The Boleyn Reckoning (22 page)

“Moving fast.” The man spat on the deck of his ship. “And out of their own waters. Toward France.”

“Take me out,” Dominic decided. If William decided to leave Dover today, he could catch up with them later. “I want to see these ships for myself.”

He took Harrington with him, leaving word for the king that there was an anomaly at sea he wished to see for himself.

They set sail from Dover in the brigantine that had brought word, the low, swift ship easy to maneuver and much used in piracy and espionage. Dominic’s nerves were unsettled and his body tensed up the longer they were at sea. He was accustomed to the bigger, more comfortable ships that carried ladies of the court between England and France and he was not a natural sailor. But it was his imagination that fueled his unease, for he could think of multiple reasons for Spain to be sailing toward France, and not one of them was good.

They headed south where the brigantine had last sighted the Spanish, sailing well into the night and picking up again at dawn. Before the sun had been up for long, there was a smudge of ships on the horizon. The captain passed the sea glass to Dominic and assured him that the vessels were Spanish. They were not the elegant royal ships that had brought King Philip and his party to England, but warships. Sitting well off the French coast and motionless. A warning. Or a blockade.

“You know what’s behind them,” the captain said.

“Le Havre.”

The captain nodded. “They’re not deployed to fight, more to keep away any English ships that might care to fight.”

“To keep us from reaching our newest French cities?” Dominic didn’t need to ask, and the captain didn’t bother to answer.

Dominic took a last look through the sea glass, foreboding strung tightly through his body. If Spain was attempting to keep the English out of Le Havre, it argued either an attack of its own against English interests or an agreement with the French.

And if Spain and France were working together …

“Get me back to Dover,” he ordered.

Dominic’s messenger brought word of the Spanish fleet’s appearance off the French coast just half a day before the French ambassador himself, Antoine de Noailles, delivered a formal announcement to William and the privy council. The day after reaching Whitehall, William sat in the circular council chamber surrounded by men as grim faced as he was. Dominic was still on the road from Dover, no doubt riding hard for London, but everyone else was there: canny Lord Burghley, bitter and seasoned veterans like Sussex and Oxford, and the young men. Of the latter, William kept a careful watch on the Duke of Norfolk.

De Noailles bore himself gravely, as befit a man nearing the end of his career. He’d served his first diplomatic mission years before Anne Boleyn’s marriage to Henry VIII and gave the impression of having seen it all and not being impressed by much of anything. He did not openly flaunt France’s success (for no doubt he did not wish to see the inside of an English prison) but managed to assert it as a natural consequence of William’s actions without overtly blaming the English king.

“We regret the loss of friendship between us, Your Majesty. But
as England seems determined to break with us, we have had no choice but to look to our own security,” the ambassador said.

William did not trust himself to speak, though he felt the ripples of discontent and dismay among the councilors attending him. Lord Burghley, ever calm in the face of disaster, spoke for the English. “Unlike France, we have offered no violence beyond our own borders.”

“We would like to ensure it remains that way.”

“A strange way to seek peace, by provoking retaliation.”

De Noailles spoke straight to William, his direct gaze an arrogant contrast to his measured language. “Your options for retaliation are somewhat sparse just now, for we have not only retaken Le Havre and Harfleur.”

William hated being forced to speak, but de Noailles knew how to wait. Rather like Dominic—or Rochford. William would have given much to have either of them at his side just now. Since he did not, he asked the question he’d been diplomatically maneuvered into asking. “What else have you taken from us?”

The two syllables pierced William like a dagger, though he’d known it was the only answer. “Calais.”

Calais: the last remnant of England’s empire. Seized two hundred years ago by Edward III, possessed and retained through the plague and the Wars of the Roses and even Joan of Arc.

“Elaborate,” William said, jaw so tight he thought he might have cracked a tooth, “on the presence of Spanish ships off the French coast.”

“King Henri has proposed a treaty of peace with King Philip. They will meet in four weeks’ time to discuss terms, including the betrothal of Princess Elisabeth de France to the Spanish king. As a gesture of goodwill, we assure you that neither party has an interest in pursuing further aggression. For now.”

Well, William had wanted out of the French marriage. This
wasn’t quite how he’d envisioned it, however. Philip was meant to marry the English Elizabeth and provide the Continental security that England needed.

With a flick of his finger, William directed the Earl of Pembroke. “Take Monsieur de Noailles into custody. Not the Tower”—not yet—“but he is not to leave Whitehall without our express permission. No visitors. No correspondence.”

The ambassador seemed unaffected; no doubt he’d been expecting as much. He knew he was more or less untouchable unless William was prepared to turn the combined might of France and Spain against him at once.

When de Noailles had been escorted out, the council burst into a buzz of outrage and concern and plans. The immediate impression was of the younger men itching to fight and the older men urging caution. But William knew how to look beneath surfaces and it did not escape him that the Duke of Norfolk—youngest man in the room save himself—said nothing at all. “Enough!” William finally thundered. “What is the point in twittering about what is lost? All that matters now is what we do next.”

“Can we trust that France and Spain are not even now planning a joint invasion?” asked the Duke of Norfolk in measured tones.

“I think so,” William said bitterly. “If only because they consider us beneath them. They expect to overawe us with their combined might, like little children made to wait in the corner until the adults are finished with business. So we will go about our own business. What we need is a distraction.”

“Such as?” Lord Burghley demanded.

“It’s past time Lady Rochford answered formally for her crimes. Her trial will begin in three days. Send word to my uncle that his presence in London is required.” William stood and stared down his furious and, yes, frightened councilors. “For today, I will pay a
visit to my sister Mary. I would like to break the news of Spain’s betrayal myself.”

And see if she is surprised, he thought grimly. Or if this might not be exactly what Mary, in her twisted sense of duty and righteousness, wanted to happen. And before he left Whitehall, he had a word with Burghley and ensured the Duke of Norfolk would be well watched for now.

William rode to the Tower through the city of London, paying no attention to the cheers and shouts of his citizens. He’d been cheered since he was born; it was nothing new. He would notice only when they stopped cheering.

As he and his guards rode in through the Middle Gate and were met by a visibly astonished constable, William tried to remember the last time he’d been to the Tower of London. Could it really be that he had not been here since the night before his coronation? He remembered that night vividly, lodging with his mother and uncle in the temporarily lavish suite of rooms in Wakefield Tower. At the age of ten, he had not appreciated the fact that Henry VI had been murdered in that very suite while at prayer. That last night before William was officially crowned and anointed, he had mostly been interested in Dominic’s sword, for his friend at fifteen had been a knight already and infinitely more impressive to a boy than the robed clergy and councilors who’d surrounded him in those days.

He brought himself forcibly back to the present moment. “I’m here to see the Lady Mary,” he snapped to the constable, cutting off the man’s nervous flow of words. It was almost a pleasure how quickly silence fell, and he stalked along the uneven cobbles at a rapid pace, forcing the others to keep up.

Why make them pay the price of your anger at the French?
The disapproving voice was, as always, Dominic’s.

Because I can
. It wasn’t as satisfying as saying it to Dom’s face, but it would have to suffice for now.

The path to Mary led them down the cobbles of Water Lane, with the Thames lapping grimly against the steps of the waterside gate. Above that stone river entry was St. Thomas’s Tower, the gothic chambers constructed by Edward I for his personal use. An arching, crenullated passageway stretched across Water Lane, connecting St. Thomas’s Tower to Wakefield with its circular stone walls and rectangular paired windows. Then beneath the heavy square of Bloody Tower that controlled access to the Inner Ward of the complex, William turned right, crossing before the serene bulk of the Conqueror’s White Tower to the royal apartments.

As a show of deference to her position, Mary was housed in the queen’s chambers where Anne Boleyn had stayed before her own coronation, and on the surface she had all the elegance and luxury she could demand. But Henry’s children were skilled at looking beneath the surfaces, acutely touchy about their position and due deference, and no doubt she thought it an insult to share space with a dead woman’s hated memory.

William read his sister’s discontent as clearly as if she had shouted it rather than curtseying deeply. “Your Majesty,” she said, in that perfectly English voice that still managed to have a hint of foreignness to it. As though she had imbibed her mother’s accent along with her defiant spirit.

“You may sit,” William said abruptly. Mary narrowed her eyes at his tone but complied placidly. William remained standing, too much anger pent up to confine himself to a chair.

Instead, he took a slow turn around the square room, the walls softened and warmed with tapestries. He studied the mementos Mary had brought with her and recognized many of the religious items; crucifixes abounded, along with devotional reliquaries and books by Cardinal Fisher and Thomas More.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked, back turned discourteously on his sister.

“Because you do not trust me.”

It was a surprisingly blunt and perceptive answer. William turned to her with appreciation. “Usually this is where you blame my evil councilors.”

She met his gaze without flinching. “You are king. If you trusted me, then no amount of wicked counsel could turn your heart from me. It grieves me to admit that, for I have never been anything but a loving sister and a loyal subject.”

“Clearly our definitions of loyalty differ greatly. If I do not trust you, it is because you have given me cause.”

“Honouring God and the Holy Church does not lessen my loyalty to you personally.”

“It does when that honour compels you to support armed rebellion. Those men in the North were not rabble, Mary. They were organized and armed … and they called you queen.”

“I cannot help what people say.”

“But you can help what they do, especially when it comes to Spain. Someone funded those men, someone outside England.”

“How could it be Spain when Philip is preparing even now to marry Elizabeth?”

William could not mistake the edge of jealousy in Mary’s voice. Any marriage of Elizabeth’s must pain her, being so forcibly kept single until now she could no longer hope for marriage or children. But the thought of Elizabeth marrying the King of Spain, the beloved homeland of Mary’s mother, must be particularly bitter. Not that she would have to worry about that now.

“Spain has decided they would rather have France. Spanish ships have aided French armies in taking Calais.”

His sister’s face blanched. “What can you mean?”

“Calais is lost.”

It was like gall and wormwood to admit it aloud. The last reminder of England’s brilliant victories in generations past, stolen away. He saw his own bitterness mirrored in Mary’s eyes as she whispered, “How father would weep.”

William’s melancholy cleared. “Not weep,” he said sternly. “Father would rage. And he would have vengeance. I am not foolish enough to rush to an unequal war, but I will not forget. And I will not forgive—either France or Spain.”

He approached the chair, looming over her so she was forced to look up at him awkwardly. This close, he could see the lines around her eyes and the sag of her once sharp jawline. “I offer you fair warning, sister. You are already implicated in encouraging Spain to arm the Norwich rebels. I know well that, even from the Tower, plots can be laid. If you ever want to return to Beaulieu and freedom, you will keep clear of even the appearance of evil. Do not mistake my sibling care for political carelessness. I will be watching you. Don’t make me do something we will both regret.”

T
HE TRIAL OF
Jane Parker Boleyn, Duchess of Rochford, for treason and attempted murder, was held on the last day of August, amidst a sweltering heat that seemed to capture all the uneasiness and tension of a populace bitterly unhappy at having lost Calais. Dominic felt the heavy air as a tangible thing, pressing down on him so that he could hardly breathe. As a duchess and aunt of the king, Jane’s trial took place at Westminster Hall. Dominic took his place on the bench, thinking wearily that he had seen too much of this chamber this year. He could almost see the figure of Northumberland before them, penitent and surprised at his sentence just months ago.