The Queen's Lady (10 page)

Honor skirted the perimeter of dancers and moved toward the doors. She tried to keep her walk unhurried, tried not to show her excitement. She passed several groups, and could hardly believe that no one noticed her heightened color. Matrons gossiped and munched beside the food-laden tables. Gentlemen gambled noisily over dice in an alcove. Girls cooed around one of their number who had partnered a duke’s son. In the distance, gray-haired statesmen conferring under the gallery surrounded the corpulent figure of Wolsey swathed in his red cardinal’s robes. Honor’s hands felt clammy as she thought of Wolsey, but she walked on. No one stopped her as she left the hall.

She was responding to the signal Ambassador Mendoza had given her. Upon her arrival an hour ago she had gone to him, and they had arranged the signal in a swift, whispered exchange. When he gave it, he told her, she was to wait a quarter hour, then meet him outside in the garden. So she had waited—had watched the dancers complete a galliard; had rejected two offers to dance; had been jostled by an angry gambler loudly searching for a man who owed him money. The wait had seemed endless.

The hardest trial had been keeping her secret from Sir Thomas. Seeing her, he had detached himself from the circle of statesmen around Wolsey, and, smiling, had come to speak to her. She knew that, councilor and friend to the King though he was, Sir Thomas sympathized with the Queen, and she could barely contain herself as he commented on the gathering and quipped about the young coxcombs. Her mission for the Queen had almost bubbled out of her.

Now, past all of these distractions, she made her way outside to the knot garden that overlooked the river.

Under moonlight, a dusting of undisturbed snow glinted over the frozen garden. The chill air bit Honor’s throat as she hurried with quick breaths along a gravel walk. She hugged herself against the cold—she had left her cloak inside, for donning it might have aroused suspicion. She made for a latticed structure at the end of the walk. It was a kind of bower, three-sided, and covered over with cut holly boughs. A month before, Wolsey had ordered it erected for his comfort during a day of Christmas festivities when a choir of children sang for him and his household.

Honor saw a movement beside the bower—the swirl of a long robe—and recognized the shadowed silhouette of the Imperial ambassador. She reached the spot, and saw that he was shivering: he, too, had foreseen the imprudence of wearing his cloak. Don Inigo de Mendoza was a wiry, middle-aged Spaniard of high family and haughty disposition, and Honor could not suppress a smile at the sight of the proud gentleman clutching his robe’s collar to his chin, shoulders hunched, teeth chattering.

“Ah! Mistress Larke,” he whispered, taking her elbow, plainly anxious to get on with their business. Together, they stepped into the bower. Honor passed him the Queen’s letter. She said, “Her Grace needs this in the Emperor’s hands immediately.” Mendoza nodded, then quickly left the bower. His footsteps crunched on the icy path, then faded to nothing. The mission had been accomplished in a moment.

Honor felt cheated: what an anticlimactic end to her hours of trepidation! She smiled at her own disappointment. What, after all, had she expected? That Cardinal Wolsey himself would spring up out of a garden urn? Shake snow off his great bulk and command her arrest? No. All was quiet. From windows in the hall, music reached her in faint pulses. She looked down at the River Thames. Lanterns bobbed among the clutter of ferries and barges tethered to the pier where bundled-up boatmen waited to carry guests back to the city. From the pier, blazing torches lined the way up to the palace terrace. No band of guards was marching toward her to take her off to prison. She shrugged with a smile.

She was freezing. She took a step to leave the bower. A man’s voice startled her.

“A dangerous business, mistress.”

Honor halted. The voice had come from inside the bower. She turned. A man was sitting on a bench tucked into the corner. He sat sideways, his feet on the bench, his knees drawn up under a heavy cloak. His face was completely in shadow under the holly boughs.

Honor took a wary step back. She and Mendoza had said little in their meeting, but it was enough.

“Yes,” the man said quietly. “I heard.” Three words only, but their sum was an unmistakable threat.

Honor swallowed. In the confined space she smelled brandy from his breath. She noticed a leather bottle lying on the bench beside him. Perhaps, she thought, he was nothing more than a drunkard, come out here to drink alone. Could she turn his intimidation around, use it against him? “What are you doing in the Cardinal’s garden?” she asked sternly.

He gave a sharp nod toward the palace and snorted. “Avoiding a jackass inside. Claims I owe him dice money. And he’s been known to rely on his sword to settle accounts.” He chuckled. “No gentleman, I fear.”

He had not moved. Lounging against the bower wall, he seemed to Honor harmless enough. “Good night, sir,” she said firmly. She moved to go.

His sword scraped from its scabbard. The blade shot across the bower opening, blocking Honor’s escape. She gasped.

“Oh, don’t go yet, Mistress Larke,” he said calmly.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, unnerved.

“Your tryst partner greeted you by it. As I said, I do have ears.” In a sudden, clean movement, he swung his legs to the ground without lowering the sword. He looked up at her, his face now lit by a shaft of moonlight. Honor recognized him. This was the man who had almost lost his hand to the butcher’s cleaver. The one Anne Boleyn had rescued. Thornleigh. And if he was Anne’s confederate, Honor realized, his interest lay in discrediting the Queen. To Wolsey.

“You should also know,” she said, pretending bravado, “that I am the ward of Sir Thomas More. He’s just inside, sir, and he will not appreciate me being harassed in this fashion.”

Thornleigh let out a short, mocking whistle. “You frighten me, mistress.
Two
adversaries inside. I may have to stay out here all night. So do take pity. Your company would be such a comfort while I’m marooned here. We could keep one another warm. You’re shivering.”

She saw that he was toying with her. Well, if that was all he intended, perhaps a little more bravado could get her out of this. She hugged herself and answered with disdain. “Thank you, no. Now, let me pass.”

“Oh, come, come,” he said pleasantly. “I’m agreeing to take on the heavy responsibility of your secret. Don’t you think you owe me
something
for that service?” He lowered his sword, leaving her way clear to go. “You don’t look stupid,” he added meaningfully, laying the sword on the bench. “And my price is very reasonable.”

So, she thought, he was threatening to inform on her after all. She accepted defeat. “How much do you want?”

Thornleigh scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see. Moncton in there claims twenty pounds . . .”

“Twenty pounds!” she blurted. How could she ask Sir Thomas for even half that amount without arousing his suspicions? It was insufferable. She recalled Margery’s earlier comment, and snapped, “I understood that your wife pays your gambling debts.”

His face hardened. But he went on as if she had not spoken. “. . . but Moncton’s a cheat, and I have no intention of satisfying him. So, all I’ll ask of you, dear lady, is one kiss.”

She was astonished. It was an idiotic request. He held her position at court—her very life, perhaps—in his hands. He could ask for anything. “You’re brain-sick,” she said scornfully.

“Only when I see a pretty face.”

His amusement at her discomfort infuriated her. “And if I refuse?”

He chuckled. “You are not in a strong bargaining position here, mistress.”

It was true. She imagined the consequences if he reported her to Wolsey. Walter, she knew, was already locked away in a prison cell. Being tortured? She shivered, and from more than just the cold.

He shrugged. “Only a kiss,” he repeated reasonably.

She answered, as if uttering a curse, “Very well.” She drew herself up and clenched her jaw. Her folded arms tightened into rigid armor. The iced air pinched her nostrils. “Let’s get it over with.”

He stood, and Honor’s lips parted in surprise; she had forgotten how tall he was. He stepped close to her. He took her face between his hands and lifted it to his. His lips touched hers. She tasted the sweet residue of brandy. She felt his hand slide to her throat, felt her own pulse beat against his warm palm. His other arm went lower and drew her to him, his cloak almost engulfing her. He held her gently, yet she felt immobilized by his strength. As her every muscle softened, her mouth opened under his. Her arms dropped to her sides. She felt the heat of his body, his hands on her as if he owned her. And she knew that, for this moment, he did.

He drew his face away. She heard him laugh softly. “Open your eyes, mistress,” he said. “The bargain was for just one kiss, no more. Sorry.”

Her eyes flew open.

He chuckled. “You’ve never been kissed before, have you? But of course not. Not Sir Thomas More’s ward. Oh, yes, I’ve heard the tales. Sir Thomas the Pious. I understand the man keeps such a chaste household, he actually segregates his servants so that male and female do not fraternize. Is it true?”

Honor wrenched herself from his arms. How dare this lecherous drunkard ridicule Sir Thomas! “This transaction is concluded, sir,” she spat. “I trust I have now bought your silence?”

“Cheap, wasn’t it?” He laughed. “But, I must be content,” he said with mock resignation, “for the court, you know, is a buyer’s market.”

“And your skill in bartering, small,” she retorted. “No wonder you need a rich wife.”

His look at her darkened into one of scorn. “Well,” he said, looking at her mouth, “all of us around here must sell whatever we can.”

The insult was too plain. She raised her hand to strike him. He caught her wrist, held it a moment, then dropped it. He flopped down nonchalantly onto the bench and took up the bottle. “Go back inside, mistress,” he said. “You’re cold.”

Honor turned on her heel and left him.

5

T
he small hunting party plodded over the drought-cracked road leading into London, and a parched breeze spiraled grit up into the eyes of Honor and Margery riding in the center. The two mounted gentlemen ahead of them were bickering over techniques of the day’s kill, comparing it with other hunts, while three servant boys lazily brought up the rear, leading a pony laden with strings of bloody grouse and a fallow deer buck.

Honor peeled off a sweaty glove and picked the grit from her eye. Lord, she thought, how I hate hunting. The chase. The blood. The frenzy of the dogs—and the men—when they run down a wounded buck. Still, the wretched day has been worth it. I charmed all the information out of the Archbishop’s nephew I’m likely to get for the Queen.

Margery glared ahead at the male conversation that excluded them, her eyes puffy in the heat. Honor offered her a look of sympathy. “Bridewell in twenty minutes,” she said and smiled, “and the Venetian Ambassador’s claret to cool us.” But Margery remained grumpily silent.

The gentlemen’s chatter had degenerated into a quarrel over who would be invited to hunt with the King’s party the following week. Certainly not the Queen, Honor thought bitterly. The King only rode out now with Anne Boleyn; the Queen was not welcome. Worse, if the loose talk Honor had coaxed from Archbishop Warham’s nephew was correct, the Queen’s prospects appeared grim; in the divorce battle, the Church, it seemed, was going to abandon her. Honor could almost hear the cautious old politician, Warham, murmuring to bishops in his archiepiscopal palace:
“Indignatio principis mors est.”
The wrath of the King is death.

But still no answer had come from Rome. Winter had melted into spring, spring had dragged into summer, summer was almost at an end, and all nerves at court were in a jangle. The King fumed. The Queen endured. But the Pope would not act.

Honor stuffed her gloves into her pocket as the Jesus Bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral clanged. Today was the Feast of Saint Michael. A short distance ahead the walls of London rose, and the city skyline—a square-mile thicket of steeples—wavered in the heat. As usual, several church bells were clamoring at once. Strange, Honor thought, how their discord is so familiar it sounds like harmony.