Royal Inheritance (14 page)

“I like new clothes,” he said in a high, piping voice, “but I would rather be outside with the dogs.”

“I have a dog. The king your father gave him to me.”

“Where is he?”

I could not suppress a grin. “Here,” I said, and opened the pouch secured around my waist by a sturdy, fabric-covered leather strap.

Sleepy-eyed, Pocket poked his head out. Prince Edward’s mouth dropped open with a little “oh” of delight.

“He is so little!”

“Pocket is a glove beagle. They do not grow any larger than this.”

The prince held out his arms. I hesitated before handing Pocket to him. “He is my most precious possession.”

“My most prized possession is my dagger.”

He cuddled Pocket, telling him what a pretty little pup he was until one of his gentlemen, who had been holding up the doublet he’d removed so that Father could take His Grace’s measurements, cleared his throat. Reluctantly, Prince Edward relinquished the dog and allowed himself to be dressed. A boy only a few years older than the prince handed him a sheath garnished with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

Most daggers are worn suspended from a belt. This one hung on a rope of pearls and went around Prince Edward’s neck. He withdrew it to show it to me and I saw that it had been cast of gold. A large speckled green stone was embedded in the hilt.

“It is a thing of great beauty,” I assured him, but I doubted it would be much use in a fight. Gold is a very soft metal, and no match for steel.

Later, back in Father’s workshop, I studied the fabric he meant to use for the prince’s doublet. The cloth of gold had already been embroidered with roses and grapevines in metallic silver thread.

“When this garment is complete,” Father said, “it will be decorated with pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.” He shook his head at the extravagant taste of royalty. “Even the buttons will be made of solid gold.”

The following day, Father permitted me to venture out of doors—with Edith to guard my virtue and Pocket to sound the alarm if we ran into trouble. The king and most of his gentlemen had ridden out at dawn, bent on bringing back enough venison to feed an army. I fancied I could hear the huntsmen’s horns as I stood looking out over an expanse of woodland that seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon.

When I shifted to my right, all I could see were open fields. To my surprise, a small party of women was walking there, accompanied by a half-dozen greyhounds. The women were too far away to identify. “Do you suppose that is Princess Mary?” I asked Edith. I had heard that the king’s eldest daughter made a practice of walking a mile each morning for her health.

The voice that answered did not belong to my tiring maid. It was higher and sweeter. “Much good it will do her. Mary has always been sickly.”

She came up beside me before I could turn, a tall, slim, girl with red-gold hair, parted in the middle, beneath an elaborately decorated French hood—Princess Elizabeth. She spared me a sideways glance from beneath reddish lashes, revealing eyes as dark as my
own. Momentarily, our gazes locked. Then she blinked and a crease appeared in her high, wide brow.

“Who are you?”

I bobbed a belated curtsey. “My name is Audrey Malte, Your Grace. John Malte, the king’s tailor, is my father.”

She kept staring at my hair. I could not blame her. I was fascinated by what I could see of hers. It was the exact same shade of reddish gold. The color was by no means unique, but it was more commonly found in combination with a very fair complexion. The princess’s skin had a faint olive cast . . . just as mine did. The resemblance between us verged on the uncanny.

She lifted one hand, the long, tapered fingers liberally adorned with rings, as if she meant to touch my face. She thought better of it at the last moment and curled her fingers into a fist. For a child of nine, she was remarkably self-possessed. It did not surprise me at all that the servants who had accompanied her into the gardens kept a respectful distance, allowing the princess as much privacy as was ever possible at court. She contemplated me for a moment longer in silence.

It was Pocket who distracted her. Unlike her brother, she took no delight in him. Rather she gave my little dog a long, hard look. Then, without another word, she continued on her way.

The encounter left me feeling strangely vulnerable.

T
he next two days passed without incident. On the third afternoon, Father insisted that I remain in our lodgings, which also served as his workroom, while he went to the king’s apartments to display an assortment of fabrics to His Grace. Edith stayed with me. It was hot and stuffy indoors, in spite of the thick stone walls, and we were both miserable.

“Pocket needs to go out,” I announced, abandoning the sleeve I’d been halfheartedly embroidering.

“Your father said—”

“Would you have Pocket piddle on the floor? Or worse?” The rushes were fresh and strewn with meadowsweet, but their scent would not be so pleasing if they were littered with dog turds.

Edith gave in and went with me to the nearest door to the outside. It gave onto a small paved courtyard surrounded on three sides by palace walls and open of the fourth. It was conveniently deserted.

I would have stopped there, but Pocket had ideas of his own. The moment I set him down, he streaked toward freedom. Too late,
I heard the joyful baying of a pack of hounds and realized that my little dog had gone in search of friends.

Calling Pocket’s name did no good. I sent Edith an apologetic look and followed my ears. The kennels were not difficult to find and it should have been a simple matter to retrieve my little dog. How could I know I would find my father and the king there before me? I never did learn how they came to be in the kennels instead of in the king’s bedchamber, but by the time I recognized His Grace, it was too late to retreat.

“Can this be little Audrey?” King Henry asked in his booming voice. “By St. George, she is a woman grown and a beauty, too.”

I felt heat rush into my face at his words and was glad of the necessity to make my obeisance. By the time I rose, I dared hope that some of the color had subsided. I might not be as fair-skinned as Bridget, but a blush still reddened my cheeks, turning my sallow skin an ugly orange that clashed most horribly with my hair.

Pocket came running up to me, distracting His Grace and giving me a few moments more to compose myself. I was grateful. The king’s presence was as overwhelming as ever . . . and he seemed even larger than I remembered him.

It had been some time since I’d last seen His Grace. I could not help but notice that his girth had increased to enormous proportions. Folds of flesh spilled over his collar and his jowls sagged. His eyes looked smaller somehow, surrounded as they were by a pale, bloated face. His wonderful red-gold hair and beard were liberally streaked with gray. It was a shock to realize that the king was no longer the robust and healthy man he once had been.

When he bent to lift Pocket up, I heard an odd creaking sound. Only later did I learn that His Grace had taken to wearing wooden stays to contain some of his bulk. His fingers—so fat that they
resembled sausages and heavy with jeweled rings—were gentle as they stroked behind the little dog’s ears.

We spoke of animals—dogs, cats, the birds in cages in every window of the royal apartments, and even the ape His Grace had been given as a gift. “The queen,” he added, “keeps a parrot, and she is very fond of greyhounds.”

I was about to remark that Princess Mary also seemed fond of that breed when a royal page came rushing up to his master with a message. The king read it and frowned, but he was all smiles again when he turned back to me.

“You are a delight, Audrey,” King Henry said as he bade me farewell. “We must think of ways to show our appreciation.”

“What did he mean, Father?” I asked as we watched His Grace walk away. He carried a staff and limped a little, favoring the foot on which he wore a slipper instead of a shoe.

“I imagine,” Father said, “that we will find out in good time.”

Two days later, Queen Kathryn sent word to Father that he was no longer to hide me away. Henceforth, I was to pass my days in her apartments in the company of the female attendants who had accompanied Her Grace on the progress.

“This is an extraordinary honor,” Father reminded me as I was about to set off for my first meeting with Queen Kathryn, “and we have already been shown far more favor than is our due. You must show yourself to be humble and grateful. Keep your head bowed and speak only when spoken to.”

“Yes, Father.” I was anxious to go, eager to experience more of life at court.

With a sigh, he sent me on my way, accompanied only by Edith.

Ashridge had been renovated after it came into the king’s possession, although Father said not a great deal of alteration had been
necessary. The principal rooms followed the usual pattern of palaces and other great houses. A great hall occupied the ground floor, serving as the main dining room for everyone in residence except the royals. In a slight departure from the usual arrangement, the great chamber was also on the ground floor. This was the principal reception room, where gentlemen and yeomen serving as an honor guard awaited orders from the king. On the floor above, the king and queen had separate suites of rooms, each with a presence chamber, a privy chamber, and a bedchamber.

The queen’s rooms were so much grander than Prince Edward’s that I could not begin to imagine what the king’s apartments must be like. Sumptuous tapestries showed scenes of hunting and hawking and even the less expensive verdure tapestries used as window-pieces were worked with allover patterns of foliage. Gold and silver threads made them sparkle. There were more Turkey carpets than I’d ever seen in one place before, on cupboards and sideboards and even on the floors. The queen’s chair was upholstered in cloth of gold and red velvet with gilt pommels and roundels of the royal arms. There were plump cushions for everyone else to sit upon, when the queen permitted. These were arranged on window seats, chests, benches, and stools.

The queen fit in well with such grandeur. Jewels adorned both her clothing and her person, especially diamonds. She was a surprisingly tiny woman, even smaller than the king’s last wife. I was several inches taller and I had not yet reached my full height.

Queen Kathryn seemed as curious about me as I was about her and watched me closely as I approached. Although Her Grace had been twice widowed before she married King Henry, she was not yet thirty. Even at a distance, I could see that her skin was as smooth as that of a much younger woman. I learned later that she made a practice of bathing in milk.

One of the queen’s carefully plucked eyebrows lifted perceptibly when I reached her chair. Her hazel eyes narrowed.

I dropped into a curtsey, bowing my head to hide my own expression. I did not want her to see how nervous I was, and how insecure about my appearance. I was very plainly dressed, although as Father’s daughter the fabric and cut of my clothing were excellent. I wore no jewelry and my hair was severely confined in a net that dulled its
too-bright color.

After what felt like an eternity, the queen bade me rise and come closer. When I was near enough to smell the rosewater scent she favored, she reached out with one beringed hand to touch the small portion of my hair that the net did not cover.

“An uncommon shade,” the queen remarked. “Does it run in your family?”

“I do not know, Your Grace. But surely it is not all that rare.” Queen Kathryn also had red-gold hair, although it was darker than mine.

She smiled. “And yet, I think you do not much resemble Master Malte.”

I had always known that I did not look like Father or Bridget or Muriel. “My mother had dark brown eyes and my coloring,” I murmured.

“And the red hair? It is very like a shade I have seen . . . elsewhere.”

I wondered if she meant the princess or the king, but the full significance of what she was hinting at took longer than it should have to occur to me.

“I hope you will enjoy your stay in my household, young Audrey,” the queen said, dismissing me. “If there is aught that you need, you have only to ask one of my ladies.”

I backed away from her, as court protocol demands. It was only
when I had retreated far enough to turn around that I realized how many people had observed our exchange.

The presence chamber was a large room used to receive important visitors as well as the ordinary ones like myself. The ladies, gentlewomen, and maids of honor who traveled with the queen on progress were all assembled there. There were men present, too—both members of the queen’s household and some of the king’s courtiers paying their respects. Dozens of pairs of eyes, their expressions ranging from curious to speculative to hostile, and none of them overtly friendly, bored into me. The queen’s reaction to my appearance and this intense interest from members of her household confused me. Then it made me think.

The color of my eyes and my skin tone came from my mother, but the red-gold hair—the shade that was so distinctively
Tudor
red—had no explanation unless I believed . . .

No! The idea was too preposterous!

But it would not go away. And it would explain so much, explain why I had been singled out to receive gifts and be given lessons.

I was a merry-begot. No one had ever made any secret of that. But Father said I was
his
child.

Could he have lied to me all these years?

There did not seem to be any other answer.

It was not impossible that King Henry should have fathered me. I knew he’d had at least one bastard, Henry FitzRoy, the boy he’d created Duke of Richmond and married to the Earl of Surrey’s sister. Richmond had died when he was only seventeen.

But if I was the king’s child, why not claim me? His Grace had
given
me to John Malte. Hidden me away.

Although I longed for solitude to gather my thoughts, I was obliged to remain in the queen’s presence chamber all the rest of that endless day. I did not even have Edith to offer solace. She’d
been allowed to accompany me only as far as the outer chamber of the queen’s apartments. A few people spoke to me. I suppose I answered sensibly. Only one of them was anyone I knew by name.