The Boleyn Reckoning: A Novel (The Boleyn Trilogy)

by Laura Andersen

  She flinched when the knock sounded. “Oh, God.”

  Dominic looked to the half-open door and met the lieutenant’s eyes. “One minute. Please.”

  The man drew the door to without shutting it completely.

  Minuette was shaking and Dominic felt his own panic building. She couldn’t fall apart now, he couldn’t take it, he knew it was selfish but he needed her to be calm.

  He whispered in her ear, a plea for himself. “I can do anything if you are strong, my star. Just a little longer.”

  She drew a deep, shuddering breath, and asked a most unexpected question. “Will it hurt?”

  His arms tightened in reflex, but he managed to answer without hesitation. “No, love, it will be too quick to hurt.” He didn’t even know if she were afraid for him or for herself, but he plunged ahead recklessly, offering the only comfort that came to mind. “It’s a jump, Minuette, that’s all it is. A jump out of this world, straight into my arms.”

  Incredibly, she managed to smile. “You will catch me?”

  He pressed his lips against hers. “Always.”

  When the lieutenant entered, they were ready. One kiss—one last, hard kiss—and Minuette was walking away.

  He could not have been more proud of her. She did not cry or linger or force the lieutenant to assert his authority to remove her. She did what he needed her to do—she went without looking back.

  But if he thought that was the end of things, he was very much mistaken. Against all odds and expectations, Dominic managed to sleep until sometime deep in the utter blackness of the hours after midnight he was woken by a stinging slap to his face. He sat bolt upright, seeing only the outline of two men, and in spite of the months of imprisonment he still reached instinctively for a dagger that was no longer there. He kicked out and caught one man in the stomach, hearing the man’s garbled cry, but then there were two more men in the doorway and he was outnumbered and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was going on. Was William not to be satisfied with hanging, disemboweling, and beheading?

  It seemed not. For the fifth man that came through the door, though cloaked in heavy dark wool, was unmistakably the king.

  Dominic swore as the other four men held him fast (he was proud of how hard they had to work, for he was past the point of honour or instinctive loyalty and would gladly have done what damage he could to William before the end). William removed his cloak and though there was not moonlight enough through the tiny, deep-set window to read expressions, Dominic knew he was taking his time to savor the moment before he struck.

  The beating was vicious, and all the more so for being perfectly controlled. William knew just where and how hard to hit and kick to do maximum damage without sinking Dominic into unconsciousness. He seemed particularly interested in Dominic’s face, landing blow after blow until his jaw throbbed and he was sure he’d lose several teeth (not that it much mattered—he wasn’t going to go hungry between now and the scaffold) and his eyes began to swell shut. Blood trickled from several gashes on his forehead, deliberately inflicted by the heavy rings on William’s hands.

  The only pride Dominic could summon was to keep his mouth shut and not ask why. When William stepped back for several long moments, he thought dizzily that it was over. But then the king drew the sword he wore and held it out for Dominic to consider. Even with the faintest of light, Dominic knew that sword, knew that if he could see clearly he would recognize the four star-shaped gems laid into the hilt. A gift for his friend and king, offered a lifetime ago. Dominic kept his eyes as open as he could manage through the blood and stinging and waited for William to kill him.

  When the blow came, it was not the blade that struck, but that sentimentally decorative hilt. William slammed the butt of the sword into Dominic’s temple and he crumpled into blackness.

  Minuette walked blindly away from Dominic’s farewell, her eyes so blurred with unshed tears that she could see only one step ahead of her. She would not think of that farewell, she would not think of anything, better to blink away her tears and look around her. Force herself to look at the White Tower, stark in its medieval outlines, and beyond that the outline of the chapel, and Minuette forced herself to notice and to care that it was lit from within. Who was praying at this hour?

  As they reached the entrance to Beauchamp Tower, she continued to stare at the chapel entrance. Someone stood near the doorway, a cloaked figure lit from the side. The lieutenant took her arm to escort her within, and at that moment the figure moved, throwing back the enveloping hood of the cloak. Though Minuette was too far away to see clearly the face, she knew the hair, that bright red-gold hair. There was no more distinctive marker of the Tudors.

  Elizabeth raised one of her long-fingered, slender hands and held it in a gesture of goodbye. Minuette gave a slight nod that she knew her friend would never see, but it was the most she could manage without collapse.

  Beauchamp Tower rose above her and she was glad to mount the stairs and finally be shut behind her own door. After Carrie had helped her change, her round face creased with sympathy and shared grief, she hovered, hesitating. Minuette looked at her inquiringly.

  From the bodice of her gown Carrie withdrew a square of paper, folded small and tight. “Harrington found a guard willing to bring this to you. It’s from him.”

  The uncertain pronoun wasn’t in the least confusing, and Minuette grasped the precious letter tightly. She would not read it yet, but just to hold it was enough for this moment.

  “Anything else, my lady?”

  “No.”

  As Carrie rested a kind hand on her shoulder, Minuette added, “Yes, Carrie. Don’t disturb me in the morning. I shan’t want breakfast. I shan’t want anything. I will come out when I am ready.”

  Sunrise found Minuette sitting on her bed in the tiny inner chamber of her prison, leaning against the wall to balance the heaviness of the child. It all went swiftly after that. She heard the roar of the crowds outside the Tower as Dominic was taken by cart to Tower Hill. She followed him in her imagination, dry-eyed and unblinking. From the cart to the scaffold, built high so that thousands could witness a traitor’s end.

  She didn’t break when her imagination conjured the ax descending swiftly to his neck. She didn’t break when the crowds cheered and the bells of the Tower began to ring. When it was over, she rose dry-eyed and retrieved Dominic’s sealed letter. She unfolded and read it where she stood.

  My bright and merry star,

  Things I would tell our child if I could—

  1. Love matters.

  2. So does friendship.

  3. Everyone makes mistakes, including you. Be generous with others’ errors, and honest about your own.

  4. Your mother is the truest, kindest, sweetest soul I’ve ever known. I love her. And I love you—for your own sake, not solely for your mother’s.

  Dominic

  Only then did she break. Sinking to the floor, covering her head with her arms, Minuette huddled and wept.

  William came by boat from Greenwich, with only one guard and the boatman for company. Through the journey, he kept his mind blank of everything but the image that had kept him taut and uncertain and desperate for the last seven months. Minuette beneath him, her hair spread loose and gold, eyes closed …

  He’d thought that having her just once would clear his blood of the feverish need for her, that afterward he would be himself again. But the burning in his brain had continued after the camp outside Wynfield, the spells of retreat when he could not bear anything but solitude and darkness.

  Take me and be done with it, she’d said to him so scornfully. Why not? He’d tell her tonight, now that Dominic could no longer live between them, that she would be his mistress whether she liked it or not.

  But standing outside the door behind which she waited, William wondered if that could really undo the spell she’d woven. What if it were some kind of witchcraft? Would forcing her break it, or only seal it upon him forever? He shook his he
ad and told himself to be reasonable. Minuette was only a woman. And he knew what to do with a woman.

  He opened the door without knocking. Minuette stood in the middle of the room, braced to meet him, hands clasped beneath the great swell of the child. She was alone, as William had commanded she be. Brought up against that familiar face, studying him gravely and without a flicker of expression in her eyes, William felt a moment’s doubt. He had never taken a woman by force. Could he really begin with Minuette?

  Stop thinking of her as Minuette, he told himself. She is a liar and a whore. She deserves what she gets.

  She did not retreat when he moved forward. She did not struggle as he ran his hands across her breasts, larger and heavier with pregnancy. Sealing his possession of her, William bent to kiss them where they swelled and, as he had once before, pushed her up against a stone wall. He’d wondered if her late pregnancy would be an impediment to his desire, but his body was aroused and responsive. His mind, though, was unpleasantly active as well, noticing her stillness, her submissiveness, almost her lack of awareness, as though she wasn’t really there and it was only her body that he touched, not her, not the essence of who she was …

  He pushed himself off her and turned away in a mix of fury and despair. He felt like throwing something or hitting something but he didn’t, he just stood with his back to her and breathed in and out until he could face her with some semblance of control.

  She stood against the wall of her prison, hair tumbled and cheeks red and one lip a little swollen where possibly he’d bitten her. She didn’t look at him. In a moment, as suddenly as it had struck years before, William’s desire vanished. He felt sick.

  “I’m sorry, William.”

  He had to choke back a bitter laugh at that. “You’re not sorry for me, you hate me. If you’re sorry, it’s for yourself.”

  “I don’t hate you, and I am sorry for you. You were my friend.”

  “Kings don’t have friends.” He dropped the words like coals between them, wishing he’d learned that lesson earlier.

  “We were your friends,” she whispered. “We loved you. Not because you are king, but because you are Will.”

  The only way to beat back the misery that threatened was to take offense. “We—always we. Always you and Dominic. Why could you not love me?” He threw the words at her, wanting to hurt her, wanting to break her, wanting her to acknowledge that all of this was her fault. If only she had loved him …

  Laying her hands on either side of his face, she drew it down and kissed him on the forehead. He caught at her wrists and leaned his head against hers.

  He closed his eyes and, for one moment, he was back in his mother’s room at Hever. He could smell the rain, he could feel his own clothes soaking wet and Minuette’s hands clutching him as she cried. For one moment he remembered what it felt like to love her simply and completely as his friend, before desire intervened, twisting his regard for her into something tantalizing and forbidden and out of his reach.

  She came to you for pity’s sake.

  He stepped back hastily. Almost he looked round, for Dominic’s voice had rung so clearly that he seemed to be in the room with them.

  He threw the door wide and half stumbled down the stairs and into the chilly October night. The boat was drawn up near the western entrance, past Traitor’s Gate, past Bell Tower where Dominic had lived out his last months.

  The boat slipped away from the Tower, away from ghosts and pity and everything William could not control. He sank his head into his hands and realized he was shaking.

  By the time the boat reached Greenwich, William was burning with fever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  LETTER FROM ROBERT DUDLEY TO ELIZABETH TUDOR

  14 October 1557

  Elizabeth,

  I thought the burning of Bishop Bonner was the worst sight I should ever see. Yesterday was worse. The intensity of the crowd was frightening, all the more so for being impersonal. I doubt one person in a hundred knew more of Dominic than his name and association with the king, but they were all in a frenzy to watch him die.

  So many were crammed into the streets outside the Tower that I could not get closer than a hundred yards. I was glad enough for the distance when it began. He had been beaten, Elizabeth, thoroughly and with more than professional detachment. He could barely walk unassisted even before they strung him up, and the blindfold could not conceal the damage done to his face. I expect the blindfold was to increase his sense of unease, not knowing what was coming.

  He was not even given a chance to speak, though it would not have mattered. They had cut out his tongue, Elizabeth, before he was brought out of the Tower. That touch seems particularly cruel, though no worse than the tearing into his bowels while he still lived. He managed to scream despite the loss of his tongue, and bless the executioner for being less of a sadist than whoever beat Dominic beforehand, for he struck his head off neatly and competently.

  You did say you wanted details. I will always take you at your word, though it grieves me that you should know such things.

  I am, as always, yours to command,

  Robert

  Elizabeth looked at Walsingham, the two of them quite alone at Hatfield but still speaking sotto voce just in case. “Can you do it?” she asked.

  “The doing of it is not the issue—it’s the not getting caught afterward, and gaining enough time for her to reach the ship.”

  “Then can you do that?”

  Walsingham’s shrewd gaze was more unreadable than normal. “I can, with help. There is a prisoner in the Tower whom I believe could be induced to aid us in creating a distraction.”

  “Minuette going into early labor and importing a flurry of necessary women is not distraction enough?”

  “I meant a distraction that will take eyes off Mistress Courtenay rather than focusing all attention on her. Stephen Howard is in the Tower, rather forlornly forgotten by the government in the aftermath of Norfolk’s rebellion. I have been to see him, and I believe him truly interested in the welfare of his stepdaughter.”

  “And in his own, no doubt. What have you promised him for his aid?”

  “Nothing. It is likely that he will not live to receive any gifts.”

  Elizabeth stared. “Just what sort of distraction are you contemplating?”

  Walsingham didn’t bother to say aloud, Do you really want to know? They knew each other well enough not to ask pointless questions.

  With a shrug that was only half careless, Elizabeth ruthlessly put away concern for everyone but Minuette. This was all she could do, and she meant to succeed. “So, Minuette goes into early labor, two women enter the Tower to aid her, then two women leave, presumably in the midst of whatever distraction you have in mind for Stephen Howard. The women who are brought in will be safe?”

  “If we’re lucky, those women will also be able to slip away during Howard’s distraction. But if they are caught, then we need you in a position to speak with authority. Ideally, we need the king to leave London and its closer environs. You must be the one Lord Burghley seeks out for advice in the matter.”

  “Then Minuette and her maid are put on a ship for France, where Renaud LeClerc will be waiting for them.”

  Walsingham gave a single nod.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, imagining all the things that could go wrong. Imagining William’s reaction when he discovered Minuette had flown. She had no illusions—her brother would know it was her. But she would not be cowed by William.

  Walsingham had just one question. “Shall I travel with them, Your Highness?”

  “No. I have someone else in mind for that.”

  Robert would do it, without a second thought. And she would tell him not to return to England until she could assure him he would not be touched by William’s wrath.

  “We cannot leave it too long, Your Highness. Mistress Courtenay’s condition …”

  Elizabeth knew very well how swiftly they needed to move. Minuette was onl
y six weeks away from giving birth. “If William shows no sign of leaving London within a week, I will manufacture a reason for him to do so,” she said, with more confidence than she felt. Being a conspirator sat uneasily on her, even when she was confident of her rightness.

  But events seemed determined to draw her into conspiracy, for the very day after Dominic’s execution, Walsingham brought Elizabeth a letter from a Low Countries merchant resident in London. The letter was from Philip of Spain.

  To Her Most Royal Highness, Elizabeth, Princess of Wales,

  It was with interest and concern I write you. I regret the necessity of subterfuge, but circumstances have not been wholly in our favour.

  You know that France has offered me their own royal Elisabeth, and we have met to discuss terms. I will consider her carefully as I must, for my first concern must ever and always be my kingdom’s welfare. But I do you the credit of speaking frankly—What use have I for a child bride? It will be some years before she could make me a wife.

  Unlike you.

  I had not thought to like you so well as I did. I expected to meet only a heretic, and instead found a woman as learned as the most clever of princes. I fear that my thoughts turn to you more than wisdom dictates they should. And not only in admiration of your mind, for Your Highness surely knows that you are beautiful.

  England is on the brink of disaster. Your brother is not wise, and I admit I do not much mind the spectacle he is making of himself and his nation. I think you will be called on to exercise much wisdom and much power in the coming months.

  Though I fear I would make no good husband to the Princess of Wales, I regret the loss of Elizabeth Tudor. For that regret, I offer assurance that, for yet a little while, Spain will not entangle itself with France in a treaty. I am a ruler who likes to consider every option before I commit.

  Yours in respect and the goodness of Christ,