The Queen's Lady (6 page)

He turned his head to her and flashed a conspiratorial wink, and she rose and passed through the room with a controlled smile that she was sure even the Vicar could interpret as one of filial obedience.

In the dappled sunshine of the orchard she sang to herself under the fragrant vault of pear-tree boughs, then crossed the lawn that separated the large house and its gardens from the small New Building. Heat cradled the drowsing estate. The only sounds that drifted on the still air were the buzzing of bees and the faint tolling of the bell from the nearby parish church. Down at the foot of the rolling lawns the ribbon of the River Thames snapped stars of sunlight off its silver surface.

Reaching the New Building she stepped under the small porch gable, lifted the latch, and let herself in. She loved this place, for it reflected the quintessential Thomas More. It contained only three rooms: his library, a gallery for meditation, and a small, austere chapel. It was his habit to come here with his lantern at three in the morning for several hours of study and prayer before the household and the work-a-day world awoke.

She let the door swing shut and stood for a moment breathing in the cool, wood-paneled peace of the library. The furnishings were spartan. In front of the single window stood an oak desk and a plain, hard-backed chair. There was a small hearth. Cocooning the room, the walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with books.

Whenever she stood here, surrounded by books, memories tumbled back of the foreigner’s strange gift on that May Day night ten years before—the little volume she and Ralph had opened together under the kitchen lantern to find the speedwell winking back at them. She had never seen the book again. At her abduction, Tyrell had turned her father’s townhouse into a tenement, and all its contents had been bundled up and sold for quick cash. Where, she often wondered, had the foreigner’s book gone? She had never forgotten its haunting, proud little flower, nor the unsettling serenity of the man’s dying smile. And the more education she acquired, thanks to Sir Thomas’s liberal instruction, the more her curiosity grew to know what had been written in that book. But, though she was always on the lookout for a copy of it, she feared that after so many years the search was hopeless.

She stepped up to More’s desk. With eyes closed, she ran her finger reverentially over its beeswaxed surface. “Gratias,” she whispered, and touched her finger to her heart. It was a private ritual she had performed over a hundred times, though she was careful never to let Sir Thomas see her do it. He would have been dismayed—would have called her prayer blasphemous. And so it was, she knew, for it was not to God she gave her thanks, but to Sir Thomas himself.

She walked slowly alongside a bookshelf and bumped the knuckle of her finger lovingly over the spines. This was Sir Thomas’s private world, and in it she felt close to him. So close that she blushed to remember how, when she was younger, she would sometimes let her mind wander into forbidden tracks. She used to imagine herself beside him, as his wife. She had sensed as soon as she came into the family that there was no bond of love between Sir Thomas and the blunt-faced Lady Alice who was, after all, seven years older than him; his four grown children were the issue of his first marriage. Lady Alice seemed to Honor to be more housekeeper than wife. What if, she used to ask herself, Lady Alice were to die, as Sir Thomas’s first wife had? It was not uncommon for gentlemen to marry their wards, and she could bring to her husband a sizable fortune in her father’s scattered estates.

She gazed out the window, shaking her head in embarrassment at the recollection of such juvenile fantasies. The world looked quite different to her now. For one thing those estates, she had learned, had been in sad condition when she became Sir Thomas’s ward. Tyrell had ravaged the land. He had sold acres of timber to a smelting interest that had razed the forests. He had stripped the mines of their treasure, then issued fraudulent—and worthless—mining licenses. Using violence and threats, he had extorted crippling rents from most of the tenant farmers, and thrown many others off their holdings to make room for destructive herds of sheep. Sir Thomas, as the administrator of her property now, was attempting, with her father’s stewards, to repair the damage.

He had explained all this to her, and a great deal more. When, as a child, she had been married to Hugh Tyrell, she had only dimly understood her legal situation, though at twelve she had realized that if the marriage were consummated her property would go out of her hands. Much later, Sir Thomas had explained to her the nub of it.

An unmarried woman did not own property, though she could become the channel through which her father’s property passed to her husband. Given this situation, Sir Thomas pointed out, abduction of heiresses was not an uncommon occurrence. There was even legislation, “Against the Taking Away of Women,” but it was difficult to enforce, he said, and the attraction of an heiress’s lands seized through an enforced marriage often seemed worth the risk to an unscrupulous man like Tyrell.

But Father Bastwick, too, Sir Thomas told her, had taken a huge risk in masterminding her abduction. He and Tyrell had cheated the King out of revenue in his Court of Wards, one of the most lucrative royal ministries. All orphans with significant property became, by feudal prerogative, wards of the King, who then sold the wardships. Gentlemen had to pay handsomely for the custody of wealthy wards, male and female. Indeed, since a guardian was entitled to pocket all the rents and revenues of the ward’s estates until the young person’s marriage, the bidding often was fiercely competitive.

But Bastwick had wielded forgery and fraud to help Tyrell snatch Honor’s wardship and pay nothing for it. As Tyrell’s payment, Bastwick had been well on his way to an archdeacon’s post when Honor escaped with Ralph to London, found Sir Thomas, and brought her abductors to trial in Cardinal Wolsey’s Court of Star Chamber.

Overnight Honor’s world had changed. Wolsey awarded the custody of her and her property to More. Sir Guy Tyrell was sent to the Fleet prison. Bastwick, though immune from civil justice because of his clerical status, was nevertheless sent to a cell in the Bishop’s prison for a period, his dreams of advancement in the Church shattered.

Honor had rejoiced that day in court, seeing Bastwick humbled. And yet, the image of his face at the trial still had the power to make her shiver. She did not think she would ever forget Bastwick’s look of cold fury when More delivered his damning oration against him.

“Pity the Church,” More had said under the court’s starspangled ceiling as he pointed to Bastwick. “Longing only to cure men’s souls, she sometimes suffers disease herself in corrupt priests such as this.”

Honor had caught the glint of pure hatred in Bastwick’s black, hooded eyes—hatred for Sir Thomas and, especially, hatred for her.

The verdict was handed down, and Sir Thomas went victoriously to the bar to settle the custody. But as the clerks and officials rose and began to mill about, Honor saw Bastwick moving towards her. She could barely swallow, so parched was her throat, but she held her ground. Bastwick stopped in front of her. His body was completely still, his emotion controlled, but the muscles around his eyes twitched, betraying him. “You will live to regret this day,” he said. The threat was no more than a whisper, but its malice seared her ears.

But Bastwick was wrong. She regretted nothing. Certainly not the news a year later that Tyrell had died in prison. Nor the fact that Bastwick had vanished from her life. Ever since the day of judgment she had been happy.

No, she thought, that was not quite true. One regret did nag—she had lost track of Ralph. He had thought it best, since the death of Hugh Tyrell at his hands, to stay clear of the law. So he had not come to the trial, had waited at an inn instead, and rejoiced with her when she ran to him to report the wonderful news. And then, as soon as she was securely settled with Sir Thomas, Ralph had left London. Honor had no doubt that he would merrily thrive in any place he found himself, but she often wondered where he was living and what he was doing, and who was laughing now at his jests and silly stories. She missed him. Dear Ralph, she thought, I owe him so much. How he suffered, that night at the pillory, for my sake . . .

There was laughter outside the New Building. Honor looked out the window. Sir Thomas was striding across the lawn toward her, laughing. She hurried to the door and stepped outside to meet him.

“Oh, child, I would you had stayed,” he said. Reaching her, he placed a hand on her shoulder to steady himself. “Or, rather, it’s well you did not, for I could not have kept a serious face if anyone had been there to hear.”

“Why? What is it, sir?” she asked, smiling in anticipation.

“Oh, I would not have missed this Vicar’s visit for the world! He wanted . . .” He broke off, shaken by another wave of laughter. Recovering, he set his face into a mask of zeal that parodied his earnest guest. “The Vicar came to ascertain from me the exact location of Utopia. He dreams of making a voyage there.”

“What?” she cried.
Utopia
was More’s popular book. Written in Latin, it was a lively account of his meeting with a traveler named Raphael who had made contact with an extraordinary island commonwealth in the New World. The book described the Utopians as a stable, highly organized and, though heathen, morally upright people who lived lives of monastic rigor. But it was a work of pure imagination; its title meant “no place” in Greek. “And does he really believe such an island exists?” she asked.

“Absolutely. His dream is to make a missionary expedition there! To bring to the ignorant Utopians the blessed civilization of the Church.” He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “Ah, a most delicious fool.”

“Well, sir, what he has taken from you in the ill-timing of his visit he has repaid in entertainment.”

“True, true. Oh, child, I would not belittle a man for ignorance, for we are all born ignorant. But this was a self-blinkered, pompous fool. A dangerous one, too, for he has the teaching of boys under him.”

He hooked his arm in hers and together they strolled toward a copse of oak trees that shaded the fish pond. By the time they reached the pond he was patting his pockets, searching for something. “By the way,” he said, “I forgot, earlier. I have a gift for you.” His hands stopped against his chest in midsearch, and he added gently, “I’m sorry I missed your birthday last week, child.”

She blushed, pleased that he remembered. “No matter, sir. Though,” she teased, “I call your excuse of the King’s summoning you to Greenwich a feeble one.”

“Ha! Perhaps I should have insisted he let me go. We were back in Westminster by then. ‘I’m sorry, your Grace, the letters to the French King needs must wait and I must ride to Chelsea, for Honor Larke is seventeen years old today.’ The King is a fond father himself. He might have given me Godspeed and one of his finest stallions to carry me.”

“Or he might have had your head,” she cried. “No, I’d rather see you past the date, and whole.” They laughed together.

“We didn’t get much work done that night in any case,” More said, rummaging again inside his robe, “what with the music and the bonfires.”

Honor could well imagine it. Her birthday was the twenty-fourth of June, Midsummer Eve, a holiday when bonfires were lighted in the streets and doors festooned with garlands, and people danced and sang through the city with drums and horns and pipes. “When I was little, in my father’s house,” she said with a soft smile, “my manservant, Ralph, told me that people danced around their fires at midsummer just to celebrate my birthday. And truly, sir, he assured me with such long-faced foolery that for many childish years I believed him.”

“Charming,” More chuckled. “Ah!” He had found the object of his search. From a deep pocket he withdrew it and held it out to her. It was a necklace, a delicately wrought string of coral and pearls, simple and exquisite.

“Oh, sir!” she stammered, delighted.

More looked baffled. “I fear you misunderstand. That is not my gift. No, no, that is only an ornament, a bauble, a toy for a child.” Solemnly, he took her hand in his. “Put it away,” he said quietly. She obeyed.

“My gift to you is something much more precious. More lasting. A reward for the great progress you have made. It’s incredible, really, when you came here you couldn’t even read, and now your Latin is as good as mine. Well,” he winked, “almost. And you have excelled in mathematics, music, philosophy, even astronomy. In fact, your tutor tells me you are so far advanced in that science that you can point out not only the polar star and the dog star, but are also able—and this requires the skill of an absolute master—to distinguish the sun from the moon.”

She laughed.

“Yes,” he said, “your mind now rests on a rock solid foundation. And your heart,” he smiled, “remains as soft as God could wish. Truly, child, you could not please me more.”

Honor gazed at him, feeling too much happiness to hold inside. She threw her arms around his neck, her cheek against his. His hands went to her back and he pressed her to him. Then, suddenly, he pulled away. His face was flushed. Abruptly, he stepped toward the pond. For a moment he kept his back to her. She waited, fearing her impetuous show of affection had angered him.

He turned around to her briskly, and she was relieved to see that he was smiling again. “And now, Honor Larke,” he declared, “my gift to you. It is . . . a name. A name in Greek, as befits a scholar of this little academy. ‘
Kale kai sophe
.’It means, ‘Fair and wise.’ What think you of it?”

Tears of happiness brimmed in her eyes. “A wonderful gift.”

“And yours alone.” Solemnity darkened his smile. “Remember, child, a thousand girls have necklaces.”

A shout startled them. “Sir Thomas! Come quick!”

Across the grass Matthew stood where the lawn sloped down to the river. He was waving his arms. “Murder!” he cried.

More and Honor shared a horrified glance. They raced towards the breathless Matthew who pointed down at the reeds by the river’s edge. On the bank, a man was bending over a girl, a maid in More’s household. She was kneeling and looking up at the man. He held a knife at her throat.