The Rose at Twilight (26 page)

“I warrant you will know how to master the wench,” Henry said bluntly, adding in a louder, more formal tone, “There being no concern in this instance with consanguinity, but dispensation being required to allow you both to marry outside your parish, it is our decision that you shall be wed by special license. Our royal chaplain will therefore perform the betrothal service before we sup, and the marriage can take place on Simnel Sunday.”

Less than a fortnight, Alys realized, her thoughts whirling and her knees feeling suddenly too weak to support her. Mid-Lent or Simnel Sunday—named for the little cakes of light grain, or simnel, that were customarily eaten that day—was usually a welcome date in the midst of the long, harsh Lenten fast; but now she doubted she would look forward to the feasting as much as she usually did. Under cover of the surge of conversation that arose while the chaplain was being hastened forward, she turned to Sir Nicholas and muttered, “You will rue this day, sir.”

Leaning close to her, he retorted, “I had better not,
mi geneth.
You have this betrothal and little else to thank for the fact that I have not yet apprised his sovereign grace of your secret parley in the north with the outlaw Lovell.”

Alys stared at him in shock. It had never occurred to her that, even if he had guessed the truth, he might contemplate such a thing. He smiled sweetly back at her and took her hand in his.

The chaplain took his place before them.

T
HE EVENING THAT FOLLOWED
Alys’s betrothal to Sir Nicholas passed swiftly amid a din of comments and plaudits from people she knew and others she did not know. Her senses were reeling one moment, numb the next. She was so dazed by it all that had she been asked when she left the table what she had eaten, she would have been unable to reply with certainty. It all had happened too swiftly. If she spoke to Sir Nicholas, she did not recall it later; and their parting came, as everything else that night had come, with bewildering abruptness. Sir Nicholas simply announced that it was time she was in bed, and signed to a servant to see her to her room. Briefly she considered sending the man to find Madeline, but even as the thought entered her mind, she knew she did not want to talk to anyone until she had sorted out her feelings.

Jonet was waiting for her, and after one look at her, began preparing her for bed, chattering the whole while in a manner that showed she had no expectation of a reply, speaking thoughts aloud as they came to her. Alys made only token replies, letting the words flow past her, taking comfort from Jonet’s presence, but grateful nonetheless when she went away to her own pallet at last. Alone in her bed with the protective darkness close about her, Alys tried to remember precisely what Sir Nicholas had said or done that night to indicate how he felt about their betrothal, but the only comment she could actually recall his having made to her was his remark about Lovell.

That in itself was frightening. If their betrothal was all that had kept Sir Nicholas from betraying his suspicions of her, she had grievously misread him. There had been a single moment, the first moment that she had recognized the Tudor intent, when her heart had sung with joy. The sensation had been unlike any other in her memory. She tried to tell herself that it had been no more than a surge of relief at realizing that she would not have to marry Briarly, but overriding that thought came the memory of Sir Nicholas’s lute, and his deep melodic voice when he had sung to her. She remembered that he had paid Ian to look after her in the Tower, but there were less pleasant memories, too. He had been quick to anger, and quick to scold. He had flogged Ian and made her watch. He had forced her to eat when she hadn’t wanted to eat, but he had brushed her hair for her when she had been too weak to do it herself. There was much in the man that stirred her to rebellion, but there was something else that stirred other, stranger reactions deep within her. One moment she wanted to trust him, the next to slap him. Until she knew him better, she did not dare to do either.

She was hot under the coverlet and pushed it off her, wondering where Sir Nicholas was at that moment, and if he was thinking of her. What did he think? More than once she had thought he cared about her. That first moment in Doncaster, before she saw anger, she had seen relief and knew he had been worried about her. But tonight there had been no sign of pleasure in him, only half-grateful acceptance of his reward.

She remembered his remark about her meeting with Lovell. Since she had never admitted that Lovell was the man in the Hawkinses’ parlor, she wondered what had made him so certain, but it was not until two days later, when the entire court went hunting with the king, that she found an opportunity to ask him.

Henry Tudor liked to hunt, and when he did, his male courtiers all accompanied him. They were frequently accompanied, partway at least, by the more adventurous ladies; however, since the elaborate costumes suitable for court required them to ride aside rather than astride, on velvet-covered saddles wholly unsuited to the chase, the ladies were generally left behind once the quarry was sighted. That particular morning, when they rode out early to the forest south of Greenwich Palace, a number of women rode with them, including Alys and Madeline.

Alys wore a skirt and bodice of tawny wool beneath a dark green jerkin, with a straw hat pinned on over her veil. She rode between Madeline and Sir Nicholas, just behind the king and the Earl of Lincoln. The latter had greeted Alys with a kindly, indulgent manner, as though he had never been displeased with her. He did not even mention Sheriff Hutton, which did not surprise her, for she knew him to be a man who avoided offending, preferring harmony at almost any cost.

Elizabeth, due to her supposed delicate condition, did not ride with them, and Alys felt carefree, and was able to delight even more than usual in the herbal scents of the royal forest and the crisp, cold air of the sunny morning.

The king hunted with hounds, spaniels, mastiffs, and greyhounds, and since it was the fashion to hunt nearly anything that moved, it was not long before the first quarry, a young roe deer, was sighted. Henry, his bow held high, gave spur to his mount, and the other men followed at a gallop. Alys, finding the excitement of the chase rising swiftly within her, urged her palfrey to a more rapid pace, hoping they would not be left too far behind. But even as the thought flitted through her mind, a gloved hand shot out and grabbed her bridle, and her palfrey was drawn away from the others, into a small leafy glen.

Nearly as indignant with Madeline and the other women for riding merrily on without her as she was with Sir Nicholas for interfering with her, she glared at him and demanded angrily, “By what right do you dare to stop me like this, sir?”

He said quietly, “I have every right,
mi geneth,
by royal command, and I want to speak with you.”

She bit her lip, remembering that the betrothal ceremony bound her to him almost as solidly as marriage itself, for even if the marriage did not take place, she was now ineligible to wed anyone else without the consent of the Church to set aside the betrothal. If she did, her children would be bastards like those of Edward the Fourth, unable to inherit her husband’s goods and titles, or her own. Her property—in law, a mere extension of herself—was already Sir Nicholas’s to control. Finding this knowledge rather disheartening, she resorted to another argument. “We are being left behind, sir. We shall find ourselves subject to criticism, if not to censure, for such behavior.”

Sir Nicholas cocked his head to listen, then said, “I hear their shouts, so they have brought down the deer, or some animal. We’ll hope for their sake ’tis not a polecat or a stoat.” When she continued to glare, he added, “There is too little privacy at the palace. One can never be sure of having more than a moment or two alone, and I did not know when another opportunity might present itself to say what I wish to say to you.”

Warned by the gravity of his tone, she braced herself. “What is it?”

“Only that I hope you are not too displeased by the king’s decision to betroth us. I know you dislike me—”

“No! That is …” She searched for words to explain her feelings without betraying how vulnerable she felt. “I do not dislike you, sir. ’Tis only that at present I am bewildered by the very notion of marriage. My world has so recently come down around my ears that I scarcely know if I am on my head or on my feet. Nor do I know you, after all, except as one of the enemy.”

“I am not your enemy,
mi geneth.
”

“Mayhap.” She looked into his eyes, wishing she could believe that the gentleness in his tone meant she might confide openly in him. “Why did you not …That is, last evening, before the ceremony, you told me … You … you said …” Giving up, she fell silent, unable to find words to challenge him without confirming what she hoped were no more than suspicions of his regarding Lovell.

Apparently finding nothing odd in her faltering speech, and reading her thoughts as he so often seemed to do, he nodded and said, “I ought to report your meeting with Lovell, but I will not do so. I did not do it before because I was not yet certain. Now that I am certain, you are to be my wife, and thus am I bound to protect you. But hear me,
mi geneth
,” he added in a much sterner voice. “There must be no more such meetings. You will obey me in this, or I will make you very sorry afterward.”

Discounting the threat, she said curiously, “Why are you so certain now that I met with him? You cannot know it.”

“You told me.”

“I did not!”

“Aye, you did. In Doncaster, when I mentioned his name, your expression revealed the likelihood, but I was not certain until yestereve. ’Twas but a gambit when I said I had not spoken of it to Harry, but your look of guilt then was as good as a confession. Nay, do not look daggers at me. You did wrong, and ’tis my duty to forbid you to behave so in future. Henry Tudor is king now, and to consort with his enemies, utter foolishness.”

Alys stiffened angrily. “So now I am a fool, am I?”

“Aye,” he said, smiling, “but no more than most females.”

“Oh!” Forgetting that he still held her bridle, she lifted her reins and kicked her horse, intending to ride off and leave him where he was. The palfrey stirred helplessly, held firmly in place by a tightened fist. “Let me go!”

“Presently. I mean to be certain you understand me, my lady.” There was an unmistakably possessive note in his voice now. “You are to have nothing further to do with any Yorkist sympathizer unless you want to incur my gravest displeasure.”

Alys glared into space, refusing to respond, waiting with increasing apprehension to see what he would do next.

He did nothing. Neither did he speak. He waited patiently until she could bear the silence no longer, glared at him again, and said in a sharp voice, “What would you do?”

“That,” he said calmly, “would depend upon the circumstance, but you would be wise to have naught to do with any Yorkist plot now in the making. That is to say,” he added with a gentle note that was somehow more ominous than if he had spoken angrily, “if the outlaw Lovell expects aught of you, you must disappoint him.”

Looking directly at him now, forcing what she hoped was the same calm note as his own into her voice, she said, “If there is a plot, sir, I am not party to it. For that you have my word.”

He nodded, releasing her bridle. “It is enough,
mi geneth.
We will find the others now.”

She had not expected him to accept her word so readily. In truth, she was disappointed that he had ended the conversation so abruptly. And in the days that passed before their wedding, though she had hoped to spend time with him, to get to know him better, she was disappointed in that as well, for Sir Nicholas was scarcely ever to be seen for longer than a moment or two.

The court moved by barge to Westminster the following week, and when Sir Nicholas was not in attendance upon the king, he was riding off with a troop of his men to look into some small matter or another for him. None of these sorties took him far from Westminster, but even when Alys knew him to be in the palace he made no effort to seek her out.

She assumed that his behavior was due to concern for her reputation, for although they were betrothed, she knew they must not seem to anticipate the marriage ceremony. The fact that he had accompanied her, not once but twice, on a journey of more than a hundred miles without anyone else present who might be thought a proper chaperon—Jonet, being only a servant, did not count—would not distress anyone, for he had been acting as her protector, commanded to do so first by Sir Robert Willoughby on behalf of the king, and then by the king himself. And even to the most determined rumormonger, she decided, his troops must be accounted to have been some protection to her honor.

Once, to her shock, she found herself wishing it had been otherwise, and that she knew him far better than she did. She wondered what it would be like to be possessed by a man who could make her fear his anger one moment and watch for his smile the next. She knew little of coupling. That was one disadvantage to the way she had been raised. In less private establishments, she knew that men and women coupled where and when they would, but she had never seen such things. She had seen animals mate, but whenever she tried to imagine herself and Sir Nicholas in such positions, her imagination boggled. It would be better, she thought, had they had the opportunity at least to sit and talk about themselves, but of course men and women rarely talked in such a fashion. Men dictated and women submitted, and that was that. The thought that Sir Nicholas would dictate to her and expect her to submit to his every wish had much the same effect upon her imagination as thinking of the mating animals had had.

He might have made more of an effort to seek her out, she knew, had opportunity arisen to do so, but the male and female courtiers might have been residing in two separate palaces for all that they saw of one another. Elizabeth was feeling sickly, and it had been agreed that she ought not to tax herself. There was still no official declaration of her condition, and when Alys asked, she was told the subject was not suitable for discussion. Nonetheless, with the king’s full consent, Elizabeth was pampered and coddled. Her ladies read to her, waited upon her, and tended her as though, Alys thought wryly, she were made of glass, as though women through the ages—Elizabeth’s own mother, for one—had not birthed child after child without much difficulty at all.