Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (78 page)

Wat caught her hand in a surprisingly firm grip. Her fingers tingled in reaction. “We have much in common, Mistress Bassett. The king’s justice has stolen our prospects. But together—”

“Our situations are very different,” she protested, pulling free. There were other couples strolling in the garden, though at a distance. She began to walk and he came with her. “My stepfather did nothing wrong.”

“While mine was guilty of a great variety of sins.” Wat’s words were clipped and bitter.

Nan’s heart went out to him. Lord Hungerford had been found guilty of procuring the services of a witch to determine how long the king would live and of performing unnatural acts with gentlemen of his household. The latter crime was spoken of only in whispers.

“His own wife testified against him,” Wat said. “My stepmother had cause. Father kept her locked up in Farleigh Castle for years.”

“His sins are not yours, Wat.” They stopped by an arbor, temporarily shielded from prying eyes.

“But I am made to suffer for them, all the same.” He gave her a startlingly mature look. “You’d marry me if I still owned Farleigh Castle. I wish I could show it to you. There are high hills all around, and a broad, deep-running stream hard by the castle wall. My father kept seventy head of deer in the park and—”

“There is no sense in pining for what is lost,” Nan interrupted. How well she had learned that lesson!

He was silent for a moment. Then, his expression bleak, he said, “I did try to warn you—before your stepfather’s arrest.”

Nan felt herself blanch. “Warn me of what?” She remembered that he had once tried to speak with her, and that she’d sent him away.

“My master’s scheme to replace Lord Lisle with a man of his own choosing.”

Shaken, Nan sat on the soft turf covering the nearest garden bench. After a slight hesitation, Wat settled in beside her.

“You will remember that I was in service to Lord Cromwell.”

Nan nodded. Later Cromwell had briefly been Earl of Essex, but most people still referred to him by his more familiar title.

“As you must know from your own experience, those who wait on their betters sometimes become so much a part of the background that they go entirely unnoticed, like a piece of furniture. Often they overhear and observe much more than their masters realize. When the plot to overthrow Calais in herring time came to light, I saw how Lord Cromwell reacted. It came as no surprise to him. And when he heard of your stepfather’s arrest, he was jubilant.”

“As you say, he wanted to replace Lord Lisle with his own man.”

“It was more than that.” Wat’s voice was low and intense. Nan leaned closer, so as not to miss a word. “Long before Sir Gregory Botolph went to Calais, he met in secret with Lord Cromwell. I heard Cromwell coerce the priest into doing his bidding. I heard him say Lord Lisle’s name. Then, later, just before his own arrest, Lord Cromwell took steps to thwart the search for Sir Gregory.” Wat gripped both of Nan’s
hands tightly. His eyes bored into hers. “Thomas Cromwell arranged for Botolph to enter your stepfather’s employ. He planned it all. I do not believe there was ever any real plot to overthrow Calais, only one to make Lord Lisle look guilty of betraying England.”

Nan could hardly breathe. “If this is true, we must go to the king and tell him everything. He’ll free—”

“There is no proof.” Wat held her in place on the bench when she tried to rise. “If there had been, I’d have reported it at the beginning. I only tried to tell you so that you could warn Lord Lisle to be careful. I thought perhaps he could convince the king of his innocence before Cromwell made his final move against him. But all that I know is comprised of bits and pieces, things seen and things overheard. Cromwell is dead. The conspirators are dead, all but Botolph himself, and no one knows where he is.”

“Then why tell me this now?” Nan clutched the front of his doublet. “What good is it to know and not be able to do anything for my family?”

“I … I thought you would want to know for certain that Lord Lisle is innocent.”

“We must tell the king, even if there is no proof. We will convince him that my stepfather should never have been sent to the Tower in the first place.”

“You want me to tell the king that he made a mistake?” Wat asked, putting his hands over hers.

Nan sagged against him. He was right. It would do no good. The king could not pardon her stepfather without admitting he’d been wrong, not only about Lord Lisle, but also about Lord Cromwell. King Henry did not like to be wrong. On the rare occasions when he was, he went to great lengths to avoid admitting it.

“I shouldn’t have told you.” Wat’s voice was full of remorse. “I did not mean to raise false hopes.”

“You meant well.” Slowly, reluctant to let go, Nan extricated herself from what was very nearly an embrace. “I must go back now.”

She fled without another word or a backward glance and once more flung herself headlong into the frivolity of royal life on progress. If Wat Hungerford lingered at Ampthill, she did not see him again.

T
HE KING AND
queen spent Yuletide at Hampton Court, joined there by the king’s older daughter, the Lady Mary, and her household. After spending several years sharing a household with her sister, the Lady Elizabeth, the Lady Mary was once more mistress of her own establishment at Hunsdon.

The king was generous with his New Year’s gifts, especially to his new wife. Catherine Howard passed them on to her maids of honor to admire—a rope of two hundred large pearls, two diamond pendants, another made of diamonds and pearls, and a muffler of black velvet edged with sable fur.

“There were rubies and pearls sewn into the fur,” Dorothy Bray marveled, still impressed hours later, after she and Nan had retired to the bed they shared in the maids’ dormitory.

“You received a magnificent pearl yourself,” Nan said. The new acquisition was in the form of a brooch. It had been prominently displayed on Dorothy’s bosom throughout the day.

“Lord Parr is most generous. And anyone can see how devoted he is to me.”

“Dorothy, he already has a wife.”

“If the king can have a marriage annulled, so can one of his subjects. Will has not lived with the woman for years and they have no children. He will marry me as soon as he is free.”

Nan abandoned the argument and lay on her back in the closed-in bed. It was easy to believe the flattery of courtiers. Too easy.

She thought of Sir Edmund Knyvett. He had nothing honorable to offer her. He not only had a wife, but four sons besides. And Tom Culpepper? He flirted with her, but Nan knew that was all for show. She’d seen the way he looked at the queen when he thought no one was watching. Tom was infatuated with the new queen. He’d fallen in love with the one woman at court he could not have.

Then there was Wat Hungerford, with his hangdog expression and his big, mournful eyes, the picture of unrequited love if his words were to be believed. She sighed. She
liked
Wat, and he was well grown for his age. But it was foolish to wish for the impossible. Besides, Wat was only sixteen and boys his age were notoriously fickle. Then again, so were grown men. So were kings! If not for Catherine Howard, Nan might have been queen.

But an image of the king as he had been at the end of the progress popped into her mind—ill with a fever, his leg swollen to grotesque proportions. His doctors had drained suppurating pus and fluid from the ulcer to bring down the fever.

Nan shuddered. She did not envy Catherine Howard her duties in the royal bedchamber! Or in public, for that matter. The king’s temper was more volatile than ever. Nan had been hoping for an opportunity to ask King Henry to pardon her mother and sisters. So far, she’d not dared risk her own position. To make such a request at the wrong time would enrage His Grace and turn him against her.

Resolutely, Nan rolled over and punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape. Then she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. She needed to be well rested and alert if she was to thrive at court.

She rose at the usual hour and went to wait on the queen, but on this particular morning, most unusually, Catherine Howard singled her out. “You will take my offering to the Lady Mary,” the queen instructed, indicating a small tray on which a box filled with candied fruit had been placed. “I am hopeful it will sweeten her temper.”

“Am I to tell her that?”

Nan’s tart tone brought a sour expression to the queen’s face. Catherine pouted for a moment, then decided to be amused. She beckoned Nan closer. “It is no secret that the king’s daughter does not care for me. She does not show me proper respect. But since His Grace seems fond of her, I would have harmony between us. Do all you can to soothe her ruffled feathers.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

“Nan!” The queen called her back.

“Your Grace?”

Queen Catherine waited until she was close enough to hear a whisper. “If she responds well to my offering, you may hint that she will be allowed to reside permanently at court if she … behaves herself. You understand me?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” This time Catherine let her leave the privy chamber.

The Lady Mary’s household was much smaller than the queen’s, only about forty attendants, but the king’s daughter had been taught by her mother that she would inherit the throne and she knew her own worth, even now that Prince Edward was the king’s heir and Mary herself had been relegated to the status of royal bastard. Although she was only a little older than her new stepmother, a regal dignity was as much a part of the Lady Mary as the red in her hair and the low, throaty timbre of her voice.

“So,” she said, examining the queen’s gift, “she sent you to me with this trifle. Am I to express my undying gratitude now?”

Nan felt the corners of her mouth twitch. “Perhaps a mild expression of rapture?” she suggested.

The Lady Mary looked startled for a moment. Then she narrowed her eyes to take a closer look at Nan. “Mistress Bassett, is it not?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

A little silence fell. To call Mary Tudor “Your Majesty,” a form of address used only by the king, was a risk on Nan’s part. For no more than referring to the Lady Mary as “Princess Mary,” back when Anne Boleyn was queen, one of Mary’s friends had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for several months. But with that single word, Nan had told Mary that she was among those who, in spite of the current law making Mary illegitimate, recognized King Henry’s daughter as his legitimate heir, next in line after Edward.

“What does my lady stepmother want?” Mary asked.

“To welcome you to court, my lady. Perhaps to invite you to make your permanent home here, close to your father the king?”

Mary considered this for a moment before she detached a delicate brooch from her own breast and placed it in Nan’s hands. “Convey this to the queen with my compliments.”

Nan made her obeisance and backed out of the room, clutching the bauble to her bosom. Once free of the Lady Mary’s chambers, she smiled. In a small way, she had just won the princess’s favor as well as the queen’s. Surely that was cause for optimism. The support of one or both of them might make the difference between her family’s freedom and their continued imprisonment.

“Y
OUR MISTRESS HAS
acquired more stylish clothes,” Nan remarked as she and Cat watched Anna of Cleves—attired in silver lamé striped in cloth of gold—dance with the queen. Catherine wore a gown of cloth-of-gold lined with ermine.

Anna of Cleves had sent her New Year’s gift to Hampton Court ahead of her own arrival. Two fine horses with purple velvet trappings had paved the way for a warm greeting from the king, who had welcomed his former wife and current “sister” back to court with a kiss. Then Anna had knelt before her former maid of honor, accepting the reversal of their roles with apparent equanimity.

“My lady delights in buying things and has the wherewithal to indulge herself,” Cat said proudly.

“You look very fine yourself. I envy you that crimson velvet. Queen Catherine gifted her attendants with livery to match that of the officers of the king’s privy chamber, but black is not my favorite shade.”

“You have no cause for complaint. You are just where you wanted to be—at court. Have you done anything to help our mother and sisters?”

“There are good reasons why I have not yet approached the king. His moods are uncertain. I do not wish to incur his wrath. We must be patient.”

Cat did not look convinced.

“Are you happy in the service of Anna of Cleves?” Nan asked.

“I am,” Cat said. “She is a good mistress. But do not try to change
the subject. What are you waiting for? If I were here, in your position, I would have found a way to ask the king for a pardon long before this.”

Nan sighed. In the face of Cat’s criticism, she had to admit that she had not tried very hard to find the right moment. She’d let fear rule her. But what if there never was a perfect time to ask a boon of the king?

“Soon, Cat,” she promised. “I will talk to His Grace soon.”

The next day, after dinner, the king presented Queen Catherine with more gifts—two lapdogs and a ring. She thanked him prettily and then, with a look that asked permission first, gave them to Anna of Cleves. Since Nan knew that Catherine Howard was not overly fond of spaniels and that the ring was not nearly as magnificent as the other jewels the king had given her, she supposed that His Grace had approved the gesture beforehand.

The king’s honorary sister and Nan’s real one stayed at Hampton Court for one more night and left the next afternoon. Cat’s disapproval weighed heavily on Nan. Two days later, seeing that the king was in an especially jovial frame of mind, Nan gathered her courage and approached him during one of his visits to the queen’s presence chamber. “A word with you, Your Grace?”

“Why, Nan! What a vision you are.”

“You are too kind, Your Grace.” She slanted a glance at the queen, but Catherine was winning at cards and paid them no mind. “I crave a moment’s conversation, if it please you, Your Majesty.”

Nan hated to grovel, but it was necessary. When King Henry led her a little aside, into a window alcove, and gestured for his attendants to keep their distance, she essayed a few flattering remarks before she broached the subject of her sisters’ confinement in Calais. She was not yet ready to risk asking favors for her mother.