The Queen's Rival (50 page)

Thomas Cromwell stood calmly beside him. Every bit as ambitious as Wolsey had been to maintain his power base, and slightly more ruthless, he was a fat-faced man with dark, snake eyes, a long nose, and small pursed lips.

“Richmond is playing well today,” Henry quietly observed.

“He plays like his father,” Cromwell noted, touching his blunt-cut sable-colored hair to see that it had stayed in place with the breeze.

“Has there been any further word from Parliament on the question of Lady Tailbois?” the king asked without taking his eyes from the game.

Cromwell rubbed his smooth, hairless jaw between two fat fingers. “Once the annulment question is settled in Rome, or within a new church here in England, based on the premise that your marriage to Katherine was never valid in the first place, then His Grace, the Duke of Richmond, would automatically be legitimized and, thus, become your heir. If you were to marry his mother, that is.”

“England would have an heir, and the succession would be made secure with the presence of a healthy son to follow me.”

“But you would need to sacrifice Mistress Boleyn to do it.”

Such a thing as Cromwell suggested was unthinkable . . .
or was it?

The challenge of Anne excited him still. It also exhausted him, and most days he was a man driven by unfulfilled passion, not intellect or reason at all. He raked both hands through his now-short copper hair as he continued to watch his son and to consider the grand, life-changing choice before him, one that had presented itself more prominently since Tailbois’s death. A king must be wise, calm, and thoughtful to rule a country, and most days now, Henry felt more like a wild dog going after a bitch in heat. It was not good for his country, and it was even worse for his soul.

“Has there been any word back from Lady Tailbois as to whether she favored my return gift to her?”

He had sent her a jewel-encrusted gold chalice. While Anne withheld her body from him as part of her game, Henry played his own match. He could recall only too well the passionate nights, and afternoons, with Bess—her small, perfect body open to him, along with her heart. He felt himself harden at the memory.

“I am afraid there has yet been no word from Lincolnshire, sire.”

Henry let out a heavy sigh. He felt as if he were holding the weight of the world with the decision before him, and he did not want to make a second matrimonial mistake. “How would
you
counsel me, Cromwell? Could I actually marry Bess? Could I be happy? It would solve so many things if I could be.”

“Your heart alone knows the answer, sire,” he calmly replied. “There is, of course, that other path still to be considered.”

No matter how patiently Cromwell laid it out each time, or how many times he tried to consider it as a way to protect the succession and his country, the prospect always made him slightly ill.

“The boy
will
need a powerful alliance at some point, you know.” Cromwell pressed the issue, seeing how the king’s expression had so swiftly hardened against it.

“True, but a marriage with his own sister? Thomas, that is far worse, by any biblical standard, than what I did with Katherine.”

“Still, canon law does approve of such a unique match, sire. The position from Rome is such that if you drop the issue of your own divorce and annulment, and stop threatening to leave the Church, Pope Clement could well honor such a request on behalf of your son. And after all, the Princess Mary is only Richmond’s half sister.”

Henry shifted his weight from one leg to the other, feeling weakened even by the thought. The other option currently on the table was also from the pope who had proposed his own young niece, Caterina de Medici, as a bride for Harry.

“If you arranged a marriage between your daughter, Mary, and Richmond, it would ensure a Tudor heir, from either vantage point. You would certainly need never worry again about any foreign claim to the throne, and your need for another male heir would be voided, and thus your need for a divorce,” Cromwell said, carefully pressing the issue until Henry sharply cut him off.

“But I am not prepared to agree that my marriage to Katherine was ever legal, much less valid in the eyes of God! You know well the same passage I do.”

“
If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing . . . and they shall be childless
,” Cromwell dourly repeated, knowing the passage as well as anyone else who dealt with the king and took a side on the great debate.

Harry came off the court then, flushed, smiling, and triumphant, bringing the debate for now to an end. Henry embraced his son. “You played splendidly, just as you were taught to, my boy.”

“I was slow in the third round, and he nearly had me,” Harry panted, bright-eyed and perspiring.

“But he did not. That is what matters,” Henry reminded him.

“Your Highness.” George Blount, dressed in a white lawn shirt with leather laces, dun-colored hose, and a brown belt, just as Harry was, swept into a deep and proper bow.

“You gave the Duke of Richmond a good turn, Master Blount,” Henry praised.

“Not so good as he gave me, sire,” George returned, wiping the perspiration from his temple with the back of his hand.

They were alike, especially around the eyes, and with that same strong essence, Henry thought as he looked at Bess’s brother.
Sweet Bess
. . . These constant thoughts and memories of her only made his decision more difficult. In the beginning, it had seemed unfathomable that he might actually marry his son’s mother. But now a way seemed more clearly paved, and thus two distinct paths were still tauntingly before him.

They began to walk with one another then, George and the others following behind, and Henry draped an arm across Harry’s still-slim shoulder. Just as he himself had; just as Arthur might have, if God had given his brother that chance, Harry would grow into his bones, Henry thought with pride of his increasingly tall and lanky son.

“I have had a letter from my mother today,” the boy revealed with a tentative smile.

Henry glanced at him. “Splendid. Any great news from Lincolnshire to share with me?” he asked nonchalantly, yet finding as he did that he did truly wish to know.

“As it happens, there is. Surprising news, actually. My mother, it seems, is going to ask for your approval of her marriage.”

For an odd, impossible moment, Henry thought that Harry had meant a marriage to him. He had not expected to feel the strong wave of bitterness he did when he realized that was not at all what Harry had meant, but the bitter wave swiftly followed anyway.

“Who in heaven’s name would she marry?” he growled.

As he glanced over again, he saw his son’s reaction. His tone had been needlessly harsh.

“He is Lord Clinton, sir. I know little else of him.”

“Of course. Her neighbor.” Henry nodded gruffly, patting the boy’s shoulder as they walked.

“Will Your Highness give it then?”

“What?”

“Your approval of her marriage. My mother has been widowed for a year now.”

When one door closed another might well open, Henry thought, but it was the door that remained closed that would ever tantalize him. Yet Bess was not to blame. He had not gone after her. He had never made a stand. It was only hindsight and perspective that had finally brought the thought to meet and match the desire. He should be ashamed of himself. He deserved this. She had let Harry go for his sake. Now if Bess truly wanted this, he must make a sacrifice in the same way and do this in return for her.

“Yes, of course I shall approve it,” Henry said with a tone of resignation he did not feel. “There are few people in all the world who more deserve happiness than she.”

—PERICLES

 

B
ess read the letter again, taking in every word, each detail of the event she had missed. Harry’s wedding to Mary Howard, the young daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, held at Hampton Court, had been a small affair attended by only a few guests. It had not really been a proper wedding anyway since Harry had not yet reached the age of fifteen. But the king and his wife, Anne Boleyn, had attended to sanction the match. The new queen was said to be a ragingly jealous woman, which had precluded inviting former mistresses to court, even if they were the mother of the bridegroom.

Harry did not like Anne any more now than he had in the beginning, and it caused him to keep his distance, touring his own estates much of the year, and visiting Lincolnshire, rather than remaining at court to be badgered by the queen and the new royal heir—a daughter they had chosen to call Elizabeth.

Bess folded the letter again, and Edward studied her. He was lying beside her in their bed, a grand canopied structure draped with heavily fringed crimson velvet and gold ties. In the early-morning autumnal light, her husband resembled a god, Bess thought; scandalously young and dangerously handsome he was. It still amazed her, after two years, that her long-fallow body had come so alive again beneath his passionate touch, and she loved Edward Fiennes with a focus and intensity that rivaled anything she believed she had felt for Henry or Gil.

“I’m sorry we could not be there, my love,” Edward said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. “I know it would have meant something to the boy.”

“Moreover, it would have been a reason for the new queen to make a scene, and that was Harry’s day.”

“And also, we have to protect our own little investment,” he returned, smiling that devilish smile that could still melt her even now as he pressed his hand down against the hard little knot at her belly, the beginnings of their growing child.

Neither of them spoke about it being a youthful power alliance between the king’s son and the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter, not a true marriage. Harry and the girl, one of Anne Boleyn’s favorite maids of honor, had barely met when she was selected to become his bride. And based on his youth, it would be some time before he was allowed to reap the full carnal benefits of marriage either.

Edward tenderly kissed his wife, then drew her nearer. “What is it that is really bothering you?” he asked, his voice full of tender concern.

“Harry has changed. He is no longer my gentle little boy who I would carry through the meadow with me, smelling all of the flowers. Nor even the one who came here after Gil died. Now, the tone in his letters is more clipped, more formal than when last we met. He speaks with an air of entitlement now about how bored he is with this or that. After all, my son is a duke.”

“Second most powerful personage in all of England, no matter his age,” Edward unnecessarily reminded her. There was no one in England allowed to forget who Harry was.

Bess sighed. “I suppose he is simply growing into his role as the son of a king. I should have known life at court would change him. I know not why I expected anything different.”

“Because you are his mother, and even from afar you will always love him for the child he was,” Edward tenderly answered. “And a part of you will forever be tied to his father.”

“After the annulment question was finally made moot by the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the commencement of his own church, so it was no longer necessary for Harry to be married off to the Princess Mary. I suppose I just expected the king to make a better match for his only son.”

“You said it yourself—Anne Boleyn’s influence over him is strong. Since she will soon be with child again, I suspect his hope for a legitimate heir is all he can think about. All of England knows what he has sacrificed for that opportunity.”

“His faith . . . His conscience . . . His queen . . . Even his dignity,” Bess murmured sadly.