The Boleyn King (7 page)

The topic of this meeting was, of course, the French treaty. No one said a single unexpected word—in fact, William was certain he could have written out the entire discussion himself, complete with repetition and petty disagreement and mind-numbing boredom. It didn’t matter in any case; Rochford wanted this treaty as much as William did, and now that Northumberland had been persuaded, the debate was a matter of form.

As Lord Protector, Rochford gave the final orders. “I’ll speak with the French ambassador and send word to our ambassador in Paris. We will continue plans for a September meeting outside Calais.”

Why am I even here?
William wondered as his uncle looked around the table and asked, “Anything else?”

Amazingly, William heard Dominic clear his throat. Every head at the table swung in his friend’s direction. Curious, he waited for Dominic to bring up Alyce de Clare’s death (what else could he have to say? Something about the Welsh border?), but instead Dominic shook his head and said, “Sorry. It’s nothing.”

Rochford didn’t look as though he believed Dominic any more than William did, but he dismissed the councilors. As they rose Northumberland asked sardonically, “I suppose the Lady Mary is ill once more and unable to attend the celebrations this week?”

“She is,” William said, since his uncle didn’t seem in any hurry to answer. Rochford usually let William deal with his troublesome half sister—at least in public.

Northumberland snorted. “Not ill enough to keep from holding mass.”

The aging Duke of Norfolk—the leading Catholic lord in England and William’s great-uncle—said stiffly, “This council has granted her permission to hear private services as she chooses. It is little enough to allow her.”

“Private, are they?” Northumberland said bluntly. “With dozens of worshippers who don’t even pretend to be part of her personal household?”

William wanted to hit something. Mary was a never-ending flash point, one he did not wish to argue about today.

His uncle, sensing his mood, cut across the quarreling councilors. “No doubt the Lady Mary is truly ill,” he said smoothly. “Unless you believe Henry’s daughter is a liar?”

Not a liar
, William thought.
Never a liar—just inflexible
. Religiously, emotionally, historically … Mary did not bend, she did not forget, and she did not forgive. And never would she come near a palace where her mother’s replacement was in residence. In the twenty-one years since Anne’s coronation, Mary had not once acknowledged her stepmother as anything other than “the person” or “the woman.”

But Northumberland was not willing to let it go. “Your Majesty, your leniency does you credit as a brother. But as a monarch, every leniency you allow your sister is pushed fourfold by those who continue to adhere to Rome.”

“You cannot expect the king to upset the delicate feelings of either Lady Mary or the queen,” Rochford said.

And that was one condescension too many for William—especially in front of all his councilors. “Northumberland has a point. I believe someone once told me that mercy is only effective once strength has been established.”

He could swear he had made his uncle twitch, and the pleasure of catching him off guard made William bold—and impulsive. “Send word to Lady Mary that I expect her to attend me at Hampton Court this night. I will brook no excuse.” It wouldn’t be that hard on her; she had spent the week at Whitehall, which was only a few miles upriver. She could come by boat and hardly be disturbed.

“If she will not be moved?” queried Norfolk.

“Tell her that she will either spend tonight in my court or I will arrange lodging for her farther east.”

Had he really just threatened to send his half sister to the Tower? Apparently he had, for no one said a word more. William himself was so surprised that he almost forgot to detain Lord Norfolk. It was Dominic who stopped the duke and looked at William questioningly.

“Right.” William snapped back to himself, carrying the satisfaction of power used and respected. “I am not to be interrupted for anything,” he commanded a guard, then flung himself into a chair.

Studying the slight but still erect figure of the man who had been a child in the last days of Richard III, William did not mince words. “Your son is a disgrace to my court.”

Norfolk’s eyes flickered, and William realized he had expected to be lectured about his partisanship of Mary. But despite his age, Norfolk was quick and had ears everywhere. “You speak of young Giles.”

“You will see to his removal at once. He may return to the country while I …” William tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “… consider his punishment.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Norfolk answered, not anxious to expend political capital on defending a son of minor importance. Once before he had stood by a son, and he had been condemned to death for it. His eldest son had been executed, and only the death of William’s father—the day before Norfolk’s scheduled execution—had saved the duke. After languishing in the Tower for the first two years of William’s reign, Rochford had suggested a pardon and a restoration of Howard’s title. Northumberland had also been made a duke at the same time, in order to balance any Catholic sentiment on Norfolk’s side.

“Also,” William continued, “you’ve held the patrimony of Mistress Genevieve Wyatt since her mother’s death. After the grave insult offered her person, I will not subject her to any dealings with your family in future. I have sent a messenger to her estate at Wynfield to apprise them that I claim her holdings for the crown.”

That did not sit well with Norfolk, property being more important than sons, but he managed to bow stiffly. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

After just four hours as Elizabeth’s principal lady, Minuette was exhausted both physically and mentally. Elizabeth was not a decorative princess. She was a serious scholar who kept up a voluminous correspondence with Continental philosophers and religious figures, a powerful landholder who knew every animal and outbuilding in her control, and a primary avenue of royal influence. She had secretaries and ladies and clerks in plenty, and she threw Minuette straight into the fray without blinking.

“The only way to learn is to do,” Elizabeth commanded. “Hastings won’t you let stray too far.”

And so with her own secretary from Elizabeth’s household (Minuette had known Oliver Hastings since childhood), by midafternoon she had dictated two dozen letters in answer to the most pressing complaints, ranging from a boundary dispute on one of Elizabeth’s farms to abased pleas for preferment at court. It had barely touched the surface of what waited. As Minuette separated letters into appropriate stacks for future work, she directed a steady stream of commentary at Hastings.

“Another request for a place at court from a friend of a friend of a relation,” she sighed. “Do these people really think a princess royal has nothing better to do than look after their candidates for sheriff or priest or clerk?”

Beneath his formidable graying eyebrows, Hastings’s eyes met hers levelly. “As long as the king is unmarried and childless, the princess is next in succession. People will take of her what they can.”

Minuette sighed and placed the last letter on the smaller stack, those she would write herself. Handing over the larger stack, she said, “Be polite, Hastings, but firm. Make it clear that she is more likely to respond favorably to their requests if they refrain from making them quite so shrill.”

“I know my business, girl.”

Minuette smiled at the secretary, who had always treated her with a sort of fretful indulgence, as one would treat a puppy that could be trusted only so far.

“And I know mine,” she said briskly. “You can trust me to compose my own replies to the diplomats. Discretion is best hidden behind the mask of candor,” she said, repeating a favorite maxim of his.

He eyed her with mock gravity and shook his head. “Yes, well, mind you keep your wits about you. There’s many looking to take advantage of the princess, and their eyes are upon the newest—and most influential—lady in her household.”

A sharp voice cut in. “Don’t go flattering her, Hastings. She’s still only a girl.”

“Kat!” Minuette stood and enveloped the older woman in a hug. “I’ve missed you.”

Kat Ashley stepped back and surveyed Minuette critically. “You look well enough,” she sniffed.

Minuette grinned. Kat had been Elizabeth’s governess in childhood, which meant she had been as good as Minuette’s governess. Round-faced and rather plain, Kat possessed a good mind and an excellent education and had trained both girls well in everything from sewing cambric shirts to choosing their words with care in tense political situations. “Have you missed me?”

“There’s no time in this household for sentiment,” Kat said. “You need to change. Put on something finer. I’ll send a girl to do your hair. And hurry—you’re needed.”

“For what?”

“To help the princess keep the peace. The king is receiving Lady Mary in the great hall in one hour.”

Minuette could not speak for shock. Mary, coming here? Where Queen Anne was? As far as she knew, the two of them had not shared breathing space in twenty years.

Keep the peace, indeed.

On the surface Elizabeth was calm when Minuette joined her (in a cleverly remade cloth-of-silver gown that had once belonged to the queen), but her tense voice betrayed her. “I can’t imagine what William was thinking, threatening Mary,” she said, sweeping Minuette along to the great hall.

“He threatened her?” Minuette asked.

“He did. But why now? Why provoke a confrontation today and not last year or last month or next week? What purpose is served today?”

“The French treaty,” Minuette mused aloud. “Lady Mary will be unhappy with it.”

“Mary will always be unhappy because she cannot turn back time and make life the way she thinks it ought to have been,” snapped Elizabeth.

One could hardly blame Mary for that. Minuette had great sympathy for the once-princess who had lost her mother, her title, and her future when her father married Anne Boleyn. She was thirty-seven years old now, with nothing to occupy her but memories and politics. If she had been allowed to marry, things might have been different, but William could never risk her having children.

The crowd in the great hall was not, Minuette was glad to see, as large as it might have been. Some effort had been made to lessen Mary’s humiliation—and certainly Queen Anne was not present. Minuette could not imagine William ever being so deliberately cruel. But there were curious courtiers aplenty, buzzing softly in a manner that was more felt than heard, and both the French and Spanish ambassadors were present—the latter with lips pressed tightly together as though he was restraining a protest with some effort. The emperor was always pressing for Mary’s better treatment—not to mention her restoration to the line of succession—and his ambassador was clearly angry.

Elizabeth apparently was thinking along the same lines. “At least William does not intend to provoke an utterly irresponsible scene,” she murmured to Minuette before joining her brother on the dais. Minuette looked for Dominic and found him watching her, unmoving. She went to his side and whispered, “What was he thinking?”

“Whatever the immediate motivation may have been, make no mistake—William will turn this to his own purpose.”

“Which is?”

“A show of authority followed, I would wager, by a gesture of generosity. I suppose we’ll see.”

The crowd hushed as there was movement at the far end of the hall. Tall as she was, Minuette still had to twist and turn to catch a glimpse of Mary.

A handsome woman, with the erect bearing of royalty and the stamp of Henry in her features. Not as beautiful as William, not as alluring as Elizabeth—but no one who saw her could doubt that she was the descendant of many kings and queens. Minuette always felt sorry for Mary until she was with her, and then pity seemed unbearably offensive. Mary did not want pity. Mary wanted her due.

For all the attention she paid them, Mary might have had no onlookers. She crossed the length of the hall without ever wavering under her brother’s gaze, and when she reached the dais she swept into a low and perfect curtsy of obeisance.

Everyone held their breath, and then William (no doubt with clear-eyed purpose) took her by the hand, raised her, and kissed her on both cheeks. “You are most welcome to my court, dear sister,” he said loudly. “I could not ask for a greater gift this week.”

Oh, yes
, Minuette thought.
Dominic was right
. Even if the initial command had been rash, William would use it to his advantage. She marveled at this show of power, not certain if she entirely liked it.

Mary greeted Elizabeth with real affection. Despite being illegitimate in Mary’s eyes, Elizabeth herself had never been a target of Mary’s malice. As for Elizabeth’s feelings … well, she was bright enough to amuse herself by running circles around her sister in a fashion that Mary could not recognize. Not even Minuette knew what Elizabeth really felt for Mary.

After the formal greetings, the siblings withdrew for a private meal. Minuette let her breath out from the release of tension and then realized that she had the opportunity she’d been waiting for.

“Dominic,” she said, “something odd happened this morning.”

He cocked his head, but it seemed mere politeness. “Yes?”

“I received a letter from Alyce de Clare. Twelve hours after her death.”