The Last Boleyn (29 page)

“Your girl Nancy says you are riding to Hever,” he began on another tack in the awkward silence. “I can understand your wanting to go home to your mother and daughter, but Lord Bullen will not fancy having you underfoot when the king rides over to court the Lady Anne.”

She pulled away from his hands and her voice was piercing. “I will go! You and Stephen and Nance together will not stop me! If His Grace comes I shall hide in my room or ride my horse to the forest and hide there. I will go home! I make my own decisions now, William Stafford. And do not think you can placate me with your patient smiles,” she added, her fists on her hips.

“I am only pleased to see the fire has not gone out, lass. It is fine if you make your own decisions separate from your father from now on, but separate from me—well, that is another matter we have much time to discuss.”

“I have no time for you, my lord. I am leaving.” She tried to skirt around him but he pulled her into a chair and sat facing her so close in another that their knees touched.

“Your girl says you have been warned that the roads are unsafe, especially with so many bailiffs and sheriffs ill and the towns in general disarray. Prancing off in that tight-fitting dress with only a serving maid and one lad does not seem like a very wise independent decision to me.” His thick brows covered his brown eyes, and she wanted to scream at him and kick and scratch.

“You are mine now, Mary, mine in our mutual love as I am yours. You will do no such foolish thing. I have had to handle you with kid gloves these past years for, legally and otherwise, you were not mine. All that has changed now. I will not have you hurt in any way by anything, including your own dangerous plans.”

“I will do as I wish. I am Will Carey's widow and not your wife.”

“No, but you are my woman and you will obey me until your head clears enough that you can see what you are doing—and what you want from life now that you are free.”

“No,” she shrieked, more afraid of herself than of what he might do. “No one commands my life now.” She scratched at his wrist and stood to flee. He yanked her sideways into his lap, and his iron arms tightened around her, pressing her head against his warm neck. She thrashed her legs under her heavy skirts and struggled in his smothering embrace. Angered beyond belief—at Will's death, his accusations, at herself and Staff—she bit the taut sinew at the side of his neck. He swore under his breath and shook her once, hard.

She finally stopped fighting and went still and stiff in his arms when his words pierced her panic: “Let me know when you are willing to listen and stop behaving like the spoiled little Bullen I used to know. I much prefer kissing you to wrestling with you. Helping you is all I thought of on the road back from Eltham, damn it, Mary. I do not blame you for fighting another man's control over you. Only this man loves you, sweetheart. Why not trust that, and later we will decide if we should be together permanently? I will never force that decision on you—or anything else you do not want.”

She nodded jerkily. He loosed her and helped her up. She moved to the other chair and sank into it, gripping the edge of its seat to keep the room from spinning. Her feet almost touched his big booted ones.

His arms crossed over his chest, he leaned back as he went on, “I will take you to Hever, lass, since that is where you are so set on going. I cannot blame you for wanting to leave Wolsey's vast brick pile with its unhappy memories. But we shall get you some men's clothes, pull your hair up under a cap, and...”

“I cannot wear anything of Will's. I cannot!”

“No, nothing of Will's. I will get you some small breeks and a shirt and jerkin. No one will notice the boots are a woman's. And since we are getting a late start and you are so high-strung—and mostly because I have been without you too long and am a selfish man and far stronger than you if you choose to argue this—we will stop midway at a little inn I know at Banstead and spend tomorrow there together. Then we will go on.

“Banstead is a most beautiful little town, Mary. It will do us both good to rest there a day. We shall send Stephen and your wench on ahead to Hever and tell them we are a day behind. Let your father wonder. He does already, I warrant. He accused me of wanting you for myself when I refused to take his bribe for keeping Will's office for him while you were at Plashy. As careful as I tried to be, maybe I showed it on my face. Our love, I mean. The way you do show it now.”

“I do not now, Staff. Things are different.”

“As I said, we shall see, lass. My lass. I expect at least one tiny kiss before we go, payment for taking you safe to Hever if nothing else moves you.”

“I shall not kiss you for your rough handling of me. And you might have had the decency to stop by Will's grave at the chapel. He was once your friend, you may remember.”

“I asked Nancy to show it to me before I came in, Mary. I am grieved for his death and the loss of the children's father, though I cannot pretend it changes my love for you in the slightest.”

She kept her silence, ashamed that she had accused him of such callousness. But she must guard her heart against him and make him take her to Hever without a stop at an inn where she would face him alone. She loved him far too much to handle that.

Stephen knocked and entered to break the jumble of her thoughts. “Will these do, my lord?” he inquired, holding up brown breeks and a sky-blue shirt.

“Good, Stephen. They will suit her just fine. The shirt will match the cloudy blue of the lady's eyes.”

Stephen grinned broadly and went out to find Nancy. Staff rose to fetch the horses.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

July 26, 1528

The Road to Banstead

B
y late morning Staff had hired a horse barge to ferry them to the south bank of London where they would take the Great Kent Road toward Hever. The shimmering July sun had already sucked the heavy dews from the fields along the river and the heat of the day was upon them.

“The London streets are likely to be deserted,” Staff said to Stephen. Mary and Nancy listened intently. They were afraid that he dared to take them into the very city where the sweat was said to have slain folk in the tens of hundreds this summer. But Staff had claimed it was the quickest and safest route. So Mary relented and held her fears in silence. She could not have stood another bleak night in the palace in the room where Will had died with accusations on his lips.

That morning few farmers worked the fields and tiny vegetable gardens which stretched down to the Thames. Occasional travelers along the footpaths glanced up in interest to see a ferry headed toward the city with four horses and six people, but there was scant traffic on the usually busy river and, in general, nothing stirred. The barge drifted past the turrets of deserted Richmond. Its vacant windows stared like great hollow eyes reflecting the sun, its landing docks, tiltyards and bowling greens silent. They spoke little on the barge as the river pulled it relentlessly toward troubled London.

Then the city loomed up from the field with its solemn church spires and clustered thatched roofs huddled in the beating rays of the noon sun. Staff made them drink the first of the wine and eat the fruit they had brought, for he intended to set a hard pace when they were on the road. Mary tossed her plum pit into the murky Thames and saw it instantly disappear into the depths. She wiped her sticky fingers on her breeks as she had seen Staff do and a smile came to her lips.

“It may seem strange to be in breeks, Mary, but it has advantages, you will see. Besides, I think you and your Nancy both make handsome lads—right, Stephen? And the swords add the right touch. I think you had better get the stray curls up under that cap. It will make for a dusty neck on the road, but I have no intention of attracting rogues or ruffians with wench bait.”

Stephen laughed at his words, but Staff was tight-lipped. Mary noted to her dismay how much Stephen seemed to hang on everything Staff said, to follow him about to serve his every whim. He had never been so puppy-like with his own lord.

“Is there much danger then?” Nancy asked timidly. “Stephen says so.”

“Stephen is wise to be prepared, lass. We shall set a good pace to Banstead, and I warrant no one will bother four quick riding men.”

The once bustling wharfs and quays were deserted and Staff had the bargemen put in at the landing under London Bridge. Houses and shops clung to both sides of it like barnacles, but their mass provided shade as the four led off their horses to dockside and Staff paid the boatmen. They were eager to be away, to leave the cursed city behind, and they shoved off for the upstream row to Hampton as soon as they had their money.

“I cannot say I blame them for their haste,” Stephen said. “I never thought I would be visitin' plagued London.”

“The sweat is hardly the plague, lad, though it is bad enough. You will no doubt see the crosses on the doors though. Keep a stout heart. We will leave the city behind soon for the free countryside. Besides, I was here one summer in the sweat season and nothing happened to me.”

The servants seemed to treasure this bit of comforting information as they mounted. If Stephen and Nancy are impressed by that, so be it, Mary told herself. It sounded like pure foolhardiness to her. Surely there were a lot of things she would learn about William Stafford that would make it easier not to adore him.

There were abandoned carts in the streets of Southwark as they passed, and pigs rooted and chickens scratched unhampered. The central gutters of the narrow streets were a stench of rotting vegetables and human wastes which steamed in the sun. As they rode swiftly by, huge Southwark Cathedral stood silent sentinel to the devastation. Crude wooden coffins piled for burial in the already-crowded and walled graveyard huddled against the church's outer walls. Tears bit at Mary's eyelids at the sight of the stacks of human sorrow. At least they had buried Will right away. Staff was crazy to bring them so near to unburied plague bodies. They would all catch the sweat and be dead before they even reached Hever. There was nothing he could do to her to make her stay with him in some little inn in tiny Banstead. She would insist on riding on with the Carey servants.

Southwark was a terrible part of town and she had never seen it so close, for usually traveling parties of noblemen skirted far around its worst haunts. The dingy bawdy houses and taverns which sailors of the merchant vessels and king's fleet visited were crammed together. No doubt the sweat ate its gluttonous fill here, for people were so packed in that but a few dead would mean destruction for all. Bloody colored crosses stained the dirty wooden doorways here and there. It was like a ghost town with only a few stragglers or faces peering curiously from a second- or third-storey window. Ordinarily, there would be a vast bustling swell of traffic into the city on this highway to the south, but there was almost none. They rode on at a steady clip and their horses' hoofs echoed off the nearly abandoned streets.

Soon, but not too soon, the city was behind them, hovering above the fields with the hazy sun on it like some giant pall. The gardens and apple and peach orchards of Kent stretched ahead of them. Mary took deep, free breaths now, for she had tried to breathe shallowly with her hand over her mouth in the reaches of the city. Let him smirk at her if he thought she was foolish.

“I am not laughing at you, Mary. I was only thinking you make the best damned looking boy I have ever seen and, unlike some of His Grace's fine courtiers, I do not usually find young boys at all entrancing.”

She could not help smiling back at him. He had not spoken since they had left the barge and his voice was somehow comforting. “Then I see no need of your spending a day and night with a boy at Banstead,” she threw at him. He raised one rakish eyebrow but turned his face to the road again.

As they got farther out, they passed occasional drover's carts, farm wains, or painted chars, and Mary relaxed as the scene became more normal. Mother and Semmonet would be pleased to see her despite her tragic news. And little Catherine would squeal and throw herself into her mother's arms as she always did, even when they had been parted but a little while.

They were nearly to Croydon before their hard taskmaster let them dismount under huge oaks along a stream. “I would love to lie here on the bank and sleep,” Mary said wistfully, stretching her cramped muscles. Her thighs ached terribly and the sword was always in her way. She had never ridden so far astride before. It must take some getting used to and she could tell poor Nancy was suffering as she moved her legs awkwardly and leaned wearily against the trunk of a massive oak.

“Sore, sweet?” Staff asked as he offered her another swig from their wine canteen.

“Not so bad that I shall not make it clear to Hever today, my lord,” she returned tartly. The wine was warm but good on a dust-caked throat.

“If you tried to make it clear to Hever today, lass, you would not walk for a week. As it is, you will be most comfortable resting on your back and not walking about somewhere.”

She turned her head to give him a pointed stare at his gibe, but he was looking away straight-faced and evidently meant nothing by it.

“I am thinking of keeping Nancy and Stephen in Banstead, too. The lad would make it well enough to Edenbridge by night but not the girl.” He rose, evidently not expecting her to have any part of the decision about where her servants stayed or went. It irked her, but she let him help her mount. It would help if Nancy were about if she were forced to stay at Banstead the night with him. That way she could insist the girl sleep with her.

Orchards and wheat fields gave way to patches of beech and elm, and Mary began to sense the look of home. Then the single stands of trees became the deep blue-green forests of the Kent she knew, and she relaxed until her eye caught the weather-beaten sign pointing its ragged finger to the west off the Kent Road—to Banstead, it said. Staff reined in his wheezing stallion and the others halted their horses around him in a tight circle.

“How do you feel, Mistress Nancy?” he inquired jauntily as though they were out for an afternoon's ride at Greenwich.

“Tired, my lord, and a bit sore. I shall make it, though.”

“Good lass. But since the hour is probably on three, I suggest you and Stephen ride with us to spend the night at Banstead and set out for Hever early on the morrow. Lady Carey and I will probably be there sometime in the next day, or the one after.”

Nancy's eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. Had she not seen what he was implying before, the simple wench, thought Mary. Well, at least she understands his meaning now and she will be my ally when we arrive at his precious inn. And now he dared to hint that they would stay more than one day as if he thought she would run off with him when her lord husband was dead only five days!

“Yes, milord,” the girl said. Staff nodded and they turned their horses' noses toward Banstead two miles to the west.

The village was quaint and charming; Mary had to admit that much. No horrible crosses defiled the doors and people wandered about normally at their daily tasks. A Medieval steeple dominated the view, its darkened stone and slender Gothic spires distinct in the sunlight. Across the central town green which stretched at its feet, a few cattle grazed. The village inn stood out plainly among the clusters of other whitewashed and black timbered walls. The inn curled itself in an L-shape around a garden gone to summer riot of late roses and splotches of blues and golds. “The Golden Gull” the frayed sign read with its proud painting of a wheeling sea gull upon a sky of clearest blue.

She pulled one sore leg over Eden's lathered neck and let Staff lift her gently to the ground. Her legs nearly buckled on the cobbled courtyard, and they shook as he led her by the elbow to the inn door, which stood silently ajar. The huge common room within was dim. Its trestle table was set for supper, but no fire burned at the hearth and no one scurried to welcome them.

“Whitman!” Staff deposited her on a bench, and Nancy sank wearily beside her, after nearly tripping over her unwieldy sword. Staff went to the steep stairs which disappeared to the second floor. “Whitman, you old sea dog, come out of hiding and now! You have guests, man, paying guests!”

A door slammed in the depths of the house, and feet thudded quickly up the steps from beside the fireplace. A great red-bearded face appeared and Mary's mouth dropped to see how much the man looked like the king—huge and red and ruddy, but much shorter.

“Stafford, damn yer eyes!” came the explosion and the man pounded Staff on the back rather than bowing as he should have, she thought. “I never thought to see you hove to in these parts. You have not forgotten the coins I owe you for dicin' with me, is that it? Come to collect yer due?”

“I thought maybe we could settle that once and for all staying in your fine hostelry a night or two, my man. This is Lady Carey and her servants Stephen and Nancy. Can we find anyone in this deserted place to care for us and our horses?”

“A course, my lord, and proud of it.” His deep-set eyes took in the tired party and lit to see such a beauty in men's clothes as Mary's long locks spilled from under her linen cap.

“There be fine rooms for all of you upstairs. Will three do, one large and the other two wee ones? There be little business at Banstead, but we do right well for those that come through. A little traveling fair is in town now, but those kind a folk stay out in their own tents. Allow me to show you to yer rooms. My wife, she be back soon after she spends all my money at the fair, eh? We have two little ones, milord. Life is good here since I left the
Mary Rose
these six years when my sire died an' left me the Gull.”

They trooped up the stairs, and it was only then that Mary's eyes took in the elaborate rigged ropes and ship's tackle along the walls of the room and stairwell. “The
Mary Rose
you said, Master Whitman? His Grace's fine ship the
Mary Rose
? You have been a sailor in the king's navy then?”

Staff laughed aloud at her deduction, but Whitman's beaming face was serious. “Aye, milady. For fifteen years I be a sailor for this king and his royal father afore him. We protected the channel on the
Mary Rose
where I met his lordship on some a his voyages to France. And afore that I sailed on the
Golden Gull
where, if'n I can say it, I had a much kinder master, eh, milord?”

“We shall tell the lady the whole story after she has rested, Whit.”

“I sailed on the
Mary Rose
once,” Mary said to them as they paused on the tiny landing from which several crooked doors departed. “I sailed on her with Her Grace, the Princess Mary, when she went to France to wed King Louis. It was a very long time ago.”

Master Whitman regarded her closely. “I was on that voyage, my lady, but I canna' say I remember you. The princess was the lady for whom the ship was named well enough. You musta' been a wee child then. But the ship I loved best was the
Golden Gull
. It stands for freedom you see, an' not having a cruel and heartless man for a master even if he be handpicked by the king himself, eh?”

Master Whitman did not bat an eye when Staff put Stephen and Nancy in the two tiny rooms and guided Mary into the larger chamber and, after a few words about supper, firmly closed the door. Stephen accepted it, Nancy looked jittery despite her exhaustion, but Master Whitman only twitched at one corner of his bearded mouth. Mary held her tongue until his footsteps died away outside the door.