The Boleyn Reckoning (36 page)

He had not seen her since Wynfield. She had stood, white-faced but unmoving, while his guards had methodically set fire to her home and estate. The only emotion he’d seen was the brief anguish in her eyes as she’d ridden away from her people, now homeless and beyond her aid. But she had bit back any public reproach and remained cloaked in unapproachability. He had sent her to a tent of her own in the camp that night—well guarded, naturally—and had not turned out to see her ride away the next morning with an escort of armed men. Not because he was ashamed. Not exactly.

How long had he waited for Minuette? How many nights had he dreamed of finally having her in his arms, lost to everything but desire? Maybe it was just that he’d never imagined he would have her only with her husband very nearly watching them. Maybe it was simply that nothing so long anticipated could live up to the dreams.

Minuette kept her word—she had been willing. But willing was not the same as eager, and he’d never had a partner who’d been less than eager. William had found pleasure with her, but it was brief and weighted with unlooked-for guilt. What had he to feel guilty about? he raged silently. He had not lied to his friends, he had not broken the trust of a king … but even so, he did not want to be alone with Minuette immediately after. A matter of prudence.

His council did not seem to appreciate his prudence in other matters. Summoned to Hampton Court, where William had chosen to retreat after the victory at King’s Lynn, his once-more reduced privy council spent an hour hectoring him about letting almost all the rebels retreat to their homes rather than forcing punishment on a large scale.

“I thought my restraint would be appreciated, as I have been accused in the past of too-hasty action.” William stared down Lord Burghley. “Their royal champion is dead and their commander
routed. More than that, the French did not march at all. What more do you want?”

Burghley spoke delicately. “Lord Norfolk is capable of creating trouble for us still. Your Majesty, would it not be wise to approach the French and attempt to mend matters between us sufficiently that they will be disinclined to support Norfolk?”

“It is for the French to mend matters with us,” William said sharply.

“Then at the least increase the number of men in readiness along the southeast coast. If the French decide to invade, or even lend Norfolk ships—”

“How much money and time did we waste last summer waiting for an invasion that never came close to occurring? You’re the one who keeps pointing out the burden of taxes on my people. Leave it. Our defenses are sufficient to give us warning and the people will rise if there is the slightest danger.”

Burghley subsided on that matter, but pressed another. “There is much talk at court about the Princess Elizabeth’s continuing absence. Surely Your Majesty does not wish to give rise to rumours of your estrangement.”

Were they estranged? William wondered. He hadn’t meant to be. But Elizabeth was so damned uncomfortable with her questions and her penetrating eyes and her almost thorough knowledge of his heart.

But damned if he would allow this last relationship fall prey to gossip and the vicious-minded. “Of course I wish my sister’s company. I intended to send for her this week, that she will be well in time for the birthday celebrations.”

He would summon her; and not just for his birthday. There would be another event on June 28, one intended to pacify his council and country. Surely Elizabeth would want to be present when he married Jane Grey.

By the time William’s summons arrived at Hatfield, Elizabeth had been contemplating open rebellion for weeks. It was infuriating having to wait, but she filled her days as best she could with her voluminous correspondence. Robert had not dared come see her, precarious as his position was at court, but he wrote and so did Lord Burghley. And John Dee wrote faithfully from France, where Norfolk had indeed appeared after his retreat. The duke had not, as yet, been publicly received at the French court, but nor had he been sent away. It seemed he was in a sort of limbo, awaiting the decisions of kings on both sides of the Channel.

John Dee seemed to know as much about Minuette from his far distance as anyone.
Word in France is that she is being kept secluded at Beaulieu,
he wrote to Elizabeth.
With only a single maid allowed to attend her. No one else sees her; everything, including meals, goes through her woman.
And then, unnervingly prescient, Dee added:
Do not fret for her state of mind, Your Highness. Your friend is bright and charming, but mostly she is resilient. Her stars will guard her right
.

Stars, thought Elizabeth bitterly. What use are stars that are nothing but vague reassurances of personality, rather than markers of how to proceed? But she knew her displeasure was coloured by her own worry and enforced idleness.

She shrank from confronting her brother directly, even by letter. From Robert and Burghley, Elizabeth drew a picture of a court that was similarly wary. It was a perilous balance they were all negotiating, with a king who had become dangerously unpredictable. He’d had Eleanor returned to court in the aftermath of victory, and set her up in chambers that shouted her regained status as king’s concubine.

Elizabeth attempted twice to write to Minuette, but had no way of knowing if her letters were getting through. She did not receive
any in return. She made no attempt to contact Dominic in the Tower, for two reasons. First, because she was looking to herself. Selfish that might be, but Elizabeth had no wish to bring down William’s wrath upon her own head.

And second, because she thought there might come a time in future when she would want all the influence she could command. Best not to spend it too early.

So when the royal summons came, Elizabeth ignored her brother’s peremptory tone and set off gladly for Hampton Court, hopeful that now she could discover for herself precisely what her brother’s mood was and how best to work with it. William sent a royal barge for her comfort, and as she sailed past the Tower, its walls and turrets looming sternly on the Thames, she wondered how Dominic was enduring his imprisonment. William had made no move to bring the friend once known as the King’s Shadow to trial as yet. Indeed, as far as she could ascertain, William had not so much as mentioned Dominic’s name since the arrest. She distrusted that silence, for it was all the more likely to erupt in sudden violence. Perhaps William meant to leave him there for years. Perhaps William himself didn’t know what he was doing.

To only her slight surprise, William avoided her upon her arrival at Hampton Court. She was in her usual apartments, but Hampton Court more than any other palace was haunted by memories of Minuette. Elizabeth counted herself neither sentimental nor nostalgic, but she kept thinking she caught glimpses out of the corner of her eye—skirts swirling, golden-honey hair flashing—and occasionally a drift of laughter seemed to contain the music of Minuette’s voice.

Robert was a link to that past but he was also, reassuringly, firmly focused on the present. The travails of the last two years had sharpened his mind and made him wary, but they had also deepened
his character. Odd, she thought, that actions begun in secrecy and mischief could end in making him firmer. Like a steel blade tempered by fire.

Not that she had forgotten his sins. But her options for friendship had never been more limited and she trusted Robert—if not quite wholly, then more than she trusted anyone else at the moment.

“How is he?” she asked Robert without preamble as he took the offered seat next to her in the window. It was informal and the slightest bit improper, but who cared about flirtations and gossip when England’s king might any day erupt into violence?

“Erratic. Some days he throws himself into court life with all the energy and enthusiasm one could wish. Other days he is present, but irritable and quick to snap. But the real concern is days like this one, when he withdraws completely from public life and no one sees him for two or three days at a time save his personal attendants. He will not even admit Lord Burghley when such moods come upon him.”

“Is he ill?” she asked. “A lingering effect of the smallpox?”

Robert shrugged. “I’d say a lingering effect of indecision. I do not understand him, Elizabeth. But I do believe that nothing will get better so long as he leaves the matter of Dominic and Minuette open. For better or worse, matters must be brought to a head.”

“Are you telling me I should encourage my brother to execute his closest friend?”

“If anyone can persuade him to mercy, it is you. But if you cannot … then yes, even an execution would be an end.”

Robert’s words haunted her in the days leading up to William’s birthday. Though the king emerged from his chambers two days after Elizabeth’s arrival, he did not go out of his way to speak to her privately. Her unease grew with each hour until she herself was ill with worry. Robert had not been wrong, nor Burghley, nor
Walsingham. Each had warned her of some facet of the change in her brother’s personality. It wasn’t a complete surprise, for he had not been wholly the same since the smallpox. But the differences now were more pronounced, and in her most cynical moments Elizabeth wondered how deeply England would pay for her king’s discontent.

Finally, William sent for her alone. She dressed with greater than normal care, irritated that she was nervous about meeting her own brother, but still taking efforts to appear unruffled and in control. Kat Ashley supervised, sniffing approval only when the deep green damask gown with its cream-coloured silk sleeves and stiffly pointed bodice were impeccable. Then she patted Elizabeth on the cheek and said softly, “Remind him how you love him.”

That resolve lasted for all of two minutes when she was shown into William’s privy chamber. He was dressed richly, but there was something off-putting about it, something in the puffs and slashes and velvet and jewels that combined to create an image of a king rather than expressing the king’s nature itself.

But it was the glitter to his eyes and the dark hollows beneath them that concerned her most. “I’ve missed you, Will,” she said impulsively and moved to embrace him. He did no more than submit to a brief touch before he stepped away.

“I welcome your presence, sister,” he said. Something of the formality reminded Elizabeth of the way he had always spoken to Mary—sibling duty rather than affection.

She instinctively matched her attitude to his. “How could I ever be content away from Your Majesty?”

A smile, small and cool, ghosted his face before vanishing. “I would ask your presence tomorrow at noon in the Chapel Royal. Will you come?”

“Are you willing to tell me why?”

His blue eyes, so strikingly like their father’s, held deep wells of
pain and bitterness, but his voice remained remote. “To witness my marriage to Jane Grey.”

A million thoughts rushed through her head in the space of a single breath, but Elizabeth always knew how to choose the right one to speak aloud. “My congratulations. A most worthy bride. You must be happy.”

You do not look happy, she thought. You look as though you do not remember who you are.

T
HE MOST DIFFICULT
part of Minuette’s confinement at Beaulieu was the utter solitude. She had never been so lonely in her life. She did not even have interaction with her guards, for William had instructed the men to deal only with Carrie. It was infuriating and humiliating being shut into just two rooms of this palace, and having to retreat into the inner room whenever a guard appeared with food or to deal with other necessities. She would have thrown a tantrum every hour for as many days as it took to get noticed were it not for one simple fact: Dominic was in William’s hands. She had sacrificed much to ensure her husband’s safety. She could endure loneliness for his sake.

If only solitude didn’t allow quite so much scope for memory. With no one but Carrie to talk to, no books or letters or diary—not even dice or a chess set—Minuette had little to do but remember. The acrid smoke of Wynfield burning; the stunned faces of her tenants; Fidelis’s warm coat beneath her hands as she’d commanded the dog to stay with Asherton in the shell that had been her home … She wallowed in those memories until she could smell the fire and hear the flames and feel the hollow tightness that had overtaken her that afternoon.