In a Treacherous Court (31 page)

N
orfolk had almost reached the King’s side. He was only steps away from where Henry sat on a low dais. Parker began to plow through the crowd, rage and dread giving his elbows extra force.

Susanna clung to his doublet as she followed. He glanced back to check on her. He would not let her out of his sight again.

“Parker!”

Someone shoved through the crush and grabbed his arm, stopping Parker dead. Relief whipped through him when he realized it was Simon.

“What news?” He had no hopes it would be good. “Did you find Pettigrew?”

“No.” Simon swayed from side to side and his eyes blazed excitement in a face haggard with fatigue. “I went straight to the docks to look for him—but there I met a messenger just off a boat from France and received the most unbelievable news. I didn’t even look for Pettigrew. I turned around and rode back to London without stopping; haven’t slept since I left you.”

Parker felt the first stirrings of hope, and let Simon pull them away from the crowd to one side of the room.

“De la Pole is dead. Killed in battle at Pavia.” Simon’s hands shook, and he rubbed them over his face. “And more, the King of France is captured.”

Satisfaction crashed through Parker, making it hard to breathe. “Then Norfolk is hanging in the breeze. There is no army from France to back him.”

His eyes went to the dais where Norfolk now stood with the King.

Their eyes met.

Norfolk’s gaze jerked from him, widening at the sight of Susanna and Simon standing with him. Parker sent him a vicious smile.

Sweat, you bastard. Feel the fear.

He turned back to Simon, motioned him toward the King.

Simon shook his head. “’Tis your news to give, Parker. I would not have been in Dover if not for you, and you have paid the highest price in this.”

Parker frowned. “There will surely be a boon for this information.”

“And you deserve it. Imagine what you could ask of the King.” Simon bowed very deliberately to Susanna, and Parker saw her frown and look between them.

“Then come with me. Let us bring Norfolk down together.”

“I have no argument with that.”

Parker took Susanna’s arm, and Simon flanked her other side. Together they approached the dais.

Norfolk watched them with the interest of a fox watching the hounds, and as they came toward him he took a quick step forward to block them from the King. “I have something urgent to tell you, Your Majesty.” He sounded out of breath.

“I’m sure whatever it is, it can wait for news from Dover.” Parker put a foot up on the low stage. “The King will wish to hear this.”

Suddenly unsure, Norfolk took a deep step back. Parker smiled.

“Well?” Henry asked.

“De la Pole is dead.” Parker bowed. “And the King of France is captured.”

Norfolk lost all color, and Henry sprang to his feet, his mouth agape.

“Dead? Captured?” The King seemed unsure whether to believe it.

“At a battle at Pavia, Your Majesty.”

“Ale. Ale for all. Ale for everyone in London!” The King laughed out loud. “All the enemies of England are gone.”

Parker held Norfolk’s stricken gaze.

Not all of them.

T
his is most excellent news.” Norfolk’s voice was high and thin, and he cleared his throat. “Parker, I must speak with you.”

There was something sly and furtive in his sidelong look that sent a light touch of dread down Parker’s spine.

“What is this? You must celebrate. This is no time for work, gentlemen.” Henry clapped his hands. “Music. Merry music!”

Norfolk stepped down from the dais and bent his head close to Parker’s. “You’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

Parker exchanged a quick look with Susanna, then with Simon. Simon shrugged.

Silently, they followed Norfolk to the back of the great hall and into a small chamber to one side. Simon closed the door behind them.

“I’m sure nothing gives you greater pleasure than my current difficulty, Parker. But if I go down, I refuse to go down alone.”

“I don’t care who you bring down with you, Norfolk. Anyone in league with you deserves what they get.” Parker reached for the door handle.

“Wait. Listen. Buckingham’s execution a few years ago shook the nobility in this country. He was foolish to move his troops around, foolish to talk so arrogantly about his eligibility for the throne, but no one believed the King would have had him executed were it not for Wolsey.”

Norfolk wet his lips. “I’ve had a King’s Groom of the Body in my pay for some years, and I made sure he knew to check the fireplace for letters that might have been thrown there. And one day he brought me one that was hardly singed by the flames. Carelessly written, and carelessly discarded.”

With a deliberate tug, Norfolk set a sleeve right. “A letter from the King to Wolsey, refusing to grant Buckingham clemency. Wolsey was begging him to spare Buckingham. The King would not be swayed.” He straightened the other sleeve, as if the exact line mattered a great deal. “He had the good sense to think better of sending it. And all this time everyone thought Wolsey brought Buckingham low, not the King. But it
was
him.”

“What does that matter?” Susanna asked. “He’s the King; he can have a traitor executed. It’s his right.”

“But a very unpopular move. And not one that should have been entered into lightly.” Simon crossed his hands over his chest.

“The tone of the letter, the arrogance and the flippancy of it …” Norfolk’s smile was sly. “It will cause a great deal of unhappiness—at a time when there is no male heir to the throne. Just one little girl and an illegitimate boy.”

Parker clenched his fists, closed his eyes. His plans to crush Norfolk were crumbling to dust in front of him.

“What is he saying?” Susanna put a hand on his arm.

Parker had to force the words out of his mouth. “He’s saying that unless we keep silent about his involvement with de la Pole, he has the means to bring the country to war.”

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
Sil-dome or never to sue to hys Lorde for anye thing for himself.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualities in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To showe suche a one all signes and tokens of love savynge suche as maye put hym in anye dyshonest hope.

B
efore she left the celebration, Susanna caught his eye and smiled. The kind of smile that made him think of a dark room and a comfortable bed.

“I seek leave to go, Your Majesty.” Parker tried to slip from the King’s hold around his neck.

“Go? No, no, Parker. You must celebrate.” Henry’s words were beginning to slur.

He wanted to celebrate, all right. But not with the King.

As Susanna slipped from the room, at the sight of her narrow back, the flick of her velvet skirt, he turned to Henry. “I have a boon to ask.”

“A boon?” Henry struggled to his feet, hauling Parker up
with him. “Parker would have a boon of me!” The King’s shout echoed around the room.

Parker held himself still. He should have known better than to ask now.

There were yells and boos and cheers from the crowd.

“What would you have of me, my friend? My bearer of good news?”

Parker looked at the now-quieter gathering of courtiers, saw the avid curiosity in their faces. What the hell. At least he could extract this promise with witnesses. There would be no going back for Henry if it didn’t suit him when he was sober.

“I would have permission to take a wife.”

The roar of approval deafened him, swelling around the room and crashing over him like a tidal wave.

“Parker the Cold? Parker the Merciless? Parker the Lone Wolf? Would take a wife?” Henry tugged Parker even closer in the headlock. “Is she wealthy or connected to the nobility?”

“No.”

There was laughter again; some of it closer to sniggers.

“But then why do you want her?” Henry’s voice was quiet, which forced the others to quieten as well.

Parker studied those in the room, saw some friends, even more enemies, and did not care who heard. “I would marry for love, Your Majesty.”

Henry released him, stood back, and watched Parker closely. “For love? Ah. What a thing. What a privilege.” He turned away, and Parker thought it in dismissal, felt cold dread at what such a reaction would mean. Henry turned back, a
finger brushing a tear from his eye as he composed himself. “Then so you shall.”

Parker bowed deeper, lower than he had ever bowed before. “My thanks, Your Majesty.” He was across the room and at the door before anyone had the idea to drink to his happiness.

The Yeomen of the Guard let him through with smirks, and the door closed behind him.

Susanna stood, hands gathered at her breast, in the deep gloom of the passage.

“Did you hear everything?” His voice was not his own.

“Some of it. The roar of the crowd brought me back. I was afraid something was wrong.”

“You may think it presumptuous that I asked the King’s permission first, but I could not ask you without knowing I had leave to do so.” He tried to read her eyes, but they were shadowed.

“And if he had refused?” She stepped closer, and still he could not read her. His usually open Susanna.

“If he had refused, I would still have asked you.”

“And if I had said yes?”

“Then we would be packing our things and finding the next ship to Ghent.”

She smiled, slowly and from the heart out.

“I still say yes.”

He lifted a finger to her cheek. “And we have no need to pack at all.” He looked at her and saw everything. A lifetime. A wonderful adventure. “Let’s get to our chamber.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Parker the Cold?”

“Not that cold.” He let her see the heat in his gaze.

“Parker the Merciless?”

He took her arm in polite courtesy and bared his teeth. “You will see how merciless I can be.”

“Parker the Lone Wolf?”

He lifted her fingers to his lips. “Not so lonely anymore.”

This is a work of fiction, although where possible I have tried to stay true to what happened during this exciting time in England’s history. John Parker really was the Keeper of the Palace of Westminster and Henry’s Yeoman of the Crossbows, although he was later promoted to Keeper of the King’s Robes. I couldn’t find out when this change occurred, and crossbows are so much more interesting than robes, so Parker is yet to be promoted in my telling of the tale.

Susanna Horenbout is even more difficult to pin down. She really was praised by Albrecht Dürer, and he really did buy her work when she was just eighteen. On her death, she was further praised by eminent Renaissance artists, but no known work of hers survives. My thanks go to art historians Lorne Campbell and Susan Foister for their in-depth study of the life of Susanna and her father and brother. I drew heavily from their research to flesh out Susanna’s history.

I don’t know the circumstances of Parker and Susanna’s meeting, courtship, and marriage, but it is quite true that they did marry.

Of the complete fabrications, I concocted the plot by de la
Pole to get papal backing for his claim to the throne of England, but I did not make up the secret treaty between the King of France and the Pope. It got me thinking that if such a treaty was in effect, de la Pole might have tried to use it for his own ends, and I took things from there.

I also made up Norfolk’s plot to overthrow the crown. He did hate Cardinal Wolsey, and his father did cry as he sentenced Buckingham to the chopping block for treason. Most believed Wolsey was behind Buckingham’s execution, but today we know that it was in fact on Henry’s insistence.

I fabricated entirely Henry’s obsession with Cesare Borgia. I have no idea whether he admired the man or not; but given Henry’s love for knightly honor and courage on the battlefield, I thought Borgia might have been a hero he would have believed in. And Borgia did conveniently (for my purposes) die around the time Henry was mysteriously locked away by his father. No one seems to know why Henry VII secluded Henry VIII in that way, so I devised a reason.

Also, while George Boleyn was a womanizer and most probably a rapist (he confessed to living a depraved life before he was executed, although he denied the accusations of incest with his sister), and while he did visit his infamous sister Anne at the court of Margaret of Austria, I have no idea if he was sent away from there in disgrace. It could have happened, given his abhorrent behavior, and as this is a work of fiction, I made it so.