Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (79 page)

“To whom do you refer, my dear?” The king did not seem to know what she was talking about. Had he truly forgotten that he’d imprisoned most of her family?

“To my oldest sister, Philippa Bassett, and to the youngest, Mary
Bassett. They have been the … guests of two citizens of Calais for some time now. If Your Grace would permit them to return to England, they might live at Tehidy in Cornwall, one of the properties my brother John Bassett inherited from our late father.” She took care not to mention Lord Lisle’s name, or to remind the king that Mary was the one who had illegally betrothed herself to a minor French nobleman.

Peering through her lashes, Nan could not read the king’s expression. Was that a frown of displeasure? Or merely the result of intense concentration? Her stomach twisted into knots as she waited for him to speak. She did not dare say more for fear of irritating him.

“Hmmm,” King Henry said at last. “I suppose there is no harm in it, so long as they both rusticate in the country upon their return.”

“You are most generous, Your Grace.” She deepened her obeisance, nearly touching her head to the floor.

He lifted her up, beaming at her, and signaled for Anthony Denny to approach. “Denny, remind me on the morrow to order the release of Mistress Philippa Bassett and Mistress Mary Bassett. They are to be conveyed from Calais to Cornwall at my expense.”

“As you wish, Your Grace,” Denny said, bowing low.

Well pleased with his own generosity, King Henry returned to his queen’s side. She’d noticed his absence and did not look happy to see him in such close proximity to Nan.

When Denny started to follow the king, Nan caught his arm. “Will His Grace keep his word?”

Denny winked at her. “If I have everything ready for his signature and seal, he will not even read what he’s signing. He’s that anxious to dispense with routine business and return to enjoying the company of his bride.”

The Deputy of Calais, my Lord Lisle, hath not been led to judgment; and it is said that he shall be kept prisoner in the Tower for his life, where he is somewhat more at large than formerly he was. And in truth, Sire, certain noblemen of this Court have said to me that on several occasions they have heard the King their master say that the said Lord Deputy hath erred more through simplicity and ignorance than by malice.

—Charles de Marillac, French ambassador to England, to the king of France, 18 July 1541

15

Ned Corbett started his search for Sir Gregory Botolph in Louvain, then moved on through the Low Countries until at last he located his quarry in a nondescript tavern in an obscure Flemish town.

“So, Botolph,” Ned said to him, “we meet again.”

With extreme caution, Botolph reached up, took the point of Ned’s knife between his fingertips, and eased it away from his own neck. Ned sheathed the weapon and slid onto the bench opposite Botolph’s stool. All around them he heard the fragments of conversation and the bursts of laughter typical of a dark, noisy tavern. This one was much like the
places Ned had frequented in London and Calais, but here the language being spoken was not English.

“My man, Browne, is right behind you, Botolph, should you decide to flee.”

“Where would I go, Ned? Indeed, I am glad to see a friendly face in this godforsaken place.”

“I’ve no desire to be your friend and every inclination to spill your blood for what you did to me and to Philpott and to the others.”

“What I did?” With exaggerated calm, he took a swallow of beer, watching Ned over the rim of the tankard. “I did not coerce anyone. I used no force or violence. Clement Philpott brought disaster down upon his own head by betraying all he believed in.” He sipped again and grinned, unrepentant. “Indeed, if all had gone according to plan, my
friend,
you’d have been the one to cry foul treason to Lord Lisle.”

After following Botolph’s trail for six months, Ned was not inclined to rush the other man’s explanation. He signaled to the tavern keeper for a beer of his own and one for Browne and motioned for his servant to take a seat on the other side of Botolph.

“I want the true story,” he said when he’d downed enough of the dark, frothy brew to take the edge off his thirst. “All of it. Your mad scheme cost good men their lives and forced others into exile.”

Botolph shrugged. “I am not the villain here, but the man responsible is beyond your reach.”

“Who?”

“Thomas Cromwell.”

“Cromwell’s dead.”

“Precisely.”

Ned’s initial reaction was disbelief. He already knew Botolph was a practiced liar. But something about the fellow’s demeanor made him think that, unlikely as it seemed, he might be telling the truth. “Start at the beginning.”

“I stole some plate when I was a canon. In hindsight, a grave
miscalculation, but I needed money. Lord Cromwell found out about it and summoned me to his house in London. We met in secret in the dead of night and he made me a proposition I was unable to refuse. My freedom and my reputation for helping him bring about Lord Lisle’s fall from grace.”

“He wanted to fill Lisle’s position in Calais with his own man.” That much had been obvious for years.

“Not only remove the lord deputy, but make it seem as if he had betrayed the king, betrayed England. Cromwell wanted him imprisoned, at least for a time.” Botolph grinned. “Cromwell intended to tell the king the whole story, admitting he’d entrapped Lisle to prove how unfit the fellow was for his post. Then he’d have interceded for Lisle with the king, persuading His Grace that Lisle was merely incompetent for allowing treason to prosper, not a traitor. Lisle would have been freed and restored to his title and honors, but he’d never again have been given any responsibility. And I’d have been pardoned.”

“And Philpott? He’s dead, Botolph. Hanged, drawn, and quartered. As I would be had I not been helped to escape.”

Botolph shrugged. “I warrant Philpott would still have been executed one day, for heresy if not for treason.”

Ned’s fingers itched to throttle Botolph. His former friend showed neither guilt nor remorse. “You could have come forward. Saved him. Saved us all.”

“From what? Your own stupidity? Those who were arrested
did
conspire to commit treason, no matter if it was a real plot or not. Besides, once Cromwell was arrested, who would have believed me? His execution ruined everything.” He drank deeply.

“You knew your friends would suffer for believing in the scheme. Left to his own devices, Philpott would never have plotted treason.”

“It was
all
Cromwell’s plan,” Botolph repeated.

“Even your meeting with Cardinal Pole and the pope?”

Botolph laughed. “I never went to Rome, Ned. Why should I?”

“For the gold?” Ned drained his tankard and signaled for another.
Was this possible? Was
everything
Botolph had told them an invention?

“That, too, was supplied by Lord Cromwell. I did as I was told and I received my reward. Two hundred gold crowns. Enough to help me elude pursuit. There was to have been more but, as matters turned out, that will not be forthcoming.”

“Two hundred crowns is the rough equivalent of fifty pounds.” John Browne spoke for the first time, his voice a harsh monotone. “A man can live comfortably on a tenth of that per annum. Monks pensioned off when their monasteries closed are managing on far less.”

Botolph drank again and stared at the dregs. “I was never a monk. I never wanted to be a priest, either, but I was the fourth son. What else was there for me? And then I fell into Cromwell’s clutches.”

“You could go back,” Ned suggested, unmoved by Botolph’s whining. “Perhaps the king will reward you for your honesty. Lord Lisle surely will, since it will mean his freedom.”

Botolph started to laugh. “What kind of fool do you take me for? I may not be able to live in luxury, but I still have my head.”

For a moment, a red haze distorted Ned’s vision. His hands curled around the ceramic tankard and squeezed as the urge to kill Botolph grew stronger, all but overcoming his common sense. He wanted to shift his grip to the other man’s throat and snap his lying neck.

The tankard cracked with a sharp, splintering sound. Ned stared at his beer-soaked fingers, at the growing puddle on the table. Slowly, he shoved himself away from the table.

When he had control of himself again, the mess had been cleared away, and he had a fresh tankard of beer—pewter this time—he looked Botolph in the eye. “If you will not voluntarily go back to England to face the king’s justice, then Browne and I will take you there, bound and gagged, if necessary.”

“You’d forfeit your own freedom for revenge? I do not think so. You cannot return home any more than I can.”

“Gregory Sweet-lips” still possessed the silver tongue that had led so many men astray. Within a quarter of an hour, he’d convinced Ned that,
with Cromwell dead, there was no one left who would believe the true story.

“Then give me one good reason not to kill you here and now,” Ned said.

“Only one? I can give you a hundred. And I can make it worth your while to go away. Cromwell paid me two hundred crowns. Half of that is yours to forget you ever found me.”

“While you stay here, living under a new name, enjoying your new life?” He would disappear again, to lead other men into trouble, or perhaps to rob another church of its plate. Ned considered the situation while he finished his beer. The decision to take all a man’s money, along with his life, was not one that could be made lightly.

I
N EARLY
F
EBRUARY
, the king went to London, leaving his bride behind at Hampton Court. It was the first time they had been separated for any length of time since their marriage, but King Henry had been growing ever more unpredictable. Nan did not think he’d tired of his young bride, but perhaps he needed a respite from her company.

Queen Catherine scarcely seemed to miss him. She occupied herself as she always did, with dice and cards and dancing and a steady stream of entertainers to provide distraction.

The gentlemen the king left behind flocked to Her Grace’s presence chamber like moths to flame. Will Parr was there to be with Dorothy Bray. Sir Edmund Knyvett came sniffing around Nan. Tom Culpepper was among Nan’s admirers, as well, but his heart wasn’t in it.

A frown knit Nan’s brows as she watched Culpepper watch Catherine Howard. His open admiration filled Nan with concern for his safety, but that was nothing to what she felt when she saw the amorous look in Her Grace’s eyes. How fortunate that a queen was never truly alone! With so many witnesses surrounding her, she could not do more than lust in her heart for a virile young man.

As Nan continued to watch, Queen Catherine turned her back on Tom Culpepper. Nan told herself she’d imagined Her Grace’s prurient
interest. Since it was never safe to speculate about such things, she put the incident out of her mind, but her uneasiness returned a few days later when the queen suddenly dispensed with the services of her maids of honor, sending them away for the rest of the afternoon.

“Go and enjoy yourselves,” she ordered. “Lady Rochford is all the company I need while I rest.”

“How she can stand that prune-faced Lady Rochford, I do not know,” Dorothy Bray said as she and Nan and Lucy Somerset made their way to the tennis court. Will Parr was to play in one of the matches that afternoon.

“She likes the way Lady Rochford abases herself,” Lucy replied. “She’s so willing to please that she’ll do anything the queen asks of her.”

“We all serve the queen,” Dorothy said primly. “If she wants us on our knees to hand her an apple, we go down on our knees.”

“But Lady Rochford would gladly crawl,” Nan said. There was something not quite right about the older woman. Her face customarily wore a look of quiet desperation and her eyes were always darting this way and that, as if she expected someone to jump out at her from behind an arras.

When they entered the enclosed tennis court, Nan anticipated hearing the crack of tennis balls against racket and floor and wall. The sound of a scuffle reached her ears instead. A man grunted. Another swore. The three maids of honor came out into the gallery in time to see several courtiers pull Sir Edmund Knyvett away from another gentleman. The second combatant swabbed his freely bleeding nose.

A sudden terrible silence fell over the entire company. Nan lifted her hand to her mouth to hold back a sound of distress. To strike another person, especially to draw blood, was an offense against the king when it occurred at court. This was far more serious than a simple brawl.

Will Parr came up to them, a stricken look in his hazel eyes. He was a tall, well-built gentleman with a long face and wore both hair and beard close cropped. Like his sisters, Anne Herbert and Kathryn Latimer,
his normal disposition was cheerful, but at the moment he showed no sign of lightheartedness. “You’d best leave, my love,” he told Dorothy. “They’ll come to arrest him now. There will be no more tennis this afternoon.”

“What will happen to him?” Nan whispered. She had refused Sir Edmund’s offer to make her his mistress, but she bore him no ill will for suggesting that role for her. In fact, she was grateful to him for opening her eyes to her altered status at court.

“Knyvett must forfeit the hand he used to strike the blow.”

Parr’s blunt words made Nan’s stomach roil. “Is there no remedy?”

He shrugged. “The king can pardon him, but I do not think he will. His Grace’s leg has been causing him a great deal of pain these last few days. He is not in charity with anyone but the queen.”

Queen Catherine, Nan remembered, was Sir Edmund’s kinswoman. She could intervene. More times than she could count, Nan had seen Catherine tease and cajole her husband out of the foulest of tempers. His Grace was as besotted with her as he had been before they were wed. All the queen had to do was smile in order to twist him around her little finger. Picking up her skirts, Nan hurried back to the queen’s apartments, but Lady Rochford barred her way.

“Her Grace is resting!” she said in a voice loud enough to wake anyone on the other side of the bedchamber door.