By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  It was just before the midday meal, long hours after Rand had left her, that the message arrived for Isabel. She read it with some disbelief. Leon asked that she meet him in the abbey. He would await her coming.

  She could guess why he had chosen the church. He could claim sanctuary if discovered, like so many others in recent years, notably Edward IV’s queen and her children on the takeover of the throne by Richard III. Isabel wondered if the erstwhile Master of Revels remembered that Henry’s men had violated sanctuary after the victory at Bosworth Field, and might do so again if hard-pressed.

  She should not go. To be discovered with a man wanted by the king could be embarrassing, if not downright dangerous.

  Nevertheless, Leon was a friend. Behind his flirtatious banter lay a kind heart. He had given her and her sisters a measure of security at court, had been their bulwark against rapacious scoundrels well before she was promised to Rand. Isabel could not believe he had attempted to harm anyone, especially her or Elizabeth. He was a lover of women, and valued them more than most men. He also protected them. That he would send word to her could only mean that his need was great. And why would it not be when every hand was turned against him? Now, of all times, he required loyal friends.

  Added to that, she had a fearful need to see what he might have to say about the explosion. If she could discover from him what had caused it, who had set it off and why, would that not be beneficial?

  Rand seemed to think the blast had been directed at all who sat at the high table. She could not agree. It was an unfortunate accident. That was all. Given the chance, Leon would explain it away and all could breathe easier.

  The Master of Revels was no threat to her. Should she be seen with him, she could surely explain it to Rand. Her new husband had no cause to doubt her fidelity; he must know he was all the man she had use for at the moment. Not that she cared for him beyond the powerful allure of his body, of course, but she certainly had no strength to expend on another.

  As for what Rand felt, she could not hazard a guess. He desired her, seemed enamored of her kisses and her touch, but men were a mystery in that regard. They took what they wanted and went about their affairs as if it meant nothing. Mayhap it didn’t, and Rand would not care if she consorted with Leon.

  She prayed that was so. She had seen his rage in battle and did not care to be the focus of it.

  Oh, but surely no one would see her with Leon. No one need ever know she had spoken to him.

  The abbey was deserted when she entered as everyone made ready for the main meal of the day. The stained-glass windows glowed in the dimness. Candles flickered, barely piercing the gloom, their smoke spiraling upward to form a blue-gray haze below the vast ceiling. Isabel genuflected, knelt to pray, then eased back onto the bench and sat in contemplation.

  No one awaited her. No one came to seek her out.

  She sat staring at an image of the Virgin while her mind wandered to her wedding ceremony in the king’s chapel. How distant it seemed, she thought, though it had taken place only yesterday. So much had happened. She recalled with heated cheeks the couplings she had shared with Rand behind the bed curtains. That was before she banished it with a guilty flush as being unsuited to her pure surroundings.

  She wondered if the queen was well enough for the journey undertaken at the king’s command. Did she fear the birth that was to come? Did she regret being parted from Henry as her time drew near, or was it a relief to withdraw from his solemn, demanding presence?

  The women around Elizabeth would surely send for him when her labor began. Would he ride to her side, offer comfort to the woman he had married out of expediency and the need to solidify his reign? Or would he wait until he heard she had been delivered of the son he craved?

  The child brought into the world would be Henry’s heir, but it would also be the heir of its mother, Elizabeth of York. Did it ever occur to Henry, Isabel wondered, that he had usurped the throne from the woman who would bear his child? Did he ever consider that his son, if such was brought forth as promised him, would be the only truly legitimate male claimant to the throne in a direct line?

  If it occurred, now and then, to gentle, fragile Elizabeth, she never mentioned it.

  How long Isabel sat in the silent abbey, she did not know, though it was long enough to become weary of the hard seat. Once, a priest passed through, smiling at her with a gesture of benediction before he went on his way. An elderly woman entered, prayed and went away again. Two nuns came for ritual prayers, between which they whispered back and forth.

  Leon did not appear. He had changed his mind, or else been prevented from coming.

  Isabel rose to leave, making her way toward the great front door. She was some yards from it, just passing a darkened alcove, when a voice spoke from the shadows.

  “Well met, milady. Stand where you are and listen. No! Do not turn.”

  That voice, she would swear, was not the melodious baritone of the Master of Revels. She strained to identify it, but the timbre was no more than a rough whisper. “Who are you?” she asked, staring straight ahead as directed. “What do you want?”

  “I bear a message. If you would free yourself from your unwanted marriage, you must act. Someone will tell you what is required. Be vigilant. Wait for their coming. It will not be long.”

  The speaker did not linger for an answer. Footsteps receded, moving quickly. Though she whirled at their echo, she saw only a shadow flitting away in the gloom. A side-entrance door creaked open and closed again with a solid thud. The abbey was quiet once more.

  Isabel shivered as if with a winter chill. She took a step, and then another. Abruptly she broke into a run. She did not slow until she was through the great doors of the abbey and out in the late-afternoon sun.

  “Sweet Saint Catherine, Isabel! Where have you been? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  It was Cate who called out to her as she came toward her down the palace corridor with Marguerite on her heels. She moved swiftly to catch Isabel’s uninjured hand, holding it between both her own. Marguerite hastened to her other side, putting an arm around her waist.

  “What happened to you?” her younger sister echoed. “You were not at dinner just now, nor was Braesford. We wondered if he was keeping you prisoner.”

  That possibility, being so far outside the mark, surprised a small spurt of nervous laughter from Isabel. “No, no, he would not stoop so low.”

  Immediately, she wondered how she could be so sure. She knew not, but she was sure indeed.

  “He need not stoop at all, as far as I can see,” Marguerite said in tones of gloom. “He has broken the curse now so has nothing to fear. Nor has any other man.”

  Isabel put her arm around Marguerite and began to walk again, gathering Cate on her other side. “Something has happened, it must have. Surely marriages have not been arranged for you already?”

  “No, but nearly as bad,” Marguerite complained. “We are being besieged, I do swear it. I have had six invitations to share a place at table. Never was I so glad to have a sister to fall back on as an excuse to refuse.”

  “Two ballads and a chanson have been dedicated to me, and four gentlemen have said they mean to speak to Graydon.” Cate shook her head.

  “We are doomed,” Marguerite said with a moan, lowering her head to Isabel’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

  Isabel touched her cheek to her younger sister’s head, resting it an instant against the small cap under her veil. “I wish there was something I could do, but…”

  “You can’t protect us forever, though you have watched over us like a ewe guarding her lambs since Mother died,” Cate said with a sigh. “We must give thanks that we escaped being married off for so long.”

  “Or thank Graydon’s greed,” Isabel said with some asperity. “But really, I would think the rumors surrounding Rand would make your suitors think twice.”

  “He still has the freedom of the palace, which is no discouragement at all.” Marguer
ite scowled. “Unless you believe he will soon be taken to prison?”

  “No,” Isabel said sharply, and was surprised at how painful the idea was to her. Had she not been half wishing for the same thing not so long ago?

  “What has become of Braesford?” Cate asked. “Has he been taken ill, perchance? Were his injuries worse than they seemed? That might put off the others, you know.”

  “He has great powers of recovery,” Isabel answered, avoiding her sister’s eyes as she considered the proof she had of that statement.

  “Or could we say, at least, that the curse resulted in a Tobias Night?”

  Isabel shook her head.

  “You mean— Oh, Isabel!”

  “We are truly wed,” she said with a small shrug.

  “I told you we were doomed,” Marguerite said to Cate with grim satisfaction.

  “Not entirely, not yet.” Isabel went on to tell them what had occurred at the abbey.

  “It almost sounds as if this man, whoever he may have been, expects you to do something to be rid of Braesford,” Cate said with a scowl. “Has he bothered to look at him? Can he really think you able to harm such a fearsome knight?”

  “Even if I would!”

  “Does that mean you would not?” Cate leaned to search Isabel’s face. “Do you like him as a husband?”

  “Nothing of the kind,” Isabel said stoutly. “It’s only that there are worse fates.” The memory of Rand as he hovered above her slipped through her mind, the sculpted perfection of his shoulders, the dark fastness of his eyes, his fierce concentration as he made love to her. To be denied that closeness, or the magic of his heat and power inside her, would be a loss. Not that it meant anything. Of course it did not.

  Cate pursed her lips, but made no reply.

  “What has this odd message you were given to do with Leon?” Marguerite asked. “Or had it anything at all?”

  “I think it unlikely.”

  “So do I, for what would it avail the Master of Revels to remove Braesford? The king would never allow you to marry a mere troubadour.”

  “Nor would Leon expect it, which makes me think the request to meet was sent by someone else in his name.”

  Isabel squeezed her sister’s slender waist as they walked. Though youngest of the three of them, Marguerite often had the clearest vision of people and the reasons for their actions. “Indeed, someone who noticed our friendship with him.”

  “Unless Leon thought he might be doing you a favor by making you a widow,” Cate pointed out.

  A frown crossed Isabel’s face before she waved away the suggestion. “Neither of you have seen him?”

  “He has quite disappeared,” Cate said. “It’s worrisome.”

  “I think he has been imprisoned,” Marguerite declared.

  “Oh, come.”

  Isabel gave her second sister a quelling look before turning back to the younger. “By Henry, you mean?”

  “Or someone acting under his authority. It stands to reason, does it not? Leon could be prevented from saying what happened to his machine and who may have tampered with it. It could be made to appear he is in the pay of the Yorkists who want Henry deposed. And it would keep him secure, betimes, should he be required as a sacrifice.”

  A sacrifice, a scapegoat.

  That was precisely what she had thought about Rand, Isabel remembered. But if this was the way the wind blew, then did it not follow that the business of the fiery explosion and the disappearance of Mademoiselle Juliette were somehow connected?

  What possible link could there be? Yes, and what could be the point of two scapegoats?

  She and her sisters had reached an antechamber from which opened a number of the small chambers given over to courtiers, among them the one Isabel now shared with Rand. She glanced in that direction.

  Her husband lounged in the open doorway with his back to the jamb and his arms crossed over his chest. His dark eyes rested on her, and his features had a grim cast.

  “Oh, dear,” Marguerite said under her breath. “He looks none too pleased.”

  Cate lifted a brow. “He looks hungry, I would say, as if he missed his dinner and expects you to make up for the loss, one way or another.”

  “Cate!” Isabel murmured in protest, though she could not gainsay her. A tremor of disquiet moved over her. Or could it be anticipation?

  “Whatever his purpose, I believe we should only be in the way,” Cate said as she dipped a small curtsy in Rand’s direction. “Marguerite and I will leave you here, and hope to see you in the great hall this evening.”

  “That is,” Marguerite added, “if he doesn’t eat you before then.”

  Isabel made a small choked noise as the memory of Rand’s mouth upon her sent hot blood pounding through her veins, making her breasts swell against her bodice. Her sisters turned inquiring looks upon her, but she ignored them. “I will be there betimes, but…but you need not leave us.”

  “Oh, I think we must,” Cate said hurriedly as Rand shifted his tall form, coming erect.

  “Heaven preserve you,” Marguerite whispered.

  Her sisters gave her a quick hug each and turned back the way they had come. Isabel moved on alone.

  “Been saying your prayers?” Rand asked as she drew near, his voice like stone grating over stone.

  “What makes you think so?” She entered the chamber with some wariness as he stepped back to permit it.

  He followed her inside and closed the door. “Someone saw you at the abbey.”

  How could she trust him to believe she had gone to meet Leon, a man he knew as her admirer, from mere friendship and concern? Oh, and how could she tell him that she had been promised her freedom without him asking whether she would seek his death to gain it?

  She could do neither. The anger of men was to be avoided at all costs. She had learned that lesson long ago. Removing her cap and veil, rubbing at the soreness where their weight had pulled at her scalp, she spoke a half-truth over her shoulder. “I missed mass from lying so long abed.”

  “It’s to be hoped that you did not say a prayer to be spared the attentions of your husband.”

  His voice was close as he followed after her. He put his hands at her waist, halting her forward motion by pulling her against him. As she spoke, her reply came out in a gasp. “No. Why should I?”

  “Because it is destined to be unanswered,” he said in a low murmur, his breath warm against the side of her neck.

  Shivering with reaction and what she barely recognized as remorse, she turned into his arms, slid her hands up the hard wall of his chest and twined them around his neck. He pulled her close and set his mouth to hers while smoothing his hands down over her hips to fit her against the hot, velvet-over-iron firmness between the columns of his set legs, hidden behind his doublet.

  Neither partook of supper in the great hall during the long evening that followed, but it did not prevent them from feasting.

  10

  The court was not the same without Elizabeth of York, Rand thought as he bent over a lute he had found discarded on a bench in the great hall, plucking quietly at the strings. Though a gentle presence, she had exerted a beneficent effect that extended to its every corner. In her absence, the king was morose and short of temper. Courtiers exchanged sharp words over matters of procedure and precedence. Servants were slack in their duties and snappish with one another. The kitchen did not send forth its best efforts, whether to high table or low, and the silver and gold plate which graced the chests of the great hall had lost their sheen, turning dim with dust and fingerprints. Add the lack of a Master of Revels to arrange entertainment and the difference was complete.

  Not that Rand blamed Henry for instantly removing his queen. She was meant to go, anyway, and who knew what tale someone might pour into her ears if she lingered? The king could give her some simplified version of the mystery of the missing child in future, but she did not need it now. Some said hearing of such an evil event could mark a child in the womb. That
was without the fright caused by the explosion during the mummery.

  A sense of strained anticipation lay over the palace. All waited for news from Winchester, of course, to learn whether Henry would have his heir or must undertake the onerous task of trying again. Still, it was more than that. Leon had not been found, though troops of men spread through the town and countryside, almost tearing it apart. No one had discovered how or why his hellish machine had belched flame and smoke, or who was meant to be the victim. No man came forward to accuse foe or friend. Whispers about plots to overthrow the king always drifted about, but no serious evidence of such a coalition had surfaced.

  The more Rand considered the matter, the less he liked it. The machine had been a clumsy and uncertain method of eliminating the king. Far more deadly means of assassination had lain to the Frenchman’s hand, if such was his intention. Poison was one, and a favorite at the French court. The thrust of a well-honed knife was another. A harquebus shot from a tower, an asp in the royal bed, a stray arrow from a longbow during the hunt—any of these could have accomplished the deed if a man had no care for his safety. The Master of Revels might have escaped any whiff of blame with them, while his La danse macabre pointed squarely in his direction.

  On the other hand, someone who wanted to be rid of the king could have seen the potential for destruction and acted accordingly. Leon, a man of swift intelligence, may well have discerned the plot as it unfolded and made his escape to save his neck from stretching.

  There was one other possibility that Rand could see. The death dance of small souls within that fiery maw of steel and gears had borne a disturbing parallel to the newborn’s death by fire that was laid to his account. Had Leon thought to flay him, and by extension the king, with a reminder of that supposed destruction? Did Leon, a Frenchman, know Mademoiselle Juliette d’Amboise well enough to have a care for her fate and her child?

  Rand, frowning over a complicated run of chords in the melody he played, considered how best to discover the answers to these questions. They must be found, else it could mean his life. Henry had stayed his hand these many days from past friendship and gratitude, but that could not last forever. If Mademoiselle Juliette and her child did not appear soon, the king would be forced to act.