The Boleyn Reckoning: A Novel (The Boleyn Trilogy)

by Laura Andersen

  But after clearing his throat, his voice was unchanged—light and untroubled and with a promise of warmth to it. “You are looking remarkably well, Your Highness. To what do I owe this honour?”

  “You said you would speak to me. I am here. For England’s sake, not yours,” she warned, though whether the warning was for Robert or herself she didn’t know.

  “Naturally. Please, though there is nowhere good enough for you, will you sit?”

  She allowed Robert to draw out a wooden stool and sank onto it with her bloodred skirts belled out around her. “Join me,” she said to Robert, indicating the only other stool in the small chamber. No more than ten feet in any direction, many of the block-stone walls had irregular carvings where prisoners had passed the time in artistry or protest. The wide-planked floor and utilitarian furniture (bed and table only, besides the two stools) were an incongruous backdrop to the luxury-loving, ever-elegant Robert Dudley. Elizabeth imagined being confined here herself and felt a deep, involuntary shudder of revulsion. It wasn’t the meanness of the chamber that frightened her, but the thought of being at the mercy of a temperamental and all-powerful king. If men such as Robert, who had known William all his life, could end in the Tower, then who was next?

  Robert looked behind her at Walsingham, who had shadowed her steps through the Tower precincts. “What of your man?”

  “He’ll stand. And listen, and remember.” She needed Walsingham to be her ballast, and because she was wise enough to know her own limits where Robert was concerned.

  Robert sat facing her, far enough away that touching would be impossible. A nicely judged distance. “How is the king?” he asked.

  “In robust health and temper,” she snapped. “Tell me what you have to tell me.”

  “I confess it was not you I expected to see today. Dominic promised me—rather forcefully—that he would be the one to return on this day for my answers. Are you here in his place?”

  “I am not a woman to be sent in another’s place,” she reminded him disdainfully. “Though if you tell me all of what I need to know, then I imagine Lord Exeter will be satisfied and leave you be.”

  “Has he told you nothing of my claims, then?”

  “Only that you claim to have evidence that it was not your father who set up Lord Norfolk and the false Penitent’s Confession. Convenient for you, seeing as you would like to escape your father’s fate.”

  “Yes, being locked in the Tower is highly convenient.”

  “Who is it, Robert?”

  “Surely you can guess.”

  “Surely I can, but I need you to say it.”

  “George Boleyn, Lord Rochford.”

  The name hung heavy and menacing in the air, as though the Tower walls themselves did not want to bear witness. For one moment, Elizabeth wished passionately that she had not come so that she might not have to go forward from this claim. But she was not given to long regrets.

  It was not as though the name was a surprise—she and Dominic had both guessed that would be Robert’s claim—but Rochford had been the bedrock of England’s government for almost ten years. Did she seriously consider him capable of treason?

  Except it wasn’t precisely treason, for Robert’s accusations were that Rochford had worked to bring down Norfolk and Northumberland, not the king himself. She didn’t think that would make much difference to William. It wasn’t Rochford’s actions her brother would deplore, but his lies.

  Behind Elizabeth, Walsingham’s steady voice commented, “That’s merely a name, sir. Anyone can accuse—where is your proof?”

  Robert looked miserable, and dead serious. “I worked for him, for years. I’m the one who planted the Penitent’s Confession at Framlingham after Minuette told me precisely where she would be looking for it. Why do you think Rochford asked you to send someone after her? He knew you would send me. And before that, I wrote coded letters to a woman in your mother’s household, using her to stir up old rumours and give Rochford a plausible pretext to move against Norfolk.”

  “A woman,” Elizabeth repeated flatly. “You mean Alyce de Clare.”

  “Yes.”

  “The same Alyce de Clare whom you kept in your home for a month, getting her with child before sending her back to court to spy on my mother.”

  If he lied to her now, it would be over. Like her brother, Elizabeth could abide almost anything but lies.

  Robert didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

  “Did you kill her?” For Alyce had broken her neck falling—or being pushed—down a staircase. It was her death that had begun the unraveling of the original Norfolk conspiracy three years ago.

  Robert didn’t flinch at the question, nor did he hesitate. “No. We argued that night, it’s true. Alyce told me she had made arrangements to see William and confess her part in it all—she was unhappy about her last assignment.”

  Elizabeth remembered that last assignment—a vile broadside depicting Anne Boleyn calling upon Satan for the power to seduce Henry, meant to be planted for salacious viewing at court.

  “I had surmised that much,” Elizabeth said sharply. “How did she end up at the bottom of the staircase with a broken neck?”

  “It was an accident. I swear it, Elizabeth. She’d told me of the child, was angry at my response, and I pushed her away … God knows I did not mean to hurt her. Certainly not to kill her.”

  She could never be absolutely certain, but Elizabeth felt how much she wanted to believe him. For now, that was not her primary concern. “All this proves to me is that you were working to blacken my brother’s name as a pretext to crush a nonexistent Catholic rebellion. I already knew that. But that might as well have been at your father’s direction as my uncle’s. More likely, in fact, for why would my uncle entrust any of this to you?”

  “Because he knows what I want and promised to help me obtain it. A divorce—clean and final.” Robert did not add: And a chance to marry you. He did not have to say it.

  She would not follow the path of that motivation just now, for she needed to be clear-headed. “As Walsingham said, Robert, where is the evidence that any of this is true?”

  “At Kenilworth. My …” He cleared his throat uneasily. “Amy has in her keeping a chest with a false bottom. Even if she could figure out how to open it, I doubt it would mean much to her—she doesn’t read Latin. There are notes and dates and, most important, two messages with Rochford’s seal. In themselves they might not be damning, but Dominic knows how to read ciphers, and in conjunction with everything else I think you’ll have to at least ask your uncle some very hard questions. Like which operatives told him the Spanish navy was on the move to rescue Mary.”

  Again Walsingham broke in. “That’s a good point, Your Highness. The threat of Spanish naval movements in 1554 was a lie, all my intelligence sources agree.”

  “Perhaps they wanted Rochford to think they were moving.”

  Walsingham countered, “Whatever the simplest reason is for a lie, it’s usually the true one. Deception is far easier to maintain when simple than when complicated beyond measure.”

  Elizabeth stood up. “We’ll have the chest fetched from Kenilworth. Walsingham and Dominic can go through it and decide from there.”

  Robert rose more slowly, still graceful despite the hollows in his cheeks. “Do you believe me, Elizabeth?”

  “Do I believe that you played shameful games with my mother’s reputation and my brother’s birth in order to advance your own ambitions? That you took advantage of the woman you were using and ruined her?”

  A muscle jumped in his cheek, but he asked steadily enough, “Do you believe that your uncle has maneuvered behind William’s back?”

  “In more ways than even you can count,” she said. “In this particular matter? I will look at your evidence and decide for myself.”

  “Thank you.”

  I’m not doing it for you, she nearly said. But that would have been a lie.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE ONLY REASON D
ominic didn’t drink himself into a stupor on Easter night was the knowledge that he would have to be present at this morning’s privy council. Trying to maintain his tenuous emotional control would be hard enough without a raging hangover. What he had done instead after fleeing the court was walk for hours through the London streets surrounding Whitehall. Not the safest choice, but he’d been armed with both sword and dagger. Not to mention a driving need to hurt someone.

  His anger had kept him sober, but it had not helped him sleep. Exhaustion pounded behind his eyes as he took his place with the other men of the privy council, each with varying degrees of shock and dismay in their expressions. Even Rochford, normally difficult to read, was openly furious.

  If not for his personal stake in the affair, Dominic might have found it impressive how William controlled the room from the moment he entered. The king didn’t falter or break stride at the palpable tension in the air, as though this would be nothing more than a normal council.

  William took his gilded chair and faced the circle of advisors with an air of casual ease that, a day earlier, would have pleased Dominic. He had not seen his friend behave so effortlessly since before the smallpox.

  “France.” William cast the word into the silence like a stone skipped into standing water. “Our old enemy, renewed once more.”

  “Because of your choice.” Rochford left little doubt that he would have preferred a stronger word than choice—folly, perhaps.

  “Because of their choices. You were not in the field last autumn, Lord Rochford, to see the effects of their attacks. I was. The French army broke the treaty the moment they crossed our border.”

  William Cecil, Lord Burghley, cleared his throat. The most levelheaded of the privy council, and perhaps the only match for Rochford in strategic planning, the thirty-five-year-old Burghley had a high, broad forehead and wide, cautious eyes. “Are we to understand that the return of a Spanish ambassador to England is pertinent to this discussion?”

  “Most pertinent,” the king agreed serenely. “Before summer’s end, Philip of Spain will visit England to sign a treaty of marriage between himself and the Princess of Wales.”

  There was only a small rumble of surprise. Burghley kept to the point. “A Spanish treaty to replace the French? That makes it more likely that France will indeed retaliate in force. Will the Spanish move against France itself if, say, they move to retake Le Havre and Harfleur?”

  “I have no intention of defending those cities. I only took them two years ago to force Henri to negotiations. We will hold fast to Calais and let the others go.”

  Sussex, one of the most experienced military commanders now that Northumberland was dead, spoke up. “And if France sends an invasion fleet?” His dour expression was habitual; almost fifty years old, the Earl of Sussex used his age and noble bloodlines as an excuse for bad temper.

  With a chilly nod, William replied, “That is the real danger, I concur. Which is why this council’s primary business today is to name a new Warden of the Cinque Ports.”

  One man to take charge of the defenses in southeast England, with all authority to summon men and arms and ships and to command troops against the threat of foreign landings on the coast. George Boleyn himself had once held that post, as had Henry VIII’s illegitimate son decades earlier, Henry FitzRoy. Now it should be Sussex, for experience, or Rochford again, for position. But Dominic knew his friend and so it was only a slight surprise—accompanied by a grave sinking in his heart—when William said, without even looking at him, “Lord Exeter will be Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.”

  No one seemed any more surprised than Dominic, although some few were displeased. Only Burghley nodded thoughtfully. “The French have good cause to remember Lord Exeter. They will be wary of facing him once again.”

  Dominic wished he could believe that. The French might have to send ships to reach England, but there would be an army on those ships ready to land and march and only one man would be in command of that army—Renaud LeClerc. Who had been beaten once by having his own tactics turned against him by Dominic. Who had nearly been assassinated by an English arrow last autumn while under promise of safe conduct. Renaud wouldn’t be wary. Renaud would be spoiling for a fight.

  For the first time since entering the council chamber, William looked directly at Dominic. “What say you, Lord Exeter? Will you lead England’s defenses for your king?”

  In sardonic silence, Dominic thought, Well done, Will. How can I possibly say no when you put it like that? Aloud, he said, “I serve at your pleasure, Your Majesty.”

  “That is well done,” Rochford cut in, his voice with a ragged edge of temper. “But we must discuss the precipitating event, Your Majesty. We must speak about Mistress Wyatt.”

  “There is nothing to discuss.”

  “There is everything to discuss! You cannot throw a common girl into the public eye in that inflammatory colour and then refuse to speak.”

  “I cannot?”

  The temperature dropped instantly. Every man seemed momentarily joined in awareness that they could argue and bluster and rage all they wanted—but the youngest man in the room was the one with all the power. It was almost as though the Duke of Northumberland’s headless body lurked in the corner as a reminder of what the king could do.

  Bless Lord Burghley for his temperate instincts. Once again he moderated Rochford’s words. “Your Majesty, we wish only to serve you and England well. It is difficult to do so if we are kept in the dark about your intentions.”

  Grudgingly, William said, “My intentions have never been more clear. I need a wife, and I will have none but Mistress Wyatt. There is nothing of substance can be said against her, and it is past time England has a royal marriage untainted by politics. It is not open for discussion.”

  The hell it isn’t, Dominic thought. Because that’s my wife you’re talking about.

  When the council meeting adjourned, Dominic was among the first to escape. Once, William would have expected him to remain behind. Now the king didn’t even notice when Dominic walked out with Rochford, who seemed glad of the chance to speak with him alone.

  “What can we do to persuade William of the folly of dismissing the French so lightly?” Rochford asked urgently.

  “I have no idea.”

  Rochford grunted, the lines around his eyes carved deep. “You’re Warden of the Cinque Ports now, I suggest you ensure William knows how vulnerable our coasts are to invasion. Paint him a picture of Portsmouth ablaze, our navy sunk, and foreign troops marching across the southeast of England.”

  “Why don’t you paint him the picture?” Dominic was past trying to please his former master and guardian. These days he could barely keep himself together.

  “Because William doesn’t listen to me!” Rochford stopped himself. He so rarely lost his temper that Dominic realized anew how deadly serious this all was. William marrying Minuette was such a personal disaster that he had not thought sufficiently about the dangers Rochford had just outlined.

  Unfortunately, Rochford was also right about William’s refusal to listen. “I’m afraid the king doesn’t listen over closely to me these days, either,” Dominic admitted. “Not after the battles in Scotland.”

  Rochford threw him a keen glance. “From which you were so conspicuously absent. Is that where the constraint between you arose? You counseled the king against battle?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The French withdrew. And now we are all left guessing what their next move might be. Last autumn I had Renaud LeClerc’s message that their first attack was meant only as a warning not to provoke them further on the matter of the treaty.”

  “Throwing that girl in the French ambassador’s face dressed in purple is far more than provocation,” Rochford spat. “Is there any way you could find out from LeClerc what their intentions are this summer?”

  “No.” Dominic had been used once, unknowingly, against LeClerc. He would not be used openly.

  “Then I suppose I shall
have to find another way, as always.” Rochford sighed. “Sometimes I think I am the only man in England who is truly concerned with the general welfare of the nation and not just my individual desires.”

  He stalked away, leaving Dominic staring at his retreating back. It was not like Rochford to lose his temper and say things he did not mean. But if he had indeed meant that last statement, then he was verging uncomfortably close to what, in another man, could be called treason.

  Dominic headed for the stables, for he had promised Robert Dudley he would return to the Tower today and demand an accounting of his evidence. But before he could leave the palace precincts a messenger wearing the crowned falcon badge that Elizabeth had adopted from her mother intercepted him with a request to join the princess as soon as possible. Altering his steps, Dominic thought ruefully that all of this running around at least kept him from the deep—and disastrous—impulse to find both Minuette and the nearest bed and lay claim to the woman everyone else was now looking at only as William’s beloved.

  When Elizabeth and Walsingham returned from the Tower, the first thing she did was send word to Dominic to join her when he could. Then she closeted herself alone with her intelligencer and sighed deeply. “What do you think?”

  The best thing about Walsingham was that, despite having known her such a short time, he understood every twist and turn of her mind. He pondered deeply before answering, another quality she appreciated.

  “I think he’s telling the truth,” he answered at last. “And that makes me uneasy.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. “What do you suggest?”

  “Do you need a suggestion from me?”

  She smiled, eyes still closed. “I thought it polite to ask.”

  “The very last thing with which you need to concern yourself is being polite, Your Highness.”