Brazen (15 page)

I
AM
WOKEN
INTO
FR
IGID
DARKNESS
ONE
MO
RNING
BY
A
RUSH
OF
even colder air coming in through my open door. The blackness in the room is equal to the one behind my eyes and I lie still, listening for any sound that may tell me what—or who—has come into my room. I hear a slip-stride like feet trying to tiptoe and not collide with unseen objects. A quiet footfall. A woman?

Or a very light-footed man?

I try to see around the curl of velvet that covers me, but all I see are shades of charcoal. Black only occasionally alleviated by a ghost of dark gray.

Until the dark-gray ghost moves and I gasp.

“Duchess? Are you awake?”

I sit up and shiver as my shoulders are bared to the air of the room.

“Madge?” I hiss. We still haven’t spoken to each other since our argument. “What are you doing here? You nearly scared the life out of me.”

“It’s a surprise. I’m here to get you dressed.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“It’s not the middle, anymore. It’s nearly dawn. Fitz says we have to hurry.”

Dawn. Fitz’s favorite time of day.

“Fitz?”

Madge chuckles. “He’s very persuasive, Mary. I’m afraid I can’t refuse your husband anything.”

I swing my legs from the bed and wince when my feet touch the floor. The cold is as sharp as a blade.

“And when did you see him?” Suspicion sours my voice and all my words taste like vinegar.

“I haven’t.” Madge’s tone is as cold as the room. “The message was sent through someone else.”

A torrent of shame douses my jealousy. Madge and I are still on wrong feet with each other. She shouldn’t have made such a tactless joke. And I shouldn’t have taken it seriously. We’re like two people dancing to dissonant tunes.

“Where are we going?” I ask, trying to return to neutral ground. A pause in the dance.

“I told you, it’s a surprise.”

Madge lights a candle and starts rummaging through my clothes, pulling out the pale-pink bodice that replaced my wedding gown when it got too small and tattered. She helps me dress quickly and then pauses, looking at me. We cannot speak apologies yet, but at least we’re in the same room.

I turn toward the door, but she stops me, silently dabs rose water behind my ears, then douses the candle.

“Can’t have anyone see us,” she whispers, and promptly shuts the door on my hand before I’m all the way out of the room.

“How dare I think secrecy less important than keeping all my fingers,” I mutter.

In the darkness, Madge goes down the spiral stairs without hesitation. I’m the one feeling for the edge of each riser before reaching my foot out into the abyss. At every step, I’m relieved to find solid stone beneath my slipper, and even more so when I leave the stairwell and enter the courtyard.

“Hurry up!”

Madge’s breath comes in puffs, like she’s breathing fire. She glances once at the sky and grabs my hand to drag me at a run toward the river.

Only then do I realize I can see. See her breath. I can almost see the cobbles beneath my feet and the silent wraiths and servants ignoring our indecent haste. It may not be morning yet, but it is no longer night.

On the river walk, the cold breath of the Thames hollows out my lungs and shrieks inside my nose. My eyes close involuntarily and icy-hot tears sting the corners. I wish Madge had thought to make me bring a cloak. Her hand is the only warmth I feel. I squint through the darkness for something familiar. For some hint of Madge’s “secret.”

A shadow breaks away from the wall of the palace and approaches us. Tall, slender, with sweeping skirts.

“Margaret?” I whisper. “You’re in on this, too?”

“Secret note,” she replies. “All very mysterious.”

A splash on the river turns us all to stone. For a moment.

“There,” Madge says, and points. Looming out of the deep gray mist on the deeper gray water is a black boat propelled by shadows.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Madge walks down to the little water gate where the barges land to take the king to London. One of the shadows leaps from the boat and swoops down on her, spinning her around once before depositing her on the boat and running up to where Margaret and I stand together.

“Sister.” Hal’s face emerges from the blurry darkness, and all the tension leaves me. I throw my arms around him and he whispers in my ear, “The game is not yet won, Mary. But at least I have a moment to play my hand.”

Then he turns. “Lady Margaret. Allow me to escort you.”

He takes each of us by the arm and leads us down the steeply sloped bank to the waiting boat. On closer inspection, I can see that the dark canopy is a deep green or blue, and that it is fringed with something light and shimmery. Gold.

When I am close enough to step into the boat, I see that Fitz stands at the side of it, arm upraised to help me down.

This time when we touch, my fingers tingle. And it’s not from the cold.

“Let me get you warm,” he whispers in my ear as he tucks me under his right arm, so he must lift his left to help Margaret into the boat.

“I fear I’m the gooseberry here,” she says, her feet not making a sound as she drops lightly to the deck.

“Not at all,” Fitz says, and points to another figure, at the far end of the boat, both hands on a long pole that keeps the vessel from drifting away from the dock and prevents boarders from being dumped unceremoniously into the reeking waters at the river’s edge

The sky must be getting lighter, because I can see that it’s Thomas. He nods and murmurs, “Your Grace,” but is at least as reserved as Margaret. They don’t touch.

I raise an eyebrow at Fitz and he grins. “It turns out I’m a good guesser,” he says, and wraps a fur around my shoulders. It’s not nearly as warm as his arm.

“And a matchmaker,” I whisper, nodding to where Hal is getting Madge settled. Her shoulders look stiff beneath her cloak.

Fitz glances at the sky and turns to the others. “We have to go soon.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You should sit down.”

The boat lurches a little as Thomas pushes us away from the dock, so I take Fitz’s advice. The bench feels damp—a little sticky—beneath my fingers. I wrap the fur more tightly and watch our escorts scurry about, attaching oars and arranging furs.

When I look back, Greenwich is yards away, the stone just beginning to gleam against the black hill beyond it.

“Where are we going?” Margaret calls out.

“I told you, it’s a secret.” Madge stands and wobbles showily, then collapses next to me. “Aren’t you glad you came?”

“Very.” Despite the cold.

For a while, all I hear is the slosh of the water on the sides of the boat and the oars that steer it. I feel the current when it takes hold near the center of the river and we start to move more quickly toward the sea. I worry that the three boys won’t be able to keep us from washing all the way out into the Channel, but they seem in control.

For the most part.

The sky above us melts from black to gray, the fog lifting from the river and obscuring the stars. Fitz says something to the others, and they scramble to steer the boat closer to shore. Then I hear the scrape of grass on the hull and a squelch as Thomas’s pole is sucked into the mud beneath us.

The marsh rises all around us.

“Don’t get us stuck!” Fitz calls, and sets the boat rocking as he runs to Thomas to help push us away from a particularly thick clump of grass.

The boat slides into an inlet, the still water around us completely surrounded by fen. The mist is tinged pink by the sky beyond it.

Fitz comes to sit beside me, but we don’t touch. Hal sits facing Madge and takes her hands in his. She won’t look at him. Just hangs her head. Thomas guides Margaret beneath the canopy and they disappear from view.

For a moment, we are all silent. The only sounds the whisper of the marsh grass on the boat and the lap of the river beyond. Then a distant moo.

“Where are we?”

“The Isle of Dogs. The embankment was breached almost fifty years ago and it reverted to marsh and wetland. The kingfishers love it here.”

“And the cows?”

Fitz smiles. “Graze on drier ground.”

“You promised to show me the dawn,” I whisper.

“It’s coming.” Fitz turns his face to me. We are so close.

“Tell me your words, Mary,” he says softly.

“My words?”

“Your poetry.”

“I’m not a poet, Fitz. I don’t have the rhythm for it.”

“Like I don’t have the rhythm for dancing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love music. That I can’t feel it. What do you love about words?”

I think for a moment. “I love the way they sound. The way they sing. The way they taste.”

“Words have a taste?”

“Most of them do. Have you never thought about it?
Dawn
tastes like cool air and freshly cut grass.”

He nods, and his eyes leave mine to look at my lips. As if he wishes to taste the dawn on them.

A thin, reedy double note turns his head and he cocks it to listen until the note comes again.

“Kingfisher.”

I tilt my head to mimic him—closer to him—listening. The song is nothing special, but when we hear it, we both smile.

I turn a little farther, so we are almost nose to nose. His eyes are the color of the sky behind him, just turning from gray to blue. I hope he’ll kiss me again

“Look.”

Fitz points past me, and I turn away. A tiny bird sits precariously at the top of a reed, the feathers of its bright blue head and red-orange breast glinting in the rays of the sun. All around it, the tips of the grasses have kindled to gold.

Fitz lays his face next to mine, the warmth of his skin reminding me how cold the air is. He wraps his arms around me from behind and tucks the fur down over my hands. Gently, he rests his chin on my shoulder.

“This is my poetry, Mary,” he says. “These are my words.”

W
E
LEAVE
G
REENWICH
THE
NEXT
DAY
,
AND
I
K
EEP
THAT
DAWN
in the coffer of my memory when Fitz moves to a separate residence on the Strand and then is required to go straight to Collyweston. I won’t see him again unless he is recalled to court or the City out of duty to the king.

Madge hasn’t spoken much since our boat ride. She’s distant and uncomfortable. I don’t think things went well with Hal. I’m fairly certain he arranged for Madge to be Fitz’s messenger, knowing she wouldn’t refuse the opportunity to facilitate a clandestine tryst. I suspect that Madge believes I’m implicated, as well.

Margaret divides her time between us, and I feel a ridiculous, childish jealousy. She was my friend first. Every connection is faulty. It is as if the three of us only function when we are together. With a piece missing, the mechanism of friendship fails.

The only way we communicate is through the book. We use margin notes and regurgitated verse to convey meaning. But half-finished thoughts aren’t the same as conversation. I’d like to hear Madge’s voice and judge by her tone. I’d like to see Margaret’s facial expressions—so subtle, but so telling.

All I find is the book under my pillow or in my sewing basket.

I write what feels like nonsense and pass it on.

And I sew. The queen requires it of all of her ladies. We sew clothing for the poor so she can distribute it on this summer’s progress. Endless hems and simple stitching. The repetition—the rhythm—are soothing, but offer little solace.

Hal finds me in the great hall one dreary afternoon and perches on the bench beside me.

“This seems an odd place to sit and sew, Mary.”

I glance up at him. His eyes are laughing at me.

“There’s a little more space here,” I tell him, “than in the queen’s rooms.”

“You mean it’s not as crowded.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“And you can get away from Madge.”

“Madge and I are not unfriendly.”

“That’s not what it looks like to me.” Hal stands and starts to pace back and forth. His eyes deepen below his brow, the heavy fringe of his hair almost covering them.

“We had an argument,” I manage to say.

“About
him
?”

I don’t need to ask who
he
is.

“Amongst other things.”

Hal sits back down beside me and speaks so quickly and quietly his words hiss.

“I hate him,” he whispers. “He controls everything. He controls us all. It’s like the entire court is a chessboard and he can maneuver us however he wishes. And sacrifice us as it pleases him.”

“Hush. You can’t say such things.” I stay as calm as I can, but my hands shake. My stitches grow uneven.

“I can’t be
heard
saying such things,” Hal says. “But you won’t repeat them.”

I shake my head. Of course I won’t.

“It’s not only me, Mary. It’s not just Madge.” His voice cracks a little. “It’s this bloody Oath of Supremacy. Forcing people to acknowledge he’s head of the church. He’s put Thomas bloody More in the Tower, for Chrissake. Those Carthusian monks are on trial for their faith. He’s made it treason to speak your mind—to have your own beliefs and thoughts! It’s treason to question his marriage. A midwife in Oxford was jailed for calling Anne a whore.”

“It proves he loves her,” I say automatically, but Hal just laughs.

“Even you can’t be that naive! He’s fucking someone else.”

I flinch at his choice of word. It tastes like spoiled meat.

“So have you been,” I snap.

“Proving my very point! I don’t love my wife.”

“Have you tried?” I turn to him, thinking of Fitz wanting to get to know me. Thinking of him showing me the dawn.

“I have no idea how to talk to her.”

“Because she’s your wife?” My voice is sharp.

Hal turns to face the near-empty hall. “I’m sure you are well aware that we didn’t have very good examples growing up.”

A day from our childhood rises to my memory unbidden. Mother’s ladies pinning her down by her arms. And still she shrieked and struggled until one of them sat on her chest. But my father wouldn’t run. He waited until she was exhausted and broken and then told her exactly what he thought of her.

That was the night he left with Bess Holland. I don’t think my parents have spoken aloud to each other since. But their letters fly back and forth and through their friends at court, their animosity leaving a haze like smoke.

“I believe we can assume you shouldn’t physically restrain Frances.”

Hal smiles. “And if Fitz does that to you, I will kill him personally.”

“You’d choose me over your best friend, Hal?”

“I’m completely fair, Mary.” Hal is still teasing, but I can hear an edge of truth in his voice. “I can promise to do the same to you if you treat Fitz as our mother treats her family.”

I nod.

“Then I would deserve it.”

Hal throws an arm around me.

“Mary, you are so unlike our mother, it seems improbable that you’re related.”

I can’t quite say the same about Hal and Father. They have the same ambition. The same . . . entitlement.

“High praise, Brother.”

I relax beneath his arm. Hal sits back, leaning against the wall, one hand still on my shoulder and his boots outstretched. He seems to be over his rage at the king.

“She wrote to me.” Hal’s hand flinches and drops to the bench beside him.

“Your wife?”

“Mother. She said I’m unnatural.”

“She said as much to me.”

“But it’s her, Mary. She’s the one who’s unnatural. Trying to pit her son against his own father. Everything is a contest of preference and precedence.”

I think of Fitz taking my hand on our wedding day. Of stepping out in front of her and leaving her behind. “Just like the court,” I say. “A dog pile at the command of the king.”

“I should like to escape the king’s control as well,” Hal mutters.

His gaze is on his hands in his lap. He still holds the casual pose, but the knuckles of his fingers are white with tension. I know his anger stems from the king’s relationship with Madge. But I also know it shouldn’t affect his allegiance.

“You are his subject and therefore subject to his command.”

“Subject to his whims, more like.”

I can’t make this any easier for him. But I can’t allow Hal to speak treason. “If that is so, then so be it.”

He looks up at me, his eyes pleading. “Will you speak to Madge? Just let her know how I feel.”

“Of course,” I say, hoping I get a chance to speak to her at all. “But you have to do something for me.”

Hal’s face hardens for a moment, but he manages to force the ghost of a smile. “Anything, Sister.”

“Speak to your wife,” I say. “Find out who she is.”

“Are you saying there’s no hope for me and Madge?” I can hear his heart breaking.

“I’m saying there might be hope for you and Frances. You’ll be living with her soon, and you never know what might happen. I think . . . I think it’s possible to love someone even when you’re forced to be together.”

Hal truly smiles and leans forward to whisper in my ear. “That’s what Fitz says.”

I drop my chin to hide the flush of delight that blooms on my chest, and Hal laughs. He flings himself up and stamps his feet twice as if trying to secure his place in the world. I think he’ll walk away, but he hesitates for so long that I finally look up at him.

“Father thinks he’ll be king one day,” he says, so quietly I almost think I’ve imagined it. “Fitz.”

I nod. Father said as much to me. I dare not speak it.

“I think he’ll be a good one. He’s nothing like his father.”

Before I can reply, Hal turns on his heel and leaves the hall.

I pack up my sewing and return to my room, pulling the little book from its place between my mattress and the bed frame. I find a blank page and begin to write, hoping Madge will remember the day we caught Hal and Fitz playing tennis. It seems a lifetime ago, though it’s only just a year.

Hal’s poem is in the voice of a woman whose lover has gone off to sea. But I know she’ll recognize it as his. I just hope she recognizes why I write it down.

O happy dames! that may embrace

The fruit of your delight . . .