The Queen's Lady (16 page)

8

H
onor’s pen scratched over a sheet of parchment on the desk in Queen Catherine’s suite at Bridewell palace. It was almost ten, and the Queen had been dictating letters to her for two hours. There was a pause in the stream of Latin dictation, and Honor glanced at the rain-streaked window beside the desk. If the Queen does not release me soon, she thought, I’ll be too late to warn Sydenham. She had decided, after leaving Chelsea, that sending the merchant a message that could be traced back to her would be too dangerous. She must go herself. But the Queen had kept her all day by her side, first sorting a new shipment of books, then sewing and reading to keep her company, and finally dictating letters. There had been no chance to get away.

She watched the torch flames in the courtyard below as they buckled in the wind-swept rain. Beyond, the gray river heaved. She was under no illusions; it was a hazardous business she was about to undertake. She had discovered that Humphrey Sydenham lived on Coleman Street, but nothing more about him. But she knew, as everyone knew, that cornered heretics could be dangerous men. Many were criminals, outcasts: militant Lutherans, seditious Lollards, hysterical Anabaptists. And the thought of Bastwick finding her among them in the raid . . .

Should she wash her hands of this affair? Was it madness to risk herself? For outlaws?

She glanced at the low fire burning blue in the hearth. She recalled her vow, and instantly Ralph’s face wavered in the flames. No, she thought, if there is even one innocent like Ralph at the meeting, I must go. To forsake this duty would be like forsaking Ralph himself.

The Queen’s voice brought her back to her writing. The letter was to the Queen’s nephew, the Emperor Charles.

“Therefore Charles, for the Pope to annul my marriage and undo what his predecessor has done . . .”

The Queen was pacing. As she moved from the fire to the window, then back to the fire again, she reminded Honor of the small wildcat, an ocelot, that Sir Thomas kept in his menagerie behind the house. The pacing, controlled yet urgent, was the same, and the eyes of the caged cat were glazed with the same desperation that she saw these days in the Queen’s eyes.

“. . . would bring grave discredit to the Apostolic See which should stand firmly on the rock which is Christ. Were the Pope to waver now . . .”

Catherine stopped. “Do your blisters cause you pain, sweetheart?”

Honor looked up hopefully. Should she jump at this chance to be dismissed? But the fatigue on the Queen’s face checked her. The lady’s situation was so pitiful.

“I am sorry to keep you, my dear,” Catherine said warmly. “But the letter simply must go tonight. You understand.”

“Of course, my lady,” Honor answered. At least she would not have to deliver the letter; the Queen’s physician, Dr. Vittoria, had become the new courier to Mendoza. “Please don’t worry on my account,” Honor added. “My hands are quite recovered. And it is always my pleasure to assist Your Grace.” She reminded herself that the Queen had promised this would be the last letter tonight.

The Queen smiled her gratitude and resumed the dictation.

“Were the Pope to waver now, he might lead many into thinking that right and justice are not with him.”

The words were unequivocal, and Honor looked up with a surge of awe for her mistress, a woman so unimpressive in voice and appearance, yet so firm in resolve.

“Now,” the Queen mused aloud, “how to explain to Charles that Wolsey connives with France?”

Honor winced at the Queen’s self-deception. The whole world knew that the reason behind the King’s fever for a divorce was Anne Boleyn. But it was like Catherine to consider ranting about such a thing as beneath a Queen’s dignity. In any case, it was clear she had convinced herself that it was Cardinal Wolsey’s evil council—his desire to switch England’s long allegiance with the Emperor in favor of one with France—which had corrupted the King.

“Well, leave that point for now,” Catherine decided with a sigh. “There is even more distressing information I must send to Charles. The arrival of Cardinal Campeggio.”

“His arrival, my lady?” Honor asked, surprised.

“Any day now.”

“But last night you said the Pope’s sending him was only a possibility.”

“All that has changed, my dear. Though Wolsey would keep me in the dark, Ambassador Mendoza managed to get a message to me this morning. Cardinal Campeggio has left Rome. He is in France, awaiting only a fair wind to bring him over the Channel.”

“Oh, my lady!” Honor said in sympathy. “And has the Pope empowered him as a papal legate?”

Catherine nodded grimly. “Yes. But with what precise commission, I know not. That is Campeggio’s secret, and the Pope’s.”

“Do you mean it’s possible, as you feared, that his mission is to judge the case here in England?”

“If so, it is a bitter blow for me. His Holiness has repeatedly assured both Mendoza and myself that the case, if it should come to trial, will be heard only in Rome. I tremble at Campeggio’s coming. He holds a wealthy English bishopric. He is in Wolsey’s camp.”

Honor saw the danger. “And Wolsey is also a papal legate.”

“Exactly. What justice could I hope for in an English court with these two as my judges?”

Honor noticed that the Queen was nervously fingering the rosary that hung at her waist. It was an exquisite work of ivory and turquoise, a gift the King had given her as solace after her final miscarried pregnancy ten years ago. She cherished it.

Together, they composed the warning to the Emperor about Cardinal Campeggio’s arrival. Then Catherine closed with:

“Lastly, dear Charles, let me entreat your guidance. I am but a weak woman, ignorant and untrained in canon law. If, God forbid, this should come to trial in England, what is your advice? Should I present a defense, or might doing so jeopardize my claim that Rome, and Rome alone, has authority to judge?”

Honor looked up, eyes wide. “An ignorant woman? Untrained? My lady, you are more knowledgeable in matters of the law—of both church and state—than many who sit on the King’s council.”

Catherine stared out at the rain. Her fingertips drew small circles at her temples. “I fear that knowledge will count for little in this battle of wills, sweetheart,” she sighed. She came to the desk to sign the letter. “But Charles is a chivalrous young man. The honor of his family weighs heavily with him. A plea from his helpless aunt may do more to rouse him to stiffen the Pope’s back than all the law books I could throw at his head.”

As Honor watched the small, plump hand write “Katerina,” her heart beat faster, for her work here was finished. She could leave for Sydenham’s. “Still,” she said as she sprinkled sand on the wet ink and tried to conceal her uneasy excitement, “Your Grace seems an unlikely candidate for the role of the helpless female. Your Spanish ladies have told me that in the dark days after Prince Arthur’s death they marveled at your strength and ingenuity. What courage you showed, marching before the late King Henry to ask for wages for your maids.”

Honor had heard all the old stories. Widowed at sixteen after a few months of marriage to the sickly teenage heir to the English throne, Catherine had become a diplomatic hostage to the slippery alliance between England and Spain. It was an alliance marked by the stinginess of the monarchs. King Henry VII, her father-in-law, had cut off her allowance while her parents, Ferdinand and Isabella, had insisted she was England’s responsibility. For almost seven years she had waited in cold apartments beside the foggy Thames, fending off creditors, while her proud but threadbare Spanish entourage became the butt of English courtiers’ jokes. Then, suddenly, everything had changed. King Henry had died. His handsome, eighteen-year-old son had mounted the throne as Henry the Eighth and, to make restitution to the shabbily treated Spanish princess, he had married her himself.

“You endured great hardship in those days, my lady,” Honor said, “yet you triumphed. I do not doubt you will triumph again.”

From the hearth, Catherine’s sigh was private and intense. “To cross my lord is a triumph I have never sought.”

She lifted her chin abruptly as if to banish self-pity. “Still, in the fight, knowledge and learning may be worth something after all, my dear, and I mean to defend myself with every weapon at hand.” She marched toward the jumble of legal books on the desk and fingered their spines for the one she sought. She gave Honor a clear-eyed smile. “I have witnessed too many miracles to despair of victory in this particular battle.”

Honor was intrigued. “Miracles, my lady?”

“When I was six, I saw the walls of Granada, held by the infidel for five hundred years, fall to my mother’s modern guns and be reclaimed to Christ. When I was seven I saw the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Columbus, return to Barcelona after finding a new world.” She laughed lightly. “We watched this ragged Italian adventurer parade through the streets leading a string of wild men, naked except for their paint and feathers and golden ornaments. Now, if heathen Granada can be brought to Christ, and new worlds be found, then surely I can triumph over one conniving Cardinal!”

Honor’s smile was full of pride. May I find such resolve to do what I must tonight, she thought. She could leave it no longer. She stood. “Shall I take the letter to Dr. Vittoria as usual, my lady?”

“Yes. The Cardinal’s web around me still holds fast.”

The door creaked open. Both women turned startled faces. Margery crept in wringing her hands. “Pardon, Your Grace,” she said. “My lord Ambassador . . .”

The Spaniard stalked past her. Dripping wet, he bowed to the Queen. Honor had to smile, seeing this impeccable gentleman standing in a small pool of water.

“Thank you, Margery,” Catherine said, her voice charged with surprise and pleasure at the sight of Mendoza. “Now, off to bed.”

Margery cast Honor a worried glance, then bobbed a curtsy and hurried out. Honor was about to make her own curtsy, thinking that the Queen’s dismissal to Margery included her as well. But Mendoza, having peeled off his sodden cloak and hat, thrust them at her. She draped them on a high-backed chair, then was ready to go. Mendoza smoothed back his ruffled, silver hair with great dignity and eyed the decanter on the sideboard.

“A glass of wine, Don Inigo?” Catherine asked.

Frustrated though she was at more delay, Honor knew her duty. She crossed the room, poured wine, and brought it to Mendoza. He gulped it with uncharacteristic haste. “Madam,” he said, answering the question in Catherine’s eyes, “the Cardinal is ill. Some are whispering it is the deadly sweating sickness. He has hastened away from London’s diseased air, to Hampton Court. His household is riddled with the sickness, and his staff is in a chaos of confusion. It offered an opportunity—which I judged worth the risk—to try, one more time, to come to you.”

“I pray the Cardinal is not in mortal danger,” Catherine said with a sincerity, Honor understood, that would astonish anyone who did not know her deeply pious character. “God keep him.”

Mendoza grunted. “I am not sure my own Christian charity should be tested to stretch as far as Wolsey’s obese body. But I hear he has weathered the worst and is busy in his bed, sifting the rush of requests for dead men’s lands. Still,”—he jerked his head toward the door—“I dare not stay long lest I imperil you.” A violent lashing of rain at the window rekindled his urgency. “I must tell you of the perilous events at Rome. Madam, the tide may be turning against us.”

Catherine’s flinch was almost imperceptible. She was staring at the Ambassador as if she had forgotten Honor’s presence. Honor groaned inwardly. She could not interrupt, yet neither could she leave without a dismissal.

“His Holiness the Pope has returned from exile in Orvieto,” Mendoza went on. “He finds Rome a pitiable and mangled corpse, he says, but at least he is home.”

A smile flickered on Catherine’s face. “From the moment the news arrived of Rome’s capture I knew it was a sign to me from God. Did it not happen the very month Wolsey hatched his plot to destroy me?”

“God, of course, is on your side,” Mendoza replied with diplomatic smoothness. “Certainly, as long as the Emperor’s army was holding Rome the Pope has not dared to infuriate him by annulling your marriage. To do so would have been to sign his own death warrant.”