The Queen's Rival (25 page)

Her expression darkened almost immediately at the sarcasm, and Gil saw Elizabeth put a hand on Bess’s arm. Bess tipped her head for an instant as she studied him.

“Are you mocking me?”

“By my troth, I am not!”

“I would have expected that of anyone else, Master Tailbois, but not of you.”

“I honestly did not intend anything of the sort.”

Her words and tone were nearly as wounding as her swooning over the king’s gift, although he knew he had jealously taunted her into what she had said. Gil literally felt sick as he tried to remind himself she had no idea of his feelings for her, but that really was of no help at all. At the end of the day, he could never be Henry.

Always first, always best, always right. . . always king; such was Henry.

It was like watching something slip down an infinite hill, gaining more momentum as it rolled away, and having no power at all to stop it. Yes, watching her with the king felt exactly like that, Gil thought sadly.

The next afternoon, the king strolled through a long gallery beside Wolsey.

Henry was more anxious than usual about the evening ahead—anxious because Mistress Blount would be there.
Bess
, he thought, rolling her name around in his mind, like something sweet on his tongue. He was watching her grow into the promise of her beauty—and her wit—right before his eyes. What a lethal combination that had always been for him—and delectable.

Tonight he would dance with her, and he would watch her eyes when he asked how she liked the gift. Of course, he knew the answer already, because Henry had learned at a very young age never to ask a question to which he did not already know the answer. Bess looked at him with the same blushing awe as the others, yet there was something more about her. He had still to determine precisely what it was, but Bess stood out from the rest. There was never a day or an evening she was present that he did not notice her or find himself watching her. He delighted in her smile, her laugh, the shy turn of her head, and her body that, in the time she had been at court, had quickly ripened from the flat, long lines of a girl, to the willowy curves of a desirable young woman.

“What of her family, Wolsey?” he asked as they paused at a long window that faced onto the beautifully intricate knot garden below.

“John Blount remains a loyal servant, recovered well from his injuries, and returned fully to service, Your Highness,” the recently appointed cardinal replied as he stood behind the king, steepling his fat hands over his new scarlet vestments.

Henry framed the window with his hands and gazed out across the landscape. “Yes, but would they welcome it as a flattering, and potentially lucrative, show of attention to the Blount family from their great sovereign lord, or merely tolerate it as duty?”

“That can only be supposed, of course. And yet perhaps”—he paused for effect—“if Master Blount were to receive an elevation in position, it is likely that his wife’s gratitude, as well as his own, would know few bounds.”

Henry pivoted toward Wolsey. His deep green eyes glittered in the sunlight. “Have you something in mind?”

“There is one position available as Esquire of the Body in your household, with Sir Thomas Hall gone back to his estates in Cornwall last month. Sir John would suit the position nicely,” he dutifully replied.

“Indeed he would.” Henry smiled, making his eyes glitter all the more. “Do it then.”

“It is done, Your Highness,” the cardinal said with a reverent nod, clearly knowing from experience what would come next and what he was meant silently to support.

Later, Wolsey accompanied the king down a wide flight of creaking oak stairs toward another endlessly long corridor leading to the banquet. There they were met by the usual smiling throng of nobles and ambassadors who crowded the doorway. Tiresome, Wolsey thought with great condescension. None of them would ever be able to take his place. He was a cardinal and powerful Lord High Chancellor as well. His face and form had grown fat from more food than prayer, and more women than common sense allowed. The king understood that, and tolerated it, so Wolsey did what he could for the king, particularly where women were concerned, even if at times it felt uncomfortably like procuring them. And besides, if he did not accommodate the sovereign, someone else most definitely would.

As the trumpet fanfare blared and they moved through the carved open doors of Hampton Court, a home he still marveled at possessing, Wolsey silently took stock of the guests. He checked to be sure they were seated in their proper places, making certain that no one important had been slighted. Wolsey quickly discerned who was missing.

The queen, proudly pregnant again, stout, and full faced, sat at the head of the vast, gleaming banquet hall beside the king’s larger, still-vacant chair. Wolsey saw with surprise that she was attired stylishly this evening. Instead of one of her usual unadorned black ensembles, Katherine was clothed in an intricately sewn gown of rich ruby velvet, with wide sleeves, a miniver collar, and a band of jewels set in gold mounts. Her usually unadorned fingers flashed with gems as well.

Wolsey felt himself stifle a smile. So, the little queen knew a real rival when she saw one and planned to rise to the challenge. Katherine was not a stupid woman, and she had keen advisers who, of course, would warn her of perceived threats. He was quite certain it explained why, among the ladies gathered around the queen, Bess Blount was nowhere to be seen.

Wolsey finally picked out the king, who was taken up by Don Luis Caroz, the Spanish ambassador, and then by the Duke of Buckingham. Henry did not seem yet to notice Bess’s absence. So many brocade- and velvet-clad courtiers and ladies in their jewels, gowns, and pearl-studded headdresses pressed toward him, bowing and curtsying, that it must have been difficult for even so tall a king as Henry to survey all of his subjects. At least Wolsey stood above the crowd, and above the noxious, mingling fragrances of ambergris, musk, rose-water, and lavender, which masked the true scent of unwashed flesh. He lifted the silver pomander hanging from a chain at his round waist and pressed it to his nose. The fresher scent of dried orange blossom quickly restored him as he proceeded to the king’s side.

Just as Henry was craning his neck finally to glance around the room, Doña Elvira, the queen’s companion, came up on the king’s other side and pressed her fingers gently into his forearm in a way both familiar and cordial.

“The queen anxiously awaits your company, sire,” Wolsey heard her say in her accented English. Elvira was three years older than the queen, yet there was a matronly quality about her—pallid skin, deep-set dark eyes, and a long nose that made her appear much older. “Her Highness fears she may quickly grow weary and need to retire.”

“Of course,” Henry said a bit dismissively as he glanced down at her. But then Wolsey noted the king’s attempt at a compassionate expression. Wolsey knew what that meant. No doubt, he would retire with her for the evening. At least for now, the queen had won, as she always would when there was the promise of an heir to inspire Henry, once again, to hope.

Hope—that was all any of them really had here at court.

And yet it did spring eternal, thought Wolsey, and it fueled ambitions, desires, and deceits.

He wondered if that was true for Mistress Blount, who was most likely performing whatever mindless duty she had been given in the queen’s apartments—a strategy no doubt meant to keep her from the king.

—THOMAS CAMPION

 

T
he child born in February of the previous year was a girl, but a strong, living child, who easily survived her first year—an heir at last. Henry and Katherine named her Mary after the king’s favorite sister, finally forgiven by Henry and allowed to return home to England with her new husband, Charles Brandon.

For a time, Katherine felt the full weight of her power as mother of the king’s child. That was until, once again, Henry began to long for a son. To that end, he doted on his wife exclusively after the birth of the Princess Mary. The queen was now thirty-two years old, and if Henry had hope of a male heir, all the country knew she must become pregnant again quickly.

Bess saw little of the king through that year due to the queen’s intervention, preventing her from appearing at most events, which had become commonplace for her. There were the occasional banquets or hunting parties to which she was invited, and where she might catch a random glimpse of him, but beyond that, the flirtation and plays at courtly love he had begun with her fell to obligation and duty.

As the months passed, Bess spent her time, when she was not attending the queen, in the company of Elizabeth, Nicholas, and Gil, as always. They had a comfortable camaraderie after several years of friendship, and Bess missed Kinlet less and less. She wrote to her brother George regularly, and he wrote back with details of life there. Yet even with these descriptions, the images in her mind of the lush and emerald green Shropshire country hills of her girlhood slipped farther and farther away as she ripened more fully into a polished queen’s attendant, one who loved life at court and who knew better each day how to navigate it with the dignity and grace of those who came before her.

Gil stood with Nicholas and watched Bess walk down the sloping lawn beside Elizabeth toward a shallow lake across which white swans moved. The sky above them was the color of pewter, and the autumn air was crisply cold, but the long hours of monotonous service were best broken by idle time. The vast gardens at Greenwich were spotted, even on cool autumn days, with more than a few courtiers.