The Boleyn Reckoning (28 page)

She was murmuring in his ear, he could feel her breath, teasing and arousing, igniting a storm in his blood. In a moment he would turn and pull her close, but for this moment he let the liquid flame of her nearness flow through him. A Christmas wedding, a long-anticipated wedding night …

William’s eyes snapped open and Minuette vanished into the ether from which she’d come. He breathed in the frigid air and looked unmoved on the thirteen heads protruding from spikes above him on Tower Bridge. The thirteen men arrested, hung from gauntlets and put to the rack, and at last executed for the treasonable murder of George Boleyn, Duke of Rochford.

Theirs were not the only heads: older ones, mostly dating to late September, relentlessly rotted above as well. Those were the men from the summer’s Norwich rebellion, including William’s own recalcitrant Bishop Thirlby. The bishop had defied the king in his trial and thrown himself on the mercy of salvation found in the Roman Catholic Church. “For God knows I strove for peace in this realm, but not at the expense of my own soul,” Thirlby had declaimed from the scaffold.

After a long, steady survey, William turned his horse and headed east to Greenwich where, as traditional, he kept his Christmas court. He went slowly, daring his subjects to take his measure—firm, resolved, and implacable. Let them see that there was no profit in treason. He was very aware of the Tower looming over all
and of Mary, locked behind its walls awaiting her own punishment. She was no longer in the comfort of the queen’s apartments but in a more spartan cell in Bloody Tower.

He spent the remainder of Christmas day in subdued celebration. Elizabeth was present, with Robert Dudley and several dozen others whom William did not so much as speak to. The hall felt at once too crowded and too empty.

Every chamber was too empty without Minuette.

The guests veered between hilarity and anxious watchfulness. He caught the darting glances, sliding away before anyone risked meeting his eyes, and felt a dark pleasure that he had them so unsettled. No doubt they were wondering what he would do next, and on whom his vengeance would fall. All of England and even Europe had been wondering that for months.

Dominic and Minuette were at Wynfield Mote, and there had been much speculation at court about Dominic’s choice. If he meant to defy the king, Wynfield offered no protection. Tiverton Castle was another matter. In his own castle, on his family lands, surrounded by men who would die for him merely because of his name … Tiverton was where Dominic should be. Instead, he had spent the last three months in an indefensible medieval manor, with none but farmers surrounding him.

There were those who thought Dominic had made a mistake. William was not among them. Dominic didn’t make mistakes like that. He was waiting for William, and whether it was some sort of trap or merely an unshakable assurance that the king would never harm him, the effect was the same. William waited for the perfect moment, and trusted that he would know what to do when the time arose.

After the quickly suppressed attempt to storm the Tower and free Mary, the Duke of Norfolk had fled to his own estates, no doubt spending the winter months gathering an army. There were
reports of French troops crossing to Scotland, ready to sweep across the border the moment the tinder of rebellion caught hold. It couldn’t be far off.

Jane Grey slipped noiselessly into the seat next to him. That was bolder than she usually was, but she was getting older and with Minuette’s defection her mother could practically taste the crown.

“Happy Christmas, Your Majesty.”

Happy Christmas, Will
.

He answered roughly. “Enjoying yourself?”

One could never tell with Jane. She appeared as perfectly composed as ever, her fair hair modestly restrained beneath a pearl-bordered hood and veil, thin hands folded across her court gown, a deep chestnut colour shot through with gold thread. She wore no jewels save an enameled cameo flower tied with a ribbon around her neck.

Jane hesitated before answering. “I would enjoy myself more if I could bring you repose.” She blushed when he looked at her in surprise, but her voice remained steady. “You have been ill-used, and I dislike seeing you suffer.”

With a harsh smile, he reminded her, “It could be to your benefit.”

In her quick blinking back of tears, William saw that he had hurt her. “As for myself, Your Majesty, I would be nowhere more content than in a peaceful retreat, devoting myself to my studies. I have no ambitions except, as your kinswoman, to wish you peace. And as your subject, I naturally wish you a long and successful reign in tearing down heresies and false doctrines.”

As she retreated with a dignity fit for a queen, William thought dismally that he would have to apologize. Perhaps he had misjudged. She seemed earnest enough in her kindness—it was not her fault that he saw deception behind every female face. Jane was not Minuette.

She would never be Minuette.

He rose abruptly, causing the musicians to halt and the chatter of his guests to die away. He ignored everyone equally as he left, from his sister to Lord Burghley keeping quiet watch in one corner of the hall. William didn’t care what they thought. Let Elizabeth thank them and soothe any ruffled tempers.

His scowl was apparently sufficient to warn off anyone from speaking to him. The gentlemen attending gave him a wide berth when he stalked into his public chambers. Through the presence and privy chambers, right on to the most secluded room in the palace. He shut the door in the face of the only attendant dim enough to try and follow, then flung himself onto the bed and stared blankly at the embroidered canopy high above.

And he asked himself the question he’d been asking since the moment Minuette had confessed.

Not How could she?

Not How could they?

How could
he?

More than any man he’d ever known—more even than Lord Rochford or his own father—William had trusted Dominic. Trusted his advice, his loyalty, his maddening habit of speaking truths William didn’t want to hear. Even now he still found himself instinctively looking for Dominic’s opinion. It was Dom he thought of first when anything delicate needed doing, and there had been nothing but delicate matters in the last three months.

And then would come anew the burning moment of realization: that it was Dominic who had betrayed him. Dominic who had married his Minuette and bedded her and got her with child, all the while listening to William pour out his own frustrated desire and anxious love. How often had Dominic gone from the king’s councils to Minuette’s bed? How many times had they come together while William slept alone? And what of tonight, this
almost-wedding night when she should have been coming to him, virgin-pure and trembling? Was she trembling in a traitor’s arms right now, her breath coming ever quicker, her eyes closed and back arched and lips parted …

With a sudden savage energy, William pushed himself off the bed and strode across the room. Throwing the door open, he commanded the nearest guard, “Find me a woman. Any woman. Just …” He considered for a moment. “I want her dark-haired. And eager.”

He slammed the door, wondering, not for the first time, if it was possible for the blackness of misery to kill.

Christmas week at Greenwich was charged with the underlying, unspoken tensions of Rochford’s assassination, the executions of the plotters, and the still-unresolved issue of Mary’s involvement. Not to mention the Duke of Norfolk’s conspicuous flight to his own strongholds and, as always, the continuing whispers about Dominic and Minuette. More about Dominic, really. Men might have a few moments to spare for lascivious discussion of how Minuette had managed to ensnare the king and Lord Exeter both, but it was Dominic’s abandonment they could not understand and turned over ceaselessly, metaphorically throwing up their hands at his folly.

Elizabeth wondered how many besides herself realized just how great a hole Dominic’s absence had created. He had always been so quiet that perhaps only the most perceptive recognized how that quietness had been a ballast to both her brother and his government. Lord Burghley felt it, at least. That was the topic under discussion three days after Christmas in Elizabeth’s chambers at Greenwich.

Present were herself, Lord Burghley, and Walsingham. Elizabeth felt slightly uneasy having a private discussion with her brother’s
Lord Chancellor, but she could not sit back and wait for William to jump in some unspecified direction without warning. If he would not discuss his plans with her, then she must take some matters into her own hands in order to protect England from his simmering need for vengeance.

“Has the privy council made any concessions to preparing for war?” she asked Burghley.

The chancellor’s usual equanimity had been strained these last months. He continued to be modest in his dress and manner, but grooves had been etched into the corners of his mouth—of concern or disapproval, it was hard to tell—and the occasional strand of gray could be seen in his light hair. “We cannot raise taxes now, not with Norfolk offering an outlet for any resentment. The best that can be hoped is that France and Spain will truly leave us be and not force us to face both an inner and an outer conflict at the same time.”

“What say your sources, Walsingham?” Elizabeth asked.

“The Spanish have not committed themselves to France as yet, but they continue to play and no doubt it’s a stronger alliance by far than any we offered. Word is France will wait for the sport of watching England tear herself apart. The real peril begins if Norfolk gains ground. If there is a decent chance of Catholics regaining power here, both France and Spain will want to commit money if not men to that cause. And Spain continues to hammer at us about the Lady Mary’s imprisonment in the Tower.”

“So,” Elizabeth mused aloud. “We must keep Norfolk hemmed in, while giving the discontented Catholics no reason to join him in revolt. And we must present a strong front from our government so that the Continent sees no chance of widening the gaps in our populace.”

“What does the king mean to do with Lady Mary?” Burghley pressed.

“Surely you’ve asked him as his Lord Chancellor.”

“The king is not inclined to discuss family matters with me.”

“As if Mary has ever been solely a family matter!” Elizabeth took to her feet to pace, both men rising courteously when she did. “I have asked William, as you have, what he means to do. He has said he will know what to do when the time is right. Which is the same answer he gives when I ask him what he means to do about the Duke of Exeter.” Elizabeth had only asked that latter question once. Her brother’s countenance had warned her off broaching the subject a second time.

“He would be wise to leave Exeter alone,” Walsingham counseled. Her intelligencer was always quick to offer reliable advice. Unlike Burghley, the dark-countenanced Walsingham appeared the same as he ever had. Perhaps because he always lived on the razor’s edge of paranoia. “My reading of Dominic Courtenay is that he will stay out of political and military maneuverings unless he is pushed into it. And the last thing we could endure is the West rising in concert with the North. If Norfolk persuades Exeter to command rebels from the West, the king’s armies will have an exceptionally difficult fight.”

Elizabeth stared him down coldly. “If you have a suggestion for how to speak to the king about a man nearly his brother who betrayed him in the most personal manner, please … offer it.”

Walsingham dipped his head, quick to recognize when he’d overstepped. “I apologize.”

“You are, however, right. William must separate England’s needs from his own wishes just now. Dominic is an unknown factor. My sister is most decidedly known. We must press on the matter of Mary so that we are not caught unprepared when William decides to act.” Elizabeth indicated the letter that lay on the table where she had left it after reading. The perfectness of Mary’s script only heightened the poison of its contents: a missive directed to the
Duke of Norfolk, congratulating him on the success of George Boleyn’s assassination and assurances that the Spanish had gold to spare for his troops.