The Boleyn King (2 page)

“No!” Alyce jerked away, her waist-length brown hair swirling. “Don’t tell anyone. Certainly not the princess. She is the very last person who would help me.”

“Elizabeth is my dearest friend, she would—”

“Princess Elizabeth is her mother’s daughter.” Alyce smiled fully this time, a bitter and twisted smile that broke Minuette’s heart. “The rising star and the setting sun … but both of them can burn.”

“Who is the father?” Minuette asked quietly. It was a question she had pondered often the last few weeks. One would think that, in the close quarters of the court, she would know whom Alyce had been dallying with. But her friend also knew how to keep secrets.

Alyce shook her head. “You are not meant for these sorts of games, Minuette. You are too trusting and too generous. Those qualities will hurt you one day—but not through any action of mine. Forget what you have guessed. I can take care of myself.”

She turned away with the grace of a sylph and vanished as suddenly as she’d come. Minuette sighed, knowing she would hold her tongue, as Alyce had asked. For now.

Dominic Courtenay fingered the necklace he had bought at the abbey fair in Shrewsbury: cabochon-cut sapphires and pearls to circle the neck, with a filigree star pendant. Neither exotic nor terribly expensive, but Minuette had little jewelry of her own and she delighted in impractical gifts.

He had just finished tying up the pendant in a square of fabric when William opened the door without knocking and shut it in the faces of those who followed him everywhere. He was dressed for sport, in a linen shirt and leather jerkin.

“Why is it,” William said accusingly, “that you are the only man in England who keeps me waiting?”

Dominic gave him a wry smile. “Because I’m the only man in England who still thinks of you as Will rather than as the king.”

William snorted and crossed the room. Picking up a sheet of heavy paper from the desk, he read a few words aloud. “ ‘Once there were four stars’ … you wrote down the star story for Minuette?”

Dominic pulled the letter away and said, “It’s not easy to share your birthday with a king, especially not one whose birth was attended by such signs as stars falling from the sky.”

“It’s a fair enough gift.”

“What did you get her?” Even as he asked, he wondered why it sounded like a challenge.

“It’s a surprise. And speaking of gifts …” William’s voice trailed off meaningfully.

Dominic shook his head. “I thought you were anxious for sparring practice.”

“Only to prove that my reach is longer than it was when you left—you might find it harder to disarm me.”

Dominic cast a measuring eye over the boy he had known since birth. It was true that he had gone some way to matching his father’s height. Still, Dominic was five years older and a natural swordsman. He didn’t think William was his equal yet; they would find out soon enough in a fair sparring bout.

Only once had Dominic made the mistake of going easy. When William was ten and had been king just six months, he and Dominic had spent the morning fighting with wooden practice swords. But William grew impatient with the clumsy replicas and demanded real swords. The swordmaster hesitated, but a nod from Lord Rochford, who was watching their practice, sent him scurrying off.

William caught the implied permission from the Lord Protector. He said nothing, but Dominic saw the set of his still-childish jaw as they were laced into the bulky, padded jerkins that would be some measure of protection against blunted steel.

For the first time ever, Dominic allowed himself to make mistakes as they sparred—nothing obvious, or so he thought. Just a misstep here and a delayed feint there, enough to give the younger boy the edge.

But he had miscalculated. Without warning, William threw his sword straight at Dominic’s head. Only a quick duck saved him from being hit squarely by the hilt. Too surprised to move further, Dominic stood silent as William marched up to him, the command in his voice making up for the fact that he was six inches shorter. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

“Do what?” Dominic asked.

William struck him once, hard on the cheek. “Don’t ever lower your guard. I will be the best because I’ve earned it. I don’t need you to hand me my victories.”

He turned and walked out of the practice arena. He had not raised his voice or lost control of his colour, but Dominic had felt the force of his anger whipping through the air.

If William’s skill had increased as much as his height, he might earn a victory today, and Dominic had just the weapon for him to use. He opened his trunk and removed a layer of neatly folded clothing—plain tunics and jerkins, as befitted a soldier in the field—to uncover the gift that lay beneath.

There was really no way to make a sword unrecognizable. With a grin of delight, William pulled it free from its scabbard and took a few enthusiastic swings before holding it horizontally in one hand to test the balance.

Dominic turned the sword so that William could see clearly the four star-shaped gems laid in the gold hilt. “Now there’s one place where the four of us are always together.”

William laughed. “You sound as though you’re dying. Or perhaps you’ve met an accommodating Welsh miss and wish to change allegiance?”

With a grin, Dominic shrugged off his sentimentality. “You’ll be the first to know.”

As she entered her mother’s outer chamber, Elizabeth straightened her shoulders, ensuring that the green and gold brocade of her dress did not ripple across the stomacher but flared perfectly from tiny waist to wide skirts. Elizabeth had heard her mother cut a lady to shreds with her tongue for an uneven hem or a slight stain, and she did not doubt that Anne would subject her own daughter to the same.

A dozen of her mother’s ladies were grouped in threes and fours around the ornate presence chamber. Several were working on a tapestry while others wrote letters or talked quietly amongst themselves. One lady, with a straight fall of rich brown hair, played lightly on a lute. As Elizabeth passed her, the young woman looked up and her fingers missed a chord.

She returned to playing almost at once, but not before giving Elizabeth a hostile glance. What was her name? One of the de Clares, she thought, but not from an important branch or Elizabeth would know her better. Almost she stopped to speak to the woman, but her mother was waiting.

Queen Anne sat in a gilded wooden chair placed next to a tall window, a Tyndale Bible open on her lap. As Elizabeth curtsied, she wondered how much longer her mother would be able to see the fine print of the books she loved so well. These days she could read only in brightest sunlight.

Rising with a seductive grace that was still the envy of every woman in England, her mother said, “Will you join me within, Elizabeth?” Despite the intonation, it was not a question.

She followed her mother to the door in the north wall that led to the intimate but no less elegant privy chamber. Only one lady of the privy chamber was inside—one who flung herself at Elizabeth in a most inelegant manner.

“Elizabeth!”

Minuette hugged Elizabeth with unrestrained delight while the queen, who would have frozen any other woman with a stare of ice for such behaviour, smiled upon the pair. Beneath her own delight, Elizabeth felt a brief spasm of pain. Minuette had always had charm—not the studied, showy type, but natural as breath and as much a part of her as her honey-coloured hair. Elizabeth could clearly remember her father visiting the schoolroom in the year before his death. She had spent an hour translating Latin and Greek for him, doing mathematics, and discussing theology. Though he’d complimented Elizabeth’s mind, it was nine-year-old Minuette who had disarmed him. When the formidable, enormous King Henry had left, it had been Minuette whom he’d hugged goodbye.

Elizabeth might have hated her for that charm, if Minuette weren’t so utterly without guile.

Queen Anne’s beautiful voice broke into Elizabeth’s memory. “I take it that you are both pleased.”

Beneath the words lay a hint of perplexity, as though she could not imagine why. Truthfully, Elizabeth would have been hard-pressed to name a single woman whom her mother considered a friend. She had always preferred men.

Feeling almost sorry for her mother, Elizabeth said, “I could not be more pleased. It is generous of you to allow her to return to my household.”

Her mother might like flattery, but she was never stupid. “Considering that you have been pressing the king for months, you cannot be surprised. She is a trifle young still—as are you, Elizabeth.”

“I will be twenty in September,” Elizabeth said mildly.

As if she hadn’t heard, her mother went on, “But your brother is determined to allow you an unusual measure of independence.”

It was Minuette, naturally, who had something complimentary to say. “And how could he do otherwise, with the example of his great father before him? Did not King Henry give you the right of
femme sole
over the objections of his council?”

Anne smiled slightly. “And I trust he never had cause to regret it. See to it, Elizabeth, that your brother never has cause to regret your independence.”

Elizabeth met her mother’s eyes, biting back the impulse to argue. Independent? She couldn’t even sell one of her farms without the council’s approval, let alone travel abroad or marry whom she liked.

With a steadiness to match her mother’s, Elizabeth said, “I will act in all ways as you would.”

And then came one of those rare and disconcerting flashes from her mother, as though she could read every shade of meaning in Elizabeth’s careful words. “That is what worries me.” Then Anne waved her hand at the girls. “You may go,” she said. “I will see you both this evening.”

Elizabeth drew a deep breath as they left her mother’s rooms, unsure if it was regret or relief that she felt. She looked at Minuette, walking beside her in a passable imitation of demure restraint, and said, “Do you think there will be any difference between being my friend and being my attendant?”

“Do you?” Minuette’s directness was disarmed by her smile. Without waiting for a reply, she tossed her head. “At least it means that I am finished with tutors and teaching. Now my duties will be considerably more to my taste.”

Elizabeth could not resist teasing. “Your duties will be at my discretion. Perhaps I will require you to translate a page of Greek each day.”

But Minuette knew her too well to take her seriously. “I am to translate people, not books—to discern who is making a bid for power, which diplomat should be seen and which snubbed, who amongst your ladies can be trusted in the privy chamber. And, perhaps, who is in the best position to claim you as a bride.”

“You think me incapable of seeing such things for myself?”

With a look of mingled amusement and scorn, Minuette said, “Of course not. Everyone knows you are far more clever and subtle than I am. I’ve no doubt you see things that go by most of the men at court. I am to be your foil. The lighthearted, merrymaking girl who is thought to be less discreet than her mistress.”

Elizabeth laughed from the heady sense of mischief that Minuette carried with her. “I think you and I will do very well together.”

William was annoyed to find his uncle and the Duke of Northumberland waiting for him when he returned from the morning’s exercise. He was sweating after two hours in the practice yard, but when he asked sharply, “Can’t this wait?” his uncle merely gave him a measuring look and answered, “If this were a courtesy call, Your Majesty … but we must discuss the French situation.”

He changed clothes rapidly, wincing at the bruise on his upper arm. Though he had forced Dominic to work hard, William had still been disarmed in the end by a spectacular and unexpected kick to his hand that had sent his wooden practice sword flying. Afterward he had made Dominic show him just how he’d done it, and then practiced the move himself for twenty minutes.

Dominic had always been sought after as a sparring partner, and he’d had plenty of competition this morning aside from William. After more than a year spent honing his skills against the Welsh, he had faced little serious competition from the men at court, some of whom were not as careful as they should have been. Giles Howard, Lord Norfolk’s youngest son, had suffered both a clout to the head and a slash to his doublet.

William rejoined his uncle and Northumberland in his privy chamber, where he once again picked up his sword. No matter what palace he stayed in, the privy chamber was always his favorite, because he could keep out the hordes that buzzed around in the more public rooms. While listening to his councilors discuss the latest proposed treaty with France, he paced the room, refighting the morning’s exercise and perfecting each move. It wouldn’t be long, he vowed, before he and Dominic were evenly matched.

Northumberland flinched when the sword came within a foot of him and, as was his custom, spoke bluntly. “Your Majesty, if you could stop roaming and pay attention … This is serious.”

William came to a dead stop and stared at him. “Do you imagine I can do only one thing at a time?”

Rochford intervened with a touch of amusement. “Lord Northumberland imagines that he can persuade you out of this treaty, or at least the provision for your sister’s marriage.”

William had been expecting this from the staunchly Protestant Northumberland, and his reply came easily. “King Henri and I meet in Calais in September. I support France against the Hapsburgs in exchange for a thousand pounds in gold and French support of England against Spain. This to be sealed by the betrothal of my sister, Elizabeth, to Henri’s brother, Charles.”