Heart of Gold (12 page)

Mary saw her sister pause as she considered the situation. The young woman realized that she had to tell Elizabeth everything—before her sister had a chance to come up with some rational solution for the dilemma at hand. Mary didn’t want to chance that. Elizabeth had to know the truth. “The French physician had some additional news when he examined me last night.”

Elizabeth stared at her sister. Mary’s face in an instant had gone from deep despair to utter happiness. She was sometimes difficult to keep up with.

Mary tucked her legs under her and sat like an excited child. “Don’t you want to know what he said?”

“I do, but perhaps not at this moment.”

Elizabeth had less than an hour left to decide on a plan that would be acceptable to her younger sister. She couldn’t think, though, while Mary chattered away. “Can this wait?”

“Nay, Elizabeth. It can’t.” Mary sulked. “I don’t care if you want to know or not. You’re the one who brought that physician to me, and you’re the one who will share my secret.”
“Secret?”

“The upset stomach, the nausea, the endless naps...all those things were not a new stage of the pox. They’ve been happening because I’m...I’m...”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “You’re what, Mary?”

“I’m pregnant!”

“You’re
what
?”

“Pregnant. With child.”

“With child!” Elizabeth repeated, her head whirling with this news.

“When a man and a woman lie together, that’s often the outcome.” Mary looked into her older sister’s astonished face. “You could be pregnant, too. I mean, now. As we speak.”

“
Me
?”

“Aye, you.” Mary nodded knowingly. “You slept with the Scot, didn’t you?”

Elizabeth shook her head to clear it of all she was hearing.

“Was he as good in bed as everyone claims?”

“Stop!” Elizabeth yelled. “Stop this nonsense. Let’s go back to what you said earlier. You said you were pregnant.”

“I am. I’m carrying Henry’s child.” Mary turned on her tears once again. “I’m carrying the king’s son, and I can’t even come out into the open for fear of my life.”

“The king’s son? Mary, don’t talk that way.” Elizabeth scolded. “First of all, if you are pregnant, you don’t know if you are carrying a boy or a girl. But that’s not really important, anyway. Is it?”

“Of course it is. Just think of it, Elizabeth, if I had a boy...” Mary smiled dreamily. “He’d be the heir to the throne of England.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! The way you’ve been treated, you’d be lucky to have him recognized as Henry’s bastard. And even if he is accepted as that, he’ll never be heir to the throne. Not Cardinal Wolsey, nor the church, nor the noble families would stand for that.”

“Stop being so perverse,” Mary snapped petulantly. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am, Mary.” Elizabeth turned away, shaking her head. Her problems were getting more complicated with each passing moment. Clearly, she had to get her sister out of here, too. Mary hadn’t a clue how much trouble her wagging tongue could bring. To herself, and to her unborn babe.

Elizabeth sighed. As much as she would like to deny them, Elizabeth knew deep down that there were a few traits Mary had obviously inherited from their father. Being an opportunistic social climber was one of them.

She glanced back to see Mary eyeing her sulkily once again.

“You know, Elizabeth, if you would stop taking my head off and give me a chance, I could explain everything,” Mary said.

“I’m sure you can.”

“I have it all figured out.” She looked hopefully at her older sister. “This is the way it’ll work.” Elizabeth sat silently while Mary hurried on. “I’m pregnant, but not everyone should know. Not yet, anyway. You can stay with me during my term. I will need you to look after me. The physician said yesterday that as long as I’m well cared for, I could have a perfectly healthy child. You can take me back to France, and we will stay there until my son is born. Then I’ll send for Henry, and after he comes for us, I’ll ask him to give you permission to paint. You won’t have to hide your work anymore, Elizabeth. You might even get a chance to paint the portrait of the next King of England. A portrait of my son in his mother’s arms. Isn’t that exciting?”

All Elizabeth could do was stare at her sister. It was too early a stage for the pox to be affecting her mind.

“Mary, if this is your plan, then why don’t you take it to Sir Thomas?” Elizabeth could hear her temper becoming shorter. “This is so much in line with his thinking that I’m sure he’ll go along with any condition you would set.”

Mary brightened before another thought crossed her mind, darkening her brow. “But...there are problems.”

“Oh, there is more?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.

“I went to see Father already. This morning. He says he doesn’t believe the child is Henry’s. He says no one else will believe it, either. That dreadful cousin of ours, Madame Exton, told him that I couldn’t have been pure when I lay with the king. That the child must be someone else’s.” Mary didn’t want to tell Elizabeth everything that had been said in their father’s tent earlier. It hadn’t been a very genteel scene. Sir Thomas had refused to believe her and had told her in no uncertain terms that if Mary was pregnant, she would be sent away to some cloistered nunnery where she could be separated from all who knew her. Mary had walked off, stunned, confused, and angry, but Friar Matthew had found her and brought her back to Elizabeth. Mary looked into her sister’s face. “But I know Henry will believe me. I was a virgin, after all. He’ll remember that. I will be giving him the son that he wants so much.”

Elizabeth waited until Mary finished speaking and then started for the steps. “Friar!” she called, looking over the edge of the loft.

“Where are you going?” Mary asked, her eyes wide with alarm.

Elizabeth glanced back at her sister. “
We
are going to Italy.”

“Italy! But I’ve never been to Italy.” Mary looked about her helplessly. “What happens if I don’t like it? Elizabeth? Elizabeth, I don’t want to go.”

Elizabeth turned sharply and, crossing the floor, knelt directly before her sister. She would help her in spite of herself. “You will go to Italy, Mary. That is your only way out of this mess. So you’ll do it. And you
will
like it.”

The Chapel del Annunziato

Florence, Italy

Four Years Later—April, 1524

Art is long, life short. For man, his days are as grass, as the flower of the field, so he flourisheth...

The sound of Pico hurrying up the ladder disrupted the painter’s thoughts.

“Phillipe, hurry! He’ll be here soon!” The handsome young sculptor looked anxiously over the top of the scaffolding at the painter and then scurried back down the ladder and across the room to look out the empty window of the newly constructed chapel. Two hours earlier, the room had been bustling with tradesmen of many crafts—carpenters, glaziers, stonemasons, and others—but the last few had left a short time earlier, cheerful with the easy camaraderie of those who work hard and who take pride in their skill.

“Don’t worry so much, Pico. The master knows our work will be finished in time.” The painter, lying back, cast a critical eye on the scene. The face on the angel directly above was smiling, but there was a sense of strain in the smile. The artist sighed aloud. I should be happy, Elizabeth thought. Why can’t I be happy?

She gazed up at the fresco. Certainly the painting was not the cause of her melancholy. The colors were brilliant and true. The depiction of the angels bursting in shimmering streams of light through the summer clouds had turned out well. The thin coat of plaster was nearly dry, but it didn’t matter...the painting was done. Concentrate on your work, she told herself, consciously pushing all other thoughts from her mind.

Elizabeth Boleyn had a lot to be proud of. She considered the process for a moment. Frescoes presented some of the most challenging work done by the artists. Because you were painting on wet plaster, you had to work quickly and with a steady hand. Working on a wall was difficult enough, but lying on your back to paint ceiling frescoes was the most difficult of assignments, and only the two or three best painters in the studio were given those tasks. The old master was very particular about these works. Oh, yes, Michelangelo was very particular, indeed.

And that made Elizabeth feel especially good about being the one the maestro chose the most often. But still, she was living a lie. The maestro had picked Phillipe, the French painter. A likable young man with an exuberant talent and very little social life outside of his work. But in reality she was nothing more than a fraud. A deception. A man’s exterior masking a woman’s soul.

“He’s coming, Phillipe,” the man cried, clambering up the ladder. Elizabeth turned her head to see Pico’s head appear, then disappear as he missed a rung, then reappear. “I don’t like heights.”

“Calm down, Pico,” she said, chuckling. “I’m ready for him.”
“But it isn’t just the master.
His Highness
is with him!”

Elizabeth sat up on her elbows and began to edge quickly toward the ladder. “Don Giovanni? With the master?” This was a different story. Giovanni de Medici rarely came out in public anymore, so she knew this visit must be an important one for Michelangelo. She glanced once more at the fresh painting, and prayed that the powerful ruler would find it pleasing.

“Quick, Pico!” she called, scrambling down the ladder after his friend. “Help me pull the scaffolding into the corner.”

Two years earlier, Elizabeth had suggested that the scaffolding they used for the ceilings be built upon wheeled platforms, and right now, as she and Pico succeeded in their struggle to push the apparatus aside, she thanked God Michelangelo had seen the value in her suggestion.

She had used her brain, and the master greatly approved of that. Starting as an apprentice, she had learned quickly that she lacked the physical strength that many of the other young men had. And not wanting to spend her time doing the physical labor that gave her the strength required, she saw immediately that she needed to make use of her ingenuity and invention. That had been the key to being recognized early on.

The sound of the heavy oak doors swinging open brought the two students to a halt. The aging master and the ruler of Florence entered the chapel with a train of several dozen men in attendance.

Elizabeth looked about in amazement as the room appeared to fill instantly. There were faces everywhere, and their attention focused on the work, not the worker.

Because the new stained-glass windows were not yet installed, streaming bars of golden sunlight washed the room with a radiant glow. Around the small central rotunda, rows of graceful columns rose straight to the ceiling, branching and bending like willows into an arch far above the resulting gallery. At the point where the pillars divided, Pico’s decorative stone carvings adorned the supports in a petrified pattern of leaf, vine, and flower.

And at the center of it all, far above the floor, Elizabeth’s angels appeared to burst downward through the dome, revealing a vibrant blue sky and the fair-weather clouds of a benevolent heavenly sphere.

Giovanni gazed upward at the breathtaking scene, enraptured by the sight of celestial creatures so real it seemed they might sweep down beside him.

“Michelangelo!” the powerful ruler murmured. “My friend! How could such a thing of beauty be wrought? What mind, what hand could conjure and execute such figures?” His voice trailed off as he stared upward in wonder.

“Don Giovanni,” the aged master responded deferentially, trying to keep the pleased expression out of his voice. Glancing around the room, he spotted Elizabeth and Pico standing unobtrusively beside the scaffolding. “We have only provided what you have asked.”

“True, but with such exquisite mastery of color...of space...” The Florentine raised his arm and pointed as he spoke. “The face of that one. Look at how he looks into our eyes. And look at the rippling muscles on that other one. Surely strong enough to wrestle with Jacob. Ah, Michelangelo,” he said, glancing at the artist. “This work ranks easily with your work in Rome.”

The maestro pulled at his graying beard as he gazed critically at the painting. Elizabeth held her breath as he studied the work. With a smile, he turned back to Don Giovanni. “My friend, you honor a humble sculptor with your words. For this is the work of a young and talented artist. A man with the heart and the soul of a painter. The one I spoke of earlier...but let me introduce him. He stands here in the shadows. Phillipe, my boy, come here.”

Elizabeth felt the knot quickly form in her stomach. She had known for some time now that her paintings spoke in a new and different language. She knew she had a gift that captured more than the exterior of her subject. She had the ability to seize the feelings within. Sadness and tears, joy and laughter, anger and greed. She had a gift; she could perceive the very essence of what she beheld—and it traveled through her fingers. It became alive in what she drew, in the colors of the paint. She knew, but never, never before had she heard her work praised so publicly by someone as important as he who stood with the maestro in the chapel.

Entering the rotunda, Elizabeth approached the group. Stopping before the two men, she bowed and dropped to one knee as Giovanni held out his hand to her. As the young painter kissed his family ring, the ruler appraised the lad before him. He had a small build and frail, delicate hands. The lad was fortunate to have the talent he did, since if he had to make a living by any other means, he wouldn’t be long for this world. Then the lad looked up and gazed straight into his eyes, and the Medici padrone nodded approvingly. The young man had the brightest and most intelligent eyes he’d seen in a long time. A quite handsome face—almost beautiful—but for the pasty complexion and the puckered red scar along the high cheekbone. Giovanni raised him up and smiled, waving his plump, jeweled fingers at the ceiling fresco.

“Is it possible that a man so young as you could have produced such a masterwork?”