A Love Most Dangerous (22 page)

Lord Seymour seemed to cast about to find something to
say. And then, as if he had a better idea, he stooped and tore out a clump of
Snowdrops and presented them to Lucy.

She shied away like a foal. 'You shouldn't have done
that,' she cried.

'But it's a gift,' he said, a look of confusion
growing on his face.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she looked in horror at
her desecrated little town.

Seymour
did not know what to do
and proffered the flowers to me instead.

'I am not partial to gifts declined by another lady,'
I said. 'Thank you so very much for the offer but no thanks.'

He flung the flowers on the ground and would have
trampled them, I think, but Lucy bent and picked them up, replacing them on the
mound with as much reverence as a daughter places flowers upon her parents'
tomb.

Seymour
drew himself up and his
voice came stronger on the winter air.

'This is no place for ladies to wander on their own,'
he said. 'Come let me escort you to the palace.'

'No place to wander?' I said. 'Why so? There is no
danger here.'

'We are close to the river. There may be all sort of
ruffians here: footpads, thieves, men who would prey on two defenceless chicks
like you.'

'Not every man sees women as their prey, Lord
Seymour,' I said. I essayed my new found silence weapon and watched him squirm.

We stood thus for what seemed an age. The silence
seeped around the dell until I came to think I heard the waters lapping on the
bank.

'Oh let's go back, please, Alice,' said Lucy. 'I want
to go back.'

Seymour
hid a smile of triumph
and offered her his arm.

I did not answer her, nor did I move.

'Will you join us?' Seymour asked.

I shook my head.

'I most definitely cannot leave a lady here on her
own,' he said with solicitous voice. He gestured to the river. 'Footpads,
thieves.'

He held out his hand to Lucy. 'Come my child,' he
said.

'But if you take Lucy with you,' I said, 'it will be
you who has left me here alone, my lord.'

'But poor Lucy is distressed,' he said. 'She desires
to return to the palace.'

I turned my head and stared at Lucy. Her eyes widened,
realising it was she who we tussled over. I wondered whether that made her feel
powerless or quite the opposite.

'I'm all right, now,' she said. 'I think it best if
Alice and I continue on our walk.'

Lord Seymour bowed. 'Of course, dear ladies. I will
disturb you no longer.' He bowed once more and took two steps away. Then he
half-turned. 'I would feel happier if I kept you in my sight, however. Please
allow me this, dear ladies. I will follow you at a distance. You need not be
aware of me.'

With that great beard, I thought. I'd see it in my
mind's eye every step, slinking after us through the woodlands like a starving
dog fox.

But there was nothing more we could do about it. 'That
is most gracious of you, Lord Seymour,' I said, feeling that victory had been
snatched from me.

I held out my hand to Lucy. 'Come, let us continue our
walk.'

'Have you more secrets to show me?' Lucy asked as we
headed towards the river.

'Only those within the hearts of men,' I said.

She looked perplexed and shrugged. And so we walked
for a good hour more until the cold began to bite hard. And all the while Lord
Seymour dogged our steps, a shadowy spectre.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

A King is Refreshed

31st March 1538

The last day of March was Mothering Sunday. All of the
palace servants should have been allowed to go home to their mother church and
to their mothers. As usual the King announced that any servant who wished to
leave their duties for the day could do so with his blessing. As usual none of
them dared take up the offer.

It was a fortunate thing that none of them left for on
this day the palace had great need for servants. Mothering Sunday also bore the
name Refreshment Sunday and was the one day in Lent when the rigours of fasting
were relaxed. Or it would have been if the King had not decided to relax them
earlier in the month by proclaiming that white meats could now be eaten. The
whole of the nation responded with great loyalty by killing and eating every
type of fowl they could lay their hands on.

The official reason for this announcement was that the
cold weather had caused a dearth of fish and that people would starve unless
the Lenten ban on meat were relaxed to allow the consumption of chicken, goose
and wild-fowl. The real reason was different. The King realised that in
religious matters he could now do whatever he chose with no fear of
admonishment from the Pope. Like a child with a new toy he was keen to play
with this delightful new power.He was clever in this choice. Allowing people to
break their Lenten fast proved very popular with high and low throughout the
Kingdom. And with many fat prelates in the church, of course, who always found
Lent the most difficult rite to observe.

The King intended to celebrate this Mothering Sunday
with more than his usual abundance. It was the first Mothering Sunday since
Prince Edward had been born and the King seemed to have decided that he should
make a pretence of grieving while celebrating to surfeit and beyond. As you
see, I was getting to know His Majesty very well by this time.

I walked with Susan, Mary and Lucy to the chapel. My
usual low spirits at the thought of a dreary mass were lifted by the knowledge
that it would be followed by a fine feast and pleasant entertainments. There
were far more than the usual number of people in the chapel. Courtiers who
lived nearby had descended upon the palace like rats upon an overflowing grain
barn.

The chapel was decked out in rose coloured hangings
and Father Ambrose and Luke had swapped their Lenten purple vestments for rose
hued ones. I nodded to Luke when I saw him and gave him the warmest of smiles
for he looked quite handsome. He blushed more scarlet than his vestments and
dropped a chalice.

'Good morning, dear ladies,' came a familiar but
unwelcome voice.

We bobbed our heads as we knew we were expected to in
the presence of a lord.

'Good morning, Lord Thomas,' Susan said dryly.

'Rose Sunday,' Seymour said, rubbing his hands
together. 'One of my favourite days. I hear that those who get married on this
day are especially blessed.'

Susan pretended surprise. 'Are you to be married on
this day, my lord?' she asked.

Seymour
smiled like a cat. 'Not
today. But perhaps later I will advance my suit.' He gave me a lascivious grin.

'Lord Seymour has a fancy for you,' Susan whispered
when he had left to take his seat.

'I know it,' I replied. 'I have been expressly caustic
and rude to him to put him off.'

She laughed at my words. 'Then that was foolish of
you. I suspect he's the sort of man who relishes a challenge. It would have
been better had you seemed meek and mild and then he would have tired of you
much quicker.'

I pondered her words. My heart hammered as I recalled
how I'd done the same thing with Richard Rich and that had goaded him even
more. Susan Dunster could peer into the darkest crevices of people's minds and
it was well to listen to her advice.

The mass finished eventually and we hurried out of the
chapel like schoolboys fleeing school on a hot summer's day. We made our way
towards the Great Hall and, even before we arrived there, the rich smell of the
feast sharpened our appetites.

The sight which met our eyes was magnificent. The hall
was filled with tables and on each of them was a huge platter containing a
suckling pig, a joint of beef and a haunch of venison. Surrounding this, like
courtiers around the throne, were other platters heaped with pheasants,
partridge, duck and goose, legs of lamb, hare and venison. Each place setting
held a wooden platter with fine white bread beside it and a glass beaker filled
with claret.

Susan, Mary, Lucy and I found seats as close to the
windows as possible. It was still chill in the hall but we knew from experience
that it would soon become unbearably hot. Then the windows would be thrown open
to let in much needed air and we were determined to benefit from this.

At the top of the hall was the royal table. Arrayed
upon this was a range of food such as I had never seen at even the grandest
feast before. If the King had intended this Refreshment Feast to send a signal
to the church and Pope he could not have chosen better. It was as if he had
commanded the greediest gluttons in the Kingdom to devise the feast of their
dreams and then employed a hundred cooks to make those dreams reality.

The centre piece of the royal table was a dolphin in a
smooth white sauce.  Surrounding this, as if they were swimming in a lake, were
a veritable flock of swans.

'They're stuffed with birds,' a kitchen lad whispered
to us in a proud tone.  'Did it myself. Took ages it did. Started with a wren
stuffed inside a sparrow, then a chaffinch, then something else, something
else, quails, woodcock, something else, ptarmigan, partridge, pheasant.
Anything with wings has been stuffed into them swans.'

'Angels,' I said. 'Angels have wings. Is the King to
dine on even them?'

The kitchen boy laughed. 'You're one for a good jest, Alice. I'll tell the boys that one.'

'As long as you don't tell Father Ambrose,' said
Susan.

At that moment two trumpeters marched into the Hall
and blew a fanfare. Every one rose from their seats and turned to watch the King
enter the Hall. We clapped politely at sight of him and he acknowledged the
applause with a wave of his hand. He took his seat, the applause ended and the
rumbles of empty stomachs began.

I scrutinised the courtiers who had been placed at the
royal table. It was unusual for the King to dine with anyone sitting close to
him and those few occasions were marked out by extra ritual. Many of the great
nobles had ancient claim to a place, a claim which could not be denied even by
Henry Tudor. But the place allocated to each of them was decided by the King
and illustrated who was currently high and low in his favour. To his right sat
the Duke of Norfolk, the premier noble of the kingdom, and next to him his son,
the Earl of Surrey. I had not met him although it was said that he was wiser in
words than in deeds and only his father's firm hand restrained him from
performing even more foolish ventures than he was already notorious for.

Beside the Earl of Surrey sat the older brother of the
late Queen Jane, Edward Seymour. He was, of course, in the deepest mourning;
the sudden demise of his power and influence had been a terrible blow to him.
He may even have mourned his sister, though I doubted it.

Seymour
was accounted wise
beyond his years, a man to watch out for, in more ways than one. His deep-set
eyes looked thoughtful yet weary as if from too much scrutiny of the world.
Even at the feast he peered from one man to another as if weighing up each of
his rivals upon a scale of his own devising.

His brother Lord Thomas, leaned back in the seat next
to him, to all the world as if this was the place where he felt most
comfortable. His eyes moved as much as his brother's but without the same sense
of weariness. Quite the contrary. His eyes roamed over the ladies of the court,
hungry as a cat watching tiny birds.

He caught sight of me and gave a glimmer of a smile
before removing his gaze and continuing his appraisal of the rest of the
females.

Mary turned and gave me a wry look. 'You need to be
wary of Thomas Seymour,' she said.

'I've told her so already,' said Susan. 'He has a
reputation for consuming young women.'

'I thought he was charming when we met him in the
woods,' said Lucy.

I reached out and patted her on the arm. 'You have
much to learn about the wiles and appetites of older men,' I said.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a tiny smile
tremble on Susan's mouth. Perhaps she thought that I had much to learn myself.
Or, perhaps, that I was already so accomplished a scholar I could teach Lucy
all she needed to know.

To the King's left sat the Duke of Suffolk. Now here
was a man who could teach even Seymour a lesson concerning young women.

The Duke was in his fifties and his fourth wife,
Catherine, a pretty nineteen year old. He had married her five years before,
six weeks after burying his wife. People wondered what on earth a mature man
could desire in a sweet fourteen year old heiress to the greatest fortune in
the kingdom. The Duke answered that it was love, pure love. Cynics said that
too much love with a girl so young and pretty might prove the early death of
him.

The King had been mightily angry at the marriage.
Catherine had been Suffolk's ward and it appeared unseemly for him to swap the
role of guardian for that of lover. But that was not the main cause of the
King's wrath. The wife Suffolk had so recently buried and so swiftly forgot was
Mary, Henry's favourite sister. Indecent lust, indecent haste and incautious
disregard of Tudor sensibilities were the height of folly for even a Duke.