Brazen (17 page)

“It feels”—he lowers his forehead onto mine—“right.”

I tilt my face upward just a little, our foreheads still touching.

“How do you know?” I ask, my lips so close to brushing his.

His answer is a kiss.

This kiss is like the dawn. Slow and graceful and gilded. It is right and warm and a childlike discovery, and it answers all of my questions and erases all of my doubts.

F
ITZ
GOES
BACK
TO
L
ONDON
AND
T
HEN
TO
HIS
LANDS
IN
Sheffield—the farthest we’ve ever been apart. I revel in it. Because missing him—his touch, his voice, his warmth—is a sure sign that I am in love with him. That I no longer need to question or doubt or struggle. That I can just
be
. In love.

The court moves to Windsor, where we prepare to change locations every three or four days—looking toward Abingdon, Sudeley, Gloucester, and ultimately Winchester. And even though I carry Fitz with me in my heart, my life at court is lonely. Madge won’t speak to me, and Margaret is more reticent than ever.

The queen is over her morning sickness, and has begun to let out the laces of her bodice to accommodate her increasing girth. She no longer looks gaunt and agitated. I remember her sweeping Princess Elizabeth up into her arms—the joy in both of their faces. I try to deny the twinge of jealousy I feel for this baby, who will have a mother to love him.

Then, on a Tuesday, Thomas More is executed. The news comes, and the entire court holds still, like a hive of bees stunned by smoke. The king looks blacker than I’ve ever seen him. Thomas More was the king’s friend. His confidant. But More refused to take the Oath of Supremacy.

And refusal to take the oath is treason.

I remember Margaret, spitting mad about the Act of Succession. How she predicted that King Henry wanted to control “lives, love, faith, words.” Even the afterlife. I remember she said he would never control her.

I spot her in the upper ward, walking alone along the southern side of the round tower and hurry from my lodgings to catch up with her..

“You’ve taken the oath, haven’t you?” I ask, nearly breathless. I’m sure she wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t. But I have to hear it from her. Lady Mary—the king’s daughter—refuses.

“Of course.”

I sag a little with relief as we turn together toward the castle proper.

“What will happen to Lady Mary?” I whisper.

“By law, she has committed treason. Just like Thomas More. And the Carthusian monks. She refuses to accept the king as the head of the church.”

Lady Mary should be in prison. Awaiting execution.

“But what if . . .” I pause. “What will the king do?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Margaret replies. “If he pardons her, how can he prosecute others? What makes it worse is that she also rejects the Act of Succession and the annulment of King Henry’s marriage to her mother. In effect, she’s claiming that Queen Anne is nothing but a concubine.”

I flinch a little at the word. It’s not as bad as
whore
. The round
u
and long
i
make it taste almost fruity. But the hard
c
’s are like seeds, puckering the mouth.

“He wouldn’t kill his own child, would he?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” Margaret mutters. “It’s the only reason I took the oath.”

“You think he would imprison you?” I ask, incredulous. “Put you to death?”

“Look what he’s done already.”

She is so blithe. Accepting.

When I look more closely, I see no acceptance in her eyes. I see anger. Hurt. Betrayal.

Defiance.

“You always said he would never control you,” I say, pushing on the boundaries of this defiance. “You said you’d make up your own mind. Have your own feelings.”

“Don’t be naive, Mary. Don’t you know it’s possible to say one thing and mean another? The king does it all the time. I simply follow his example.”

I think about Fitz and his promise never to lie to me. That he has learned to value the truth by living in King Henry’s court. And I see the value in it, too.

I also see the misfortune waiting to happen. The
pop
of a ball in the nearby tennis court echoes, lonesome, in the silence that surrounds us.

I have to tell Margaret the truth.

“I told the queen—” I start to say, but then stop. What did I tell the queen?

“About Madge?” Margaret smiles bitterly. “I know.”

“I didn’t mean to! She guessed. Margaret, she guesses everything. It’s like her mind is two steps ahead of mine. She asked me about you, too, and—”

Margaret’s face goes as white as a bleached skull.

“You didn’t tell her. You couldn’t.” She stops walking and reaches out for something to hold on to. A wall. A branch. But there’s nothing there, and she wobbles.

I grab her, and her fingers wrap all the way around my wrist, biting into the bone.

“I didn’t. I didn’t say anything about Thomas. I never would. But she knows . . . she knows you’re tired of waiting for the king’s blessing.”

The color slowly returns to Margaret’s face.

“I don’t want to be married off to some minor princeling,” she murmurs. Her gaze is focused far away, past the tennis court and the stone battlement walls. Past the trees beyond, already starting to fade in the dry summer heat.

“I know,” I say. “But things can change. I . . .” I’ve never said it out loud before. Not even to him. “I’m in love with Fitz.”

She turns back to me, her gaze penetrating.

“I can’t love someone because I’m forced to.”

She looks at me accusingly. Like I’ve failed somehow.

“I haven’t been forced,” I say coldly.

“But it certainly wasn’t your choice.”

I didn’t choose to marry Fitz, but I choose to be in love with him. Don’t I?

No. It just happened.

“I don’t think falling in love is ever a choice,” I tell her.

She smiles at me then. “No, I suppose you’re right. Or I’d be in love with a minor princeling, and Madge would fall for someone unmarried.”

I feel my shoulders relax a little. I am still on even footing with Margaret.

There’s a shout from across the courtyard and then a cry. We turn to see a flurry of courtiers and a flash of yellow skirts.

Madge runs toward us. There are spots of color high on her cheeks, and her eyes are wild—I can see the whites all the way around them.

“It’s the queen,” she says, bending over her knees and sucking in breaths impeded by her tightly laced bodice. Margaret puts a hand on her back and I crouch down in front of her.

“What is it, Madge?” I ask, trying to keep the edge of fear out of my voice. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I was reading,” Madge says, and gasps again. “I was in the chapel and I had my prayer book with me. I was just trying to find a place to . . . sit. Some place cool. Out of the sun.”

Margaret and I exchange a look. We both think Madge was there to meet the king. But neither of us says so.

“The queen?” I prompt.

“She came in and found me there. She asked what I was reading.” Madge takes another breath. “I felt very virtuous. I showed her my prayer book. I thought,
There’s no way she can fault that
.”

Madge pauses.

“She’s been finding fault with everything lately,” she says, and flashes a dark look in my direction.

Then she turns a little gray.

“She took my book. She saw a little poem I’d scribbled in the margin.” Madge looks up at us, pleading. “It was nothing, really. Nothing at all. From Chaucer.” She gulps. “The one about at the king’s court, each man for himself.”

“Oh, Madge,” Margaret says.

“She screamed at me. Said I’d desecrated the book with my ‘idle poesies.’ How dare I.” Madge’s voice trails into a whisper and then into nothing but breath.

“I’m sorry,” I manage. Sorry for knowing. Sorry for telling the queen. Sorry that Madge ever laid eyes on the monarch.

“She threw the book across the room.” Madge doesn’t even seem to hear me.

“And then she cried out. Clutched at her belly. Her men—her ushers—they grabbed her. They’re not supposed to touch the queen’s person, but she was falling. They held her up. Got her out.”

“Is she all right?” I ask. But Madge’s face tells me all I need to know.

“There was blood on the floor,” she says. “Too much blood.”

The castle around us has gone silent. Even the tennis game has stopped. It’s as if the news leached through the very walls.

“It’s my fault,” Madge says, her hands limp at her sides.

“No, it’s not, Madge,” Margaret says firmly. “It’s his.”

R
UMORS
FLOW
OUT
OF
THE
QUEEN
’
S
CHAMBERS
IN
TORREN
TS
. The court is a tempest of gossip and lies. That the baby wasn’t the king’s. That he blames her for the loss of an heir. That he blames her for the murder of Thomas More. That he blames her for his infidelities.

And despite the queen’s discomfort, the summer progress moves on. Trudging from Reading to Abingdon across a parched and rutted landscape.

The morning we are to leave Langley, I am called to my father’s rooms. He has been in France with George Boleyn to help secure the French prince as a spouse for Princess Elizabeth and they have joined the progress in order to report to the king. Father will be returning to Kenninghall soon.

Mother is still in Redbourn. Safely out of the way.

Father is pacing when I’m allowed entrance. The drapes are pulled against the sunlight that comes in through the east-facing windows, creating a shadowy netherworld of which he seems to be king. He has cut his hair short over the ears, and it is graying at the temples. His beard has been trimmed to a fine point like the flat edge of a spade.

“Shut the door,” he says.

And it is done, the usher disappearing behind it.

The quiet room suddenly seems more crowded than the queen’s. With the curtains drawn and the door closed, the walls feel ominous. As does my father’s expression.

“What I am about to tell you will never leave this room.”

A chill settles over me, despite the stuffy heat coming through the curtains. I swallow.

“Do you agree?” he says impatiently.

“Yes.” I hadn’t realized he was waiting for an answer.

He starts pacing again, the rushes whispering beneath his boots. As he crosses the path of the single arc of sunlight coming between the velvet sheaths on the window, the gold in his doublet flashes bright.

He pauses and turns to me, a shadow of a smile on his face. “My darling girl.”

And I am.

Throughout my childhood, my father was never around. Always in France or at court or leading a campaign. An old warhorse, only comfortable on the road. Or so it seemed.

When I got older, I realized it probably had as much to do with staying away from my mother as it did serving his king and country. Then I came to court and realized it had more to do with serving the family than everything else put together.

He only ever wanted the best for me. That’s why he never saw me.

When I was about thirteen, he
did
see me. He asked after me. He got me away from my mother and made sure I had pride of place in Anne’s household. I carried her train when she went to Easter mass. I carried the chrisom cloth at Elizabeth’s christening.

I married the king’s son.

Father coughs once. Staring at me.

I force myself not to squirm.

“Have you slept with him yet?”

Fitz.
I immediately picture it. His body on mine, my hands in his hair, the taste of linen and the smell of salt.

My embarrassment could ignite me on the spot. That my father would think to ask me such a question.

There is no way I can tell him how much I want it.

It’s a miracle we don’t both go up in flames.

“No?” I squeak.

Father walks to the window and lifts one hand to part the curtains, the blade of sunlight blinding.

“Is that a question or a statement?” He sounds so detached. So businesslike.

“A statement.” I can’t tell if he believes me or not. Now I do squirm. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my father.

“You have not consummated your marriage to Henry FitzRoy.”

I shake my head. I don’t even know if I could have this conversation with Madge. What I feel for Fitz—and what we almost did together—seems too precious to share.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed,” I say finally.

He drops the curtain, and his face is again shrouded in shadow.

“The queen has had another miscarriage.”

“Yes.” The doctors think it may have been a boy. They buried it without ceremony and without name. “I believe the queen is heartbroken.”

Father looks at me, and I think I see suspicion in his eyes.

“The king is a bit vexed.”

I frown. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“That isn’t what the king thinks.”

I don’t care what the king thinks. Blaming the woman for the loss of a child is like blaming the soldier for the loss of his life in battle. But I can’t tell my father that.

“There are rumors that she is unlikely ever to carry another baby to term,” Father continues. “Much like her predecessor.”

The former Queen Katherine. Languishing in some castle in the north. Dying of what my mother says is a broken heart.

“No one can know that,” I say.

Father stops. The shaft of light glares off of the ring on his right hand. It winks.

“The king no longer goes to her bed.”

I look away, wanting to be anywhere but in this room. “I don’t think that’s something I need to know.”

Father takes two quick steps and is right in front of me. I hadn’t realized before how short he is, but now that I’m more used to being this close to Fitz, I see that my father is diminutive in comparison. Small, lithe, and comprised of sharp points.

“Don’t be clever with me, girl. I am still your father, and your attitude shows a brazen disrespect.”

I look down at his boots. The toes are scuffed.

“Yes, Father.”

“The king is apparently enjoying the bed of one of the members of the queen’s household.”

I look up sharply.
Madge
. How much does he know?

He gazes blandly back at me, one eyebrow lazily raised.

He knows everything.

He makes me wait. A heartbeat. Two. Then he reaches out and puts a hand on each of my shoulders.

“The king is getting tired of her, Mary.”

“Madge?”

Father rolls his eyes. “The queen.”

Oh. That’s worse. That’s much, much worse.

“She cares as little about him as he does about her,” he continues.

But Queen Anne knows what love feels like.
Like music only plays when you’re together. Like the very air tastes of strawberries. And like one touch—one look—could send you whirling like a seed on the wind.

“That woman”—he throws an empty hand toward the queen’s apartments—“her days as queen are numbered. And we don’t know how many days the king has left either.”

“Father!” I cry. Because he has just spoken the words that could get him thrown in the Tower. Attainted.

Executed.

“Remember, Mary, whatever is said here does not leave this room.” Something like real fear flashes in my father’s eyes. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him anything but absolutely confident, and this scares me even more. I no longer know him.

He squeezes my shoulders, his fingers biting into my flesh.

“One way or another, he has to have a male heir,” he says. “If she never has a boy—there will be no future king.”

“The Act of Succession states that Princess Elizabeth is the king’s only legitimate heir.”

Father goes very still. It’s unnerving, how he seems to stop breathing. As if he is gathering all the meaning of what he is about to say and it takes every ounce of his being to do so. I know his next words will be the most important ones he will speak in this conversation. It’s the way he operates.

“No one wants a girl on the throne.”

My mind flies to all the possible retorts to this statement. That girls are as smart as boys. What matters is royalty, not gender. But I know he is right. Not that she doesn’t
deserve
the throne. Just that no one wants her there. A woman can be queen because her husband is king.

Just like a girl can be duchess because her husband is duke.

She does not carry the title in her own right.

It isn’t inherited. It’s legitimized.

“Especially a child,” Father says, breaking my train of thought. “England falls apart when rival factions claim regency over a minority reign. The second King Richard was only ten. The rival factions during his reign nearly destroyed the kingdom.”

He sounds like he’s trying to convince me of something.

Father’s eyes go distant. Almost black. “The sixth King Henry was still with a wet nurse when he came to the throne.” Father’s grandfather was killed in the wars during Henry VI’s reign. His father was imprisoned. Those wars were almost the ruin of the Howards, the dukedom of Norfolk, and the family in general.

Father looks up, and his eyes have lost their vacancy. In its place is a serene intensity.

“It is not unprecedented for a king to legitimize a bastard son,” he says. “Your husband has less than two years until he reaches his majority. Don’t you think the country would prefer a man on the throne?”

Father once said I would be queen. But the way he’s talking sounds unnervingly like treason.

“The queen will have a boy,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

“She hasn’t yet.” Father’s tone softens and he comes nearer to me, putting an arm around my shoulder. It is the closest either parent has come to embracing me in a very long time. “All the people of the realm would feel more at ease with a king who already has a son and heir. And as the king is”—Father coughs—“getting older, it would be easier to take if the son had a son and heir as well.”

I turn my head to look at him. At his hooked nose, his dark eyes, the beard that has only just begun to turn gray, despite his sixty-one years. His skin is thick, textured by wind and sun and war.

“What are you saying?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

“Give the king a grandson.” He sucks in a breath and steps backward, away from me. “The consummation of your marriage may be the security this kingdom needs.”