Dominic stood ready to help her mount, but she hesitated and looked instead at Elizabeth, solemn and silent. “I—”
“Don’t say anything,” Elizabeth commanded. “Just go.”
After helping Minuette onto Winterfall, Dominic mounted Daybreak and broke the news to Elizabeth. “Find Lord Burghley and your man, Walsingham. Lord Rochford has been assassinated. You need to take control at Charterhouse before the news spreads.”
Elizabeth paled, then flushed. “My uncle is dead?”
He’d forced himself to wait until they were mounted to tell her, so that Minuette could not be moved to compassion and delay their parting. He jerked his head at Harrington to lead the way out and said, “I’m sorry.”
Did Elizabeth watch them ride away? Dominic did not turn back to see. But he guessed that, being herself, she had not waited but gone straight to her duty.
God help England now.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
19 September 1556
Wynfield Mote
We rode in at dusk last night. I nearly fell off my horse, so weakened was I by the pace we were forced to keep. Fortunately there has been no return of the bleeding, but my body remembers too well that it is only eight weeks since I lost the child. Carrie has put me to bed and ordered everyone—including Dominic—to leave us be.
I did not want to come here. I thought we would head for Tiverton, where Dominic has men at his command. But I could not ride that far and Dominic is not prepared to take up arms. I do not fault him for that, but I am burdened at the thought of the danger we have brought with us to my quiet home.
The only moment of pure pleasure was when Fidelis launched himself at me before I’d even dismounted. Fortunately, Winterfall is well acquainted with the hound or my horse might have shied at the enormous shaggy bulk running full speed toward her. Dominic tried to keep Fidelis off me, but if my husband cannot wrap me safe in his arms through the night, then the faithful dog he gifted me will do. For now.
30 September 1556
Wynfield Mote
I have been up and about for five days. I cannot remember ever being so unhappy at Wynfield. Perhaps it is only our own rebellion poisoning the walls.
For that is what we are, is it not? Rebels and traitors. Every waking moment, part of me is attuned to each sound and vibration, waiting to hear the drumming of hooves as armed men are sent to retrieve us. It is unnerving, the waiting. Never have I been so cut off from the court, for no one dares write to us. It is as though Dominic and I are utterly adrift, not knowing what is coming and hardly knowing how we got here in the first place.
Dominic courteously leaves me to deal with my own household, and I have assured Asherton that I have no intention of arming my tenants and setting the king’s armies at defiance. If it comes to that …
It will come to that. But I will not let my people pay for my own sins.
20 October 1556
Wynfield Mote
We have had our first communiqué from the outside world. Not surprisingly, it came from the Duke of Norfolk. It appears he has retreated to the North after his failed attempt to free Lady Mary from the Tower. Of course we knew of Rochford’s assassination, but Norfolk did not know that and so he referred to it cautiously, no doubt wary of his words being intercepted. There can be little doubt that he and/or the Spanish were behind the murder. Though Norfolk writes warily, he also writes as though he takes for granted that Dominic is on his side. Why would he not? We have fled the king as Norfolk has. Surely all sides are expecting Dominic to join the Catholics in armed rebellion.
I do not know what Dominic will do. I dare not ask him.
4 November 1556
Wynfield Mote
Today I received a letter from Elizabeth. I could hardly believe my good fortune—she had her intelligencer, Walsingham, find some way to deliver it without betrayal. It had been written twelve days ago, which shows the lengths Walsingham went to for misdirection. Naturally, she did not waste time in regrets or sentiment, but gave us what she knew we would most crave: information.
The inquiry into Rochford’s assassination has been relentless. Thirteen men, eleven of them Spanish, have been arrested and interrogated. The two remaining men were English Catholics and have also been tortured for not only their confessions, but the names of other conspirators. As Elizabeth wrote: “It surprises no one that Norfolk has been named, seeing as he so precipitously fled London in the aftermath. But another name is desperately unsettling. Under torture, half of the men have named Mary as the head of the conspiracy to kill my uncle. What William will do with this knowledge is anyone’s guess.”
When Dominic read it, he reminded me that men under duress of torture will say whatever their interrogators want to hear. I’m not sure which I would rather believe—that Lady Mary, a woman I know personally, openly ordered the assassination of Lord Rochford, or that the government (meaning William) is determined to believe it of her.
Either way, it cannot lead to a good end.
12 November 1556
Wynfield Mote
I stare at my diary and feel myself the most awful coward. Anyone reading these pages would think me indifferent to the consequences of my actions. But the truth is too near to write.
What do I say? That I live torn between what I have lost and what may never be gained? I don’t know what I thought would happen when Dominic and I fled. But this is not it.
Dominic brought me a gift of fabric today in honour of our wedding anniversary. Having left almost all my clothing behind when we fled, it is rather more a necessity than a pleasure. His expression was distant when he wished me a happy day and I cannot help feeling that he wishes he had never behaved so recklessly a year ago. Between the wife and the king, I believe he would rather have the king.
I do not mean to sound bitter. Mostly, I feel sorry for these two men I have injured in a manner that can never be repaired. I have spent this month looking back and wondering where I went wrong. At what point could pain have been avoided? That night at Hever, perhaps, if I had not gone to William to offer comfort. If he had not reached for me in his grief for his mother, he might never have thought himself in love with me. Or perhaps when Jonathan Percy proposed—what if I had said yes and married him before he left for France? Dominic would have mourned the loss of me, or his idea of me, for a time and then swiftly forgotten.
But now William is facing a rebellion without the one counselor he most needs and Dominic has become the thing he most fears: traitor. We pretend that all is well, we behave impeccably before the servants, but when night falls the pretense dies. I want him and I am glad of him, but all the while I feel William poised between us, like a sword laid between two bodies to ensure chastity.
4 December 1556
Wynfield Mote
Winter has begun in earnest and still we are left unmolested. What is William waiting for?
Happy Christmas, Will.
She was murmuring in his ear, he could feel her breath, teasing and arousing, igniting a storm in his blood. In a moment he would turn and pull her close, but for this moment he let the liquid flame of her nearness flow through him. A Christmas wedding, a long-anticipated wedding night …
William’s eyes snapped open and Minuette vanished into the ether from which she’d come. He breathed in the frigid air and looked unmoved on the thirteen heads protruding from spikes above him on Tower Bridge. The thirteen men arrested, hung from gauntlets and put to the rack, and at last executed for the treasonable murder of George Boleyn, Duke of Rochford.
Theirs were not the only heads: older ones, mostly dating to late September, relentlessly rotted above as well. Those were the men from the summer’s Norwich rebellion, including William’s own recalcitrant Bishop Thirlby. The bishop had defied the king in his trial and thrown himself on the mercy of salvation found in the Roman Catholic Church. “For God knows I strove for peace in this realm, but not at the expense of my own soul,” Thirlby had declaimed from the scaffold.
He spent the remainder of Christmas day in subdued celebration. Elizabeth was present, with Robert Dudley and several dozen others whom William did not so much as speak to. The hall felt at once too crowded and too empty.
Every chamber was too empty without Minuette.
The guests veered between hilarity and anxious watchfulness. He caught the darting glances, sliding away before anyone risked meeting his eyes, and felt a dark pleasure that he had them so unsettled. No doubt they were wondering what he would do next, and on whom his vengeance would fall. All of England and even Europe had been wondering that for months.
Dominic and Minuette were at Wynfield Mote, and there had been much speculation at court about Dominic’s choice. If he meant to defy the king, Wynfield offered no protection. Tiverton Castle was another matter. In his own castle, on his family lands, surrounded by men who would die for him merely because of his name … Tiverton was where Dominic should be. Instead, he had spent the last three months in an indefensible medieval manor, with none but farmers surrounding him.
There were those who thought Dominic had made a mistake. William was not among them. Dominic didn’t make mistakes like that. He was waiting for William, and whether it was some sort of trap or merely an unshakable assurance that the king would never harm him, the effect was the same. William waited for the perfect moment, and trusted that he would know what to do when the time arose.
After the quickly suppressed attempt to storm the Tower and free Mary, the Duke of Norfolk had fled to his own estates, no doubt spending the winter months gathering an army. There were reports of French troops crossing to Scotland, ready to sweep across the border the moment the tinder of rebellion caught hold. It couldn’t be far off.
Jane Grey slipped noiselessly into the seat next to him. That was bolder than she usually was, but she was getting older and with Minuette’s defection her mother could practically taste the crown.
“Happy Christmas, Your Majesty.”
Happy Christmas, Will.
He answered roughly. “Enjoying yourself?”
One could never tell with Jane. She appeared as perfectly composed as ever, her fair hair modestly restrained beneath a pearl-bordered hood and veil, thin hands folded across her court gown, a deep chestnut colour shot through with gold thread. She wore no jewels save an enameled cameo flower tied with a ribbon around her neck.
Jane hesitated before answering. “I would enjoy myself more if I could bring you repose.” She blushed when he looked at her in surprise, but her voice remained steady. “You have been ill-used, and I dislike seeing you suffer.”
With a harsh smile, he reminded her, “It could be to your benefit.”
In her quick blinking back of tears, William saw that he had hurt her. “As for myself, Your Majesty, I would be nowhere more content than in a peaceful retreat, devoting myself to my studies. I have no ambitions except, as your kinswoman, to wish you peace. And as your subject, I naturally wish you a long and successful reign in tearing down heresies and false doctrines.”
As she retreated with a dignity fit for a queen, William thought dismally that he would have to apologize. Perhaps he had misjudged. She seemed earnest enough in her kindness—it was not her fault that he saw deception behind every female face. Jane was not Minuette.
She would never be Minuette.
He rose abruptly, causing the musicians to halt and the chatter of his guests to die away. He ignored everyone equally as he left, from his sister to Lord Burghley keeping quiet watch in one corner of the hall. William didn’t care what they thought. Let Elizabeth thank them and soothe any ruffled tempers.
His scowl was apparently sufficient to warn off anyone from speaking to him. The gentlemen attending gave him a wide berth when he stalked into his public chambers. Through the presence and privy chambers, right on to the most secluded room in the palace. He shut the door in the face of the only attendant dim enough to try and follow, then flung himself onto the bed and stared blankly at the embroidered canopy high above.
And he asked himself the question he’d been asking since the moment Minuette had confessed.
Not How could she?
Not How could they?
How could he?
More than any man he’d ever known—more even than Lord Rochford or his own father—William had trusted Dominic. Trusted his advice, his loyalty, his maddening habit of speaking truths William didn’t want to hear. Even now he still found himself instinctively looking for Dominic’s opinion. It was Dom he thought of first when anything delicate needed doing, and there had been nothing but delicate matters in the last three months.
And then would come anew the burning moment of realization: that it was Dominic who had betrayed him. Dominic who had married his Minuette and bedded her and got her with child, all the while listening to William pour out his own frustrated desire and anxious love. How often had Dominic gone from the king’s councils to Minuette’s bed? How many times had they come together while William slept alone? And what of tonight, this almost-wedding night when she should have been coming to him, virgin-pure and trembling? Was she trembling in a traitor’s arms right now, her breath coming ever quicker, her eyes closed and back arched and lips parted …
With a sudden savage energy, William pushed himself off the bed and strode across the room. Throwing the door open, he commanded the nearest guard, “Find me a woman. Any woman. Just …” He considered for a moment. “I want her dark-haired. And eager.”
He slammed the door, wondering, not for the first time, if it was possible for the blackness of misery to kill.
Christmas week at Greenwich was charged with the underlying, unspoken tensions of Rochford’s assassination, the executions of the plotters, and the still-unresolved issue of Mary’s involvement. Not to mention the Duke of Norfolk’s conspicuous flight to his own strongholds and, as always, the continuing whispers about Dominic and Minuette. More about Dominic, really. Men might have a few moments to spare for lascivious discussion of how Minuette had managed to ensnare the king and Lord Exeter both, but it was Dominic’s abandonment they could not understand and turned over ceaselessly, metaphorically throwing up their hands at his folly.
Elizabeth wondered how many besides herself realized just how great a hole Dominic’s absence had created. He had always been so quiet that perhaps only the most perceptive recognized how that quietness had been a ballast to both her brother and his government. Lord Burghley felt it, at least. That was the topic under discussion three days after Christmas in Elizabeth’s chambers at Greenwich.
Present were herself, Lord Burghley, and Walsingham. Elizabeth felt slightly uneasy having a private discussion with her brother’s Lord Chancellor, but she could not sit back and wait for William to jump in some unspecified direction without warning. If he would not discuss his plans with her, then she must take some matters into her own hands in order to protect England from his simmering need for vengeance.
“Has the privy council made any concessions to preparing for war?” she asked Burghley.
The chancellor’s usual equanimity had been strained these last months. He continued to be modest in his dress and manner, but grooves had been etched into the corners of his mouth—of concern or disapproval, it was hard to tell—and the occasional strand of gray could be seen in his light hair. “We cannot raise taxes now, not with Norfolk offering an outlet for any resentment. The best that can be hoped is that France and Spain will truly leave us be and not force us to face both an inner and an outer conflict at the same time.”
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“What say your sources, Walsingham?” Elizabeth asked.
“The Spanish have not committed themselves to France as yet, but they continue to play and no doubt it’s a stronger alliance by far than any we offered. Word is France will wait for the sport of watching England tear herself apart. The real peril begins if Norfolk gains ground. If there is a decent chance of Catholics regaining power here, both France and Spain will want to commit money if not men to that cause. And Spain continues to hammer at us about the Lady Mary’s imprisonment in the Tower.”
“So,” Elizabeth mused aloud. “We must keep Norfolk hemmed in, while giving the discontented Catholics no reason to join him in revolt. And we must present a strong front from our government so that the Continent sees no chance of widening the gaps in our populace.”
“What does the king mean to do with Lady Mary?” Burghley pressed.
“Surely you’ve asked him as his Lord Chancellor.”
“The king is not inclined to discuss family matters with me.”
“As if Mary has ever been solely a family matter!” Elizabeth took to her feet to pace, both men rising courteously when she did. “I have asked William, as you have, what he means to do. He has said he will know what to do when the time is right. Which is the same answer he gives when I ask him what he means to do about the Duke of Exeter.” Elizabeth had only asked that latter question once. Her brother’s countenance had warned her off broaching the subject a second time.
“He would be wise to leave Exeter alone,” Walsingham counseled. Her intelligencer was always quick to offer reliable advice. Unlike Burghley, the dark-countenanced Walsingham appeared the same as he ever had. Perhaps because he always lived on the razor’s edge of paranoia. “My reading of Dominic Courtenay is that he will stay out of political and military maneuverings unless he is pushed into it. And the last thing we could endure is the West rising in concert with the North. If Norfolk persuades Exeter to command rebels from the West, the king’s armies will have an exceptionally difficult fight.”
The Boleyn Reckoning: A Novel (The Boleyn Trilogy) Page 21