Brazen (24 page)

A
NEW
POEM
APPEARS
IN
MY
BOOK
,
HIDDEN
BENEATH
MY
PILLOW
. I hadn’t even realized the book was missing.

It’s in Margaret’s hand, and ends,
Thou should me find, I am your faithful friend assuredly.

Across the top, Madge has written,
There is no cure for care of mind, but to forget that which cannot be.

The rumors increase, including the one that there’s nothing Cromwell’s spies won’t offer the ladies of the queen’s bedchamber to tell all the secrets they know.

I hide my book deep within an old cedar chest, wrapped in the pink bodice I wore on my wedding day. The bodice doesn’t fit—in fact, the girl who wore it wouldn’t recognize the person I am now. My body has shape—curves and roundness and fewer planes and angles. As I tuck book and bodice away, I wonder if Fitz sees me differently. And how he felt about the awkward girl in bed with him that first night.

He’s back in Greenwich for the meeting of the Order of the Garter. And we have seen each other—across a room, sitting at table. He looks thinner, and there are faint shadows beneath his eyes. I think he knows of the questions and spies. That we can’t do anything that will inspire scrutiny. I don’t want the rumors that slide through the rooms like noxious smoke to gather us up and suffocate us.

Nicholas Carew—a distant relation to the Boleyns, but a friend of the Seymours—is voted into the Order. Not George Boleyn, the queen’s brother. Which causes a stream of gossip to be diverted that way for a while. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Margaret. I start to breathe again.

The king convenes the Privy Council, and they hole themselves up in the king’s apartments, calling for wine and venison and beer and small ale. Every time the door opens, a thick fug emanates from it. The smell of men crowded into a small space. The smell of nerves and weighty decisions.

“We need fresh air,” the queen announces. “Leave the men to their business.”

She calls the dogs to her, and they come in a jumble: two wolfhounds and three lapdogs, who fit together like a mismatched family, bounding over one another and nearly knocking her down. As we near the forest, one of the wolfhounds—a brute named Urian—takes the head of a little spaniel in his mouth, growling.

Jane Seymour shrieks.

The queen laughs. “It’s play. All of it a joke. The truth is that Urian loves the others. He just needs to show everyone who is in charge.”

Urian drops the spaniel, who immediately jumps up and starts nipping at Urian’s heels. They race each other up into the park until Urian trips over the spaniel’s backside and they come to a jumbling halt, starting up again when we reach them.

Spring has finally arrived at Greenwich, and we walk out into the parkland. The bluebells have just begun to show, the blankets beneath the trees dark and creased, the green standing bright in the filtered sunlight, broken here and there by a single early bloom. The dogs throw themselves into the forest, dashing in and out of shadows, biting, barking, scaring off everything in all directions. The queen stops in the wood, takes a deep breath, closes her eyes.

“Are you all right, Your Majesty?” I ask quietly.

“What is your greatest fear, Mary?” she asks in reply, opening her eyes again and boring holes into mine with her gaze.

“Loss.” The word answers for me. I’m afraid of losing Fitz. Of losing my friends. Of losing my position.

“Mine is regret.” She looks up into the trees, where the sky is just visible through leaves as green as sunlight. “Not for things that I’ve done. But for things that I haven’t, because I was afraid.” As always, I immediately think of Fitz. Think of the missed opportunities. The moments I could have seen him in the past week, but didn’t.

Because I was afraid.
Regret
is as acerbic as the dregs of wine.

The queen brushes her skirts with her hands and then clasps them together as if they’ve done something improper. She turns and walks down the hill, avoiding the orchard.

“Never be afraid to follow your heart, Mary,” she calls over her shoulder. “And never be afraid to speak out. To make yourself heard.”

I barely manage to keep up with her. Her pace is brisk, her skirts flapping around her ankles and back in the breeze. A few wisps of hair come out of her hood, and she wipes them from her face. The dogs run straight to the kennels, knowing the master there will treat them with scraps of bread from breakfast. The queen turns through the gate and into the inner court.

Several courtiers mill around on the cobblestones, and all conversation stops when we enter. The narrow mouth of the crowded hall is packed with people who squeeze up against the walls to bow and curtsy to her as she passes through and up the stairs. On our left, the queen’s apartments echo with emptiness, but the king’s watching chamber on our right is unnavigable, there are so many bodies. All startled into silence.

Whatever the council is discussing is of interest to the entire court. And more.

“Why so many of you?” the queen asks.

There is much shrugging and scraping and few answers. They don’t know. Or they’re not telling.

They don’t wish to discuss it with the queen.

She goes still, but her right hand brushes her skirts, and her left hides itself in one of the pleats. She lifts her chin, and I see the pulse at her throat, the vein blue against the whiteness of the skin there.

Fear rises in me like bile. The council hasn’t been called to discuss the meeting with James of Scotland or the impending trip to France. The council has been called to discuss the queen. Father’s voice rings in my memory.
Divorce
. The fear rises higher when I begin to wonder if perhaps Cromwell’s questions weren’t about Margaret.

They certainly weren’t about me.

We were all lulled into a false sense of security. The soothing comfort of Cromwell’s voice made us think nothing major was amiss. He was merely inquiring about some rumors. The king’s assiduous cheer made us think the court had begun to find its balance on the sand—that perhaps normality had returned.

Nothing is normal.

The queen turns so quickly, she almost knocks me down. I don’t even think she sees me as she brushes past to leave the room. But she grabs my arm and pulls me with her, muttering.

“Get my husband, Mary.”

I freeze.

“Get my husband any way you can. I am going to the princess Elizabeth’s rooms. He can find me there.”

She lets go and walks away, the sea of courtiers undulating in her wake.

The vomitous fear knots in my stomach, and for the first time in my career at court, I don’t do what the queen has asked of me.

I go to find Fitz.

As soon as the door is closed behind me, his lips are on mine, one hand beneath my hood, warm on my neck, the other on my back. I take a step to get closer to him, press my body to him. I want to hide in him. Hide all the knowledge and rumors and fears and just be.

But I can’t.

I back up again, breaking contact. Put my hand on his chest, and my fingers contract against his heart. Wanting to hold it. Hold him.

Fitz’s hands are still on my face, and he searches my eyes questioningly.

“The queen needs to speak with your father.”

I say the words without thinking. Not
the king
.
Your father.

Fitz blinks. It’s not a flinch, but it’s close.

“He’s waiting for the report from the council,” he says.

“I know. But she needs to see him. Now.”

Fitz stills. Stares. I feel his heartbeat slow against my hand. I have to bite my lip to keep from kissing him again. Erasing all of it.

“I don’t think I can do that. We are at a balance. A fragile one.”

I see that Fitz loves the king as a son loves a father. He wants so much for that to be reciprocated.

“He loves you,” I tell him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says quickly. “What matters is his favor and good opinion. I need to stay on the right side of him. So I won’t be sent to Scotland. So I can have you. Keep you.”

“I want that, too.” I want it so badly; the want is like a great, sucking hole in my chest.

“Then I can’t do anything to upset the balance.”

Fitz has always been the one to stand up for me. He cleared the way for me to step in front of my mother. To believe that I can come first. That maybe I
should
come first.

But I, too, am afraid to upset the balance. If we retain it, Fitz and I could be together.

Should I come first?

Never be afraid to follow your heart
, the queen said.

“I have to believe we’re meant to be together.” I take his hand and run my finger along his knuckles. “That it
will
happen. Your father loves you. I believe that. You’re his only son. But you’re the only thing she’s got right now.” I look up at him. “She needs to talk to him, Fitz. Something is happening. And she has a right to be heard, too. Not just the council.”

Fitz nods, straightens his doublet, and moves around me to open the door. He pauses, one hand on the latch, to kiss me quickly.

“I have a feeling this will not end well,” he says.

“He needs to remember what love is,” I say. “I have to believe that he loves her.”

I have to believe that he loves Fitz, too.

Fitz looks sad.

“The king’s love is not permanent, Mary. It’s a struggle to hold on to it. I know from experience.”

I can’t speak. I try to swallow my fear, but it sticks.

Fitz presses his forehead to mine.

“My love, on the other hand, is immutable.”

He kisses me again, long and slow. Our lips fit together perfectly.

As he strides his way back through the crowds to the Privy Chamber, I walk through empty rooms of the queen’s apartments to the princess Elizabeth’s lodgings. My footsteps echo on the floorboards and I can even hear my own breathing, it is so silent. Every step makes my stomach more hollow. The emptiness is more frightening than the most tightly packed crowd.

A maid lets me into the nursery, where the queen stands by the window, holding the baby. Elizabeth is two now—she’ll be three in September—with hair the color of fire and eyes that take everything in. I always feel like she’s judging my fashion sense, the absence of gold in my wardrobe.

“Mawy,” she says.

I glance at the queen. A speech impediment isn’t a good thing in a monarch.

“Your husband had a lisp as a child,” the queen says, not looking up from where she’s nuzzling Elizabeth. The movement reminds me so much of how Fitz just kissed me that I blush.

“Is he coming?” Her words are a whisper that barely stirs the hair at Elizabeth’s temple.

“I think so. Fitz . . . Richmond has gone to fetch him.”

“I knew you were a good choice.”

I don’t know what choice she means. To fetch the king. Or to marry Fitz. I nod anyway.

The sun blazes on the horizon, lighting up the queen’s face and Elizabeth’s hair. They look haloed—like the icons of the holy mother and child that adorn the chapel at Kenninghall. Serene.

The door behind me bangs open, shattering the peace and making the maid squeak.

“Madam, what is the meaning of this?” the king growls, throwing a look at me like a rain of fire.

It’s not me he speaks to; it’s the queen. His boots thump the floor like drumbeats. Or cannon fire. She doesn’t flinch. She turns, the sun lighting Elizabeth’s hair from behind. The queen gazes at her husband steadily.

Then she holds out Elizabeth to him, as if offering a gift. A plea.

He steps aside. Toward the window. The sun catches his hair, setting it alight just like Elizabeth’s. The resemblance is breathtaking.

“Your daughter needs you,” the queen says, cradling Elizabeth’s head back on her shoulder. “More than the council.”

The king’s face softens for just a moment. Then he looks at his wife.

“I need more than a daughter,” he says stonily.

“You always said that we had everything. When we were together.” Her voice is steady. But I hear the meaning behind it. They are not together. She’s trying to remind him. I don’t know if it’s love I see in her eyes, or the fight for survival.

“We don’t have everything, madam.” The king is unmoved. “And I don’t believe we ever will.”

“What is it that you need?” she asks. There is no pleading in her voice, only anger. Bitterness. I wish that I could stop her. Because the king is becoming more and more distant, just standing in front of her. But she cannot stop. “What is it you need so badly that I cannot give you?”

“A son. I don’t have a son.”

Fitz and I lock eyes, and I would do anything—give everything—for him not to have heard. I wish I hadn’t involved him in this. I wish we’d left for Scotland. That we were far away from these people who use love as a weapon and kinship as a bargaining tool.

“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” the queen’s voice hisses behind me. I can’t look away from Fitz. I’m not going to abandon him, too. “You will always be heard. You will never have to face the consequences of your actions. You can easily leave them behind. Like a swallow flying over a lake. Ever moving, always dipping in, but never getting wet.”