The Queen's Rival (6 page)

Had she any other choice? Bess wondered. They, alone, were befriending her, and the alternative—a solitary existence—was not a pleasant one, considering the other women she had met.

Silently, the four youths stole quickly down the torch-lit corridor, Bess in a hastily donned pair of slippers and a gray cloth cloak to cover her white linen nightdress. Her heart was racing as they neared the entrance to one of the several round palace turrets that housed a steep staircase, but it brought with it an unexpected sensation, which she liked. There was pleasure and novelty in excitement—the first she had found at court.

Suddenly, Elizabeth Bryan stopped, and the others backed up behind her. A quiet, nervous laughter followed.

“All right, this is where we leave you,” Elizabeth declared.

“But why?” Bess asked, her sense of panic beginning to rise again.

“That is the point of the game. Beyond that little door is a staircase. At the top are another door and a grand tapestry like a drapery past which you shall find the king’s bedchamber.”

“Bring us back an account of something or small token proving you were brave enough to enter there, and you shall be one of us for life,” Gil added with the gravity of one advising a military maneuver, in spite of the adolescent sprinkling of pimples she now saw spotting his cheeks.

Bess glanced at each of their three faces lit by golden torchlight, all gone quite serious. “What if I am caught?”

“Have courage,” Jane replied on behalf of them all. “But just in case, you are to say it was entirely your own idea.”

“Implicating us,” Elizabeth added gravely, “would be unfortunate. And it would immediately void our offer of friendship.”

For a moment, Bess considered objecting or declining the challenge completely. The risk would be far greater than the gain if she were caught and sent back to Kinlet. And yet Father always said that in life there were risks. The spoils generally went to those who were brave enough to confront a challenge.
Father. . .
She thought longingly then, wishing he were here to tell her what to do.

“It will be dark. How will I see?” Bess asked, stubbornly willing her voice not to break.

Elizabeth and Jane exchanged a quick glance as Gil explained. “The turret is lit by moonlight through several small windows, the bedchamber by half a dozen larger ones.”

And with that, she was pushed through the door, like a lamb from a pen, and she was on her own.

Bess’s heart pounded beneath her nightdress and cloak as she held on to an old rope handrail, fed through iron loops, to steadily make her way upward. Although it was summer, the turret was dank and musty, making it apparent that the secret staircase was rarely used.
Good, at least I have that
, she thought, trying to still her heart enough so that she would not entirely lose her faltering courage.

The bedchamber she entered at the top of the stairs was vast and full of frightening shadows. As the summer wind blew the trees outside, the shadows danced before her. Pressing back the overwhelming sense of panic, Bess tried to focus on the task at hand so that she could scramble quickly back down the stairs victoriously.

The bed at the room’s center was massive, raised high on a platform, with a tall, crimson velvet tester emblazoned with a gold H. Beside it, on the wall, was a mural depicting the life of Saint John. Bess tried quickly to survey the rest of the shadowy chamber for a distinctive detail that would prove she had been inside. A large round table with turned legs holding a stack of books was near the grand stone hearth. The soaring buttressed ceiling bore painted oak beams and a crown. There was an ornately carved cabinet, a small writing table near the window, tapestries on the other walls, and a grand portrait of the king’s father, Henry VII, in armor, dressed for battle.

Bess moved toward the table carefully, feeling the wood floor beneath the carpets creak with each careful footstep. She could not still her heart, but she had stopped trying. This was simply going to be terrifying until the moment she escaped.

She glanced at the table piled with books. Prayer books sat stacked along with volumes by Petrarch, Aristotle, and the work of John Skelton, all of which she herself had at least partially read. Each was bound in rich black or crimson leather, the titles tooled in gold. She picked up a small, black leather-bound volume of
Lancelot
, the old epic story of chivalry and romance her father had read to her when she was young. So the handsome young king had a romantic heart, she thought as she scanned the familiar pages—a heart challenged, no doubt, by war, and many other matters of office.

Suddenly there was movement. She heard the click of a door handle. The sound of heavy, controlled footsteps followed. Someone was entering the darkened bedchamber behind her. Struck by a new surge of fear, and with her means of escape—the secret door across the room—suddenly blocked, Bess instinctively scrambled beneath the massive bed.

She had thought this game a mistake—now she knew it. The very best she could hope for was simply to get out in a single piece, and without being caught.

The footsteps, as they neared, were commanding, full of purpose—not tentative like her own. It was a man’s heavy-footed stride that shook the cold floorboards onto which she pressed her face and felt her heart slam. Carefully, still holding her breath, Bess lifted the velvet skirt of the bedcover and dared to peer out. There was a swish of black satin, and the man was beside the book table, in the very spot she had stood, now lit by a candle lamp, which he held. He was tall and thickly set, dressed in clerical garb. His nose was long and hooked; his face defined by prominent jowls.

Suddenly there was a flash. Candlelight illuminated a ring on his finger, making it sparkle. And she knew. This was the famous cleric Thomas Wolsey—Henry VIII’s Almoner and key adviser, as well as the architect of the war in France. Her father had described the important players at court so well that she knew them all. Wolsey was unmistakable.

She watched him more keenly now, moving past her own great sense of panic to wonder what he was doing alone at this late hour in the king’s private bedchamber. In his long cassock, buttoned to the floor, close-fitting sleeves, white rochet, and biretta, he moved methodically. The strong scent of ambergris swirled around him, invading the room. She kept silent watch as he flipped through each of the books as if searching for something hidden between the pages. He moved next to the tall, ornately carved cabinet.

Stories about Thomas Wolsey played through her mind as she watched him. In great detail and with much gesturing, her father had told her of a boldly ambitious man, the son of a merchant from the village of Ipswich, who had found not only his calling in the clergy, but his path to greatness. An unattractive middle-aged man, who seemingly presented little outward threat to the other ambitious courtiers, Wolsey had become the king’s private Almoner, a member of the Privy Council, and eventually, and determinedly, an intellectual counselor whom the king had come to trust implicitly. But, as Bess studied him from beneath the bed, she felt instant distrust. Knowing he was here in these private quarters when the king was away seemed to confirm her feelings.

Suddenly, her thoughts were distracted by a small, soft slip of lace fabric edged in silk bunched up on the floor beside her. Bess pulled it to her in the shadowy darkness, as there was some sort of embroidery sewn into the center in small, neat stitches. She watched Wolsey open the cabinet next and begin rifling through one of the drawers there. She did not move, and she tried to not even breathe too loudly. But she watched.

The prelate took a small blue velvet pouch, heavy with coins, and she watched him withdraw several, as if they were his own, before replacing the pouch. Next, he took a small brick of crimson wax and a gold stamp and put them into a pocket in his ankle-length black satin coat. Did he really have this sort of access, Bess wondered, or was he actually stealing from the king?

She had heard some of the women saying that after victories at Thérouanne and Tournai, young King Henry was now seeking appointment for the older Wolsey as Bishop of Tournai. Perhaps Wolsey had returned early to watch over the pregnant queen now that victory belonged to England? Bess knew she had much to learn here, and she could not be certain of any of the players enough to trust them. She clutched the lump of fabric and waited until he finally left the room. Only then did she scramble back out from beneath the bed as she dived for the secret door, anxious to be out of there.

In the corridor at the bottom of the turret, Bess expected to see Elizabeth, Jane, and Gil waiting for her, but they had vanished. As the panic came at her in another powerful wave, Bess tried to remember from which direction in the black maze of hallways they had come so she could make her way back to her chamber. In the dark, the corridor, which ran in two directions, was impossibly long and forbidding. If she went the wrong way now, she could easily become lost and at greater risk of being caught. Neither path before her looked familiar. Yet with the sturdy determination of a Blount, she chose one, exhaled an unsteady breath, and moved forward.

“Lost your way?” a deep-voiced man called out behind her.

Bess’s heart stopped. She froze where she was. She was afraid to turn around. When she did at last pivot back, tucking the fabric into a fold in her skirt, she saw that it was her father’s uncle, the balding and formidable William Blount, Lord Mountjoy. She had met him at Kinlet on only two occasions, but the family resemblance to her father, particularly the cool blue eyes, was unmistakable.

“My Lord Chamberlain,” she said, curtsying properly, as she knew her father would wish her to do, even as she wondered what he was doing here so suddenly.

“You may call me uncle, Elizabeth. It may smooth your way around here a bit.”

She was relieved by the courtesy he was showing her in spite of her surprise at his appearance here. She thought about asking him, in return, to please call her Bess, as the rest of the family did, but she decided against it. Perhaps that was just as well. Mountjoy was a stranger to her really, and a forbidding presence. He was only doing a duty having her in the queen’s chamber. And when her mother returned to court, Bess was likely to be sent home to Kinlet. She had only a brief chance to make an impression, and she must not do that by being too familiar with the man who held so much power over her.

“So, who put you up to it, Mistress Bryan or young Master Tailbois?” Mountjoy asked as they began to walk.

Bess was surprised that he knew. Then again, Mountjoy did oversee the queen’s entire household. “I do not believe they were being malicious,” she carefully replied.

He shook his head. “I should have known. Those two are as thick as thieves, and together they are twice as dangerous.”

“But they seem so pleasant.”

“Few at court are as they seem, Elizabeth. You must be vigilant about that, constantly assessing. Our king and his queen may be spirited souls, but they take loyalty seriously.”

Hearing him speak of loyalty, she thought then about mentioning Wolsey’s apparent midnight theft from the king, but she decided against it, at least until she knew the players better. When Mountjoy walked her in the opposite direction from the one she had intended, it was a symbolic reminder that, at the moment, she really was in need of all the guidance she could get.

Her father’s uncle then bid her a good night at the door to her little room above the queen’s apartments and informed her that she must rise early the next morning to attend matins with Her Highness. In spite of the objectionably early morning hour, it was an honor, doubtlessly one he had secured for her, and she must not be late. While Bess still found her very formal uncle an extremely intimidating man, now she felt a tiny glimmer of relief that there was an adult here at court upon whom she might actually come to depend.

When she opened the door and went inside, Bess was surprised to find Elizabeth Bryan sitting alone on the bed, her skirts pooled around her and her face bright with a smile.

“You abandoned me,” Bess declared angrily.

“Yes, well I am sorry about that, but it was unavoidable. The king’s Almoner, who is also Gilly’s benefactor, Thomas Wolsey, returned to court unexpectedly today, so Gilly was called upon immediately to attend him.”

“At this late hour?” she asked skeptically.

Elizabeth Bryan chuckled. “You shall learn soon enough that courtiers—particularly important statesmen—have little sense of time, or duty to it. We all serve at the pleasure of our masters.”

Bess closed the door, moved forward, and slipped off her shoes and cloak. Her entire body ached, and her mind was still spinning. “Why has Master Wolsey returned from France without the king?”

“Apparently our sovereign wished a trustworthy accounting of the queen’s health, and of her pregnancy. The queen badgered him into naming her regent while he is away, but since there has been so much trouble bringing a royal child to term, the king is said to have realized the gamble. He trusts Wolsey to the exclusion of all others to tell him how his wife truly is.”

“My father said Wolsey battles for place with the king’s childhood friend, Charles Brandon.”

“In truth, he does. But Wolsey’s advantage is his tie to the Church. Where Brandon feeds his spirit, Wolsey feeds his soul, and he does it with aplomb.”

“You doubt the cleric’s devotion?”

“It is more that I understand his ambition,” Elizabeth clarified.

“I feel far too young to understand the ambitions of grown men,” Bess said as she began to unlace her gown.

“Wait until you are here for a while. You will understand them well enough.”

“Then what drives a man like him, do you think? A man who has been given access to the King of England? What would a man like him hope to gain?”

“As much as he can, I suspect. Just like the rest of us,” Elizabeth pointedly replied. Bess sank wearily onto the bed beside her as Elizabeth twisted her head, changing the subject, and asked, “So then, did you complete the task we gave you?”