The two syllables pierced William like a dagger, though he’d known it was the only answer. “Calais.”
Calais: the last remnant of England’s empire. Seized two hundred years ago by Edward III, possessed and retained through the plague and the Wars of the Roses and even Joan of Arc.
“Elaborate,” William said, jaw so tight he thought he might have cracked a tooth, “on the presence of Spanish ships off the French coast.”
“King Henri has proposed a treaty of peace with King Philip. They will meet in four weeks’ time to discuss terms, including the betrothal of Princess Elisabeth de France to the Spanish king. As a gesture of goodwill, we assure you that neither party has an interest in pursuing further aggression. For now.”
Well, William had wanted out of the French marriage. This wasn’t quite how he’d envisioned it, however. Philip was meant to marry the English Elizabeth and provide the Continental security that England needed.
With a flick of his finger, William directed the Earl of Pembroke. “Take Monsieur de Noailles into custody. Not the Tower”—not yet—“but he is not to leave Whitehall without our express permission. No visitors. No correspondence.”
The ambassador seemed unaffected; no doubt he’d been expecting as much. He knew he was more or less untouchable unless William was prepared to turn the combined might of France and Spain against him at once.
When de Noailles had been escorted out, the council burst into a buzz of outrage and concern and plans. The immediate impression was of the younger men itching to fight and the older men urging caution. But William knew how to look beneath surfaces and it did not escape him that the Duke of Norfolk—youngest man in the room save himself—said nothing at all. “Enough!” William finally thundered. “What is the point in twittering about what is lost? All that matters now is what we do next.”
“Can we trust that France and Spain are not even now planning a joint invasion?” asked the Duke of Norfolk in measured tones.
“I think so,” William said bitterly. “If only because they consider us beneath them. They expect to overawe us with their combined might, like little children made to wait in the corner until the adults are finished with business. So we will go about our own business. What we need is a distraction.”
“Such as?” Lord Burghley demanded.
“It’s past time Lady Rochford answered formally for her crimes. Her trial will begin in three days. Send word to my uncle that his presence in London is required.” William stood and stared down his furious and, yes, frightened councilors. “For today, I will pay a visit to my sister Mary. I would like to break the news of Spain’s betrayal myself.”
And see if she is surprised, he thought grimly. Or if this might not be exactly what Mary, in her twisted sense of duty and righteousness, wanted to happen. And before he left Whitehall, he had a word with Burghley and ensured the Duke of Norfolk would be well watched for now.
William rode to the Tower through the city of London, paying no attention to the cheers and shouts of his citizens. He’d been cheered since he was born; it was nothing new. He would notice only when they stopped cheering.
As he and his guards rode in through the Middle Gate and were met by a visibly astonished constable, William tried to remember the last time he’d been to the Tower of London. Could it really be that he had not been here since the night before his coronation? He remembered that night vividly, lodging with his mother and uncle in the temporarily lavish suite of rooms in Wakefield Tower. At the age of ten, he had not appreciated the fact that Henry VI had been murdered in that very suite while at prayer. That last night before William was officially crowned and anointed, he had mostly been interested in Dominic’s sword, for his friend at fifteen had been a knight already and infinitely more impressive to a boy than the robed clergy and councilors who’d surrounded him in those days.
He brought himself forcibly back to the present moment. “I’m here to see the Lady Mary,” he snapped to the constable, cutting off the man’s nervous flow of words. It was almost a pleasure how quickly silence fell, and he stalked along the uneven cobbles at a rapid pace, forcing the others to keep up.
Why make them pay the price of your anger at the French? The disapproving voice was, as always, Dominic’s.
Because I can. It wasn’t as satisfying as saying it to Dom’s face, but it would have to suffice for now.
The path to Mary led them down the cobbles of Water Lane, with the Thames lapping grimly against the steps of the waterside gate. Above that stone river entry was St. Thomas’s Tower, the gothic chambers constructed by Edward I for his personal use. An arching, crenullated passageway stretched across Water Lane, connecting St. Thomas’s Tower to Wakefield with its circular stone walls and rectangular paired windows. Then beneath the heavy square of Bloody Tower that controlled access to the Inner Ward of the complex, William turned right, crossing before the serene bulk of the Conqueror’s White Tower to the royal apartments.
As a show of deference to her position, Mary was housed in the queen’s chambers where Anne Boleyn had stayed before her own coronation, and on the surface she had all the elegance and luxury she could demand. But Henry’s children were skilled at looking beneath the surfaces, acutely touchy about their position and due deference, and no doubt she thought it an insult to share space with a dead woman’s hated memory.
William read his sister’s discontent as clearly as if she had shouted it rather than curtseying deeply. “Your Majesty,” she said, in that perfectly English voice that still managed to have a hint of foreignness to it. As though she had imbibed her mother’s accent along with her defiant spirit.
“You may sit,” William said abruptly. Mary narrowed her eyes at his tone but complied placidly. William remained standing, too much anger pent up to confine himself to a chair.
Instead, he took a slow turn around the square room, the walls softened and warmed with tapestries. He studied the mementos Mary had brought with her and recognized many of the religious items; crucifixes abounded, along with devotional reliquaries and books by Cardinal Fisher and Thomas More.
“Do you know why you are here?” he asked, back turned discourteously on his sister.
“Because you do not trust me.”
It was a surprisingly blunt and perceptive answer. William turned to her with appreciation. “Usually this is where you blame my evil councilors.”
She met his gaze without flinching. “You are king. If you trusted me, then no amount of wicked counsel could turn your heart from me. It grieves me to admit that, for I have never been anything but a loving sister and a loyal subject.”
“Clearly our definitions of loyalty differ greatly. If I do not trust you, it is because you have given me cause.”
“Honouring God and the Holy Church does not lessen my loyalty to you personally.”
“It does when that honour compels you to support armed rebellion. Those men in the North were not rabble, Mary. They were organized and armed … and they called you queen.”
“I cannot help what people say.”
“But you can help what they do, especially when it comes to Spain. Someone funded those men, someone outside England.”
“How could it be Spain when Philip is preparing even now to marry Elizabeth?”
William could not mistake the edge of jealousy in Mary’s voice. Any marriage of Elizabeth’s must pain her, being so forcibly kept single until now she could no longer hope for marriage or children. But the thought of Elizabeth marrying the King of Spain, the beloved homeland of Mary’s mother, must be particularly bitter. Not that she would have to worry about that now.
“Spain has decided they would rather have France. Spanish ships have aided French armies in taking Calais.”
His sister’s face blanched. “What can you mean?”
“Calais is lost.”
It was like gall and wormwood to admit it aloud. The last reminder of England’s brilliant victories in generations past, stolen away. He saw his o
wn bitterness mirrored in Mary’s eyes as she whispered, “How father would weep.”
William’s melancholy cleared. “Not weep,” he said sternly. “Father would rage. And he would have vengeance. I am not foolish enough to rush to an unequal war, but I will not forget. And I will not forgive—either France or Spain.”
He approached the chair, looming over her so she was forced to look up at him awkwardly. This close, he could see the lines around her eyes and the sag of her once sharp jawline. “I offer you fair warning, sister. You are already implicated in encouraging Spain to arm the Norwich rebels. I know well that, even from the Tower, plots can be laid. If you ever want to return to Beaulieu and freedom, you will keep clear of even the appearance of evil. Do not mistake my sibling care for political carelessness. I will be watching you. Don’t make me do something we will both regret.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE TRIAL OF Jane Parker Boleyn, Duchess of Rochford, for treason and attempted murder, was held on the last day of August, amidst a sweltering heat that seemed to capture all the uneasiness and tension of a populace bitterly unhappy at having lost Calais. Dominic felt the heavy air as a tangible thing, pressing down on him so that he could hardly breathe. As a duchess and aunt of the king, Jane’s trial took place at Westminster Hall. Dominic took his place on the bench, thinking wearily that he had seen too much of this chamber this year. He could almost see the figure of Northumberland before them, penitent and surprised at his sentence just months ago.
Jane Boleyn was not penitent. She was also not entirely coherent. Dominic twitched through her mercifully brief appearance before the judges, skin crawling at her unmistakable imbalance. How much of it was inherent in her nature and how much forced into being by her time in the Tower and relentless interrogations was hard to say, but he could not believe they were being asked to judge her. She should be locked up, perhaps for her own good, but to execute her seemed hardly necessary.
The star witness against the Duchess of Rochford was Eleanor Percy. Surprisingly, Eleanor testified in person rather than through a written statement. Dominic almost didn’t recognize her, dressed as soberly as a nun in black and gray, her straw-blonde hair coiled sedately around her head and covered by a gauzy veil. Her personality was as subdued as her attire. Despite his dislike and distrust of the woman, he couldn’t help but be impressed by her apparently straightforward account.
She wove in words an image of Jane Boleyn as a cunning and manipulative woman who had used Eleanor’s love for her daughter to ensure her aid in persecuting Minuette. Tricks, at first, like the adder in the bedchamber. And the spreading of rumours, of course. But Eleanor claimed she had been shocked when she realized Jane had used her as a distraction in order to attempt murder.
“I did not know of Lady Rochford’s intent,” Eleanor stated plainly, and she was such a practiced liar that Dominic almost didn’t know himself whether to believe her. “I was horrified to realize what she had done.”
“Then why,” Lord Burghley asked, “did you not inform someone in authority?”
“Lady Rochford threatened me. She knew that I had been … that her husband and I had …” Eleanor paused delicately. “I did say something to Lord Rochford, and who could be a higher authority than the chancellor? But he wished to protect his wife’s name and assured me the young lady would be kept safe. What else could I do, with my daughter to protect on my own?”
Nicely played, Dominic realized. Eleanor had managed to not only provide a strong witness against Lady Rochford, but to balance perfectly her words about Lord Rochford himself. If William decided to let his uncle remain free, then Eleanor had not condemned him. But if the king chose to disbelieve that his aunt had acted of her own accord, then Eleanor could be pressed to say more about Lord Rochford’s guilt.
And somehow Eleanor had kept herself above the tawdriness of it all, for who could not be moved by a young widow trying to protect her child? The king’s child, in point of fact, a detail made all the clearer to the men in the hall by Eleanor’s refusal to highlight it.
“I was in the power of a woman who meant murder,” confessed Eleanor, “and a man who could ruin my entire family with a word. And I did offer what warning I could, to Mistress Wyatt herself. Ask her if I did not caution her against trusting anyone, on the very day she so blessedly survived the attempt on her life.”
Jane Boleyn, Duchess of Rochford, was found guilty of attempted murder and treason for acting against the interests of the king and sentenced to death. She spit words of fury and venom as the guards took her out, to return to the Tower and await William’s pleasure.
With his aunt’s fate set, William could no longer avoid dealing directly with Eleanor Percy. At least he didn’t have to return to the Tower; William had sent her weeks ago to Ely Place, the London home still belonging to the Dudley family. It had been something of a conundrum where to send her: nowhere the Howard family could get to her, obviously, and Charterhouse, which he might once have considered, belonged to Rochford. And although William had forgiven his uncle the affair with Eleanor, he did not mean to facilitate its continuation.
Not that he was jealous. So he’d convinced himself, right up until the moment a guard escorted Eleanor into the solarium where William waited. She sank into an immediate and graceful curtsey when she entered, and he stared mutely at the top of her blonde head, remembering the silk of her hair brushing against his face and chest. For a blinding moment he wanted nothing more than to strip the prim silk gown from her and bury himself in her curves and generosity and forget forever that she had been in his uncle’s bed.
He was no saint; since his months of devotional celibacy to Minuette had ended in Eleanor’s bed a year ago, William had enjoyed many nights in a woman’s arms. Though “enjoyed” might be a bit strong; no woman had ever given him the pure abandon that Eleanor had. And as much as he worshipped Minuette, William could not deny that his body very much wanted Eleanor every single time he encountered her.
“You may go,” he told the guard, and let Eleanor remain in her submissive position for several long moments—schooling his expression to indifference—before sharply gesturing her to stand.
They faced each other head on, as he realized now they had always done. At seventeen, William had thought her the perfect companion for him. So she may have been, but perhaps not solely for the youthful lust he’d assumed. Eleanor was as practical as he was. She had never looked at him with disappointment or wanted him to be different than he was and, though he knew that did not make for a wise paramour, it was restful in its way.
Besides, he had used Eleanor for his own pleasure (and still would, if he let himself), and though she had used him in the same manner, it did not change what he owed her. Especially for the little girl, now named Nora and living with her uncle, two years old and his acknowledged daughter. William had only seen the child once, but it had been enough to seal her care upon his heart.
“You are free to go,” he told her abruptly, because if he was not abrupt he might stop thinking altogether and do something stupid. “I’ve allowed you to retain control of the estate in Cumbria I gifted your late husband. If you continue to prove that you can be trusted, then I will consider allowing Nora to join you there in time.”
“I can always be trusted to look to your interests, Your Majesty.” Eleanor said it without irony or inflection, her wide blue eyes and fair skin lending her an illusion of innocence.
“Then you must allow me to decide what is in my own interest, and that means accepting Lady Somerset as my wife. We are planning a Christmas wedding. I expect your gracious acquiescence and support in the matter.”
Why did he care? he wondered. Eleanor herself was not powerful, and though her late husband had been an uncle to the current Duke of Norfolk, the Howard family had not embraced Eleanor as one of their own. What matter if this cunning, beautiful, seductive woman acquiesced in his choice of bride?
Eleanor was silent, an unusual state, and seemed
to be considering what to say, or perhaps how to say it. “William,” she at last ventured, and he did not protest at the familiarity of his name for she made no attempt to touch him. “I have been and always will be your devoted servant. Your position is a difficult one, surrounded by so many who will take what they can get without thought to whether it’s in your interest. I have only ever wanted to ensure that you are not taken advantage of, for even those closest to you—such as Lady Rochford—have too often betrayed your generosity.”
“And you have not? Since when is sleeping with my uncle and chancellor not a betrayal?”
She bit her lip, a gesture so evocative of past intimacies that William felt an instant, unbidden arousal. He very nearly groaned aloud and would have admitted at that moment that he did not blame Rochford for taking Eleanor to bed. Any man who could resist her when she looked like that—all promised passion and skill—was beyond a saint.
“I cannot apologize sufficiently for my part in that, though I assure you it was not I who instigated the affair. But I was angry with you at the time, and so I behaved foolishly.” Eleanor sighed, her expression softening to affection. “I regret the secrets I kept from you, and I promise that I shall never do so again. Those who lie to you do not deserve your trust, and I swear that I shall give you cause to trust me once more.”
It took her three steps to reach William, her oval face tipped up in appeal. “Perhaps one day we can again be friends.”
As she leaned in and kissed him lightly on his unscarred cheek, William thought, But we were never friends. And what he wanted from her just now was what he had always wanted: passion unburdened by love, release without responsibility, refuge from thought.
When he seized her by the arms and pulled her into a more reckless kiss, he could almost feel the smile as her mouth opened beneath his. Guilt stood no chance against Eleanor’s hands and his own hungry body.
The Boleyn Reckoning: A Novel (The Boleyn Trilogy) Page 17