Betrayal (12 page)

Elisabeth mounted the stairs, blowing on her reddened hands to cool the pain. Entering the room she found Sarah asleep on the pallet, the doll, Aggie, tucked tightly beneath her chin. Wet tears still covered the child’s summer-tanned face.

Elisabeth set about straightening the packing boxes, refolding beautiful silks and brocades. She had nearly finished when Alys opened the door and in a soft whisper said.

“Mistress Anne has returned and wishes you to bring the child to her in the hall. Make haste,”
Alys finished as she looked admiringly around the room. “You’ve done a fine job ‘ere.” Turning at the head of the stairs, she urged “Make haste.”

             
Elisabeth sorted through Sarah’s clothes, choosing a deep blue velvet gown that the Cardinal had had newly made for the little girl.  She decided to change herself before she woke the slumbering child. Elisabeth chose a gown of coarse grey ticking appropriate to her station as a novitiate. She knelt beside the pallet, gathering the small child into her arms. Sarah nuzzled into Elisabeth’s breast releasing a gentle sigh while the doll, Aggie dropped to the floor.

             
“Sarah, dearest,” Elisabeth cooed.  “Time to wake up, little one. Our lady has returned and requires our attendance.”

             
“Mother Mary?” the child whispered snuggling her face into the space between Elisabeth’s breasts.

             
“No, the Mistress Anne.”

             
"Oh, Nan," the child replied bobbing her head upright. Struggling free from Elisabeth's embrace, Sarah cried, "Will Henry…," Sarah stopped, silently regretting her mistake.  “Will the King be with her, do you think?”

             
Elisabeth frowned. How would she ever teach the child proper respect for her elders?  She thought of John de Roche and his proud peacock behavior before the King at York Place.  Had he irreverently spoken of the King and his lady in the child’s presence?

Why was it so hard for Sarah to remember the correct way to speak of royalty?  ‘No,’ she thought ‘the acorn does not fall far from the tree. Sarah is too much her father’s child.’

              Elisabeth struggled with these thoughts as she dressed the squirming child in her new dress.

             
Finally, the child was ready.  Elisabeth smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. As they left the room she hastily put Sarah’s doll on one of the packing crates. The child whimpered. Elisabeth frowned. Hesitating, she thought, ‘Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time Aggie had graced royal company or in this case near royalty’. Elisabeth smiled and nodded, giving Sarah the permission she wanted to get the doll.

             
Passing through the buttery Elisabeth heard Cook say to Kate, “The child’s a delight and yet I think the dowdy crow,” referring to Elisabeth, “could be one in her own, given the right clothes and such.”

             
Elisabeth pulled a face. ‘A dowdy crow,’ she thought, ‘Is that how I look?’ Not pausing to think further, Elisabeth hustled Sarah to the buttery screen. 

             
She smoothed Sarah's wayward curls before she pulled at her habit, adjusting the half-veil on her head as she stepped around the buttery screen to find the hall crowded with people.

             
The Lady Anne Boleyn, dressed in a gown of red velvet, her long dark tresses loose about her creamy white shoulders, signaled for Sarah to come to her. Suddenly shy, the little girl hid behind Elisabeth’s skirt. Elisabeth tugged gently on Sarah’s hand and the little girl walked stiff- legged into the hall stopping a few feet from the Lady Anne.

             
Elisabeth held her breath as Sarah executed an elegant curtsy, holding it with styled grace.

             
Elisabeth heard a man’s voice say, “So this is the moppet that has stolen the King’s heart.  Her coloring is so much like his; she could be one of his bastards.”

             
Sarah blushed red, even at this tender age she knew a bastard was not something she wanted to be.             

A sharp, shrill female voice spoke. Elisabeth recognized it to be Lady Rochford’s.

“Pshaw, naught but a peasant’s brat, that’s all.”

             
Elisabeth was furious to hear Sarah so described. ‘There is no shame in being a master mason’s daughter,’ she thought, prepared to spring to Sarah’s defense.

             
There was no need, for the Lady Anne turned to her sister-in-law, silencing her with a withering glare while she stooped to the nervous child. In one graceful move, the King’s favorite embraced Sarah and reassured Elisabeth. In that moment all doubts about this adventure fled.

             
“Come, Elisabeth,” the Lady Anne waved, indicating a place beside her, “come and stand by me.  There is only one in this household that you must watch.”  She continued, nodding toward her sister-in-law, Jane.  “Keep the child from her. She is barren and cannot have children of her own, a very bitter woman, my brother’s wife.”

             
Elisabeth dipped a slight curtsy.  She gazed on the shrew-faced woman standing opposite deep in conversation. Elisabeth had already decided to keep Sarah and herself as far from Lady Rochford as possible.

             
Sarah rubbed her cornflower blue eyes, fighting against the fatigue overcoming her. The Lady Anne noticed the child’s fidgeting behavior and signaled Elisabeth to remove her to her bed. Happily, Elisabeth scooped up Sarah in her arms and made for the buttery screen.

             
“Wait,” a man’s voice called out. It was George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.  “Hold, I would have a moment to take my leave of this charming child,” he continued as he crossed the hall.  Leaning down to tickle Sarah’s cheek, he asked Elisabeth in a low voice.  “Have you naught else to wear but that old rag?  We live a merry life here at Court and at Hever. It is not fit for the life we lead, that you will lead, in our company.”

             
Elisabeth blushed. “Nay, my lord, it is all I have,” she replied, fingering the rough grey fabric of her habit. She glanced around the room, noting the silks, velvets and brocades worn by the guests, her hunger for such niceties written on her face.

             
George Boleyn smiled as he looked at the girl before him. ‘A pretty girl, very pretty girl,’ he thought. ‘Once she is shed of those dowdy feathers and with a smile upon those lips,” his mind whispered as he guessed at the luscious curves of her youthful body hidden beneath the clerical dress. The quiver in his loins, absent since his recent return from France, warmed him. ‘And I should very much like to bring that smile to your lips, lovely Elisabeth, yes indeed I would.’  With a nod of his head he released the girl and her charge, his smile fading as he walked back across the hall.

Jane Rochford flashed an angry look as Elisabeth disappeared behind the screen. ‘Damn his eyes! How he watches after her, and I am to play at paper dolls with her, dressing her up to make her pleasing to his eye, soft to his touch.’  “Hmmph,” she said out loud as she swept her rose brocade skirt in a tight circle. Turning her attention to her husband’s uncle, Lord Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, she promptly forgot the girl, Elisabeth.

But her husband could not. He sought out his sister, seeking to question her about the girl, but alas Norfolk had drawn her into conversation too.

“Anne,” her uncle said, “This return to Hever is a mistake,” he continued as he chafed his fine blonde beard.  “You must keep yourself before the King’s eye, lest he forget you for another.”

“Like my stupid sister?” Anne snapped.  Mary Boleyn, standing two couples away flinched at her younger sister’s vicious tone.  “My Lord Uncle, I will heed your advice in all matters, save this one. It is His Grace’s desire I return to Hever to await word from Rome. With a joyous heart, he expects it any day.  Hear me, my lord. I will not leap into the King’s bed as my foolish sister has done. I bide my time, for I shall be Queen.” She nodded her head in a slight bow as she moved to stand by the musicians playing on the far side of the hall.

“George, I fear for your sister. She will lose the King’s favor if she does not bed him soon.  Henry grows tired of the chase. He is not a tenacious hunter in affairs of the heart, preferring easy game.”  Norfolk sighed as he caught sight of Mary.  “If that one had had a brain I’d not be sending a second niece to the King’s bed. But, alas, she sought nothing while she held him enthralled.”  His small blue eyes sized up his sister’s eldest child. Pale and withdrawn, Mary stood aside from the hall’s chattering guests, near a window seat. He wondered briefly if she still frequented the King’s bed. Norfolk shook his head no; he knew Henry had grown tired of her, having therefore turned his attentions to her younger sister. But give the Devil his due, the King had found a complacent enough husband for his whore, but William Carey was dead and another husband must be found for her soon. ‘Whore,’ he mouthed as he glared at his niece.

              Turning his attention back to George, he continued, “If this family is to advance, Anne must play her part, even whore, if need be. Henry will find her a suitable husband afterward. It is a shame Wolsey married off his ward, Henry Percy. He was besotted with the girl, though I doubt he’d have played the cuckold.  Yet, I think there are ways to

soothe a husband’s conscience.”  The old duke smiled to himself, remembering a tussle with a complacent butcher’s wife in his youth. Her husband had been bought off with a few coins.  His thoughts turned to Cardinal Wolsey, ‘I could have spawned him or one like him. Had his mother also found a nobleman’s son appealing?’

              Thomas Howard stood gazing over the hall while his mind churned memories of the lascivious Maud and her creamy thighs. ‘Yes,” he thought. ‘A butcher’s brat, our Lord Chancellor,’ Norfolk smiled cruelly. Wolsey’s rise would be made all the more tolerable by how far the man would fall.  Norfolk made no secret of his dislike of the Cardinal, yet he bided his time, for the man’s fall from grace was coming. Secretly, he smiled at the doddering old fool’s demise. The King’s Grace tired of waiting for the Pope’s permission to put aside the Queen. Norfolk feared he might tire of Anne too. That must not be allowed to happen. There simply was too much to be gained by such an alliance. His train of thought was disturbed by Jane’s shrill voice announcing the evening meal. He moved reluctantly toward the raised dais taking the seat of honor at his nephew’s right hand.

             
Mary Boleyn was seated across from her brother. She could sense their plotting concerned Anne as they had once concerned her. She raised her hand to her brow to wipe a stray curl out of her eye. Would Anne be the instrument Mary had refused to be? They called her a fool, laughing at her behind her back. This she well knew. Yet, she was no fool. She had gained what she wanted, a faithful and devoted lover; that is until Henry had taken note of her sister. Mary knew she had thrilled Henry to unimagined heights with the skills she had learned at Francis’ Court in Paris.

She had been but thirteen when she had lost her virginity to the heir to France’s throne.    She smiled as she remembered the prince’s voracious mouth nibbling at her breasts, while his eager hand probed beneath her chemise. As she closed her eyes, Mary felt her nipples harden; she hungered to stroke herself as her royal lover had taught her but her Uncle's loud mention of her husband's name broke her reverie. Her thoughts turned to William and she grimaced. He had been a fool and she detested fools.

***

Upstairs in their diminutive sleeping quarters Elisabeth settled Sarah on the straw pallet after a supper of bread and milk.  Exhausted, Elisabeth lay down next to Sarah, wiggling her hips to find a comfortable spot amongst the straw’s sharp nettles. Voices from the hall rafted upward on the cool evening breeze. Elisabeth was glad she hadn’t been forced to attend. Lord Rochford’s unrelenting gaze had unsettled her. She felt he had undressed her with his eyes. The music from the hall lulled Elisabeth. As she drifted off to sleep she was once more at the Cardinal’s masque smiling at the handsome musician, Mark Smeaton.  She saw him standing between the King and his lady, hands resting familiarly on the long neck of his lute, his head bent in lively conversation. For a moment just before she fell asleep Elisabeth fantasized that it was she and not the King’s lady who held his rapt attention.

At dawn Elisabeth woke from a dreamless sleep.  Kneeling beside the pallet she said her Pater Noster and Ave before rising to wash the sleep from her eyes with cold water from the bucket by the close stool.  A loud knocking at the door startled her. Opening the heavy oak door Elisabeth was surprised to find Alys with a gown of faun colored brocade across her arm.

“From m’lady for you; she says you are to put away your habit as she will have no nuns in ‘er house.”

Elisabeth took the gown. Smiling, she held it up before her.

             
“Suits your color, it does. You are to present yourself, dressed proper, to m’lady, you and the little ‘un, as the wagons and carriage must be ready to leave. You are to grab a bite to eat in the kitchen, but be quick. M’lord says they wait for no one,” Alys called as she exited the musty attic room.

             
Elisabeth roused the sleeping Sarah, quickly washing her face and hands. She bundled Sarah into a clean gown of soft russet wool. Elisabeth stepped out of her gray tick habit, folding it into her carpetbag and slipped into the new brocade gown. Awkward in such luxury, Elisabeth found she was unable to resist tracing the raised design of the brocaded gown. As a finishing touch she assessed herself in the polished tin mirror atop one of traveling boxes. Shyly, she turned to Sarah who laughed and clapped her hands with glee.