The Queen's Dwarf A Novel (26 page)

I tried to erase pictures that sprang into my mind—a far younger Buckingham being fondled by the coarse-mannered Scottish king who had exchanged a dukedom for such freedoms. Had Buckingham paid in full the sexual tribute James apparently had desired? I could not guess. I knew only that the man before me seemed ambitious enough to submit to anything.

“There are times I miss the old king.” Buckingham seemed to guess the path of my thoughts. He did not seem to mind his place in them. “There is something to be said for a king who can be led about by his prick. But I have confidence Lady Carlisle will succeed in the end. She and her husband are putting the finishing touches on a most original idea to gain His Majesty’s attention at the hawking party they have planned.”

“Her husband is aiding her in casting lures for the king? Doesn’t the earl object to his wife’s playing courtesan? I heard theirs was a love match.”

“Considering Lucy’s boorish father, it is little wonder she was charmed by Lord Carlisle’s impeccable manners. However, once they were married, she discovered that she was three times cleverer than her husband. He did not appreciate her more … unusual assets. Her beauty, however, well…”

Buckingham looked as if he’d tasted something sweet. “Carlisle knows he cannot keep such a beauty all to himself. He has most graciously shared his divine Lucy with me. It is an even bigger honor to share one’s wife with the king. Of course, it all depends upon Lucy succeeding in ensnaring Charles. But the entertainment will be worthy of her: a temptation that might as well have been torn from one of her Wizard Earl father’s books of sorcery.”

For a moment, elation overcame the foreboding I always felt in the duke’s presence. He had spoken of using dark magic upon the king! Even a duke must be executed for that—had not charges of witchcraft been one of the weapons that brought the downfall of Anne Boleyn?

Still, my excitement faded, reality crowding in. Buckingham was Charles Stuart’s oldest, most trusted friend, the one the king depended on for love, support, advice. The king would cling to Buckingham more loyally than to his own wife.

Even back in Oakham, we had heard how Charles had spent his first four years in an iron brace upon wheels, the weak-legged prince unable to walk on his own. In the years that followed, Charles had learned to lean on the duke of Buckingham in the same way, reigning with the duke’s support, not on his own strength. Rip away the duke of Buckingham and what would happen to the king? Would he fold into a heap on the floor, unable to rule?

The possibility alarmed me—for England, for myself, for the queen. But the fate of kings would have to wait until I found a way to secure my brother’s safety. I shoved thoughts of Lady Carlisle’s new plot away and turned my energies into wresting Samuel from a life that would drown him in blood.

“What passes between the king and countess is their concern. Mine is a personal matter. I wish to give you something.” I reached through the slit in my doublet and withdrew Buckingham’s richly tooled leather purse.

His brows arched. “Is the purse still full? I remember paying you well for serving my interests.”

“I do not want your coin.” I dropped it with a heavy clunk upon the table.

Buckingham made no move to pick the purse up. “A partnership like ours is impossible to sever.”

I met his gaze dead-on. “I do not wish to sever our partnership, only to alter the terms.”

“It is becoming an inconvenient pattern. First Ware wants to sail halfway across the world; now you wish to change things that are already working in my favor.” Buckingham folded his hands. His rings glimmered. “I am satisfied with arrangements as they are.”

“This amendment will be to your advantage.”

“I am listening.”

“My father apprenticed my younger brother to a master in the shambles. I prefer Samuel be tutored and given a clerk’s job somewhere well clear of the place.”

Boredom dulled Buckingham’s eyes. “It is your father’s right to dispose of his son however he chooses.”

“As he disposed of me?”

“Just so.” Buckingham licked his thumb and forefinger, using the moisture to perfect the point of his beard.

“Your Grace, my effectiveness as your spy depends on my goodwill, does it not?”

“More upon fear like the cane a tutor wields over a pupil.”

“Samuel will not need a violent inducement. He is clever and eager to please. He is so honest, you could lock him in your bake house when he was starving and he’d not steal a bite of bread.”

The duke plucked a loose pearl from his sleeve and tossed the gem onto the table. It clattered softly as it lodged beneath the cover of a book. “Destined for sainthood, is your brother?”

“No!” I said with a force that startled me. “We left such superstitious nonsense behind with the Pope. But an honest lad like Samuel would be a boon to any employer. Any man with a strong arm can butcher meat.”

“I have no time for such trivialities. The king has finally gotten the lack-wits at Parliament to finance a fleet so I can relieve the starving Huguenots holding out against Richelieu’s guns. I mean to destroy the French with such panache that no one will ever mention the tangle at Cádiz again.” A muscle in his jaw knotted. “Jeffrey, go back to your post.”

He intended to turn me away. Why had I not stopped to consider? What did a purseful of coins mean to such a man? It was said he had instructed his seamstresses to stitch the jewels on his clothes loosely when he went to negotiate the king’s marriage in France. He had shed gems wherever he went, setting servants and even gentlefolk scrambling to snatch the glittering stones from the ground as he passed. In the face of such excess, what could I offer?

Panic washed through me, and I imagined my brother trapped in Beetle Garth’s world. I remembered what Dulcinea had told me before I did my first leap upon the high rope.
No linnet ever flew by imagining itself crushed from a fall.

“Your Grace, you were wise to warn me about the queen’s charms,” I said, keeping my attention firmly on my goal. “It is not an easy thing to resist her.”

Buckingham scowled. “What nonsense is this?”

“I could become so devoted to Henrietta Maria that even threat of death could not prevent it—especially if the Channel between England and La Rochelle divides you from me.”

Buckingham shoved back his chair and rose to tower over me. How many times had I been treated to such a display by jeering apprentices back home, in the halls of three different palaces, even by my own father? But it was harder to intimidate me in such a way since I’d grown accustomed to Will Evans’s height.

“Obviously I must add one more task to my preparations before I sail for La Rochelle. I must make you better aware of what my displeasure would cost you,” the duke said.

“You may do so, of course. But there is a better way to assure I remain loyal only to you.”

“You plan to extort more coin from me? Shall I tell you what happened to the last fool who tried it?”

“I have returned a purseful of coin I earned. Why would I do so only to demand another?”

He smoothed his mustache.

“Your Grace, I might be tempted to keep Her Majesty’s secrets from a man I feared.” I dared the sly smile I had mastered when teasing members of court. “After all, how would Your Grace ever know I had withheld something if it were a secret?”

“You find yourself amusing, fool?”

“It is a riddle, is it not? To pay one for exposing deep, dark secrets. By nature, such confidences are difficult to keep tally of. It is unlikely anyone else would be privy to them and race to you to expose my perfidy.”

“My wife is in the queen’s privy chambers, as are my mother and sister and the countess of Carlisle.”

“They were thrust upon the queen when she did not want them—an indignity she will not soon forget. I braved royal wrath to staunch her bleeding when you and the king ripped her friends away. She trusts me as she would never trust anyone associated with your household. Besides which, I am not even human—is that not what people say? Not human and yet her most trusted friend.”

Buckingham’s face darkened. “You sound as if you are already the queen’s man!”

“I am not. You wish to keep me loyal to you, bound by fear. I say that if my patron saved my brother from the horror of a future such as my father offers Samuel, well, then nothing could shake my loyalty.”

“I was not aware it was in danger of being shaken until now,” Buckingham said silkily.

“It isn’t. From the moment my brother begins his studies.”

“You have become quite devious in your short time at court. Exceeded even my expectations. I have yet to decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.”

“A dog will fight if it fears its master, but when overmatched by a foe, that dog will be glad to succumb to the inevitable. But if a dog loves its master, it will never surrender until its last drop of blood is shed. Which kind of dog would you rather send into the court’s bear pit?”

The duke paced around me, his gaze filled with a new and grudging respect. “I will consider your proposal.”

I swept His Grace a bow.

“Go! You will have my answer presently.”

I did.

Next morning as the queen’s household returned from chapel, the duchess of Buckingham approached me. “Is it not strange to be compelled to attend Catholic Mass? For so many years it has been outlawed.”

“No one can hold it against us,” I said. “We are required to accompany the queen.”

“Did you know that I was Catholic before I married His Grace? My converting to the reformed faith broke my father’s heart, but I surrendered the old faith to win George Villiers as my husband. I can deny him nothing.”

It did not surprise me that my soul was not the first His Grace had bartered for. What had it cost Catherine Manners to turn her back on her father and her faith?

“I confess I do not mind my prayers the way I should in chapel. I keep thinking that a secret Catholic would be grateful to be in my place, instead of fretting over kneeling on a lump in their gown. I look at the queen’s other ladies and wonder if any of them are recusants. What do you think, Jeffrey? Is the countess of Carlisle a follower of the Virgin Mary?” Her humor surprised me.

“I don’t believe Lady Carlisle believes in anything virgin, blessed or otherwise.” The jest slipped out as one so often did now—so quickly, I did not have time to consider how it might wound. “Your Grace, I beg your pardon. I did not mean to…” Taunt you with your husband’s mistress, I thought.

“Do not apologize. Court fools are allowed to tell the truth with impunity.” The duchess frowned. “It is obvious Lady Carlisle seeks to ensnare any man powerful enough to advance her fortunes. The king has shown greater will to resist her than most men.”

The duchess’s tone told me what I had long wondered about. She did know Buckingham and the countess of Carlisle were lovers. That knowledge caused her pain. Yet she must speak civilly to Lady Carlisle every day; endure the woman’s flirtation with Buckingham whenever the duke entered the room. Did Catherine Villiers watch her husband’s gaze follow the countess’s exquisite form? Did she imagine the pair of them together, yet have to smile into Lady Carlisle’s smug face?

“My husband is trying to kindle something between the countess and king. He wishes me to encourage it.” She chafed her wedding ring around her finger. “A conscience is a troublesome encumbrance at court. The duke insists one should shed it before one enters the palace—like a cloak with frayed edges.” Her laugh was only a little forced. “You know, he was quite poor when first he came to Whitehall.”

“I have heard the tale. I was told to learn from his example when I left home.”

“Home! That is what I meant to speak to you about before I got distracted.” She seemed relieved to change the subject. “Jeffrey, His Grace tells me you came to him, determined to better the lot of your brother. He says you will pay out of your own purse. It is very generous of you.”

“Your Grace, you have never been in the shambles at night, heard the screams of the animals as they are slaughtered. They sound like children. As for the master my father would apprentice Samuel to, he is more beast than man.”

The duchess averted her eyes.

“I do not mean to shock you, Your Grace, only explain why I must aid my brother. Samuel is a good lad. He is clever and far too tenderhearted to spend his life battered by a cruel master and deafened by animal screams.”

The duchess’s hand moved toward me. She stopped before she touched me, as if she realized it would be patronizing. She would not have touched a full-size man thus. “Your brother is lucky to have you on his side, Jeffrey. It happens that I know a learned man in need of a pupil. Master Benedict Quintin is the cousin of my childhood friend. He returned to London after years on the Continent spent leading young men on their grand tours. Master Quintin sought me out especially in hopes I would help him find a situation.”

“But my brother is not in London. He remains in Oakham.”

“Rutland will suit Master Quintin perfectly. He says there are plenty of places for people to pray in the city.”

“Pray?”

The duchess laughed. “It seems I have religion on the mind since we left the chapel.” The duchess caressed the miniature of her husband, its gold-filigreed setting pinned to her bodice. I almost felt Buckingham’s painted eyes following me. “But my stumble over the word may not be so strange when considering tutoring. Are not church-bound places the centers where scholars often learn their letters?”

“I suppose.”

The duchess seemed to consider. “Is your brother a Puritan? I understand they have distaste for anything smacking of the formalities of church.”

“Samuel is no Puritan. He is a loyal subject to the king and goes to the parish church every Sunday.” There was only one church in Oakham’s parish—the Church of England, with the king in place of the Pope.

Did the duchess hear the defensiveness in my voice? I thought of Samuel, the holy medal, and the widow he visited who kept the statue of the Virgin Mary beneath her floorboards.

“In light of your description, I would say that Samuel and Master Quintin should suit each other. Do you trust me to settle this matter?”