merry tonight. Let’s have a contest. Which lad can finish his supper first? Whoever wins shall get a prize.”

Little Thomas cries, “I shall win! I am bigger than Little Henry. I shall win for certain!” He commences to shovel his supper into his mouth as though he hadn’t seen food for a week. The little girls watch, appalled, knowing should they attempt the same thing Norfolk would scold them for being piggish.

After a brief silence Margaret Douglas laughs. “You know what I heard? That grandfathers are better to their grandchildren than they ever are to their own brood. It’s sort of a second chance. Do you find it to be true, Lord Thomas?”

Norfolk smiles at the king’s pretty niece. “I don’t know about that. I’ve always delighted in my children.”

“Have you?” she asks, tilting a brow.

I bow my head. I can still feel his hand on my neck, his belt on my back. Still my temple throbs from his fist all those years ago.

I raise my head, meeting his black eyes. “Yes, it’s quite true,” I tell her. “He has certainly taken a great measure of delight in me.”

Margaret leans back, her expression smug.

That autumn Surrey joins my father against the Scots, who are advancing south to personally reject King Henry’s invitation that King James V cast aside the Catholic faith and join the Church of England.

The day my father leaves, Little Thomas mans his own training short sword and follows him through the great hall.

“And where do you think you are going, lad?” Norfolk asks him, his tone so solicitous one would not believe he could summon it forth.

“I’m coming with you,” Little Thomas informs him, his wide brown eyes earnest.

“You don’t believe you’re a little young for such an expedition?” Norfolk’s tone is conspiratorial as he gets down on one knee, placing his hands on the child’s shoulders.

Little Thomas offers a grave shake of the head. “I have to protect you, my lord.”

Norfolk’s lips twitch. “And why is that?”

Little Thomas pauses. “Well, sir…because you are quite advanced in years.”

Norfolk erupts into laughter. “Yes, I suppose so. But still you cannot come along, I’m afraid, though I’ve no doubt you would make an excellent soldier.” He casts his eyes toward the rest of us, who linger by the table. “I will give you your own mission, my dear Lord Thomas. I order you to watch over my estate while I am gone fighting the Scots. Watch after the fair ladies living here, and your little brother. Be diligent in your studies, for a good soldier must also be a learned scholar. Can you do that for me?”

Tears light the large brown eyes. “Yes, my lord. You can trust me with this task.”

“Good lad,” says Norfolk, ruffling the black curls and rising.

Long after his departure, Little Thomas clings to his short sword, standing outside the manor watching for intruders, and nothing we can say will coax him indoors.

During his grandfather’s absence Little Thomas stands guard, circling the manor every day, short sword in hand, waiting for news from the North.

It comes soon enough.

Norfolk proves successful in the beginning, razing the borderlands with little resistance, but retreats before the battle of Solway Moss, the decisive encounter that grants England her smug victory over the Scots.

Little Thomas believes Norfolk had a part in the victory, however small, and tells him so. Coming from anyone else, these words would be interpreted as an insult, but Norfolk embraces the boy and tells him he is a very wise lad and will be a credit to the Howard name.

“I am proud to be a Howard,” Little Thomas tells his idol.

“As well you should be,” says Norfolk, but he is looking at me.

Norfolk returns to court for a while, which grants us a measure of peace until the spring of 1543, when he comes home with the news that the king will take a new bride, the newly widowed Catherine Parr.

I ache for my friend whose heart belongs to Tom Seymour. As misguided as that may be, he is far more preferable a pick than Henry VIII. I can only imagine how it must have been, accepting his proposal. One does not say no to a king unless it is with the express purpose of eventually saying yes, as it was for my Anne and Jane Seymour.

How she must have lamented over being free at last to marry Seymour, only to be betrothed to the portly, beady-eyed, rotting king!

It is no surprise that the king chose Catherine to be his next wife. She is comely, learned, calm, and very maternal. She will make a wonderful stepmother, and, if God grants it, mother to more bonny princes. She tolerates the king’s tempers and has even tended his leg as far back as his marriage to Kitty.

The couple is married in June, and once again I am at court, attending another queen—not as lady-in-waiting, but as a friend. I pray this queen meets a better fate than her predecessors.

If she is as terrified as everyone else, she hides it well. Her face is the quintessence of composure. She dotes on her husband even as she dares to challenge him about religious reform.

As is the case with all of his brides in the beginning, His Majesty is smitten. Cat is showered with jewels and gifts.

“I do wonder if the king ever thinks it’s a little eerie,” says pretty Kate Brandon, the young second wife to the aged Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, and close friend to the queen.

I arch a questioning brow.

“Well,” she continues. “Her Majesty has received nothing but dead women’s jewels.” She shrugs. “With the exception of Anne of Cleves’s, I suppose. Still…it is rather tasteless, is it not?”

I nod. I know Kate well enough to realize that despite her husband’s relationship with King Henry, she can keep a confidence. I’ve always sympathized with Kate Brandon. She is the daughter of Maria de Salinas—honored friend and lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon—and Baron Willoughby. Upon Willoughby’s death, she was brought up in the Brandon household since the age of seven and betrothed to the duke’s son, Henry. But when Charles Brandon’s wife Mary Tudor passed, the old buzzard married her himself. He was short of funds and not only is Kate beautiful and witty, with curves to spare, she is one of the wealthiest heiresses in England. It is a move so cold and calculated I wonder if he is part Howard.

Kate knows what it is like to be trapped in a loveless marriage to an old man, and it is this, along with their shared reformist convictions, that forges her strong bond with Cat Parr.

I think of every queen I have been both cursed and pleased to serve, even my Anne and my Kitty, I find serving Cat the most rewarding. At last my dreams of serving an intelligent woman, who encourages religious debates and devotions, are realized. For hours we sit in her apartments or the gardens and discuss church reform.

She is not dramatic or flirtatious, and though she holds her own religious convictions she is not overbearing. She is most regal, and as strange as it is for a woman common born, her manner and deportment suggest she was never meant to be anything but queen.

“Look at those diamonds,” says Kate, drawing me forth from my reverie.

I glance at Cat’s lovely throat and shiver. I cannot seem to look at anyone’s neck without an accompanying sense of dread.

“Do you remember those?” she asks me. “You should. They belonged to your cousin…this last one, not the first one.”

I avert my eyes. My stomach churns.

Kate shivers beside me. “I know. Positively eerie.”

I rise from the window seat where we were to be busy at sewing shirts for the poor, and curtsy low before the queen.

“May I be excused?” I ask.

“You’re looking pale, Lady Mary,” she says in a voice soothing as honey, rising to rest a hand beneath my chin and tilting my face up toward her gentle one. “I hope you are well.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” I answer. “Just tired.”

Cat nods. “You may be dismissed, Lady Mary. Rest, my dear.”

I offer another curtsy and quit the apartments, trying to stave off dark visions of little Kitty’s neck encircled with diamonds, her pretty neck…

I am obliged to walk past the musicians’ practice chambers on my way to my own rooms and stop just short of the door. I want to go in. I want to see if
he
is there. My hand trembles, then closes in a fist, ready to knock. I close my eyes and drop my arm, deciding that as Duchess of Richmond I do not have to knock. I shall walk in. If he is not happy to see me again then…

I do not find him behind the virginals, however. No one is here.

No one but His Majesty. His bulk is seated on the bench, the stink of his rotting leg filling the chambers with the sickeningly sweet stench of dead flesh left too long unattended. My stomach lurches. His fat bejeweled fingers are busy on the keys, plunking out a lively melody. He is a competent musician. I cannot say I have not enjoyed his compositions at times. However, his estimation of his musical talents is, like everything else he views himself accomplished at, inflated.

I begin to tremble at the sight of this large, fearsome man I can only compare to a beast. If there is anyone under God’s sun I fear more than my father, it is he, this Henry VIII, this tyrant king of England.

“I—I beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” I stammer, sinking into the deepest of curtsies. “I was—I was—I do not know—”

His Majesty stops playing, resting his hands on his fat thighs, the hose stretching so taut over them the material seems as though it will rip at any moment. The face he turns toward me bears a jolly expression; his smile is broad. If one did not know what he is capable of one would think him a merry old man, not a savage thing swinging on the pendulum of madness.

“Lady Richmond,” he says. “Rise, dear child. Come here—don’t be shy. You are not bothering us. Come.” He pats his leg and I inch forward. There is no room on the bench, and if he tries some lecherous move like pulling me onto his lap I’ll run screaming to the axman for my salvation.

“We have wanted to have words with you for quite some time,” he tells me in his gruff voice. “All those years ago when we had that bit of nastiness over your inheritance…well, you must know it was political. It had nothing to do with you personally. We always were quite fond of you and wanted to see justice served.”