The Boleyn Reckoning (19 page)

He laughed. “How I have underestimated you. Almost I want to persuade you that marrying William would be in our best interests after all.”

“Almost?”

“No, you are right. If I can get you away from my nephew, then
I win and so does England. No offense, Lady Somerset, but England needs a stronger alliance for all our sakes.”

“So you will help?”

He steepled his fingers. “I will put certain things in motion. Do you have an idea of when you would like to vanish?”

She could not afford to leave it too late. “When Philip arrives in August and everyone is busy thinking of the Spanish.”

“I will get word to you.”

Minuette offered her hand to Rochford, feeling exactly like Judas as she said, “Thank you.”

She didn’t know which man she had just betrayed more thoroughly: her king or her husband.

Dominic was in conference at the Round Tower, the structure raised during the days of Henry V to guard Portsmouth Harbor, when Harrington brought him news of a visitor. He might have expected a member of the privy council, or one of the town wardens, or an emissary from one of the Cinque Port towns, or even William (Dominic tried to ignore the leap in his heart that always and ever hoped for it to be Minuette), but his expectations were wildly wrong.

“Lord Stephen Howard,” Harrington told him. “Seeking to discuss a personal matter with you.”

Which could mean something touching upon Minuette, as Stephen Howard had been her mother’s second husband. But Howard was also the uncle of the young Duke of Norfolk, and seeing that the Howards breathed politics as easily as air, who could guess what he had come for? Stephen Howard had helped the Crown before, most notably in the matter of the Penitent’s Confession in 1554, warning the king through Minuette of his brother’s search for that inflammatory document that threatened to bring down William. But his loyalties were so mixed as to be nearly indecipherable:
blood ties warring with what had been, by all accounts, a deep and genuine love for Minuette’s mother. Dominic would always be wary of a man he couldn’t predict.

Dominic returned to Henry VIII’s Southsea Castle where he found Stephen Howard on his feet looking out at the view of the harbor. “Thank you for seeing me at such a busy time,” Howard said smoothly. He did everything smoothly. He was several inches shorter than Dominic, and both broader and softer than he had likely been as a young man, but there was still something in his bearing that made Dominic think of Robert Dudley. Cleverness? Confidence verging on arrogance? An ironic view of the world that always seemed to find humour?

“What do you want?” Dominic treated him the way he treated Robert, with a brusqueness to conceal his uneasiness. He didn’t ask Howard to sit. The man did not seem to take it amiss.

With an amused tilt of his silver-tipped head, Howard said, “Always straight to the point, Lord Exeter. Very well. I have some information about the recent uprisings in Norfolk.”

“You are Catholic, Lord Stephen. Why would you give me information about Catholic rebels?”

“As I have pointed out to my stepdaughter before, I am English before I am Catholic. I am also pragmatic and I do not see how ill-considered violence solves anything.”

“Why come to me?”

“Because you will see me, where the king likely would not. I need someone who has the ear of the king and no one in this kingdom has it like you do.”

“Your stepdaughter does.”

Stephen Howard raised an eyebrow. “Would you prefer I involve Genevieve in this matter?”

“No.” Dominic bit off the word. “Tell me.”

“The rebels were well-funded. You must have seen that. The
weapons in store, the organization—that was not a peasant mob. And where there is funding, there will be a source.”

“You are not telling me anything the king has not already considered. Unless you can offer information as to the source of that funding?”

“I have intelligence that says the money came from overseas.”

“France?” Never fond of Mary Tudor, but with their current discontent with England and William and the threat of invasion, it was possible. Dominic was already figuring out how to use this information against the French when Howard shattered that thought.

“Spain.”

Dominic stared. “King Philip is due to arrive in England within a fortnight.”

Howard simply nodded once.

“Damn it,” Dominic said under his breath. “How reliable is your intelligence?”

“Reliable enough that I would take it seriously. If Spain is involved, I presume you know in whose household to look for evidence?”

Of course he knew. Mary Tudor—daughter of a Spanish princess. If Spain were truly funding English rebels, the chances that Mary was involved were very high.

Along with the current Duke of Norfolk, Stephen Howard’s own nephew.

“Thank you for your information,” Dominic said curtly. “I assure you I will take it under consideration, including the implications you so carefully avoided.”

“Thomas?” Howard nodded. “My nephew does not confide in me, but I know he’s recently seen Lady Mary and I suspect they correspond. No doubt the king—or at least, Burghley—is aware of that.”

“No doubt. It does make me wonder why you bothered to come to me at all.”

“Because you will not hoard this information, calculating how best to use it to your own advantage. According to Genevieve, you are the most conscientious man in England, ever eager to serve your king to the best of your ability.”

Dominic was beginning to choke on that vaunted sense of loyalty. But however deeply he was betraying William personally, he would work that much harder to preserve his public integrity. Within an hour of Howard’s departure, Dominic had a courier on the way to William and Burghley detailing the man’s allegations.

But if he thought his involvement ended with that duty done, he was mistaken. The very day after Stephen Howard’s visit, Robert Dudley appeared at Southsea Castle with a message from Francis Walsingham. Dominic was beginning to grow weary of the constant stream of visitors from court. Couldn’t he be left alone to do his job as Warden of the Cinque Ports and leave politics to those better suited to subtlety and deceit?

“Unless you’ve come with troops to add to our defensive preparations,” Dominic told Robert as he strode into the same chamber where he’d met Howard, “then I’ve neither use nor time for you.”

Turning from the view of Portsmouth Harbor—with its impressive collection of English ships and the long horizon where sea met sky in a mingled sweep of blues and grays—Robert offered up his smile of old: ironic, detached, and amused all at once. Dominic had not seen him since the day of Northumberland’s execution. Robert looked to have regained his usual sleekness, with his carefully groomed dark hair and impeccably trimmed beard.

But there was an aloofness to his eyes, and a chill edge to his voice that was new. “Do you have time for the Princess of Wales?”

“You’re not here at Elizabeth’s command.”

“I serve with Walsingham at her command, and the princess places a great deal of confidence in the man.”

Dominic threw his hands in the air, defeated. “Curse it, Robert, just tell me what you’ve come to say, plainly and without games.”

“Walsingham suspects Lady Mary of intriguing with the Spanish.”

That was very plain indeed. “Fine, embroider that a little to enlighten me.” But the warning from Stephen Howard was still ringing in Dominic’s ears and he knew he didn’t want to go down this path. He had enough to worry about without another Tudor royal complicating his life.

“What if Mary has been using her access to the Spanish ambassador in order to plot?”

“Plot what—to end Philip’s courtship of Elizabeth before it’s signed? Why would Spain want to do that?”

“I’m not saying Mary is rational.”

“Spain is very rational,” Dominic pointed out curtly. “If they haven’t risen in the last twenty years to put Mary on the throne, why would they do it now?”

Robert shrugged. “I’m the messenger, not the intelligencer. No doubt Walsingham has more fears than he shares with me, and probably three-quarters of them are baseless. He wants you to be wary of Spain. That is all I know for certain. But I would guess that Mary Tudor is on very thin ice, and it might break beneath her at any moment.”

“Be wary of Spain. Be wary of French invasion. Be wary of Mary’s fanaticism. Is there anything in this country about which I do not need to be wary?”

With a wry smile, Robert said, “Now you’re beginning to sound like a Tudor courtier. Wariness will keep you alive, Dominic, far longer than loyalty will.”

After their argument, Elizabeth had wondered if Minuette would even bother to visit Hatfield. But she came, looking thoughtful but otherwise a good companion. For nearly three weeks now it had been much like earlier years, when the two of them had little more to concern themselves with than flirtatious courtiers and demanding tutors. For once, all talk of future marriage had to do with Elizabeth and Philip rather than William and Minuette, and Elizabeth wondered how she could have gone so long without her friend’s caustic and witty comments on everything from property settlements to Philip’s lack of interest in learning English. “All the better to manage him,” Minuette told Elizabeth. “You’ll be able to run your life in eight languages while he can only follow you in two.”

One particular evening, as Minuette made her laugh with an impression of the Spanish priests’ horrified reactions to their king marrying a heretic princess, Elizabeth had a piercing moment of pure pleasure and thought:
Whatever sort of queen she makes, I shall be so glad to call Minuette my sister in truth
.

The only topic they did not broach was Minuette’s visit to Blickling Hall. Whatever business her friend had conducted with Lord Rochford she did not carry into her days at Hatfield, unless the nostalgic streak of mischief and laughter resulted from whatever secrets Minuette harbored. If so, Elizabeth could not entirely regret them.

Robert joined them unexpectedly on July 24, just ten days before King Philip’s expected arrival, bringing with him dispatches from both William and Walsingham. William’s message was chillingly brief:
Mary has been arrested and confined to the Tower for intriguing with Catholic rebels
.

Minuette was openly shocked at the news; Elizabeth less so. Mary was clever and resourceful and not lacking in courage. Indeed,
her only flaw—apart from an understandable animosity toward Anne Boleyn—was her unbending faith. That faith had led her at last to the evidence William’s government needed: a letter in Mary’s own hand to the Spanish ambassador admitting both sympathy and financial support for Bishop Thirlby of Norwich and his vanquished band of traitors. The missive had been ciphered, but not cleverly enough.

More damaging, it had been written in reply to a letter that never existed—a trap that Walsingham and Lord Burghley between them had sprung when they unlocked the cipher method the Spanish ambassador had been using to communicate with Mary.

According to Robert, who was among the arresting party, Mary had behaved well when the royal guards came for her. She had also been adamant in proclaiming her rights. As the leading Catholic of the realm, she’d insisted, she had a duty to the adherents of the True Faith. God would judge her if she sat idly by and let her people be martyrs. Lord Rochford had much to answer for in spreading heresy through England, and despite the personal abuses of his royally granted power, he remained untouched and uncharged. Where was the king’s justice in that matter? Mary protested. And how could any king presume to judge the case of an ordained bishop such as Thirlby?

That unsettling news delivered, Robert accepted Elizabeth’s invitation to remain at Hatfield for a day or two. He was no fool, he knew that Mary’s arrest might well spoil King Philip’s imminent visit. It might even be canceled, for no doubt William’s council was now scrambling to discover Spanish duplicity. If Spain had directly financed English rebels, then Elizabeth would have more freedom than she’d had in years as to the matter of her marriage. Not the French, not the Spanish—who was left? Elizabeth saw the calculation in Robert’s eyes even as he bent to kiss her hand. Rumours swirled that Amy Dudley was ill.

But their talk that evening, after Minuette had tactfully retired, was not of inconvenient wives or sisters or kings on the matrimonial horizon. They sat before the desultory fire that was more for light than warmth on this summer night and discussed John Dee’s latest discoveries in European libraries, the Portuguese colonies recently established in both China and the New World, and the Italian student, Pomponio Algerio, who had been sitting in a Roman prison for nearly a year waiting to be executed for his Lutheran beliefs. And before they separated for the night, Elizabeth allowed Robert to take her in his arms and whisper endearments while he kissed her thoroughly.

The next morning, they rode out together in the watery sunlight as they had hundreds of times before. The best horseman Elizabeth knew, Robert continued his impeccable behavior—witty in his observations and subtle in his flattery. When they returned to the house, laughing together over his description of the French ambassador too drunk to walk a straight line, Carrie was waiting for them near the front door and curtsied to Elizabeth without waiting to be acknowledged. “Your Highness.”