A/N: Shout out to my reviewers! I encountered technical issues replying to reviews to the last section; please forgive me if I didn't reply to yours.
22 September 1540
Dover Priory
Mary sat stock still, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, nothing registering in her whirling, distraught mind but the smell of windfallen apples and Wolsey's hand clasped around hers.
He knew what had happened; he recognized her for who she really was.
"I was brought here almost ten years ago," he said, answering the unaskable. "For the first week I thought I'd gone mad."
"I thought I'd gone to Heaven."
"This is no Heaven, sir – may I call you 'sir'? I mean no disrespect; it's simply more natural."
She shook her head. "I don't mind."
"Then no Heaven, sir," he said, tightening his grasp on her hand, "and no Hell or Purgatory either. Men are born, men die, there's pain and pleasure…this is the world, although how it is I cannot explain. At least I'm the same person I was, if healthier; I can't imagine what you must be experiencing."
"The less said the better, Eminence." She opened her eyes, meeting his sympathetic gaze. "Ten years?"
"In November of 1530. I was being brought back to London to face charges—"
"For treason; I remember hearing of it."
He snorted. "Let us be honest with each other, sir: I was accused of failing to work a miracle. I was in the abbot's rooms at Leicester in the most tremendous pain, telling Sir William Kingston that if I'd served God as I had the King he wouldn't have abandoned me to die an old man in a stranger's bed, and then my eyes dropped shut. The next thing I knew I was kneeling in the dirt at Hampton Court in the presence of yon boy at the gate."
"Gregory Cromwell?"
"William in this world. Everyone's William; you're very popular." He paused. "Did I cheat the headsman that night?"
She nodded.
"I thought as much. Were you sick as well when you…?"
When you died, he meant. "I wasn't sick, no," she replied. "I was in bed at Hunsdon House dreaming of the golden world that would have come to pass had I been born a man, and then I awoke at Windsor."
"And as a man, just as you dreamt. I am sincerely sorry for it, sir, doubly so since this is in truth a world not of gold but of tarnished, crumbling tin." He paused. "But why did you assume you were in Heaven, if I might ask?"
She glared at him. "The first voice I heard was Thomas More's; what would you think?"
"Well, then—" His voice trailed off as the full implication of what she'd said hit him. "The King – he didn't…"
"He did," she murmured. "It was…five years ago, I believe; I was all but imprisoned at the time myself. Forgive me; I shouldn't have mentioned it."
He released her hand and crossed himself. "Blessed Virgin and the saints. Who – no, don't tell me. I don't want to know if my children—"
"They're alive and well," she cut in. "One of my ladies is cousin to Thomas's wife, and although I don't know exactly how they fare I do know they live and aren't in any danger."
"I hadn't considered the possibility – I'd…I'd assumed that world was—"
She clasped his hand again and waited patiently for him to regain his composure. It was a beautiful morning, the same kind of warm, lazy, late summer morning that Englishmen had risen to for a thousand years and, God willing, would rise to a thousand years in the future, and yet the bees in the asters and the geese rooting around under the cherry trees had muddled into the midst of a miracle – two miracles – that no one other than Mary and Wolsey would ever know of and that they themselves could not begin to understand.
At last Wolsey took a deep breath and turned back to her. "Forgive me, sir, but I…"
"Don't give it another thought," she said. "They were your children. Of course you'd worry."
His mouth was a thin line. "They died here in the Great Pestilence along with Will Cromwell's family, Ned Seymour, Richard Pace, Alice More…for a time I wondered if I'd invented a world in my head where they'd all survived."
"Francis said three of my brothers died in the pestilence. I don't remember it causing that much havoc in our world."
"It didn't." He paused, as if considering his next words. "I've never been able to explain how King Louis's birth in France or yours in England could have caused the sweat to cut such a deep swath through this realm. A million men, women and children died that summer, sir: one-third of the English people, gone in two short months."
"A million…" She struggled for breath, trying to imagine— "How many of my friends…"
"Far too many, I suspect – although obviously I don't know who they were. You were only a child when I…when I came here."
"Of course not," she replied, her voice hollow in her ears; a million people… "I used to see you when I visited court. You were always with Father; Mother always said you were pouring poison into his ear."
"Your mother, may she be in the arms of God, never accepted that your father was responsible for his own actions," he said. "She blamed me for being his procurer when there was nothing I would have liked better than to see him a paragon of fidelity; she blamed me for wanting to strip you of your status when I begged the King to make use of the good faith clause. I will admit that when he ordered me to obtain an annulment I obeyed as best I could, although I had hoped he'd marry a French princess."
"But you didn't want him to go through with it."
He gave her a long, searching look. "Nobody did, sir, not even Mistress Anne."
"Not even—" But Anne had seduced her father! She had been possessed – she had broken apart her parents' marriage to do Satan's work! She hadn't been forced—
"She made the best hand possible of the cards she was dealt," he said. "I won't ask if he succeeded in marrying her; I don't want to know, and in all honesty Your Highness would be well advised to forget the past as best you can. I know from personal experience how difficult that is, but if you can: remember the people and what they're capable of, not the events."
She closed her eyes as emotion once again threatened to overwhelm her. Anne Boleyn…a million deaths…her father…
"I hadn't thought of any of it for years," he said, heaving a deep sigh. "In this world both of his queens have given him sons. I can see now with the benefit of hindsight that his mania was never about leaving an heir or ensuring the stability of the realm; he craved a son because a legitimate son legitimated him in his own eyes. That's all he ever cared about: his own right to the throne."
"I…I can't…" She shook her head; there was sense in his words but she simply couldn't take it all in, not after… "I still worry about Anne. Is she truly a Catholic?"
"Queen Anne is without question the most sincere, most pious Catholic I've ever met in my life. Perhaps the death of her father or the years she spent in France with the blessed Queen made the difference, but I can't help but see a strange irony in the fact that had she been as fervent a Catholic in our world as in this one she likely wouldn't have held out for marriage." He slid her a knowing gaze. "But I doubt you brought me to this spot to hear about Anne Boleyn."
"Actually, in a way I have," she said. "The King's prohibited any word of my private life from coming to my ear, although Francis let slip today that I'm married to Renée. Otherwise I've been treated to many scintillating conversations about the weather, jousting, the ladies of the court—"
Wolsey chuckled.
"—but not a word about my personal life, and Anne is somehow woven into the cloth."
"Perhaps I can elucidate, sir. Might we stretch our legs? I find sitting for any length of time excruciating."
"Of course; please let me know when you need to sit again."
They took a winding path around the gooseberry bushes to the eastern edge of the orchard, where the gardeners had recently dug up a section of the sod. "Before I begin, I should tell you that I'm no longer a member of your father's inner circle and as such I cannot tell you precisely why he's ordered you kept ignorant," he said, keeping his voice low. "Since my 'accident' in 1530 I've gone into partial retirement; when your lord father veers close to the Charybdis – as he still regularly does, I regret to advise – the Queen sends for me and we do our best to steer him back into calmer waters. Otherwise I remain at Hampton Court."
"As councillor emeritus."
"Quite so. In fact, that may be why God has seen fit to bring you here. The King is the same man he always was; he's only channeled his energies into intrigue and deceit rather than outright violence. You and I are the only ones who know the cruelty lurking beneath the surface and we're the only ones who can guard him from falling into disaster – and although God healed me of my afflictions I fear He did not make me immortal. I assume he grew worse over time?"
"Much worse, Eminence. The past few years…" but she didn't want to think of that. "Tell me about France, if you will."
He took a deep breath. "The story begins in October of 1514, sir, when your aunt Mary was sent to Paris to marry Louis XII. He died on New Year's Day, she went into seclusion, and in this world she proved with child. Your father sent the Duke of Suffolk to look after your aunt's interests but once her pregnancy was confirmed he returned without her, bringing with him most of your aunt's English ladies – all but the Boleyn sisters. They remained with Her Majesty during her pregnancy and confinement, remaining even after François, the regent at the time, took her son away."
"And then I was born."
"And then you were born. That summer your father sent me to Paris to negotiate your betrothal. Five years later Prince Edward was born, your mother died, and the next summer Renée arrived in England with the Boleyns. Your aunt asked to return to England at the same time but the new regent, Marguerite, refused to let her leave."
"Marguerite – she's a reformer, isn't she?"
"A dyed-in-the-wool Lutheran, Highness, and the true root of our ills in both worlds. In the old world she befriended Anne Boleyn and acted as something of a muse to her; in this one she raised Louis in the new faith and mistreated your aunt terribly. She starved her, left her to rot in rags – it's a dreadful tale."
Just as my father mistreated my mother, she thought, her gaze alighting on the Castle looming over the orchard. "And somehow my marriage is tied up in this?"
He paused. "Have you ever heard of the treatise Il Principe, sir?"
"Machiavelli's satire? I've read it, yes."
"Your father thinks it's an instruction manual. He asked for Renée to be sent here at twelve, ostensibly to ensure she would be educated as befits a Queen of England..."
"…but he'd hoped to marry her himself."
Wolsey sent her an approving smile. "That was indeed his plan, at least until he caught sight of Mistress Boleyn. The moment he did he ennobled her brother as Earl of Rochford, had Garter King of Arms permit her the style of an earl's daughter, and declared his intentions – and as in our world she was unable to say no. You and Renée were married eight years later on your fourteenth birthday, although you were still naturally too young to be a true husband to her; unfortunately by the time you were old enough Louis had taken personal control of France and diplomatic relations between the realms had soured, and your father ordered you not to consummate the marriage. The advantage of hindsight led me to counsel you and Renée to obey him in all things with a smile; he in turn has treated you both with respect and kindness."
"Unlike his treatment of my mother."
"He prizes obedience to his will above everything, sir, even above obedience to God; if only he didn't expect miracles as a matter of course."
They followed the path around a stand of gorse back to the apple trees. "Did he banish Renée?"
His brows flew up. "Banish – I assure you, sir, the Princess has been afforded every courtesy. In fact she's currently in residence at Hampton Court as my guest, and although she and you are not allowed to meet unchaperoned she has the right to travel wherever she wishes as long as she remains in the realm. She's an utterly charming woman, by the way; you like her very much, and she you." He paused, his tone suddenly grim. "There is something else. Two years ago your father sent Archbishop Fisher to Rome to petition for an annulment of the marriage due to non-consummation."
"But…he couldn't…" She dropped onto the nearest bench with a thud. "God forbid: my very own Great Matter."
He sat beside her. "I am sorry."
"Don't be," she murmured. "You're right; he hasn't changed. If he were Roman he would have deified himself by now. Annulment…after eight years…"
"The tale he spun to Fisher and Pope Paul was that Your Highness found the Princess's connection to an unfilial son 'repulsive' and you could therefore not…accommodate yourself to…" He waved a hand. "At any rate, the story was intended to coerce Louis into releasing your aunt as a show of good faith. Not only did it fail but it also put the Pope in a bind; your father is one of his strongest supporters but he was worried that the dissolution of a prominent Catholic marriage would stink in the nose of Louis's heir, the Duc de Vendôme. The Duke is…undecided on the topic of religion, shall we say, and not the brightest of men."
"Then Louis executed my aunt. Did Father truly mourn, or did he merely pretend?"
He sighed again. "I will mourn William for the rest of my life, Mary, but if God felt it necessary to take him I'm truly glad He sent you in his place. When news arrived of your blessed aunt's execution your father put on the finest show of rage and tears and heart-rending, desolate grief one could imagine. It was a masterpiece of masque not seen since the time of Roscius, especially since he found time that very same day to send a messenger to Fisher in Rome ordering him to withdraw the petition for annulment."
She snorted a laugh.
"Then – whilst William was making plans for war – he assembled a group of scholars who were pleased to advance the startling theory that France was not true Salic land and therefore the succession of the throne of France should not be subject to Salic law. Given that Princess Claude died in this world without leaving an heir…"
"Renée would be the heir and eventually Queen in her own right. How elegantly convenient; is it true?"
"Does it matter?" he rejoined. "The point is that with Renée as Queen Regnant and you as King Consort your eventual son would eventually inherit both England and what will be left remaining of France after the allies tear it to bits. The Emperor might very well approve the plan; Louis is married but childless, Vendôme is, as I said, an idiot, and Renée is as devout a Catholic as Queen Anne…although her fertility might be of concern."
"It shouldn't be; she has five children in our world."
"Thank God," he breathed. "We can never tell anyone, of course, but it does bode well. Now we only have to ascertain if you are cap—" And he suddenly fell silent.
Capable of siring children, she assumed he meant. "I take it I have no bastards?"
"Nary a one, sir," he replied, his face turning purple for some reason. "In some ways it's perhaps fortunate you're now…at any rate, I believe the Queen mentioned she wished to leave by two; if Your Highness has no further questions?"
She examined his face, wondering what he'd intended to say, but he refused to meet her gaze. "Not a question," she finally said as they made their way back, "but a request. I'd like to endow a chantry chapel for William's soul. Can it be done without his name being attached?"
He pondered the matter for a moment. "There's nothing in canon law that would forbid it – and it would be a most Christian act on your part. I'll make the arrangements if you wish."
"Thank you." She paused. "How did you know it was me?"
"Your father sent Sir Francis Weston to Hampton Court to ask me which physician had cared for me ten years ago. I was suspicious as soon as he said your memory was patchy and unreliable and you'd cried out for Princess Mary rather than Queen Mary; when I saw that you still carried yourself as a woman I knew I was right." He lowered his voice as they neared the gate, where Will Cromwell and her guards were waiting for them. "You might wish to rectify that, sir; women are trained to take up as little space as possible but men spread out."
As if she didn't have enough to worry about. "I'll keep that in mind."
They returned to the guest lodge to find Anne and her ladies sewing shirts. "I pray Your Highness and Your Eminence have finally come to an agreement over those apricots," she said to Mary as she and Wolsey bowed to her. "Or are you fighting over grapes by now?"
She feigned laughter. "Cherries, my lady mother: sour for cooking, or sweet for eating out of hand?"
"I heartily beg you plant every variety of fruit imaginable at once or desist from involving me in the decision," she replied with a fond smile. "Lady Langley, if you would be so kind as to advise your lord husband and Prior Lambert of our departure?"
Mary Norris curtseyed. "Yes, Majesty."
"Father Prior says we should be able to reach Faversham by sunset," Anne continued, taking Mary aside. "If we run behind we'll break our trip at Canterbury. Was His Eminence able to set your mind at rest regarding the, um, gardens at Ludlow?"
"Indeed he did, Majesty. I believe my orchards will be fully reborn by this time next year."
Her smile widened as she caught the allusion. "Reborn, you say? Then I wish you the very best of luck."
They didn't have to wait long for the grooms to bring out their horses again. Mary, once again waving away their help, grasped the reins with her good hand and swung herself up into the saddle by brute force, steeling her face not to show the pain boring into her shoulder. A woman or an older man could ask for assistance mounting a horse without anyone thinking much of it but a young man was granted far less lenience; injured or not he would be judged, and harshly, for allowing anyone to help him. She bit her lip at the memory of her fat, hobbled old father being lifted onto the enormous destrier that was the only beast strong enough to hold him. How he'd resented looking like a senile dotard; how he'd resented the utter humiliation of it all.
In this world he could fly up ladders.
A million of his subjects are dead.
And that, not what Wolsey had told her of Renée or her father or Anne or even herself, was what tormented her all the way to Canterbury. Signs of the pestilence were everywhere now that she knew to look for them; villages abandoned, churches and manor houses rotting in the fields, the best land in England enclosed and turned into pasture. "I suddenly recall the Great Pestilence," he said to Francis as they passed what had once been Lydden. "A million souls? It can't be true, can it?"
"I wish it were not, sir," he replied. "Had it not been for the Queen's charity I fear even more would have been lost."
A million men and women taken to Heaven: one-third of the realm's farmers, soldiers, courtiers, merchants, housewives, priests, children…how the survivors hadn't gone mad with grief she didn't know. She briefly wondered how much of her father's transformation had been due to fear of God's judgment – or had it been Charles Brandon's death that had changed him? What would it be like to witness your closest friend decapitated without warning, to have his head land almost in your lap…they said Father had never again appeared in the lists after that horrible day, and no wonder.
Queen Anne rode first, only the advance guards, the herald, and her Chamberlain, Henry Norris, preceding her; as Mary followed her movements she thought back to Wolsey's comments. It was a deeply unsettling thought; if Anne hadn't wanted to be Queen she might not have been possessed by Satan, might not have placed a spell on her father, might not even have been a willing bride. What would that—
"Sir?"
She blinked back the tears threatening to spill over. "I'm mourning the dead, Sir Francis," she said – and she was, for if Anne hadn't been possessed, if she hadn't seduced Father, if she hadn't schemed her way onto the throne, her only 'crime' had been her loose tongue. Why, then, had he killed her?
Because she'd disobeyed him by not giving him a son, her inner voice said.
As Wolsey had said, if only he didn't expect miracles as a matter of course.
Her eyes returned to Francis's face. There was something about him she couldn't find words to describe, something that made her glad he was alive and by her side. She remembered Chapuys telling her once that he could find no reason why he had been chosen to die with the Boleyns. Brereton had made an enemy of Cromwell, he'd said, while Smeaton had antagonized everyone at court by employing liveried servants despite being a servant himself. Henry Norris Anne had unwittingly sent to the headsman by accusing him of looking for dead man's shoes, and George Boleyn had died only because he was Anne's brother. But there hadn't been any gossip whatsoever regarding Weston. Chapuys had suggested he'd debauched the wrong woman or perhaps knew something about Jane Seymour which, in his words, 'did not reflect a kindly light on her honour', but even that was too much of a wild guess for even Mary to take seriously.
She smiled faintly at the memory of Chapuys's unbounded cynicism. He'd been certain Jane hadn't come to her father a virgin and perhaps he'd been right; from what Sir Henry had said she'd certainly been no maid in this world. It hurt to think of Jane as a wanton but perhaps the Great Pestilence had twisted her mind. To live in a world suddenly transformed by oceans of death…
A million dead – and two million left scarred for life.
They were about two miles south of Canterbury when the wind shifted and freshened. "I suggest we take shelter at the Abbey, Your Majesty, before the storm breaks," Norris cried over his shoulder.
"Then send a man to Abbot Dygon and Mother Philippa at St. Sepulchre's," she said, raising her voice to be heard as the breeze whipped the banners above their heads into a frenzy. "My ladies and I will stay with her this evening."
"Very good, Majesty."
Large abbeys on major roads tended to expect unexpected visitors but even so Mary knew both abbey and convent would be strained to their limits by their company of thirty men and nine women. The only saving grace was that most of the servants had been sent ahead with the baggage carts; still, it was unlikely they'd sup as well as they'd dined. She reined her horse in and joined her brothers and Will Stafford, the young Duke of Buckingham, who had been trading jokes with some of the older members of the company earlier. "I want to talk to you three," she said, ignoring their lowering frowns. "St. Augustine's isn't getting much warning of our arrival so we likely won't receive the same level of hospitality here that we did at Dover. If that's the case I don't want a single gripe or eyeroll out of any of you."
"Yes, brother," Edmund replied dully. "I promise we'll be on our best behaviour."
"I pray so, for when we stopped here on our way to Dover you acted like a gang of squalling brats. The only reason no one noticed is that they had their eyes trained on our lord father."
"And on you," Charles pointed out.
"Only because I was carried in a litter. The King is the sun and the moon; while he is away we must carry ourselves with princely grace and not sully his reputation or our own by foolish talk or actions. That goes doubly for Your Grace," she said to Buckingham, "as you are your own master and any disrespect your actions engender is yours alone to bear."
His lips thinned but he nodded, knowing she was right. "I'll do my best, sir."
"See that you do."
She returned to Francis's side just as they reached St. Sepulchre's. "I pray Your Highness and your gentlemen not dismount," Anne said to her as the convent servants brought out the blocks. "Shall we meet here tomorrow morning at eight?"
"At eight, then, Majesty." She bowed as best she could from her saddle, the men following her example.
Once the gates had closed behind Anne and her ladies, she directed the Queen's guards to remain behind and led the rest of the company up Oaten Hill toward the Abbey. It still seemed odd to be a member of a company of men, odder still to be at their head. You will be King of England one day, her inner voice suddenly reminded her. Unless God calls you home before your father you will one day lead far more than a mere handful of riders.
The first drops of rain began to fall as Abbot Dygon greeted them at the Great Gate. "Your Highness, Your Graces; welcome back to St. Augustine's."
She returned his courtly bow with a dip of her head. "I thank you for hosting us, Father Abbot. I know we've given you scant notice…"
But he shook his head. "In truth I half-expected Your Highness to break your journey here. Your baggage carts went through about ten o'clock this morning, and your chamberlain said you were to pass through in the late afternoon. May I show you to your room?"
They climbed the steep stairs to the State Bedchamber where hot water and soap had been put out for them. "With your permission, Highness, I will arrange for your supper to be served in my private dining chamber," the abbot said as a bolt of lightning illuminated the room. "Your attendants will be served in the refectory."
"That would be more than satisfactory. Will you be so kind as to join us at table – and ask Father More to join us as well?"
His face lit up. "With pleasure, sir."
He left them to change out of their dusty clothes and wash and for Mary to have her arm removed from its sling again and flexed, this time by Dr. Wendy. "Any pain this afternoon, Your Highness?" he asked as he examined the lingering remnants of the bruise.
"Some, although not enough to interrupt my thoughts."
The corners of his mouth turned down. "In a way I grieve that Your Highness's memories of the Great Pestilence have returned. There isn't an Englishman alive who would mind forgetting those dark days." He extended her arm to the side. "Your lord father the King wishes you to see Dr. Phipps again once we return to London; shall I arrange for him to be in attendance on Friday?"
"Please do. Is this Phipps a specialist in injuries to the head?"
He flexed her elbow downward. "Not precisely, sir, but he did train at Louvain and Montpellier and studied under the great Johann Winter. Your Highness could do worse than to appoint him to your household – if he's willing, of course."
They both turned their heads as Charles and young Buckingham began to trade friendly punches. "Have a care, gentlemen," she said in a voice that brooked no disagreement. "This is a monastery and a haven of peace; save your strength for the tiltyard."
"Yes, brother," Charles replied as Will Stafford's face flushed.
Boys, she thought, returning Wendy's amused smile.
The abbot's dining chamber was comfortable and brightly lit but so plainly decorated even an arch-reformer would find it respectable. "Thank you again for your kind hospitality, Father Abbot," she said, taking her seat and motioning for her companions to join her. "I understand you've just returned from Westminster. Did you detect any resistance on the part of the Lords Spiritual to the clerical taxes?"
"Not in the least, sir," he replied. "Under the circumstances the Church is quite pleased to pay its share. I did hear some murmuring among the Lords Temporal, however; many of them remain unconvinced of the need for the parliamentary grant. Despite that they seem as certain as anyone that England and its allies will prevail."
She suspected the lords temporal would tell a starkly different story. "When we do win," she said aloud, "I warrant they'll be the first in line for the spoils, hands out."
"I have no doubt of that, Highness. I would think…" but his voice trailed away as the food arrived. "You will forgive us for the simplicity of our table—"
"Don't apologize," Mary said, breathing in the heavenly scent of roast pork, fowl en fricassée, and stewed peaches. "We would have been pleased to be served pottage and maslin bread – wouldn't we, Edmund?"
Her brother nodded eagerly. "Although we could never be insulted by this; everything smells wonderful."
And to that no man at table could make an objection.
The food deemed fit by the tasters, Dygon pronounced the blessing and they began to eat, a servant cutting Mary's meat for her. "Father More was telling me yesterday about this Picard, this Jean Cauvin," she said to the abbot, looking down the table as she speared a chunk of pork. "What was it again, Father? Has he taken over Paris or all of France?"
"Fortunately only Paris at the moment, Highness," More said, "although his ambitions are likely unbounded. I don't think he's as dangerous as the King but he does pose a threat should Louis take refuge in the city. We can only hope the Emperor's forces are on French soil as we speak and have already drawn him eastward."
"So the strike is not coordinated?" the abbot asked.
"Coordinated, yes," Mary said, "just not concurrent. If we and the Emperor and the Duke of Savoy and the Spanish and the Holy Father were to invade all at the same time Louis naturally would retrench himself and his forces around Paris; as such he'll be drawn every which way."
"The time of year makes this essential," More added. "The harvest occurs at different times in France depending on the predominant crop and the latitude, and the Allies have coordinated the attacks to take advantage of this. Most of the French troops are farmers—"
"As are ours," the abbot pointed out. "Are they not risking both their livelihoods and the food supply of this realm?"
He shook his head. "The grain harvest is all but complete even in the south; what is left can be handled by the men who remain behind. The advantage of surprise…"
Mary listened in silence as Dygon and More continued the debate throughout the meal. The abbot took the position that, although an autumn attack might have been a 'regrettable necessity' in this case, it was otherwise far too great a hardship on both the soldiers and those left behind, while More argued that only the most extreme weather – storms in the Channel, snow, extreme heat – needed to be taken into consideration. But neither of them touched the difficulty of feeding armies in the field. Dygon had the right of it for the most part, though; only a fool would take troops into battle in October unless it was truly necessary – and neither the Emperor nor her father were fools.
Why, then, had they chosen to fight this late in the year? Was it simple greed, concern about Vendôme's loyalty, or something else? She would have participated in the debate but they'd never pay attention to…but that was wrong: she was a man now. They wouldn't patiently wait for her mouth to stop moving before continuing as if she'd never spoke; they would actually listen to her and respect her opinion even if they disagreed. If anyone had ever done that in her world…
Stop that, she told herself as her server refilled her cup. This is your world now and you aren't going back; Wolsey is proof of that.
The two of them might have argued the matter until dawn if Mary hadn't interrupted them with a strategic muffled yawn. "Forgive me, Father Abbot," she said as she stretched. "It's been a long day."
"One I fear made even longer, sir, by our disputation. Would you say the In Fine, Father More?"
Mary let the Latin words wash over her, made the expected responses, lifted her mind to God while remaining careful of her language. Not that a single mea in place of a meo would by itself raise suspicion; what had happened to her was so unimaginable that anyone who noticed would only think her tired or distracted. Too many mistakes, though, and they might consider her mad.
Perhaps she was.
It wasn't until later that night after she'd made penance, heard Compline, and turned in for the night that she had a quiet moment to reflect. The most puzzling thing she'd learned that day wasn't that she was married to Renée of France; that she'd half-expected. No, what confused her was why Father hadn't wanted her to know about it – and why he hadn't ordered William to consummate the marriage before he left for France.
She eased herself gently onto her back, wincing at the pain still coursing through her arm, and stared up in the dark at the canopy of estate draped over the bed she and Charles shared that night. She could understand Father's earlier reluctance to have the marriage perfected; Renée's value on the marriage market had likely sunk like a stone once her brother took control of France on his sixteenth birthday, and if Father had thought to find his eldest son a more politically useful bride it would have been reasonable to order him not to bed Renée right away. But that excuse had crumbled when he began to scheme at making her Queen of France in her own right; the moment the crown touched her head – if it ever did – she would be legally able to deny William her bed and could even petition the Pope for annulment herself. No, Father would have been a fool not to ensure the marriage was consummated before he set sail for France – and yet he had. Clearly she was still missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
If only she were still missing a piece of Anne's.
For more than seven years she'd cast Anne Boleyn as the ultimate evildoer. She'd hated her – loathed her, even – and carried in her heart the knowledge that she was ultimately responsible for every beating, every slap, every pinch, every humiliation, every moment of suffering she'd endured at Hatfield. She'd been so stubborn in that belief that she'd even spurned Anne's attempt to make amends after her death, only pretending to politely listen to the apology Lady Kingston had been kind enough to relay. She'd assumed it was nothing more than a shameless attempt to convince Father of her innocence – for of course every word said by her in the Tower would have been passed on to him – and thereby allow her to continue her devilish reign. But if Anne hadn't been a witch…
She let out a snort. Stop fooling yourself; Anne might not have been an angel but she was no devil either, and if your father hadn't wanted you abused he would have put a stop to it. She was afraid of you, afraid of what your existence meant to her daughter's chances of succeeding. She was so certain you would be her death that she never noticed the real enemy standing by her side…just as you were so certain she would be yours that you failed to see him too. Father played the two of you against each other like a maestro and then destroyed you both – Anne with the sword, you with the oath.
If that wasn't the bitterest fruit she'd ever forced herself to swallow she didn't know what was.
You bastard.
"Which bastard is that, Will?"
She almost jumped out of her skin; had she said that out loud? "Who do you think?" she whispered to Charles, throwing caution to the wind. "Who's the one man who's let me down the most?"
"Tom Culpeper," he snorted. "Lustful brute who didn't give half a shit about your reputation."
That she wasn't expecting. "My…"
"If a lord won't protect his tenants from rampaging gentry they'll find a new master who will; you're the one who taught me that." He rolled on his side to face her. "Even Father thinks you were right to surrender Culpeper to the sheriff and, if you don't remember, he was the one who placed him in your household. That should tell you something."
"I suppose it does," she replied, not bothering to add that it mainly proved her father wasn't a very good judge of men – as if she'd needed further corroboration of that.
And William was a terrible judge of women, she added silently as she closed her eyes, thinking of Kathryn Howard. The bitch's very existence had flown from her mind the moment Wolsey called her 'Mary'. The very fact that he'd known…the very fact that he'd been brought here…
Were they the only ones, she wondered? Had Thomas More or Anne – but no, she didn't think so. Anyone who had been through the shock of being brought to an entirely different world would recognize the symptoms and do their best to help. But Anne had been busy if kind and More—
—and there was something else she didn't understand, for her mind had one opinion of Thomas More but her heart – William's heart, beating in her chest – had another.
In fact, William's heart had opinions about nearly everyone at court, opinions that often clashed with her own. It thought Father a devious, dishonourable snake, it deemed Thomas More brilliant but unreliable, it was repulsed by her supposed 'bosom friend' Henry Brandon, and it saw Stephen Gardiner, who they'd met at Westminster on the way down, as wholly self-serving. But it trusted Cardinal Wolsey implicitly, thought the world of Francis Weston, would have followed Edmund and Charles to the ends of the earth, and loved and trusted Anne Boleyn as if she were William's own mother – and from everything she'd seen she couldn't deny that trust was well-founded.
It would have been easier if she could have pushed aside the dissonance. It would have been easier if Anne were the termagant Chapuys had described or the pathetic snivelling wreck Lady Kingston had watched over in the Tower. But Anne was kind and generous and thoughtful and loving, and Mary was simply unable to hate her; better put, William's heart wouldn't let her.
Wolsey had clearly thought William no fool. Perhaps she should trust his judgment; perhaps she should trust his heart.