Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (56 page)

That meant the “sir” was only honorary. Sir Gregory was a priest. A pity the English church did not allow clergy to wed, Nan thought. She found herself intrigued by Sir Gregory’s air of confidence. He appealed to her in a way she found hard to define and seemed to have the same effect on the other gentlewomen. Frowning, Nan tried to determine what it was that drew her. Sir Gregory was not as tall or as well built as Ned, nor was his face as pleasing to look at.

“In what part of England were you born?” Jane Arundell asked him. “I cannot place your accent.”

“The Botolphs are an old Suffolk family, but I left home many years ago. Most recently I served as a canon in Canterbury.”

“At the cathedral?” There was a hint of awe in Jane’s voice.

Affecting modesty, Sir Gregory shook his head. “At St. Gregory’s. Do you not find it apt that I served in a church that bears my own Christian name?”

Everyone agreed that they did, and Kate, Jane, and Isabel began to pepper him with questions about Canterbury, long a popular spot for pilgrimages. Nan listened to his answers as much to hear his voice—low, mellow, and persuasive—as for what he said. This priest’s voice could probably convert heathens with its timbre alone.

“Is the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket truly encrusted with magnificent jewels?” Kate’s question caught Nan’s attention. She had a particular interest these days in precious stones.

“Great, huge gems of astonishing brilliance,” Sir Gregory assured her. “Sufficiently gaudy to make any man covetous.”

“Or woman,” Kate said with a laugh.

But Botolph had stopped smiling. “For hundreds of years, pilgrims visited Canterbury to kiss the martyr’s silver-encased skull and make offerings at his gilded coffin.” His intense gaze raked over the company, as if he were weighing each one’s worthiness. “There will be a great outcry
if the king allows the tomb to be stripped, the shrine demolished, and the relics burnt. It is sacrilege even to consider despoiling such a holy place.”

A hush fell over the company. Sir Gregory’s words came perilously close to criticizing His Majesty. King Henry had been closing religious houses ever since his break with Rome. That was no secret. Monastery churches in London had been put to secular uses, everything from storage rooms to stables. Others were being torn down to provide building materials for noblemen’s houses. But the tomb of Thomas à Becket was the holiest shrine in Christendom. So far, King Henry had spared it.

“Who will care for the poor when they are sick or give them alms when they have no food?” the priest demanded. “Where will they go to be educated? In city and country alike, abbeys and monasteries are being dissolved, and with them their chantries. Nothing that has been so generously provided by religious houses will remain.”

The gleam of religious fervor in Sir Gregory’s eyes alarmed Nan and shattered whatever spell he’d cast over her. He seemed poised to deliver a sermon on the evils of King Henry’s decision to break with the pope. Although many people would agree with him, Nan’s own mother included, it was not safe to speak of such things. A few words more, and Sir Gregory would be guilty of treason.

Husee saw the danger, too. There was a hint of panic in his voice as he produced a small casket from his pack and thrust it at Nan. “Here are the pearls you asked for, mistress.”

Eagerly, Nan took the small wooden box and opened it. She stared at the contents, unable at first to believe what she was seeing. The pearls were ill matched and inferior and there were too few of them. Bad enough that she had to wait so long to return to court. The least her mother could do was to provide her with the proper accessories.

Nan saw Husee’s anxious expression through a red haze, felt her temper spike, surging beyond her control. Furious words erupted before she could stop them, shrill and imperious. “How dare you deliver such a paltry offering! I need pearls fit to wear in the queen’s service.” She slammed the offending container down on a table.

“Surely there are sufficient to make a decorative border at the front of a French hood.” Husee held both hands in front of him, palms out, as if to ward off a physical attack. “The casket contains six score.”

“There are not enough, I tell you. And these are of poor quality.” Nan could hear herself screeching at him but could not seem to stop.

“Calm yourself, mistress, I beg you. I will write to your mother for more.” Husee began to back away. Isabel and Jane also retreated, slipping out through a side door.

Nan fixed her victim with a withering stare. “See that you do. I am to be a maid of honor to the next queen. I must be prepared for her coming.”

Signaling for the other gentlemen to follow him, Husee bolted, leaving Nan alone save for Kate Stradling.

Nan closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. What had come over her? For a few minutes, for no good reason, she’d been as irrational as a madwoman.

She opened her eyes to find Kate examining the contents of the casket. Her face wore the look of a contented cat. Dark eyes alight with pleasure, she scooped up a handful of the pearls. “Inferior, without a doubt, Nan, but if you do not want them, I will gladly take them off your hands.”

“They are not entirely without value to me!” Nan’s control over her own voice was still uncertain. She willed herself to be calm. It was not like her to behave in this way. She often
wanted
to scream at those around her, but she did not do so. Annoyed at herself, she kicked a nearby stool, sending it bouncing across the rush-strewn floor.

“I will have at least some of them,” Kate said.

Nan whirled around to stare at her. Her cousin’s expression was cold enough to chill Nan’s bones.

Kate stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You will share, Nan, because if you do not, I will tell the Earl and Countess of Sussex that you are with child by Ned Corbett.”

Nan gaped at her, shocked. “That … that … I am not! I
cannot
be!”

Kate burst into laughter. “You really did not know? Think back, Nan. When did you last have your courses?”

Nan felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Dizzy, she collapsed on Cousin Mary’s chair. It was not possible. Was it? She had never considered that pregnancy might be the explanation for her moodiness, her lack of energy … her uncontrollable outbursts.

The horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach convinced Nan that Kate was right. She counted. She’d last shared Ned’s bed at the end of November—over four months ago.

“You could
tell
Corbett,” Kate said. “He’ll marry you for certain.”

In Nan’s state of mind, her cousin seemed the very devil, offering temptation. Kate was right. Ned would. But they’d be poor. She shuddered. She’d seen too many women worn down by poverty and constant childbearing. Even spending the rest of her life dependent on one of her more affluent relatives would be better than that!

Nan watched her hand move, seemingly of its own volition, and come to rest on her belly. There was as yet little outward sign that a child grew within her. Could she conceal her pregnancy for five more months? It might be possible, if the new queen did not arrive before the child did.

Nan drew in a deep, steadying breath and stood. She walked to the table, picked up the casket of pearls, and handed it to Kate, catching and holding her cousin’s gaze. “Will you help me hide my condition?”

Cradling the small box to her bosom, a smile of satisfaction on her lips, Kate promised that she would.

T
HE
P
ALE OF
Calais included all the territory from the downs of Wissant on the west to the fields overlooked by Gravelines on the east—the towns of Calais and Guisnes and some twenty-five neighboring parishes. This small piece carved out of the continent of Europe between France and Flanders was all that was left of England’s possessions on the French side of the Narrow Seas.

Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, maintained order in Calais as King Henry’s lord deputy. His household resembled nothing so much as
a miniature court. On a cold April morning, he sent Ned Corbett to the docks to meet his new chaplain and the latest addition to the gentleman servitors.

Ned studied the two men as they were rowed ashore. They were both brown haired and of medium build, both about Ned’s own age, but one—the priest—caught his attention even from a distance. There was an aura of command about him that was almost military in nature. Ned was certain he’d have no trouble holding the attention of his congregation.

“I am to escort you back to the lord deputy’s house and see you settled in your new quarters,” Ned told the newcomers after he’d introduced himself. “My man will collect your belongings.” John Browne had already begun loading trunks and boxes into a cart.

“It is only a short walk to Lord Lisle’s house,” Ned continued, leading the way. “Nothing is very far away from anything else in Calais.”

“The town is more crowded than I expected,” Sir Gregory Botolph remarked as they made their way through the marketplace. His voice was the sort that captivated listeners. Ned grinned, pleased by the prospect of sermons more interesting than those preached by old Sir Oliver.

“Much more crowded.” Clement Philpott twisted his head this way and that, looking for all the world like a country bumpkin on his first visit to a big city. Botolph was equally interested in his surroundings, but he was more subtle about it.

“There are some twelve thousands souls of various nationalities living in the Pale, about half of them English. All are protected by an English garrison a thousand men strong. In addition, there are twenty-four royal spears. They hold most of the administrative posts in the town.”

The royal spears were men of good family and the elite of the outpost. Like most of the gentlemen in Lord Lisle’s service, Ned aspired to be named to their ranks one day. A Calais spear was not a prestigious post when compared to maid of honor to a queen, but there were advantages to standing on the top rung of a small ladder.

“Up ahead,” he said, “is the residence of Lord and Lady Lisle, the
finest building in the Pale.” Three stories high and built around a large courtyard, it stood just inside the south wall of the town. Ned led his charges through the massive north gateway and straight up to the Great Chamber where Lord and Lady Lisle awaited them.

Botolph studied his new employers with cynical eyes before they went in. “They look like a king and queen giving an audience,” he observed.

Ned suppressed a smile. The priest was right. Surrounded by members of the household, the couple sat in matching Glastonbury chairs on a dais. All they lacked was a royal canopy over their heads.

Honor Lisle was resplendent in a crimson velvet gown and wore such an abundance of jewelry that she glittered in the sunbeams that fell on her through the oriel window. She was a small, plump woman in her midforties, more than thirty years younger than her husband.

Arthur, Lord Lisle, was less pretentiously dressed. The deep lines inscribed in his face and the stoop of his shoulders betrayed the weight of his responsibilities at Calais.

Ned glanced at the two portraits hung against the tapestry that covered the wall behind the chairs. One showed King Henry VIII. The other was of Henry’s grandfather King Edward IV. Only a blind man could miss the resemblance between the painted likenesses and the lord deputy of Calais. Although Lord Lisle’s hair was now losing its color, it had clearly once been the same burnished golden red shown in King Henry’s portrait. The similarities between Lisle and his father, King Edward, were even more remarkable. The taint of bastardy had done nothing to dilute the most distinctive royal features.

Lisle stood, revealing himself to be a head taller than most men—another inheritance from the Plantagenet line. “Welcome to Calais, gentlemen. Sir Gregory, you will be joining these gentlemen as my domestic chaplains.” He indicated two somberly clad individuals hovering behind his chair. “Sir Oliver and Sir Richard.”

Ned noted with mild amusement how warily old Sir Oliver behaved toward Botolph. Fearful he might lose his post as senior chaplain, no doubt.

Lord Lisle addressed Clement Philpott next, informing him that he would meet Mistress Philippa Bassett at supper. Apparently the rumor that Philpott was being considered as a husband for the oldest of Lady Lisle’s daughters was true.

Ned took a closer look at Philpott. The fellow was unremarkable in appearance. Brown eyes matched the brown hair in a long, thin face that was vaguely horselike.

“Be in my lady’s dining chamber in good time,” Lisle instructed. “Corbett will show you the way.”

He was about to dismiss them when Lady Lisle spoke up. “Have you brought letters?” Her voice was pleasant, well modulated and low pitched, but it carried easily to every corner of the chamber.

“We have, my lady.” Botolph motioned for Philpott to produce them. That gentleman’s fingers trembled as he handed them over to one of Lady Lisle’s waiting women to give to her mistress, making Ned wonder just what was contained in the latest missives from England.

Dismissed by Lord Lisle with orders to show the newcomers to the chamber they would share, Ned took them first on a tour of the residence.

“All the chief rooms are hung with fine tapestries,” Botolph noted with pleasure. For a priest, he seemed to have a deep appreciation of creature comforts.

“There are little chambers opening off my lord’s room and my lady’s dining chamber,” Ned said. “Two gentlewomen’s chambers and a maidens’ chamber and a chamber reserved for noble guests. At any given time there are about seventy persons living here. Fifty menservants, not including the chaplains and members of Lord Lisle’s personal retinue.”

“And the women?” Botolph asked.

“Two of Lady Lisle’s daughters live with their mother and stepfather, the eldest and the youngest, and also Lord Lisle’s daughter, Frances, who was recently married to Lady Lisle’s oldest son. Young Bassett is in England, studying law at Lincoln’s Inn. Lady Lisle also has several waiting gentlewomen, and a number of chamberers and laundresses.”

As was usual in most noble households, male servants far outnumbered the females.