Royal Inheritance (12 page)

“Not entirely. The king has levied a fine against him of ten thousand marks.”

That was an enormous sum, almost seven thousand pounds. A poor man like Jack would never have been able to raise it. Even a rich merchant like Father would have had difficulty. Worse, though, was that the Duchess of Richmond remained in Norfolk.

“All your new friends have abandoned you,” Bridget taunted me a few days later, “and the only reason your tutors still come to Watling Street is because they are paid to do so.”

I ignored her as best I could, telling myself her words were untrue, but a seed of doubt had been planted.
Was
that the only reason Jack Harington spent time with me?

As our lessons continued through that summer and into the autumn, Bridget elaborated upon this refrain. She made me wonder
why Jack was so careful never to be alone with me for more than a few minutes. If Bridget was not with us, Edith was. Usually both of them were present.

For some inexplicable reason, Bridget grew even more hostile when Jack taught me to play the rebec, an instrument with three strings and a right-angled pegbox that was played at the shoulder with a bow. “It sounds as if you are strangling a cat,” she remarked, holding her hands over her ears.

“Do you think you can do better?”

Jack, his face hidden from Bridget’s view by the angle of his head, grinned at me and said, “It is true the pitch is high and has a shrill quality, but the sound is more usually compared to a woman’s voice. Most men find it most pleasant to the ear.”

Bridget glared at me.

“The rebec is best suited to duets with the harp, the lute, other rebecs, or the voice,” Jack added. “Shall we try a tune together, Mistress Audrey?”

Left out of this duet, Bridget stomped away from the hall. Edith looked up from her sewing long enough to watch her go and roll her eyes.

And so that summer passed into autumn. In spite of Bridget’s snide remarks and overt resentment, I eagerly anticipated each and every one of those twice-weekly music lessons.

W
yatt’s dead.” One hand braced on the casement next to the window seat, Jack stared out at the rooftops beyond.

Startled by the abrupt statement, I could think of nothing to say. I set the rebec on the small table beside the window and made room beside me for him to sit. He did not notice. His eyes closed, he rested his forehead against the back of his upraised hand.

“Who is Wyatt?” Bridget demanded.

We both ignored her. Edith intervened before my sister could say something even more intrusive, and took her aside to summarize, in a whisper, the life of the courtier-poet Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder.

“Surrey is writing a sonnet in his memory,” Jack said.

“He . . . he wasn’t executed, was he?” I remembered all too well the concern Wyatt’s friends had shown when the poet was imprisoned in the Tower of London. And their joy upon his release. And the wagering. Wyatt had never gone back to his estranged wife, king’s command or no. Was that treason? I feared it might be.

Jack gave a short, humorless laugh. “No. He caught a fever while on an errand for the king. We’ll not see his like again.”

“There are other poets—”

“And how long will they survive?”

Without straightening, he ran his free hand through his hair, disordering the strands. My fingers itched to set them to rights. I frowned. Something I’d heard in his voice made me reconsider the words he’d just spoken and leap to an ominous conclusion. “Is the Earl of Surrey in danger of being arrested again?”

“Just at present, I suppose, he is in greater danger of dying in battle. The Duke of Norfolk is being sent to Scotland and his son will go with him.”

“Is there to be a war?” I knew little about Scotland except that the Scots were England’s traditional enemies, along with the French. Many bloody battles had been fought in the north, and good men had died on both sides.

“Word is that the king hopes to avoid it by attacking first. More than twenty thousand men march out with the duke. It is a formidable force, certain of victory.” He glanced my way, the ghost of a smile flitting across his mouth. “I asked to go with them and was refused permission.”

“To war? To be killed?” Of its own volition, my hand lifted to my throat.

“Being a woman, you cannot understand.”

“Then explain it to me.” I sounded annoyed, but deep in my heart I felt a little thrill of pleasure. He had called me a woman. He had finally stopped thinking of me as a girl.

Jack pushed away from the wall and began to pace. “I am a pawn. A puppet. As a gentleman chorister of the Chapel Royal, I have no freedom to make my own decisions. I am the king’s to command and he does not wish to send his pet musicians into battle.”

“Then seek new employment. Many great noblemen have musicians in their households.”

“I . . . I do not want to be
only
a musician.” The admission seemed to free something in him. He stopped pacing and looked at me. Our gazes locked. “Do you know what I really wish for?”

I shook my head.

“To serve a great man in some capacity that will allow me to advance. Messenger to secretary to steward. In that way I can come into my own, acquire wealth and property and a bride with a rich dowry.”

“A bride?” I echoed. A nearly overwhelming surge of despair engulfed me.

Jack might have admitted to himself, finally, that I was an adult, but he still did not see me as a marriageable female. His confidences were such as he might share with a friend. I was flattered that he considered me worthy of that honor, but I longed for more. Much more.

For his sake, I tried to shove my wounded feelings to one side. He needed someone to listen to him and I could be that person. At least he was no longer talking about going to war.

“Mayhap you could ask the Earl of Surrey to take you into his household,” I suggested. “You are already part of his circle. He would have no reason to say no.”

A hint of wariness came into his eyes. He did not step back, but a chasm suddenly opened between us. It seemed I was expected to listen and not speak. How lowering!

“I should not burden you with my troubles, Mistress Audrey.”

“Do not become all stiff and proper with me! Tell me why you do not wish to serve the earl.”

He grinned. “You are too perceptive by half.” But he did not answer my question.

“If Surrey will not do, then find some other master. I only want you to be happy, Jack.”

Although I had long thought of Jack Harington by his Christian name alone, this was the first time I had used it. His eyes narrowed but he did not reprimand me.

“Are we to have a lesson today or not?” Bridget stood a few feet away from us, hands on her hips and glaring. “You can do nothing to bring back your dead poet, Master Harington. You may as well instruct us.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you took yourself off to Norfolk House,” I said. “We can manage without music for one day.”

A moment’s confusion showed on his face before he realized I meant he should go to the Earl of Surrey, not to offer his services but because the earl was surely gathering together others who had admired Sir Thomas Wyatt and collecting tributes to him.

“Surrey is not there,” he said. “He has his own lodgings here in London, in St. Lawrence Lane.”

“Then go to St. Lawrence Lane. Share this time of mourning, especially if the earl is to go into battle soon.”

Jack might not wish to enter Surrey’s service, but he was still part of the earl’s literary and musical circle. I only wished I could go to the duchess and Mary to share their grief, but they were still at Kenninghall. Mary wrote to me now and again. They had no plans to return to Lambeth.

We did without a music lesson that day and when they resumed there was a subtle change in the way Jack treated me. I caught him watching me once or twice when he thought I wouldn’t notice. He wore a most peculiar look on his face.

As for the Earl of Surrey, he did go north with his father. The English army spent only nine days in Scotland, but during that time they wreaked havoc on the Scots. There was a great battle at a place called Solway Moss, and the town of Kelso was burned to the ground. Then Surrey came south again, bringing with him all the
noble Scottish prisoners who had been captured. They were made to swear fealty to King Henry.

The tales that came back from Scotland with the troops made Jack envious all over again. I did not even pretend to understand the attraction of fighting a war. It seems to me a dirty, deadly business, best avoided. The aftermath is not pretty, either. I do not mean for the side that has lost. I mean for the soldiers who return victorious and spend the next months, and sometimes years, celebrating their triumphs and attempting to recapture the excitement that accompanied them into battle.

O
n any given Sunday, once the eight o’clock bell of St. Mary-le-Bow rings to signal the evening curfew and the city gates are locked, all good Christian households bar their doors and remain indoors till morning. In the house in Watling Street we were at our evening prayers when, just after nine, a thunderous pounding disturbed our peace.

This was such an unusual occurrence that for a moment nobody knew quite what to do. At that hour, especially on the Sabbath, only the night watchmen were supposed to be out and about.

“Elizabeth.” Mother Anne’s thoughts went first to her daughter, wed a year and more by then and expecting a child. She stumbled to her feet and would have run downstairs to answer the door if Father had not caught her arm.

“Fetch a cudgel,” he ordered one of his apprentices. “The rest of you stay where you are while I discover who is making such a racket.” The pounding had resumed, louder and more frantic.

Why Father was so alarmed, I did not know, but his reaction infected the rest of us. Bridget and Muriel clung to each other. I stood
alone, heart racing, scarce daring to breathe. When Pocket touched his cold nose to my hand I almost leapt out of my skin. Trembling, I cuddled him close against my bosom, but my eyes remained glued to the top of the stairwell down which Father had disappeared.

Voices reached us, faintly, from below. There were no shouts. No sounds to indicate the cudgel had been employed. After a moment, I heard the door close. The bar that secured it thudded into place. Then two sets of footsteps began to ascend the stairs. Expecting only Father and Peter the apprentice to emerge, I gasped when I recognized Jack Harington’s familiar form. He wore a heavy cloak against the cold of the winter night and his face was flushed—as if he had been arguing or running . . . or both.

His gaze flew straight to me, but he addressed Mother Anne first, as was only proper, apologizing for intruding upon us at such a late hour.

“Explain yourself then, Master Harington. Why have you come?”

Edith bustled forward to relieve Jack of his cloak. Mother Anne sent Ticey to fetch a hot posset to ward off a chill. Jack scarce seemed to notice either kindness. “I came to warn you,” he said. “You must shutter all your windows and keep indoors tonight.”

“I have already given orders to my apprentices,” Father interrupted. As if on cue, the outside shutters swung closed over the glass window that looked down on Watling Street. Father himself fastened the inside latches.

At last I found my voice. “What is happening? Are we in danger?”

“Sit, lad,” Father said, steering Jack toward his own Glastonbury chair. “You owe us the whole story, at the least. And the reason why you chose to warn this household in particular,” he added, although his quick glance in my direction suggested that he already knew the answer to that question.

“The Earl of Surrey and some of his friends are headed this way, high-flown with drink and looking to break windows and a few heads. They are armed with stonebows for that purpose.”

“What is a stonebow?” Bridget wanted to know. She’d disentangled herself from Muriel to plant herself on a cushion just to the left of Jack’s chair, forcing me to sit farther away from him. Mother Anne had already claimed the stool to his right.

“It is a crossbow that only shoots stones, far less deadly than one with arrows but capable of doing much damage all the same.”

“What set them off?” Father asked. “Surrey is hotheaded, this I know. But what cause has he to rampage through the streets of London? And why should he target my house? I’ve done nothing to annoy him.”

“I doubt he even knows where you live, but he’s beyond caring who he hurts.” Jack took a sip of the posset Ticey had brought, a soothing blend of chamomile and other herbs, and bowed his head. “I was one of his company at the start, drinking with them in the earl’s lodgings in St. Lawrence Lane. He has rooms in Millicent Arundell’s house and she and her husband keep him well supplied with food and drink.”

Father frowned. “St. Lawrence Lane? Why, that is some distance from here.”

“No place is far distant from any other in London,” Jack countered, “especially at night when the streets are empty. Before I left them, they had already made their way from St. Lawrence Lane through the open passage known as Duke Street and into Milk Street, where they ran amok, breaking all of the windows in Sir Richard Gresham’s house.”

Even I knew that name. Sir Richard, a former Lord Mayor of London, was a very wealthy man, although not much loved.

“We have nothing to do with Sir Richard.” The words burst out
of me, so affronted was I that anyone should lump Father together with that avaricious moneylender.

“That this is the house of a merchant may be enough to make it a target. I . . . I did not wish to take any chances with those I . . . with those the king is fond of.”

Jack avoided my eyes by drinking deeply of the posset, but I was not deceived. I was certain I was the reason he had come to warn us. He cared for me. I ducked my own head to hide my smile.

Father and Mother Anne peppered Jack with questions, which he answered as well as he could. I stopped listening when Pocket squirmed to get down and began to whine. I knew that sound. It meant that he needed to go outside.