Gilt (13 page)

Not important enough.

“But I might have certain benefactors working in my favor,” Alice announced.

“In
your
favor?” Joan said, petulance generating a shrill falsetto.

“Well, yes,” Alice said. “My husband does work for Lord Maltravers.”

I looked at Joan and mouthed
Lord Maltravers
with simpering, pinched lips. She smiled weakly.

“I even wrote a letter to Cat,” Joan sighed. “I reminded her of our friendship. Of our history together.”

A sudden fear clenched me.

History. Joan knew all Cat’s history.

“And you put this down on paper?” I asked, barely able to form the question. A piece of paper could take on a life of its own. In the right hands, it could bring down a queen.

“It was pretty sickly,” Joan admitted. “
Remember the love my heart has always borne towards you
. That sort of thing.”

“And that’s all?” I asked.

“Of course.” She nodded, her face blank and guileless.

The other girls dispersed to the bosoms of their unloving families. Mary Lascelles cried piteously over the punishment of having to return to her brother’s keeping. But whatever Joan had written must have jarred Cat’s memory, because the summons came. For all three of us.

I had my chance to go to court. To be someone different. Someone important. Someone desired. Someone beloved of the queen.

W
INDSOR
C
ASTLE APPEARED ABOVE THE GOLDENING RED ASH OF THE
surrounding forest, the gray stone glowing white against the painfully blue October sky. This was a true castle, not a modern approximation of one. Not like the duchess’s house of brick and spit-shine. This was a castle built for defense with thick slit-windowed towers and crenellated walls.

“There it is!” Joan yelped. We had already traveled many long, boring hours and now she leaned over her horse’s neck, as if hoping it would get her there sooner.

I found myself leaning forward, too. My horse danced sideways slightly, caught up in my excitement. The castle on the hill looked so far away.

“Let’s race,” I said.

“Most unladylike,” Alice muttered. She rode primly in her dark brown riding habit, eyes straight ahead, completely unaware of the smudge of dirt across the side of her nose.

“Last one there tends the duchess’s bunions!” I shouted, an old joke from when we were children.

My horse leapt forward when I dug in my heels. She seemed as keen as I was to enter the magical realm of chivalry presented by such an enchanted scene.

“Katherine Tylney!” Alice cried.

“We’re not ladies!” I shouted back to her. “We’re chamberers!”

Joan’s laughter undulated over the warm-cold ripples of sunlight and shadow and I knew that she followed. Alice couldn’t be far behind.

Our horses kicked up dust on the dry road and over the cracked-earth gardens and pigpens. We slowed as the road narrowed between rows of tall, half-timbered buildings—the kind occupied by merchants and town leaders, sellers of fabrics and slippers and lace to the court, all eager and bustling because the king was in town.

Suddenly the right side of the road opened out and up the hill to a great stone gate, looming above the rest of the houses. Protection. Defense.

We stopped. Almost as one.

“Here we are,” I said quietly.

“We made it,” Joan agreed.

Alice only nodded, all confidence drained from her face.

The guards at the gate recognized our escort and allowed us through. The air cooled considerably as we passed beneath the arch, heavy and dark. Then we came blinking into a wide, gaping courtyard, studded with knots of gem-colored courtiers.

We dismounted, and stable boys scurried to lead our horses away. I felt bereft at the loss of my palfrey’s bulk and warmth. I pressed the anxiety beneath my stomacher.

To our left rose a perfectly rounded hill, topped by an ancient tower, thick and heavyset like an old man’s chest. To our right,
the castle wall enclosed the quadrangle and all the activity that spun within it. And directly ahead, a looming gray residence studded with towers squinted at us through narrow windows.

The entrance yawned wide, ready to swallow us whole.

“This way,” our escort said with a noise halfway between a laugh and a cough.

I realized we had stopped again, the three of us open mouthed and gawping. My skin burned with embarrassment. We giggled nervously and started forward again.

“
This
way,” the guard repeated, and indicated the western wing of the building, the door hidden behind the tennis court—the servants’ entrance, illustrating the fact that indeed, we were not ladies, or anything remotely akin. We were chamberers, and therefore not entitled to the same privileges. No matter what Cat had promised.

The courtiers looked up and ogled as we passed. One, a yeoman in scarlet Tudor livery, faced the others, and I admired his broad back, clipped narrow at the waist by a shiny black belt. He had gorgeous golden hair that I would have given my left hand for. The thought tugged a memory.
Hair you’d kill for.
Was this the man Cat had in mind for me?

He turned as we walked through the narrow space between the building and the tennis court, and I stumbled over the cobbles. His brown eyes widened, round face slack with surprise. And recognition. He’d seen me before.

In the forest.

J
OAN MUTTERED A CURSE WHEN
I
TRIPPED OVER HER IN A SCRAMBLE TO
escape. She looked up and saw the man staring.

“He’s delicious,” she breathed, looking at my red face. “And he’s staring right at you!”

“We can’t stop,” I hissed, and urged her toward the building.

We slipped in through the narrow doors. Not the kitchen entrance, but certainly not the state entrance. After a stuffy vestibule, the building opened up to a giant room with a massive staircase.

This was obviously the place to be and to be seen. And it was crowded, so therefore also a good place to hide. Women clustered together like peacocks at a spill of grain. They were dressed in bodices of rich damask, with matching overskirts and complementary colors in their kirtles. Their sleeves were puffed and slashed to reveal vivid silks beneath, looking a bit like bread ballooning from the heat of the oven. Gowns of velvet trimmed with gold braid. Hoods decked in pearls. And all sorts of dazzling adornments—chokers and collars and pendants of gold, brooches the size of my hand, studded with gems, rings like jeweled knuckles.

I risked a glance at my own clothes. My Wednesday green dress was smudged with mud from the road. The tear in the skirt was coming open, like a secret dying to be let out. My face was likely splotchy, my eyes probably wild, my hands trembling.

I looked behind me, afraid of being followed.

“Watch where you’re stepping!”

I turned to see that I had almost trod upon the bejeweled slipper of a small, compact woman. Her sleek chestnut hair peeked out from beneath a French hood the color of the sky just before nightfall. Her gown was of the same color velvet, simple, without the dazzling chaos of brocade, the sleeves a lighter blue shot with silver. She had wide-set eyes the color of wheat, like a cat’s, and they looked up at me critically. I was yet again reminded of my great height and ungainliness.

“Excuse me,” I said, and curtseyed. I assumed, from her dress, that her status would be higher than mine. I assumed everyone’s would be. Surely the presence of this woman would offer some protection.

“Nicely done,” she said, and smiled. It changed her appearance dramatically. Her pale face brightened and her pointed chin smoothed. From seeming somber and somewhat world-weary, she became a coy beauty. I couldn’t help but smile back. Her gaze did not stray to my unsuitable attire.

“I am Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford,” she said. Her eyes never left mine, gauging my reaction. And I could imagine the many she got when she introduced herself. People likely recoiled in horror at her intimacy with the infamous Anne Boleyn. People
would pity her widowhood. Her dependence on the Duke of Norfolk. Not something I would wish on anyone.

I didn’t look away, and smiled more broadly, determined to judge her on her own merits and not the gossip surrounding her. Determined I wouldn’t mention Anne Boleyn or the painful past.

“I am Katherine Tylney,” I said quietly, and curtseyed again.

“New chamberer to the queen,” she said.

“And these are Joan Bulmer and Alice Restwold.” Joan stared openly. Alice’s mouth sliced into a smile.

“I believe you are called Kitty,” Jane said to me. “You may call me Jane when we are in private company, but Lady Rochford when you speak to or of me in the public of the court.”

“Of course,” I said, a little nonplussed. No lady, especially not one so great as a viscountess, had ever asked me to call her by her first name. It seemed misplaced. Odd.

“The queen awaits you,” Jane said, slipping her arm through mine, “but I must take you first to St. George’s Hall to meet the king.”

I risked a glance over my shoulder. The man with the blond mane was nowhere to be seen. Jane’s arm pulled mine slightly.

“I believe you have met the king already?” she asked, probably assuming I felt nervous entering the royal presence. “I was under the impression that you lived at Norfolk House in Lambeth, and he visited there.”

She tactfully did not refer to the fact that Cat was not queen
then. That, in fact, there had been another queen altogether at the time.

“I have never spoken to the king,” I said.

“Well, it will be unusual if you get a chance to speak with him today,” Jane said. “We will enter, you will be introduced, and we will leave. The king is a busy man and rarely takes any particular interest in the queen’s household.”

“Oh,” I said, unable to think of anything else. I figured it would be churlish to say
good
.

She drew us up the broad staircase, whispers and a few snickers following us as we traveled. And then we stepped into a riot of color and sound. Great, painted wooden beams curved across the vaulted ceiling high above us. Embroidered tapestries cloaked the walls, sewn of pure gold and silk, embellished with pearls and sparkling stones. Courtiers milled about, bedecked in diamonds and bound in gold braid. A man could spend a year’s wages on a single item of clothing. Each of them glittered. Each of them wore a dagger
and
a rapier. Beautiful and deadly.

Everything smelled of sweat and dust, breath and lavender.

“Sir Anthony Denny”—Jane pointed to a man in a pale green doublet trimmed with yellow velvet—“the king’s Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber.” I remembered him from the first banquet the duchess gave for the king.

“Thomas Wriothesley,” she said, pronouncing it Riz-ley. Jane’s lively face took on a fixed smile as she nodded to the man next to Denny. He was dressed in black, the slashes in his
sleeves revealing chevrons the color of blood. “Stay away from him if you can. He’s like a ferret. Small, hungry, and with very sharp teeth. Most likely, you’ll never come in contact.”

Wriothesley caught me staring, scanned my face, my clothes, and my companions. I could
see
his mind ticking off items and columns as he did so.

A man who looked like a younger Duke of Norfolk, resplendent in orange and brown, stood to one side of the room. He was engaged in conversation with a bigger, broad-shouldered man who sported a mighty beard and scanned the room with keen eyes that lit only on the women.

“The Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard,” Jane said, following my gaze. “And Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.”

“Is the Duke of Norfolk here?” I asked, a squeak in my voice. I scanned the room for the possibility of William.

“He’s at his estate in Kenninghall,” Jane said.

But not before a figure caught my eye. A figure and face I knew. A gasp became trammeled in my throat, ensnared by panic.

“Lady Rochford?” I said, trying to keep from choking on my own breath. “Who is that?”

Jane craned her neck to see around the broad shoulders of the Duke of Suffolk, and then smiled.