23 September 1540
River Thames
The setting sun peeked through the trees, dappling the Bishop of Rochester's barge in golden light as the vessel swept around a bend in the river. It had been ten hours since they'd departed Canterbury, almost nine since a royal messenger had caught up with them outside of Faversham with news of ambassadors and 'urgent letters' arrived that day from Spain and the Low Countries. Unfortunately there hadn't been more than a dozen horses at the post-house at Sittingbourne so Queen Anne and Mary – or Prince William, as she was known in the new and unfamiliar world she'd been sucked into – had been forced to leave her brothers Edmund and Charles and the balance of their party behind, taking only one attendant each and a skeleton crew of guards with them on their mad dash to Gravesend.
Mary shifted in the corner seat, her aching right arm nestled on a pile of cushions as she re-read Lord Russell's letter in the dim late afternoon light. The Imperial ambassadors were, he'd written, a mismatched pair: the senior was a battle-scarred, one-eyed Castilian soldier, while the junior was a sybaritic priest barely capable of putting down his lute. "Your Majesty," she asked, looking up, "are you familiar with a cleric by the name of Philippe Maioris?"
Anne laid aside her sewing. "The Dean of Cambrai? I knew him when I was a girl – but don't stand on ceremony with me, Will; I'm 'Mother' to you, not 'Majesty'."
"Mother," she repeated, but no matter what Will's heart told her the word still tasted bitter in her mouth. "I only ask because he's one of the ambassadors; he arrived from Burgundy yesterday with the Duke of Albuquerque. I'm not sure why Lord Russell felt the need to impress on me that the Duke is a favourite of the Empress."
"Perhaps he remembers Your Highness's close friendship with Her Imperial Majesty," Francis Weston suggested. "You do correspond regularly."
"Almost weekly, in fact," Anne said. "Who else intends to make the trip?"
She thumbed awkwardly through the sheets as Francis rose to light the lamps. "He doesn't give every name," she finally said, "but he does mention the Duke of Norfolk, other 'diverse members' of the Privy Council, my Lady Sussex—"
Lady Langley tsked under her breath.
"—and a Master Vancouver," Mary finished, darting a look up. "Vancouver? The name's not familiar."
"Pieter Van Coevorden, sir," Francis said.
Her jaw dropped to the cabin floor. Eustache Chapuys's valet!
"Meneer is Your Highness's senior groom of the wardrobe," he added. "He joined your household after his former master the Archbishop of Cambrai returned to the continent this spring."
Anne rolled her eyes. "The archbishop didn't 'return', Francis; he was expelled from the realm. Will, I can assure you that no matter what your father might have said about Pieter he's more than worthy of your confidence. The Archduchess Margaret trusted him implicitly; out of all the servants at Mechelen she chose him to chaperone her maids of honour." She held out her hand. "Might I?"
"Of course; we are co-regents, after all."
She handed the letter to Anne, giving silent thanks to God that one thing in this world had finally gone right. Pieter Van Coevorden had indeed been Chapuys's valet but his talents had gone far beyond brushing doublets and mending hose; spy, cryptographer, polyglot, and factotum, he'd managed to smuggle her Protestation Apart out of the country under the noses of the customs officials and had even foiled Cromwell's abortive plot to have her kidnapped, violated, and sent to the Tower for 'lechery'. Pieter was a man of sterling value; she only hoped William had been his only paymaster in this world. A man of such talents could, after all, serve more than one prince.
Anne's silvery voice broke into her thoughts. "This might be the grandest episcopal barge I've ever ridden in. Lamps, padded seats, high ceilings – there's even a fully stocked desk in the rear corner. I had no idea Bishop Bonner was so diligent as to feel the need to write letters in transit."
"Nor did I," she admitted, thinking of the lazy, self-serving weasel who in her world had betrayed more than one patron to save his own skin. "Perhaps it dates to Archbishop Fisher's tenure in Rochester."
She'd half-expected Anne to flinch at the name but she merely nodded. "It very well might. John is the best and most useful of men, isn't he?"
John?!
"I miss him, Will," she continued over Mary's quickly stifled gasp. "I know he's needed in Rome but I still wish he was here to guide you through this; without his good counsel I might very well have gone mad after the Great Pestilence. I lost three children – four including the child I was carrying – my mother, my sister, most of my friends…do you remember Jane Parker? She once told me she used to carry you around on her shoulders when you were a little boy."
Her heart sank. "I'd wanted to ask after her."
"And yet you haven't," she said after a moment's pause. "Sir Francis, Lady Langley, would you be so kind as to ask the head bargeman when he expects us to arrive at Greenwich?"
"Yes, madam," they chorused, taking the hint.
Anne waited until the cabin door was firmly shut to reach over and clasp her hand. "So why aren't you asking?"
Her patience evaporated in a flash of rage. "How can I when no one is allowed to answer?" she snapped. "Francis can't even tell me why we're going to war in the autumn, let alone why I'm not supposed to know about Renée. Father doesn't trust me to…" and she shook her head. "Does he think I'll rise up against him?"
"Oh, Will, no!" Anne squeezed her hand tightly, the worried line between her eyes belying her soothing tone. "Your father is proud of you, fiercely proud; he strutted around like a cockerel for weeks after you laid the heads of the Wiltshire rebels at his feet. That said, he and you don't always see eye to eye on certain…matters of honour, shall we say. Has anyone told you why you were originally chosen to lead the invasion?"
She frowned. "I assumed it was my age."
"Your father might be nearing fifty but he's still perfectly capable of donning a harness of armour," she retorted. "It was the Emperor who demanded you be placed in command of the army. He considers you both a friend and a man of courage and honour, especially toward ladies; more to the point, he knows the Queen of France would be as safe in your hands as she would be in the Hofburg Palace. Queen Amalia is Empress Anna's sister; you know them both from a visit you paid their father the Duke of Cleves when you were a boy."
Cleves – but why… "I remember the Lady Anne very well, but not her sister," she said, sending another prayer of thanks up to Heaven; her beloved friend was Holy Roman Empress! "Were Amalia and Louis married before he declared for Luther?"
"Before any public declaration, yes. As you might guess it isn't a happy union; in fact, until July we had no evidence it had been consummated."
Of course. "She's with child."
"And expected to deliver in the new year according to our spies, which is why the invasion was moved up to the autumn. Your lord father and the Emperor decided that if she births a daughter, mother and child would join the Imperial court and the Duc de Vendôme would be offered the throne; if a son, he would be crowned King and raised as a Catholic."
And as the Emperor's protégé, no doubt. "So Father's given up on his plans to make Renée Queen of France in her own right?" she asked aloud. "Wolsey seems to think he still intends to do it."
Anne's gaze shifted to the window. "I couldn't say for certain…"
But Mary could: in a flash of insight she understood what her father was planning, understood why she'd been kept in the dark as well. Father was up to his old tricks.
Her mind travelled back to the visit Lady Kingston had paid her at Hunsdon House four years earlier. The Tower constable's wife had ostensibly come to relay Anne Boleyn's deathbed apology but she'd also mentioned – in passing, or so she'd assumed at the time – that the King had forbidden his discarded concubine the services of a physician, writing that her nausea and exhaustion would 'soon receive a sovereign cure by way of the Sword of Calais'. The good lady's warning couldn't have been clearer in the mouth of a herald yet Mary, more naïve and foolish than a princess had any right to be, hadn't understood: Father, convinced Anne would never give him a son, had killed his pregnant wife before she could present him with another worthless, useless daughter – and if he could kill an unborn daughter who'd never defied him he wouldn't hesitate to execute a born one who had.
Father had it in him to kill a pregnant woman and send an unborn child to Hell with no chance of redemption, and if he could do it in that world he could do it in this one; as Wolsey had said, he was still the same man.
"So what were my orders?" she asked Anne through tightly pursed lips. "Was I to administer the coup de grace personally?"
"The coup de—" Anne gasped, her eyes wide with hope. "Oh, Will; you remember!"
"I wish I did; I only remember how headstrong my lord father can be in pursuit of what he thinks is right. But was that the plan? Was I to be the French Queen's executioner?"
She shook her head. "You wouldn't hear of it. You considered it deeply dishonourable and washed your hands of the matter."
Which was why she'd been drugged with poppy syrup for ten days and kept in the dark about Renée, Wolsey, and Pieter; her father had wanted to keep Will away from anyone who might have connections on the continent lest his memory return and he raise the alarum. What a stroke of luck her accident must have been! In an instant, in a slip of a horse's hoof, the main stumbling block to his egregious plan, one he couldn't see was destined to fail, had been removed. "And what does Kathryn Howard have to do with any of this?" she asked, taking a calculated risk.
"Nothing that I know of— Kathryn? My little cousin, Lady Kathryn? Why would you ask about her?"
Hesitantly and with no little embarrassment Mary told her what had happened on the night of the accident, Anne's eyes growing wider with every detail. "She threw herself on me, crying and wailing and calling me 'darling'," she finished. "Since then I haven't seen her and I haven't had a chance to ask. I can only assume…"
"Oh, Will, you must have been so confused," Anne said, clasping her hand again. "I can assure you the Lady Kathryn is most definitely not your mistress. Uncle Norfolk has spent the last twelve years scheming to betroth her to one of your brothers; he'd hardly let you take her to bed even if you were the type, never mind that she's my cousin and barely sixteen."
Sixteen?! She hadn't realized— "Then why did she barge into my bedchamber?"
"If I knew, my darling son, I wouldn't hesitate to tell you." She rose and bent over, kissing a surprised Mary on the forehead. "That said, I distinctly remember Dr. Wendy ordering you to rest this evening, so if you don't mind I'll take the opportunity to write George's wife the Duchess. This is her fourth confinement; I only pray she has a happier outcome than last time. Promise you'll try to sleep?"
Only through sheer will was she able to stop herself from wiping off the residue of her kiss. "I promise, Maj-Mother."
Once she was alone Mary pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders, her eyes on the cabin window beside her as the scratch of quill on paper told her Anne had by some miracle found fresh ink in Edmund Bonner's desk. It was by then fully dark outside, so dark that nothing disrupted her reflection – Will's reflection – other than the odd glimmer of light bouncing off the water. A night as black as my father's heart, she mused; a night as murky and dank as his soul.
She didn't disagree in theory with his plan to subvert the French line of succession; every loyal Englishman thirsted to see St. George's cross flying high above the Louvre, after all, and Mary was certainly no exception. But killing a pregnant woman or even a newborn child were acts so nefarious and so hypocritical under the circumstances that no prudent prince could think them reasonable; Christendom would recoil in horror from the act just as it had from her aunt's murder, and England, her father, and the holy Catholic Church would suffer a black eye no man could hope to heal.
Queen for queen: a solution so short-sighted only her father could have invented it – and he never would have had the chance to set it in motion had Will not fallen in the tiltyard two weeks ago.
Oh, Father might have sent one of his cronies to France anyway – Francis Bryan if he were still alive, perhaps Tom Seymour – but Will could have countermanded his order as commander in the field. But Mary's hands were tied; were she to send word of her father's plans to the Emperor she would be guilty of treason, and although she'd prefer to imagine her cousin a shining beacon of knightly virtue she knew better than anyone how ruthlessly practical Charles Habsburg could be. He might lament his sister-in-law's fate if only to distance himself from England's shame but he'd grasp at the opportunity to promote himself as a true Catholic monarch with both hands, and any real grief would, she feared, be not for Amalia or her child but for the end of his hopes to control France through an infant nephew.
He'd worn mourning for three months after her mother's death; a week later he'd told Chapuys to make peace with Anne Boleyn.
But the fact remained that none of it would have happened if Will were still here. Why, then, had God taken him, and why had He replaced him with Mary? What plans did God harbour that required an innocent, pregnant Queen of France to fall to an assassin's blade and England's reputation as a Christian realm destroyed? Perhaps He knew His business, as the priests claimed, but Mary would have given a great deal at the moment to know what that business was.
She shut her eyes tightly as if to block out the dread brewing in her belly. If Will were here, if she were not…
She closed the kitchen door behind her and tiptoed gingerly down the stairs, the thick morning fog swallowing her up as she made her way toward the blackcurrant bushes at the far end of Hatfield's garden. Lady Shelton's voice had been as sharp as the stinging slap the old bitch had administered to her cheek a few moments ago; the Lady Mary, bastard daughter of the King, was to perform the most menial tasks Hatfield could afford her until she 'learned her place' – in other words, until she accepted the monstrous, self-serving lie that had brought her here.
Princess Mary snorted; it would take much more than being awoken at six to pick fruit to goad her into denying God's truth.
The fog lifted as she passed through the gate but instead of in the orchard she found herself at the head of a long curving pathway flanked by two privet hedges, the right one lush and green, the left a forbidding tangle of dead, fire-blackened branches. "Is someone there?" she called out, her voice echoing around the corner of the tall hedgerow.
Nothing.
Tentatively, her heart in her throat, she placed one foot on the path, then another, but her attention was soon drawn to a silver filigree jewel in the shape of a French Royale apple dangling from the living hedge to her right. She plucked it from where it had seemingly grown and tucked the delicate confection into the basket tied around her waist.
The next bauble, a large lapis lazuli Burgundy plum, dangled high above her head just past the first curve. As she placed it in her basket she glanced at the thicket of dead branches to her left and caught sight of a two-headed buzzard peering at her through the twigs; with a shudder of disgust she averted her gaze.
She continued down the winding path, keeping well clear of the terrifying thicket to her left, until she finally spotted a golden German quince studded with diamonds and rubies nestled in the crook of a leafy privet branch. It was the most precious jewel she'd ever seen, one she longed above all to carry close to her heart, but her hands refused to obey her wishes; into the basket it went with the rest of her harvest.
The next, a sparkling Wiltshire garnet in the shape of an apricot, fairly leapt from the hedge just as the sun came out from behind a black cloud; she reached up but the moment it was in her hands it melted into oily, rancid slime that dribbled through her fingers and into the mud at her feet.
She continued down the path, wiping her filthy hand on her skirt, but she wasn't ten steps away when a flash of lightning rent the sky and the wind picked her up and carried her past the end of the path and into a magnificent rose garden, an enormous teardrop pearl materializing in her open palm as her feet touched the ground again.
"They call it 'La Peregrina'," Will said as he leaned back against the trunk of an ancient oak. "It was discovered in Panama, in the New World."
She looked up into his handsome face. "Is it mine?"
"It would have been, dearest sister, but now," and his grin melted into a wistful frown, "but now you must harvest the other side of the path."
"The other side? But I can't," she exclaimed, turning to glance over her shoulder. "It's dead and full of monstrous beasts—"
But it was not.
In the few short moments she'd been in the garden the hedges had both undergone a shocking transformation; the green privet she'd just harvested, the one that had been on her right, was now a tangled mess of blackened branches, but the thicket on the other side, the one she'd shrunk from in disgust, was now lush, verdant, and very much alive.
Will's voice came low to her ear. "The right side blooms for you, Mary, no matter which way you face."
Without another word she re-entered the pathway and knelt before the first privet to her right, drawing aside the bright evergreen leaves to reveal a bouquet of rosebuds hiding within, a single lily among them. "Why didn't you pick it yourself?" she asked him.
He only shook his head. "My nature abhors both sides. Look."
And both hedges had become chaotic, grotesque maelstroms of twisted vines populated by foul, slithering vermin.
"You see through my eyes and live through my body," his voice came from behind her, "but your soul and heart are your own – and may God keep you well."
The roses suddenly burst into brilliant flower, filling her arms with enormous dewy red and white Tudor blossoms—
—and her eyes fluttered open.
She stretched as best she could in the cramped cabin, the details of her bizarre dream a mad whirl in her mind. Golden and silver fruit, a garnet turning into slime, hedges greening and dying in an instant, a two-headed buzzard...and what had that been about a pearl? "La Peregrina," she murmured.
"Your Highness?"
She glanced at Lady Langley, who'd taken Anne's place. "Forgive me, my lady," she said, gesturing for her to remain seated. "How long was I asleep?"
"Two hours at least, sir. The Queen is speaking with Master Bowden—"
"The sergeant of my private guard."
"Yes, sir; she and Sir Francis should return presently." Her brow creased in a momentary frown but then her eyes grew soft and her fingers snaked out to dance against the back of Mary's good hand. "If Your Highness dreamt badly I'd be more than willing to interpret," she purred, her voice growing warm and deep, "or to provide whichever other service you might desire this evening."
Only by exerting the greatest self-control was she able to stop herself from jerking her hand back from Lady Shelton's daughter. "I, um, thank you for your kind offer," she said as she gently detached herself, "but in truth I was granted a most pleasant dream of – of gardening. I seem to remember that your husband, Lord Langley, used to enjoy my mother Queen Katherine's private gardens when he was younger?"
Her face flushed a brilliant red. "I believe he may have been, sir, but—"
Just then Francis poked his head through the doorway. "We're coming up on Greenwich, Your Highness," he said, a crease forming between his eyes as his gaze flittered between Mary and Lady Langley. "The Queen has requested you attend on her."
She pushed herself to her feet and followed him out just as someone on the shore raised the alarum and the oarsmen brought the barge to. It was an uncommonly warm night, so warm that not a tendril of mist rose from the glassy water. "I pray the King is enjoying as fine weather tonight as we are," she said to the head bargeman.
He shot her a cocky grin. "Aye, Highness, and may that frog bastard be frozen up to his neck in mud."
She couldn't disagree with that sentiment.
Anne was waiting for her just behind the rowers, her eyes scanning the wharf. She considered mentioning Mary Norris's strange advance…or was it that strange? Everyone knew that women were the more lustful sex; if she had been Will's secret lover, if no one had known…
Pieter would know, she realized; what man could hide his peccadillos from his valet? She would have to make—
Anne's low voice interrupted her thoughts. "Did you sleep well?"
"Better than I had any right to," she replied, pasting a smile on her face as they stepped onto the deserted wharf. "I dreamt of – well, of picking fruit from a privet hedge."
"Harvesting fruit is a symbol of recovery; I'm not surprised—"
But just then the palace doors burst open and a florid older man emerged, his chain of office hanging crooked off his shoulders in the faint light thrown by his attendant's lamp. "Your Majesty, Your Highness: good evening!" he cried as he dropped into an awkward bow. "I must tender my most sincere apologies; Lord Russell told us to expect you no earlier than tomorrow night."
"By now you should know not to underestimate us, Uncle James," Anne said with a smile. "I take it the Imperial ambassadors are here?"
"Just arrived at dusk, madam, but I believe they've retired for the evening."
"And the Princess Elizabeth?" Mary asked as they entered the palace.
He shook his head. "She retired some hours ago, Your Highness; it's nearly ten o'clock."
"So late!" Anne exclaimed. "Then we should follow Their Excellencies' example. Please pass on the message that we will receive them at nine o'clock tomorrow – if the Prince is in agreement?"
"Perfectly, Majesty."
"Mother, Will," she reminded her with a fond grin. "Lady Sussex, you are a sight for sore eyes."
Mary's old friend Moll Arundell rose from her curtsey. "Your Majesty's rooms await your arrival," she said, her face falling as Lady Langley came into sight.
They bowed, not daring to rise until the ladies had disappeared up the stairs; Mary would have commented on the dagger-sharp glares being thrown behind Anne's back by the Ladies Langley and Sussex but it seemed Francis had something else on his mind – but of course he would. "I'll require your attendance later on," she said to him, "but it occurs to me that my Lord Marney hasn't had time to ready your rooms."
"If my father's at court I might not need him to," he said, turning to the older man. "Is Lord Weston at Greenwich tonight, my lord?"
"In the Lord Treasurer's apartments as usual, yes. I trust you know the way?"
"I do, my lord; thank you."
He made his bows, leaving Marney to accompany Mary up the stairs to the gallery. She didn't know where her apartments were – there were many stately suites at Greenwich but as far as she knew none had been built specifically for the Prince of Wales…
…and her breath stopped in her throat.
Mary was Prince of Wales, undisputed heir to the throne; she would be sovereign in the fullness of time unless God willed otherwise, and as such it was her duty to sire heirs. The very thought should curdle her blood, but even now the memory of her body's unexpected base reaction to Mary Norris's fingers brushing the back of her hand brought the blood rushing to her face. That men walked around with – with that happening and never let on…
She swallowed, giving Marney a sidelong look as the herald at the top of the stairs boomed out her name and title. "Does Meneer Van Coevorden know I've arrived?"
"I sent two pages to him with orders to remain in attendance upon Your Highness until further notice. One can hardly speak ill of Master, er, Vancouver, but not even he can attend on Your Highness unassisted."
"Especially since I'll need a bath," she said. "Not that I'm considering taking up the life of a sybarite—"
Marney chuckled.
"—but I doubt the Imperial ambassadors would be impressed if the co-Regent of England received them stinking of horse and mud."
"If I may, Highness, I don't think Father Maioris is a man to be impressed by much," he said. "The Duke of Albuquerque has however asked repeatedly about the details of your victory at Devizes last year."
Yet another worry to add to her ever-growing collection, she thought with a sigh. She'd have to figure out what exactly Will had been up to in Wiltshire – and when, and with whom – before she met with the Duke tomorrow.
Her rooms were located behind an unfamiliar set of double doors built into the north wall of the gallery, or at least that was where her guards led her. "You will no doubt have been advised that the Queen and I are co-regents," she said to Marney at the threshold, "and as such any messages arriving in the night should be conveyed to both of us. I would however ask that I be notified first if news should arrive regarding – regarding any member of Her Majesty's family. I would hardly wish my lady mother to receive ill tidings from the lips of a messenger."
He nodded grimly at what she dare not put into words. "I will pass the message on, sir, although let us pray the precaution proves unnecessary."
She dismissed him with thanks, passing between the sentries into a sumptuous sitting room where the most familiar face she'd seen in weeks was waiting for her. "Meneer, good evening."
Pieter Van Coevorden dropped his prince the same respectful little bow he'd always offered her as princess. "Good evening, Highness. I trust your trip from Dover was uneventful?"
"I only wish it had been." She bent slightly to allow him to lift her cloak and overgown off her shoulders; Pieter was a tall man but she must top him by a good six inches. "You'll have to discard most of my clothing, I'm afraid; we were forced to ride through a quagmire just east of Newington."
"I'm sure most of it can be salvaged, sir. If Your Highness would be so kind as to sit?"
She all but fell into the chair by the fire and let him peel off her sodden boots. "His Grace of Rochester won't thank us for the use of his barge," she said. "We left it a filthy mess; I'll have to give orders for it to be cleaned tomorrow. Do you know if he's in attendance?"
"His Grace remains at Westminster, Highness."
He carried her boots away, returning presently with clean hands and a tray bearing a flagon and goblet; she eagerly took the cup and drank deeply of the warmed, cinnamon-spiced wine. "Were you expecting me?" she asked. "Warmed wine, a hot fire – do I hope in vain for supper and a hot bath?"
"I had every expectation Your Highness and Her Majesty would arrive this evening," he replied, "and to that effect I had the kitchens prepare a light supper, although I fear it may not reach the rarefied standards of royal dining. I also arranged for the fire under the hot water boiler to be lit." He bent over, lowering his voice to a near-whisper. "The Queen sent news of Your Highness's unfortunate accident at Windsor and of the King's orders for your recovery," he added in French, glancing at the door before continuing. "I earlier received instructions from my Lord Audley to attend on Your Highness at Southampton; the Queen's messenger overtook me west of London and I accordingly returned to Greenwich."
So Father had tried to keep them apart! "I suppose we should be grateful my lord father the King only intended to separate us until he was in France and could carry out whatever scheme he's planning without interference," she replied. "I take it you still have contacts in Burgundy?"
"Contacts Your Highness makes use of regularly? Yes, sir."
"And you work only for me?"
He met Mary's gaze evenly, and if she could see bare honesty in those dark eyes she could also see a flicker of confusion and perhaps pain as well. "Only for you, Highness."
"Did the Queen tell you I was having issues with my memory?"
"Her Majesty did indeed mention that Your Highness was suffering from confusion," he replied, "but I regret she did not mention memory loss."
"She must have assumed I would recover; I only wish I had. I do remember some faces and names – yours, Sir Francis's, my parents' – but I otherwise have no memory of my life before I woke up in the courtyard, although I'd prefer that not be widely known. If I'm thought incompetent—" A noise from the corridor alerted her to the imminent arrival of her supper. "Should I know the grooms Marney sent up?" she whispered.
His eyes flickered again to the door. "Tom and Bartholomew are Father More's grandchildren – Sir John's boys, if Your Highness recalls him."
At that she could only shake her head; she knew of John More – in fact, she'd secretly given alms for his support every month – but she'd never been privileged to meet the great martyr's son. In her world John had sensibly buried his family in the wilds of Yorkshire…but here he was a knight and prosperous enough to send his sons to court.
His stepmother and a million of her fellow countrymen were dead.
Job's words came to her: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Her dining chamber was as magnificent as any prince could ask for; she sat under a finely embroidered canopy of estate with a groom on each side and Pieter behind her chair, and if the meal didn't fulfill the promise of the décor she had no one to blame for that but King Louis. "I dare say our men in Calais would give a pretty penny for a supper this filling," she said to the boy on her left once she'd disposed of the meagre pottage. "Still, I can't help but envy them. What do the servants say about the war?"
The child's face unexpectedly flushed a brilliant red. "Highness…I – I don't…"
Why was he so nervous? "I didn't mean to startle you," she assured him. "I only wish to know what they're saying below stairs. You must have heard something."
"Master Thomas, the Prince asked you a question," Pieter rumbled.
By then the boy was trembling like a leaf. "They say we'll win 'cause God's on our side," he squeaked, "but they wish Your Highness was in France instead of the King. Cook says you're no yellow-belly—" and the blood drained from his face as he realized what he'd just let slip out. "Highness, I didn't mean – I shouldn't have—"
"It's all right, Tom," she said in as bracing a tone as she could muster before the child fainted from sheer terror; the servants thought Father a coward! "I ordered you to tell me the truth and you obeyed, and for that I thank you. My lord father the King might expect otherwise, I know, but when I ask an honest question I expect an honest answer no matter how badly you think I'll take the news. You've heard similar stories, Bartholomew?" she asked the other boy.
He nodded. "The keepers say you'd've put the frog six feet under by now."
"The order of battle is already set, I'm afraid," she told him. "If we engage French forces too early we could materially damage our chance of removing not just King Louis but his low, Godless advisors, men like Cauvin and Bucer. We want to meet Louis in the field, not with a city wall between us, right?"
"Because a siege kills too many innocent people?" Bartholomew asked.
Thomas More's grandson he certainly was. "Sieges do indeed destroy far too many innocent lives, it's true, but they also eat up gold, food, materiel, and the most irreplaceable asset of all: time. The sooner our men win, the sooner life can return to normal in England and the sooner the French people can be brought back to faith and obedience. Surely your grandfather's told you of the importance of extirpating the Lutheran heresy."
At that they stopped just short of rolling their eyes.
Clearly they'd endured enough lectures in their short lives, she thought as she finished her meal in companionable silence; once she'd bathed and been redressed in a fresh shirt, robe, and sling she took a seat behind the handsome Venetian desk tucked into a corner of her bedchamber, breathing a sigh of relief that her shoulder didn't ache nearly as much as it had that afternoon. "Have I received any letters since you saw me last?" she asked Pieter. "I don't see anything here."
"Your correspondence is in the locked drawer on the right," he said as he returned with a mud-encrusted leather bag. "The keys are in Your Highness's purse. The Duke retrieved it from the tiltyard at Windsor after your…after the accident."
"The Duke."
"His Grace of Wiltshire."
George Boleyn: another conundrum she hadn't been able to sort out. William had trusted him implicitly, she knew that, but there was something else…nothing more than admiration, she prayed with all her might, but from what Wolsey and Anne had said—
She pushed that repulsive thought away for the moment and examined the bag Pieter had just placed before her. It was finely wrought of what had once been white kid, and although most of the mud had been knocked off in transit it clearly hadn't been opened since it fell into the courtyard. "Why would I have had a purse with me in the tiltyard?" she mused aloud.
But Pieter had an answer even for that. "Your Highness prefers your keys remain either on your person or in the possession of a trusted servant at all times."
The conclusion was inescapable. "Father reads my mail."
"Not personally, sir, but other men have made attempts."
"The Seymours?"
He nodded.
And that, she thought as she cracked open the filthy purse and dug out a set of unmarked keys, came as no surprise. Henry Seymour might have spun lies at her bedside about his brothers' supposed 'close friendship' with the Prince of Wales but Will's heart had told her a very different story; he'd liked but been wary of Sir Anthony but had regarded Thomas with loathing and disgust, a fact that had done more to confirm his good sense to Mary than anything else she'd discovered about him. "And Thomas More?"
At that Pieter demurred. "Father More is completely trustworthy, sir, although his recent health issues have rendered him less reliable than one would wish. He has a tendency to wander at times, and he's frequently forgetful."
That made her look up. "Forgetful in general?" she asked; if More had been brought to this world like her and Wolsey—
"His memory comes and goes, sir," Pieter replied, dashing her hopes. "Dr. Butts suspects senile softening of the brain; last month he was found in the dungeons of Windsor searching for his wife. You were intending to write Sir John before you departed for France."
"Then I'll do so tomorrow; arrange for a scribe, if you will."
She finally found the right key and unlocked the desk drawer, pulling out a stack of letters whose undisturbed seals spoke to Pieter's probity and care. There was a letter from Emperor Charles; one from Anne of Cleves – Empress Anna, she corrected herself; one from an unknown correspondent; one in Anne Stanhope's hand (thanks to God, she was alive!); and three bearing the inscription 'À mon seigneur et bien-aimé mari le Prince de Galles'.
They were from her wife.
"There is one other matter I'd like to bring up with you – one of some delicacy," she said as she set the letters aside for the moment. "My lady mother and Cardinal Wolsey both tell me I haven't yet consummated my marriage, and yet they also say I don't keep a mistress and have no bastards to my credit." Her tongue felt thick but she forced herself to continue, her gaze sliding up to Pieter's face. "Do I – tell me I'm not…"
"Your Highness is—" and he froze as her unspoken meaning brought a blush to his cheeks. "I can most absolutely assure Your Highness of your utter fidelity to the laws of God and man."
"I'm not a…"
"Not in the least, sir."
She slumped back in her chair; thank God! Wolsey had half-said – or at least half-implied, which amounted to the same thing – that it might be better that William's body had been taken over by a woman. At the time she'd wondered what he'd meant but Anne's comment about Will not being 'the type' to keep a mistress…she hadn't even been able to articulate the fear brewing in her belly, not even in her thoughts, but— "I am a normal man, then," she reiterated. "I prefer women."
Pieter's face by then was beet red. "Sir, I – I cannot…you have never expressed abnormal tastes, Highness, I can assure you of that – but neither I have seen you express normal ones."
My nature abhors both sides.
That must have been what Will had been trying to tell her in that dream. He'd wanted her to know that he'd borne no interest in the act of love but Mary, despite living in his body, would always be correct and natural in her appetites. She would always favour the right side – and as a woman her more lustful nature would counteract any lingering reticence his soul had left behind.
The jewels she'd picked from the privet hedge had been her suitors, she could see that now. The French apple had represented the Dauphin, the Burgundy plum Emperor Charles, and the precious German quince Philip of Pfalz-Neuburg, the charming duke who'd courted her that spring. What or whom the Wiltshire apricot had represented she couldn't know, but the pearl…
"Thank you for your candour," she said as she rose again. "One other matter is puzzling me at the moment – a matter far less distressing, I assure you; have you ever heard of a teardrop pearl named 'La Peregrina'?"
"It's a crown jewel of Spain, Highness," he said, his gaze shifting to a portrait – a Holbein, if she wasn't far wrong – hanging against the opposite wall.
It was Anne of Cleves, younger and plumper than Mary remembered her, resplendent in a magnificent gown, a small boy clutching at her skirts and La Peregrina dangling at her throat. "Anne has a son?" she asked Pieter from over her shoulder.
"Five sons, sir, and two daughters. Your Highness stands as godfather to Prince Guillermo – the Prince of the Asturias," he added after a moment's pause.
"Godfather to his heir," she murmured. "A solemn undertaking."
"Solemn, Highness, but not unexpected," he said, "as Emperor Charles credits Your Highness with arranging his marriage to the Empress. The story related by my former master was that His Majesty wrote Your Highness while you were in Cleves regarding the Duke's unmarried daughters. You replied that the Lady Amalia would make an excellent wife but the Lady Anna possessed every one of the queenly virtues."
And so she did, Mary thought as she dismissed Pieter with a nod. La Peregrina was a Spanish crown jewel; had she been fated to marry Philip in her world? She supposed it didn't matter; she was a man, and if Guillermo was the crown prince Philip had either died young or had never been born.
That fact drove in once again how at odds her new world truly was to the one she'd grown up in. Some lives – Jane Parker, Ned Seymour, Hal Howard, a million others – had been lost, while others – Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey – had been saved. Some children – her beloved brother Edward, Frances and Eleanor Brandon, even Philip of Spain – had never lived, while others – King Louis, her new brothers Edmund and Charles, Francis Weston's unborn child – had been given a chance. The monasteries flourished, the holy icons and statues and paintings still assisted the faithful, but – but—
Oh, Edward, my sweet, precious brother; Elizabeth, what if you aren't the sister I remember—
But she stopped herself before she shattered into a million tiny pieces. Remember who you are, her mother had once told her; she allowed the words to flow through her and stiffen her spine. You are an English prince, she reminded herself; you are forged of iron, not glass.
Not for the first time did she wonder if Mother knew what had happened to her. Could she see both worlds from her place by the Virgin's side? Could she see other worlds where she'd left behind a large family of sons, or where Uncle Arthur had lived and Mary was his daughter? Were there worlds where Mary had never been born, where Gloucester the Usurper and his heirs still reigned, where her Norman ancestors had never landed at Hastings, where the Romans…but she shook her head: all that was beyond her own comprehension and far beyond her ability to imagine at the moment. She could only do her best according to God's laws in the world He'd brought her to – and never forget who she truly was.
She might be a man now but in her heart of hearts she would always be Mary Tudor. Prince and princess, man and woman, king and queen in the fullness of time, God willing: she would have to endure and hide her essential duality for the rest of her life.
By the time Pieter returned with a brace of yeoman warders she'd composed herself and was back behind the desk idly flipping through her correspondence. "The Queen and I are expected to meet with the Imperial ambassadors at the outrageous hour of nine tomorrow morning," she said to him, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of the guards banging doors and overturning mattresses. "I'd like to hear early Mass as well, so…"
"Shall I wake Your Highness at half six?"
"If you would. I'll be up for a while still; if you'd make up the pallet bed for Sir Francis – here he is," she said as her companion for the night entered the room and bowed. "Was your father able to feed you, or should we send one of the boys down for a plate?"
"I thank Your Highness," he replied with an easy smile as the guards filed out, "but Father had both an entire roast fowl and a plate of fruit hidden in his bedchamber. My mother despairs of his late night habits but they frequently serve me well enough."
At that she laughed out loud. "And I had barley pottage and lettuce sallet! I suppose it helps to have a father who…"
"Who's at court?"
"Who would sacrifice his comforts for yours," she said, her mood sinking like a stone. "I have letters to read – three from Rénee, in fact – and I can't muster the courage to open them. It's hard for me to believe that I'm thought a brave man."
He tilted his head. "Perhaps it takes a different type of courage to face the enemy than oneself. If I might ask…your memories haven't returned, have they?"
"Not in the least. I remember people well – some people," she clarified, "but – but no, I don't remember anything from before George pulled me out of the mud. I can trust him, can't I?"
"Wiltshire? You'd trust him with your life, sir, and rightly so. He all but raised you; you think of him as a second father more than an uncle." He paused, his gaze shifting to the letters in Mary's free hand. "No matter what the Princess has written, I can assure you she only wants the best for you and for England. Nothing that's happened is her fault."
She snorted a mirthless laugh. "Wolsey said she has the good sense to obey Father in all things; how can I blame her for that?" she asked, shifting her attention to Pieter who was waiting patiently by her side. "Go find your own bed, Meneer – but have one of the boys sleep outside the door."
"As always, sir."
Mary waited for Francis to douse most of the candles and go to bed himself before she returned to Renée's letters. Of the three two were only a single sheet and contained (as she'd suspected) little more than hopes for Will's recovery and numerous promises to pray for him. It was the third that interested her most; a good ten pages long, it was dated the day before her accident and bore signs of having been in more than one hand, and although the seal remained undisturbed one corner of the covering paper had ripped – or been torn – in transit.
She took a deep breath and broke open the seal.
My Lord Husband, the letter began,
I humbly recommend myself to Your most serene Highness and am desirous of your daily blessing, and humbly submit myself to you in all things excepting only GOD and the King, by whose command I have awaited your summons these four long months.
She frowned; what command was this?
Every day I ask myself why you have not yet sent for me, it continued. I beg you, husband, tell me what I have said or done to turn your heart to ice. I am alone, abandoned and forgotten: but why? Why have you sought to forsake our vows, your sacred duty to GOD, and your duty to your realm? Why deny me my natural rights as your wife now that the King allows our marriage to be perfected?
If you would but tell me how I have displeased Your Highness and allow me to rectify my character or improve myself in whichever way…
The letter went on in that strain for pages: paragraphs of pleading and cajoling and appeals to Will's sense of fair play in English and, near the very end, French stained by tears of loneliness, desolation, and grief. Four long months – ever since Aunt Mary's murder – she'd waited for his summons; four long months he'd let her moulder in the country, her pride (for she clearly hadn't breathed a word of Father's orders to Wolsey) the only defence she could muster against the pain threatening to devour her alive – a pain Mary knew all too well.
And it had been Will's fault entirely.
His friends and family had spoken much of his honour, courage, strength, and compassion over the past two weeks, yet this paragon of princes, this warrior who'd faced men in battle without fear or qualm and laid the heads of traitors at his king's feet, had abandoned his wife to a corrosive, bitter, lonely existence not because his father had commanded it but because he'd chosen his own comfort above the duty he owed God, the realm, and his wife.
How could you? she demanded silently. How could you cast away a faithful, innocent wife without even giving her a chance? How could you allow your 'nature' – your fears, your disdain, whatever name you've given it – distract you from your sacred obligations?
'To have and to hold': it was the vow every man and woman made during the sacrament of marriage, the vow William had surely made as a boy even if he had been too young to understand what was being asked of him. But he'd never fulfilled that vow, and although only women were called upon to vow to be 'bonair and buxom at bed and at board' the Church still taught that a man who refused to bed his wife had no business entering into holy wedlock. Even the second Edward, he of base repute and even baser desires, had forced himself to sire sons on his lady queen, but Will had defied his father's command, God's holy law, and Renée's natural rights as a wife for no reason but his own squeamish distaste for the act of love.
In his own way he was no better than his father.
She returned Renée's letters to the drawer and locked them away, then doused the candles and crossed to the bed in the light thrown by the rising half-moon. To be so lonely, so unloved; to be treated so callously by the only man who could have saved her…
Francis's voice was little more than a whisper. "Sir, are you all right?"
"Disillusioned, deeply disappointed in myself, and needful of severe correction," she spat out as she slipped under the fur coverlet and let the bedcurtains flutter shut. "Do you think Renée would be angry if I sent you to Hampton Court to bring her to court? Would she return with you?"
"I can leave in the morning if you'd like."
Which was no answer…or perhaps it was. "Let's wait until we're settled in at Westminster," she said. "I know you're awaiting happy news of your own but I'm sure Renée could be ready to travel within the week."
He barked a laugh."I don't think she'd need more than an hour. She might even man the oars herself."
She ran her hand over her eyes as if to rub away the headache brewing behind them. "Was I really that bad of a husband?"
"Not bad, sir, not exactly, but…"
The lingering silence told her all she needed to know.
She bade him a good night and closed her eyes, her mother's face suddenly coming to mind. Pray for me, she begged her with every scrap of strength she could gather; help me make my way through this. God has brought me here, his will be done, but I'm so afraid, so very afraid and confused and…
Princesses, Mother had once said, do not cry; but she hadn't said a word about princes.