The King's Damsel (34 page)

“I am surprised you have not asked to write to her sooner,” King Henry remarked.

We were lying side by side in one of the king’s massive beds—any
one of them would easily have accommodated a half-dozen people—and he was in a mellow mood.

“I did not wish what I wrote to be read by the queen’s spies.”

One of his hearty laughs reassured me that I had not been too impertinent. “You need have no fear that
anyone
will read your letter. Not even
my
spies.”

The next day, I composed a message full of encouragement, telling my princess to take heart. “Your Grace’s tribulations will come to an end much sooner than you expect,” I wrote. “Should opportunity occur, I will show myself to be Your Grace’s true friend and devoted servant.”

Although I had King Henry’s promise that no one would intercept my letter, I did not dare be more specific. In truth, I could not have said what form my help might take. The king doted on me now—not unlike the way the queen doted on little Perky—but in time he would tire of me. He could be testy and irascible. The wrong word at the wrong time might well cost me all the ground I had gained in softening His Grace’s attitude toward his daughter.

The proof of my success came in the gift King Henry sent her—a litter made of velvet that was the twin of the one Princess Elizabeth used. Courtiers read this as a sign that “the Lady Mary” would soon be restored to her proper place. A number of gentlemen and ladies, both singly and in groups, paid visits to her at The Moor and even more of them did so when the princess’s household moved to Richmond.

On the twenty-second of October, a Thursday, the queen went to visit Princess Elizabeth. The maids of honor served in rotation, so it was by chance that I accompanied her. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk also accompanied the queen. She was in the nursery when she realized that the two dukes had slipped away to pay their respects to the king’s
other
daughter.

“Let the Lady Mary come here to me,” Queen Anne ordered.

Her messenger returned almost at once. Dickon was literally shaking in his boots. “The Lady Mary refuses to leave her room until Your Grace has departed,” he stammered.

“She will be punished for this affront,” the queen promised, and sent for Lady Shelton, lady governess of the sisters’ household.

I do not know precisely what instructions the queen gave, but as soon as I was able to send word to him of what had happened, His Grace countermanded the order.

This odd life, serving the queen by day and the king by night, continued through October and into November. On the twentieth day of that month, a special envoy from King Francis of France arrived. He was Philippe Chabot de Brion, the Admiral of France. I never did learn much about him or his mission, but whatever he was asking for put the king in a surly mood. Despite this, in early December, the queen hosted a banquet in the French envoy’s honor. Queen Anne sat next to Brion on the dais.

I was not supposed to be present. Bess Holland and I were not on duty, but Bess had convinced me that we need not hide ourselves away. We might not have places at the banquet, but no one was likely to stop us from lingering in the doorway to admire clothing and jewels and exchange pleasantries with courtiers we knew.

I did not anticipate that the king would notice me, or that he would leave the dais and seek me out. He appeared at my side without warning.

“Tamsin,” he murmured. That deep, throaty rumble was something I had come to associate with the start of an amorous and enjoyable interlude. Just the timbre of his voice sent a little thrill of anticipation through me. Despite my earlier misgivings over the state of my immortal soul, I’d come to enjoy the earthy pleasures His Grace indulged in.

I did not discount the tangible rewards, either. A ring the king had given me sparkled on my finger. Beneath my shift hung a golden locket that contained His Grace’s likeness in small. And in the royal mews, Star of Hartlake remained in the care of the king’s master of the horse, but he was mine once more, yet another gift from “Harry.”

I dropped into a deep curtsey, as did Bess. The king bent over my hand and kissed it, pulling me to my feet as he did so.

A peal of hysterical laughter rolled toward us from the dais. The king turned to look at the queen, as did everyone else in the hall.

The French envoy, in French, demanded to know if Her Grace was mocking him. His voice carried clearly.

So did the queen’s reply. “It is only that the king went in search of your secretary, Admiral, that he might present the fellow to me, and entirely forgot what it was he set out to do when he found a fair damsel instead.”

The king’s face darkened with annoyance. I prudently stepped out of his way as he stalked back to the dais. The look Queen Anne sent my way was filled with loathing, as if she blamed me for her own ill-advised outburst.

A few days later, without warning, I fell violently ill. Terrible pain gripped my innards. My throat burned. My skin felt cold and clammy to the touch. I was dizzy and weak.

Edyth held my hair out of the way while I rid myself of everything I had eaten that morning. On the other side of the maidens’ chamber, Bess Holland also retched into a chamber pot, though she was not as sick as I was. Jane Seymour had also complained of belly gripes and been excused from her duties for the rest of day.

Through the pounding in my head, a memory stirred. My symptoms might have been due to sickness, but there was also a frightening alternative. I had never forgotten the time when Princess Mary had been stricken with sudden, inexplicable pains or the fears Maria
and I had harbored before a natural explanation was found for Her Grace’s suffering.

Poison? Was it possible. I found it difficult to think clearly, but with an effort I remembered that Bess, Jane, and I had all eaten from the same little box of comfits. The king knew that I was fond of sugar-coated almonds and I’d assumed he sent them as a gift. I’d shared my unexpected bounty with Bess and Jane. They’d each eaten a handful of the comfits. I’d devoured considerably more.

What if someone else had sent the almonds? What if they’d been poisoned? The queen was also fond of these comfits. There were always some in her chamber.

I remembered more of that long-ago day at Beaulieu when we’d thought Princess Mary might have been poisoned. I’d learned something of poisonous herbs from Maria. And from Master Pereston the apothecary, I’d heard about a poison called arsenic.

White arsenic, he’d said, bore a resemblance to sugar. If someone wanted to dispense with a rival, what better way than to add a poisonous crystalline powder to a sugar-coated treat?

“Edyth,” I croaked, my throat raw. “Find a feather.”

She produced a fine, long one from a costume I’d worn in a recent disguising. I thrust it into my mouth and down my throat, attempting to rid myself of more of the poison.

Aghast, Edyth tried to make me stop.

I pushed her away. “This is necessary. I have been poisoned.”

“Poison?” Her eyes widened in horror and disbelief.

Once my stomach was as empty as I could make it, I gave a new order: “Fetch milk. As much milk as you can find.”

“Milk? Oh, no, mistress. You do not want to drink that nasty stuff. It is fit only for children and the aged. Imbibing it will make you feel worse, not better.”

“Do as I say, Edyth!” I shouted at her.

Momentarily cowed, she asked, “Shall I heat it and mix it with fruit or spices?” That was the way milk was most often served to elderly persons, or else with chunks of bread in it as sops.

“It does not matter,” I said through teeth clenched against a new round of belly cramps. I panted as pain racked my body. “Just be quick about it.”

“Cow’s milk or ass’s milk? Or mayhap a goat would—”

“I do not care! Only hurry, Edyth. I could die while you stand there dithering.”

By this time, Bess and Jane, alerted by the increasing volume of my demands, hovered beside my bed. Jane, one hand clamped over her abdomen, looked even more whey-faced than usual. Bess’s long yellow hair hung in disorderly clumps.

“You think we have been poisoned?” Bess asked. “How can that be?”

“The comfits.”

Jane started to weep. “I do not want to die.”

“Then cast up the contents of your belly and drink the milk Edyth is bringing.” I glared at my tiring maid and, at last, still looking mutinous, she left to follow my orders. Like most people, Edyth was certain that drinking milk caused headaches, agues, and rheums and should only be used to make cheese.

“I thought the king sent you these comfits,” Bess said when she and Jane had duplicated my course of treatment with the feather. She picked up the small, ornate wooden box that contained the sugared almonds and opened it. When she saw it was still half-full, she quickly closed it again.

“I thought so, too, but they could have come from someone else. Someone who has similar boxes in her lodgings at all times.”

I did not name Queen Anne. I did not have to. I saw the anger flare in Bess’s eyes. She had supported the queen from her earliest days at court, back when Anne was plain Mistress Anne Boleyn,
and now she had come close to dying by the queen’s hand, a random casualty of Her Grace’s jealousy.

“Send to His Grace and ask if this box came from him,” Jane suggested, delicately wiping her mouth with a linen handkerchief. She was a very fastidious person.

“I do not want the king to hear that I am ill.” Fighting another wave of dizziness, I had to wait until my head cleared before I could finish my thought. “You know how His Grace feels about sickness.”

Everyone at court knew. King Henry went out of his way to avoid any contact with contagion. Even in the days when he’d first fallen in love with Queen Anne, he had left her behind when one of her maidservants, Edyth’s friend Rose, had contracted the sweat.

It was some time before Edyth returned with milk, but when she did she brought great quantities of the stuff. We drank as much as we could hold. I do not know
how
it worked against the arsenic, but work it did. Bess and Jane were restored, save for some lingering weakness, by the next day. I needed longer to mend, but I gave out that I had my monthly courses and thus prevented the king from inquiring too closely into my absence. The queen did not trouble herself to ask after my health at all.

When Bess offered to dispose of the box and its deadly contents, I gave it to her willingly. I could not accuse the queen, and I did not want to risk anyone else accidentally ingesting the arsenic-laced candy.

I was half-asleep two nights later when Bess returned to the maidens’ chamber. The maids of honor slept two to a bed. Since both Bess and I sometimes passed part of the night elsewhere, the other damsels had decreed that we be bedfellows, to avoid disturbing their rest. I heard the swish of fabric, felt the mattress depress, and breathed in Bess’s musky perfume. I expected that in a moment she would settle and I could continue my drift into slumber.

Instead she put her mouth close to my ear and spoke in a whisper. “I had to be sure. Now I know. The sugar on the almonds did contain poison.”

My eyes flew open and every muscle in my body tensed. “
How
do you know?”

“How does anyone test for poison? I fed some of the comfits to a dog.”

This statement sparked a terrible premonition. “What dog?”

“The one whose loss the queen will feel most deeply.”

“Not—”

“Yes. That annoying little white dog Her Grace is so fond of—Perky.”

“Oh, Bess.” I felt genuine regret. I’d been fond of Perky and I never liked to see any animal suffer, not even the mastiffs and bears purpose-raised for fighting each other in the ring. That poor little creature must have died in terrible pain.

But hard on the heels of that thought came a truly horrifying realization—the queen would be sure to think that I had killed her pet. I sat straight up in the bed. “What have you done? She’ll blame me.”

“Do you think me a fool?” Bess laughed softly. “No one saw me and as soon as I was certain that the sugared almonds had made him violently ill, I picked him up and threw him out a window. The cobbled courtyard below was deserted. It is well after midnight. When the body is found in the morning, it will appear that he died in an accidental fall. You know how he was always racing about, heedless of stairs and balconies . . . and windows. No one will guess the truth.”

Sickened by her callousness, I could not speak. Unconcerned, Bess rolled over and fell asleep.

The next day, it was Edyth who brought me official word of
Perky’s death. I was still weak, but well enough to leave my bed. I was sitting on the window seat, bundled up against the draft that crept in through the glass and contemplating the dismal December landscape outside when she came into the maidens’ dormitory. The bare branches of distant trees stood out in eerie silhouette against a leaden sky.

“They found the queen’s favorite dog dead this morning, its neck broken in a fall,” Edyth announced as she put away the freshly laundered linens she had just collected, “and because Her Grace doted so on her pet, none of her ladies dared tell her. The king had to give her the news. For once,” she added, “when Her Grace started carrying on, King Henry didn’t stomp out of the room. He stayed with her and offered comfort.”

“The king has a soft spot for dogs,” I murmured.

After a few more days of rest, I was well enough to return to the king’s bed, but something had changed. I could not put my finger on a reason, but I no longer felt comfortable in His Grace’s company. When we were together, I was tense and uneasy, but that was nothing compared to my emotional state when we were apart. Then I was afraid.

With each passing day, I became more certain that it was only a matter of time before the queen made another attempt to kill me.

T
he court went to Greenwich for Yuletide as it always did, but, for the first time in many years, I did not encounter Rafe Pinckney there. He did not accompany Mistress Wilkinson when she delivered silks to the queen.