The King's Damsel (24 page)

“Even though King Henry no longer shares the queen’s bed, he customarily bids her farewell each time he rides off into Windsor Forest to hunt deer or other game. But today, he did not visit the queen before he departed with Lady Anne. His Grace is not coming back, Tamsin, and at my sister’s bidding he did not even tell the queen that he is leaving her for good. Only once he was well away was Queen Catherine informed that she must be gone from Windsor
by the time His Grace returns. The queen is to remove herself to The Moor, a house near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, which is to be her new residence. Further, she is not to write to the king, nor is she to see her daughter again.”

Appalled by such cruelty, I whispered, “Princess Mary will be devastated.”

Bess Holland, one of Lady Anne’s maids of honor, overheard me. “Surely you cannot be surprised,” she drawled. “There is no love lost between Lady Anne and the king’s daughter.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Anything I said would be repeated to the concubine and it was now more important than ever that I remain in her good graces.

“Well I feel sorry for the princess,” Lady Mary said. “She has done nothing to deserve Anne’s dislike.”

“Except
be,
” Bess said. “Mary Tudor is to be sent to Richmond Palace to live. To my mind, that is far better than she deserves.”

“Princess Mary has never been that fond of Richmond,” I murmured. I was the one who liked that palace best. “She prefers Beaulieu. Perhaps the—Perhaps Lady Anne knows that.”

Bess and Lady Mary both stared at me. Did they guess how close I had come to slipping and calling Lady Anne Rochford the concubine? I reminded myself again that it would be better to remain silent than to say too much.

At least Princess Mary would have her household with her, I thought, all those loyal servants who had served her for years. My friends.

I had never missed them so much as I did at that moment.

While I continued to tuck clothing into bags and bags into boxes and trunks, conversation flowed around me. My thoughts were in such a tangle that it was some little time before the full impact of what these changes would mean came home to me—once the queen
was exiled to The Moor, I would no longer have any means of communicating with Princess Mary.

The plan we had devised before I left Beaulieu relied upon the queen’s Spanish physician sending word in private to his daughter. I had met with him twice since I’d arrived at Windsor, once to give him the letter Maria had written and the second time to ask for a headache powder I did not need. I’d had little to report on that occasion, but now, should I learn something of importance, I would be in a quandary. I could not write directly to one of the princess’s maids of honor without arousing suspicion. Worse, any such letter would most assuredly be intercepted and read.

After only a bit more than a month in Lady Anne’s household, my usefulness to my true mistress appeared to have come to an end.

B
y November, the princess had been moved from Richmond to the Bishop of Winchester’s palace at Farnham Castle, even farther away from court. The king and Lady Anne took possession of the king’s manor of York Place at Westminster, formerly the residence of Cardinal Wolsey. Built of rose-colored brick with landscaped terraces, this palace rose up on the bank of the Thames just before that great river curved eastward toward London.

Westminster was a separate municipality, connected to the larger city by water and by a wide street called the Strand, which ran parallel to the Thames. South of York Place lay Westminster Abbey and the ancient palace of Westminster, much of it destroyed by a fire early in King Henry’s reign. Only the chapel, the hall, and several minor buildings remained. Since the fire, when Parliament was in session, the House of Commons met in the Chapter House of the Abbey.

Rebuilding at York Place had been going on for nearly two years and was still in progress, but new lodgings for the king had been completed. He resided in these apartments while Lady Anne
occupied the rooms that had formerly belonged to the cardinal, those that should have been the queen’s. She had her own watching chamber, presence chamber, privy chamber, and bedchamber. The latter connected to a gallery with splendid views of the Thames. From its many windows, all filled with expensive clear glass, we could see across to Lambeth and even glimpse the spires of London’s churches in the distance.

With Yuletide fast approaching and Lady Anne set to preside over the festivities at court in place of the queen, she declared herself in need of her own silkwoman. Candidates for the position were instructed to bring samples of their work to the gallery to be inspected. My heart was beating a little faster than usual as I trailed along behind Lady Anne, her gentlewomen, and her maids of honor. As a chamberer, I had no business accompanying them, but I hoped no one would notice. Or rather, I hoped that only one person would take note of my presence . . . if he was there.

Four silkwomen had answered Lady Anne’s summons. One of them was Mistress Pinckney, but if she recognized me in Lady Anne’s livery, she gave no sign of it. She displayed her wares, as did her three competitors, spreading out a vast array of beautiful silk goods. The selection delighted Lady Anne and riveted her attention and the attention of her attendants, leaving me free to slip away. I was about to do so when a familiar voice spoke softly from behind me.

“There is a bow window at the end of the gallery, directly across from the entrance to the garderobe. Meet me there.”

By the time I turned my head, Rafe Pinckney had already moved on. I watched him deposit another armload of silk trimmings where his mother could reach it, then back away, head bowed, cap in hand, so quiet and unobtrusive that none of Lady Anne’s ladies even glanced his way.

I could not imagine how he managed to fade into the background
that way. It had been nearly a year since I’d last seen him and in that time he had grown even more toothsome. I felt sure that the breadth of his shoulders was greater. And his face—it was fully the countenance of a man now, even to the shadow of a beard.

The last time we had met, he had kissed me. My hands trembled as I remembered how I had felt when he held me in his arms.

While the other women were still distracted by tassels and hairnets, fringes and belts, I slipped past them and made my way to the window alcove. It was so deep that I imagined three or four people could shelter there and not be seen from the rest of the gallery. Then Rafe joined me and I saw I’d been wrong. He filled all the available space, seeming to leave only just enough room for me. The smell of sandalwood engulfed me.

I sat on the padded wooden window seat, my legs suddenly too unsteady to support me. I had not thought beyond this point. At a loss for words, I waited for Rafe to break the silence. In the background I could hear the laughter and chatter of the queen’s women. From farther away came the sound of hammering. The king had ordered his privy gallery at Esher dismantled and installed at York Place to link Wolsey’s old house to the privy chamber of the new building.

“The princess sends greetings,” Rafe whispered.

Whatever I had expected to hear, it was not that. “How—?”

“Are you still her devoted handmaiden?” One hand came up to rest against the window frame on my left side, adding to my sense of being hemmed in by his greater size and strength.

I glared up at him. “How can you even ask?”

A grin split his face and his dark eyes went from flat and suspicious to bright and delighted. I found myself smiling back.

“We cannot remain here long,” he warned, serious again, “and there is much I must say to you.” He sat beside me, leaning close
and keeping his voice low. “Note well which silkwoman Lady Anne chooses. You will be able to send word to me through her.”

“Are they all equally trustworthy?” Mistress Pinckney had an only one-in-four chance of being selected and I knew nothing at all about the other three.

He shrugged. “They are all willing, from time to time, to make use of an extra pair of hands. An offer to deliver their goods to court will not be refused. If there are no deliveries pending, then I will use the excuse of bringing a token from my mother to the lady. Such gifts are commonplace. Lady Anne will assume that Mother is trying to bribe her and thus usurp the place of one of her competitors. My visit to court will not rouse suspicion.”

“Does your mother still supply trimmings to the princess?” I was finding it difficult to keep my mind on what Rafe was saying when his leg was pressed so snugly against my skirt from knee to hip. My throat had gone dry. My mouth, too.

“She does.” He was staring at my lips, where I’d just moistened them with the tip of my tongue. He blinked, recollected his purpose in talking to me, and shifted his gaze to the cap he held in his hands. “I deliver orders to Her Grace myself, despite the distance I must now travel to do so. On the last occasion, your friend Maria brought me to Princess Mary’s attention. I have agreed to convey messages back and forth for as long as you need me to do so.”

My relief was so great that I nearly wept with it. Waving aside his concern, I sniffed once and then launched into an account of everything I had observed since entering the concubine’s service. It did not take long. I had learned very little we did not already know. Nothing I reported was likely to come as a surprise to Princess Mary.

“Does Lady Anne trust you?” Rafe asked.

“I . . . I cannot be certain. She does not treat me any differently than she does her other female attendants. She does not confide in
any of us, except perhaps her sister. And, in truth, she is more likely to talk to her brother than to Lady Mary.” I did not count the times Lady Anne had boasted of some little triumph or other.

“Somehow, you must worm your way deeper into her confidence. And make certain that if she accompanies the king when he travels to France to meet with King Francis, you are among the ladies she selects to go with her. Otherwise, we will have no way of knowing what she does while she is out of the country.”

“What do you think she will do?” I asked in confusion.

“There are rumors that she and the king may marry in Calais, with the French king as their honored guest at the nuptials.”

“But the pope—”

“The pope has been under the thumb of a mutual enemy of France and England, Queen Catherine’s nephew, the Emperor Charles. Some of the English lawyers working to free the king from his marriage are said to have argued that His Holiness therefore cannot rule on the issue with impunity.”

I understood the seriousness of what he was saying and knew that Rafe was right. I must ingratiate myself to Lady Anne and somehow convince her that I was devoted to her cause. Then she would be more inclined to keep me at her side.

“If I had a truly splendid New Year’s gift to give her, that might help. She is a most . . . acquisitive woman.”

Rafe considered a moment. Then his grin—an expression I found most endearing—flashed a second time. “I think I know just the thing,” he said.

We dared not stay longer in the window alcove. Rafe took only time enough to tell me how to send word to him through the other silkwomen. Mrs. Wilkinson was a widow with a house in Soper Lane, Mrs. Brinklow was a wealthy mercer’s wife, and Mrs. Vaughan and her mercer husband lived in St. Mary le Bow, Cheapside. “I live
in Cheapside myself,” Rafe added, standing to let me pass out of our hiding place. “At the Sign of the Golden Hart near the Great Conduit.”

In the confined space, I was obliged to brush against him as I left. Had I turned so much as an inch, I would have been in his arms.

I returned to the others in time to hear Lady Anne choose Mistress Joan Wilkinson as her silkwoman. Having made this announcement, the concubine left the gallery. Once again, I brought up the rear. I looked back once, giving Mistress Wilkinson a long, hard stare in order to fix her face in my memory. She was a little brown wren of a woman, with the most ordinary and forgettable features imaginable.

Two weeks later, when Mistress Wilkinson appeared without warning at the door of the long, narrow sleeping chamber assigned to Lady Anne’s chamberers during our sojourn at York Place, I had to stare at her for a full minute before I recognized her. Fortunately, I was alone in the room at the time.

“Are you Tamsin Lodge?” she asked in a voice as high-pitched as a bird’s chirp. When I nodded, she thrust a small package wrapped in silk cloth and tied with braided silk ribbon into my hands. “Young Rafe Pinckney bade me deliver this to you. For you to give to Lady Anne, he said.”

The look of birdlike curiosity in her eyes prompted me to unwrap the parcel then and there. “You must keep my secret,” I warned her as a deck of playing cards was revealed. “This is to be a New Year’s present for my mistress.”

“You may rely upon my silence. She is the hope of the future.”

Her fervent declaration startled me. I had not realized that Mistress Wilkinson was so partisan. Then I frowned at the cards, uncertain why Rafe thought this particular gift would win Lady Anne’s
approval. In common with almost everyone at court, she loved to gamble, but cards were nearly as plentiful as dice.

“It is a very pretty deck,” I said. Hand-painted, the figures were brightly colored and on the reverse of each was a stylized Tudor rose. “Please convey my thanks.”

She chuckled. “These cards are more than pretty. Regard the queen.”

I peered more closely at that card. The painted figure had a long neck, a long, oval face, dark hair and eyes, high cheekbones, a wide mouth, and a strong, determined chin—all of Lady Anne’s most distinctive features except the tiny mole on one side of her chin. Although the artist had omitted it in an obvious attempt to flatter his subject, I suspected that Lady Anne would not have minded if he’d included it. I had heard the king call it a beauty mark. His Grace seemed as enamored of the tiny flaw as he was of every other part of her.

On New Year’s Day, by which time the court had moved to Greenwich, I duly presented Lady Anne with the cards. She seemed delighted with my gift.