Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (18 page)

“Her name was Joan Popyncourt. You were at court when she entered Queen Elizabeth’s service.”

“I do not recall.” Back stiff, demeanor unfriendly, she avoided looking at me.

“Joan Popyncourt,” Lady Verney mused on my other side. She had been listening to the conversation, as I’d hoped she would. An older woman, in her fiftieth year with a deeply lined countenance and hands disfigured with age, she had reportedly been one of Queen Elizabeth’s favorites.

“Perhaps you remember my mother, Lady Verney?” I could not keep the eagerness out of my voice.

“She died soon after she joined us,” Lady Verney said. Deep in thought, she stared up at the ceiling studded with Tudor emblems: gold roses, portcullises, the red dragon of Wales, and the greyhound of Richmond. After a few moments, she shook her head. “No, I do not believe I recall more than that.”

“I had hoped she might have had time to make friends with some of the other ladies in the queen’s court.”

Lady Verney did not know anything about that either.

On subsequent days, I asked the same questions of the others Goose had named. Lady Weston could tell me nothing. Mistress Denys said it was a great pity I could not ask her husband.

“He was King Henry’s groom of the stole,” she reminded me with a wink. “He had an intimate knowledge of everything that affected His Grace.”

I had to smile at that. The groom of the stole attended the king when he used the royal close stool—a glorified chamber pot!

Lady Lovell was my last hope. A buxom woman with blunt features and a round face, she had a brusque manner but she heard me out. “You wish to know about your mother’s days at the English court?” she said when I had stuttered out my questions. “Why?”

“Because I never saw her again after I was sent to Eltham. No one even told me she was ill.”

“You were a child.”

“I am not a child now. I should like to know if she had friends, if she was well cared for, if—”

“Queen Elizabeth would not have let a dog suffer. She was all that was good and kind. I am certain everything possible was done for your mother.”

Walking together in the great hall at Richmond, we passed under the eyes of kings. A series of large portraits had been painted in the wall spaces between the high windows by Maynard the Fleming in old King Henry’s reign. Two lines of these, showing Brutus, Hengist, King William Rufus, King Arthur, and others—all depicted wearing golden robes and brandishing mighty swords—led up to the dais and a similar portrait of King Henry VII.

“He sent my mother to the queen,” I said, indicating the painted monarch. “Maman knew no one else in England save her twin brother, Sir Rowland Velville.”

“Yes. I remember hearing that she was his sister. A ferocious jouster, Sir Rowland, but that’s the best I can say for him.” My uncle’s short temper was almost as legendary as the king’s.

Lady Lovell stopped in front of one of the big bay windows that overlooked a courtyard. Beyond the turrets and pinnacles and a profusion of gilt weather vanes and bell-shaped domes, I could just glimpse a part of the deer park that completely surrounded Richmond. Everything had been built to old King Henry’s specifications after the old palace on this site, a place called Sheen, had burned to the ground the Christmas before I arrived in England.

“There was one person who befriended her,” Lady Lovell said. “Or, rather, they befriended each other. She is no longer at court.”

“Is she still living?”

“Oh, yes. She’s plain Mistress Strangeways now, but she and her husband own considerable property in Berkshire.”

I felt my eyes widen as I realized whom she meant: Lady Catherine Gordon, the daughter of a Scottish earl, who had once been married to Perkin Warbeck, the notorious pretender to the throne. She’d been captured along with her husband when Warbeck invaded England. He’d been executed, after making a second attempt to escape, but she had remained at court as one of Queen
Elizabeth’s ladies. A few years ago, I’d heard that she had remarried. Her second husband, James Strangeways, was one of King Henry’s gentlemen ushers.

That she and my mother should have been friendly made perfect sense. What more natural than that two newcomers, two foreigners, be drawn to each other? When I left Lady Lovell’s company I felt more optimistic than I had since I’d begun asking questions about my mother. Berkshire was not close enough to reach on my own, but eventually the court would travel to Windsor Castle. I should be able to slip away and visit Lady Strangeways then.

My high spirits were short lived. I’d no sooner reached the Lady Mary’s lodgings than she declared herself in need of exercise and swept me off with her to the timber-framed, two-story galleried walks built around Richmond’s gardens. They gave a splendid view of knots, wide paths, statues of the king’s beasts, and fountains, but the princess was intent on speaking privily with me and paid no attention to her surroundings.

“Why do you ask so many questions?” she demanded.

“I wish to know more about my mother.” She knew this already.

“She has been dead almost as long as I have known you. What can you possibly expect to learn now?”

There was no simple answer to her question. I did not know myself. I only knew that there had been something secretive about our coming to England, and about the way we had been treated once we arrived. Why had we left? Had the
gens d’armes
been looking for Maman, or only for the governess they’d taken away with them? But most of all I wanted to know why the king should have shown us favor. My uncle was only one of many knights at court. He was expert in the lists and in falconry, but beyond those skills he had nothing special to recommend him.

I could scarce explain all that to the Lady Mary, even if I possessed a greater understanding of events than I did. Instead, I offered the only crumb I had. “I have been thinking a great deal of late about my early days here as well as my years in France.”

“That was all very well when we were on our own in the Tower,” the Lady Mary said, “but here, showing an interest in anything French, even your own mother, is not at all wise. We are still at war.”

“But my mother was a Breton,” I reminded her.

“That hardly matters. When you ask these questions, you remind everyone that you are not English. If people should also learn that you have become close to the duke, you risk being branded a traitor.”

A little silence fell. I knew she was right. I silently cursed all rumor-mongering, small-minded courtiers.

“You must cease badgering the queen’s ladies with your questions,” the Lady Mary said.

I sighed. “Next you will say I must give up the duc de Longueville. I miss being in his bed more than I ever imagined I could.”

The princess gave me a curious look. “Do you think that perhaps it is not
him
you miss. Oh, do not look so shocked, Jane. Answer me this: If the king and his favorites were here at court, could you be tempted by any of them?”

My smile was rueful. “They are well favored to a man, and lusty, too, but I have known most of them too long and too well. I was never tempted before.”

“Mayhap it will be different now that you have discovered the joys of being with a man.”

I could not help but be amused by her naive logic. “But, Your Grace,” I said lightly, “would that not be far worse, not to mention much more difficult to keep secret?”

I expected her to laugh, but of a sudden she looked very serious. “It would be better for you, Jane. At least then your cater-cousin would be an Englishman!”

O
N THE TWENTY-SECOND
day of October, the king rode hard from Dover to surprise his wife at Richmond Palace. He burst into her privy chamber, followed by his closest companions, all noise and laughter. They were cock-a-hoop about their first venture into war, even though the battle they had won had been far less significant than the one fought at home at Flodden in their absence.

Henry Tudor was the largest man at his own court, well over six feet in height, with proportions to match. There was not an ounce of fat on him, for he kept trim with jousting and wrestling and other manly exercises. He was well favored, with pleasant facial features—not always the case with royalty—and broad shoulders and long, muscular legs. Those who had long memories always said he had the look of his mother’s father, King Edward. Edward himself had been big and blond and lusty.

After greeting his queen, King Henry moved into the crowd of courtiers, demanding kisses from every gentlewoman and lady in lieu of the bows he received from the men. When he reached his sister, he lifted her right off her feet and swung her around in a great circle, to the delight of everyone watching.

“By St. George, it is good to be home!”

The cheers and applause that greeted this sentiment were so loud that I did not hear the Lady Mary’s reply even though I stood right next to her. The king set her back on her feet and turned to me.

“And we are most pleased to have you back, Your Grace,” I said, prepared to greet him with a kiss.

The next moment, I gave a squeak of surprise as he swept me into the same embrace he had given the princess. Holding me with
my feet still dangling a foot above the floor, he kissed me soundly, full on the lips.

Laughing, he set me on my feet again a moment later. I smiled up at him and said the first thing that popped into my head. “Your Grace has acquired some new finery at the Burgundian court.”

The king beamed at me. He had no modesty when it came to his apparel. He was garbed in the newest knee-length bases from Italy, heavily embroidered with vines and flowers. His brocade doublet had puffed and slashed sleeves. A dagger, purse, and gloves hung suspended by golden laces from a cloth-of-gold belt, and, following the current fashion, he had padded his codpiece and decorated it with jewel-encrusted points. It thrust out from the center opening of the bases, impossible to ignore.

Before becoming intimate with Longueville, I had never given much thought to that part of a man’s body, save when I came across some gentleman urinating in the corner of a courtyard and was forcibly reminded that men and women are differently made. Now I caught myself staring at the gaudy, ornate covering. Like everything else about the king, his yard was both oversized—or at least overstuffed—and blatant.

His Grace moved on, indiscriminately dispensing kisses until he came to young Bessie Blount. The maid of honor Queen Catherine had sent to fetch me to her on the day the French prisoners first arrived at court had gone north with the queen, but I had spoken with her several times since I had been at Richmond. She was a sweet-natured girl still growing accustomed to life at court.

The terrified expression on her face reminded me that she had not previously met King Henry. She had arrived after he left for France. She froze, uncertain whether to make an obeisance or go up on her tiptoes to kiss him in greeting.

His voice boomed out, audible in every corner of the presence
chamber. “Here’s a pretty new flower since I went away to war! What is your name, sweeting?”

“Elizabeth Blount, if it please Your Majesty.”

“It does indeed!” He picked her up, as he had his sister and me, and kissed her soundly.

Bessie stared after him in bemusement as he moved on to another of the queen’s damsels. Had I looked like that, I wondered, the first time I beheld the duc de Longueville?

By the time the king resumed his place by the queen’s side, busy servants had the royal furniture in place. The king’s cushion had been placed upon the chair of estate and a canopy had hurriedly been erected over it. Queen Catherine, having lost her status as regent from the moment of her husband’s return, was relegated to a smaller chair with a lower canopy.

“Your Grace,” she greeted him in her low, throaty voice. And then, in tones even lower and more husky, she murmured, “My Henry.”

In spite of all the flirtation and the indiscriminate kissing, Henry Tudor had eyes only for his Catherine. She glowed, basking in his undivided attention. Their desire for each other was a palpable force in the presence chamber and no one doubted that the king would visit his wife’s bed come nightfall.

At court, however, ceremony surrounds every royal action. Music and dancing and games would come first, for the king rarely retired before midnight. After that, if he wished to lie with the queen, he would summon his grooms of the bedchamber. They would bring his night-robe, help him into it, and escort him through the private connecting stair or gallery—which one it was depended upon the palace—to the door of the queen’s bedchamber. The grooms would then wait outside that door until the king was ready to return to his own bed.

On this evening, however, King Henry departed from protocol. Halfway through the festivities, he abruptly rose, took Queen Catherine’s hand in his, and led her from the room. The attendants on duty scurried after, more than one of them aghast at the breech in etiquette. I hid a smile behind my hand as I heard a distant door close. Ceremony, it seemed, would for once take second place to desire.

I wondered if the king would understand my longing for my Coriander. I sighed deeply. Understanding and acceptance were two different matters. In spite of his obvious affection for his wife, His Grace no doubt shared the Lady Mary’s conviction that any partner would do to provide physical release. The king was quick enough to turn to other women when he could not go to the queen.

To give and receive pleasure was a marvelous thing. In his own way, I thought, Longueville had come to care for me. In spite of the princess’s warnings, I had no intention of giving him up.

To take my mind off missing the duke, I surveyed the chamber, in search of familiar faces. Everywhere I looked, courtiers and ladies were exchanging pleased and knowing glances. The queen’s miscarriage had been a blow, but it had taken place almost a month earlier. Another attempt to beget an heir was not only desirable, it was necessary.

With the king and queen occupied, we were granted an additional boon. We were left to our own devices. It was at that moment that I belatedly recalled there was someone with whom I had been anxious to speak. I scanned the crowded room, looking for my uncle, sure that he must be somewhere in the sea of bright colors and noisy chatter. At last I would have the opportunity to ask him about his twin sister. I would insist he tell me all he knew of my mother’s last days in France and of her brief life in England.